NASA Astronaut on Columbia Repair (and others)

George Evans wrote:
in article ,
columbiaaccidentinvestigation at
wrote on 12/8/06 7:25 AM:

George Evans wrote:

in article , Rand Simberg at
h wrote on 12/8/06 4:28 AM:

On Fri, 08 Dec 2006 04:39:51 GMT, in a place far, far away, George
Evans made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

snip

Because no one does it better, as can be seen by tonight's scrub.

What an absurd and illogical argument.

Nobody's been given money to attempt to do it better. And in fact, the
Russians do it better.

As Jorge just pointed out, the safety records are the same and NASA has done
far more in human space exploration. Putting that in the mix, there is no
comparison. NASA wins.

So george how do you rank on the caution scale? You see posting stuff, and
not taking responsibility for your own words is somewhat belligerent, but that
is if you choose not to answer.

I don't understand your responsibility point. Is it that I don't append long
quotes with long footnotes, like you do?

But I will answer your question. I am generally in awe of NASA's commitment
to launch criterion. I have never known another organization that is so
self-controlled. I think Thursday night I would have gone for it since the
cloud deck was hovering around 500 feet.

I also think I detected some irritation in NTD's voice which I accounted
frustration over the scrub. And I noticed the guys in the STA going to
heroic efforts to find a "hole in the clouds".

500 feet is obviously not a result of calculations. It's obviously an
estimate. It may be based on a calculation, in which case I would be
interested in the statistical analysis.

George Evans


George Evans

One possible way of reducing costs, and delays for the private space
launchers would be to improve our knowledge of weather forecasting, and
specifically winds in the space crafts flight path. Even though
Thursdays delay was for clouds, right now for today's shuttle launch
the Day Of Launch Initial Load Updates (DOLILU) are being processed.
The dolilu are flight control commands based on the data from weather
balloons, spread apart by hours at time to ensure a safe flight
envelope can be maintained by the shuttle given the effects from the
winds aloft. Now a definite benefit to the private sector and NASA
shuttle launches as well, would be to invest in developing better
technologies that can produce real time updated wind information. Such
new technology would directly affect flight safety for private launched
space tourism flights, as each company and launch center would have
better data to ensure the tourist flight stayed on course and in its
set flight path.

in article , Fred J. McCall at
wrote on 12/8/06 8:58 AM:

snip

I always find it funny when 'private enterprise' fans scream that
their problem is that they don't get all that big government funding.

They don't seem to understand what 'private enterprise' is...

This is a very good point. Just to take one (probably silly) example, Bill
Gates in sitting on a pile of fake money about three times the size of
NASA's total annual budget. He might want the chance to make some of that
money real. I can see the pitch. Gatespace, mankind's Gatesway to the stars.

George Evans

On Sat, 09 Dec 2006 17:40:06 GMT, in a place far, far away, George
Evans made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

And this constant whining about no one gives us money has got to go.

It's not "whining." It's stating of a fact to point out how nonsensical your
argument is.

A business that whines about not getting money is a failure waiting to
happen.

Nobody is "whining."

I was simply *explaining* that it's nonsensical to claim that NASA is
better at doing something than someone else, when that someone else
hasn't been provided with any funding with which to do it. If they
had been given the money, and developed a bad track record, then you'd
have a point, but since that's not reality, it's nonsensical.

The only thing that NASA has shown itself to be "better" at so far is
getting large amounts of taxpayer dollars. We won't know if it's
"better" at anything else until someone else finds funding from some
source, and actually does some spaceflight with it, and we have an
actual basis of comparison.

Rand Simberg wrote:
On Sat, 09 Dec 2006 17:40:06 GMT, in a place far, far away, George
Evans made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

And this constant whining about no one gives us money has got to go.

It's not "whining." It's stating of a fact to point out how nonsensical your
argument is.

A business that whines about not getting money is a failure waiting to
happen.

Nobody is "whining."

I was simply *explaining* that it's nonsensical to claim that NASA is
better at doing something than someone else, when that someone else
hasn't been provided with any funding with which to do it. If they
had been given the money, and developed a bad track record, then you'd
have a point, but since that's not reality, it's nonsensical.

The only thing that NASA has shown itself to be "better" at so far is
getting large amounts of taxpayer dollars. We won't know if it's
"better" at anything else until someone else finds funding from some
source, and actually does some spaceflight with it, and we have an
actual basis of comparison.

gee rand, were did you work previous to owning your company, as many of
the private sector companies get very large government contracts, 25%
of which must then go to small business, but never the less it started
from tax payer dollars.
tom

in article , Eric Chomko
at wrote on 12/8/06 10:23 AM:

Rand Simberg wrote:

snip

The point is, that's no reason to prefer NASA over the private sector.

How about going into space vs. not going into space? I prefer going into space
and since NASA is the only one that is going into space, NASA wins by default.

Thank you, it was time to clean off my screen anyway.

George Evans

in article , Eric Chomko
at wrote on 12/8/06 10:28 AM:

Rand Simberg wrote:

On 8 Dec 2006 10:18:40 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Eric Chomko"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

snip

Been given money? By whom?

By everyone, you moron.

We'll start with you, imbecile. How much have you given to private
spaceflight?

And now my keyboard.

George Evans

George Evans wrote:
in article ,
columbiaaccidentinvestigation at
wrote on 12/8/06 7:25 AM:

George Evans wrote:

in article , Rand Simberg at
h wrote on 12/8/06 4:28 AM:

On Fri, 08 Dec 2006 04:39:51 GMT, in a place far, far away, George
Evans made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

snip

Because no one does it better, as can be seen by tonight's scrub.

