Return to the Moon

One can only wonder at the stupidity of our US space program which continues to rely on antiquated Nazi rocket technology in an effort to advance interstellar flight and exploration.

I also strongly agree that robotic space probes are the sensible and most frugal choice, especially considering that we continue to disproportionately fund war and death on this earth instead of life.

I can still vividly recall both the US and USSR using what they considered "expendable" chimps and dogs who suffered agonizing deaths during an effort to explore space and it makes absolutely no sense to risk any living thing to investigate simple rocks in space (our dead solar system, except for us) when we still fail to have an understanding of our own earth.

It would be wise if we look towards other means of propulsion (non-chemical and non-Nazi) which Nikola Tesla proposed over 100 years ago and move beyond this solar system towards worlds that can truly support life.

It is also important to note that the recent impact of a piece of junk on our moon was being accomplished on a regular basis by the former USSR in their ineptitude, many, many years ago.

 

Today's initial flight test of the Ares I-X rocket (if weather allows) is being presented as NASA's first test of significant new flight hardware since 1981. However, the first stage of Ares I is essentially a solid booster from the space shuttle program, with a few structural modifications. This is hardly groundbreaking technology. In fact, most of the Ares/Orion design is based on mature technology. For example, Orion's heat shield is to be made of the exact same material as the Apollo 8 command module's heat shield in 1968!

Perhaps expectations for trickle-down technology eminating from this program have been greatly overstated, based on past results rather than realistic future expectations.

The upper stage for today's test vehicle is not live, except for stage separation hardware.

 

The Ares 1 was never supposed to be revolutionary, it's only supposed to be used for bring pay loads into low earth orbit, and the Augustine commission has recommend work on it actually be scraped as the need for it will not really be there by the time the rocket comes into full service.

 

The reality is that Ares I is a complete scam and total waste of taxpayer monies. It was meant to be a replacement for the Saturn 5 rocket whose blueprints and schematics were destroyed by NASA in order to gain funding for their space shuttle fiasco of the last 30 years.

There may never be a viable and safe replacement for the Saturn 5 which never had a fatality except for Apollo I, due to incompetence and while sitting on the ground. It is a sad state of affairs, the way things are going with our US space program, especially when the reusable parts of Ares 1 are damaged beyond repair as they smashed into the ocean similar to the Challenger and her valiant crew.

Of course, initially, NASA denied the crew survived the initial explosion of Challenger, yet later evidence proved these brave astronauts had a frightening and sheer terror experience for the final seconds of their lives.

Until we develop a safer technology to explore space, then we should limit our endeavors to robotics only...

 

Wow paranoid.

The Saturn V blueprints were never destroyed to get money for the shuttle. NASA was forced to build the shuttle because congress slashed their funding, there was in fact more missions to the moon that were planned and had to be scrapped due to lack of funding.

Ares I actually lifted off without a hitch. The only real worry is this is a whole new generation redoing something, there is a chance of fuck up but apparently they got it pretty right.

Also, astronauts know the risk of going into space. Don't tell them what to do with their lives, most of these people spend their entire lives waiting for the day they get a chance to go into space.

And the booster wasn't damaged beyond belief. 1 of 3 parachutes failed to open, it buckled when it hit the water harder then expected. But oh hey, that's why it's called a test flight. Just like with Apollo why there wasn't an actual manned flight until Apollo 8

 

Paranoid? Not at all, just realistic. By the way, you are dead wrong, regarding the Saturn 5, for Congress mandated in the 1970's that all technical data (blueprints and schematics) be destroyed prior to them authorizing any funding for the shuttle program. It is important to note that Congress wanted to be assured that there would be no return to heavy booster rockets and their so-called excessive expense.

In terms of people (heroic US Astronauts) risking their lives...of course there is always a risk with any endeavor in this life, especially space flight-- but when multiple private engineers (Thiokol Corporation) warn NASA about the shuttle rocket boosters not being safe at low temperatures (>32 degrees), only to be ignored, then these astronauts lost their lives unnecessarily.

Only a fool would allow himself to be shot out of a canon...

 

Um, no
http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/saturn_five_000313.html

And NASA has the other extreme problem of well, you. If anything slight goes wrong, anything gets delayed, the public and congress throw a shit storm, so NASA gets forced to push ahead with things on schedule. NASA gets forced to stick to it's schedule more then the post office does.

People called a Columbus a fool too. Maybe they're just braver then us

 

I can only suggest you not believe everything your read at space.com...

These are the same people in conjunction with the old NORAD staff who just let a jet airliner fly around the northern US for two hours without radio contact or knowing their destination. Of course, in the real world, not a test scenario, there should have been jet fighters up there within minutes to insure they were not headed to the White House or somewhere else trying to kill Americans.

Are you going to trust these incompetent liars, NASA, USAF, FAA...hmmm?

 

Alright, come back with evidence to show that congress ordered the destruction of the Saturn V rockets.

Yes, NASA lies, it's a giant conspiracy against science and themselves.

And what does NASA have to do with what I assume is the plane that broke off radio contact for a long time after missing the airport the other week?

 

Your facts are nowhere close to right. First of all, the Aries I is not
equivalent to a Saturn 5. It matches up with the two-stage Saturn IB, while the yet-unbuilt Aries 5 would be similar in lift capability to the Saturn 5. Space Shuttle ratings lie somewhere in between. Secondly, not only do the drawings of the Saturn 5 still exist, but the completed Saturn rocket for the cancelled Apollo 18 mission survives as well. For years its three detached stages rested on their sides just outside the VAB at Kennedy Space Center, on display to the public, but were eventually brought indoors to prevent excessive deterioration of this historical treasure. What we do not have today is the production facilities that were built to manufacture and assemble Saturn rockets.

