Shuttle and Space Station were Mistakes, Space Agency Chief Tells US Daily

AFP ^ | 9/28/05

[Fitzcarraldo]

Did you see they cancled the Prometheus nuclear propulsion studies?

Yes, they are wrapping up the final report.

Amazing how these ideas are whipped up, mega-$$$ spent in the contract bid phase, only to be cancelled.

[Fitzcarraldo]

However, lack of funding will kill anything but small stuff anyway.

Well, much good to be said for Cassini and the Mars Rovers. Technology gets better and can fit into smaller boxes. Space is probably the best domain for agressive nanotechnology.

[KevinDavis]

I like this guy... We should have continued the Apollo program... Also we should have found a way to keep the Skylab space station in orbit...

[KevinDavis]

I was one of those kids who liked Tang...

[clyde asbury]

Failure Is Not An Option dogma bump.

[solitas]

I can tell you we learned a heckuva lot about planetary evolution and lunar geology from those samples. "Useful science"? You betcha. I don't think we would have gotten those samples without a manned lunar mission to go find them, recognize what they were, and bring them back in sufficient quantities for analysis in a meaningful way.

No offense intended but, um, what have those samples that were [brought back by a manned mission and analyzed in a meaningful way] done to provide a concrete, tangible, material benefit to the taxpayers who involuntarily funded it all (ALL the taxpayers; not just those who were employed to retrieve or analyze them)?

[solitas]

I think NASA needs to break out of a vicious cycle and propose something radical like terraforming Venus or building a space elevator.

NASA can't even reliably (and confidently) loft-up the 150-odd miles to feed the 'space station'. How are they going to have a permanent, habitable satellite 22,300-some odd miles out in synchronous equatorial orbit to start extruding a cable to the ground made up of material that hasn't been proven yet with a technique that hasn't been developed yet?

[phatoldphart]

I don't buy it either.

Did we all just move around in the same circles? I worked at JPL on the Voyager project at the time of flyby......

[John Jamieson]

The first Shuttle flight was supposed to reboost SkyLab. Shuttle was too late.

This guy has it about right. I said the same thing in the early 70's, as I worked on the Shuttle design.

Put the Space Station on Ebay with no reserve and find out what it's really worth.

NASA 67-94

[Major_Risktaker]

The US space agency NASA lost its way in the 1970s when it focused on the space shuttle and International Space Station, NASA chief Michael Griffin reportedly said.

"It is now commonly accepted that was not the right path," Griffin said. "We are now trying to change the path while doing as little damage as we can."

___________________________

Like Federal Express change the way Americans view the US Post Office, private companies with change the way Americans view NASA.

Virgin Galactic plans to sell $200,000 rides into space

(Not so fast, said federal regulators.)
Go figure!

___________________________

NASA chief Michael Griffin is a loser and should be replaced because American were sold this kind of space station via Hollywood.

But NASA build this thing.

Hollywood does effect the federal budget
with fantasy to the tax payers, then Congress
delivers the cold reality.

[solitas]

NASA chief Michael Griffin is a loser and should be replaced because American [sic] were sold this kind of space station via Hollywood.

So, he should be fired because of what previous administrations have done?

Americans weren't sold anything - the general public has no more authority to approve/kill NASA projects than they do to correct the tax system.

[chimera]

No offense intended but, um, what have those samples that were [brought back by a manned mission and analyzed in a meaningful way] done to provide a concrete, tangible, material benefit to the taxpayers who involuntarily funded it all (ALL the taxpayers; not just those who were employed to retrieve or analyze them)?

Like I said in an earlier post, if all you are interested in is an immediate return in money (which I think is what you really mean when you say "concrete, tangible, material benefit"), then you are displaying the hallmarks and characteristics of a people well on the road to decay and decadence. When we place material comfort and monetary gain above all else, when we worship money as God, then we have truly lost our collective souls.

No, I can't tell you what discoveries will come of what we've learned so far in our honest and gainful efforts in space exploration and development. No more than Columbus could have foreseen the establishment of the freest and greatest nation the world has ever seen, when he set off to find a trade route to the East and stumbled upon some islands in the Caribbean. Nor could James Clerk Maxwell have foreseen the establishment of a vast and complex system of wireless communication when he took it upon himself to scribble down some equations on a piece of paper. Or those (taxpayer-funded) persons who labored in developing an electronic method of calculating ballistic trajectories could have foreseen the growth of a computer industry that would make calculating machines as commonplace in households today as radios and TVs were a few decades ago.

Like I said, think small, be small. Limit yourself to holding onto every penny you can, and pennies is what you will end up with when you crawl away to your hole to die. Meanwhile, others will forge a destiny in the stars. I just hope those are people of the great and free nations of the West. We can do it, if only we have the will and the vision to look beyond our own petty comforts.

[KevinDavis]

What do you think about the new NASA administrator??

[KevinDavis]

I would like to point out something.. When we purchased the Louisiana Territory, there was controversy about the cost... When Jefferson funded the Lewis and Clark expedition there was controversy about the cost...

[chimera]

Yes, and also remember "Seward's Folly". I mean, why in the world would anyone want to spend the taxpayers' dollars purchasing that frozen wilderness? We'd have been better off pinching those pennies in our decrepit fingers and slouching off to die somewhere, and to heck with future generations, discoveries of which we knew not when we bought the Alaskan territory. There was nothing there but seals and Eskimos.

But, surprise surprise, there turned out to be something there that we really wanted after all, something I'm sure glad we have today. But, back then, nobody had ever heard of Prudhoe Bay...

[KevinDavis]

If we didn't purchase Alaska, the Soviet Union would have had a foothold in North America..

[RadioAstronomer]

Did we all just move around in the same circles? I worked at JPL on the Voyager project at the time of flyby......

Sure seems that way. Was at the Cape in the 80s as well. :-)

[RadioAstronomer]

Space is probably the best domain for agressive nanotechnology.

Moore's law in action. Smarter and smarter robots. :-)

[John Jamieson]

I think that's who we're talking about here.

Honestly, Kevin, I retired over 10 years ago from NASA and I certainly have no inside information.

Dylan talks about "no direction home". I've felt since the mid 70's that NASA had " no direction away from home".

Maybe "The times they are a changing" now.

[anymouse]

When we purchased the Louisiana Territory, there was controversy about the cost...

Well as soon as Congress drafts legislation to purchase lunar or Martian property, then such a comparison is appropriate. Hint: there are some international treaties that have to be abrogated first. Then you have to ask who you would pay? And I'll shoot the first person to say "the UN." :)

When Jefferson funded the Lewis and Clark expedition there was controversy about the cost...

Note that trappers and European and American colonial explorers had been all over Western North America 200 years before L&C showed up. Hint: What languages did Sacajawea use to communicate with native tribes that L&C found along the way? After the commercial spacers have been on the Moon and Mars for a few decades, then maybe we can send a few astronauts to survey and interview a few Martians. :)