Turns out Obama was right about the Space Program.

[DiveCon]

LOL! What a bunch of miserable pricks.

did you actually READ the story, or just rdean's pathetic spin on it?

 

[Robert_Stephens]

NASA says private-sector spaceships will have to satisfy safety standards that the space shuttle can’t meet — and the companies building those spaceships say they'll rise to the challenge.

Over the past year, the White House and NASA decided to go with a different approach, with the space agency purchasing services from commercial spaceship ventures. NASA is paying out hundreds of millions of dollars for the development of cargo ships such as SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which passed its first flight test last month. If the spaceships work as advertised, commercial companies would be in line for billions of dollars worth of contracts.

The Challenger and Columbia disasters led risk analysts to estimate that flying the space shuttle carried a roughly 1-in-100 chance that the crew and the spaceship would be lost during a given mission. In the wake of the Columbia tragedy, NASA and the White House decided to retire the shuttle fleet and move on to a simpler, safer launch system.

The Challenger and Columbia disasters led risk analysts to estimate that flying the space shuttle carried a roughly 1-in-100 chance that the crew and the spaceship would be lost during a given mission. In the wake of the Columbia tragedy, NASA and the White House decided to retire the shuttle fleet and move on to a simpler, safer launch system.

Some space veterans think the commercial companies can't do it. Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan — who was the last man to walk on the moon back in 1972 — complained to Congress last year that the new players in spaceflight "do not yet know what they don't know, and that can lead to dangerous and costly consequences."

The space shuttle has no launch escape system. If it did, there might have been a chance of saving Challenger's crew.

Also, a pusher abort system on a reusable spacecraft would have to be positioned to minimize the risk of damage during re-entry. Despite those drawbacks, SpaceX and other companies (such as Boeing, Sierra Nevada, Orbital Sciences and Blue Origin) are hard at work designing pushers with NASA funding.

There are so many errors in this "report" that it is hard to address, and very typical of the extreme left wing of NBC, the source for the post and quote.

Suffice to say, the STS system is the most complex launch system ever concocted by man. It is also the most successful. In 133, and soon, 135 flights, we have lost 2 vehicles. That is a failure to success ratio unequaled in anything mechanical.

In a Fault Tree as it is called in Aerospace discipline, it calls for a loss of 3 vehicles in 125 flight missions. NASA has beat those odds by a long shot.

The Shuttle has 761 CRIT-1 items that a loss or failure of any one of those, is a loss of mission, vehicle, and crew. CRIT=Criticality One Items.

The reason for phase out is funding, since NASA is the most visible thing this government does, and we as a people do, there is not the funds to fly the remaining shuttles to what is called "EoP"=End of Program. The tragedy of this is that Atlantis, Endeavor are new, and Discovery, the tried and true workhorse of the fleet, is good for another 38 flight till it is end of its operating life. Sad waste of amazing technology.

This report is totally false and sourcing is questionable at best. Shuttle has been the greatest thing this country has ever done, period. One view of this very medium we are communicating on (A NASA-Cern outlier) and nearly everything in our lives is a spin off of STS technology.

The story is BS, sadly. And so you know, OP, I worked Shuttle failure up and through STS-51L and was dating astronaut Dr. Judith Resnik at the time of STS-51L failure.

Robert

 

[daveman]

Good post, Robert. It's nice to have someone who's been there and done that to counter dean's simplistic non-thinking.

 

[Sallow]

While I think it's good that private companies are stepping up to the plate for this..I would have much preferred to see progress on a Moon Colony. There are a good many reasons to do it..first of which would be "Proof of Concept". It's also close enough to do a good deal of testing there. IMHO we are far behind the promise of the initial moon program.

 

[signelect]

Can anyone tell me how my life is ANY better in any way as a result of the space program, I know that it created a lot of high paying jobs but I didn't get one of them. I don't get to ride on the shuttle but I would like to retire and not worry about getting my money back that I loan the gov at no interest. The private space program will done at cost plus like always and some of you may remember the $6000 toilet that was invented about 40 years ago.

