Shuttle Endeavor travels.
- Thread starter MikeD
- Start date
Cal Goat
Prestige Worldwide™
Agree... mostly. But some part of me is discouraged at the moment.
I thought I had missed it, but it ended up making a turn right over me. This is the grainy result from my crappy little point-and-shoot:
trafficinsight
Well-Known Member
I hate you and your point and shoot
Anyway, there were 6 years between ASTP and STS-1, and there are Americans in space right now, unlike then. The Mars rover is doing some really cool stuff. Don't lose heart!
RICHARD5
Well-Known Member
In my late teens a family friend of my GF's family asked if I was interested in some VIP passes to Edwards and Palmdale. Through North American Rockwell I was able to be on hand to witness every one of the shuttle tests (with tailcone). It was strange to be so young while in a crowd of high ranking feds, military brass and industry insiders. I still have a boat load of the glossy brochures, schedule books, STS patches, etc.
It'll probably never happen again. This country has strayed to far away from it's roots, and the "I got mine" mentality has taken people over.
Did you even see the video I posted? Look at where the country was when JFK decided to go to the moon. We were in a recession, and his speach to go to the moon lifted the people and helped to bring us out of it. NASA's entire running budget isn't even close to the freakin TARP bailout. It equals almost half, OVER 50+ YEARS! We have spent, since 1958, about $530B on space exploration. Take a dollar out of your wallet and imagine that it's a tax dollar, not your dollar. Then take NASA's budget out of that, it doesn't even make it into the ink. If we'd quit spending so much on foriegn aid on countires that hate us, and tell them to F.O.... We spend more on aid each year then we do on space exploration, by a SIGNIFIGANT amount. It's almost 3 times the amount.
I am going to put on my flame suit for this because it's going to make some of the natives restless, but Obama screwed us when he decided to take the Shuttle out of service with out a replacement ready. We currently have nothing solid in the works as a country to return to space. We will be hitching rides on other countries rockets to get to the space station. And Hubble was supposed to be returned to earth and be a museum piece. If it comes back to earth now, it'll burn up on re-entry because we don't have a vehicle to get it home.
There are certian things that should be, and shouldn't be. We are the only ones to ever put people on another rock. Now, who knows if it will ever happen again in our life time.
scooter2525
Very well Member
Probably true, but I choose to be hopefully optimistic.
Bernoulli Fan
Controller
Not that I disagree with your sentiments overall, but I believe SpaceX and other commercial companies will preclude the need to hitch rides on other countries' rockets. I'd like to believe that Obama was briefed and decided that private enterprise could take over at least that essential duty.
Lee D
Well-Known Member
I was down in So Cal with my family. We were lucky enough to catch a better than expected glimpse of it while we were driving North on I-5.
I certainly have mixed feelings about our increasingly minimalistic space program. I agree that keeping the country's financial house in order is important. Yet I wonder what we lose as a nation and a world when we don't have such lofty goals to shoot for. We lose things and possibilities that cant be quantified as easily as the hard financial numbers related to the actual costs of building and financing a launch. Think of the innovations and ideas that came about because of our space programs that later found applications in other things. Things ranging from medical devices and tech, plastics, lenses, foams, avionics, filters, computer chip development etc etc. etc.
Long term I wonder if we are stepping over dollars to get to dimes.
I certainly have mixed feelings about our increasingly minimalistic space program. I agree that keeping the country's financial house in order is important. Yet I wonder what we lose as a nation and a world when we don't have such lofty goals to shoot for. We lose things and possibilities that cant be quantified as easily as the hard financial numbers related to the actual costs of building and financing a launch. Think of the innovations and ideas that came about because of our space programs that later found applications in other things. Things ranging from medical devices and tech, plastics, lenses, foams, avionics, filters, computer chip development etc etc. etc.
Long term I wonder if we are stepping over dollars to get to dimes.
BeRich
Very Special Agent
We haven't given up on space exploration, though. I mean, we just landed a probe on Mars! We're still getting the innovation in all the things Lee D mentions, they just aren't from a manned program. I do believe exploration is important, and I'd love to see more funding for it, but the fact that we don't currently have a need for a manned program does not mean we've abandoned space entirely.
Ash Williams
Well-Known Member
You mean "too"! C'mon people!
Lee D
Well-Known Member
I hope we don't go for too long without a manned program. You're right we do still innovate as the last Mars landing demonstrated wonderfully. I simply think we might be losing out by allowing our manned programs to be set aside.
One can only hope the private sector will step up, but until you can realy demonstrate profitability I think they may move slowly too.
One can only hope the private sector will step up, but until you can realy demonstrate profitability I think they may move slowly too.
There is a need for a manned program. We built a space station, and now we have to take the "city bus" to get there. It's a PITA to go buy a new TV and bring it home on a bus.
BeRich
Very Special Agent
It's a bigger PITA to buy a new car just so you can bring home your new TV.
You're right, it is. Except we already own the car, and, we need the car for a lot more than just one TV. We have a second home we need to commute to on the weekends. So even if our car is old, we still need a new one to handle all of our commuting. Renting a truck from Home Depot every other weekend just doesn't make sense. And our budget is only being used in fractions of percents for new cars. We can cut other things as well, like eating out(foreign aid), and buying ammo for the zombie apocalypse (wars that we'll never win and have no clear objective).
My point... we still have a need for a maned space program because we built a freakin space station up there. Would you build a house in the country, live on the city, and take a cab ride every weekend to get to it?
BeRich
Very Special Agent
mshunter I hope you don't mind if we drop the analogy...
Nobody here has all the details on the costs and benefits of having the shuttle vs hitching a ride. The people that do have that information, though, obviously think it's cheaper (and still sufficient for our needs) to hitch a ride, or else they wouldn't have decided to kill the program. If we can still get whatever we need to get to and from the ISS, I have no problems with doing it in the less expensive way, although we are losing an amazing program with some fantastic history and engineering.
I'd be absolutely in favor of cutting some of our other spending in our to better fund a space program, FWIW. I just don't think it's reasonable to say that we've abandoned space exploration, especially given the recent Mars mission.
Nobody here has all the details on the costs and benefits of having the shuttle vs hitching a ride. The people that do have that information, though, obviously think it's cheaper (and still sufficient for our needs) to hitch a ride, or else they wouldn't have decided to kill the program. If we can still get whatever we need to get to and from the ISS, I have no problems with doing it in the less expensive way, although we are losing an amazing program with some fantastic history and engineering.
I'd be absolutely in favor of cutting some of our other spending in our to better fund a space program, FWIW. I just don't think it's reasonable to say that we've abandoned space exploration, especially given the recent Mars mission.
RICHARD5
Well-Known Member
Do you mean essential to the country or essential to a space program? Either way would matter but one more so. If the program is essential, and the President had been briefed as you say, has he dumped $hundreds of millions into those private endeavors? Re: Solyndra, et al.
trafficinsight
Well-Known Member
Bernoulli Fan
Controller
I meant essential for the astronauts already up there in the space station. I wouldn't term it "dumping hundreds of millions," but the SpaceX does have a contract with the government to deliver supplies and, pending performance, eventually people to the ISS. I don't know about any other private space companies, or the details of Solyndra.
