Posted on 06/16/2005 6:28:37 AM PDT by Rodney King
Bullpoo. I'll name a couple: space tourism, and the human colonization of space.
I agree with you, but on this topic you're really barking up the wrong tree here. In the aftermath of the Columbia disaster, the most ardent supporters of the space shuttle program were the same people who criticized NASA for failing to mount some kind of a rescue mission when they knew that the Columbia's heat shield may have been compromised. So on the one hand, they felt that the space shuttle is a good idea despite the inherent human risks, and yet they expected NASA to go to any conceivable length to attempt a rescue mission whose odds of success were miniscule at best.
Which one is it?
For a short time, yes. But the countries that got really rich of the exploration of the New World were the "pirate nations". Men like Drake, etc. While the Spanish were sweating at pulling the gold & silver out of the ground (& exploiting the natives in the process) the English & Dutch were becoming major maritime powers while plundering the Spanish treasure fleets. These operations were largely private affairs that required capital to get going, legal protection (Letters of Marque), advances in shipbuilding technology, gunnery, and so on. In short the Dutch & English were building modern mechantile economies while the Spanish were languishing like a modern OPEC nation. Wealthy, but increasingly backward.
Columbus is a miserable example to use when you want to make the case for "exploration" for the sake of itself. Sure, his intentions were probably noble and he may have been a good, decent man -- and he actually found something here in the New World after all. The problem, though, is that he was incompetent in some key ways and was (deservedly) scorned when he set out on his adventure.
Yes, we can do it with 2005 technology -- only given the bureaucratic imperative, it won't be flying until 2020 or later. The only way to mitigate this is to flatten the bureaucracy.
The original purpose of the space program (once called the "space race") was to prevent the Soviet Union from having an unchecked military presence high above our heads. Our accomplishment of that goal was evident in 1969. Since then, manned space flight has been a solution in search of a problem. From Voyager to GPS to satellite communications, unmanned space flight has been a stunning success while manned space flight (Skylab, the shuttles, International Space Station) has been one big government money pit.
Precisely why Columbus' voyages are an appropriate analogy. It's a learning curve, then and now.
Hell, I was there! The Shuttle was concieved as the one answer to a host of missions and requirements. As the list of requirements grew, the budget was cut. The only other variables (which must increase) are the cost of operations and risk. Once we had the Shuttle, NASA and the benefiting contractors tried to make sure that it was the only road to space; increasing the flight rate is the only way to cut the cost per mission. There was never enough budget for a replacement vehicle. BTW, as for "1970s technology", its hard to improve when you have pushed the limits of every known material to the max. Breakthroughs are now required.
The decisino to end Apollo was in the late sixties, during the Johnson administration, years before Carter was elected. The last flight to the moon was in 1972, four years before Carter was elected.
In Columbus' case, it wasn't a "learning curve" at all. If it was, then he was so far behind the curve that nobody should even take him seriously.
There are many problems with the Shuttle, but this isn't one of them. The weight of the crew cabin and life support system is only ten thousand pounds or so. Removing it would only increase payload capability by twenty percent or so.
Skylab 4 was in '74 but your point still stands.
I would not personally bet on it. The SAT's have been renormed too many times since then.
And the tempurpedic mattress material. I swear by mine.
Skylab used modified Apollo hardware, and left-over Saturns and CSMs, but it wasn't part of Project Apollo. But as you say, the notion that Carter killed it is silly.
But you're missing a very big component of "lost payload capacity" because you're only looking at the weight of the vehicle and its individual elements instead of the overall concept of the space shuttle in general. How much more payload would a space vehicle have if the entire vehicle didn't have to be designed to bring a human crew back to earth?
Yup.
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