 

[daveman]

Can anyone tell me how my life is ANY better in any way as a result of the space program, I know that it created a lot of high paying jobs but I didn't get one of them. I don't get to ride on the shuttle but I would like to retire and not worry about getting my money back that I loan the gov at no interest. The private space program will done at cost plus like always and some of you may remember the $6000 toilet that was invented about 40 years ago.

This is how your life is better.

 

[Robert_Stephens]

Good post, Robert. It's nice to have someone who's been there and done that to counter dean's simplistic non-thinking.

Thank you very much.

I take extreme issue with all this "woo woo" crap from all this nonsense, like Bell, Hoagland, and so many of the psycho crowd. It gets frustrating since they are all, in toto, a form of "techno terrorism". Sad, but true. Education is freedom!!!

Robert

 

[Robert_Stephens]

Can anyone tell me how my life is ANY better in any way as a result of the space program, I know that it created a lot of high paying jobs but I didn't get one of them. I don't get to ride on the shuttle but I would like to retire and not worry about getting my money back that I loan the gov at no interest. The private space program will done at cost plus like always and some of you may remember the $6000 toilet that was invented about 40 years ago.

Yes, I can.

90% of all technology we are using today, from cell phones to this very medium you are typing on, is from NASA technology. Medical, science, communications, internet, computers, and 1000s more items. NASA cost you $0.31 a month, as a taxpayer. Can you swing that?

Personally for you, an education would help you.

Robert

 

[Robert_Stephens]

While I think it's good that private companies are stepping up to the plate for this..I would have much preferred to see progress on a Moon Colony. There are a good many reasons to do it..first of which would be "Proof of Concept". It's also close enough to do a good deal of testing there. IMHO we are far behind the promise of the initial moon program.

Excellent!!!

I agree with you 100%. We reached and got there. Then stopped. Why? Funding!!!! Always.

Tragic.

Robert

 

[rdean]

Can anyone tell me how my life is ANY better in any way as a result of the space program, I know that it created a lot of high paying jobs but I didn't get one of them. I don't get to ride on the shuttle but I would like to retire and not worry about getting my money back that I loan the gov at no interest. The private space program will done at cost plus like always and some of you may remember the $6000 toilet that was invented about 40 years ago.

Yes, I can.

90% of all technology we are using today, from cell phones to this very medium you are typing on, is from NASA technology. Medical, science, communications, internet, computers, and 1000s more items. NASA cost you $0.31 a month, as a taxpayer. Can you swing that?

Personally for you, an education would help you.

Robert

Uh oh, you just lost the right wing. If you spend any time on this board, you will find right wingers calling scientists lazy elitists who don't contribute a thing to the country. Education is "just a piece of paper". PEW Poll results pegs the number of American Scientists identifying as Republican at 6%.

I did spend two weeks at NASA some years ago when they bought a "Cone Calorimeter" from the company I was working at, at that time. This Calorimeter was specially developed with a high O2 content vitiated system after the tragic fire that killed several astronauts. The purpose was to test flammable materials at a higher O2 content.

The location was at White Sands. It was an amazing two weeks. Several scientists stopped by to view the Cone Calorimeter at one time or another and invited us to witness some of the tests they were conducting. A couple we were allowed to watch, a couple we weren't.

Being a lowly engineer, talking to these guys was a true eye opener. The ones I talked to impressed me as brilliant and totally unaware of that fact. One surprise was the number of foreign scientists working there. The manager of the area we were working in was from "Transylvania" and yes, he did talk like Bela Lugosi.

 

[DiveCon]

Can anyone tell me how my life is ANY better in any way as a result of the space program, I know that it created a lot of high paying jobs but I didn't get one of them. I don't get to ride on the shuttle but I would like to retire and not worry about getting my money back that I loan the gov at no interest. The private space program will done at cost plus like always and some of you may remember the $6000 toilet that was invented about 40 years ago.

Yes, I can.

90% of all technology we are using today, from cell phones to this very medium you are typing on, is from NASA technology. Medical, science, communications, internet, computers, and 1000s more items. NASA cost you $0.31 a month, as a taxpayer. Can you swing that?

