Project Orion to Bring U.S. Back to the Moon 399
ganjadude writes "Thirty-seven years ago yesterday, Project Apollo put the first humans on the surface of the Moon. The next time the U.S. launches its astronauts to Earth's natural satellite, they will do so as part of Project Orion." From the article: "Under Project Orion, NASA would launch crews of four astronauts aboard Orion capsules, first to Earth orbit and the International Space Station and then later to the Moon. Two teams, one led by Lockheed Martin and the other a joint effort by Northrop Grumman and The Boeing Co., are currently competing to build the CEV. NASA is expected to select the winner in September."
inherent scientific value? (Score:2, Insightful)
The Europeans focus much more heavily on aero-sciences, and we
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:3)
Fortunately for humanity, surviving in space is much easier than you seem to think. People are doing it on the ISS as we speak. There are some unsolved problems with self-sustaining colonies, but it's mostly just an issue of nutrition research.
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:3, Insightful)
Building something in space is indeed far more difficult, but distinct in that it's an expansion of the domain of humanity. We've been stewing for a while.
I want to either get off this rock or start colonizing the oceans, people! Preferably both. Though, in the 'sun is eventually going to blow up' timescale, getting off this rock is the #
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:5, Interesting)
Finding even simple organisims that evolved on Mars would be of fantastic value. Right now all we know about life is derived from one sample point. A lot of what we assume to fundamental about life could be proven completely wrong if we find out the Martian life does it differently. It could be that Earth life has unnecessary complexities and finding Mars life is the key to creating life from scratch in the lab. All sorts of amazing bio-technology could result.
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:5, Insightful)
I question that we would necessarily have developed velcro, microcomputers, Tang, new alloys, biomedical advances, etc., by sending robotic ships to explore space. Perhaps other things might have been developed instead, perhaps some of the same things, but scientific developments and spinoffs are not predictable. JFK didn't say he believed this nation should develop microcomputers and velcro by the end of the decade, he said we should land a man on the moon and bring him safely back to earth. The implementation details are where the technical advances are made.
What's more, it's the manned space flights that hold the public's interest and keep the funding up. The public latched onto astronauts as national heroes early on, in an era when heroes were greatly needed, and today is no different. Dangerous exploration is a glamorous thing. Sure, the robotic craft that explore Mars are very exciting and of course we should continue such efforts, but the extra effort of accommodating humans in space is what really pushes us forward technologically and emotionally.
It's also worth considering that even if the U.S. doesn't travel back to the Moon, other countries will. Do you really want your grandkids to have to buy tickets on a Chinese spacecraft to visit the Chinese moon city fifty years hence? Or the EU moon base? Or the Russian Mars base? Not that our grandkids will be able to afford such things; we'll be the has-beens, the left-behinds who stand at night and gaze at the sky while other nation-states dominate the heavens. No way. The U.S. has got to maintain its leadership role in space or it will become an also-ran.
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Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, repeating the past is hardly going to help advance current science, don't you think?
We need fundamentally different, harder challenges! Why? Because going to the Moon is possible with 1960's technology, so actually going to the said Moon will sink hundreds of billions into the said 1960's technology!
Why not invest this US$ trillion or so into
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:5, Insightful)
We need fundamentally different, harder challenges! Why? Because going to the Moon is possible with 1960's technology, so actually going to the said Moon will sink hundreds of billions into the said 1960's technology!
That sounds like "well, we've sent a couple planes with daredevils across the atlantic, so we know we can do it. let's not waste money doing it again" and then expect modern passenger jets where the passengers yawn their way over to appear out of nowhere. I'm sorry, but it doesn't work that way. We need to evolve modern spacecraft if we're to reach Mars, if we're to populate the solar system, and if we're one day to go out among the stars. And even if we don't, we won't be sinking hundreds of billions into 1960's technology but to apply modern technology to space travel. I've no doubt we can find uses out there that we can bring back to earth. This isn't "Moon II: The remake", it's about how safe, easy and comfortable we can make going to the moon with all the luxuries of modern electronics they never had. What landed in 1969 (and beyond) was with all due respect a very primitive craft. A great achievement to be sure, but they don't prepare us to go further. These missions do.
