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#11
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In article ,
Reed Snellenberger wrote: All three presidents of that era end up looking rather different than the popular beliefs would have it. You've obviously fished before -- because you sure know how to set a hook... :-) Okay, from memory -- my copy of the book is out on loan -- a very quick summary: JFK got "preeminence" (opening the New Frontier, not just going to the Moon) started, but backed away from it almost at once. Within a year or so, Webb was having to remind him that preeminence was his official policy and was strongly supported by Congress and wasn't consistent with refusing to fund long-lead preparations for post-Apollo projects. Toward the end, JFK was actively trying to dump everything but Apollo, and he wasn't even that enthusiastic about Apollo any more. LBJ really was pro-space, but although he strongly supported Apollo, he was willing pretty much from the start to dump most of the rest to keep the budget in line. One of his first acts as president was a budget compromise that cancelled plans for a near-term NERVA flight test, thus essentially conceding that post-Apollo plans would be seriously scaled back or seriously postponed or both. And Nixon, despite his evil reputation, seems to have been personally pro-space. Had his administration been run the way LBJ's was, space might have come out rather well under him. Trouble was, his administration was organized *very* differently, with layer after layer of underlings around him to insulate him from, well, most everything. Like most presidents, he didn't give space a high priority. With most presidents, that would mean that little of his time was spent on decisions about space; with Nixon, it meant that *none* of his time was spent on them. When Webb had a big fight with the budget people, it ended up in front of LBJ, but when the equivalent happened under Nixon, it happened two or three layers out from him, and not only was his opinion not asked, he never even heard about it. Even powerful and mightily unhappy Senators couldn't reach him. -- "Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer -- George Herbert | |
#12
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Henry Spencer wrote:
In article , Reed Snellenberger wrote: All three presidents of that era end up looking rather different than the popular beliefs would have it. You've obviously fished before -- because you sure know how to set a hook... :-) Okay, from memory -- my copy of the book is out on loan -- a very quick summary: snipping an excellent summary of the Presidents' positions... Thanks, Henry... I'm a little surprised that Kennedy would have been backing away from the space program already, but the timing is about right. The Mercury program had been completed in May '63 and both Gemini & Apollo were deeply into their "spending money like water without any flights to show for it" phases, so it's the most probable time for a politician's mind to ask "Why are we doing this, again?" -- Reed |
#13
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Reed Snellenberger wrote:
I'm a little surprised that Kennedy would have been backing away from the space program already, It's hard to back away from what one was never really close to. D. -- Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh. -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. Oct 5th, 2004 JDL |
#15
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....On a side note, D - e-mail me, please. I tried to contact you using
the address listed in your posts, and it bounced. 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 |
#16
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"Henry Spencer" wrote in message ... Just finished reading "To The End Of The Solar System: the story of the nuclear rocket", by James A. Dewar. It has occurred to more than one correspondent that chemical fuels lack the energy density needed for an aggressive deep space exploration. So a nuclear powered approach is the obvious alternative. I need to familiarize myself with these engines. It sounds like they were trying to use thermal energy to accelerate a gas, which is sort of a chemical engine approach all over again. Now that it is 40 years on, perhaps some new ideas such as a powerful ion drive or lasers (?) could use another look as the underlying motivation of getting more energy at work than is available through chemical fuels is worthwhile. |
#17
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On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 02:46:52 -0600, Revision wrote:
I need to familiarize myself with these engines. It sounds like they were trying to use thermal energy to accelerate a gas, which is sort of a chemical engine approach all over again. Ok... you familiarize yourself with concepts like that while the rest of us peruse the nuclear-electric deep space probes currently under design at NASA... If you want to join the rest of us instead of reinventing the power window you might reference Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) and the Neptune probe. p.s. The JIMO referenced is the nuclear-powered version, and not the byline-powered one. p.p.s. The current art for the Neptune probe actually shows the Boeing JIMO design...lot of that going round.... -- Chuck Stewart "Anime-style catgirls: Threat? Menace? Or just studying algebra?" |
#18
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In article , Revision k@tdot-com wrote:
I need to familiarize myself with these engines. It sounds like they were trying to use thermal energy to accelerate a gas, which is sort of a chemical engine approach all over again. Done better. The "chemical engine approach" has huge advantages; in particular, it permits a piece of machinery the size of a small car to handle gigawatts of power, by keeping almost all of that power at arm's length. The only problem with chemical rockets is inadequate energy content of the fuels, which a nuclear engine addresses. The biggest Rover/NERVA test engine had a reactor about the size of a VW, producing 5 GW -- the single most powerful nuclear reactor ever built. By comparison, a very large nuclear power station on Earth, probably weighing a hundred thousand tons or more, might produce 2-3 GW. That's the price you pay for abandoning thermal rockets (the "chemical engine approach"). perhaps some new ideas such as a powerful ion drive or lasers (?) could use another look as the underlying motivation of getting more energy at work than is available through chemical fuels is worthwhile. While ion drives do work, they inherently have pitifully low thrusts. Trying to make them do better requires a prohibitive mass of machinery to handle all the power. A true "solar system spaceship" needs both high thrust and low propellant consumption, and that combination of requirements means tremendous power output. Thermal rockets are the only known way to do that without excessive machinery mass. -- "Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer -- George Herbert | |
#19
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In article ,
OM om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_researc h_facility.org wrote: Based on all the recollections of JFK's visit to the Saturn I site, and those of his response to the Mercury successes, he was becoming a rather strong Astrobuff in his own right... There's precious little evidence of it in his political actions. Webb was having to fight hard to keep JFK from gutting post-Apollo projects. -- "Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer -- George Herbert | |
#20
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"Derek Lyons" wrote in message ... Techno-geeks of all stripes however tend to ignore these unsexy bits. According to a display at the National Atomic Museum many years ago, the US decided to rent a Russian space reactor to study, since the SP-100 wasn't working out. So far, no problem. After thoroughly studying it, it was time to ship it back. Big problem- can't export nuclear techology to the commies. The fact that it came *from* them in the first place was irrelevant. The reactor sat on the dock until a practical solution was arrived- the guards were asked to take a coffee break while the reactor was loaded. In short, rather than go through all the effort to create a special one-time exemption to the law, the law was blatantly ignored. After all, since the Russians invented the think, it's rather obvious that they won't learn anything new from it upon its return, and it was their property. |
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