Experts say NASA hasn't learned lessons

Sac Bee ^ | 6/12/03 | Ted Bridis - AP

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON (AP) - NASA failed to learn important lessons from its past mistakes and needs to improve its oversight of shuttle contractors, some of America's top space experts told Columbia investigators Thursday. But they said declining budgets at the space agency may not have contributed directly to the tragedy.

[Young Werther]

Some of my more liberal friends become livid when I point out the Xlintoon years and the damage wrought on the NASA. In an era when GDP and the federal budget increase sighnificantly, the NASA Budget, and indeed all R&D budgets, fell in real dollars.

Limiting government expenditures must be the goal of all conservatives! The Congress does not know how to "spend money" for a return on investment. Examples include Federal Education spending where there is a direct, although inverse, correlation between the amount of money spent and the lack of skills in our students! The more we spend on Medicare/Medicade the sicker we become as a society.

God forbid we fund a program to fight obesity. Does Fat Albert ring a bell?

[Young Werther]

Sorry, I forgot a {RANT ALERT}

[RightWhale]

Spacecraft failures persist, and there is no assurance that lessons are being applied toward future mission successes

Is this it? They pay for a team of experts and they get yet another load of the obvious? The space program is like watching ice cubes freeze.

[junta]

Be realistic NASA is an exhibit in diversity and it is not anything like its 1960 predecesor, which had a mission and delivered results. Can NASA, the Education department of space exploration.

[newgeezer]

Agreed!

At the very least, manned space exploration should go the way of the horse-and-buggy. Been there, done that, time to leave the relics behind and do it the right way.

(ping)

[Young Werther]

The right way is to replace the shuttle with the Space Plane and begin to construct permanent settlements in orbit, on the Moon and on Mars.

The O'Neil Solar Power Generating Stations will address the energy needs of the planet and recent {gulp} NASA studies have suggested that tornado spawning thunderclouds could be bathed in microwave energy and the creation of tornados cold be prevented.

your are welcome to read about my Space University concept at

MacAuliff A&M"

[RoughDobermann]

NASA studies have suggested that tornado spawning thunderclouds could be bathed in microwave energy and the creation of tornados cold be prevented

Why is it that this idea gives me the willies...?

[newgeezer]

Pork-A-Rama.

[Young Werther]

Why the willies?

We modify the weather already. Wind Breaks were established in the 1930s. Landscape architects plant trees and shrubs to ameliorate weather around housing tracks and commercial buildings.

The NASA study suggests that a 1 degree change in the temperature of the cloud tops of thunderstorms could tip the balance so that tornados are prevented. Heating the ocean's surface temperature about 1 degree sets up the circumstances for huricanne formations. Weather control can be accomplished!

Why not, as Pyhtagorus said, "Give me a place to stand on and I can move the world!" Space might just provide that platform for the betterment of all mankind...and I guess we can go where no man has gone before..

[RoughDobermann]

Wind breaks don't really modify the weather; wind breaks don't prevent the wind from occuring, just how we live with it. Bathing a Cb with microwave energy in order to prevent tornadoes IS modifying the weather. There's just something about tampering with nature that doesn't go well with me, that's all.

[Young Werther]

We've been tampering with nature ever since that first "tool" was fashioned by or ancestors.

In the opening scene of "2001" the bone improves the diet, then "wins" the waterhole and as it is thrown aloft in triumph it morphs into a satellite.

We are tool makers and we fashion our environment to meet our needs. Stopping tornadoes or creating rainstorms to combat the summer fires in the western states ISN'T tampering if it's your family or house that would otherwise be destroyed!