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NASA's budget, in perspective
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Here's a link to S. 3729, which is the senate bill authorizing NASA's annual budget:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-1...111s3729rs.pdf The grand total for the year 2011 is found on page 10, line 15. It is $19 billion. That covers everything from launching rockets down to paying the groundskeeper to mow the lawn. Here is an article at PRI's "The World" where, at the bottom, you will find a link to play an interview with retired Brigadier General Steve Anderson, who was General David Petraeus’s chief logistician in Iraq: http://www.theworld.org/2010/07/mili...-to-the-front/ In it, he describes how the Department of Defense spends approximately $20 billion annually in order to air-condition tents in Iraq and Afghanistan (and argues that if you're going to air-condition a leaky canvas bag in the desert, you should probably insulate it with something.) Most of this money is spent acquiring and transporting fuel to run the generators, a task which has cumulatively resulted in the deaths of over 1,000 US servicemembers, mostly due to the fact that tankers carrying 40,000 gallons of fuel are extremely tempting targets. So, we spend slightly more money (and kill a heck of a lot more people) each year to air-condition the desert than NASA's entire budget. Now, I'm not arguing against making life as comfy as practical for all of the nice folks who we send over to sit in a hot sandy place and get hated all day. It just kind of put things into perspective for me. I happened across another interesting fact. The ESA has estimated the total lifetime cost of the ISS project at appx. €100 billion ($142 billion) for the entire station, shared across all participating nations, over 30 years. That winds up being about $4.73 billion per year. (Remember- once it's built, keeping it running is relatively cheap.) This: Attachment 240902 Costs 4x as much as this: Attachment 240903 |
So, $20 billion to further knowledge, or the same (and more) to get a large percentage of the world more pissed off at us with no apparent benefit.
Gee, that's a no-brainer. We'll cancel the shuttle to save a few billion! Joe, that was such a good post that I've reposted it on the political forum I moderate. |
As a soldier in Afghanistan where its 115 degrees nearly everyday, I'd much rather have my a/c in my tent than NASA if it came down to one or the other.
On the other hand,my time in the Army has taught me one thing more than anything else, the Army is the most financially inefficient organization on the face of the earth, hands down. |
Originally Posted by kplafin
(Post 747045)
as a soldier in afghanistan where its 115 degrees nearly everyday, i'd much rather have my a/c in my tent than nasa if it came down to one or the other.
On the other hand,my time in the army has taught me one thing more than anything else, the u.s. Government is the most financially inefficient organization on the face of the earth, hands down. |
I like to think that we keep pumping billions into defense is because of all the government contracts, companies and lobbists who keep pressure on the government to keep that stuff going. It's stuff that is supposed to be temporary in war, but we have turned into what we want to be permanant...when it should be temporary. Not that I agree with pumping billions of dollars into a dead-end plan (the Middle East), but it would put a ton of people out of a job if/when we drop the outrageous spending on defense...but as I said before, many of those people should have had the mindset that a lot of such jobs were only temporary.
So many useful developments and inspirations come from the space program, this makes me sad. |
I think theres an intelligent solution to the cooling of the tents problem, like solar panels to provide energy (if that would work) or subterranean housing when possible.
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The price of solar panels have to be amortized over their useful life of 30+ years, and the panels should be used for all of that, in order to actually see a monetary break even of costs. If you can find a cheap way to mass produce silicon, you will be known in history as the "father of solar energy". Otherwise, the costs don't justify the product unless you're government and you're trying to "go green" or "spend money to create jobs" which are both completely bullshit arguments.
The intelligent solution to "cooling tents" is to pay for it with host nation money, or else tell the air force to go fuck their "standard of living" and deal with not having 67* tents in the middle of the desert. |
You want to argue about the cooling of our tents over here.... how about focusing on something even worse. For example. The camp I'm on (as well as most others in Afghanistan) is being leased from the Afghan Gov, yes that's right, we're paying them to let us use the land. On top of that,since it's "leased" that's the reason we can't build and permanent structures to reduce costs (i.e insulation to reduce A/C costs.)
