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Minimum Number of Rocket Designs
"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message
... "The Ruzicka Family" wrote in : Who knows? Maybe with all of the budget cutbacks due to Bush's "vision" thing for the Moon and Mars, they may have mothballed the California site. Was the political cheap shot really necessary? I do not believe it added anything productive to the discourse here. Furthermore, it is a false statement. For the record, Bush has *increased* NASA's budget each year of his administration. *If* his proposed 5.6% increase for this year is approved, he will have succeeded in restoring most of what Clinton *cut* from NASA's budget, once inflation is factored in. This was by no means a "cheap shot." Sure, the overall budget has been increased, but the vast majority of it, as well as other funds, will be directed towards the new initiative. Even O'Keefe has stated that some other programs will need to be cut back or canceled, due to NASA's "new direction." Many astronomers and other scientists have also voiced concern. If we're not careful, it'll end up like Reagan's SDI dream. We'll pour huge amounts of money into it and end up with little. Don't get me wrong here. I'd dearly love to see us go back to the Moon and onward someday to Mars. But Bush's vision is rather lacking in substance. What needs to be done is put forward a plan that's backed by both parties, so that no matter who's in office one, five, ten, or twenty years from now, there might be a better chance of continuation. Bush didn't bother to do that. He simply mouthed his grand vision of where he (or his advisors) thinks we should go, to look cool, without much in-depth foundations. As for the "cuts" that Clinton made to NASA, please remember where the federal budget comes from: Congress. All any President can do is suggest something and then either accept or veto the budget bill. And during a significant portion of Clinton's presidency, it was the GOP that was calling the shots in Congress, including allocations to NASA. If I were to really want to make a cheap shot, I'd have called to attention Bush's severe lack of intelligence or education. Maybe like surmise that Bush would want us to launch during a full Moon, to increase our chances of hitting the target! Of course, I admit to being opinionated when it comes to Bush, and I truly don't want to start a flame war. But just because you may not like my opinion on something, that does not make it a "cheap shot." P. Ruzicka |
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Minimum Number of Rocket Designs
On or about Mon, 14 Jun 2004 17:31:12 -0700 (PDT), Jorge R. Frank
made the sensational claim that: ...the key word being "land". That's one big reason why the Kourou site won't support the manned Soyuz, at least without some kind of upgrade to allow water landings. What sort of upgrades would a soyuz need for a water landing? -- This is a siggy | To E-mail, do note | Just because something It's properly formatted | who you mean to reply-to | is possible, doesn't No person, none, care | and it will reach me | mean it can happen |
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Minimum Number of Rocket Designs
"The Ruzicka Family" wrote in
: "Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message ... "The Ruzicka Family" wrote in : Who knows? Maybe with all of the budget cutbacks due to Bush's "vision" thing for the Moon and Mars, they may have mothballed the California site. Was the political cheap shot really necessary? I do not believe it added anything productive to the discourse here. Furthermore, it is a false statement. For the record, Bush has *increased* NASA's budget each year of his administration. *If* his proposed 5.6% increase for this year is approved, he will have succeeded in restoring most of what Clinton *cut* from NASA's budget, once inflation is factored in. This was by no means a "cheap shot." Sure, the overall budget has been increased, but the vast majority of it, as well as other funds, will be directed towards the new initiative. Incorrect. I am talking about the increase in the NASA budget *since Bush took office*. The first three Bush budgets *preceded* the initiative, so the increases in those budgets are unconnected to it. And regarding the proposed increase ($866 million) in *this* year's budget, fully *seven eighths* of it ($757 million) is to cover space shuttle return-to-flight modifications and ISS costs. Only the remaining eighth of it is additional funding for the new initiative. Source: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/55524main_FY...mmary-2.31.pdf Even O'Keefe has stated that some other programs will need to be cut back or canceled, due to NASA's "new direction." So far, those cuts are mainly to the Shuttle Life Extension Program (SLEP) and the Orbital Space Plane (OSP). Which makes perfect sense, since Project Constellation will eventually replace both. Many astronomers and other scientists have also voiced concern. Based on very little evidence. The proposed FY05 budget *increases* funding for space science, biological & physical research, and education. The overall budget for exploration, science, and aeronautics