NASA admin says shuttle was a mistake

[Richard]

Is Griffin a traitor to the NASA cause or is he finally saying what should have been said 30 years ago? Or perhaps he is preparing NASA's case for abandoning a dead end project. I especially like his quote as shown in bold (my emphasis). How do you delete a major project while doing minimal harm?

NASA administrator says space shuttle was a mistake

By Traci Watson
USA TODAY
The space shuttle and International Space Station — nearly the whole of the U.S. manned space program for the past three decades — were mistakes, NASA chief Michael Griffin said Tuesday.

In a meeting with USA TODAY's editorial board, Griffin said NASA lost its way in the 1970s, when the agency ended the Apollo moon missions in favor of developing the shuttle and space station, which can only orbit Earth.
“It is now commonly accepted that was not the right path,” Griffin said. “We are now trying to change the path while doing as little damage as we can.”

The shuttle has cost the lives of 14 astronauts since the first flight in 1982. Roger Pielke Jr., a space policy expert at the University of Colorado, estimates that NASA has spent about $150 billion on the program since its inception in 1971. The total cost of the space station by the time it's finished — in 2010 or later — may exceed $100 billion, though other nations will bear some of that.

Only now is the nation's space program getting back on track, Griffin said. He announced last week that NASA aims to send astronauts back to the moon in 2018 in a spacecraft that would look like the Apollo capsule.
The goal of returning Americans to the moon was laid out by President Bush in 2004, before Griffin took the top job at NASA. Bush also said the shuttle would be retired in 2010.
Griffin has made clear in previous statements that he regards the shuttle and space station as misguided. He told the Senate earlier this year that the shuttle was “deeply flawed” and that the space station was not worth “the expense, the risk and the difficulty” of flying humans to space.
But since he became NASA administrator, Griffin hasn't been so blunt about the two programs.

Asked Tuesday whether the shuttle had been a mistake, Griffin said, “My opinion is that it was. … It was a design which was extremely aggressive and just barely possible.” Asked whether the space station had been a mistake, he said, “Had the decision been mine, we would not have built the space station we're building in the orbit we're building it in.”
Joe Rothenberg, head of NASA's manned space programs from 1995 to 2001, defended the programs for providing lessons about how to operate in space. But he conceded that “in hindsight, there may have been other ways.”

 

[Brian Austin]

I think the whole space program has gotten bogged down in itself. Very little in the way of innovation and way to much bureaucratic BS.

It's an adventure. People get hurt. Mistakes get made. But no progress means the mistakes and injuries/deaths are meaningless, imo. We should have had a moon base by now and had a team on Mars. Or mining asteroids, possibly even moving them into high orbit for mining locally. Or developing newer drive systems to explore further than our telescopes can see.

 

[mgkdrgn]

Some food for thought...

I visited KSFC two summers ago with my wife and stepdaughter. The stepdaughter at the time was the same age as I was when I first visited KSFC some, oh 30+ years earlier.

As we went through the tour ... I just found myself getting angry, of all things. And what was really bothering me was that I had no reason to be angry.

By the end of the day it dawned on me what the problem was. There wasn't ANYTHING we saw on those tours that I hadn't seen 30 years earlier. Nothing , nada, squat, bupkis. We had done a grand total of NOTHING in 30 years. THAT is what was bothering me. We were YEARS ahead of everybody, and we just p*ssed it all away.

Last stop on the tour was the concrete pedistal for the Saturn 1B launches, the site of the Apollo 1 (204) fire. Stenciled right there, in big bold red letters, was the problem:

ABANDON IN PLACE

Which is exactly what we did.

I think the whole space program has gotten bogged down in itself. Very little in the way of innovation and way to much bureaucratic BS.

It's an adventure. People get hurt. Mistakes get made. But no progress means the mistakes and injuries/deaths are meaningless, imo. We should have had a moon base by now and had a team on Mars. Or mining asteroids, possibly even moving them into high orbit for mining locally. Or developing newer drive systems to explore further than our telescopes can see.

 

[Ghery]

Some food for thought...

