Augustine Commission Report released
- Thread starter Squiggy
- Start date
Considering that NASA can't even seem to launch a satellite any more, and that changing the parameters of a moon probe mission (LCROSS) so that crashing a satellite now means success rather than failure, this is probably a good thing. NASA was a great thing in its heyday, but it seems to really have lost its way in the past couple of decades. Granted, their budget has been cut drastically, but these are supposed to be the same people who made a CO2 scrubber out of spare parts for Apollo 13. The innovation in the face of adversity just doesn't seem to be a part of the charter any more.
While I hate the idea of having the Golden Arches or a Starbuck's logo on the side of a rocket, I'm thinking that corporations are the only ones that are going to be able to pull it off in this century. Question is, will NASA and the govt allow it or prevent it out of spite because they can't do it themselves and/or have complete control over future projects?
While I hate the idea of having the Golden Arches or a Starbuck's logo on the side of a rocket, I'm thinking that corporations are the only ones that are going to be able to pull it off in this century. Question is, will NASA and the govt allow it or prevent it out of spite because they can't do it themselves and/or have complete control over future projects?
The hell are you talking about? The probe that "crashed" on the moon was designed to do so for specific reasons.
Also, are you not familiar with the X-Prize contest? What about the two Spaceports in the US (New Mexico and Oklahoma)? The private sector has been working and waiting for years for the time when "their time" would come and it would be profitable to go outside of the confines of the Earth's skies.
Right. And you don't think that we could have gotten more in-depth data and telemetry more effectively if we had simply "landed" in the crater? Based on prior experience with Clementine and Mars Climate Orbiter, to name a couple infamous failures, along with the plethora of rocket explosions on the pad in recent years, I guess to some people a "W" is a "W" on the scorecard. I have a problem when rocket scientists (the colloquial benchmark for the peak of intelligence in most western cultures) don't know the difference between standard and metric measuring systems.
Of course I'm familiar with those programs. They're in their infancy stages right now, but as I said in my original post, they are the future of space exploration in this country.
^Blame Nixon.
Just as with the air filter issue on apollo 13, NASA is very good at adapting things to un-intended purposes.
Oh Come on. That was a good use of a vehicle at the end of it's program life. They managed to get more data from it by impacting it on the moon rather than leave it as a piece of junk in orbit of the moon. Don't try to paint it as them claiming success from failure. Now, if it had crashed int o the moon during the middle of it's program life and they said "well, at least we got some data from the crash", then you could make this kind of claim.
Just as with the air filter issue on apollo 13, NASA is very good at adapting things to un-intended purposes.
Since the entire point of the mission was to see if there was buried ice...no.
Centaur = most effective lunar excavation tool to date!
Never heard of a shovel?
Particularly given that the mascons mean you can't just leave something in orbit round the moon for very long. It's going to crash eventually, you just have a choice of choosing the crash site and time and observing the event, or waiting for it to happen naturally and hoping you're watching.
I have indeed heard of this "shovel" of which you speak. 
That being said, the Centaur lofted far more material and dug deeper than any shovel totin' Apollo moonwalker.
I know it sounds like I dunno Jack Schmitt, but I'm trying to Shepard the truth. I wouldn't Armstong you into a false belief, that would be Lousma of me. You may be to Young to remember the Apollo days, but the old timers here will be a Buzz with fond memories.
That being said, the Centaur lofted far more material and dug deeper than any shovel totin' Apollo moonwalker.
I know it sounds like I dunno Jack Schmitt, but I'm trying to Shepard the truth. I wouldn't Armstong you into a false belief, that would be Lousma of me. You may be to Young to remember the Apollo days, but the old timers here will be a Buzz with fond memories.
I have indeed heard of this "shovel" of which you speak.
That being said, the Centaur lofted far more material and dug deeper than any shovel totin' Apollo moonwalker.
I know it sounds like I dunno Jack Schmitt, but I'm trying to Shepard the truth. I wouldn't Armstong you into a false belief, that would be Lousma of me. You may be to Young to remember the Apollo days, but the old timers here will be a Buzz with fond memories.
Brilliant!
I have indeed heard of this "shovel" of which you speak.
That being said, the Centaur lofted far more material and dug deeper than any shovel totin' Apollo moonwalker.
I know it sounds like I dunno Jack Schmitt, but I'm trying to Shepard the truth. I wouldn't Armstong you into a false belief, that would be Lousma of me. You may be to Young to remember the Apollo days, but the old timers here will be a Buzz with fond memories.
I Schirra wish I could do that!
Don't underestimate Burt Rutan. He's a dreamer, and he seems to be one of those gifted individuals who succeeds in almost everything he attempts. He's had a "vision to space" for a long time. If you watch the documentary "black sky: the race for space" he showed them some quick rendered designs on his computer and said "that Tier One will cover suborbital flights, Tier Two will cover orbital flights, and Tier Three will cover flights beyond Earth's orbit"
He is working on tier 1b right now, which is comerical and scientific operations based off of the designs developed for the tier 1 program.
Virgin Galatic, Richard Branson's space tourist company partnered with Rutan and Paul Allen's Mojave Aerospace Ventures, plans to begin commerical operations by 2011. It had 65,000 applicants for the first 100 tickets. It already has 200 paid in full applicants on it's books, and 95% have already passed the physical and health tests for flight. They each paid $200,000 per ticket. (quick math time that is $40 million dollars). Also, the first ship in the virgin line has been announced to have been named the VSS (Virgin Space Ship) Enterprise.
Also, take into mind the speed at which this is all running. Rutan started planning out his space designs and ideas in '96, prelim development on tier one started in 99, with full development starting in 01. The carry craft, White Knight, had a first flight in 02, SpaceShipOne had it's first test flight in 03, june 04 saw first powered test flight for SS1 and by oct 04 had won the X prize.
05 started the tier 1b operations, with the first SpaceShipTwo to be rolled out for testing in december of this year.
They go from paper to practice in 4-5 years. That's pretty good considering what they are doing.
Data Holmes, don't forget the work that Rutan and Scaled Composites did for other projects in addition to their very own.
Scaled build at least one of the tanks for the Delta Clipper.
Scaled was the primary integrator for the Roton Rotary Rocket demonstrator, and I believe they were the fabricator for its aeroshell and rotors.
Burt's bees are quite busy ones. It would be interesting to see what's going on in the corners of some hangars out Mojave way.
Also the Blue Origin folks are a fair number of old hands from the Delta Clipper project. Don't count private SSTO out of the picture yet!
Scaled build at least one of the tanks for the Delta Clipper.
Scaled was the primary integrator for the Roton Rotary Rocket demonstrator, and I believe they were the fabricator for its aeroshell and rotors.
Burt's bees are quite busy ones. It would be interesting to see what's going on in the corners of some hangars out Mojave way.
Also the Blue Origin folks are a fair number of old hands from the Delta Clipper project. Don't count private SSTO out of the picture yet!
My only comment would be that suborbital is one hell of a lot easier than orbital flight. And it's taking Rutan a long time just to do that. You want to follow a real space company, follow SpaceX. SpaceX will be doing regular milk runs to the ISS by the time Rutan gets Virgin Galactic doing little "hops".
Are you Cernan that you can't? Haise you lost your sense of humor?
