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We, first loosers for 100 years.



 
 
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  #21  
Old May 21st 05, 04:55 PM
chosp
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"Ed Zeppelin" wrote in message
...
Lou Adornato wrote:


If we haven't lost any capabilities, why is NASA talking about letting
Hubble die?


Here's something to think about to shine some light on why
we don't keep saving spacecraft over and over,
theoretically, by replacing parts, a car can run forever.
How come no one ever does that but rather just buys a new
car?


Oh, but many people do try to run their cars forever.
Car collectors are trying to do precisely that.
The sole reason they haven't succeeded is that they haven't yet had
a forever available to them in which to run their cars.

Most importantly, no one, but no one - is talking about keeping
Hubble running forever and ever. Period.
They are talking about Hubble's final upgrade and servicing
mission. Over $200 million has already long been spent to build
Hubble's final set of detectors and cameras - which are sitting
already bagged up waiting to go. These are not merely
replacement parts but will actually improve Hubble's scientific
output by tenfold. It would keep Hubble at the forefront of
astronomical research for the remainder of its working life.
Note, also, it would cost more to replace Hubble's full capabilities
than to maintain them. In money and in time.
Keep in mind that there is no actual replacement for Hubble
in the works. There is no "new car" to buy. It simply doesn't exist
and no one has yet demonstrated the will or courage to build one.

  #22  
Old July 15th 05, 05:56 AM
JT
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chosp wrote:

They are talking about Hubble's final upgrade and servicing
mission. Over $200 million has already long been spent to build
Hubble's final set of detectors and cameras - which are sitting
already bagged up waiting to go. These are not merely
replacement parts but will actually improve Hubble's scientific
output by tenfold. It would keep Hubble at the forefront of
astronomical research for the remainder of its working life.
Note, also, it would cost more to replace Hubble's full capabilities
than to maintain them. In money and in time.


A Hubble mission would require abort landing strips in Africa that are no
longer available for security and political reasons. It would also require
an orbit that would leave a shuttle unable to meet up with the ISS if it had
a problem, compromising a safety goal of the shuttle program.


Keep in mind that there is no actual replacement for Hubble
in the works. There is no "new car" to buy. It simply doesn't exist
and no one has yet demonstrated the will or courage to build one.


The James E Webb telescope is Hubble's orbital successor.

  #23  
Old July 17th 05, 06:20 AM
Jim Kingdon
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The James E Webb telescope is Hubble's orbital successor.

Not in the ultraviolet.

Personally, I'd rather see the "successor" be not one telescope, but a
small family, none of which are budget-breakingly large, but it
doesn't seem like things are going that way....

  #24  
Old July 27th 05, 08:34 PM
Camaronat Camaronat is offline
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Location: Madison, Al
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On the loss of technology:

I totally disagree with that idea, because I see tons of gadgets and gizmos every day that can do things people only dreamed about 30 years ago. At the Space and Rocket Center here in Huntsville, there is a ring from a Saturn 5 that was used for guidance. It's computing capabilities are less than a small sientific calculator that can be bought for a couple of bucks today. So you can't compare us with the decline of the Roman Empire.

Really, our focus has shifted. Instead of shooting first and asking later, NASA has to answer all the questions before they can do anything. They have to answer questions about long term stays in space, effects of radiation, etc. before sending astronauts places. The reason why we are no longer going to the Moon is because the general public lost interest, and funding was cut. The Saturn 5 was REALLY expensive, and that is why they came up with the Shuttle. Now, the Shuttle is old, and thought of as really expensive. That is why they are looking for something else. The only problem is that nobody knows what to replace the Shuttle with.

I also think we have the capability. If we really wanted to go to the Moon, we could be there within a few years (ie, the 2015-2020 stuff they have been talking about). The problem again is money. Right now the Moon is one of those, "Been there, done that" kind of things. That is why there is so much focus on going to Mars. We haven't been there yet, so we can do some exploring there. In my opinion, we won't go back to the moon until it is profitable again. That most likely means tourism.

I am starting to lose my train of thought, so I'll stop here.
  #25  
Old July 29th 05, 12:37 AM
Pat Flannery
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Jim Kingdon wrote:

Personally, I'd rather see the "successor" be not one telescope, but a
small family, none of which are budget-breakingly large, but it
doesn't seem like things are going that way....




That's what a lot of scientists preferred over Hubble when it was first
proposed, but the giant space telescope concept had a life of its own.
The debate gets described in the book "The Hubble Wars"- along with a
lot of other things that came up during the design and construction
phase, including some nasty stuff about a particular scientist whom the
book doesn't name- but who I am pretty sure is Carl Sagan.

Pat

  #26  
Old August 3rd 05, 05:25 PM
datacide
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There are other issues as well.

One is Budget. At the time the first space missions were started, NASA
had a larger comparative budget. Alot of things are planned and based
on cost.

Going hand in hand with that is the commercialisation of space. Plans
with a commercial value have become higher priority.