Personally for you, an education would help you.

Robert

Uh oh, you just lost the right wing. If you spend any time on this board, you will find right wingers calling scientists lazy elitists who don't contribute a thing to the country. Education is "just a piece of paper". PEW Poll results pegs the number of American Scientists identifying as Republican at 6%.

I did spend two weeks at NASA some years ago when they bought a "Cone Calorimeter" from the company I was working at, at that time. This Calorimeter was specially developed with a high O2 content vitiated system after the tragic fire that killed several astronauts. The purpose was to test flammable materials at a higher O2 content.

The location was at White Sands. It was an amazing two weeks. Several scientists stopped by to view the Cone Calorimeter at one time or another and invited us to witness some of the tests they were conducting. A couple we were allowed to watch, a couple we weren't.

Being a lowly engineer, talking to these guys was a true eye opener. The ones I talked to impressed me as brilliant and totally unaware of that fact. One surprise was the number of foreign scientists working there. The manager of the area we were working in was from "Transylvania" and yes, he did talk like Bela Lugosi.

you are such an idiot

 

[rdean]

Yes, I can.

90% of all technology we are using today, from cell phones to this very medium you are typing on, is from NASA technology. Medical, science, communications, internet, computers, and 1000s more items. NASA cost you $0.31 a month, as a taxpayer. Can you swing that?

Personally for you, an education would help you.

Robert

Uh oh, you just lost the right wing. If you spend any time on this board, you will find right wingers calling scientists lazy elitists who don't contribute a thing to the country. Education is "just a piece of paper". PEW Poll results pegs the number of American Scientists identifying as Republican at 6%.

I did spend two weeks at NASA some years ago when they bought a "Cone Calorimeter" from the company I was working at, at that time. This Calorimeter was specially developed with a high O2 content vitiated system after the tragic fire that killed several astronauts. The purpose was to test flammable materials at a higher O2 content.

The location was at White Sands. It was an amazing two weeks. Several scientists stopped by to view the Cone Calorimeter at one time or another and invited us to witness some of the tests they were conducting. A couple we were allowed to watch, a couple we weren't.

Being a lowly engineer, talking to these guys was a true eye opener. The ones I talked to impressed me as brilliant and totally unaware of that fact. One surprise was the number of foreign scientists working there. The manager of the area we were working in was from "Transylvania" and yes, he did talk like Bela Lugosi.

you are such an idiot

Gee, I wish I was "smart" like you. Maybe if I got a lobotomy?

 

[rdean]

David Mindell, the Frances and David Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing and director of MIT’s Program in Science, Technology, and Society, said that Bolden’s defense of Obama’s proposal wasn’t surprising, given that it’s his job to do so. “But the proposal does recommend a fresh approach that, though risky, could reinvigorate human spaceflight in the U.S. and restart research — at MIT and many other places — that had been sacrificed for the Constellation program,” he said.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/bolden-visit-0512.html

That is the plan of Alliant Techsystems of Minneapolis — the aerospace company more commonly known as ATK, which manufacturers the solid rocket motors for NASA’s space shuttles — and Astrium, a European company that builds Ariane 5 rockets, which are used to launch satellites. The two will announce on Tuesday what is essentially a commercial version of the Ares I, the expensive NASA rocket that Congress and the Obama administration canceled last year.

The Ares I, part of a bloated NASA program to send astronauts back to the moon, could become a success story in the Obama administration’s effort to shape a more affordable space program with the help of the private sector. NASA’s so-called commercial crew program is seeking companies to build and operate space taxis to take astronauts to the International Space Station.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/business/global/08rocket.html?src=busln

Buzz Aldrin: Steps Taken Following Obama's Direction "Will Best Position NASA And Other Space Agencies To Send Humans To Mars." From astronaut Buzz Aldrin's statement on Obama's NASA plan:

Krauthammer Falsely Claims Obama "Killed NASA's Manned Space Program" | Media Matters for America

 

[DiveCon]

Uh oh, you just lost the right wing. If you spend any time on this board, you will find right wingers calling scientists lazy elitists who don't contribute a thing to the country. Education is "just a piece of paper". PEW Poll results pegs the number of American Scientists identifying as Republican at 6%.