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:3, Interesting)
I hope this litte joke illustrates the problem with what you are proposing. Do you realize that the Titan rockets burned 20,000 gal
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you realize that the Titan rockets burned 20,000 gal. of fuel per second (!) to go to the Moon.
No, I actually didn't realize that. I always thought it was the Saturn rockets that did that, not Titan. Wow, I guess I was ignorant.
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny, Titan rockets never went to the moon. Apollo went to the moon. Please read your space history.
What we need is a new propulsion system, something like the ion thruster prototypes the Europeans got
You mean like the one the US developed and launched in the late 90s on Deep Space One? Yeah, too bad we don't have one of those. Please find out what is going on before you spout off on a rant.
The human race needs to go to the moon, and eventually it needs to stay. Here are some other things which were a waste of resources during their development, and without any immediate payoff:
- transoceanic ships (why go to another country, we have everything we need here!)
- cars (horses were far better in the early years)
- airplanes (think how many people spent their life savings working on one, and never made progress)
Please look at the US budget [www.icdr.us]. NASA's entire budget is 0.7% of that, compared to 17% for defense and a whopping 40% for social security and health benefits. We could pay for NASA by spending 4% less on defense, or finding a way to decrease medical costs by 2%. Several drug companies could fund NASA in its entirety with their profits alone. Space exploration is not the "low hanging fruit" for saving money on the budget.
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:3, Informative)
And I'm prett
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:3, Informative)
NASA's deep space 1 launched 1998 http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/quick_facts.html [nasa.gov]
ESA's SMART-1 launched 2003 http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/SMART-1/SEMSDE1A6BD_0. html [esa.int]
boeing sells ion thrusters for satelites http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/bss/fact sheets/xips/xips.html [boeing.com]
additionally, these technologies will never be used to replace chemical rockets. chemical rockets throw a lot of mass out the back at a relativly slow speed, but all
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the reason you have to import engineers from India, China, and Russia is lack of founding to American teachers... After all, just look at all those bags of money Indian, Chinese, and Russian teachers seem to have lying around... The causes of your lack of native grown engineers are many, and teachers' salaries are probably not anywhere near the most important problem. Until you are willing to take a hard look at what your society and education system have become, instead of throwing even more money at the problem, I fear you shall continue to fail.
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:2)
It would never happen of course, they are unionized. We know how much the right wing hates unions, we have seen how much slashdot hates unions.
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most schools in this country have non-existant science lab programs (dissolve NaCl in water, separate these metal shavings from sand with a magnet). Most science teachers are crap (e.g. teaching PE and some science on the side). Most poor students don't have the basic fascilities to get homework help (and yes, science and math are HARD, take TIME to understand and start liking them). Those interested in science AND able to get to college are weeded out due to lack of basic knowledge/concepts (sin2 x+ cos2 x=1, V=IR, N=6.022*10^23)
Not enough science PR in our classrooms, either. The students do not get to hear about Craig Venter, Flemming, Crieg and Watson, Oppenheimer. Instead they are hearing about what Paris Hilton sucked last month, how much money a basketball player can make, how much steroids can help some, how many bitches one can slap as a rapper, etc.
What can you expect when poor kids trully believe that basketball/army can be their ticket out of a trailorpark/ghetto?
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:4, Informative)
According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], the number zero, negative numbers and binary and decimal number systems are Indian inventions. You might have heard of them sometimes ;).
According to this page [edhelper.com], sugar (extracting it from sugarcane, to be exact) and cotton were also invented (found ?) in India.
Indeed.
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:2)
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:5, Informative)
Once again, Velcro was not developed by NASA.
