Posted on 09/07/2024 4:39:03 AM PDT by george76
It’s actually NASA with egg on their face, much less Boeing.
So if the capsule made it back ok, does that mean the astronauts could have come back, with it, after all?
Yes. NASA made the safe decision but the wrong decision.
We could already be drilling the ice moons and hollowing out asteroids for mining and as spacecraft if we eliminated weak, puny, needy meatbag humans.
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We could have had return manned flights form Alpha Centuri or other star by now, if the original Project Orion had not been cancelled in a fit of political weakness in 1964.
Yeah, you shoulda been there!
“Great landing of Calyspo!” NASA astronaut Suni Williams said on the agency’s webcast. “I don’t think that could have gone better.”
Might have been nice if there were actually some humans on it.
I agree with all your points. Well said.
The return flight was absolutely flawless, everything happened on que and all of the systems worked as advertised, even the thrusters. Where is the recognition of that?? It's time to look at some aspects of this other than the hardware.
We have been driven by a media induced hysteria and contemporary cultural norms, to expect failure, not just in Starliner but in many aspects of our lives. Optimism is gone.. The media was filling front pages with this pessimism because there are no hurricanes or shark attacks to dwell on so far this year. Hell, they've even run out of tornadoes.
It is obvious that NASA was afraid to make a decision that wasn't 100% guaranteed. They were more afraid of the political fallout than take the chance for success. John Glen knew his ride on the Atlas was about a 75% shot at success. He had seen too many blow up to delude himself otherwise. Still, he went.
Neil Armstrong landed the LEM on the moon even though his computer gave out on him. Standing NASA instructions were to abort the mission if this occurred. He made an informed decision based on his risk analysis.
I admire the people who know the risks of spaceflight and despite those risks, go anyway. That is the America I grew up in and hope to see again before I die.
It should be named “Barnacle” since it hung onto the ISS for so long.
BRAVO!! Well said.
I have been saying for a while is that China is going to own the Moon.
Why?
Because they don’t care how many people die in Moon missions.
They don’t care how many of them fail.
American bureaucrats and politicians could never take the heat that piles of dead astronaut bodies would generate.
Space is not safe. It is dangerous.
Indeed, and that applies to every aspect of our society.
The utter mediocrities in media and politics can't stand to see other people succeed at all, much less succeed spectacularly. Therefore, they tear people down at every opportunity.
Busk Rogers impressed.
More people die in their bathtubs than die in space, by a long shot.
“more people die in their bathtubs”
Tell that to NASA. I am sure your logic will impress them.
Lol.
Perhaps you could apply as a Public Relations spokesman for the NASA of the future:
“We just had micrometeorites penetrate the spacesuits and kill three of our astronauts driving in their dune buggies on the moon today. Just remember—this was no big deal—more people died today in their bathtubs than died on this Moon mission.”
The reason many not be because they did not want to attempt it. I remember stuff coming out of Kelly Johnson's Skunk Works (much like what Musk has done), in particular the 1960’s project which brought out the SR-71 Blackbird. I've read that it was almost impossible to fly without a computer.
I read about Barry Goldwater having flown it. He was the only person that had not gone through the normal paths (he was a AF Reserve pilot) Even today the speed that flew at is almost unimaginable.
Musk has the instincts. Kelly Johnson had them. Yes, there were very good engineers on board, but the instinct from broad understanding is necessary to run such stuff.
In the early 90's I was installing car alarm systems and there was one customer that wanted the $40.00 alarm system installed on His 60's Mustang and He was not happy with it's limitations and I told Him that We had everything that could be added to that system installed. He wanted to talk to the Company that designed the alarm system so I got them on the phone and was listening to the conversation. About 10 minutes into the conversation he revealed that He was a Retired NASA Systems Engineer. The next thing He mentioned was that He was the Lead Systems Engineer for the Saturn V Rocket REDUNDANCY SAFETY SYSTEMS !!!
After He was finished with the call. I asked Him why didn't He just design and build His own Alarm System for the Mustang ?!
His answer was "I'm retired now."
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