As long as Shenequa is getting her 4th free abortion and food stamps while contributing jack shit to the world, I'll feel just fine about using tax dollars to have a 75* tent to sleep in after a 16 hour day in 115* heat. |
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I was afraid this would happen, and I genuinely didn't want this to devolve into an argument about air-conditioning. I know that we have several forum members who are deployed overseas, and this isn't meant as an attack on y'all. (I will say, for the record, that for the first two years I was in college at UF, we still had several dorms with no air conditioning. Granted, I never had to trudge around in 30 lbs of IBA and God knows what else, but when it's 100 degrees and raining, it's still pretty fucking miserable.)
I work in a lab with about a dozen other smart people, mostly electrical engineers. On Friday, there were some discussions to the tune of "good riddance," inasmuch as manned space exploration doesn't seem to have the same zing about it as during the 1960s, when there were more obvious strategic and political consequences, and a lot of fairly useful new tech was coming out of the program. Of course, I see the side of the equation where the space program still makes science cool to a lot of people, and still serves as an incubator for a hell of a lot of good engineering talent. We (the US) no longer hold the same monopoly we once did on pure research that we once did, either at the commercial or academic levels. But retaining the title of world leader in aerospace technology still meant something, even in this century where austerity and international consensus are the buzzwords of the day. (This is where I expect Jason will tell me that I am wrong, and that if the Chinese can do it cheaper, we should just shut down the program entirely.) My point was merely to illustrate, for those who would say that "NASA's budget could be put to such better use doing x, y and z", just how trivial a sum of money is truly at play in the grand scheme of things. $19 billion is less than the size of the budget shortfall in California alone that's been making so much news this year, and we haven't even tried to put a cat into orbit. Attachment 240901 Oh, and KPLAFIN, I truly had no idea that Afghanistan was charging us rent. That is, without question, just about the most absurd thing I have ever heard. I am literally unable to come up with an intelligent response. |
It's sad that technology and educational programs are always at the chopping block.
Don't the politicians know we need the death ray to take over the world? |
Originally Posted by Joe Perez
(Post 747250)
Oh, and KPLAFIN, I truly had no idea that Afghanistan was charging us rent. That is, without question, just about the most absurd thing I have ever heard. I am literally unable to come up with an intelligent response.
I understand that you didn't want it to become on argument of whether or not we needed A/C. I think any intelligent human being will agree that after 16 hour days in 115* heat with 40-50lbs of gear (or even just the fact that we have to wear long sleeve jackets and hats all day when we're not in gear in the same heat) that we deserve to have a cool place to sleep. However, there are far bigger wastes of money over here than the A/C we use. Things that the Army pays absurd amounts of money for (ie $45.00 screws I could pick up at lowes for 0.10-.15 a piece) are much better things to complain about. |
when all the private companies compete to come up with better innovations for less cost, youll stop crying.
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Originally Posted by Joe Perez
(Post 747250)
Of course, I see the side of the equation where the space program still makes science cool to a lot of people, and still serves as an incubator for a hell of a lot of good engineering talent.
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That would be true if there was 100% employment for engineers, and there were jobs unfilled because of lack of engineers.
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Jason, if I were to say that the earth was round, you would argue that this is only because of restrictive government policies designed to subsidize large corporations whose interests depend on a continued round-earth policy, and that if the free market were allowed to operate unconstrained, the earth would naturally seek out a new topological equilibrium and assume a more efficient flat shape.
I'm pretty sure that the demand (within the US) for mechanical and electrical engineers was greater (relative to supply) during the 1960s, and while it's true that the fuel economy of the Boeing 707 and the '65 Chevy Caprice may have suffered by a few thousandths of a percent as a result, I feel that having access to geostationary comm satellites, cordless drills, integrated-circuit computers, solid-state lasers and velcro was a worthwhile tradeoff. Why knows? Maybe Burt Rutan and his cadre of geniuses will pick up the reins. At the moment, they seem far more interested in hurling rich tourists onto sub-orbital thrill rides. Good for the shareholders of Northrop Grumman, Inc (full owner of Scaled Composites, LLC), not so much of use to the rest of us. Attachment 240899 |
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Originally Posted by KPLAFIN
(Post 747295)
At least the Germans bought their land from Afghanistan so they can build hard standing permanent structures (i.e. insulated buildings and real toilets/showers.) If it was up to me we would've just moved in, taken the land and said deal with it, but since we have to be all politically correct these days...
