RE: Find the Money For This Program.....Somewhere

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RE: Find the Money For This Program.....Somewhere - 4/15/2011 4:35:58 PM

jlf1961

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For the record, there were 32 Saturn family launches, the only loss of life was the Apollo 1 cabin fire, which had NOTHING to do with the launch vehicle.

The fire was the result of a short in wiring in an oxygen rich environment, the oxygen level in the Apollo one capsule at the time was nearly 100%.

So, the safety rating of the saturn program was much higher than the shuttle, since the Saturn Launch vehicle was never the direct cause of loss of life.

Various NASA programs were initiated for heavy launch vehicles, including various space plane designs which never got further than the drawing board.

The space shuttle was never intended for anything more that a low earth orbit vehicle, which was a large step backwards after Apollo.

The current Ares program, along with the Orion crew vehicle may not get as much support due to funding, but it is the only game in town.

If you read the current release of "2001 A Space Odyssey" there is a essay included in which Arthur C Clarke stated that the technology exists to build the space station and space craft described in the book, including the Nuclear rocket engines used in the Voyager craft.

The truth of the matter is that one country could not fund programs such as portrayed in the book, and considering the current funding cuts for NASA, as well as other country's space programs, it would make more sense for all countries to work together and jointly fund space operations and exploration.

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RE: Find the Money For This Program.....Somewhere - 4/15/2011 7:19:36 PM

Fellow

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Space shuttle program is not dead. It just became invisible for most, and it serves the agency US is best known for.
A top secret space plane developed by the US military has blasted off from Cape Canaveral on its maiden voyage.Billed as a small shuttle, the unmanned X-37B heralds the next generation of space exploration. It will be the first craft to carry out an autonomous re-entry in the history of the US programme.But its mission - and its cost - remain shrouded in secrecy. The Air Force said the launch was a success but would give no further details.However, experts have said the spacecraft was intended to speed up development of combat-support systems and weapons systems.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1268138/X-37B-unmanned-space-shuttle-launched-tonight.html

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RE: Find the Money For This Program.....Somewhere - 4/15/2011 7:37:04 PM

jlf1961

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The x37b is smaller than the space shuttle, and is primarily a test bed for reusable space vehicles, it is incapable of High Earth Orbit missions.

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Boy, it sure would be nice if we had some grenades, don't you think?

You cannot control who comes into your life, but you can control which airlock you throw them out of.

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RE: Find the Money For This Program.....Somewhere - 4/15/2011 8:11:04 PM

outhere69

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quote:

ORIGINAL: servantforuse

I liked Shatner in Boston Legal.

That was a perfect role for him, he's always been one of those "chew the scenery" actors.

And I can't believe we just agreed on something!

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RE: Find the Money For This Program.....Somewhere - 4/16/2011 6:20:42 AM

DomKen

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quote:

ORIGINAL: jlf1961
The space shuttle was never intended for anything more that a low earth orbit vehicle, which was a large step backwards after Apollo.

This is the worst misconception so I'll deal with it here.

Low earth orbit, LEO, is what all vehicles launching from the Earth's surface should be designed to reach. Due to gravity and air resistance that phase of a spaceflight uses many orders of magnitude more fuel than the rest. It simply isn't efficient to build a spacecraft that launches from the Earth and travels further. The STS was designed to simply move cargo and people to LEO. From there we could have built craft capable of going further and doing so much more cheaply and safely.

Note that the now cancelled Constellation program tried to do things in mostly the old way and proved to be ruinously expensive and impractical. The new system will employ a heavy lift vehicle to reach LEO where missions to deep space will originate.

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