is down slightly ($7.831 billion to $7.76 billion), but only due to the elimination of $287 million in Congressional earmarks (read: pork) from the previous budget. Source: ibid Don't get me wrong here. I'd dearly love to see us go back to the Moon and onward someday to Mars. You sure don't behave that way. You are judging the plan based on your personal prejudice against the president, not by any of the actual elements of the plan. But Bush's vision is rather lacking in substance. Bush's plan is all of five months old. At this point, the plan has *far* more substance than Project Apollo did five months after Kennedy proposed landing men on the moon. As for the "cuts" that Clinton made to NASA, please remember where the federal budget comes from: Congress. No, the *budget* comes from the president. During the Clinton years, Congress generally gave Clinton what he asked for, and often added more. All any President can do is suggest something and then either accept or veto the budget bill. And during a significant portion of Clinton's presidency, it was the GOP that was calling the shots in Congress, including allocations to NASA. Clinton's first two budgets passed while the Democrats still controlled both houses. Those two budgets cut NASA by 10.3%, adjusted for inflation. The first two budgets *after* the Republicans took control of Congress *increased* NASA by 3.5%, also adjusted for inflation. Sources: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget...s/hist04z1.xls http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget...s/hist10z1.xls Of course, I admit to being opinionated when it comes to Bush, and I truly don't want to start a flame war. But just because you may not like my opinion on something, that does not make it a "cheap shot." I don't call your opinions cheap shots just because I don't like them. I call them cheap shots because they are mostly, if not completely, unsupported by actual facts, and I've provided verifiable references to prove it. You have provided no references to back up your assertions, nor have you provided any refutation to mine. You respond only with venom worthy of sci.space.policy rather than this so-called moderated group. You are the one initiating the flame war here. If you truly don't want one, you can either start backing up your assertions, or stop making them. -- JRF Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail, check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and think one step ahead of IBM. |
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Minimum Number of Rocket Designs
LooseChanj wrote in
om: On or about Mon, 14 Jun 2004 17:31:12 -0700 (PDT), Jorge R. Frank made the sensational claim that: ...the key word being "land". That's one big reason why the Kourou site won't support the manned Soyuz, at least without some kind of upgrade to allow water landings. What sort of upgrades would a soyuz need for a water landing? Looking back over my reference, I probably misunderstood: the article mentions only upgrades to search-and-rescue capabilities, not the spacecraft. That doesn't mean that Soyuz wouldn't need mods, just that the article doesn't say one way or the other. http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd...rtrow=11&da t e=2004-05-31&do_alert=0 "However, Russian experts see another more important disadvantage to launching manned ISS missions from Kourou: it is unsuitable for search and rescue operations. No matter how reliable a launch vehicle might be, an emergency is always possible and Russian search and rescue techniques are mostly for land operations. The emergency landing area for a spacecraft launched from Kourou will most likely be at sea." -- JRF Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail, check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and think one step ahead of IBM. |
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Minimum Number of Rocket Designs
Jorge R. Frank wrote:
...the key word being "land". That's one big reason why the Kourou site won't support the manned Soyuz, at least without some kind of upgrade to allow water landings. It already has that capability, but the Russians consider it as a emergency back-up for the more convenient land touchdown. Soyuz cosmonauts are given training for emergency water landing though. Look what I found: http://www.spaceref.com/iss/soyuz/SCLSaB.edit.pdf Emergency recovery instructions for a Soyuz if it comes down on U.S. territory, or in U.S. coastal waters. Pat |
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Minimum Number of Rocket Designs
This was by no means a "cheap shot." Sure, the overall budget has been
