Ares 1-X Ready On Pad, Launch Set For 1200 GMT 260
DynaSoar writes "NASA's new Ares I-X rocket is undergoing final preparations for its planned launch test Tuesday, October 27. Launch time is scheduled for 8 AM EDT (1200 GMT). As of noon Monday it appeared that there was a 60% chance of showers and/or high altitude clouds interfering. However, the launch has a an eight hour window of opportunity through 2000 GMT, and would require only 10 minutes of clear skies within that time to fly. Of interest to engineering types, both those who favor the new vehicle's design and its critics, will be to see whether the predicted linear 'pogo stick' oscillation will occur, and whether the dampening design built into it prevents damaging and possibly destructive shaking. Extensive coverage is being presented by Space.com; for NASA TV streaming video, schedules and downlink information, visit nasa.gov/ntv." Update 15:37 GMT by timothy: The weather did not cooperate; today's planned launch has been scrubbed.
Vibrations (Score:2, Funny)
As long as they are good....
Query: are rockets spaceships and if so are they female like normal ships? They've always seemed a bit to... phallic and gaseous to be female.
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It's easy.
Rockets are male. Everything you intend to penetrate with rockets, is female.
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Not necessarily. Take Uranus. Please!
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Not necessarily. Take Uranus. Please!
Why, do you intend to penetrate Uranus with a rocket?
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So the entire universe is female?
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So yes. Yes it is.
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Tables say: Did you sanitize your input?
Rockets are impressive, but the VAB is insane (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Rockets are impressive, but the VAB is insane (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm watching the stream now of them assembling the Ares and I must say the VAB is the most impressive building I've ever seen. I got to tour the inside (way back in the early 90s) and the amount of empty space available, inside a building that can withstand hurricane force winds. It is truly mind-boggling.
I've always wondered about that building. Why is it so much better to do the assembly vertically, rather than doing it horizontally and then raising the vehicle afterwards?
Re:Rockets are impressive, but the VAB is insane (Score:5, Interesting)
Can you imagine the lateral stress on the structure if you attempted to build it horizontally and then hoist? I suspect the engineering challenge involved in building a machine that would give sufficient support along the full length of a multi-story structure as it was raised to vertical would be substantially greater than the challenge of constructing a tall, hurricane resistant building.
Re:Rockets are impressive, but the VAB is insane (Score:5, Interesting)
Most launch vehicles are optimised to the point where they are basically balloons. They can't support themselves unless their tanks are pressurised and then only in one direction.
I read that US engineers watched with amazement when a Russian booster was winched off a truck at an air show supported horizontally by two cables, one at either end.
Re:Rockets are impressive, but the VAB is insane (Score:5, Interesting)
Was it "How did they do that?" amazement, or was it "Why did they do that?" amazement?
Re:Rockets are impressive, but the VAB is insane (Score:5, Informative)
Most launch vehicles are optimised to the point where they are basically balloons. They can't support themselves unless their tanks are pressurised and then only in one direction.
I read that US engineers watched with amazement when a Russian booster was winched off a truck at an air show supported horizontally by two cables, one at either end.
Actually, that is *not* true in general. It was true for the original Atlas, and is true for the Centaur high-energy upper stage, but most other modern launchers avoid balloon tanks. Most modern designs are very fragile, but self-supporting when unpressurized. That doesn't mean you can hoist them any way you please, but it's still a vast improvement in ease of handling. One of the requirements on the Shuttle External Tank design was that it not be a balloon tank. It was later discovered (to much embarrassment and annoyance) that the ET is self-supporting when empty or full, but that there is a partially-full intermediate range where it isn't, so it has to be filled while pressurized.
Some smaller launchers are assembled horizontally; in particular, SpaceX's Falcon I and Falcon 9 are. They're still fairly fragile, but they're closer to the Russian design approach in a variety of ways. Trading more structural margin, and hence lower payload fraction, for easier operations and hence lower cost per payload mass is one of those.
