Posted on 09/30/2011 5:31:19 PM PDT by Kaslin
Thanks Kaslin.
So what space program are you suggesting? The military has used spy satellites for decades...and used NASA to get them into space. Why not let private enterprise do that? But the Air Force never had its own space shuttle. The Air Force didn't send people to the Moon or support the space station. NASA did that, badly and outrageously expensively. So why not give private industry a shot?
Did you know that the only properly hardened chips in their computers that NASA would approve for the Space Shuttle was the 386 processor since the late 80’s?
So, we had computers driving our shuttle fleet that were so old they couldn’t handle the capability of Angry Birds on my cell phone.
The US government has a duty to create space-based defense systems to protect the US and it’s citizens when they do get to space again.
On another note, when do you think there will be a company that decides to go to space and harvest the “space junk” we have in the skies right now? There’s a fortune in materials there.
I worked in manned space flight for 6 years and in payloads for 8 so, while not as current as I might like to be, I do know this material. Yes I am quite well aware of the class of microprocessors used by the shuttle. The US HAS space based defense systems as we speak, and ground based anti-missile systems. I live less than 60 miles from the Reagan Missile Defense Site. We have others. I could wish we had more, and more space based assets, but do you think that such assets just might be classified????? We certainly do surveillance and attack warning in space.
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