Posted on 11/28/2005 6:50:56 PM PST by KevinDavis
In mid-1969, as the Apollo missions were reaching their climax, NASA managers began to plan for the next phase of lunar exploration. This optimistic plan, issued by the Space Task Group, would have had NASA’s funding stay at Apollo levels, and, in a series of steps that followed Apollo, would have seen NASA develop such elements as a lunar orbit station in 1978, a lunar surface base in 1980, and a manned mission to Mars in 1981 or 1983. President Nixon rejected the ambitious Space Task Group plan, choosing instead to develop the infamous, loved and hated space shuttle.
Since the ultimate goal of the new ESAS program as far as the Moon is concerned is to develop a lunar outpost, and since this article is comparing the ESAS to Apollo, it would behoove us to examine the plans that existed under the STG plan and the Apollo program itself to begin a follow-on to Apollo, for the purpose of comparing them to what is now being conceptualized for the ESAS.
(Excerpt) Read more at thespacereview.com ...
Kevin, in the early years I had hoped that the shuttle would live up to it's promise, a cheap (relatively) trasnport to space and beyond.
I can see your point with regard to how the shuttle turned out, but did it have to be that way?
If the shuttle would have been used to loft secondary craft that could have been launched at orbit, the shuttle may still have been a decent idea.
As it turned out, the shuttle was either a terible idea or just as bad, an idea that was under or incorrectly utilized.
I try to think outside the loop, and perhaps this idea of mine is just loopy, but I have often thought the shuttle could have been much more productive than it turned out to be.
But......but.......but........we couldn't have had Johnsons Great Society if we kept going, could we? There just wasn't enough money for both.
And we all know how important the destruction of the Black family was, don't we?
Priorities.
Man, no matter how you feel about Star Trek, that was a great scene.
bedfellow, anywhere?
Thanks
Silly me.. I guess I care more about the future of this nation than destroying the Black Family.. Silly me...
LOL, true.
The shuttle program accomplished some good things, but in the end it was little more than a platform for putting the first amputee midget porn star from Timbuktu into space.
Sadly, the America that landed on the moon 30+ years ago no longer exists. Most Americans don't even care about the next generation (as evidenced by the cultural invasion from Mexico and an 8 trillion FRN debt). How do we expect them to care about their posterity 100 years into future?
I expect the current goal of a moon base and manned mission to Mars to continue for the next few years. Of course, it will be behind schedule and over budget due to bloated bureacracy and silly mandates (i.e., it's more important to award the right % of "disadvantaged" contracts than to return to the moon). Then the day will come when the gov't cannot afford the space program anymore.
There will be 10 million Americans asking for their prescription drugs and 100 of us asking for colonization of Mars. Who do you think is going to win?
The Dems even tried to stop the shuttle. They didn't want to do any more than visited the moon. I'd rather they continued with the shuttle than completely halted all exploration. I also think the shuttle should have been used to go to the moon, circle and send down more probes etc. Next step: Mars.
It has been just a little detour, that's all. :')
Of course, I'm not too sure about the engineering depth now vs then. (present company excepted of course)
Not to mention the mega aerospace conglomerate contractors lobbying for additional re-designs.
I've seen first-hand how a contractor can milk a contract for additional millions.
Looking back (and of course hindsight is always nearly 20/20) the decision to spend the money on domestic programs rather than space is a real heart breaker.
Our only real hope for the near future (re space) is private enterprise.
All most people care about now is getting their cut.
I agree.. If people back then saw the destruction that spending money on these social programs would cause back then, who knows.. I agree with you about private industry is the way to go...
Yep. The domestic welfare programs created nothing but crime, sloth, and corruption.
Our only real hope for the near future (re space) is private enterprise.
Well, there's not much hope then. Serious space exploration (just like the early exploration of America) will never occur if it is left up to to private enterprise.
The time horizon for the payoff is just too long and the costs/risks are too high. Most people and all corporations only care about "right now". Anyway, all of the big corporations are multinational so even if they could do it, it would be Chinese and Indians landing on Mars. Not Americans.
Apollo got the US to the Moon first, BUT, it was an expensive one-shot operation each time, and stictly limited to a quick moon landing.
Don't forget, Von Braun's (and NASA's) original plan was for the Earth-orbit (i.e., space station) approach to space exploration, slower but leaving a legacy for the future; Kennedy's death - and the pressure to get to the Moon at any cost before 1970 - killed that idea in favor of the lunar-orbit approach, a frailer but faster method of lunar landing.
The true path to space is cheap, very cheap, launchers. Once it's cheap to launch stuff, then the cost to build (unmanned) spacecraft will come down by orders of magnitude, because a failure can be easily rebuilt and relaunched.
I'm convinced that we have the basic technology in hand via air breathing vehicles to get smallish (20k lbs?) vehicles into orbit with nothing more than fuel costs, and repeat almost daily. But such a vehicle would kill NASA (because many entities would buy copies of it). And all the thousands that work in and around the behemoth would be looking for work. So any proposals for such things are shot down by those interested in keeping the status quo, and those who've been convinced by those people.
But I don't believe them.
Ok, it's my conspiracy theory. So sue me.
When I was a little kid, I remember reading a comic book that had an article on the space station, that was going to be in orbit in 1976, for the bicentennial. 1976 came and went- no station. Then the space shuttle started lifting off, and I was so excited. A shuttle to transport people and cargo to a space station, to serve as a liftoff point for a lunar base. Then, from the moonto the planets, and then on to the stars. That was the plan, and everything looked so rosie.
But now look at us. The space shuttle fleet is useless. The international station was made for pr, and it's ready to fly apart at any minute (partly built by Russians- ha ha), and no one talks of going to the planets or stars anymore. Dreams of going out and exploring space have been replaced by--
"Where be the buses? Where been all the gubmint buses at?!"
No wonder Star Trek was taken off the air. No need to bother dreaming if nothing will come of it. No hope for space anymore.
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