Bush boldly going...

Ool wrote:

I hate you! So what are you even doing here? Shouldn't you be out
there eliminating poverty or something, with all those trillions that
are being wasted in space while people are starving of global warming?


Maybe he wants to do it in ways that need cheap access to space - while
at the same time not caring about silly flags and footprints missions
to Moon?

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

"Sander Vesik" wrote in message ...
Ool wrote:

I hate you! So what are you even doing here? Shouldn't you be out
there eliminating poverty or something, with all those trillions that
are being wasted in space while people are starving of global warming?

Maybe he wants to do it in ways that need cheap access to space - while
at the same time not caring about silly flags and footprints missions
to Moon?

Well, none of these things are important. Just the Lunar oxygen is.
No cheap trips anywhere without refueling stations in orbit! Or with-
out radiation shielding out of Lunar materials. You want to launch
all you need up into space from Earth??

Without that Mars, if it ever happens, will be just another flag and
footprints mission--half a dozen trips and then no more. With the
difference, of course, that even the footprints won't remain...


--
__ “A good leader knows when it’s best to ignore the __
('__` screams for help and focus on the bigger picture.� '__`)
//6(6; ©OOL mmiv :^)^\\
`\_-/ http://home.t-online.de/home/ulrich....lmann/redbaron \-_/'

"Ool" wrote in news:bvfvba$dkf$01$1
@news.t-online.com:

I DON'T CARE ABOUT ECONOMICS!

Eventually you will.

Well, yeah. No profits would lead to just another flag-planting.

Economic principles are somewhat like the laws of physics. One can attempt
to ignore them, but all one will earn from one's efforts is a prompt and
rude reminder that reality sets its own rules.


--
Coridon Henshaw - http://www3.telus.net/csbh - "I have sadly come to the
conclusion that the Bush administration will go to any lengths to deny
reality." -- Charley Reese

AND WOULD HE DROP IT LIKE A HOT POTATO ON THE FIRST DAY OF HIS SECOND
TERM?

If it even lasts that long.


What alternative is there to a Moon/Mars Program besides ending the Manned
Space Program?

By 2009 the shuttle will be on its last missions and bny 2010 it will be
retired. Are opponents going to say let's unretire the Shuttle and have it do
....

A Moon/Mars program contains milestones with which to measure progress.
Currently NASA launches a shuttle and it has to think of something to put in
it.Something that's not too expensive that fits in the cargo bay.

"We've got X shuttle launches budgeted for year Y. We've got to fill them with
something, any ideas?"

"I got one, have we done rabbits in orbit yet? I'm not sure anyone has tried to
find out if rabbits can breed in conditions of weightlessness. We did a similar
experiment with guinea pigs, but not with rabbits"

"Excellent idea, we can launch a bunch of rabbit cages to the ISS. That covers
the first flight of year Y, how about the second flight?"

"I got one, how about whether birds can adapt to weightlessness. I'm curious to
see how they manage to move about in their cages"

"How about this, has anyone managed to make an alloy of gold and aluminum? Gold
is very heavy and aluminum is light, one would think that those two metals
would not mix under ordinary circumstances. We should try mixing those two
metals together in orbit and bring them down to Earth"

"Great Idea! One more shuttle mission to cover for fiscal year Y and we're
done..."

Is this the sort of manned space program that you'd like?

Tom

NASA has had a history of
abandoning almost every major space project before
completion. They abandoned the Apollo missions with
three missions left undone, Skylab was abandoned to
crash uncontrolled.