Remember the original stated purpose of the Space Shuttle fleet? Because of vehicle reusability, it was supposed to be a less expensive way to place items in orbit. We never came anywhere close to reaching this objective. Heavy lift vehicles were not going to be needed in this scenario because larger spacecraft could be assembled in orbit from multiple shuttle payloads. This objective was actually met, because the International Space Station is much larger and heavier than SkyLab, which was (along with its Saturn third stage) the largest and heaviest object ever placed in orbit.

The Saturn family of rockets did their jobs well, but the technology quickly evolved in a different direction, insuring the permanent retirement of the
classic Saturn designs. Today's workhorse rockets rely heavily on segmented solid motor stages and hypergolic (hydrazine-based, stored at room temperature) liquid stages that evolved from the Air Force's Titan III-C program (later, Titan 4 and Titan/Centaur). All Saturn stages and Apollo modules used only liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, which are highly efficient fuels but difficult and expensive to handle and store. Use of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen is now generally limited to the uppermost stages of booster rockets.

Any problems that may have taken place involving Ares I-X first stage parachutes would be only a minor problem in the recent test flight. This particular solid booster design has made parachute landings in the ocean before, as a Shuttle booster, with a different nose section.

You can expect high reliability and safety from the Ares family mostly because conventional rockets do not share the Shuttle's fatal design flaw of being covered in fragile heat tiles that are exposed to damage during launch. Those essential tiles, flying in close proximity to a cryogenic external fuel tank, set up a worst-case scenario for flight crew safety.

Minor corection: Apollo 7 was the first manned flight of the Apollo command and service modules, atop a Saturn IB. Apollo 8 was the first manned flight of a Saturn 5 rocket.

While there is nothing wrong with using mature and proven technology for future space vehicles, it does remove one of the rationales for spending enormous amounts of money on the Constellation Program. Fundamentally, today's solid fueled rockets are the same as fireworks rockets invented by the Chinese more than 1000 years ago. I think it would be a mistake to assume there is going to be a technological trickle-down effect from Constellation, just because we saw this happen during and after Apollo. This is a different time and circumstance.

This country is currently being run by financial types who place no value on technological leadership because it is not easily priced in dollars or traded on an exchange. Unless this situation changes, we are probably headed for a long-term future in which we only maintain a capability to launch unmanned satellites, which have straightforward business value. Europe, China, and India will most likely take the lead in other aspects of space exploration and utilization. Unfortunately, very few in this country will regret that change.

 

Don't you hate how the anti space crowd throws that around. As you said, the amount of technology and science can't have a dollar amount put onto it, because it is vast and wide, down to the microchips powering our computers. Of course not that much new technology or innovations will come at first, all we're doing basically right now is re-learning what we knew how to do 40 years ago because of the fact NASA had it's budget slashed in the early 70's and had to operate under a cheaper, less adventurous plan. It's called stepping stones, this is just the stepping stone to eventually going back to the moon and Mars in the effort to finally have a permanent human settlement either in space or on Mars. That would in fact be a giagantic advancement for mankind. As Armstrong said, "one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind"

 

Apparently space achivements are still inspiring

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8339877.stm

1st place - X-ray machines
2nd place - Penicillin
3rd place - DNA double helix
4th place - Apollo 10 capsule
5th place - V2 Rocket Engine
6th place - Stephenson's Rocket
7th place - Pilot ACE Computer
8th place - Steam Engine
9th place - Model T Ford
10th place - Electric Telegraph

 

And it was on Friday the 13th that the announcement was made...water on the moon!!! The polar orbit/landing capabilities of the Altair lander are made much more valuable by this incredible discovery, but there appears to be no immediate increase in lunar exploration interest. No interest in increased funding, which probably means that this resource will remain unused for decades to come. At first, I thought this to be one of the biggest scientific discoveries of my lifetime. Then, it settled into my brain that it is likely to remain nothing more than an item of science trivia until I am an old man, if not longer.

 

Indeed, despite people being pissed off the LCROSS didn't make the giant cloud of dust people were hoping to see, it performed perfectly, and quite a great deal of extractable water has been found in lunar soil.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8359744.stm

With the right infrastructure and funding, the moon is now officially habitable, as of..............now!

 

Obama effectively canceled NASA's manned space flight program yesterday, so I suppose we have nothing left to talk about here. After the last scheduled space shuttle mission flies a few months from now, the US government will be out of the business for the first time since John F. Kennedy started the program.

The official spin on this is that the traffic will move to the private sector, but I have serious doubts that American companies will be involved in any significant way. They would have a tough time catching up with the Russians and the European Space Agency, both of which will be quite willing to cash American checks for services rendered. I expect that the new status quo will simply become yet another net flow of cash and technological leadership outside the United States.

 

This is political suicide for Obama, especially since he still raised NASA's budget. Now he's going to be called out all election season for wasting the $10 billion already spent on Constellation and Republicans will pull the "Obama killed American spaceflight" card.

 

At least his list of accomplishments is no longer blank.

 

November is going to suck, I'm calling it right now, "The G.O.P. strikes back"

 

I support what Obama did. I just wish he had actually cut the budget so he could claim some savings on the deficit.

 

What savings, NASA has almost the smallest budget of any federal agency. Obama devotes entire speeches to how America is falling behind in science and how are kids are not inspired to become engineers anymore. So what does he do, kills something science related that inspires people.