From Wikipedia: [wikipedia.org]
"The hook and loop fastener was invented in 1948 by Georges de Mestral, a Swiss engineer. The idea came to him after he took a close look at the Burdock seeds which kept sticking to his clothes and his dog's fur on their daily walk in the Alps. De Mestral named his invention "VELCRO" after the French words velours, meaning 'velvet', and crochet, meaning 'hook'. Today Beige-a is the leading exporter of velcro in the world."
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:5, Informative)
Tang and Velcro were devolped independently of the US space program. Velcro was invented in Europe in 1948. Tang was devolped as a breakfast drink in the 50's about 10 years before its association with the space program.
What's more, it's the manned space flights that hold the public's interest and keep the funding up.
Then why were the later Apollo missions abandoned due to lack of public interest?
Holding the public's interest is impossible, the public is far to fickle.
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:5, Insightful)
Being an European myself, I find it highly offensive that you assume that any reasonable American person should answer: no.
Not that our grandkids will be able to afford such things; we'll be the has-beens, the left-behinds who stand at night and gaze at the sky while other nation-states dominate the heavens. No way. The U.S. has got to maintain its leadership role in space or it will become an also-ran.
It doesn't really matter to me what "nation" goes to space. I want that human race goes to space. The whole going to space thing seems to be a mere a mean to protect U.S.'s status as leading superpower. And what comes to left-behinds: They won't be Chinese or Europeans. They will be Earthlings.
Broken Window Fallacy (Score:3, Insightful)
By the same argument, wars are good for the economy. It
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:5, Interesting)
As far as the value of "putting men on a rock in space" is concerned, it's more than just the science value. That is not to discount the science value which is very real. I heard of an experiment that was done with a simulated "alien" environment. First the unmanned probes (may have been rovers) were given their chance to explore the area. They found nothing remarkable. Then they sent in the *HUMANS* who within seconds discovered a soda can that obviously did not belong in the simulated environment.
That may be an urban legand, but I believe it makes a valid point. A trained *HUMAN* scientist can quickly determine what is relevant and what is not, and focus on the relevant. That is not to say that all exploration should be manned. I believe the manned and unmanned missions should be complimentary, not competitors.
The last lunar landing was Apollo 17... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The last lunar landing was Apollo 17... (Score:2)
Actually Apollo 15 was cancelled first, causing a renumbering of the subsequent flights. (This resulted in the Rovers flying early - they had been slated for the original Apollo 17. 15 & 16 would, under the original plan, have been handcart missions like 13 and 14.) This happened IIRC in 1969. Much later Apollo 20 was cut, the 19 was cancelled to free up a Saturn V for Skylab.
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:2)
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:2)
More impressive... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:5, Insightful)
Any spin offs are gravy, and historically have vastly exceeded the total budget by several orders of magnitude in untold commercial applications of even the most basic research by-products.
Spending the same amount of money on any terrestrial application OTHER THAN the development of additional energy sources would probably be a boondoggle.
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:2)
That's the propoganda NASA has been spinning for decades. The cold reality is that total number of spin-off is essentially zero.
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:3, Insightful)
With the current administration, and the general state of NASA funding, (and scientific funding in general), I doubt this project will ever work. Some "more pressing" project/war will come up and money for this project will be cut from the budget, and eventually the project will be cancelled.
I think that there would be a lot of valuable research, invention and innovation that would result from this program - if it would ever be completed. What I think we'l
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:2)
No, it WON'T work with the 'current administration'. But not for the reasons you outline. The 'current administration' will be gone in 2 years. Someone else will take over. It will be up to them to continue funding or not. And the ones that follow after them.
This is a LONG project. All the 'current administration' can do is get the ball rolling. Which they are do
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:2)
Which almost always do a better job than government. The reason that they have never sent people to the moon is very much related to your point: it isn't worth it. They are trying to make real gains, not do something "cool" to earn voter support, but do something useful to earn money. How much more have the Europeans invented than the US?