Mission planners failed to take the opportunities tha Apollo presented while it
lasted, NASA had this idea of building a Shuttle to lower costs, we've tried
that, now its back to the Moon. I think NASA should have stuck with the Moon,
but we can still go back. NASA should build Lunar Vehicles and buy launches
into orbit from private companies with commercial launchers. A market for
launches already exists, NASAs task should be to expand that market by
increasing the demand for launches, one way to do this is to build vehicles
that start in Low Earth Orbit and go to the Moon. NASA should design, develop,
build and test this vehicle to make sure that it works and it should give the
design, specs, dimensions, and mass of this vehicle so the private companies
can build launchers to lift it into orbit. NASA should have no part in desiging
or building these launch vehicles and leave it up to corporate ingenuity. NASA
should go with a number of different launch companies and which ever delivers
greater value to orbit NASA should prefer. This will spark innovation and
competition and spur the development on lower cost transport to orbit through
competition. NASA should not select a launch company till their vehicle is
built and tested, and each mission will be compeditively bided on by the launch
companies. There shouldn't be a Shuttle replacement per se, designed by NASA
under a government program, NASA should instead be the customer, whose launch
requirements need to be met by private enterprises seeking a share in NASAs
business. Now the qusetion remaining is should the competion be restricted to
American companies only, or should Russian and Chinese firms be allowed to
compete.

I think international competion would force US launches to become more
compeditive and would serve to lower the cost to orbit over time. It shouldn't
be NASA's job to provide business to American companies, their concern should
be primarily to get into space. If US companies want a piece of this action,
they'd better be compeditive.

Tom

I'd like to hear some good news, too, of a nation not defining their
own value through their enemies without, real or perceived. Timothy
McVeigh wasn't a Palestinian or a Muslim, and neither were those kids
who shot up their school before killing themselves. When a country
spends an inordinate amount of money on their military rather than on
peaceful exploration that's exactly what they do, however.


Who's to say we spend an inordinate amount of money on our military? The fact
that an attack got through means that we did not spend enough. Your country
taught us of the danger of not spending enough on our military. You had good
tiger tanks and we had crappy Shermans, because those were all we could produce
quickly on short notice. We had to sacrifice an number of Sherman tanks to
destroy each one of your Tigers. Our tank crews were expendible, and had to be
expended to destroy your tanks. Germany made the investment in the 1930s of
building better tanks and the US did not, we had two years to prepare before
meeting your army and alot of our weapon systems were quickly cobbled together.
We had to use numerical superiority to defeat your army's quality. Now if your
country didn't try to conquer the world and spread itself thin, it would have
been well prepared if Stalin tried to invade Western Europe. If Russia started
World War II, the German Armies could have beaten them back easily, that would
have been more than sufficient to discourage any future attack on Germany. The
United States doesn't want to conquer the World, we just want to be left alone
and not attacked. Our armed forces must be formidable enough to discourage
these would be attackers by letting them know that something bad is going to
happen if they tried. Apparently that message hasn't gotten out to some Arab
groups so I guess our armed forces aren't massive enough to discourage them, or
perhaps they aren't visible enough.
Nobody has seen a nuclear explosion in a long time, perhaps our nuclear arsenal
was forgotten about by the teaming, illiterate masses of the Middle East.
Perhaps an open air test of a hydrogen bomb at a safe, but easy viewing
distance from some troublesome countries would be sufficient. Too many Arabs
think having nuclear weapons would be a great thing, if they do get them, that
will cause us to target their cities and installations with our missiles, it
mostly means that alot of Arabs will die, if one of their deranged lunatics
detonates a device in one of our cities. We can lose a city or too and still
get our nuclear revenge on them. The people in Iran should be worrying about
what is going to happen to them, if their government gets nukes. Can they trust
their government not to match their religious zeal with deeds, there motto is
after all "Death to America!" That is presumably why they want nuclear bombs.
Perhaps they can kill alot of Americans, but Iran will pay a fatal price if
they try, but maybe those religious Mullahs don't care about their own survival
and think they are on a mission from God to destroy America. I hope some
Iranians aren't as ready to die as their leaders are, and that perhaps they'll
do something aboput it besides protest.

The border between East and West Germany was called the "Anti-Fascist
Rampart" by the East. That was its official name--at a time when
there were no more Fascist states left and they were the ones using
the most Fascist methods.

Also from the fact alone that the others are the bad guys you can't
derive the conclusion that you're the good guys, as the War between
Nazis and Commies proves.


