darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
Pumping money into NASA pumps money into the economy just as well as anything else.
No it does not. It inserts an unneeded "middle man" that wastes a significant portion of the spent money.
Pumping money into NASA pumps money into the economy just as well as anything else.
I don't understand the Obama bashers. Regarding the space program Obama hasn't made any decisions yet on NASA's budget or future direction. Also, Obama can only recommend and submit a budget, it's up to congress to approve the budget. Instead of complaining about the money President Obama and congress are spending to repair our damaged economy why don't you complain about the Trillions of Dollars the Bush administration wasted on the war in Iraq? Can you imagine what could have been spent on the space program if we didn't have that drain on the national budget?
It was easy for President Bush to give a speech saying NASA will return to the Moon and on to Mars but without funding the speech isn't worth the paper it was printed on. I think the Obama administration is going in the right direction, starting with the cancellation of the F-22 production run with each plane costing several hundred million dollars each. Cancel a few more over cost programs and there will be more than enough money for NASA to go to the Moon, Mars, hell maybe even send crews to the rest of the planets and moons in the solar system.
Hundreds of thousands of jobs, new scientific discoveries and another twenty-year leap in technology could be ours by the mere increase of a handfull of dollars per person per year to NASA.
.....but no.....
Or, you know, we could pour the money into R&D right here on earth at a fraction of the cost for the same gain...
Former NASA Admin in writing
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=32351
From: "Michael D. Griffin" To: XXXXXXXXXX
Yup. That's Mike.Constellation's "technical problems" are on display because actual work is being accomplished, whereas other options have no problems because no work is being done.![]()
That's some great dry wit.
This just in...
Obama's Space Plan just axed NASA's plan to return to the moon.
Well, so much for the Messiah reaching for the stars.
So who wouldda thunk that 'Dubya' was the "space/science-friendly" President?
That article says that it would cost 3 billion per year beyond the current NASA budget.
So, the amount of money the government spent to give to people to get them to throw away perfectly good cars and buy a new car that they don't need and probably can't afford would have funded the project for another year.
Just that one useless program, let alone the trillions spent to dismantle the health care system or to bail out Wall Street.
But a hundred billion or so to go to the moon and on to Mars? Hell no, we can't afford that. What, are you nuts?
I was expecting this as sure as the sun coming up in the morning, but it still makes me angry.
I don't understand the Obama bashers. ...
I think the Obama administration is going in the right direction, starting with the cancellation of the F-22 ...
While back on Earth the US is destroyed by nukes and bio weapons unleashed by terrorists and outlaw nations because we were so busy looking at the stars we could not see the knife headed for our backs...
[
Actually, Endeavour was built with the capacity for a 30 day flight [EDIT: on checking it was actually 16 days]; it was fitted with the connections to let it carry the Extended Duration Orbiter wafer at the back of the payload bay if needed for a long solo mission (Columbia was later refitted so it could also carry the EDO wafer).
Why not do the same to every orbiter and carry the EDO on every mission?
Because it adds to the orbiter's weight, and every pound of orbiter is a pound off the payload (more actually, in the case of something that's being brought back like the EDo wafer, as it unbalances the centre of gravity and has to
be ......
So carrying the wafer - or maybe a couple to offer 28 days? - could, paradoxically, increase the risk of an accident in the long term. If you take (say) 10% off the payload capacity, then you need 10 launches to do what could have been achieved by nine, which means an extra launch and re-entry, which as we know all too well are the really risky bits of the flight.
As for leaving a shuttle docked to the station (assuming that's what you meant; there is always a Soyuz docked to the station if not), a) where do you get the spare shuttle? and b) the shuttle can't be powered down in orbit as Soyuz can - and Soyuz had to be extensively modified a number of times to allow this, and then extend its safe life span to 3, 6 and 12 months in turn.
And where would they have put the extra fuel? You couldn't store in the shuttle it's self and increasing the size of the EFT would then open up another can of worms as everything would have to be designed.
