Saturn 5 Question

I knew that it's a urban myth that the Saturn 5 blueprints were
destroyed, but lately, I've seen in several space history forums on
the net, that the molds for the Saturn 5 were ordered by Nixon to be
destroyed......is this true? Joe

Tooling for Saturn V has long since been destroyed, not untypical.
Would you expect GM to keep production jigs for a '57 Chevy?

What I think is worse is that the country has lost the collective
engineering know-how that built Apollo/Saturn. These men have either
retired or died. This is different from other fields of engineering
where there is evolutionary change. Apollo workers went pedal to metal
for about ten years and then were quickly laid off. A few managed to
stay in aerospace and others went on to work on defense projects but
many found work elsewhere. I'm worried that the next generation of
space engineers will have to "re-invent the wheel" to accomplish any
big projects.

Gene DiGennaro
Baltimore, Md.

wrote in message
...
I knew that it's a urban myth that the Saturn 5 blueprints were
destroyed, but lately, I've seen in several space history forums on
the net, that the molds for the Saturn 5 were ordered by Nixon to be
destroyed......is this true? Joe

"Sorta"

Basically a lot of the jigs etc were destroyed.

They're large and expensive to store. And as there were no plans to build
more and the government wasn't willing to pay for equipment they didn't plan
on using, they ordered them destroyed.

This is far from uncommon. There's no conspiracy here if that's what the
other forums are implying.

What I think is worse is that the country has lost the collective
engineering know-how that built Apollo/Saturn.

That's the nature of space engineering. It's too small of a field to
retain complete capability

Look on the sci.space.* groups at all the people who want to trash NASA
and lay off everyone who works on Shuttle. These people will all find
jobs in other fields, and getting them *back* into space work would be
one hell of a challenge.


I'm worried that the next generation of
space engineers will have to "re-invent the wheel" to accomplish any
big projects.

Yup. Once an entire industry has dried up and blown away, getting it
back means starting from square one.

On 17 Aug 2005 07:35:36 -0700, wrote:

Look on the sci.space.* groups at all the people who want to trash NASA
and lay off everyone who works on Shuttle. These people will all find
jobs in other fields, and getting them *back* into space work would be
one hell of a challenge.

....Then again, it should be noted that most of those bashing NASA and
calling for the end of the Shuttle program usually find that the other
fields they're qualified for are flipping burgers, digging ditches,
and giving blow jobs for crack.

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

In message et, "Greg
D. Moore (Strider)" writes

wrote in message
.. .
I knew that it's a urban myth that the Saturn 5 blueprints were
destroyed, but lately, I've seen in several space history forums on
the net, that the molds for the Saturn 5 were ordered by Nixon to be
destroyed......is this true? Joe

"Sorta"

Basically a lot of the jigs etc were destroyed.

They're large and expensive to store. And as there were no plans to build
more and the government wasn't willing to pay for equipment they didn't plan
on using, they ordered them destroyed.

This is far from uncommon. There's no conspiracy here if that's what the
other forums are implying.

Maybe not, but it could still be a conscious decision to make it
impossible to revive the programme. Like the destruction of the SR-71
jigs, which I think was mentioned here a while ago.
--
Remove spam and invalid from address to reply.

wrote:

Look on the sci.space.* groups at all the people who want to trash NASA
and lay off everyone who works on Shuttle. These people will all find
jobs in other fields, and getting them *back* into space work would be
one hell of a challenge.

We don't *want* them back into space work. The Shuttle program,
compared to a rational program, is overmanned by at *least* an order
of magnitude.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

We don't *want* them back into space work.

Then who would do it? If you wipe out 99% of those who know anything
about the practicalities of spacecraft design, manufacture and
operation, one of the *first* results will be to turn off investors.

Yes, get rid of the do-nothing management types, the retired-in-place
crowd, the lawyers. But a large fraction of those employed in the space
field are actually *capable.* And while an engineer at a rocket company
can go work electronics, say, the reverse is not necessarily true.
There is a LOT of tribal knowledge in this field.

The Shuttle program, compared to a rational program, is overmanned by at *least* an order
of magnitude.

A rational program would be *vast* in capability and flight rate
compared to Shuttle. But we got what we got. Lobotomizing your industry
is not a good idea if you want the capability to continue, much less
improve.

In article .com,
says...
Yes, get rid of the do-nothing management types,

As much as this engineer hates to admit it, for large, complex projects,
good management is more important than good engineering. (Personally,
I'm working in a company with less than 20 people for just this reason.)


There is a LOT of tribal knowledge in this field.

If so, the engineers aren't doing their job correctly. (And the
management is at fault for not correcting this problem.)


DL The Shuttle program, compared to a rational program, is overmanned by at *least* an order
DL of magnitude.
Lobotomizing your industry
is not a good idea if you want the capability to continue, much less
improve.

If the existing industry has a track record of wildly overspending and
under-delivering, not really achieving any useful results (has ISS
achieved anything that Skylab and MIR didn't already demonstrate?), why
would we want that capability to continue?
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

The loss of the American system of checks and balances
is more of a security danger than any terrorist risk.
-- Bruce Schneier

Kevin Willoughby wrote:

In article .com,
says...


Yes, get rid of the do-nothing management types,



As much as this engineer hates to admit it, for large, complex projects,
good management is more important than good engineering.

That's why the "do-nothing" qualifier.


(Personally,
I'm working in a company with less than 20 people for just this reason.)




There is a LOT of tribal knowledge in this field.



If so, the engineers aren't doing their job correctly.

Meh. A lot of these jobs *suck.* Thus, I know of a guy who is the Local
Expert ona particualr, very important topic. He's a single point
failure mode. He dies, quits, retires... there'll be trouble. To rectify
this, he has trained a number of new guys to do his job. They have all,
to a man, decided they'd rather be elsewhere doing something else for
the next thirty years.

DL The Shuttle program, compared to a rational program, is overmanned by at *least* an order
DL of magnitude.
Lobotomizing your industry
is not a good idea if you want the capability to continue, much less
improve.



If the existing industry has a track record of wildly overspending and
under-delivering, not really achieving any useful results (has ISS
achieved anything that Skylab and MIR didn't already demonstrate?), why
would we want that capability to continue?


Because it's not the fault of the bulk of those in the industry. A lot
of NASA programs have been ruined for *political* reasons. Pork-barrel
projects the pols don;t actually have any desire to see finished. But
even within those whirlpools of doom, the people slaving away often show
great skill and creativity and talent. Give them something *proper* to
do. When NASA finally is in the business of doing more than going in
circles fulfillign State Department diplomacy missions, then you'll see
progress. But *not* if you've ****canned the talent first.



--
"The only thing that galls me about someone burning the American flag is how unoriginal it is. I mean if you're going to pull the Freedom-of-speech card, don't be a hack, come up with something interesting. Fashion Old Glory into a wisecracking puppet and blister the system with a scathing ventriloquism act, or better yet, drape the flag over your head and desecrate it with a large caliber bullet hole." Dennis Miller