I visited KSFC two summers ago with my wife and stepdaughter. The stepdaughter at the time was the same age as I was when I first visited KSFC some, oh 30+ years earlier.

As we went through the tour ... I just found myself getting angry, of all things. And what was really bothering me was that I had no reason to be angry.

By the end of the day it dawned on me what the problem was. There wasn't ANYTHING we saw on those tours that I hadn't seen 30 years earlier. Nothing , nada, squat, bupkis. We had done a grand total of NOTHING in 30 years. THAT is what was bothering me. We were YEARS ahead of everybody, and we just p*ssed it all away.

Last stop on the tour was the concrete pedistal for the Saturn 1B launches, the site of the Apollo 1 (204) fire. Stenciled right there, in big bold red letters, was the problem:

ABANDON IN PLACE

Which is exactly what we did.

I took the tour this April when my wife and I were vacationing in Orlando. And, yes the timing was right and I spent a day at Sun n Fun. I was a bit dismayed, as well.

It started at the displays at the visitors center when I overheard a guide making mistakes. He was saying that the hatches on the Gemini capsule did not open outward and that was why one of the space walks had problems. WTF??? If they didn't open outward (which they did), just where did they go? Certainly not inward!

Other than that, really a great day. However, as you noted, not much new. The shuttle isn't exactly new (I worked for Martin Marietta in Denver in the early 80s when it first flew) and everything else on display pre-dated it. Looking at the Saturn V on display - in pieces, on its side for crying out loud - it was discouraging to recall that we couldn't build and fly that thing today if we had to. All the expertise is long gone, dead or retired. Looking out over the launch facilities from the viewing tower many of the sites where historic lauches occured are now just junk, rusting in peace. No new agressive development programs.

When I was growing up, working in the space industry looked like a fabulous thing to do. Now, being a "rocket scientist" is over 20 years in my past. And I have no real desire to get back into that game. Too much bureaucracy and too little to show for it. Now, Burt Rutan's show might be a different ball game...

What do we have to inspire the next generation of engineers and scientists?

 

[fgcason]

I think the whole space program has gotten bogged down in itself. Very little in the way of innovation and way to much bureaucratic BS.

Anyone remember Space Station Freedom? I talked to a guy that was working on it way back when. He said everyone that was working on it was calling it Space Station Fred because they couldn't even afford to finish the name on the thing.
And yes, people will get their butts blown to smithereens flying those things. It doesn't matter how good you build them or how clever you get to avoid it. They will keep going kaboom as long as we keep flying them. Nature of the beast. That's what happens when you sit on top of a big bomb, light it and something goes wrong at a bad time which is pretty much the entire flight. The crews sitting up there knowingly accept that risk and everyone else should too. They should either deal with it or shut up and get out of the way.

We should have had a moon base by now and had a team on Mars.

Last time I was at Houston and the cape many moons ago, there was an Apollo display laying on its side. The story went that those are Apollo 18 and Apollo 19, destined for the moon. The original intent was to fly those two vehicles, not put them out on display rusting in the salt air. IMNSHO those two vehicles laying in the sun are insults that we should be ashamed of, not trophies to flaunt about. Honorably they should be in a bazillion pieces laying on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean except for the pieces of them that are in permanent solar orbit outside the Earth's gravity well. Museum pieces are cute but they should be the remaining pieces with cooked heat shields, not abandoned unused hardware.

I think when it comes to space flight, this nation is just about the image of past glories, not what we can or should do. We're reaching the point of just being the old feeble knight who won all the great battles and is now just lugging his sword around telling tales of what he once was, not what he currently is. Yes, we are sending robots to various parts of the solar system and seeing some really wonderous things, but I don't see any human standing on Mars in a space suit jamming an American flag into the ground.

Right now I don't think we could fly an Apollo if we had to. We've lost too much of the skill and hands on learning experience from 35+ yrs ago. There's an interesting mindset at the time too that doesn't exist now. I remember watching the Apollo's launch and the mindset was gogogogo let's get this monster to the moon and explore something new. Today when a shuttle launches I sit there holding my breath desperately hoping the thing will hold together long enough to limp into a low Earth orbit. Now we're so scared that we're even afraid to go into an orbit that won't connect with the space station much less one that'll put your pink derrier permanently into solar orbit with no chance of returning. I'm thinking we should be dealing with hybrid free return trajectories, not scraping the top of the atmosphere.