I wonder if, in all seriousness, the image of the US and its military would be increased within the Arab community if we just printed up a bunch of signs that said "Hey, not only did we come in here and drive out the assholes who were blowing your shit up and terrorizing you, and then hand the whole place over to Hamid Karzai (who might be a bit of a dick but, at last check, at least wasn't killing your daughters and raping your livestock in the middle of the night), but now we are actually paying you fuckers rent in exchange for the privilege of standing out here in the hot-ass sun all day getting shot at. Show a little fucking gratitude." Attachment 240898 |
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It's kind of funny, actually. This: http://www.spacex.com/assets/img/006_on_the_pad_SM.jpg Gives me the mental image of this: Attachment 240897 |
I'm struggling to comprehend 20billion dollars worth of fuel just to run A/C generators.
Just doesn't sound right to me. 20 million I might be able to agree with but 20billion? Really?!? |
Originally Posted by Joe Perez
(Post 747362)
Jason, if I were to say that the earth was round, you would argue that this is only because of restrictive government policies designed to subsidize large corporations whose interests depend on a continued round-earth policy, and that if the free market were allowed to operate unconstrained, the earth would naturally seek out a new topological equilibrium and assume a more efficient flat shape. [/IMG]
I wish that was small enough for my sig |
Originally Posted by richyvrlimited
(Post 747407)
I'm struggling to comprehend 20billion dollars worth of fuel just to run A/C generators.
And, of course, those numbers probably aren't directly comparable to what we'd think of in the US. I have no idea what the fuel itself costs, but it's probably only a teeny little fraction of the overall number. I expect that the lion's sum of that figure represents the total cost of acquiring tanker trucks and shipping them overseas, paying the salaries and other costs of the service personnel who are driving the trucks, paying for security, adding in all of the administrative overhead on all of the above, etc. As a parallel, I'm reminded of the cost structure of our old manufacturing plant in Mason, OH. For costing purposes (when designing products) we had to use a number of something like $120 an hour for shop labor. Obviously we weren't actually paying anybody on the shop floor $120 an hour- the vast majority of that figure was "burden." That's a fancy way of saying that they have added in "our fair share" of all of fixed costs of doing business, which include (but are not even remotely limited to), paying the lease on the land that the building sits on, paying for the building itself, paying the power bill, the gas bill, the water bill and the phone bill, the shop equipment, the trucks, the coffee in the break room, the landscaping, the corporate jet, the big party they throw every year at the annual sales meeting, the office supplies, the massive trade-show budget, and all of the non-revenue-generating departments within the company such as the HR department, the IT department, the finance department, the legal department, the shipping/receiving department, the order admin department, and of course our own salaries. The problem, of course, is that most of these fixed costs remain the same regardless of how much product we sell, or whether we design a certain product in such a way that it requires 5 hours of shop labor to assemble or 50 hours. So assume that the burden portion of the manufacturing cost is $95 per shop-hour. If we sell a thousand boxes that required 50 hours of labor each to build, we get dinged by the accountants for $4,750,000 worth of burden cost, whereas if we sell a hundred boxes that only took 10 hours each to build, we only get dinged for $95,000 worth of cost. So despite the fact that the company made a lot more revenue in the first example, we look much better as a department in the second example, since the margin on the boxes is higher.
Originally Posted by Gearhead_318
(Post 747409)
:bowrofl:
I wish that was small enough for my sig Jason, if I were to say that the earth is round, you would argue that this is only because of government policies designed to subsidize big corporations whose interests depend on a round-earth market. |
Another good perspective on the subject. One of my favorite people, Neil deGrasse Tyson, once made an observation on some interview that Americans spend more each year on lip balm, than what NASA gets in funding. I think I could do without the money for a few tubes of chap stick to further fund the most important sciences to humanity...
