Posted on 07/17/2008 4:52:19 PM PDT by KevinDavis
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — By day, the engineers work on NASA's new Ares moon rockets. By night, some go undercover to work on a competing design.
These dissenting scientists and their backers insist they have created an alternative rocket that would be safer, cheaper and easier to build than the two Ares spacecraft that will replace the space shuttle.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
This is the Space Ping List.. Let me know if you want on or off this list!!
Its good to see the entrepreneurial spirit alive and well in the space program. The X-Prize and Burt Rutan’s SpaceShip One really got the juices flowing and it is leading to some exciting possibilities for the future. Can’t wait!
BTW, please add me to the list!
Well if Barak wins, forget about it.. I have feeling he won’t be friendly towards NASA or space private industry..
Or any industry for that matter. Unless they donate heavily...
Don't worry. They will.
Exactly..
btrl
And basically what they have proposed is an American version of the Ariane 5.
Which is not a bad rocket. And will be especially so if and when the ESC-B version with the Vinci engine comes on line.
And that is essentially what these guys are proposing, at least in the larger variant.
If these brains are working for the government during the day, how come they can bite the hand that feeds them? Or are they on the losing side of a design competition?
Sad that it has to be secretive, though.
See, if we didn’t sign up with all the world-government BS, and allowed people to completely freely do what they wanted to, people would regularly be taking space flights for maybe $10,000. Maybe even to the moon, who knows.
There have been complaints for years by NASA engineers that the bureaucracy was stifling development. In fact, I recall stories from the 80’s and 90’s about engineers who would upgrade their own computers because the equipment the government gave them was sub-standard. It would not surprise me at all to find that internal politics have NASA pursuing designs that were not the best options presented.
You have no idea how bad it is. I’ve seen countless “best and brightest” leave NASA and it’s contractors in disgust after they tried to add the “value added” creativity that they thought they were hired to do, but only to be forced to do mental drudgery instead. There is a reason that some of the most innovative parts of NASA are those areas with the least political interest, thus least funding - those are the areas where creative people are allowed to take risks and reap praise from management when they succeed.
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