Posted on 09/11/2015 8:05:14 AM PDT by rktman
The damage caused by ending the Space Shuttle Program prematurely -- before an alternative man-rated U.S. conveyance system was available – continues to build up. Not only do we not have an American-led way to get humans into space, we are now ending – or cutting short – our capacity to deliver national security assets into deep orbit. We are knowingly allowing a gap to emerge between launch capacity we have now – which depends on the RD-180 Russian-made rocket engine – and an uncertain future time, when we may have our own rocket engine to power heavy-lift rockets.
Simply put, this gap cannot be allowed to emerge, or we stand a chance of losing reliable and continuous access to space in order to support our most critical national security priorities in space.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
At least the muslim outreach is going well. Yeah, shutting down the shuttle before having a viable human rated replacement was not the best move. Little late now though. Spent 36 years working(?) on the shuttle program and there was still a lot of life left in the three remaining vehicles. Instead, the good old boy network choose to return to the past and the good old days of ocean splash downs.
Well at least we aren’t spending money on NASA. /s
Not many black aerospace engineers, so NASA was expendable.
Hussein is no rocket scientist.
But Muslims feel good about themselves, that’s what matters.
I can’t believe stories such as this.
We put a man on the moon, but now lack the ability to do something such as sending a rocket to an orbital space shuttle??? What the heck?????
Did we simply dismantle NASA?? I admit I haven’t paid much attention to the space program in recent years. But still, we don’t have the ability to send a rocket into space anymore??? What am I missing????
Thanks, 0bama, you socktucker!
Sounds like a double win for Obama and his functionaries: The US gets further hobbled and Vlad gets a laugh at the stupidity of the Americans.
And how much are we paying the Russians to transport each of our astronauts to the Station since we don’t have a man rated vehicle?
Like deporting all illegal aliens; Hoover ≈1933, Truman 1946, Eisenhower 1954-55,
NASA still exists as an agency....but the current denizens thereof are largely third-rate place-holders. The teams that built the tech that got us to the moon have long since retired or died off. It is barely a shadow of a shadow if its former self.
We can still fire up some rockets to go to the space station. Just not people. Last Apollo launch was in Dec. of ‘72. First shuttle launch was April of ‘81. So, during that “pause”, there was a lot of construction going on to prep an actual vehicle for replacing the Apollo capsules. The Orion capsule “planned” human flight currently looks like it’s been pushed out to 2021. I’m sure there’s plenty of work going on in preperation for that but not at nearly the employment levels of either Apollo or Shuttle programs. I remember walking around the Operations Support Building the day after the last landing and most of the United Space Alliance folks were gone. It was like a ghost town at KSC. Luckily for me our contract was landing + 30 days and we weren’t let go until August 26th ‘11. If we were still flying the shuttle, I’d probably still be working on it. But it worked out well. Go laid off and retired on the same day. Cha Ching!!
NASA mission now is spacing out on man made global warming:-)
Something like 70 million per. I know it’s gone up since we first started hitching rides.
Now less than 500 days to get glow-bull whatever squared away or we’re all doomed. Doomed I tell ya.
Our access to space is doing great.
The Shuttle had some good points, but it was expensive, not efficiently designed to do the kinds of things we need to do, and unnecessarily dangerous.
NASA is seen a loss leader to most outsiders. Even American youth, as evidenced by Facebook and Twitter and other social media postings, are eschewing the idea of manned space travel, because they weren't raised in a world where America was a leader in space travel. They expect their mobile devices and televisions and Internet connections to just work without consideration for the cost of putting technology into orbit.
If you read most social media outlets these days, the youth who will be voting soon if not already involved are saying that NASA should be disbanded because it provides no substantive benefit to America. The youth of today don't see politics for what they are and think that they best use of tax money is on social welfare. NASA is dying from lack of popular support, plain and simple.
Yeah, my salary alone was expensive. LOL! Maybe not so much. Sure made for some awesome launches though.
The Shuttle was impressive and inspirational, but it in most cases it was much more than we needed. It was designed, for instance, to snag Soviet satellites out of space and return in one orbit, a capability that was never used. But resulted in a much heavier craft than we needed. And over the years, the military lost interest in the Shuttle altogether. So, in a way, the military led the way in going back to expendable rockets.
Today’s youth is dumber, easily distracted, and more self-centered than youth of the past.
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