Reality check IMO: Man on the moon. Never again. Mars? Foregetaboutitnotgoingtohappen. Pessimistic, yes, but look who's making all the decisions on what we're allowed to do. They're so concerned about silly bank accounts and being infinitely safe and liability if something fails that they're not going to let it happen. It's going to take a fruitcake renegade like Rutan to pull it off. In the meantime, I'll continue watching the circus act of the Russians keep popping those obsolete inferior rockets to the station while our superior technology sits on the ground. That and staying glued to the Mars Rovers, Cassini and the like that are returning pictures that knock your socks completely off and leave you absolutely speechless.

4.5 billion years of evolution and we finally have the ability to leave our planet behind..and we do NOTHING. We just sit here picking our noses. Unless we get our act together, we're not going to ever do anything really interesting. Then in about 5 billion years, there will be no indication anywhere that our planet or our civilization ever existed beyond the 4 little tiny spacecraft that we sent off long ago and a bunch of weak radio signals that are leaving our solar system right now. Shameful.

Yes, this torques me off to no end.
Rant off.

 

[Richard]

Dang, Frank. That's exactly how I feel too!

But I'll go one step further. The reason we're sitting around with our thumbs up our arse is because vocal adversaries have so shaped policy that there is a stupendous amount of waste towards establishing a neutral efficiency. They have been aided by blind, but strict, adherence to procedure which has as one result removed accountability from individuals and even individual agencies. The result of that is increased oversight which itself results in a top heavy project administration.

Also, the layers upon layers of bureaucracy in oversight committees and the such are a reality because those adversaries have demanded 100% certainty before a project can come to fruition. This adherence to procedure does nothing but hamper the core project all the while impede and prevent the advancement of the project. It is a delaying tactic but has been fully embraced by those entrenched within that bureaucracy to be held as an ideal, a measure of the efficacy of the project. The irony is if the project does comply with those requirements it will never get of the ground. In this case, that is a literal reality.

Those vocal adversaries are they who cry foul whenever something is not to their liking. They have developed (rather, allowed to develop) special inroads to top decision makers (elected officials, emphasis on elected) who pander to a select constituency.

Rutan, et al, can be considered proof that when one is freed from the opponents of reason (those who insist an increase in regulatory process is good) and has shed the bonds of bureaucracy only then can a complex project succeed.

A thought just occurred to me: if Rutan were to suddenly need engineers and scientists, how many in the bloated and inefficient NASA would apply for the positions?

 

[Len Lanetti]

I disagree...just barely possible is how he describes the shuttle...so it was a big step but possible....as for the space station it is in the orbit it is in so the Russians could get there with their existing space vehicles...and a good thing eh!?

Len

 

[fgcason]

But I'll go one step further. {clip}

Let me look...Yes. Here it is. That is the syllabus for Planetary Nose Picking 102, Chapter 1.

Those vocal adversaries are they who cry foul whenever something is not to their liking.

I repeat: They should either deal with it or shut up and get out of the way.
Philisophically: They're whining about touchy feely nonsense that has no meaning at all in the true big picture. I'm talking about the real picture that's bigger than all of us. That Real Universe thing out there is what counts and doesn't know or even care in the slightest if money or politics exists. If we are truly going to try to be better than we currently are, we need to look beyond the infighting and bickering and whining about money and political nonsense. We're all wrapped up in that junk but in the big picture, it doesn't even rate dribble no matter how much we collectively want it to be important. If that was truly important, we would still be pond slime afraid to squish out of the first puddle assuming we ever got to pond slime in the first place.

A thought just occurred to me: if Rutan were to suddenly need engineers and scientists, how many in the bloated and inefficient NASA would apply for the positions?

Did you see Melville standing on top of SS1 with the banner? All I can say is, ouch, that's gotta sting a bit. Who would apply to tomorrow morning for a job that'll possibly get you to the moon eventually? Tomorrow morning, not 40 years ago.

