We lost half a century!

Judging from the plans salvaged by The Orlando Sentinel the 'new' Moon plans
look like a continuation of the Apollo project, *on a tight budget*. I'm
even more skeptical of the claim that the hardware can be reused for a Mars
misson.

The reuse of Shuttle hardware to built a hardware booster and a crew launch
vehicle seems sensible given the cost constraints, but the usage of a solid
first stage seems risky to me.

It all boils down to the fact that we're continuing where Apollo left off,
only now NASA will have to do it on a shoestring budget. I'm pretty sure the
Mars plans will be either shelved or a more realistic budget will need to be
drawn up, probably involving international partners.

Henk Boonsma wrote:

It all boils down to the fact that we're continuing where Apollo left off,
only now NASA will have to do it on a shoestring budget.

Sometimes a smaller budget is a good thing. It can be
harder to make yourself efficient if you're wallowing
in unlimited funds.

I get the impression that Griffin is really emphasizing
economy and efficiency in the planning, and that this
emphasis is not entirely familiar to NASA.

Paul

Paul F. Dietz ) wrote:
: Henk Boonsma wrote:

: It all boils down to the fact that we're continuing where Apollo left off,
: only now NASA will have to do it on a shoestring budget.

: Sometimes a smaller budget is a good thing. It can be
: harder to make yourself efficient if you're wallowing
: in unlimited funds.

: I get the impression that Griffin is really emphasizing
: economy and efficiency in the planning, and that this
: emphasis is not entirely familiar to NASA.

I guess you were spleeping when Goldin was stressing his "faster, better,
cheaper" approach in the 1990s?

Eric

: Paul

Eric Chomko wrote:
Paul F. Dietz ) wrote:
: Henk Boonsma wrote:

: It all boils down to the fact that we're continuing where Apollo left off,
: only now NASA will have to do it on a shoestring budget.

: Sometimes a smaller budget is a good thing. It can be
: harder to make yourself efficient if you're wallowing
: in unlimited funds.

I guess you were spleeping when Goldin was stressing his "faster, better,
cheaper" approach in the 1990s?

As opposed to the Slower, Better, Costlier approach that
gave us the $1 billion Mars Observer fiasco, used up
the careers of an entire generation of space scientists
to get Galileo into space, and produced the space shuttle?

I agree with Paul, some of the best innovations come
on shoestring budgets. Stuff like the Wright Flyer, the
Travel Air Mystery Ship, the DC-3 (developed during the
darkest days of the Great Depression), the ElectroMotive
567 diesel engine (also a Depression baby - this was the
engine that made steam locomotives obsolete) and all
of those computer gadgets built in garages during the
1980s that led to the creation of outfits like Apple and
Microsoft and put a computer in every house, classroom,
library, car, and briefcase, etc.

- Ed Kyle

Ed Kyle ) wrote:
: Eric Chomko wrote:
: Paul F. Dietz ) wrote:
: : Henk Boonsma wrote:
:
: : It all boils down to the fact that we're continuing where Apollo left off,
: : only now NASA will have to do it on a shoestring budget.
:
: : Sometimes a smaller budget is a good thing. It can be
: : harder to make yourself efficient if you're wallowing
: : in unlimited funds.
:
: I guess you were spleeping when Goldin was stressing his "faster, better,
: cheaper" approach in the 1990s?

: As opposed to the Slower, Better, Costlier approach that
: gave us the $1 billion Mars Observer fiasco, used up
: the careers of an entire generation of space scientists
: to get Galileo into space, and produced the space shuttle?

Seems that the MERs success has righted that ship. You won't mention that
part due to bias.

: I agree with Paul, some of the best innovations come
: on shoestring budgets. Stuff like the Wright Flyer, the
: Travel Air Mystery Ship, the DC-3 (developed during the
: darkest days of the Great Depression), the ElectroMotive
: 567 diesel engine (also a Depression baby - this was the
: engine that made steam locomotives obsolete) and all
: of those computer gadgets built in garages during the
: 1980s that led to the creation of outfits like Apple and
: Microsoft and put a computer in every house, classroom,
: library, car, and briefcase, etc.

Yes, your hatred of government funding of any kind has you thinking like
that. Don't want a grant, then don't apply for one. And stop acting like
others shouldn't get one either.

I can site the early computers in Aberdeen, the Internet as well as a
multitude of other government funded operations to counter your argument.
The difference is that I like BOTH private sector and public sector
breakthroughs in science and technology, whereas you only want to
acknowledge the private sector side.