Soyuz can only carry 3 people at time.
Being flexible was what got the shuttle into the mess in the first place. NASA wanted it to do one thing, the military anouther so they met half way with the end result the shuttle design was compromised
Forgive me I'm balking at this. The payload does not matter.
7 astronauts go up alive 7 should come down alive. It's really quite that simple. REDESIGN the payload....
Only Launches are risky. (Minus the inherent risk of space travel)
Re-entry really is quite simple. An intact TPS will shield the orbiter. That's one variable to the hundreds of variables that could go wrong at launch. (Please don't quote to me how many tiles there are)
[SOME SNIPS: Saqist's comments relate to multiple posts and posters]
You guys are full of "I can'ts"....
... over 14 thousand gravities of acceleration.
... over 14 thousand gravities of acceleration.
In the immortal words of Wyle E. Coyote:
"...ouch..."
... over 14 thousand gravities of acceleration.
In the immortal words of Wyle E. Coyote:
"...ouch..."
Here we go again with the "I can'ts".
Extra seat cushioning, extra seat cushioning.
Robert
To get into space, the manned space program developed improved heat shields & insulation, mutiplexing control signals, remote medical telemetry , scratch resistant lens coatings, thermoelectric cooling, advanced the fields of metallurgy ^ aviation technology, structural analysis, etc, etc, etc.
The V-2 that Von Braun brought us was pretty primitive. We still needed lots of stuff to get skyward.
Frankly I'm done with NASA
I don't want to see any more
I don't expect to loose lives
I know the orbiter is nothing more than a flying brick at 100 tons.
Blah bl-blah, blah...
The payload does not matter.
Re-entry really is quite simple.
(sigh)....
Really, If NASA is thinking like you guys then it really does need to be shut down, now.
You guys are full of "I can'ts"....
46.6 million miles is the average distance between the orbits of Earth and Mars. So that's the best-case distance you need to travel.
Getting that far in 24 hours requires a constant velocity of 1.9 million miles per hour. A back-of-the-envelope calculation puts a zero/zero intercept with constant acceleration and turnover half way there at requiring over 14 thousand gravities of acceleration.
...you have multiple air locks or mates on ISS (sigh)....Soyuz can only carry 3 people at time.
The payload does matter: the payload is the whole point of taking the risks of flight in the first placce.
If your goal is to ensure that seven astronauts survive, there is a very simple way to achieve that - don't fly.
Everything else is about balancing risk and result, so that the risk is worthwhile.
I won't quote you how any tiles are, but you need to know that, and the risk that results from damage to each one, and a dozen other such things before an assessment of which risks most need guarding against, and how to trade them off, has any validity.
And claiming re-entry is simple really is cloud cuckoo land. It's not. We're just lucky that... no we're not lucky: it's down to the complex risk assessments that you're dismissing that there's only been manned flight that's hit fatal problems during re-entry (in terms of surviving the heat effects).
It's not "I can't"s: it's "This is the problem that has to be dealt with." You don't solve them by ignoring them.
... over 14 thousand gravities of acceleration.
In the immortal words of Wyle E. Coyote:
"...ouch..."
Here we go again with the "I can'ts".
Extra seat cushioning, extra seat cushioning.
Robert
The payload does matter: the payload is the whole point of taking the risks of flight in the first placce.
I disagree and always will. The payload is secondary.
I give the largest degree of responsibility to Human Life. I am not Military, the mission doesn't come first for me. That is a difference in ideology.
If I ever said "ensure" or "garantee" implying 100%, then my apologies for being imprecise. If you're coming up with the word on your own then your comprehension of my argument is poor, and I am forced to dismiss this statement as exaggerative.If your goal is to ensure that seven astronauts survive, there is a very simple way to achieve that - don't fly.
Lowering Risk: I concur.
This means doing all (not some) all that is in our power to lower that risk (within reason)
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