IMO: The shuttle was a good idea. It just didn't work out like it needed to for assorted reasons. It certainly never made a flight every 2 weeks as originally planned. In the 1960's when something wasn't working out, they went outside and looked up at the moon, then walked back inside and figured out what they needed to do to get there then they did it.

We had enough motivation to squish out of the first puddle long long ago. Right now we're in the shallows of the next puddle. Do we have enough nerve to squish out of this planetary puddle? Or do we want to sit here sulking and just wait around to be vaporized out of existence by a big ball of spent hydrogen with nothing to show for ourselves?

 

[Bill]

What do we have to inspire the next generation of engineers and scientists?

*Will* there be a next generation of engineers and scientists? With companies outsourcing engineering and programming to India and the pacific rim at 10 cent on the dollar of what they pay American engineers, why would any smart kid want to study engineering and science?

Study something that can't be done across the T-1 from India.

 

[Missa]

*Will* there be a next generation of engineers and scientists? With companies outsourcing engineering and programming to India and the pacific rim at 10 cent on the dollar of what they pay American engineers, why would any smart kid want to study engineering and science?

Amen! (But I guess that means I wasn't very smart)

Study something that can't be done across the T-1 from India.

And that would be sanitation engineering! (aka toilet cleaning)

Missa

 

[trombair]

also, keep in mind that the original impetus for the space program was the cold war arms race with the soviets. when the cold war ended, the driving public force behind the space program ended as well.

it was a glorious time. i'm thankful i got to grow up in such an inspiring time as the '60s. always wanted to be a fighter jock/astronaut but the eyes weren't good enough. so instead i've worked in aerospace for 20 something years and fly antique airplanes. even worked on the mars rovers and at rutan's shop (not on SS1).

i think we're in real danger of becoming the historical equivalent of the portugese. pay for the discovery of the new world, and then do nothing. and there began their decline.

just my $.02 worth.

 

[poadeleted20]

Mike Griffin owns and flies a Grumman Tiger (AA-5B, not F11F). I hope this is a sign that he's rethinking NASA's foci, and that may free up more money for the A that comes before S in their name.

 

[Richard]

also, keep in mind that the original impetus for the space program was the cold war arms race with the soviets. when the cold war ended, the driving public force behind the space program ended as well.

it was a glorious time. i'm thankful i got to grow up in such an inspiring time as the '60s. always wanted to be a fighter jock/astronaut but the eyes weren't good enough. so instead i've worked in aerospace for 20 something years and fly antique airplanes. even worked on the mars rovers and at rutan's shop (not on SS1).

i think we're in real danger of becoming the historical equivalent of the portugese. pay for the discovery of the new world, and then do nothing. and there began their decline.

just my $.02 worth.

I have for a long time slightly disagreed with the notion that the Cold War was the reason for our space program. Sure, it played a huge factor but it really only served to keep the ball rolloing which began many years earlier.

Any time line should begin with the glorious age of aviation beginning after the Great War and the rapid tech advances leading up to WWII. Putting a man on the moon was more about exploration than it was about snubbing the Russkies. Too, it was a pratical demonstration of how far we could take the technology which had developed out of the closing years of WWII.

Then the "Ricketts, not rockets" and other protests started. And then a soft NASA admin and then....well, it's all history. Just a few more years later and they could have jumped straight to unmanned exploration rather than the shuttle/space truck. Although, keep in mind there was great interest in lifting bodies at that time so it can be said that the shuttle was a natural evolution of that research.

How curious you compare us to the Portuguese. I think it very insightful and correct.

 

[trombair]

I have for a long time slightly disagreed with the notion that the Cold War was the reason for our space program. Sure, it played a huge factor but it really only served to keep the ball rolloing which began many years earlier.

Any time line should begin with the glorious age of aviation beginning after the Great War and the rapid tech advances leading up to WWII. Putting a man on the moon was more about exploration than it was about snubbing the Russkies. Too, it was a pratical demonstration of how far we could take the technology which had developed out of the closing years of WWII.