Eric

: - Ed Kyle

Eric Chomko wrote:
Ed Kyle ) wrote:
: Eric Chomko wrote:
: Paul F. Dietz ) wrote:
: : Henk Boonsma wrote:
:
: : It all boils down to the fact that we're continuing where Apollo left off,
: : only now NASA will have to do it on a shoestring budget.
:
: : Sometimes a smaller budget is a good thing. It can be
: : harder to make yourself efficient if you're wallowing
: : in unlimited funds.
:
: I guess you were spleeping when Goldin was stressing his "faster, better,
: cheaper" approach in the 1990s?

: As opposed to the Slower, Better, Costlier approach that
: gave us the $1 billion Mars Observer fiasco, used up
: the careers of an entire generation of space scientists
: to get Galileo into space, and produced the space shuttle?

Seems that the MERs success has righted that ship. You won't mention that
part due to bias.

At only $400 million each, with a short 34 month
development timeline, and using techniques devised
during the Mars Pathfinder mission, with was a
Faster-Better-Cheaper (FBC) mission, the MERs are a
lot closer to FBC than to the traditional Battlestar
missions.

: I agree with Paul, some of the best innovations come
: on shoestring budgets.

Yes, your hatred of government funding of any kind has you thinking like
that. Don't want a grant, then don't apply for one. And stop acting like
others shouldn't get one either.

Huh? Who said that I hate government funding? Did
I? I'm sure we can find interesting, successful
government projects that were run on a shoestring,
like Pathfinder for example.

- Ed Kyle

On Mon, 1 Aug 2005 14:55:26 +0200, "Henk Boonsma"
wrote:

Judging from the plans salvaged by The Orlando Sentinel the 'new' Moon plans
look like a continuation of the Apollo project, *on a tight budget*.

That is indeed true enough. The only real difference is a large
technology update. However, in this case it is not "flags and
footprints", but construction, exploration, research and still going
places where no one has been before.

I'm even more skeptical of the claim that the hardware can be reused for a
Mars misson.

And you are right to be. This system would indeed need a serious
upgrade before NASA launched anyone towards Mars.

The reuse of Shuttle hardware to built a hardware booster and a crew launch
vehicle seems sensible given the cost constraints, but the usage of a solid
first stage seems risky to me.

The SRBs carry some risk, but NASA has not yet messed up in that area
at least. There is also no better option for getting some nice mass
quick and cheap into orbit and beyond.

Their astronauts will certainly have a rapid and bumpy ride to orbit
now that these SRBs are not being held back by the Shuttle and ET
mass.

It all boils down to the fact that we're continuing where Apollo left off,
only now NASA will have to do it on a shoestring budget.

That seems like a good idea. Innovation.

I'm pretty sure the Mars plans will be either shelved or a more realistic
budget will need to be drawn up, probably involving international partners.

NASA will not be allowed to go to Mars any time soon. First they have
to prove that they will not make another ISS on the Moon.

What you certainly could see in the near "moon phase" future is a few
trips to some asteroids. Near Earth asteroids I should mention, when
something like Ceres is a before "mars phase" thing.

It should certainly be interesting to see how they will be able to
stick to a low mass object. No doubt going about like a rock climber
does it. Otherwise it is one bounce and you go into orbit.

Before all this they have to find their water. Just like any colony
plan needs to first do. Asteroids have water. Just a shame about all
the other gunk that comes mixed it. It could be easily filtered into
pure water at least.

Cardman.

"Cardman" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 1 Aug 2005 14:55:26 +0200, "Henk Boonsma"
wrote:

Judging from the plans salvaged by The Orlando Sentinel the 'new' Moon
plans
look like a continuation of the Apollo project, *on a tight budget*.

That is indeed true enough. The only real difference is a large
technology update. However, in this case it is not "flags and
footprints", but construction, exploration, research and still going
places where no one has been before.

I'm even more skeptical of the claim that the hardware can be reused for
a
Mars misson.

And you are right to be. This system would indeed need a serious
upgrade before NASA launched anyone towards Mars.

The reuse of Shuttle hardware to built a hardware booster and a crew
launch
vehicle seems sensible given the cost constraints, but the usage of a
solid
first stage seems risky to me.

The SRBs carry some risk, but NASA has not yet messed up in that area
at least. There is also no better option for getting some nice mass
quick and cheap into orbit and beyond.

Their astronauts will certainly have a rapid and bumpy ride to orbit
now that these SRBs are not being held back by the Shuttle and ET
mass.