What an absurd and illogical argument.

Nobody's been given money to attempt to do it better. And in fact, the
Russians do it better.

As Jorge just pointed out, the safety records are the same and NASA has done
far more in human space exploration. Putting that in the mix, there is no
comparison. NASA wins.

So george how do you rank on the caution scale? You see posting stuff, and
not taking responsibility for your own words is somewhat belligerent, but that
is if you choose not to answer.

I don't understand your responsibility point. Is it that I don't append long
quotes with long footnotes, like you do?

But I will answer your question. I am generally in awe of NASA's commitment
to launch criterion. I have never known another organization that is so
self-controlled. I think Thursday night I would have gone for it since the
cloud deck was hovering around 500 feet.

I also think I detected some irritation in NTD's voice which I accounted
frustration over the scrub. And I noticed the guys in the STA going to
heroic efforts to find a "hole in the clouds".

500 feet is obviously not a result of calculations. It's obviously an
estimate. It may be based on a calculation, in which case I would be
interested in the statistical analysis.

George Evans


George Evans

Here is some information on the performance requirements for manned
private launches, and how the safety analysis is depended upon a wind
weighted system for launch safety, commit criteria, and rules governing
the flight path.

http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-IMPA...y-25/i6743.htm
Flight Safety Analysis
"The performance requirements for a flight safety system and a wind-
weighting system are both located in subpart C. However, the
methodologies for meeting the performance requirements are different
for each system. Appendices A, B, and I contain the methodologies for a
flight safety system and Appendices B, C, and I contain the
methodologies for a wind-weighting system. All of the following
performance requirements adopt current range practices, as identified
through FAA consultation with range safety personnel. Below is a
description of each of the analyses that together constitute a flight
safety analysis. The results of a flight safety analysis using a flight
safety system or a wind-weighting safety system are then used to
establish rules governing when it is safe to launch, which are referred
to as flight commit criteria. A flight safety analysis using a flight
safety system also establishes rules governing the termination of
flight.

A trajectory analysis establishes, for any time after lift-off, the
limits of a launch vehicle's normal flight, as defined by the nominal
trajectory and potential three-sigma trajectory dispersions about the
nominal trajectory. The trajectory analysis must also establish a fuel
exhaustion trajectory and a straight up trajectory. A fuel exhaustion
trajectory produces instantaneous impact points with the greatest range
for any given time-after-liftoff for any stage that has the potential
to impact the Earth and does not burn to propellant depletion before a
programmed thrust termination. For example, a stage that fails to
terminate at its programmed thrust termination point will continue
flight until burnout if the stage contains residual fuel. A straight-up
trajectory projects the results that would occur if a launch vehicle
malfunctioned and flew in a vertical or near vertical direction above
the launch point."


tom

On Sat, 09 Dec 2006 17:49:06 GMT, George Evans
wrote:

in article , Fred J. McCall at
wrote on 12/8/06 8:58 AM:

snip

I always find it funny when 'private enterprise' fans scream that
their problem is that they don't get all that big government funding.

They don't seem to understand what 'private enterprise' is...

This is a very good point. Just to take one (probably silly) example, Bill
Gates in sitting on a pile of fake money about three times the size of
NASA's total annual budget. He might want the chance to make some of that
money real. I can see the pitch. Gatespace, mankind's Gatesway to the stars.


The fact that the poster says they haven't gotten the money doesn't mean
that the poster necessarily expects that money to come from government
sources.

As for Bill Gates, someone -- Henry Spencer, I think -- noted that he is
not interested in funding space launches. Paul Allen, now, might well be
interested in doing that. And in fact Allen has provided substantial funding
to Scaled Composites for the Spaceship One effort.

On Sat, 09 Dec 2006 19:02:20 GMT, in a place far, far away,
Christopher P. Winter made the
phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

On Sat, 09 Dec 2006 17:49:06 GMT, George Evans
wrote:

in article , Fred J. McCall at
wrote on 12/8/06 8:58 AM:

snip

I always find it funny when 'private enterprise' fans scream that
their problem is that they don't get all that big government funding.

This seems like a non sequitur, since no one has been "screaming," or
even saying, anything of the sort, at least in this thread.

I guess you find your own delusions, funny, Fred.

They don't seem to understand what 'private enterprise' is...

This is a very good point. Just to take one (probably silly) example, Bill
Gates in sitting on a pile of fake money about three times the size of
NASA's total annual budget. He might want the chance to make some of that
money real. I can see the pitch. Gatespace, mankind's Gatesway to the stars.


The fact that the poster says they haven't gotten the money doesn't mean
that the poster necessarily expects that money to come from government
sources.

In fact, I made no such assumption, and had no such expectation. In
facct, I wasn't even complaining about the lack of money. I was
simply stating it as fact, and one relevant to the nonsensical claim
that NASA does anything better than private enterprise, other than
getting money.

Rand Simberg wrote:"In fact, I made no such assumption, and had no such
expectation. In facct, I wasn't even complaining about the lack of
money. I was simply stating it as fact, and one relevant to the
nonsensical claim that NASA does anything better than private
enterprise, other than getting money"


Actually rand your above statement is an opinion, from you a person who
has a bias, ie you cannot offer up subjective opinions and state they
are fact without citation.

tom