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All you science buffs here, if the taxes collected that went to NASA were abolished, would you DONATE money to a NASA tip jar?
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Originally Posted by JasonC SBB
(Post 747426)
All you science buffs here, if the taxes collected that went to NASA were abolished, would you DONATE money to a NASA tip jar?
They should put a list of organization selections on tax forms (like with presidential parties) that you can give additional money to. NASA should be on there for additional amount. I would give at least $250 each year if that is how it worked. |
Originally Posted by NA6C-Guy
(Post 747435)
If I could, or knew how, and knew it would be put to use and that I wouldn't be alone in doing so, I would do that now. So hell yeah.
No matter what you say, you are wrong. And he has a link to someone's blog to prove it. |
NASA did not invent velcro.
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Ok, fine. I threw Velco in there because I couldn't think of anything else off-hand (and most people believe it, along with Tang.) :D
Technically, they didn't invent geostationary satellites, either. Arthur C. Clarke (yes, the sci-fi writer) floated the idea in the 1940s. But NASA made it happen with Syncom 2. Wow, that brings back some childhood memories. Not geostationary satellites, but Tang. When I was a kid, we spent a lot of time down in Puerto Rico, where most of my father's family lived at the time. This was late 70s / early 80s. For reasons that were never clear to me, there was always an endless supply of orange-flavored Tang at Abeuela's house. I don't think I ever had it in the US (to this day), but the image of that little green cardboard tube with the plastic top is as vividly ingrained in my memory as the Hiram Bithorn Stadium off in the distance in Hato Rey, the feral chickens and wild dogs that roamed Fajardo at all hours of the day and night, and endless churro vendors as far as the eye could see. You simply cannot get churros in the states that rival those found in the little pushcarts on every street corner in San Juan. Tang, and Keebler Export Sodas. I have utterly no idea why those damned things were so popular down there, but no self-respecting household would be found with the giant green tin in the kitchen. I see them every now and then in the "ethnic" isle of grocery stores here in the states, and in 30 years they haven't changed the package one bit. http://olinkinternational.com/images...l/crackers.JPG I have no idea why they were so popular. The fucking things are worthless compared to the thick, round lard-based galletas that you smear cream cheese and guava paste on. Aah, memories. |
For reference, the picture does not do it justice. That can is about 12" in diameter. I shit you not.
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Originally Posted by NA6C-Guy
(Post 747435)
If I could, or knew how, and knew it would be put to use and that I wouldn't be alone in doing so, I would do that now. So hell yeah.
They should put a list of organization selections on tax forms (like with presidential parties) that you can give additional money to. NASA should be on there for additional amount. I would give at least $250 each year if that is how it worked. But you see, anyone who wouldn't donate, but would say "ya the gov't should fund NASA", (meaning, the taxpayer should fund NASA), is a hypocrite. It's the same for all kinds of gov't wealth transfer, be it welfare for lazy but healthy bums, or corporate welfare. |
Originally Posted by Joe Perez
(Post 747421)
Ok, how's this:
Jason, if I were to say that the earth is round, you would argue that this is only because of government policies designed to subsidize big corporations whose interests depend on a round-earth market. |
Originally Posted by Joe Perez
(Post 747499)
Ok, fine. I threw Velco in there because I couldn't think of anything else off-hand (and most people believe it, along with Tang.) :D
Technically, they didn't invent geostationary satellites, either. Arthur C. Clarke (yes, the sci-fi writer) floated the idea in the 1940s. But NASA made it happen with Syncom 2. 1. already invented, and NASA's use of said item merely brought it into popular parlance, or 2. invented by private contractors using NASA funding (which then had to be re-engineered, again by private contractors, for non-NASA commercial use). In either case, it's unclear to me how NASA's involvement is in any way essential. On the contrary, the massive inefficiency of a government agency like NASA probably impeded the much more beneficial commercial development of many of these technologies. It's not dissimilar to the influence that the industrial military complex has had on technology, except it doesn't even have the purported necessity of stopping bad guys from winning and good guys from losing (at least not now that the Space Race is over, and probably not during the Space Race either). The fact that NASA may be one of the slightly less inefficient government agencies is not a good argument for its existence. |
Just some milestones of our last shuttle to space:
29 January 1979 Contract Award – Rockwell International Space Transportation Systems Division in Downey, California 30 March 1980 Start structural assembly of crew module 23 November 1981 Start structural assembly of aft-fuselage 13 June 1983 Wings arrive at Palmdale from Grumman 2 December 1983 Start of final assembly 10 April 1984 Completed final assembly 6 March 1985 Rollout from Palmdale 3 April 1985 Overland transport from Palmdale to Edwards 9 April 1985 Delivery to Kennedy Space Center 5 September 1985 Flight Readiness Firing Meanwhile we have something like 12 private companies competeing to deliver any future flights on cheaper, newer, innovated solutions... or i mean, we could all just drive VW beetles and call it a day. |
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Originally Posted by KPLAFIN
(Post 747382)
In for Kotomileto tear this text apart :laugh:
It's not Arabic, and the letters aren't connected anyway so I'm not going to even try to sound it out, lol. For all I know it's Pashtu and backwards (left-to-right). Plus Joe mentioned "Arabs" and Hamid Karzai like the two are related somehow... |
My grandmother used to put Tang in her vodka and make a redneck screwdriver. lol. Grandmama is a tough old bird.
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Originally Posted by kotomile
(Post 747978)
It's not Arabic, and the letters aren't connected anyway so I'm not going to even try to sound it out, lol. For all I know it's Pashtu and backwards (left-to-right).
Plus Joe mentioned "Arabs" and Hamid Karzai like the two are related somehow... |
lol @ brown people.
You need better translators, Joe. Even if that was Arabic it's unreadable as is. Google translate works passably well (Hint - Dari = Persian in Google trans). |
Originally Posted by KPLAFIN
(Post 747075)
since it's "leased" that's the reason we can't build and permanent structures to reduce costs (i.e insulation to reduce A/C costs.)
Brigadier General Anderson was actually proposing that once the tents has been erected, they be sprayed with two-part insulating foam. Granted, this would hamper the re-deployment capabilities of the tents, but from what I gather, many / most of your camps tend to be semi-permanent. IOW, once deployed, the camp tends to stay in one play for a while. The concept, then, was that the net energy savings would far outweigh the loss of mobility of the structure, and justify its abandonment at the end of the operation. (One assumes that the Afghans would not complain about a bunch of insulated tents being left behind for their use once we were done with them.) |
You folks use too much logic.
Profit motive mixed with governing has been with us since Mary shite out Baby Jesus in the Manger-O-Holiness, likely even before. It has made our country great, and suck sweaty Arab balls all at the same time. Good post Joe.... certainly better than mine. |
Originally Posted by mgeoffriau
(Post 747649)
Actually, when you start looking more closely at the list of things that NASA claims to have "invented," what you'll find is that the overwhelming majority were:
1. already invented, and NASA's use of said item merely brought it into popular parlance, or 2. invented by private contractors using NASA funding (which then had to be re-engineered, again by private contractors, for non-NASA commercial use). In either case, it's unclear to me how NASA's involvement is in any way essential. On the contrary, the massive inefficiency of a government agency like NASA probably impeded the much more beneficial commercial development of many of these technologies. It's not dissimilar to the influence that the industrial military complex has had on technology, except it doesn't even have the purported necessity of stopping bad guys from winning and good guys from losing (at least not now that the Space Race is over, and probably not during the Space Race either). The fact that NASA may be one of the slightly less inefficient government agencies is not a good argument for its existence. |
Originally Posted by NA6C-Guy
(Post 748966)
humanity is a frontier dwelling species, we do great things when we push the envelope.