I did spend two weeks at NASA some years ago when they bought a "Cone Calorimeter" from the company I was working at, at that time. This Calorimeter was specially developed with a high O2 content vitiated system after the tragic fire that killed several astronauts. The purpose was to test flammable materials at a higher O2 content.

The location was at White Sands. It was an amazing two weeks. Several scientists stopped by to view the Cone Calorimeter at one time or another and invited us to witness some of the tests they were conducting. A couple we were allowed to watch, a couple we weren't.

Being a lowly engineer, talking to these guys was a true eye opener. The ones I talked to impressed me as brilliant and totally unaware of that fact. One surprise was the number of foreign scientists working there. The manager of the area we were working in was from "Transylvania" and yes, he did talk like Bela Lugosi.

you are such an idiot

Gee, I wish I was "smart" like you. Maybe if I got a lobotomy?

i suspect you've already had one

 

[Lumpy 1]

I love being right.

I wish you wouldn't make it so easy... but alas I resist...

 

[Robert_Stephens]

Sadly, if we only had kept going with even half of the Apollo budget, then, now, we would we texting each other from a base on Mars, or at least the Moon. Sad, really. And the development of FTL on our near horizon would then open up a world unimaginable at this time.

I am saddened at where we are at and thought when I first got involved with NASA that my fellow countrymen would see that space is the most important thing we could and can do. The off shoots of same alone are astounding. But the ability to plan for a back up Earth for all of us is essential.

Perhaps, if we hear first from someone else, that would change everything.

Just some thoughts. Welcome everyone's ideas as well.

Robert

 

[Robert_Stephens]

I love being right.

Beyond all the errors I pointed out previously about this story, the essence of the plan from both sides, is sound, if they will DO IT!!! Do something! Anything, but don't fly our people on Russian boilerplate technology. Don't let slip what we do to another country out of sheer unresolve.

Just a thought.

Robert

 

[Lumpy 1]

Sadly, if we only had kept going with even half of the Apollo budget, then, now, we would we texting each other from a base on Mars, or at least the Moon. Sad, really. And the development of FTL on our near horizon would then open up a world unimaginable at this time.

I am saddened at where we are at and thought when I first got involved with NASA that my fellow countrymen wouls ee that space is the most important thing we could and can do. The off shoots of same alone are astounding. But the ability to plan for a back up Earth for all of us is essential.

Perhaps, if we hear first from someone else, that would change everything.

Just some thoughts. Welcome everyone's ideas as well.

Robert

The American Government is killing the,"Golden Goose" by over regulation, high taxation, corruption and frivolous environmental concerns...

The Empire State Building took, what 18 months to build.. The Trade Center rebuilding..???

Those days are gone, it's privately if even possible or nothing...

 

[westwall]

Sadly, if we only had kept going with even half of the Apollo budget, then, now, we would we texting each other from a base on Mars, or at least the Moon. Sad, really. And the development of FTL on our near horizon would then open up a world unimaginable at this time.

I am saddened at where we are at and thought when I first got involved with NASA that my fellow countrymen would see that space is the most important thing we could and can do. The off shoots of same alone are astounding. But the ability to plan for a back up Earth for all of us is essential.

Perhaps, if we hear first from someone else, that would change everything.

Just some thoughts. Welcome everyone's ideas as well.

Robert

The space program has been the single biggest contributor to mans well being on this planet by far. We are mired in debt yet if the government wanted to get us out of the mess the only possible way is by massive investment in a new space program. The wealth generated by that would pay off the national debt in a decade or so if it weren't pissed away first.

 

[editec]

I support the continued exploration of space.

And just so long as the private companies pay for the technology that they are getting that was developed by pulbically funded NASA studies, I also support private enterprize in space.

But for the average man, the person whose ricebowl is not with NASA, it is certainly not demanding too much that our problems on earth are ALSO taken care of.

Sadly they're not.