What's the buzz, Buzz?

"Pat Flannery" sez:

I take it you have a problem with any and all celebrities using their
name to market, endorse and sell products?

Yes.
Especially Rocket Heroes.
The problem is that he considers himself a "celebrity" rather than someone
who did something historic at great expense to the taxpayer.
His antics cheapen him, Project Apollo, and NASA in general.

Please. What "cheapens" NASA is preventable incidents like the two Space
Shuttle losses and the Apollo 1 fire and their ongoing waste of taxpayer's
money on the Ares program just for starters. Not to mention recent tabloid
antics like the "Diapernaut" love triangle and kidnapping attempt.

Guys like Aldrin who did their time with honor and distinction in the space
program, are for all intents and purposes retired and wholly entitled to
write books, endorse products and basically do whatever they want even if
that trades on their status as former astronauts. It's not like they have
spectacular retirement pensions from the space program. It's absolutely
absurd to deny these people the right to make an income as retired NASA
employees. That's good ol' USA style capitalism.

If the worst thing you can rag on Aldrin about is using his likeness to
promote Apollo model kits, the guy's a saint compared to those in charge of
OK'ing the Challenger launch on that cold January morning in '88.

"Greg D. Moore (Strider)" wrote in message
news
"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone...
Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:


I think we'll be lucky if it's only that much. :-/

Honestly, I don't think we'll see any savings.


I don't think we are going to see any Ares/Orion for that matter.


And the two of you are depressed by that possibility?
I see the current period as a tremendous opportunity to come
up with a new goal for NASA that will inspire more support
and funding. Dramatically more if a new goal is constructed
properly.

The absolutely wrong way to come up with a new goal is to
try to come up with a better spacecraft, or a better destination
or a better activity in space. The better way is to ask what
are the very largest /problems/ on Earth that can be solved
by a /space program/?

The larger the problem, the more will benefit.
The largest problems of all benefit .....everyone.

Just try to imagine how many people would benefit, and
by how much, to a long term solution to the global energy
problem? The benefits could flow to tens of billions of people
over time. A solution to climate change would directly flow
from that accomplishment. So would greater national
and global prosperity. So would ending wars over oil.
The potential spin off benefits cascade throughout all of
society and the world. Left, right and the military and other
nations all can find something to like in such a goal. Not to
mention it could become a cash paying payload to help
jump start commercial space industry.

A commitment to solve the future energy problem via a space
program doesn't mean Space Solar Power necessarily, it may
be some other form or combination of solutions. Whatever
a vigorous research program should decide. But whenever
one tries to find common ground between a new energy source
and a new space program, Space Solar Power in some form
just fits like a glove. It doesn't matter if the current notions of
SSP are practical or not. Let the exact solutions follow later
as they will, the idea is to put a goal together that rings....
....from sea to shining sea!


Face it, there are very few uses for commercial manned space flight.
Let the military have the manned program. NASA needs to
generate a thriving commercial space industry through a goal
as lofty as the sky itself.

Space Solar Power fits like a glove from every angle.





Pat

True.

--
Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.

"Jonathan" wrote in message
...

"Greg D. Moore (Strider)" wrote in
message
news
"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone...
Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:


I think we'll be lucky if it's only that much. :-/

Honestly, I don't think we'll see any savings.


I don't think we are going to see any Ares/Orion for that matter.


And the two of you are depressed by that possibility?

Depressed, no. Not sure where you got that idea.


I see the current period as a tremendous opportunity to come
up with a new goal for NASA that will inspire more support
and funding. Dramatically more if a new goal is constructed
properly.



--
Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.

On Nov 28, 3:04*am, Pat Flannery wrote:

When is the last time you heard of a Soyuz landing having a weather
delay? Now, how about the Shuttle? :-D

Pat,

Perhaps they never had a weather related delay for landing, but I seem
to recall at least one occassion that Soyuz came down in a forest in
the middle of a blizzard. A weather delay may have been a good
idea :-)

Take care . . .

John

On Dec 1, 1:50*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

True. *On the other hand, with what, a 800 mile cross range the shuttle has
a pretty wide range of landing opportunities.

Needs a landing airfield with the proper navaids to allow it to land,
and a long enough runway.
Also, not good at holding in the pattern for other aircraft to land. ;-)

When was the last unscheduled landing of a spacecraft, Gemini 8?

There was the Soyuz 18A mission abort that almost put them down in China
in 1975, and the Soyuz 23 mission that came down on the semi-frozen lake
during the blizzard because of a faulty retro burn in 1976.
Soyuz 23 used batteries for power rather than solar arrays, but after
that the solar arrays were returned to the design to give the crew more
time to plan a landing if docking failed.
Soyuz TM-6 landed a day late due to computer problems aborting the
retrofire in 1988, but details of that flight are still somewhat sketchy.

Pat

Pat . . . you found my blizzard example for me. And given the
information here, a bad retro is a bad retro, without regards to when
it happened (unless it was hurried into).

Take care . . .

John

John wrote:

Pat,

Perhaps they never had a weather related delay for landing, but I seem
to recall at least one occassion that Soyuz came down in a forest in
the middle of a blizzard. A weather delay may have been a good
idea :-)

You are confusing two different incidents; Voskhod 2 was the one that
came down in the forest after they had to abort a earlier attempt at
retrofire when the spacecraft didn't align correctly.
The Soyuz was the Soyuz 23 flight, and it came down in a lake during a
blizzard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_23
Unlike the earlier Soyuz types, the solar arrays had been deleted on
this version as the flight to dock with the Almaz variant of Salyut was
expected to be fairly short; unfortunately, that meant if you couldn't
dock - like happened in this flight - you had to return to Earth in
fairly short order before the onboard batteries ran out of power.
The solar arrays were returned to the design in the successor versions
of Soyuz so that the cosmonauts could have more time to pick a suitable
landing opportunity if there were docking problems.

Pat

John wrote:
Pat . . . you found my blizzard example for me.

Soyuz 17 also came down in a blizzard; that might be the where the photo
of the Soyuz dragged through the snow by its parachute in "Cosmonautics
- A Colorful History" came from.

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone...
Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

True. On the other hand, with what, a 800 mile cross range the shuttle
has a pretty wide range of landing opportunities.

Needs a landing airfield with the proper navaids to allow it to land, and
a long enough runway.
Also, not good at holding in the pattern for other aircraft to land. ;-)

True, but that 800 mile cross range opens up a lot.

Now sure, Soyuz can land "anywhere" but honestly, do you want? South
Pacific? Might be awhile.



When was the last unscheduled landing of a spacecraft, Gemini 8?

There was the Soyuz 18A mission abort that almost put them down in China
in 1975, and the Soyuz 23 mission that came down on the semi-frozen lake
during the blizzard because of a faulty retro burn in 1976.

I was excluding 18A because that was an abort, something a bit different.

23 is a more interesting case.


Soyuz 23 used batteries for power rather than solar arrays, but after that
the solar arrays were returned to the design to give the crew more time to
plan a landing if docking failed.
Soyuz TM-6 landed a day late due to computer problems aborting the
retrofire in 1988, but details of that flight are still somewhat sketchy.

Thanks for the others.



Pat




--
Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.