Then the "Ricketts, not rockets" and other protests started. And then a soft NASA admin and then....well, it's all history. Just a few more years later and they could have jumped straight to unmanned exploration rather than the shuttle/space truck. Although, keep in mind there was great interest in lifting bodies at that time so it can be said that the shuttle was a natural evolution of that research.

How curious you compare us to the Portuguese. I think it very insightful and correct.

hey richard!

perhaps i mis-spoke. maybe what i should have said was the original impetus for putting a man on the moon (re: kennedy's speech). you are correct in pointing out the terrific strides made in aero technology in the late '40s and early '50s. and then we got blind-sided by sputnik.

the portuguese (thanks for the correct spelling) analogy is a fairly old one, but very appropo, i think.

thanks for your insight!

 

[Richard]

hey richard!

perhaps i mis-spoke. maybe what i should have said was the original impetus for putting a man on the moon (re: kennedy's speech). you are correct in pointing out the terrific strides made in aero technology in the late '40s and early '50s. and then we got blind-sided by sputnik.

the portuguese (thanks for the correct spelling) analogy is a fairly old one, but very appropo, i think.

thanks for your insight!

Naw, I don't think you mis-spoke. So you saying we put a man on the moon simply to beat the Russians to it? Kennedy made a fine speech but there had been talk of going to the moon long before that. Heck, if I had a rocket I sure wouldn't be content with keeping it in a silo somewhere, I'd want to shoot it off to somewhere far, far away. If Kennedy's speech should be a milestone for anything it should be that that was the time when the required technology, the finances, and the political will converged to allow this great project to be realized.

Blindedsided by Sputnik. You got that right but always have I been curious how that happened. We let Russia have some of the V2 scientists, we shared knowledge with them during and immediately following WWII. How in the heck did we not see it coming???

 

[poadeleted20]

We under estimated an opponent. We did not think the Russians had the technical know how to build on what they got from the Germans. -- Mike

Yeah, and after that we made dang sure we didn't underestimate the Soviets again. We figured them as supermen after that. At the end of the day, they turned out to be nothing but a paper bear, but there was no way for us to know that until it was over.

But that's not the point about the space program. As one who grew up on Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, Heinlein, and others of that genre and time, I honestly believed in the 60's that by now we'd have operational way-stations at the L-points between Earth and the Moon, a full-scale colony on the Moon and be starting to colonize Mars. I suppose nobody then had any real idea that it would cost so much, but I also suppose that we didn't believe so many folks would be so short-sighted in how they managed their resources and so petty in their goals. Sad to say, but if the Vulcans really do fly by in another 60 years or so, they aren't going to see anything to merit stopping for a closer look.

 

[Richard]

At the end of the day, they turned out to be nothing but a paper bear, but there was no way for us to know that until it was over.

You mean to say out vaunted intell was not so hot?

As one who grew up on Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, Heinlein, and others of that genre and time, I honestly believed in the 60's that by now we'd have operational way-stations at the L-points between Earth and the Moon, a full-scale colony on the Moon and be starting to colonize Mars.

Me too! Don't forget Polk in that list of favorite authors.

I suppose nobody then had any real idea that it would cost so much, but I also suppose that we didn't believe so many folks would be so short-sighted in how they managed their resources and so petty in their goals.

I don't think it was so much the cost as it was the short-sightedness and inefficiency. The damn politicians got their greedy hands in the till too. Civil rights, protests, Viet Nam, Cold War, a lot of big stuff was happening back then. All served to pull the focus away from the space program but only because the politicians allowed it to happen that way.

Sad to say, but if the Vulcans really do fly by in another 60 years or so, they aren't going to see anything to merit stopping for a closer look.

Said another way, we are now rolling along at idle cutoff. Aeronautics was so exciting during it's 1st phase. Now we're resting on our haunches with no real advances comparitive to that of the 2nd half of the 20th century. Of course, what happened then was built upon what happened before. What are we doing now but letting that foothold to the future go to waste?

And now for the shocker: all this touchy feely feel good focus on entitlements crap has drained this great nation of it's desire, nay, it's ability to advance in a meaningful manner comensurate to what we did in that time gone by. It's me, me, me instead of us, us, us.