Lastly, develoment of new technologies often require reinvention of
present technology.
Space suits in the sixties for example were developed with the then
current state of tecnhology in mind.
Reusing older suits now is ridiculous, due to advancements in various
fields. Redesign is in order to fully utilise newer discoveries.

Once again, within the boundaries set by budget, cost and commercial
viability.

my .5 cents

dc

  #27  
Old May 26th 06, 01:48 PM posted to sci.space.moderated
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Default We, first loosers for 100 years.

Me: son of an Apollo-era engineer, lifetime space "nut", hired into my
"dream job" at NASA in 1990, quit in disgust 366 days later.

I remember walking out of the Mission Operations Center after a night shift
on the avionics console in the spring of 1991, feeling like a true
steely-eyed missile man because I'd written a patch for a BFS problem in
"real-time" (that is, during the mission in which the problem occurred. It
was never flown, but I had it available as hip-pocket backup while Downey
worked on the official fix). As I was driving out of the center past the
old Rocket Park, the Saturn V/Apollo 18 "lawn ornament" was pointed almost
directly at the rising moon. It was a rare, hazeless day for Houston, and
for a moment I could swear that the face of the moon was laughing at me.
What should have been the height of my career suddenly tasted like ash,
because compared to my father's contributions, it was meaningless. Two
months later I turned in my resignation. Don't tell me we haven't lost
anything.

"Camaronat" wrote in message
...
On the loss of technology:

I totally disagree with that idea, because I see tons of gadgets and
gizmos every day that can do things people only dreamed about 30 years
ago.


Of course, one of the big differences between today and back then was that
people dreamed really BIG dreams back then.

At the Space and Rocket Center here in Huntsville, there is a
ring
from a Saturn 5 that was used for guidance. It's computing capabilities
are less than a small sientific calculator that can be bought for a
couple of bucks today. So you can't compare us with the decline of the
Roman Empire.


Actually, your average cell phone probably has more processing power than
everything on the mobile launch pad in July, 1969. Difference is, your cell
phone ain't goin' to the moon.

At the old visitor's center at JSC there used to be the last surviving Lunar
Lander Trainer. Also known as "the flying bedstead", it was basically a jet
engine mounted vertiucally on a frame with four shock-absorbing legs and a
semi-enclosed cabin with an ejection seat mounted on top. After 20 years,
they still had to keep a catch basin under it because it was still leaking
oil. To be honest, it took a true engineer and space afficionado (like me)
to see this thing as beautiful. What always put a lump in my throat was the
series of Apollo mission stickers someone had placed on the cabin sill.
Somehow, those decals spoke volumes to me of the pride that some long-ago
team of engineers had taken in the role his ungainly but beautiful vehicle.

The point is, that vehicle was simple, primitive even, but it was also bold,
audacious, and daring. Some team of engineers, using tools that we would
laugh at today, took complete responisbility for it and did the best job
possible, and some team of manager took them at thier word and assigned it
to mission after mission. It represented a risk-taking, get-the-job-done
attitude that managed to accomplish the mission, time and time again. In
short, it represented everything the agency was in my father's day that it
wasn't in mine. In that very important aspect, NASA (and America) very much
resemble the decline of the Roman empire.

Of course, one big difference between us and the Romans is that the Romans
never had to import engineers from third-world countries because not enough
of thier own kids were interested in math and science. They never reached a
point at which 80% of thier grad students in science and engineering were
foreign nationals.


Really, our focus has shifted. Instead of shooting first and asking
later, NASA has to answer all the questions before they can do
anything. They have to answer questions about long term stays in space,
effects of radiation, etc. before sending astronauts places.


You can't go to the moon by staying home. NASA has had 35 years to answer
those questions. We have years of data from Skylab, from Mir, from Shuttle,
from LDEF, and we do NOTHING with it. It's not a lack of data. It's a lack
of leadership, it's a lack of nerve, it's a lack of vision, but it's NOT a
lack of data.

I *will* agree that the NASA of today doesn't "shoot first and ask questions
later". Problem is, it doesn't shoot at all. It doesn't even have the
balls to shoot blanks anymore. Hell, it's not even doing that good a job of
asking questions.


The reason
why we are no longer going to the Moon is because the general public
lost interest, and funding was cut.


That's a polite way of saying that the American public has lost the
political will to do anything difficult, to dream big dreams, or to do
anything more daring than curbside recycling.

The Saturn
5 was REALLY expensive,
and that is why they came up with the Shuttle.


Had we continued building the Saturn V, and bought in larger quantities,
they would have gotten cheaper.


Now, the Shuttle is old,
and thought of as really expensive. That is why they are looking for
something else.


It has nothing to do with age - the average surviving shuttle has less than
20 missions on it. The problem is that the shuttle is, was, and ever will
be a money pit. It was a hangar queen from day one. They've been operating
the silly thing for nearly 30 years, and they STILL don't have a prayer of
ever acheiving it's design goals. It's such an overly complex design that
they've never been able to get a handle on the turnaround process, which
gets longer and longer instead of coming down. In any other segment of the
aerospace industry, the shuttle would have been identified as a failure
decades ago.