I was thinking the same thing! The G-forces will be almost unbearable when
this thing rockets off the launch pad, I'm pretty sure that it will require
some training to withstand and will toughen the medical requirements for
aspiring astronauts. The ride is certainly not something you would want
paying passengers to endure.

Cardman;
NASA will not be allowed to go to Mars any time soon. First they have
to prove that they will not make another ISS on the Moon.
Sorry to interrupt but, is this another one of your Froidian slips?

What's so taboo/nondisclosure about utilizing our moon?

Obviously the lunar nighttime and/or earthshine environment isn't 1% as
nasty to human DNA/RNA a per the fully raw solar illuminated
environment, but still we'd need to establish a good depth of
protection from the TBI and away from whatever physical incoming debris
that's continually impacting that extremely dark and dusty surface
environment. Even if planning upon not more than a few hours
moonsuiting about at a time is asking for a serious pot load of
potentially lethal trouble in River City, since whatever's coming along
isn't exactly being atmospherically deflected, anti-gravity disposed
of, nor otherwise the least bit velocity moderated. Even the secondary
impact related shards could travel at somewhat horrific velocity for
many km in nearly all directions, with even the subsequent third level
of secondary impact related fragments still being downright nasty.
~

Taboo: in spite of the orchestrated status quo, it seems there's been
other life upon Venus
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm
Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator) as interactive at the
ME-L1/EM-L2 sweet-spot
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm
Of Sirius, proto-moons, Venus & Earthly ETs & somewhat testy topics by;
Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm

We lost half a century!
Not to mention our morality and whatever we'd thought we had of remorse
went out the same perpetrated cold-war window as our not having a
stitch worth of honesty in physics or that of hard-science that's
become more of a soft-science of brown-nose foolishness that's sinking
the good ship LOLLIPOP a bit faster than the rats can swim for their
lives.

Besides all the folks like yourself being so entirely snookered and
otherwise easily dumbfounded bout our own moon, perhaps we should
consider the notion of others remotely viewing our ice melt patterns,
as that alone should have been an easily identifiable attribute of our
environment that's somewhat going to hell, and that obtainable of ETs
having that visual look-see from a good distance that's a whole lot
further off than Venus seems perfectly doable. From an extremely great
distance of perhaps as far off as the Sirius star system could at least
get a reading as to the average global albedo of Earth. Think about it
folks; what if ETs actually were coming to our rescue, or perhaps
flocking to our demise?

Even with our relatively ****-poor terrestrial optics and via a few
terrestrial satellites we can get a take on any global change
transpiring upon Titan and I believe as far off as Pluto become barely
detectable as to it's global albedo changes that indicate as a seasonal
or somewhat orbital difference that's obviously influenced by how near
or far from the sun.

However, I totally agree that we need to utilize our moon for just
about everything you and I can think of. The problem however has gotten
far worse off than any half century worth of our playing God by way of
sustaining a perpetrated cold-war along with those MI spooks that have
an even lower set of standards and accountability, as well as an even
better "so what's the difference" policy of sticking it to humanity,
that which obviously sucks and blows at the same time (no wonder Hitler
wanted help the better half of humanity by way putting them Brits out
of their misery).

It all boils down to the fact that we're continuing where Apollo left off,
This was an unfortunate phrase of words that needs to be taken in a
similar artificial xenon light of the fact that "where Apollo left off"
was prior to our even having a space-toilet to **** in, much less for
taking a good crap while being safely protected within such a flimsy
lander having zilch worth of R&D prototype fly-by-rocket time under
it's bulky moonsuit belt, that which all of the hard-engineering has
been discarded because it obviously couldn't possibly have flown (at
least not per getting folks safely onto the moon), much less shielded a
kumquat without a marrow transplant.

Their very own terrific resolution images as obtained from merely 100
km off the deck (nearly 100 fold better resolution than the latest from
team KECK) can't identify upon anything other than recent impact
craters as depicted upon an extremely basalt (nearly coal like)
darkness and otherwise of a thick carbon, iron and titanium dusted moon
that's relatively reactive because of that nearby orb having hardly any
atmosphere as to moderating squat worth of primary influx and/or of
secondary/recoil photons, nor in any way capable of deflecting and/or
moderating the velocity of whatever's of incoming debris, some of which
being solar contributed as micro debris arriving at 300+km/s.
~

Nondisclosure/taboo: in spite of an orchestrated status quo, seems
there's been other life upon Venus
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm
The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator) as interactive
within the ME-L1/EM-L2 sweet-spot
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm
Of Sirius, proto-moons, Venus & Earthly ETs & of somewhat testy topics
by; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm