40 years ago today
#2
07-19-2009, 11:24 PM
I was almost 19 when the landing took place. I was glued to the TV. Very very exciting. 
The shuttle and ISS programs are going to be reaching the end of their lives over the next few years. This, and only this, is the reason that so much is nowadays being made of space missions that took place in the 1960's and early 1970's.
The white-collar welfare of what has for the last 37 years been very loosely called the manned "space" program (a shockingly-expensive glorified airplane making round trips to a shockingly-expensive Winnebago that is spinning doughnuts a mere 200 miles above the surface of the planet), must stop.
Other than the occasional sat. installation and maintenance, and providing tens of thousands of white-collar welfare jobs to highly-educated, white-collar paper-pushing bureaucrats and highly-skilled technicians who are being employed to essentially dig holes and fill them, it has been almost a complete waste of money, IMO. But others will disagree.
If the no-doubt overpowering NASA propaganda machine gets people fired up enough over the next few years to support another manned moon mission, or, heavan forbid, a manned Mars mission, the depth of the money pit this time is going to be unfathomable.
The financial and human resources that are being wasted on the manned space program should be re-directed to making people's lives better right here on the surface of this planet.
The shuttle and ISS programs are going to be reaching the end of their lives over the next few years. This, and only this, is the reason that so much is nowadays being made of space missions that took place in the 1960's and early 1970's.
The white-collar welfare of what has for the last 37 years been very loosely called the manned "space" program (a shockingly-expensive glorified airplane making round trips to a shockingly-expensive Winnebago that is spinning doughnuts a mere 200 miles above the surface of the planet), must stop.
Other than the occasional sat. installation and maintenance, and providing tens of thousands of white-collar welfare jobs to highly-educated, white-collar paper-pushing bureaucrats and highly-skilled technicians who are being employed to essentially dig holes and fill them, it has been almost a complete waste of money, IMO. But others will disagree.
If the no-doubt overpowering NASA propaganda machine gets people fired up enough over the next few years to support another manned moon mission, or, heavan forbid, a manned Mars mission, the depth of the money pit this time is going to be unfathomable.
The financial and human resources that are being wasted on the manned space program should be re-directed to making people's lives better right here on the surface of this planet.
#7
07-29-2009, 10:34 AM
I guess the push is on to keep the white-collar-welfare wagon rolling (NASA's current budget? $18 billion for digging holes and filling them.):
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/sc...gewanted=print
July 29, 2009
Longer Life for the Space Station Is Advised
By KENNETH CHANG
Members of the government panel reviewing NASA’s human spaceflight program said Tuesday that the life of the International Space Station should be extended past its planned demise in 2016.
After the shuttle Endeavour, which undocked from the space station Tuesday afternoon, returns to Earth, NASA has seven flights left on its schedule before the shuttle fleet is to be retired in September 2010. At that point the space station, under construction since 1998, would finally be complete, but current plans call for operating it only through 2015 before it is deliberately disposed of in the ocean the following year.
Part of the Obama administration’s charge to the 10-member review panel, which made its recommendation Tuesday at a public hearing in Houston, was to look at extending the station’s life. But the panel is also to consider how NASA is to push beyond low-Earth orbit in the coming years and fit the entire program within tight financial constraints.
The meeting was the second held by the panel, which is led by Norman R. Augustine, a former chief executive of Lockheed Martin. At the first meeting, last month in Washington, the members listened to an array of information and opinions from others. On Tuesday, they began debating among themselves what options they will offer to the administration at the end of next month.
“We think all the options going forward should continue I.S.S. extension in some form,” said Sally K. Ride, a former NASA astronaut who was the first American woman in space.
Dr. Ride, who led a subcommittee looking at the space station, said the schedule for the remaining seven shuttle flights had little cushion left and was likely to slip into 2011, at an additional cost of $1.5 billion.
The shuttles can carry a far greater load into orbit than any other rockets now in use, and can also bring heavy items back to the ground. “We’re putting I.S.S. in a very fragile situation the moment we retire shuttle,” Dr. Ride said.
With one extra external fuel tank available, one more shuttle flight could be flown in 2012, at a cost of $2.7 billion, she said.
Another possibility would be to fly one or two shuttle missions through 2014, Dr. Ride said, but reviving the manufacturing lines used for the shuttle would make sense only if NASA canceled its plans for its next-generation rockets and switched to a shuttle-derived design.
Another member of the panel, Edward F. Crawley, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, cautioned that continuing present programs would delay plans for returning to the Moon or aiming for Mars.
“This is NASA’s conundrum at the highest level,” Dr. Crawley said, “which is that the agency really doesn’t in its current budgetary structure have the resources to continue a world-class, world-leading space program and also simultaneously develop the next step.”
The panel members will continue their discussions at two more public meetings this week, in Huntsville, Ala., on Wednesday in Cocoa Beach, Fla., on Thursday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/sc...gewanted=print
July 29, 2009
Longer Life for the Space Station Is Advised
By KENNETH CHANG
Members of the government panel reviewing NASA’s human spaceflight program said Tuesday that the life of the International Space Station should be extended past its planned demise in 2016.
After the shuttle Endeavour, which undocked from the space station Tuesday afternoon, returns to Earth, NASA has seven flights left on its schedule before the shuttle fleet is to be retired in September 2010. At that point the space station, under construction since 1998, would finally be complete, but current plans call for operating it only through 2015 before it is deliberately disposed of in the ocean the following year.
Part of the Obama administration’s charge to the 10-member review panel, which made its recommendation Tuesday at a public hearing in Houston, was to look at extending the station’s life. But the panel is also to consider how NASA is to push beyond low-Earth orbit in the coming years and fit the entire program within tight financial constraints.
The meeting was the second held by the panel, which is led by Norman R. Augustine, a former chief executive of Lockheed Martin. At the first meeting, last month in Washington, the members listened to an array of information and opinions from others. On Tuesday, they began debating among themselves what options they will offer to the administration at the end of next month.
“We think all the options going forward should continue I.S.S. extension in some form,” said Sally K. Ride, a former NASA astronaut who was the first American woman in space.
Dr. Ride, who led a subcommittee looking at the space station, said the schedule for the remaining seven shuttle flights had little cushion left and was likely to slip into 2011, at an additional cost of $1.5 billion.
The shuttles can carry a far greater load into orbit than any other rockets now in use, and can also bring heavy items back to the ground. “We’re putting I.S.S. in a very fragile situation the moment we retire shuttle,” Dr. Ride said.
With one extra external fuel tank available, one more shuttle flight could be flown in 2012, at a cost of $2.7 billion, she said.
Another possibility would be to fly one or two shuttle missions through 2014, Dr. Ride said, but reviving the manufacturing lines used for the shuttle would make sense only if NASA canceled its plans for its next-generation rockets and switched to a shuttle-derived design.
Another member of the panel, Edward F. Crawley, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, cautioned that continuing present programs would delay plans for returning to the Moon or aiming for Mars.
“This is NASA’s conundrum at the highest level,” Dr. Crawley said, “which is that the agency really doesn’t in its current budgetary structure have the resources to continue a world-class, world-leading space program and also simultaneously develop the next step.”
The panel members will continue their discussions at two more public meetings this week, in Huntsville, Ala., on Wednesday in Cocoa Beach, Fla., on Thursday.
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