 

[poadeleted20]

You mean to say out vaunted intell was not so hot?

The folks in the intel world knew it was weak, but in the military, you just have to prepare for the worst.

Me too! Don't forget Polk in that list of favorite authors.

You mean Fred Pohl? A great one, along with Phil Dick, C.M. ("C for Cyril, M for kicks") Kornbluth (author of the disturbingly prophetic 1951 classic "The Marching Morons", now in the SF Hall of Fame), Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverburg and many others too numerous to mention (including Hugo Gernsback, who really got the ball rolling), but Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein were my mainstays and the ones who most shaped my thinking, probably RAH the most.

BTW didja ever hear the one about the Con where they dragged Heinlein in to hear someone put "The Green Hills of Earth" to music? Through the decades, folks had been attempting to put the fictional "Noisy" Rhysling's doggerel (which Heinlein himself thought was garbage) to music, generally lyrical, or noble, or symphonic, and Heinlein just hated it. Finally, at this one Con, they pretty much kidnapped him and put him in the front row while a well-known filksinger (yes, that's "filksinger," one who sings SF songs) played a chord, and sang Rhysling's words to the tune of the old Coca-Cola ad song "I'd like to teach the world to sing." You'll find it fits perfectly the poem:

"We pray for one last landing on
The globe that gave us birth.
To rest our eyes on the fleecy skies
And the cool green hills of earth."

(The Green Hills of Earth, (c) 1947 Robert A. Heinlein)

But it was the new words to the bridge of that Coke song that brought the house down:

"That's the way it is
What you're hoping to find
When you're reading Heinlein
That's the way it is...
...Sense of wonder."

Heinlein's reaction?

 

[Richard]

You mean Fred Pohl?

Yep. For the life of me I could not remember his name even though he was a favorite author of mine. I knew you'd know who I meant.

...along with Phil Dick, C.M. ("C for Cyril, M for kicks") Kornbluth (author of the disturbingly prophetic 1951 classic "The Marching Morons", now in the SF Hall of Fame), Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverburg and many others too numerous to mention (including Hugo Gernsback, who really got the ball rolling),

If I had heard of any of those I probably dismissed them for some reason. I do not recall reading them.

but Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein were my mainstays and the ones who most shaped my thinking, probably RAH the most.

THe were the mainstays. My fav was Asimov's, The Foundation Trilogy, but there were many good reads from those guys. F 451, of course, is another fav but a bit Orwellian.

BTW didja ever hear the one about the Con where they dragged Heinlein in to hear someone put "The Green Hills of Earth" to music? Through the decades, folks had been attempting to put the fictional "Noisy" Rhysling's doggerel (which Heinlein himself thought was garbage) to music, generally lyrical, or noble, or symphonic, and Heinlein just hated it. Finally, at this one Con, they pretty much kidnapped him and put him in the front row while a well-known filksinger (yes, that's "filksinger," one who sings SF songs) played a chord, and sang Rhysling's words to the tune of the old Coca-Cola ad song "I'd like to teach the world to sing." You'll find it fits perfectly the poem:

"We pray for one last landing on
The globe that gave us birth.
To rest our eyes on the fleecy skies
And the cool green hills of earth."

(The Green Hills of Earth, (c) 1947 Robert A. Heinlein)

But it was the new words to the bridge of that Coke song that brought the house down:

"That's the way it is
What you're hoping to find
When you're reading Heinlein
That's the way it is...
...Sense of wonder."

Heinlein's reaction?

Nope, never heard of that, not that I recall at least.

 

[Henning]

*Will* there be a next generation of engineers and scientists? With companies outsourcing engineering and programming to India and the pacific rim at 10 cent on the dollar of what they pay American engineers, why would any smart kid want to study engineering and science?

Study something that can't be done across the T-1 from India.

Amen to that. That's the ggod thing about being an equipment operator. It pretty much requires you to be 'on-site'.

Anyone remember Space Station Freedom? .