increased, but the vast majority of it, as well as other funds, will be directed towards the new initiative. Incorrect. I am talking about the increase in the NASA budget *since Bush took office*. The first three Bush budgets *preceded* the initiative, so the increases in those budgets are unconnected to it. And regarding the proposed increase ($866 million) in *this* year's budget, fully *seven eighths* of it ($757 million) is to cover space shuttle return-to-flight modifications and ISS costs. Only the remaining eighth of it is additional funding for the new initiative. You are quite correct there. I did indeed misspeak. The lion's share is indeed for shuttle return to flight. But in effect, that makes it worse. For an initiative that will cost billions of dollars, the paltry amount set aside in the increase is far from what is needed to fully fund the new initiative. If they're really going to follow Bush's "plan", where do you think the remaining money will come from? Existing programs. So far, those cuts are mainly to the Shuttle Life Extension Program (SLEP) and the Orbital Space Plane (OSP). Which makes perfect sense, since Project Constellation will eventually replace both. OSP is dead. With any luck, CEV will take its place, but NASA has a REALLY bad track record in developing new vehicles. Based on very little evidence. The proposed FY05 budget *increases* funding for space science, biological & physical research, and education. The overall budget for exploration, science, and aeronautics is down slightly ($7.831 billion to $7.76 billion), but only due to the elimination of $287 million in Congressional earmarks (read: pork) from the previous budget. Only time will tell. What is "pork" to one person might not be to another. Again though, this points out that the President doesn't really make the budget. Don't get me wrong here. I'd dearly love to see us go back to the Moon and onward someday to Mars. You sure don't behave that way. You are judging the plan based on your personal prejudice against the president, not by any of the actual elements of the plan. No, I am judging his "plan" based upon about 20 years in the aerospace industry, working on, and helping design, major launch vehicle programs such as Atlas, Titan and Shuttle. I think I have a better idea of what it takes to create a man-rated vehicle than Bush. But Bush's vision is rather lacking in substance. Bush's plan is all of five months old. At this point, the plan has *far* more substance than Project Apollo did five months after Kennedy proposed landing men on the moon. Granted, the Apollo program also did not start out with a great deal of substance. That's probably a good reason why we had a lot of false starts and failures early on, developing vehicles. We also ended up throwing a TON of money into it, which is something we can not afford to do now. As for the "cuts" that Clinton made to NASA, please remember where the federal budget comes from: Congress. No, the *budget* comes from the president. During the Clinton years, Congress generally gave Clinton what he asked for, and often added more. No, all budgeting and financial enactments have to originate from Congress. That's the way it works. The President proposes a budget and Congress can fully accept it, throw it out and write their own, or do something in between. Congress gave Clinton some of what he wanted during the first 2 years, but after that, not much. All any President can do is suggest something and then either accept or veto the budget bill. And during a significant portion of Clinton's presidency, it was the GOP that was calling the shots in Congress, including allocations to NASA. Clinton's first two budgets passed while the Democrats still controlled both houses. Those two budgets cut NASA by 10.3%, adjusted for inflation. The first two budgets *after* the Republicans took control of Congress *increased* NASA by 3.5%, also adjusted for inflation. Again, the President does NOT make the budget. He merely proposes one. All budgeting powers reside within Congress. Of course, I admit to being opinionated when it comes to Bush, and I truly don't want to start a flame war. But just because you may not like my opinion on something, that does not make it a "cheap shot." I don't call your opinions cheap shots just because I don't like them. I call them cheap shots because they are mostly, if not completely, unsupported by actual facts, and I've provided verifiable references to prove it. You have provided no references to back up your assertions, nor have you provided any refutation to mine. You respond only with venom worthy of sci.space.policy rather than this so-called moderated group. You are the one initiating the flame war here. If you truly don't want one, you can either start backing up your assertions, or stop making them. Fair enough. I'll be happy to see what I can come up with. However, I do not consider references from Bush (ie White House) to be totally unbiased. Every administration tends to put a spin on things to make themselves look better. Even Clinton's administration did this (oops! I guess I shouldn't say that since I must be a total Bush-basher!). But no, I did not start any flame war here. I originally stated my opinion about something, and you came back calling it a cheap shot. It was not. It was a valid opinion based on many years of experience in the aerospace industry. Maybe you have even more experience than that. That's great! You're entitled to your opinion as well. The bottom line is: only time will tell if Bush's "plan" will go anywhere. It's really easy for a president to say "let's go to Mars!" It's a lot harder to actually do it reasonably. |
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Minimum Number of Rocket Designs
Jim Kingdon wrote in message ...