Russians do it with Soyuz (Score:3, Informative)
"Can you imagine the lateral stress on the structure if you attempted to build it horizontally and then hoist?
Ask the Russians, that's how they rig the Soyuz rockets [starryskies.com]. Been doing it pretty successfully for 40 years or so now.
Re:Rockets are impressive, but the VAB is insane (Score:5, Informative)
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That's why cooling towers are square?
Vortex shedding (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Rockets are impressive, but the VAB is insane (Score:5, Informative)
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--I've always wondered about that building. Why is it so much better to do the assembly vertically, rather than doing it horizontally and then raising the vehicle afterwards?--
For the same reason it is better to test rockets vertical. It may be cheaper the other way, but I think you have more failures that way too. Those SRB's were always tested horizontal (not good). Now once and for all we can get a vertical rocket test of the SRB. The same goes for the assembly. You don't have to design the rocket to tak
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I got to tour...inside a building that can withstand hurricane force winds. It is truly mind-boggling.
Just moved here from the jungle, have you?
Nice bit of selective quoting there.
More NasaTV Feeds and launch data (Score:5, Informative)
100k/s [yahoo.com], 320/240
200k/s [yahoo.com], 320/240
500k/s [yahoo.com], 480x360(I think)
1200k/s [yahoo.com], 640/480
All Windows Media format
Real media format [nasa.gov]
Quicktime [nasa.gov]
Launch data [nasa.gov]
Re:More NasaTV Feeds and launch data (Score:4, Funny)
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It's swaying around in the wind a bit.... (Score:2)
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Is anyone else having problems with these feeds on Linux with VLC ?
The 200k/s Windows Media stream seems to work ok, but the higher resolution streams just display a few frames of video and then lock up.
The Real Media stream only provides audio, but it seems to be at about 60 seconds ahead of the Windows Media streams.
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VLC 0.8.7 (Fedora 8) and VLC 1.0.2 (Fedora 11) both seem to be able to cope with the low bitrate Yahoo links.
I selected OpenNetworkStream from the File/Media menu and pasted the URL in the http stream box and VLC managed to decode the real stream URLs from the Yahoo links ok.
On the higher bitrate links both versions of VLC hang after a few frames.
Question for those in-the-know (Score:4, Interesting)
What is going to happen with the Ares V? I heard rumors about it being scrapped. I hope they were wrong?
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What is going to happen with the Ares V? I heard rumors about it being scrapped. I hope they were wrong?
No decisions as yet. Stay tuned.
Re:Question for those in-the-know (Score:4, Informative)
The Augustine commission offered the administration about 10 options, some of which continue Ares V development, while others don't. All options that remain within the current budget (not the extra $3B required to do anything impressive according to the report) continue Ares V development.
However, all of the options presented push for a heavy lift capability. Other options include
- 'Ares V Lite': a lower-performance version of Ares V that would be human rated and could potentially reduce development costs primarily by eliminating the need for Ares 1
- Shuttle-derived: Either a sidemount cargo vehicle (probably requiring something like an Ares 1 for crew launch), or a top-mount shuttle derived design like Jupiter. These would be less capable than Ares V, but still powerful and potentially cheaper -- you could achieve a lunar mission with 2 or 3 launches.
- EELVs: Creating larger Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles from the Delta or Atlas family. These would be the least capable. These are also the biggest question mark because cost savings would come in a large part from a restructuring of rocket development to a DoD style model, where contractors are given requirements, not designs.
All of these, in combination with various targets and schedules were analyzed by the committee. None of the options comes out as a clear winner as cheaper or better, since Ares V has some considerable sunk costs that make its cheaper relative to the others, while designing even a sidemount cargo pod is more expensive than some probably think. Personally I like EELVs because it forces a change in the way business is done, but thats me.
Solid Rocket Vibrations Are Not Pogo (Score:5, Informative)
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structure to 'diverge'
Never hearing the term before, it very succinctly communicates the situation. I must say the mental image is also quite pleasant. Well done!
~the chemical engineering student who uses numerical methods to solve large problems
Re:Solid Rocket Vibrations Are Not Pogo (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect that the term "blow up" would be just as apt, though a little less British in the degree of understatement.
Re:Solid Rocket Vibrations Are Not Pogo (Score:5, Funny)
I suspect that the term "blow up" would be just as apt, though a little less British in the degree of understatement.
Rocket engineers are fond of that form of understatement. I've also heard "unscheduled disassembly", and I'm particularly fond of "turbine-rich exhaust".
What is the point? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why is NASA so bent on using the solid-fuel boosters, when the military already has the much cheaper Delta iV Heavy and Atlas V rockets that have been proven?
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Well, Delta and Atlas don't keep former shuttle employees busy. And everyone knows that reusing large components of something entirely different will make the end result cheaper... because you never have to do rework and the reused components are always optimal for the design.
Oh, I'm sorry, I'll wipe up the extra sarcasm I spilled there...
Re:What is the point? (Score:5, Informative)
Solid-fuel boosters keep jobs in the state of Utah so you can count on Orrin Hatch, very powerful senator from Utah supporting NASA's budget....
Someone said on a previous thread the Ares 1 has such a goofy look because the SRB's built in Utah have to pass through a train tunnel so they can't be increased in diameter which is why it looks so top heavy.
There is certainly a benefit to SRB's in that you don't have all the complexities of cryogenic fuels, and having to fuel before launch. That's why the Air Force uses them in ICBM's, they are extremely simple to launch. They are also somewhat safer than liquid fuels in some respects. It certainly remains to be seen if they will work the way NASA is trying to use them, especially how bad the vibration will be.
It certainly would have been better if NASA could have finished the SRB facility in Mississippi, which was killed twice, so they could be shipped to Kennedy on barges and the diameter constraints would have been removed. I wager Utah's senators helped kill it to keep the jobs in Utah.
NASA's manned space program is 90% jobs program, 10% space program at this point, in case you hadn't noticed.
Re:What is the point? (Score:4, Interesting)
There is certainly a benefit to SRB's in that you don't have all the complexities of cryogenic fuels, and having to fuel before launch. That's why the Air Force uses them in ICBM's, they are extremely simple to launch. They are also somewhat safer than liquid fuels in some respects. It certainly remains to be seen if they will work the way NASA is trying to use them, especially how bad the vibration will be.
On the other hand, there's plenty of ways that SRBs are also more dangerous. Pretty much the only failure modes SRBs have are catastrophic explosions, and since you can't shut them off like you can with liquid rockets it makes it rather difficult to launch-escape if something goes wrong. It's also considerably more difficult to handle for the ground personnel, as summarized well in this blog post by "Chair Force Engineer":
http://chairforceengineer.blogspot.com/2009/10/worlds-largest-stick-of-dynamite.html [blogspot.com]
Just when it seemed like the history books had been closed on the Challenger disaster, I came across a review of Truth, Lies & O-Rings, an interesting look at the faulty decision-making leading up to launch. (hat tip to Clark Lindsey's Hobbyspace.) The reviewer makes an interesting point about the dangers inherent in ground handling of solid rockets. Many of the inherent disadvantages of SRBs have been long-discussed, such as the inability to shut them down during abort situations. But handling and storing the motors carries all the potential dangers of riding on them. For that reason, SRB stacking operations are classified as "hazardous operations," and all non-essential personnel are banned from the Vehicle Assembly Building. The procedure is similar for stacking the stages of other solid-fuel launch vehicles. In spite of all the precautions and built-in safety mechanisms, the potential always exists for a catastrophic solid-fuel detonation, as occurred with Brazil's orbital launch vehicle.
While I tend to think that the risk is overstated (the industry has been dealing with large solid rockets since the 1940's,) it can never be entirely eliminated. For this reason, Jeff Bell predicted that the SRB would be deleted from the shuttle-derived launch vehicles under development by NASA. Many "space boosters" are dismissive of Jeff Bell, viewing him as a cynic whose arguments aren't worth the paper they're written on. I'll concede that his predictions often come with fatal flaws, but he does make a lot of solid arguments and presents plenty of pertinent facts. In the case of the aforementioned prediction, Jeff Bell's fatal flaw is assuming that NASA would choose a safe, clean-sheet launcher design over one that protects the shuttle's entrenched workforce and contractors.
The ground-handling of large solid rockets (and even the individual segments) was an issue that should have been re-examined when Ares I was designed to be "safe, simple and soon." While NASA personnel have done an admirable job in handling the SRB's up to this point, it's sobering to know that just one mistake could cost a lot of lives and pull the plug on the nation's manned space program. The Ares 5-segment SRB will be the world's largest stick of dynamite, and that risk should never be lost on anybody who works in the space business.
Some notes regarding the Ares I-X (and Ares I) (Score:3, Informative)
Some items to note:
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As a demonstration of US technical prowess, Ares I is pathetic; its got similar capabilities to Saturn I and took much longer to develop. It anything its a demonstration of US decline...
I agree. NASA's budget is spiralling downwards, and they can barely keep the shuttle going. The Ares programme isn't even sure to be completed (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,459465,00.html).
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I'd like to discuss this more, but we're out of time, so we'll have to leave it there.
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Sorry, but your "lolz" make you unqualified to comment on any serious matter and be taken seriously.
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nn
not necessarily
NASA had unlimited funds for Apollo. The funds are more limited in this case, so some "afro engineering", for lack of a more politically correct term, is bound to occur.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Informative)
As a demonstration of US technical prowess, Ares I is pathetic; its got similar capabilities to Saturn I and took much longer to develop. It anything its a demonstration of US decline...
Since you are comparing launch vehicles rather than stage 1 boosters, I'll take it you mean Saturn C-1 which had the Saturn 1 first stage. It was the first of the Saturn family to fly. For comparison purposes we'll use that vs. the Ares 1-X CLV presently sitting on Pad 39B
Capabilities:
Saturn C-1: 19,800 lbs to LEO
Ares: 54,000 lbs to LEO
Development (proposal to first launch)
Saturn: 'Proposal for a National Integrated Missile and Space Vehicle Development Plan'; Werner von Braun 30 DEC 1957, to 27 OCT 1961 = ~46 months
Ares CLV: Initial design proposed September 2005 to (not yet flown but on pad 4 days ahead of schedule and awaiting a clear launch window) now = ~49 months
The 6.5% longer Ares development time is insignificant considering the August 2006 redesign from proven 4 segment SRB booster + shuttle main engine sustainer to untried 5 segment
SRB derivative + J-2S sustainer. The C1 didn't change significantly during development from the originally proposed cluster of Redstone airframes/tanks and engines.
As an aside, if the parent was posted with prior knowledge of these facts, the post itself the being purposefully false with the intent to instigate otherwise unnecessary replies, it would be a 'troll'. If the parent was posted in ignorance of the facts but simply intended to initiate arguments, it would be 'flamebait'. Intentionally or not, parent is quite the opposite of 'informative'. Sadly we do not have a '-1 misinformative' mod.
I'll not speculate on your intentions or on your possible state of ignorance/intellectual impairment, as time will produce a result more definitive than my mere opinion. I will note that like both the dummy payload carrying Saturn C1 and Ares 1-X, you appear to be capable of accomplishing little more than blowing a lot of smoke out of your ass.
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Ares 1-X has no capability to LEO at all as it is a sub-orbital rocket, like the first Saturn I flight. Furthermore, you place the start of the Saturn I design (beyond 'we need a dedicated launcher') about a year too early. So don't presume to lecture me on facts.
The Ares team has a number of advantages over the Saturn team:
1. The first stage of Ares 1-X is already in service as the Shuttle SRB
2. The second stage engine of Ares 1 (which isn't even ready for use as such yet) is a tried and tested design
3. Co
Number one in what exactly? (Score:5, Informative)
This 'new' rocket is basically a solid booster from the space shuttle, that needs to be extended with a 5th segment, but it now flies with a 5th dummy segment. On top of that is more dummy weight. This is just a test of an existing and older booster. Now why do you think there is some kind of competition in rocketry that the US can be number one in? Or are you just happy you or your parents paid taxes for this upcoming show?
Or am I a 'hater' because I a a little sceptic about this project of NASA because you cannot understand discourse? Personally, I am much more impressed with SpaceX and Armadillo, who seem to come up with nice projects for much less money. Wasn't there a new SpaceX big rocket on the launchpad soon?
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Re:Number one in what exactly? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Number one in what exactly? (Score:4, Insightful)
>I'm pretty sure that Congress could find a lot of other uses for that half billion dollars
Yea, think of all the coke the bankers could buy with handouts from half a billion dollars.
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Yeah. They should add it to the hundreds of billions already spent on killing people in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Funny how we can always find hundreds of billions for war, but nothing for science.
Re:Number one in what exactly? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Comparing the Falcon 9 to the N-1 is like comparing a Honda Civic to a Trabant.
The N-1 was a half-assed design from the beginning, it didn't even have the fuel tanks integrated into the structure of the rocket because the Soviets were too cheap to build the tooling necessary. So they built it with spherical tanks like a Goddard rocket, giving it a lousy mass to thrust ratio. Then the Soviets compounded the problem by only testing selected engines out of each production batch, instead of test-firing all of t
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but I have high hopes that a return to the rocket-centric designs of yesteryear will put us back in the forefront of space exploration.
With the current political climate, I wouldn't count on government to get us there. We've been idling for decades and really do need private sector involvement [ted.com] to start making solid progress again.
Re:I'm a rocket, man! (Score:5, Interesting)
Sadly I suspect that the one thing that would really get NASA and ESA some serious funding would be if say, Pakistan, India and China all started attempts at building military space stations, especially China since they have the resources coupled with a "Just get it up there right now!" attitude similar to that of the soviets.
It's not so easy to sit back and relax when some other guy decides that you can just train more astronauts if a few die if it means you get there first.
/Mikael
Re:I'm a rocket, man! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Didn't work when the Russians had Salute's 5, 6, 7 and Mir or were you asleep during the last 50 years?
I haven't been alive for 50 years, you insensitive clod!
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Yes I know about the translation, but I bet you never call Mir, peace or world. Hell you could have said the fireworks 5,6 and 7 but you didn't so why not use the name they gave it ? Or do you go to the River of January for the carnival ?
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Ah, but that was fairly late in the game, a better example (IMHO) would be early days of the space program when the general mentality among a lot of western leaders was "if they can put stuff in orbit then they can nuke us from anywhere! We need to one up them, now!".
Now, substitute "stuff in orbit" in the first part of that with "space stations (that aren't just very expensive tin cans with solar panels)".
/Mikael
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To be honest Korolyev's biog
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The point is it worked for us and was Mir a failure?
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BTW the core unit of the ISS (The Zvezda module) was originally to be Mir II
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10 trillion of printed from nothing US $dollars
with
who just transfer the trillions to Europe
And I have to wonder: Don't those two issues cancel out?
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and tell the fed reserve to give 10 trillion of printed from nothing US $dollars to nasa.
Surely having the Federal Reserve arbitrarily print off a dollar amount that is close to the US GDP isn't a good idea, for all the destruction such printing would do to anyone except the guys who get the trillions first. It kind of makes your 'we still have cash' statement sound a little silly. Sure, we have paper, but if it's worth half of what it used to, are we really better off?
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It's about bloody time they got this thing started
Actually, it's past time. [yahoo.com]
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There are a lot of steps between Ares 1-X, and an actual Ares 1 + Orion that can take people to orbit. Augustine and crew say 2017 before that happens, and they seem to have a good idea of what they're talking about.
Whats on the pad now is largely a publicity stunt -- especially with the future of Ares 1 itself in doubt. Its a 4-segment SRB with a dummy 5th segment, and a dummy second stage and Orion capsule. The fact that the SRB is different means it doesn't represent the vibrations and harmonics of the
Cut the welfare and go to space (Score:2)
I would rather throw a few thousand people off of disability and have the spaceship, then not, if it comes to that.
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[Full disclosure: I have never taken any sort of government benefit and am not on any now.]
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So, since you're more than willing to allow [other] people to lose their jobs so you can have your gee wiz feel good moments, I would bet it's fair to say you're not one of the thousands employed by NASA or subcontractors.
[Full disclosure: I don't work for NASA or a subcontractor.]
Re:Tragically, We Cannot Afford This Now (Score:5, Informative)
I am hard-pressed to think of any great advances in knowledge that were not already known from by the time the cruddy but long-surviving MIR burned up in the atmosphere.
I hate it when people like you pull the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately schtick. Listen, just because you can't think of anything doesn't mean there isn't useful science coming out of NASA EVERY DAY.
You should look at the NASA Spinoff page. http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/ [nasa.gov]
NASA is pushing the state of the art in materials, robotics, communications, structural engineering, environment and many others. Things that have real-world impact on our lives today. It's not just Tang and Velcro.
The ISS, despite all it's flaws and short comings, gives us lessons every day in how to survive and thrive in the harshest of all environments. It will give us the technology and know-how to do longer range and longer duration missions than were ever before possible.
Re:Tragically, We Cannot Afford This Now (Score:5, Informative)
Though I have always adored the thought and reality of space travel--this is just a luxury we cannot afford now. There is no pressing problem that would cause this need to travel to the Moon or Mars to occur.
No, actually, space exploration is essentailly done on the bubble-gum budget of the US. Deleting NASA or doubling NASA would have no noticible effect on the US budget-- the funding level is down in the noise compared to the main budget items.
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You are now saying that space exploration is "wrong."
That's a different argument. You are entitled to your opinion.
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Space isn't a luxury... In the long term it will become a necessity and the nation that is first to exploit it will be the one that prospers the most in the future.
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Alas, that does not provide a reason for us to blow money on the space program. Conflating the two is meaningless.
If you are pissed at the things our government wastes money on, that's an argument for eliminating that waste--NOT for wasting more.
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Nothing would speed our journey to becoming a has-been superpower faster than the cessation of government funding for scientific research. Especially critical is government funding of pure research: that is, research that has no immediate and obvious commercial benefit. Even if you think that space exploration/research is a luxury you should argue for doing as much of it as possible to keep our science on the cutting (leading) edge.
Of course, if you think that space is a luxury with no benefit then you are,
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"stop global Climate Change"
Only case I can make for manned space flight is for when the fossil fuels lobbies in the U.S. or China kill any effective caps on carbon emissions, we eventually hit a tipping point in CO2 levels and the runaway green house effect starts. Then there would be a compelling case for having a colony on Mars to keep our species alive when we make Earth uninhabitable. Of course as badly as our species is botching this planet not sure we deserve the reprieve. Its become pretty clear t
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Re:Tragically, We Cannot Afford This Now (Score:5, Interesting)
This logic just pisses me off right now. NASA is asking for an extra $3 billion per year to build a new viable replacement to the space shuttle. When you contrast the other things the gov't is wastefully spending its money on its ridiculous.
You could fund NASA the extra $3 billion for
10 years instead of bailing out GM and Chrysler
or
Nearly 57 years instead of bailing out f-ing AIG
THAT is government waste. Spending for NASA has always provided benefits for science and impacted our daily lives. Its a worthy endeavor and something necessary to IMHO spur on the advancement of the human race.
Politicians make a great noise about "science and engineering" being important to this country. Lets see them back up those words. If NASA's new rockets die on the vine the politicians will have shown their true beliefs on this issue. If this nation fails to renew its capability for manned spaceflight, in my opinion, we will also distinctly show that to America, science and engineering don't matter anymore. Why not become a doctor or lawyer, oh wait, the doctors are going to get screwed by health care reform, so why not just become a lawyer if you want to be successful. This country no longer rewards those that build and design great things anymore, the money game and the ever growing soulless corporations get quite literally TRILLIONS of dollars in support from the government, and one of the biggest science and engineering problems we are trying to solve right now gets told "sorry theres not enough left for you". Its utter bullshit.
Sure our government doesn't really have enough money right now, but not because of NASAs budget issues, it because they've been handing it out like f-ing candy to assholes on Wall Street who f-cked the country over and went laughing all the way to the bank(err government). We need to get all that money back (or at least stop giving it away) and start spending it on the RIGHT things.
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I agree the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs hugely expanded our knowledge.
The Space Shuttle really did not and even less so the International Space Station. I believe the ISS should have been canceled even though at the time I was all for it. It served no great purpose other than providing a vacation location for millionaires with $20 milli
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And THAT is why NASA won't get the money that is eagerly shovelled into the pockets of crooked businessmen who would sell their own grandma to a glue factor for a dollar.
The word is 'Kleptocracy' - despite all protestations, modern western governments exist solely to enrich the participants in those
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I guess NASA is not big enough to fail. I wonder how the banks are going to behave now they know they are to big to fail and have been rewarded for their risky behavior. I mean you wouldn't expect them just to do the same things again only worse?
It's actually looking p
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You answered your own question - in the long term it will be very important. Try reading up on some of the mission objectives and payloads before you categorically deny that no "great innovations" have resulted. Long-term missions and space habitability experience cannot be solved on paper.
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For example: spending $500 billion dollars to find a cure for cancer will be very important. [We can't afford it right now.]
Even if I read up on the mission objectives--that does not create money out of thin air to pay for it! Why does every Space Travel Booster (I consider myself one) totally disregard the cost! This is so frustrating. Are you little children who can't see the obvious
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I don't think so. Sadly, this is a time when we cannot afford this.
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Is this a serious statement?
Bravo, your trolling skills are epic indeed.
No space travel in a previous depression? HAH.
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Once you stop the wheel, it takes a lot to get it to start turning again.
Aerospace engineering expertise exists in the engineers that live/work/breathe/teach their profession. If you temporarily cancel a program, all of those engineers will have to find work elsewhere and all of their knowledge that is stored in their heads will be lost.
Tell me, as an engineer who recently graduated, why I should even go into aerospace engineering if I have to deal with the opinions of people like you who would rather we n
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Aerospace engineering expertise exists... True
Tell me, as an engineer who recently graduated... True but nobody promised anybody a job
Those engineers might want to design rockets... True
True true true... we still can't afford it!
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Yes, we can.
NASA's budget is a drop in the bucket compared to everything else congress spends money on, and it provides jobs, trade, expertise, technology, and national pride.
For a country that prides itself on having a high level of technology, it would be an indicator that the USA has truly fallen.
The Russians and Chinese can afford it, yet the USA can not anymore...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
For example: spending $500 billion dollars to find a cure for cancer will be very important.
Will it be, really? People will continue to die by the thousands every year. And then we will have the same cry: We must stop (whatever becomes the new cause of death) before we can think about space. People are supposed to die, and a lot younger than we currently do. Eliminate the big causes of death and you *increase* the load on the planet's resources. And why cancer? Only *one* cancer (lungs) is in the top 10 causes of death worldwide.
And what happens when 20 years from now we now we realize that the cl
Re: (Score:2)
Further Delay (Score:2, Informative)
Scrub (Score:4, Informative)