Angry Astronauts Write Letter

Took 'em long enough. How long has Constellation been off the table,
now?

On Apr 13, 7:28*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
They do not like the new space plans, they do not like them Obama-I-Am:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36470363/ns/nightly_news/
And yet another letter from the NASA Space Cowboys accusing the
president of confusing his mass with his ass, his angle with his dangle,
and being a no-good dirt farmer trying to fence in the high frontier:http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/new...estuff/?p=4052
No word about how Big Chuck Bolden of the Lazy Star Ranch will deal with
this stampede by the old NASA longhorns, but it's going to take a mighty
big lasso to bring all these runaway doggies to heel.

Pat

Fear not Pat these were not the real astronauts rather these
letters came from the retired NASA chimponauts. They just
learned to shave and have had a bit work done on
their faces such that they look like old men.

As soon as we stop fussing about the letter, will someone please
provide a link to the letter itself? I have a deviant, childish need
to see what they said before I comment on it.

Thanks.

On 4/14/2010 10:13 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:

It would be interesting to know if any of them are currently on some sort
of aerospace related company payroll in one way or another.
The president does have one supporter for his space plan though; that
madcap dancer, Buzz Aldrin.

Buzz is an attention whore; always has been, always will be.

James Oberg has sided with Buzz and the Prez on this one:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36476183...science-space/
I don't know if this means he will be on next season's "Dancing With
The Stars" or not.

Pat

On 4/14/2010 11:17 AM, Damien Valentine wrote:
Took 'em long enough. How long has Constellation been off the table,
now?

It may have been off the table, but it hadn't been fed to the dogs yet.
And Momma Armstrong reminded everyone that in India people are starving
for a manned space program, and look how we are leaving ours on our plate.
Aren't we feeling guilty about all this?
Well, we should be.
Buzz, you get away from that dog right now...I know it's hungry Buzz,
but it has dog food to eat; it doesn't need that expensive piece of
pork. ;-)

Pat

On 4/14/2010 5:53 PM, wrote:
As soon as we stop fussing about the letter, will someone please
provide a link to the letter itself? I have a deviant, childish need
to see what they said before I comment on it.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36470363

Pat

"OM" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 14 Apr 2010 14:13:09 -0400, "Jeff Findley"
wrote:

Buzz is an attention whore; always has been, always will be.

...Maybe, but unlike most of today's attention whores, he at least
draws attention to a *good* cause. I'd take Buzz over Paris, Britney
or any of the other attention *whores* society tends to wank off at
the sight of these days.

I'm not for continuing Ares I and Ares V as they are today. I'd live with a
compromise which develops a "heavy lift" vehicle somewhere between the two
in size, preferably using the shuttle's proven 4 segment SRB's rather than
the new, not flight proven, five segment SRB's that ATK was developing. It
looks like such a compromise may be emerging.

An even better compromise would be to drop the SRB's altogether and switch
to an all liquid launcher derived from Atlas V or Delta IV technology rather
than from the much older shuttle/Saturn technology. Have the two existing
commercial providers come up with prototype designs for such an HLV and have
a fly-off between the two to pick the winner. NASA oversight would be fine,
but a NASA designed launch vehicle just doesn't make sense to me. NASA
hasn't designed anything like an HLV since the shuttle, and it was primarily
designed in the 70's. They're seriously out of touch with the state of the
art in launcher technologies. This lack of knowledge of the state of the
art technologies is particularly visible in their upper stage design
decisions for Ares I and Ares V.

Jeff
--
"Take heart amid the deepening gloom
that your dog is finally getting enough cheese" - Deteriorata - National
Lampoon

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...
An even better compromise would be to drop the SRB's altogether and switch
to an all liquid launcher derived from Atlas V or Delta IV technology
rather than from the much older shuttle/Saturn technology. Have the two
existing commercial providers come up with prototype designs for such an
HLV and have a fly-off between the two to pick the winner. NASA oversight
would be fine, but a NASA designed launch vehicle just doesn't make sense
to me. NASA hasn't designed anything like an HLV since the shuttle, and
it was primarily designed in the 70's. They're seriously out of touch
with the state of the art in launcher technologies. This lack of
knowledge of the state of the art technologies is particularly visible in
their upper stage design decisions for Ares I and Ares V.

I spotted this summary of what's in the current proposed "plan" from the
Administration.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/pdf/n100413-space.pdf

I'm encouraged by the section on a "Heavy Lift Rocket" this:

Developing a Heavy Lift Rocket, with a Specific Decision in 2015,
to Expand Our Reach in Space: To demonstrate a concrete timetable
and commitment for expanding human exploration further, the
President is announcing that, in addition to investing in
transformative heavy-lift technologies, he will commit to making
a specific decision in 2015 on the development of a new heavy-lift
rocket architecture. This new rocket would eventually lift future
deep-space spacecraft to enable humans to expand our reach toward
Mars and the rest of the Solar System. This new rocket would take
advantage of the new technology investments proposed in the budget
– primarily a $3.1 billion investment over five years on heavy-lift
R&D. This propulsion R&D effort will include development of a U.S.
first-stage hydrocarbon engine for potential use in future heavy
lift (and other) launch systems, as well as basic research in areas
such as new propellants, advanced propulsion materials
manufacturing techniques, combustion processes, and engine health
monitoring, all of which are expected to shorten the development
time for any future heavy-lift rocket. The new rocket also will
benefit from the budget’s proposed R&D on other breakthrough
technologies in our new strategy for human exploration (such as
in-space refueling), which should make possible a more cost-
effective and optimized heavy lift capability as part of future
exploration architectures. A decision in 2015 means that major
work on building a new heavy lift rocket will likely begin two
years sooner than under the troubled Constellation program.

The US truly needs to develop a new high thrust LOX/kerosene engine. Atlas
V currently uses a Russian LOX/kerosene engine because there simply is no
current US engine which is suitable.

Also, I like this because it looks like the "plan" gives NASA the green
light to ditch ATK's large segmented rocket boosters once and for all.

Jeff
--
"Take heart amid the deepening gloom
that your dog is finally getting enough cheese" - Deteriorata - National
Lampoon

On 4/15/2010 7:02 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:



An even better compromise would be to drop the SRB's altogether and switch
to an all liquid launcher derived from Atlas V or Delta IV technology rather
than from the much older shuttle/Saturn technology.

They have potential growth versions of the Delta IV designed that go
clean up to Saturn V sized LEO payloads.
But there's a problem here...unless you intend to go back to the Moon or
onto Mars...or build a follow-up to the ISS, there's no reason to
develop a heavy lift booster.
I don't know how much real excitement there is for throwing tax dollars
at programs to do any of those missions, once people see what the price
tag is like for them.

Pat

Well, Neil Armstrong's space travelling days are likely over in any
case.

Other astronauts came out earlier praising Obama for producing a more
reasonable plan, more likely to actually get us to Mars. This I could
have believed as having some merit, because long-term bipartisan
funding is needed.

It's all too easy to feel that if some astronauts say one thing, and
some the opposite, then it just depends on whether they vote Democrat
or Republican. But obviously one would rather have more effort in
space exploration rather than less.

But I saw a news item later today that has Obama saying that in the
2030s we would have an *Apollo 10* mission to Mars. Orbit it, then
return safely to Earth. Yes, with real astronauts.

Gratuitous radiation exposure... and, of course, Apollo 10 was
somewhat wasteful; in the case of Mars, it would be insanely so.
Missions to the Moon before going to Mars are a far more reasonable
intermediate step to confirm that the space capability really works.
So in this one respect - hopefully easily correctable - he has made
things worse, not better.

John Savard