I understood that the one in california was no longer available and the literature mentions no other landing sites. Can you give the names of these sites so I can do some research. Well the highlights a Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Now the most commonly used site, but in the early days of shuttle few shuttles landed here, as the runway is concrete and of limited size (contrast with the dry lakebeds, which are rather more forgiving if you overrun them). Landing here means you don't need to ship the shuttle across country, which adds about $1 million in the case of an Edwards landing. Edwards Air Force Base, California. Has been used for dozens of landings, including most of them in the early years. White Sands, New Mexico. One shuttle has landed he http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/chron/sts-3.htm The gypsum that it landed on turned out to gum up the works more than expected. Here's a list of possible landing sites from 1993: http://www.angelfire.com/fl/Jacqmans/landing.html Here's a list of TAL sites from 2001 (and a description of what TAL is): http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/nasafact/tal.htm There's a nice page http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/...ty/sts-els.htm Undated, but seems to roughly match the KSC page where they overlap. Nice page at: http://yarchive.net/space/shuttle/sh...ing_sites.html which claims that the list of emergency sites is confidential (! - I'm curious about what "confidential" would really mean here). (Most of these were the top hits from a web search for "shuttle landing sites", so you wouldn't have had to look very far, just FYI). I wasnt after potential capabilities but designated landing sites, but thank you for yor response. |
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Minimum Number of Rocket Designs
"The Ruzicka Family" wrote in
: This was by no means a "cheap shot." Sure, the overall budget has been increased, but the vast majority of it, as well as other funds, will be directed towards the new initiative. Incorrect. I am talking about the increase in the NASA budget *since Bush took office*. The first three Bush budgets *preceded* the initiative, so the increases in those budgets are unconnected to it. And regarding the proposed increase ($866 million) in *this* year's budget, fully *seven eighths* of it ($757 million) is to cover space shuttle return-to-flight modifications and ISS costs. Only the remaining eighth of it is additional funding for the new initiative. You are quite correct there. I did indeed misspeak. The lion's share is indeed for shuttle return to flight. But in effect, that makes it worse. For an initiative that will cost billions of dollars, the paltry amount set aside in the increase is far from what is needed to fully fund the new initiative. If they're really going to follow Bush's "plan", where do you think the remaining money will come from? Existing programs. That is a *feature*, not a bug. There is *no* political support, either in Congress or the public at large, for huge increases in NASA's budget. Indeed, Congress is appearing to balk at the relatively paltry 5.6% increase proposed for *this* year. You claim to "dearly love to see us go back to the Moon and onward someday to Mars." You also claim to want "a plan that's backed by both parties". Well, the only plan that can satisfy both of those constraints is the one on the table right now. To be politically viable, *any* new NASA initiative *must* "fit within the moldlines" of the existing NASA budget. By definition, that means at the expense of existing programs: OSP and SLEP now, the space shuttle in 2010, and ISS in 2016. Since the bulk of the funding "wedge" is not freed up until the shuttle retires, that forces the new initiative to follow a "go slow" approach until then. *That's* a feature, too - it means that Bush's successor can reverse it, and preserve the shuttle program if he so chooses. Based on very little evidence. The proposed FY05 budget *increases* funding for space science, biological & physical research, and education. The overall budget for exploration, science, and aeronautics is down slightly ($7.831 billion to $7.76 billion), but only due to the elimination of $287 million in Congressional earmarks (read: pork) from the previous budget. Only time will tell. What is "pork" to one person might not be to another. By definition, earmarks are appropriations that the agency in question (NASA in this case) did not ask for. NASA definitely considers them pork. No, I am judging his "plan" based upon about 20 years in the aerospace industry, working on, and helping design, major launch vehicle programs such as Atlas, Titan and Shuttle. Well, that sure trumps my 17 years in the space shuttle program. Not. I think I have a better idea of what it takes to create a man-rated vehicle than Bush. Bush doesn't need to know how to create the vehicle, any more than Kennedy needed to know how to create Apollo/Saturn. Bush is asking NASA to create it. Or more precisely, he will have NASA ask industry (most likely the same companies you and I have worked for) to create it. But Bush's vision is rather lacking in substance. Bush's plan is all of five months old. At this point, the plan has *far* more substance than Project Apollo did five months after Kennedy proposed landing men on the moon. Granted, the Apollo program also did not start out with a great deal of substance. That's probably a good reason why we had a lot of false starts and failures early on, developing vehicles. We also ended up throwing a TON of money into it, which is something we can not afford to do now. The main reason we ended up throwing