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WTF Chuck!!!
That’s too bad, I like Yeager but I don’t know if I would call him a pioneer of space exploration in any meaninfull way.
Hi
I believe what I see in movies.
I am stupid!
With all due respect General Yeager, you are wrong!
I wonder if Yeager has lost the vision and the right stuff in his later years.
NASA did not choose Chuck Yeager because he did not have a college degree.
In real life they did not choose him. Great book and movie by the way.
When you spend money on space exploration, the cash does not get sent into orbit. It stays right here on the ground, fueling thousands of companies and workers and fosters innovation. That said, NASA has it’s own bloated bureaucracy that should be seriously trimmed. Competition with private ventures would help.
But what the hell, you're still OUR hero Chuck!
People should not return to the Moon until they can stay there for a significant amount of time and accomplish things. For this reason, the Lunar mission should be based on sending a nuclear powered, tunneling robot to the Moon. This would change the entire equation.
To start with, this is not extraordinary technology. A spaceship, not just a lander, would land inside a crater, or next to a cliff face. The robot would disembark, and start to methodically mine a horizontal tunnel, at intervals inserting reinforcing rod into the ceiling, as is done in modern mines on Earth.
It does not have to be fast, just an inch or two a day of rock, that is pulverized, then sent by conveyor belt away from the tunnel. Since the spaceship that brought the tunneling robot is not returning to Earth, it can later be cannibalized to provide ceiling, flooring, walls, and pressure doors for the tunnel, after spraying sealant on the inside against micro fissures, and expanding foam insulation.
By having a completed and tested tunnel waiting for astronauts, they do not have to bring a habitat with them, so can instead bring more supplies and equipment. Inside the tunnel they will be out of the cosmic and enhanced radiation, vacuum, extremes of heat and cold, and away from the very abrasive Lunar dust. Plus they will have plenty of space to work in.
The robot can continue to tunnel, giving them more space, and eventually even dig vertical shafts that can be used for water cisterns and fermentation tanks. While the astronauts are there, the robot’s nuclear reactor provides abundant power for their use. Likewise, it could power a high temperature furnace, very useful for many experiments.
Lastly, a tunneling robot could also be of great use in exploiting underground water ice.
In the final analysis, doing it this way could turn Lunar missions from just a week or two, to several months.
I’ve always seen Apollo as having been a wasteful showboat. IMO, we’d have accomplished far more for far less if we’d continued the rocket plane program. Dyna Soar was the logical next step.
This is a cheesy article. It appears to me as though the “reporter” was spinning out of control when he wrote it.
Money not spent on Constellation will most likely go down the toilet in some liberal boondoggle like giving cell phones to the homeless. If it were being diverted to building nuke plants or something truly useful, it would easier to accept.
PING
Now get out of the way.
Kevin, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you read "The Right Stuff," by Thomas Wolfe. I mean, I love the movie, too, and have watched it zillions of times, but the movie is to the book what a Yugo is to a Corvette. You more than most would get a lot out of the book, and I'm shocked (shocked!) that you haven't read it! I've also read BOTH of Yeager's books, his autobio "Yeager" and his next book, "Press On." I love them because I discovered that Yeager and his pals had the same attributes, aloofness from convention, pure necessity for independence and self-reliance, and many personality traits of ... well, my parents, my parents' friends, the circle of commercial fishermen & their families that were part of their/my world (my dad was a fisherman), and so forth. In "Press On" he wrote, "I've always said that the rules are made for people who aren't willing to make up their own." I broke out laughing because that was precisely descriptive of my dad and the finest of the fishermen he worked with, and the way my Dad has lived and loved his adventurous life. BELIEVE ME, nothing describes the spirit of Guys who Get Things Done in a Pinch better than that!
Yeager is one of my heroes, but I'm under no illusions that he's ever been a prince in terms of manners or diplomacy! Nor was he particularly a space guy -- he was a test pilot guy of fast jets. For him to have done what he did, he had to have been monstrously intelligent, extraordinarily gifted in terms of mechanics, and above all, very, very cool-headed and calm thinking. THAT is how he survived all those test flights.
He’s right on this IMO, there is no good reason to return to the moon again at the present.
He bet wrong.
I, for one, am glad that the General is speaking the truth on this.
NASA has become nothing more than an obnoxious waste of money on a huge PR campaign (with several very visible failures).
During the Cold War, this PR/propaganda served a useful end. Today, the manned space program is a huge sinkhole for cash that would be better spend on probes and unmanned exploration.