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Space Program Needs The Right Stuff
"Martha H Adams" wrote:
I think Luna as a way station out to the local solar system makes all kinds of sense. Not particularly. It makes sense as a great near-Earth *TESTING GROUND* for all of the techniques and applications we may need to do on Mars, for instance. It gives us a very short data/voice transmission time for troubleshooting problems, whereas a Mars base will need to be much more autonomous, due to the longer transmission times. Work out the bugs/kinks on the Moon... then go straight to Mars from the Earth. Building a Mars mission vehicle on Earth, then launching it to the Moon, landing it on the Moon (or even just placing it in orbit around the Moon), assembling *and refueling* it there, then launching it *FROM* the Moon makes no sense at all. What more could you ask of a place for serious practice? This, I agree with. *Practice* on the Moon... *execute* on Mars. On which topic, how about moving the Space Station from its political orbit to an orbit in our solar system ecliptic. This would greatly improve its utility. Not possible. The fuel costs alone are prohibitive, not to mention the structural integrity questions to the ISS. Google for the results of this oft-had conversation. He wants to say, let's do it all at once, Luna and Mars. How do you know that? The official proposal hasn't been laid out yet. I think those numbers strongly imply a definite priority. Sure... and appropriately, so! National security will *always* outweigh R&D. It's a fact of life. We were a very large step up on that back in the 1970's. The Saturn V heavy lift booster's blueprints were then sold for scrap paper, Urban legend. So what do we have? Look at the Columbia disaster. As vs Apollo, our current generation of, well, engineers, wouldn't even look to see if a problem existed after getting strong signals it did. They'd rather just sit there and vaguely hope those people up there didn't come down dead. That's a pretty huge pile of offense BS, Martha. What sort of engineering background do *you* have? It's always extremely easy to sit back and criticize afterwards with 20/20 hindsight... So I look for 20 years to catch-up and begin to get past what we had 30 years ago. Based on what? I put a lot of faith in today's engineer. There is a significantly larger toolset from which to generate new ideas... once the mandate is put forth. Consistent funding, of course, is a significant hurdle that *must be* overcome, along with a consistent goal to achieve. Because, what else can Bush's words be for? Is Bush going to rustle up a bunch of bible-thumping faith-based engineers and we'll have a space program because we Believe? No, I don't think even Bush and his ilk are *that* far out. I think rather, the Republicans are pulling out all the stops to touch a maximum number of hot spots and so win the coming Presidential election. (Will he need Supreme Court help again?) Following which, we see piles more of same old same old. Ah... *NOW* I see where your rant is really based... Leave politics out of it, and you might actually be able to hold my interest in a technical conversation. Keep your biased blithering ramblings in it, and you rant alone. Roger -- Roger Balettie former Flight Dynamics Officer Space Shuttle Mission Control http://www.balettie.com/ |
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