International Space Station Crews Mark Three Years Aboard

(Tom Merkle) writes:

I think the new flight restrictions and the imperative to develop a
different method of launching people has reclassified it de facto to
an experiemental vehicle, regardless of what anyone says. Operational
vehicles are supposed to be used more than once a year.

If it's an experimental vehicle now, does that mean that usage
is going to be restricted to flight test?

They're probably going to still use it to haul cargo and crew to
orbit as if it were an operational vehicle.

So slapping the "experimental" label on it is useless, if it
just means it's a more expensive-and-liable-to-blow-up operational
vehicle instead of an X-plane.


--
Phil Fraering "Oh, so now Mike's the nut, Roger's the good
one, and I'm the bad guy?"

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message . ..
On 5 Nov 2003 15:01:42 -0800, in a place far, far away,
(Tom Merkle) made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

"James Oberg" wrote in message .. .
Your point has merit, but should not be a blank check for incompetence,
which is what
the circle-the-wagons culture at NASA has so so often resorted to.

I think your definition of 'incompetence' is a wee bit stringent. It
takes an extreme amount of competence to get even halfway to a
successful orbital flight. If members of Congress were half as
competent at their job, government would be a half of the size it is
now and we'd still have a better space program.

That depends on what you think "their job" is. They obviously don't
believe that it's their job to shrink government, even if some of us
would like them to. Not even when they're supposedly the party of
small government.
Rand,
Couldn't agree with you more WRT the Republican party. Bush and Delay
have pulled them way left--or maybe the whole country's moved left,
just not as far as the democratic party, so now the Republicans of the
'00s have become the Democrats of the 60's. Prescription drugs for
everyone! world, meet your new nanny, Uncle Sam!

In this day an age it is impossible to remove any spending program
once in place. This was not always the case in the US.

Fareed Zakaria places the blame for lack of leadership on misguided
efforts at democratizing the inner workings of Congress, which has
placed both parties at the mercy of Loppyists and PACs.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books
This book why I've been on a 'the US is a republic, not a democracy'
tear lately. I highly recommend it as food for thought.