I am serious. (This almost gets you off the hook for the whole torque wrench thing. :D) |
Originally Posted by Joe Perez
(Post 748981)
That is, without question, one of the most lucid, eloquent and rational statements that has ever been made in the history of the internet.
I am serious. (This almost gets you off the hook for the whole torque wrench thing. :D) I just think science is, or will become stagnant here on Earth, with nothing truly unexplained to focus our minds on. Sure there are things we don't fully understand, but it's safe to say we understand most of what is going on here. We need new things, things that are on the edge of our comprehension to really allow us to "stretch" our minds. Of course particle physics are doing that here on Earth, but I think a lot of that can possibly be done better in space anyway. I don't think we have ever had a better laboratory than a space ship or station. If it takes an inefficient, government funded space program to get there, then I'm all for it, until something better comes along. Space X just hasn't really been doing much. They haven't progressed much that I have seen in a long time. I am thinking about the right company aren't I? Isn't SpaceX the one who had a shit ton of rocket failures when trying to launch satellites into orbit 6-8 years ago? I think they had a sea based launch platform at one point... |
I understand what you're saying, but I'm seeing no argument that allows you to jump from:
1. I just think science is, or will become stagnant here on Earth, with nothing truly unexplained to focus our minds on. 2. If it takes an inefficient, government funded space program to get there, then I'm all for it, until something better comes along. |
I'm still assumed by the shuttle built in 1985.
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Originally Posted by mgeoffriau
(Post 749093)
I understand what you're saying, but I'm seeing no argument that allows you to jump from:
to If there are actual, tangible benefits to space exploration (or, at least, further space research), then the free market will fill the void. And, given the number of contracts that NASA has awarded to SpaceX, it kind of already has started to fill the void. We just have to stop trying to convince ourselves that nobody but government is smart enough to do this stuff. |
Originally Posted by NA6C-Guy
(Post 749121)
That's not at all what I am saying, private industry should take over. But losing NASA now will leave a void that will take time to fill. We can't allow a space program to sit idle for too long or we lose momentum.
If the need really exists, the market will fill it. No "momentum" necessary. |
The market already exsists, and now that the monopoly had been busted, it can acutally take off.
pun intended |
+1.
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My personal opinion is that NASA / the president needs to grow some balls and announce that we are going to send a manned mission to mars within the next 15 years.
It can be done with the current budget, and would renew a lot of interest in engineering / aerospace in young kids. Most importantly it would be the start of the ultimate goal of the human race - space exploration and colonization. If only I was president... My reference: http://www.amazon.com/Case-Mars-Plan...=sip_rech_dp_8 |
How will that outreach to Muslims?
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Originally Posted by Braineack
(Post 749162)
How will that outreach to Muslims?
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lol. well played.
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Originally Posted by cardriverx
(Post 749151)
NASA / the president needs to grow some balls and announce that we are going to send a manned mission to mars within the next 15 years.
The Obama administration nixed it all last year. Here is a link to the NASA Authorization Act of 2010: http://commerce.senate.gov/public/?a...d-f0a6a8824b01 In it, we've reduced our goals to thinking about "the eventual international exploration of Mars." The specific inclusion of the word "international" should be read in the context of China's recent achievement of being the third nation on Earth to accomplish a human spacewalk, and their announced policy of intending to achieve manned colonization of the moon as well as a manned Mars mission. So I guess Jason was right all along. No need for the US to do anything- China is more than happy to pick up the slack (and no doubt they'll do it for less money.) |
Yay! America!!!
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the shuttle program was stopped because there isnt a use for it anymore since the space station is completed. like brain said, private companies will be taking contracts to take astronauts/supplies to the station which will be cheaper (also creating jobs). for the few year gap untill companies can do this i think we are paying for seats on russian ships.
one of our next missions is to try to land on a asteroid. then mars bitches! |
Originally Posted by Clos561
(Post 749226)
for the few year gap untill companies can do this i think we are paying for seats on russian ships.