Yep, I used to run some old charter schooners out of Long Beach/LA harbor years ago, and some guys from JPL were semi annual clients for a week trip to the channel islands. They had all sorts of stories. I was always astounded that an organization who could manage some very complex sh**, be so beauracratically inept, astounding.

I think when it comes to space flight, this nation is just about the image of past glories, not what we can or should do. We're reaching the point of just being the old feeble knight who won all the great battles and is now just lugging his sword around telling tales of what he once was, not what he currently is. Yes, we are sending robots to various parts of the solar system and seeing some really wonderous things, but I don't see any human standing on Mars in a space suit jamming an American flag into the ground.

Right now I don't think we could fly an Apollo if we had to. We've lost too much of the skill and hands on learning experience from 35+ yrs ago. There's an interesting mindset at the time too that doesn't exist now. I remember watching the Apollo's launch and the mindset was gogogogo let's get this monster to the moon and explore something new. Today when a shuttle launches I sit there holding my breath desperately hoping the thing will hold together long enough to limp into a low Earth orbit. Now we're so scared that we're even afraid to go into an orbit that won't connect with the space station much less one that'll put your pink derrier permanently into solar orbit with no chance of returning. I'm thinking we should be dealing with hybrid free return trajectories, not scraping the top of the atmosphere.

Reality check IMO: Man on the moon. Never again. Mars? Foregetaboutitnotgoingtohappen. Pessimistic, yes, but look who's making all the decisions on what we're allowed to do.

My friend, take off your blinders and turn your head sideways, China will be on the moon before 2010. If I was in school and wanted to be a rocket scientist or cutting edge engineer, I'd minor in Chinese. Face it, in 25-35 years, China will have developed into an economic super giant, and they need to import extra talent in the near term until the talent they have in house, can train up the ranks. China is the future, like it or not. It would require an immense effort to superceede their inertia. China has a lot of resources that are underdeveloped, human and otherwise.

 

[Richard]

My friend, take off your blinders and turn your head sideways, China will be on the moon before 2010. If I was in school and wanted to be a rocket scientist or cutting edge engineer, I'd minor in Chinese. Face it, in 25-35 years, China will have developed into an economic super giant, and they need to import extra talent in the near term until the talent they have in house, can train up the ranks. China is the future, like it or not. It would require an immense effort to superceede their inertia. China has a lot of resources that are underdeveloped, human and otherwise.

Ya but. You speak of the ideal to which China could rise. The political climate and smothering bureaucracy which we have identified in this country is also at work in that country. Those artificial barriers will stymie any advancements from reaching full potential. Isn't that just what we have here? Too, you are projecting into the future based on the paradigm of today. There is an inherent error in that.

 

[Dave Krall CFII]

Amen to that. That's the ggod thing about being an equipment operator. It pretty much requires you to be 'on-site'.



Yep, I used to run some old charter schooners out of Long Beach/LA harbor years ago, and some guys from JPL were semi annual clients for a week trip to the channel islands. They had all sorts of stories. I was always astounded that an organization who could manage some very complex sh**, be so beauracratically inept, astounding.



My friend, take off your blinders and turn your head sideways, China will be on the moon before 2010. If I was in school and wanted to be a rocket scientist or cutting edge engineer, I'd minor in Chinese. Face it, in 25-35 years, China will have developed into an economic super giant, and they need to import extra talent in the near term until the talent they have in house, can train up the ranks. China is the future, like it or not. It would require an immense effort to superceede their inertia. China has a lot of resources that are underdeveloped, human and otherwise.

What's China gonna do on the moon I wonder, try to get a tourist trade going or something ? Being so frugal in general, what's in it for them to justify their expenditures ?

Regardless of resources held, human or otherwise, I doubt China or any other essentially oppressive nation will gain super power status unless they rectify their traditional human rights scenario.

 

[Henning]

What's China gonna do on the moon I wonder, try to get a tourist trade going or something ? Being so frugal in general, what's in it for them to justify their expenditures ?

Good question, Why did they send up a manned space shot? They already have the technology to send MIRV payloads to us, so it wouldn't be to hide that.

Regardless of resources held, human or otherwise, I doubt China or any other essentially oppressive nation will gain super power status unless they rectify their traditional human rights scenario.