All the tangible benefits we've reaped from space travel (tang, velcro, etc)
Tang and
The usual suspects (Score:5, Interesting)
All of which are lies. They're obviously justifications because they don't want to tell you the real reason: because it's cool. And arguably, that's the best reason.
The US reached its position of power in the world largely on the back of its inventiveness. (Immensely fertile land didn't hurt, but we'd have long since tapped that out if we hadn't invented a huge array of technology to prop it up).
If a high-profile "scientific" mission (there's actually little scientific value to manned space-flight) inspires the things that bring money into America today, from Sergey Brin to Dean Kamen to Craig Venter, perhaps it's money worth spending.
Other than that, it's mostly a way to funnel vast sums of money to prop up the military contractors. Guess what Boeing, Northrup-Grumman, and Lockheed do when they're not building space-ships? And they do it in practically every Congressional district in the country.
Re:The usual suspects (Score:2, Interesting)
The first reason the list is usually so short, is that most of us here are not avionics experts. There are hundreds of components (possibly thousands) used in current jets that were developed by NASA.
The second reason that the list is short is that most of us are too lazy to do some honest research when posting a reply here on /. As you can probably tell, I'm including myself in this...
How about just the Economy of it? (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, how big and how perfect of a pure silicon crystal could you grow there? And how much energy would it require? The low gravity means that you could make one much bigger (6 times as big? or is there an exponential factor there?). The near-nothing atmosphere means that probably all the energy you would need would be available via solar panels. Energy collection could be a business in itself (you want to stop using hydrocarbons, right?). And what about transport of these goods? What would it cost? How about almost nothing to any location on planet earth? I imagine even small towns would have a designated delivery port where lunar cargo could be dropped with the accuracy of a smart-bomb... cheaper and faster than a cargo ship from China.
Sure, it's incredibly expensive to establish a presence there, but in the long term, it's more expensive not to.
Re:How about just the Economy of it? (Score:3, Insightful)
And, once grown, what would you do with this crystal? In many cases it is cheaper to make 1,000 similar crystals on Earth and throw away 999 of them, rather than to fly The Precious One from the orbit. There is no immediate, obvious industrial need in pretty much anything that microgravity offers. Not to say that there may not be any; we are like a caveman who does not need a CNC lathe; the time of that technology hasn'
Re:How about just the Economy of it? (Score:3, Interesting)
In many cases that is true, and why? Because there is no more efficient way to do it. The obvoius industrial need that you are overlooking is called "the competitive edge". If you can produce something cheaper than your rival, you beat him on price and prolong t
Re:How about just the Economy of it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Companies do have long term planning. If there was a capitalist interest in immediately setting up factories on the moon (for immensely profitable "moon crystals") economic lobbies would be clamoring for the US government to do just that. Instead it's entirely people who have watched lots of "Star Trek." There's nothing capitalist about what you're saying.
Oh, anyone who disagrees with you shows pessimism, a lack of imagination, and is possibly a Communist? That's how little kids argue, give me a break. Just because people don't subscribe to your particular irrational sci-fi inspired flights of fancy doesn't make them bad people.
Re:How about just the Economy of it? (Score:3, Funny)
Which is, of course, why England does not have a space programme.
Re:How about just the Economy of it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, sure, play it up that way and every government will want one.
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:3, Insightful)
Your point of view is a bit narrow minded. First of all it's not really about going to the moon, I think. It's about establishing a permanent human presence outside of earth. Why you may ask? Well, there are many answers to that and many will find many better ones than I can.
Stephen Hawkins would probably argue that it is good for the survival of mankind. Who knows what could befall our planet? Others would say that it may be the stepping stone in the expansion of life... humans at this stage would
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:2)
Look at it this way:
Suppose the Orion project costs ten billion dollars a year for the next ten years. That comes to $30 per person per year. Don't you think, just in terms of pure entertainment, that it's worth thirty bucks a year to watch people walk on the frickin' moon? In HDTV this time?
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:3, Interesting)
IMHO, this is one of the reasons why we don'
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:5, Interesting)
For many nations, it's easy to guess which stage they are at. You could say that, say, China is clearly being reborn. France is looking back at its past glories. The US is an unusual case. It's sort of still in its golden age, held there by the immigrants who keep renewing it past where the nation could normally stay without becoming decadent. The space program is a good indicator. If it is cancelled, it would mean that the US is finally on its way down. It does not matter to me whether it is the economically right thing to do, its the right thing to do if we don't want to end up where the other empires usually do - decaying into the dust as its young and vigorous neighbors go forward.
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:4, Insightful)
If the above were true, we'd all still be living in caves. Clearly progress is possible even in the presence of reactionaries.
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:3, Funny)
Ok, bad example
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:2)
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:4, Insightful)
Odds are though, if we cut out NASA's budget, it would probably get rolled into the Pentagon's budget. Pitty, that.
Re:inherent scientific value? (Score:3)
I find the "Private industry does it so much better" and "The poor deserve to starve to death because they are not rich" trolls more annoying, but maybe that's just me.
Don't jinx it... (Score:3, Interesting)
Not exactly the most auspicious name...
Am I the only one... (Score:5, Funny)
Either way - something to cry over, I'm sure
Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Funny)
--
I keed, I keed!
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Thanks for getting my hopes up, NASA (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thanks for getting my hopes up, NASA (Score:2)
PSH! I thought they were talking about Operation Meteor [wikipedia.org]
Re:Thanks for getting my hopes up, NASA (Score:5, Interesting)
No kidding. Naming in Orion is travsity. The real Orion would open up the entire solar system. This return to Apollo style capsules is an embarassment, a belated acknowledgement that we went down the wrong path and now must back up and start again. Nothing at all like the great leap forward that a nuclear pulse rocket would be.
Re:Thanks for getting my hopes up, NASA (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, I agree that the Shuttle was the wrong path. It is/was an expermiental vehicle, neutered by politics. Who knows what it might have been had they stayed true to the original vision. Alas, politics is the fountain of compromise, and compromise is the enemy of engineering.
Re:Thanks for getting my hopes up, NASA (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Thanks for getting my hopes up, NASA (Score:4, Informative)
Not really. In order to use a nuclear pulse rocket (or any realistically sized method of nuclear propulsion) you need a heavy lift rocket. Currently there is no heavy lift rocket that could realistically put a nuclear pulse rocket into LEO (and a nuclear pulse rocket would have to be in a very high earth orbit or in interplanetary space before any politician would allow it to be activated). Rebuilding our heavy lift capability with the CaLV or Ares V is essential.
Second, we need a cheap way to put humans into space. The CLV or Ares I will do that.
The only part that you should consider a waste would be building the lander (and perhaps the CLV if you are one of those machine-only supporters). The Ares architecture will be extremely useful for future technologies. Even large rockets like the Delta IV or the Arianne V are kids toys compared to real heavy lift rockets like the Saturn V and the Ares V. Having a 100 ton class rocket makes a lot of projects possible, not just Project Orion.
Re:Thanks for getting my hopes up, NASA (Score:2)
at all. You are assuming a start from LEO.
Re:Thanks for getting my hopes up, NASA (Score:2)
Re:Thanks for getting my hopes up, NASA (Score:3, Informative)
If you could get past the public hysteria over nukes, it would be quite feasible. A sufficiently big reason like a certain asteroid hit or China with weapons in space would probably do it.
Still, as a regular launch method that seems a bit much...
Re:Thanks for getting my hopes up, NASA (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Thanks for getting my hopes up, NASA (Score:2)
And after spending several billion dollars... (Score:5, Insightful)
I predict we will get some nice, new expensive exhibits for Space Camp and not much else.
Re:And after spending several billion dollars... (Score:3, Insightful)
Heading to other bodies is exactly what we should be doing. We might not learn as much about the solar system as if we'd spent that money on a new telescope or whatever, but the knowledge we gain about getting to other planets, and potentially existing there is invaluable.
What's our ultimate goal with space tr
Wasting money...right? (Score:2)
To me, and I admit I am a small individual, I see a waste of resources by this admnistration. It is even worse that if it (the moon idea) has managed to get this far, so many in administration do not see the waste that we are about to encounter.
Re:Wasting money...right? (Score:2)
If the administration was foolish to plan to go to other planets, at least it corrected itself by failing to spend any money on it. The whole plan was just a political song and dance, with no intention to follow through. You probably can't find more "down to Earth" administration in the recent history.
Project Orion? (Score:3, Informative)
It'd be the easiest way to establish a permanent moon base or make a trip to Mars, but of course people don't like the idea of thousands of nuclear warheads going off in their backyard.
Obviously only the name is the same with this latest version.
Re:Project Orion? (Score:2)
Obviously? I was just looking for the bit that said "... but this one doesn't use nukes" but didn't find it.
I'd have thought that something along those lines would have been the obvious thing to add if they weren't going to use nuclear power. Given that they didn't, I don't think assuming a non-nuclear craft is obvious at all.
Re:Project Orion? (Score:5, Informative)
Using nukes to "lift" anything would be utterly insane.
Re:Project Orion? (Score:5, Insightful)
And the original developers behind Orion did indeed envision using it to lift very large craft. This was back in the late 1950s, atmospheric testing of nukes was common amongst them that had 'em. Talk about direct to Mars...
Ever seen film footage of the test models? Small things, using grenade-size explosive charges, but pretty impressive considering. The number of (small) nukes needed to lift the real thing beyond the atmosphere wouldn't have amounted to as much as some of the strategic weapons they were testing anyway. Indeed, as much as anything else, Projects Argus and Starfish (high atmospheric/ionospheric detonations, in the late 1950s/early 1960s) put the damper on Orion because it showed the adverse effects of ionospheric detonation. The EMP from Starfish blew out phone lines and street lights in Hawaii, and even fused car ignitions.
Re:Project Orion? (Score:3, Informative)
I wonder if you have read Footfall [wikipedia.org] by Larry Niven?
The Orion launch is a classic IMHO: God was knocking, and he wanted in bad
It was Nukes from the ground up (Score:3, Informative)
And of course that doesn't even *begin* to
Why not build more Saturn Vs? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why not build more Saturn Vs? (Score:4, Funny)
Key takeaway (at least according to some random internet source, ha ha):
Not to mention the cost of updating the design to include child seat brackets, non-CFC air conditioning, and an MP3 player input...Re:Why not build more Saturn Vs? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why not build more Saturn Vs? (Score:3, Informative)
The SSMEs have been cut. The current plan has the Ares V using RS-68 engines from the Delta IV for the 1st stage. The upper stages of both Ares I and V will use J2-X. Yep, as in those J2s. From the Saturn program.
Ahem, the name's already taken (Score:2)
D'ya mean like just type "project orion" into google and see if you get any hits?
Like this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion [wikipedia.org]?
Capsules?!? (Score:4, Interesting)
We need to head up there and build a glass factory and an iron factory, is what needs to happen. Then we need to start building all types of stuff that will be very inexpensive to launch because the moon's gravity is so much less than the earths.
I mean, is there a point to these missions? Or are they just more little go and take picture expeditions?
rhY
Bring U.S. Back to the Moon? (Score:2)
What happened to purchasing launch services? (Score:2)
I thought that Griffin "got it". Now I'm not so sure.
Why is every space project a bad compromise? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, those days are behind us.
Now it seems, every project is a bad compromise, and it seems to have started with the Shuttle Program. Originally intended as a fully reuseable system that took off like a plane and landed like a plane, it then became a boondoggle of wildly incompatible systems that culminated in a bad hack where you strap the orbiter/glider to a fuel tank and two sticks of TNT and cross your fingers.
NASA still had high hopes for a full resuable system with the VentureStar, which sadly, never got beyond computer animations and little plastic models. The DCX, which had a 1/3 scale flying prototype, was scrapped after a few tests.
And now here they are again, with a bad compromise, using existing parts from the shuttle program and haphazardly slapping them together and crossing their fingers.
It would save a ton of money to design a good system from the start, even if it's more expensive up-front, than to build a system that's awful to start with and hope you can improve upon it with time.
It's funny that sci-fi from the 60's and 70's was so hopeful about where we'd be by this time, because we were making so much progress back then. If only they could have forseen how much time we'd wasted by going backwards, and designing lousy systems that can never really fulfull their mission requirements.
It's hard to believe that even before Yuri Gagarin was launched, America was reaching the edge of space in a rocketplane called the X-15, a simple, durable design that worked stunningly well, and, had we continued along that path, we'd all probably be living in space right now.
But no, we took two steps backwards with "spam in a can", sticking a capsule on top of a missile, and we've been making the same mistakes since then. And now, here we are in 2006, talking about using essentially the same technology from the 60's, when we should have already been reaching the outer planets in long-distance exploration vessels as seen in Stanley Kubrick's "2001" film.
America no longer puts its best and its brightest on top. America no longer prizes doing the best it can do. It's embarassing, that's what it is.
Let's look beyond capitalism, here... (Score:5, Interesting)
But I also support various programs that produce no profit (directly) and cost a great deal of time and money, including space exploration.
Why?
Because I'm a human being. I like that we're exploring. I like that we're pushing beyond these bounds placed upon us. I am fascinated by the idea that man could do something so complex as leave this earth and visit the Moon, or Mars, or beyond. It's not just the money - it's the fulfillment of a human desire. Something we were "made" for - to reach out and extend ourselves beyond this sphere and to travel to new lands. I must admit - my thoughts are based purely on ideology, not "reason". But I think I'm not alone in this.
There's something about space exploration that should set off that spark in all of us - something beyond money, beyond mere profit. It's the advancement of the capabilities of an entire species - it's not merely that Americans have been on the moon, but man has been there.
If (when) it costs hundreds of billions to go to Mars and back, with no economic returns, it will still have been worth it. We will then be able to say that man has gone to the moon, that mankind has made yet another massive acheivement.
Are there things on earth that need to be fixed? Yup. But if we wait for things to be perfect here before we leave, we'll never go. In any case, simply giving away money has rarely had a positive effect on most social problems - it's often made them worse.
Why climb Mount Everest, when it gains you nothing and could cost you your life? Because it's there. That's a good enough reason for me to see us go to the moon, Mars, or anywhere else.
In any case, I think we all love the moon... [rathergood.com]
Politically Incorrect (Score:3, Informative)
Stanley Kubrick and Orion (Score:4, Interesting)
A quick google netted this [visual-memory.co.uk] web site that supports the story.
BBC segment (Score:3, Informative)
Have a gander. [headru.sh] [xvid 250MB]
(tip. If you're using Firefox on linux, drag the link to a xine window and stream it. If you're using windows, then you might have to copy the link and paste it into your player- vlc is good)Re:Space Wars (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ares V (Score:4, Funny)
Um... 70 militeslas?
If you're trying to say "metric tons," you might be better off with "mton," "tonne," or the far less ambiguous "Mg."
Re:Great - deflect attention away from global warm (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I want NASA to come up with good spacecraft and ways to foster getting those spacecraft up cheaper and faster. I'd prefer to let NOAA concentrate on things like global warming and CO2 impact.