Posted on 01/16/2014 5:20:49 AM PST by C19fan
Thanks...
CC
Designed to maintain the flow of cost-plus, no-bid contracts to all the companies that built the shuttle, and ensure that the return flow of campaign contributions will not be interrupted.
Pfui.
Yes I have. Very intense minute of comm. After Al Bean reconfigured the SEC to AUX, things calmed down and the crew literally laughed their way to orbit. Loved Pete Conrad’s comment about needing some more bad weather testing.
The only reason this rocket is being built at all is the incredible inertia of the enormous FedGov sow: once a program is started, politics makes it extremely hard to stop it. The power of incumbency, multiplied by media manipulation, gerrymandering, vote buying, and dirty tricks (traffic jams on election days) make it virtually impossible to stop any given politician, much less any Federal program.
There may be a rocket, but there will be no Mars mission.
That's the "gotcha" ... Obama's insisting only "renewable" fuel sources be used. Solar and Wind are at the top of the list (/humor)
There aren't any men like that left in the space program.
It could never be used to do the same for a Mars mission.
Have you seen pictures of their lunar surface cuff lists? They were laced with Playboy playmates and other humorous things. The guys in flight prep knew the Conrad and Bean well. In some of the comm from the moon, they can be heard laughing at some of the check list items. The 12 crew was a true crew that worked well together. The 15 and 17 crews were similar in makeup but not near as tight as 12 was. In fact, the 12 crew had their crew positions painted on their Vettes, CDR, LMP, CMP. Now, how cool was that?
“It could never be used to do the same for a Mars mission. “
Of course not, because moon launches require the ability to lift stuff into space, in contrast, a Mars launch requires the ability to lift stuff into space.
BIG DIFFERENCE.
The word that should be rolling off tongues at NASA is a philosophy of “cumulative” space exploration. That is, every time a mission within the solar system takes place, it should build on, literally, missions that have happened before, and its mission should be used to build on those that happen after.
When a space station is built, one of its primary tasks is to construct an “interplanetary shuttle engine”, a big, robotic engine and fuel tank to take other spaceships from Earth to Moon and Mars and beyond, and back, itself remaining in space. This would permit the spaceships to carry a lot more of their own fuel and supplies.
When considering Lunar and Martian missions, the first missions should be nuclear powered robotic tunneling systems. By mining tunnels as habitats, you avoid a huge number of problems, as well as create a cumulative Lunar or Martian base, so missions there can be a lot longer and carry more and different supplies.
The mining can be done before humans arrive and after they leave, and while they are there, the mining robots nuclear power can be used to provide copious amounts of energy to the base.
CC
Yup. See "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein.
Well, duh! Why do you think they budgeted more money than they originally asked for? (Fatter kickbacks!)
Von Braun was pushing for this concept in the 60s. He wanted an Earth orbit rendezvous between the lunar lander and the crews, at a space station.
We were racing the Soviets at the time, so the idea was abandoned for the lunar orbit rendezvous between lander and command module.
The landers could have been reusable (if different from the LEM), and the space station could have been a stepping stone to more exploration.
The concept still seems to be on the back shelf gathering dust.
The tunneling machine concept is a good one, but maintaining any tlelmetry would be the hard part.
“Senate Launch System”....now there’s a thought.
Awesome graphic. Saved
NASA reveals its latest boondoggle. There’s no need for a huge launcher.
It could all be done. We just don't have the national will to do it.
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