I'm not so sure. They are reforming their ways though, just very slowly. They are not going to lose control in a Perestroika way that has caused so much hardship in the former Soviet Union. I think they have the will, and more importantly, I don't think anyone who may have the ability has the will to stop it.

 

[Missa]

China is the future, like it or not. It would require an immense effort to superceede their inertia.

Or just a little bird flu... Why does it seem like all the nasty diseases come out of that region?

Missa

 

[Bill]

Or just a little bird flu... Why does it seem like all the nasty diseases come out of that region?

Those who live by the chicken, die by the chicken.

(Ancient Chinese proverb)

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Is Griffin a traitor to the NASA cause or is he finally saying what should have been said 30 years ago?

The Shuttle program was not a waste. Literally! The whole point of the Shuttle was to see if we could stop wasting huge rockets and develop a safe, reliable, reusable launch vehicle.

The Shuttle has enabled us to do things that earlier programs weren't capable of, such as retreiving a LEO satellite and bringing it back to earth for repair. Or, repairing it in space which is even better. They can take lots of new parts with them. Can you imagine the waste that Hubble would have been had we not had the Shuttle to enable us to fix it? Now, we're getting valuable information from it.

The ISS isn't a total waste, but the program does have a lot of waste simply because of doubts that the Russians couldn't keep up their end of the bargain. Any segment of the station that the Russians were supposed to build, we built a copy of just in case they ran out of funds. Their budget is amazingly small. (Things like the Italian-built crew quarters and the Canadian "earthworm" arm did not need those duplicates, just the Russian stuff.) However, there's still lots of research being done. A lot of it is also "pure" research, where we don't know what the result will be but we are simply learning new things. The biggest innovations come from pure research.

Now, that said, it is time to move on. I think the Shuttle will fly again, and we need it to fly until the next thing is ready. The problem is, Bush wants a "new" shuttle and wants us to go to Mars. Nothing wrong with that, except that he wants them to be the same vehicle. I'm sure he wants to save money, but it will probably end up costing us even more because we'll have a bad shuttle-type vehicle and a bad Mars vehicle because it won't be the best vehicle for either purpose.

Politics and science do not mix well.

 

[Dave Krall CFII]

The Shuttle program was not a waste. Literally! The whole point of the Shuttle was to see if we could stop wasting huge rockets and develop a safe, reliable, reusable launch vehicle.

The Shuttle has enabled us to do things that earlier programs weren't capable of, such as retreiving a LEO satellite and bringing it back to earth for repair. Or, repairing it in space which is even better. They can take lots of new parts with them. Can you imagine the waste that Hubble would have been had we not had the Shuttle to enable us to fix it? Now, we're getting valuable information from it.

The ISS isn't a total waste, but the program does have a lot of waste simply because of doubts that the Russians couldn't keep up their end of the bargain. Any segment of the station that the Russians were supposed to build, we built a copy of just in case they ran out of funds. Their budget is amazingly small. (Things like the Italian-built crew quarters and the Canadian "earthworm" arm did not need those duplicates, just the Russian stuff.) However, there's still lots of research being done. A lot of it is also "pure" research, where we don't know what the result will be but we are simply learning new things. The biggest innovations come from pure research.

Now, that said, it is time to move on. I think the Shuttle will fly again, and we need it to fly until the next thing is ready. The problem is, Bush wants a "new" shuttle and wants us to go to Mars. Nothing wrong with that, except that he wants them to be the same vehicle. I'm sure he wants to save money, but it will probably end up costing us even more because we'll have a bad shuttle-type vehicle and a bad Mars vehicle because it won't be the best vehicle for either purpose.

Politics and science do not mix well.

The Mercury, Moon, Shuttle and other programs were all great in their day and I think quite successful for first time ventures. It was a blast and I enjoyed and supported every minute of it.

Far from being a waste, especially when the tiles and O-rings and everything else were holdin', I agree that the past efforts provided much good in many ways, from pure research to global politics to most importantly, showing us in no uncertain terms just how incredibly expensive any future endeavor in space of the manned variety would be.