Posted on 09/28/2005 9:02:35 AM PDT by anymouse
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."
Asked whether the shuttle had been a mistake, Griffin told USA Today: "My opinion is that it was. It was a design which was extremely aggressive and just barely possible."
Asked whether the space station had been a mistake, he said: "Had the decision been mine, we would not have built the space station we're building in the orbit we're building it in."
Griffin announced September 19 that the United States will send four astronauts to the moon in 2018 in a major return to its pioneering manned missions into space.
You'll have to get in line to say that. No cuts. :)
Jeez, what's with this guy
This guy is one smart engineer, with half a dozen PhDs in disciplines that would make you head hurt just reading the titles of the textbooks.
Unlike instant experts like yourself, Dr. Griffin knows that it is smart engineering to not design on the edge of technological maturity. Commercial jetliners fly with amazing safety records and make money doing so because they don't use unobtainium and push the performance envelope.
In case you forgot, President Bush once was a pilot and businessman, and is quite familiar with the downside of technical and business failure - and has learned from it.
"Tang was developed prior to the space program. It wasn't selling until they got NASA to add it to the astronauts menu. Then every kid in America and most of the rest of the World wanted the crap."
Details, details.
FLASHBACK
Tech: "Hey boss, these o-rings look a little worn."
Boss: "I don't have time for this. Just get them installed. I'm emailing all my engiineering buddies why I think the shuttle is going to blow up. Jeez."
They do that now. Most of the "real work" is done by contractors. Grumman built the Lunar Module. North American Rockwell did the Apollo CSM package. Rocketdyne, RCA, and others got pieces of the action. Private companies all. Universities also got a slice. The MIT instrument lab did quite a lot with the LM systems. JPL has a university connection.
And yet we have a space ship that can't survive foam insulation or rain.
Big Duh from me on this. I once got in trouble at NASA for sending an official E-mail calling the ISS Mir-II.
It takes a good bit of energy to make, but it is just one part of the concrete.
The labor involved in all the handling of the concrete and its various components is the biggest cost.
I have read of some supply problems for cement powder in some areas but no one I know has been affected by this.
Construction is still busy.
Some are predicting a slow down and I have seen recessions before.
When that happens (watch rising rates) commodity prices can come down really, really fast but so far the trend is still up.
Thanks for coming back on that. My own interest is copper and aluminum, which consume tremendous amounts of electricity, which comes from the power grid, which is fueled by coal and natural gas. I am thinking we might have to do some vertical integration and get off the power grid just to continue to operate. I don't believe the anti-monopolists or greenies will be pleased to see the coal being delivered.
I don't think that's true. I was involved in some of the potassium-argon studies of the "Genesis Rock" samples brought back from the Apollo 15 mission, and trace element studies of the "orange soil" discovered by Jack Schmitt at Taurus-Littrow on Apollo 17. 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.
I also helped with an experiment involving crystal growth in microgravity, which flew on STS-73 back in '95. We got a tremendous amount of data on diffusion processes for various dopants in a variety of media. That experiment could not be done on the Earth, or the Moon, because of the gravity gradient. It was a complex experiment that could not have been automated. It needed a researcher present at the system to make adjustments, take data in real time, and make appropriate changes to the setup and conditions. Very "useful science", I can tell you.
I agree completely. Furthermore, I'd like to add that the Space Shuttle, like Apollo before it, is a flight test program. Much of NASA's "perception problem" is self-inflicted. The "Teacher in Space" program along with sending various congressmen & senators as payload gave the public the false impression that space travel was safe, if not exactly cheap.
BANG. You lose 2 shuttles and the public is snapped back to reality: Spaceflight is dangerous AND really expensive.
Neither do I. But if I was in charge, and an idea for a next generation space ship was brought to me, and I was told, "By the way, we can't launch in the rain.", I'd have laughed them right out the door!
If we really wanted to be a space faring planet, we should do it like we built the Trans-continental Railroad. We give loan guarantees to the contractor that builds and maintains a moon transportation system. Give them some property rights on the moon, and retain some for the United States.
A transportation system makes moon real-estate valuable, which can be sold by the contractor and government, both making money and paying off the loans, with interest.
Of course, such a scheme would kill off the NASA pork barrel, which is its only reason for existing. And we'd have to thumb our noses at the UN, which will claim some kind of sovereignty over moon real estate, and we'll never do that.
I'd rather we just gave everyone DVD's of Apollo program re-runs than do this idiot Apollo 2.0.
The space station was always a "make work" project of the USA to the russians so their rocket scientits would not go and work for other countries. (yea right)
It was a clinton plan.
It may have been a flying Chernobyl, but Mir was there, and had been inhabited continuously for more than a decade, if I recall correctly. What a shame we didn't buy it, or at least buy into it.
"Dungeons and Dragons game they are playing over their HAM radios"
Alright, now you owe me a new keyboard! That's the funniest thing I've seen in awhile.
It just so happens NASA gets the magnifying glass and DOD doesent. How many billion in defense spending is "stupid"!!? It would boggle your mind, if you let it.
The first really bad-weather launch was the Apollo-Saturn used on Apollo 12. That one gave me the willies when it got hit by lightning on launch. You just don't light those candles in a thunderstorm.
This isn't atmospheric flight (although there are certainly weather restrictions there as well). The rules are different. The environment is a lot less forgiving. I'm not sure an all-weather launch vehicle with 100% guaranteed safety is in the cards, for NASA or private industry.
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