Nobodies perfect, however some are clearly evil. The US had poor race relations
with its black minorities when it defeated your country in World War II.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was a racist and an anti-semite, he sent Jewish refugees
back to Germany to be exterminated. America's World War II army was stricly
segregated along racial lines, yet that army was still needed to defeat yours.
What if we didn't, what if instead we looked inward to perfect our society and
as a consequence let Hitler do whatever he wanted in Europe? George S. Patton
was a bigot, supposed he was removed and replaced with a more fair-minded
General who was less competent in the Battlefield, Maybe Rommel would win, and
fully intergrated US army soldiers would be POWs with some racial minorities
sent to Death Camps. We wouldn't be doing our soldiers a favor by intergrating
them if they lose the War. Also where were the women?

Tom
So it would be nice if the US could prove that they really *are* the
good guys and do extraordinary things within their system of "Truth,
Justice, and the American Way," and not just define themselves as the
Light Side of the Force because some deranged people are out to hurt
them occasionally. Heck, even Hitler had a close shave with a loner-
type's assassination attempt once. Does that prove anything?


The Black Orchestra did not have enough religious fanatics to kill Hitler with.
Usually they relied on things like timed bombs where the timing was wrong or
the fuses were defective. A Palestinian suicide bomber could have been really
useful here, but they don't work on the side of good.

Tom

"TKalbfus" wrote in message ...

I think international competion would force US launches to become more
compeditive and would serve to lower the cost to orbit over time. It shouldn't
be NASA's job to provide business to American companies, their concern should
be primarily to get into space. If US companies want a piece of this action,
they'd better be compeditive.


The problem with competing for bids to get people into orbit is that
the demand is limited to few flights, and then there's the safety is-
sue... I think a good way to do it would be for NASA to concentrate
on bringing just the people to the Moon and back, reliably and safely.
Just as they've done before.

The rest, i.e. getting all the cargo up and the re-supplies is busi-
ness they ought to leave to private companies. Since much equipment
would have to be sent ahead of the first people, private companies
have a long time to prove that they can do it. They should be paid
only if they're successful, of course and they should be guaranteed a
piece of the cake once they are. No one who can do it at a reasonable
price should be left out.

But NASA would have to be the coordinating nexus of the project.
They'd have to do the science with rovers and robots to figure out
where to go first and what kind of geology to expect there and what to
do with it. They can then either work on factories to process raw ma-
terials into useful products on their own or leave this to the private
sector as well. But private companies should get a chance to build
them and to transport them and remotely operate them and eventually
get a share of the profits if the mining ever has a chance of becoming
profitable.

A manned base should be, above all, the shelter for a maintenance crew
for these projects. Science unrelated to the industrial expansion
they can do, too, of course, but that should not be their main job de-
scription until the Moon pays off one day and companies can send their
own people.



--
__ “A good leader knows when it’s best to ignore the __
('__` screams for help and focus on the bigger picture.� '__`)
//6(6; ©OOL mmiv :^)^\\
`\_-/ http://home.t-online.de/home/ulrich....lmann/redbaron \-_/'

"John Savard" wrote in message
...

The Superconducting Supercollider was torpedoed at the point when a
place to build it had to be decided upon.

You are mistaken here. Perhaps you have forgotten.
Perhaps you never saw any of the images of the size
of the existing excavation. Not only was a place to build
it decided - but the construction had long since begun
before it was decided to abandon it.

NASA does what the President of the USA tells it to do.

Since JFK/LBJ, the USA hasn't had any presidents with an
interest in space exploration - you know, "the vision thing".



Until now. Once NASA is pointed in the right direction, its going to take
considerable effort to point it in another direction. What direction would you
point it toward instead? Why is the fact the people should travel in space up
for debate in the 21st century, isn't it about time?

Tom

The United States does not have a Parliamentary system of government.
Instead, the President is elected separately from members of Congress.
The positions of House and Senate Majority Leader have only limited
real power.


People here will resist any attempt to take the power to elect the President
away from the people. I don't understand why the Parlimentary system attempts
to join legislators and the chief executive at the hip. People are individuals,
whether they belong to the same party or not. Some politicians are deceitful
and some are honest. Don't some people in Canada resent having to sometimes
elect Representative 'Scumbag' in order to get the Prime Minister they want?

Tom