And don't think that it's a matter of not enough funding. If anything, it's
just the opposite - NASA's in a position of being guaranteed continuing
funding for operating the shuttle, flawed as it is, while if they ADMIT that
it's a POS they run the risk of the whole program being cut. Any private
company that refused to admit that it's primary vehicle was a technological
disaster and move on to something else, would have mercifully gone bankrupt
and opened up opportunities for other organizations more amenable to change.
Unfortunately for us, NASA is sitting on what is essentially a bottomless
(albeit small) well of money.


The only problem is that nobody knows what
to replace
the Shuttle with.


I'll go along with the idea that "nobody knows HOW to replace the shuttle",
because it can't be done without taking a risk, and NASA, the big
contractors, and America in general is no longer in the the risk business.
There's any number of people who know WHAT to replace it with, it's just
that none of them work for NASA. Look at all the X-price entrants. Look at
the SDIO program.

There used to be a lot more, but most of them are well into retirement.
We've reached a point where there's NO ONE of working age in America who's
actually designed (or helped to design) a manned spacecraft. THAT's the
true loss. If NASA in the early 70's had adopted a policy of buying launch
services instead of protecting it's feifdom by designing and operating its
own shuttle fleet, central Florida would have become the Silicon Valley of
it's day, with dozens of start-ups staffed with people who'd gained
invaluable design and operations experience from Mercury, Gemini, and
Apollo, and they'd have developed any number of competing designs, all
funded by venture capitalists instead of fickle voters. It's still the best
thing they could do for the space community, and it's long overdue.


I also think we have the capability. If we really wanted to go to the
Moon, we could be there within a few years (ie, the 2015-2020 stuff
they have been talking about). The problem again is money.


The problem is again NOT money. I was there and saw some of the most
capable engineers I've ever met trying to get the agency through the fiasco
of "Space Station Freedom" design. The agency brass eventually reached a
point where they were maneuvering so that Congress would kill the funding,
releiving NASA of the necessity of admiting that they couldn't pull it off.
The fact is that NASA of today would be starting far behind square one if
they decided to go back to the moon - my father's generation may not have
had desktop computers and the internet, but they also didn't have a hostile
congress and "effective" government management. The top brass may be flying
the meatball again, but in thier hearts they'll always be worms (I'll leave
it to other NASA hands to explain that).

  #28  
Old May 26th 06, 02:19 PM posted to sci.space.moderated
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Default We, first loosers for 100 years.

Of course, one big difference between us and the Romans is that the
Romans never had to import engineers from third-world countries
because not enough of thier own kids were interested in math and
science. They never reached a point at which 80% of thier grad
students in science and engineering were foreign nationals.


I don't know if the historical (or archaeological) record breaks down
engineers versus other job classifications in the Roman Empire, but
they certainly did import lots of labor from the third-world countries
of their day. The history of the Roman Empire is the history of
barbarians turning into provincials, starting from the fairly early
days of the Roman Republic (where the barbarians in question were
outside Rome but within what is now Italy). Source:
http://www.teach12.com/ttc/assets/co...60.asp?id=3460

Of course, as usual with history one could draw multiple conclusions:
that immigration keeps the US vital, or that this is another factor
which will hasten the fall of the US Empire.

  #29  
Old May 26th 06, 04:53 PM posted to sci.space.moderated
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Default We, first loosers for 100 years.

In article ,
Jim Kingdon wrote:

Of course, as usual with history one could draw multiple conclusions:
that immigration keeps the US vital, or that this is another factor
which will hasten the fall of the US Empire.

If the US lasts as long as the Western Empire did, it should
see the year 3000. If it lasts as long as the Eastern Empire, it should
see AD 3,900.



--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll

  #30  
Old May 26th 06, 04:53 PM posted to sci.space.moderated
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Default We, first loosers for 100 years.

"Lou Adornato" writes:
Of course, one big difference between us and the Romans is that the Romans
never had to import engineers from third-world countries because not enough
of thier own kids were interested in math and science. They never reached a
point at which 80% of thier grad students in science and engineering were
foreign nationals.


This statement doesn't agree with either experience or the data.
Foreign nationals are still a minority in science and engineering, and
not always a growing one
(http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf05317/)

You can't go to the moon by staying home. NASA has had 35 years to answer
those questions. We have years of data from Skylab, from Mir, from Shuttle,
from LDEF, and we do NOTHING with it. It's not a lack of data. It's a lack
of leadership, it's a lack of nerve, it's a lack of vision, but it's NOT a
lack of data.


This, however, I'll agree with (I've done a lot of contract work for
NASA, and most of it has left a bitter taste of bad bureaucracy in my mouth).


--
Richard W Kaszeta

http://www.kaszeta.org/rich

 




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