Soyuz is presently the only ISS-capable manned ship in operation (well, it will be after next Thursday afternoon). "A Russian craft, flown by Russians, carrying a few poor Americans who need our help." Cargo operations are presently being conducted by the Russian Progress, the Japanese H-II and the ESA's Automated Transfer Vehicle. NASA awarded COTS contracts to SpaceX and RpK in 2006, then ditched RpK the next year. OSC got a contract in '08, but so far they've mostly focused on destroying commercial and scientific payloads by blowing up Taurus rockets during launch. The SpaceX "Falcon 1" vehicle is looking like the most promising candidate so far. They finally managed not to blow one up on the fourth launch attempt. That mission didn't fail until the very end, when they lost the capsule after re-entry (and without Gus Grissom aboard, even!) The Big Deal will be if they manage to actually dock a Dragon capsule with the ISS. Tentatively, that's planned for flight 3 of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle in October. If they pull that one off, I'll open the last bottle of Black Cat Espresso Stout that I've been hanging onto for going on four years now. one of our next missions is to try to land on a asteroid. then mars bitches! |
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Comments on the Shuttle Program
In response to my recent article, “Was the Space Shuttle Worth It,” I received an interesting e-mail from George S. Giles, who’s written several times for LewRockwell.com, including this on NASA aspirations toward Mars. With his permission, I’m posting parts of it here, edited somewhat for clarity and length. I worked on the Space Transportation System [shuttle] for several years. Any economic calculation of pound into orbit is ridiculous. I am old enough to remember that when the project was announced “it would be too cheap to measure,” but it was impossible to measure as NASA accounting is miasma of doubletalk, doublethink and lost money. Kennedy Space Center was the only place I have ever seen that allowed pillows to be brought into work. The irony is that half of NASA does brilliant work: unmanned missions and has done true science. It would be harder to think of a more expensive way to put payload into orbit. A good friend of mine was on the main engine reliability team that calculated and monitored reliability of these beasts. He said the odds were more than 100,000 to 1 for failure. Richard Feynman said “One of 25, 4% would fail catastrophically.” I worked with Jack Lousma, STS pilot, in 1985 and he told me that the post flight on the orbiter of his mission found that a small fleck of paint had gone half way through the wind screen. Windows are useless on the STS because a) it cannot be flown like a plane even though it looks like one and b) the only thing the pilots actually do is drop the wheels on landing. These things cost more than $1 billion so it was all left up to the capable hands of IBM to build the flight control computers. A little while after the Challenger blew up Congress came to NASA and said, “Let’s go back to building the Saturn V because it is cheaper, more reliable, and lifts more payload into a higher orbit.” The response was, “We can’t because we threw the plans away.” A Saturn V cost about $10,000,000. Probably the only good thing Nixon did was cancel moon missions because he knew what they were for and that they were a waste of money. In a pique of political correctness, Saturn Program Manager Arthur Rudolph was deported because under Hitler he worked in a plant where slave labor was used. This was silly because everyone in Germany was slave labor. Going to the moon was never the goal. When John Kennedy announced the plan to go to the moon it was much more palatable to the tax paying public than saying the truth: we want to put nuclear weapons the size of a greyhound bus in Red Square. Not very Camelot. The STS set the American space program (civilian) back 30 years. It was so bad that the USAF took over the design of propulsion, payload, controls, etc., because they knew NASA was going down the wrong street. A rocket is a ballistic projectile, not an airplane. |
Originally Posted by Joe Perez
(Post 748688)
...two-part insulating foam.
And then at the shanty-town erected for temporary guests (since our flight was pushed more than 24 hours to the right and I wanted to lay down after having been up all night waiting on the non-existent bird...) it was the usual tents with AC, but at least with a floating shade layer on top to shield the tents from some of the radiant heat. And then there's where I am now, which is an even larger base, where we're staying in a "clamshell" tent with two AC units and four "Port-a-Cool" boxes to try and cool it. Problem is there is no floating layer so you can feel the heat getting in, and it's too much for the AC to handle. So then those in charge open the ends of the tent to try and generate a breeze. All the while, the Port-a-Cool boxes are humidifying the air. Ah, logic. |
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