a ton of money into Apollo was that the program had a tight deadline, which trumped all other considerations. "Waste anything but time" was the key phrase at NASA during that period. It forced a number of design decisions that made Apollo more expensive, and less sustainable, than a slower, more deliberate approach would have been. Bush's plan does not repeat this mistake. It is designed to fit within NASA's existing budget, with no huge "spikes" in spending like the one Apollo required in the 1964-70 period. Aside from that, it's refreshing to see you at least acknowledging that we cannot afford large NASA budget increases. Kinda hard to square with your complaints above about the paltry increase Bush is requesting. As for the "cuts" that Clinton made to NASA, please remember where the federal budget comes from: Congress. No, the *budget* comes from the president. During the Clinton years, Congress generally gave Clinton what he asked for, and often added more. No, all budgeting and financial enactments have to originate from Congress. That's the way it works. The President proposes a budget and Congress can fully accept it, throw it out and write their own, or do something in between. Congress gave Clinton some of what he wanted during the first 2 years, but after that, not much. This paragraph is, at best, a half-truth. Yes, Congress can completely scrap the president's budget if they so choose. No, they do not generally do so for NASA's budget, other than the aforementioned earmarks (which account for 1-2% of NASA's budget). And the historical data shows your last sentence to be a complete falsehood. Congress tended to cut *more* from Clinton's NASA budget requests during the first two years, *not* later. See page 104 of the CAIB report for historical tables and an example of how this affected the space shuttle program. All any President can do is suggest something and then either accept or veto the budget bill. And during a significant portion of Clinton's presidency, it was the GOP that was calling the shots in Congress, including allocations to NASA. Clinton's first two budgets passed while the Democrats still controlled both houses. Those two budgets cut NASA by 10.3%, adjusted for inflation. The first two budgets *after* the Republicans took control of Congress *increased* NASA by 3.5%, also adjusted for inflation. Again, the President does NOT make the budget. He merely proposes one. All budgeting powers reside within Congress. OK, fine, let's accept that premise for the moment. But we are left with the historical fact that the Democrats who controlled Congress during the first two years of Clinton's administration, and who supposedly cut NASA's budget by 10.3% over that period, were largely the same folks who *increased* NASA's budget 14.9% during the previous Bush-41 administration. We are also left with the fact that the Republicans who controlled Congress during the last six years of the Clinton administration, and who supposedly cut NASA's budget 5.1% over that period, are largely the same folks who have *increased* NASA's budget 8.6% over Bush-43's administration. The data leave us two possible conclusions: that Congress (independent of party) suddenly got hostile to NASA during the Clinton administration, or that President Clinton had more to do with those NASA budget cuts than you are willing to admit. Fair enough. I'll be happy to see what I can come up with. However, I do not consider references from Bush (ie White House) to be totally unbiased. Every administration tends to put a spin on things to make themselves look better. Even Clinton's administration did this (oops! I guess I shouldn't say that since I must be a total Bush-basher!). NASA Watch has published NASA's budget figures every year since the site was established. The historical numbers that Bush is publishing now are perfectly consistent with Clinton's. But no, I did not start any flame war here. I originally stated my opinion about something, and you came back calling it a cheap shot. You were asked about space shuttle landing sites, and you responded with a disparaging (and *provably* false) statement about Bush without even correctly answering the original question. Yes, I call that a cheap shot. It was not. It was a valid opinion based on many years of experience in the aerospace industry. Let me get this straight. You stated that Edwards may be mothballed as a shuttle landing site due to Bush's budget cutbacks. When I responded that Bush had increased NASA's budget, you claimed that most of the increase was for his moon-Mars initiative. When I proved that most of those increases predated the initiative, and that seven-eighths of the proposed increase since then was for the space shuttle program (including, ironically enough, *landing site upgrades*!) you acknowledged you misspoke but that you think this somehow "makes it worse?" And you still think your original statement was a "valid opinion?" Maybe you have even more experience than that. I will concede your advantage in quantity. As for quality... at least *my* employers have taught me the importance of providing references to back up my statements. That's great! You're entitled to your opinion as well. My opinion is that you are tying yourself into some incredible rhetorical knots trying to resolve the contradictions in your beliefs. But that's only because I'm feeling unusually kind tonight. -- JRF Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail, check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and think one step ahead of IBM. |
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Minimum Number of Rocket Designs
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