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Posted on 02/05/2010 5:25:26 PM PST by KevinDavis
President Obama's decision to cut back on spending for NASA and future trips to the moon has the support of one of the pioneers of space exploration. Action News reporter Jerry Olenyn down with General Chuck Yeager at his office in Grass Valley, not far from his home, to discuss his past and the future direction the United States should take in the new frontier.
(Excerpt) Read more at khsltv.com ...
WTF Chuck!!!
That’s too bad, I like Yeager but I don’t know if I would call him a pioneer of space exploration in any meaninfull way.
Hi
I believe what I see in movies.
I am stupid!
With all due respect General Yeager, you are wrong!
I wonder if Yeager has lost the vision and the right stuff in his later years.
NASA did not choose Chuck Yeager because he did not have a college degree.
In real life they did not choose him. Great book and movie by the way.
When you spend money on space exploration, the cash does not get sent into orbit. It stays right here on the ground, fueling thousands of companies and workers and fosters innovation. That said, NASA has it’s own bloated bureaucracy that should be seriously trimmed. Competition with private ventures would help.
I suspect he was too much of a loose cannon for the space program. The early rocket jocks were risk takers but not to the extent Yeager was.
But what the hell, you're still OUR hero Chuck!
The test pilots I have known are the most risk averse people I met. They had big ones, but they did were not cowboys on the job.
Except for the innovation part, you could say the same about massive govt programs to build pyramids in remote deserts, or dig massive ditches and then fill them in.
Unless you can convince me the moon is full of unobtanium, waiting to be hauled back and smelted into something useful.
Between December 1963 and January 1964, Yeager completed five flights in the NASA M2-F1 lifting body.The “Glamorous Glennis” is at the National Air and Space Museum.
“The test pilots I have known are the most risk averse people I met. They had big ones, but they did were not cowboys on the job.”
They are now, but they weren’t always. If you are pushing the envelope in aviation these days, you need to remove the test pilot from the vehicle. He’ll just slow you down.
People should not return to the Moon until they can stay there for a significant amount of time and accomplish things. For this reason, the Lunar mission should be based on sending a nuclear powered, tunneling robot to the Moon. This would change the entire equation.
To start with, this is not extraordinary technology. A spaceship, not just a lander, would land inside a crater, or next to a cliff face. The robot would disembark, and start to methodically mine a horizontal tunnel, at intervals inserting reinforcing rod into the ceiling, as is done in modern mines on Earth.
It does not have to be fast, just an inch or two a day of rock, that is pulverized, then sent by conveyor belt away from the tunnel. Since the spaceship that brought the tunneling robot is not returning to Earth, it can later be cannibalized to provide ceiling, flooring, walls, and pressure doors for the tunnel, after spraying sealant on the inside against micro fissures, and expanding foam insulation.
By having a completed and tested tunnel waiting for astronauts, they do not have to bring a habitat with them, so can instead bring more supplies and equipment. Inside the tunnel they will be out of the cosmic and enhanced radiation, vacuum, extremes of heat and cold, and away from the very abrasive Lunar dust. Plus they will have plenty of space to work in.
The robot can continue to tunnel, giving them more space, and eventually even dig vertical shafts that can be used for water cisterns and fermentation tanks. While the astronauts are there, the robot’s nuclear reactor provides abundant power for their use. Likewise, it could power a high temperature furnace, very useful for many experiments.
Lastly, a tunneling robot could also be of great use in exploiting underground water ice.
In the final analysis, doing it this way could turn Lunar missions from just a week or two, to several months.
I’ve always seen Apollo as having been a wasteful showboat. IMO, we’d have accomplished far more for far less if we’d continued the rocket plane program. Dyna Soar was the logical next step.
This is a cheesy article. It appears to me as though the “reporter” was spinning out of control when he wrote it.
Money not spent on Constellation will most likely go down the toilet in some liberal boondoggle like giving cell phones to the homeless. If it were being diverted to building nuke plants or something truly useful, it would easier to accept.
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