Comments on: Show exploration the money

By: Space Politics » Still trying to close the gap

Space Politics » Still trying to close the gap — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:10:09 +0000

[...] cry has died down in recent months, particularly as the Augustine committee found evidence that keeping the current program on its current schedule may prove to be prohibitively expensive. That makes it difficult to push for trying to accelerate the current [...]

By: Bruce Behrhorst

Bruce Behrhorst — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 05:09:26 +0000

the perfect vacumm wrote:
google translation Swedish>English:
past now seems to be the future of American manned space flight (which is financed by tax – part

Amerika är fortfarande i ridning cyklar i rymden. Eftersom de har ett förbud mot användning av nukleära framdrivningssystem för rymdfarkoster tillgång.

google translation Swedish>English:
America is still in riding bicycles in space. Because they have a ban on using nuclear propulsion for space access.

By: Det perfekta tomrummet › Framtiden för bemannade rymdfärder

Det perfekta tomrummet › Framtiden för bemannade rymdfärder — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:28:10 +0000

[...] senaste nu tycks vara att framtiden för amerikanska bemannade rymdfärder (som finansieras över skattsedeln – en del [...]

By: SpaceMan

SpaceMan — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:35:19 +0000

why China, Russia and India are benefiting from their bases on the Moon and building ships to go to Mars while the U.S. is no longer a major player in space.

ROFLMAO

Are you serious ? Dude put down the crackpipe and rejoin reality.

Geez, kids today…

By: Once America Had a Great Space Program : The Pink Flamingo

Once America Had a Great Space Program : The Pink Flamingo — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 04:19:42 +0000

[...] Let’s face the fact that Democrats don’t give a damn about our future. “…The committee concluded that it would take an extra $50 billion to carry out the current plan, a chunk of money that most [...]

By: Rand Simberg

Rand Simberg — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 02:33:28 +0000

Its the supporters of Obama who will have to explain to their grandkids why China, Russia and India are benefiting from their bases on the Moon and building ships to go to Mars while the U.S. is no longer a major player in space.

Not that the current trajectory of the US space program is all that great, but the notion that those countries are going to have bases on the moon is ridiculous, given their own copycat and flawed approaches to the problem.

By: Annon

Annon — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 22:26:55 +0000

“It was revealed not long after the release of the Education Plan referred to in that article, that the part concerning the space program was inserted by an overzealous aid.”

And you probably believe in the tooth fairy as well.

In any case I voted and campaigned for McCain, so my hands are clean. Its the supporters of Obama who will have to explain to their grandkids why China, Russia and India are benefiting from their bases on the Moon and building ships to go to Mars while the U.S. is no longer a major player in space.

By: Martijn Meijering

Martijn Meijering — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 19:48:15 +0000

@Roga:

Why would a depot 100km away from the ISS be risky? Especially a small hypergolic one, my favourite kind for the near future?

By: roga

roga — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 18:54:34 +0000

You can anticipate thousands of failure scenarios and add controls or fixes for all of them. You can do this one of two ways. You can do it with systems engineering – let’s call this the “NASA” method – spend billions over a decade or two on FMEA and err on the side of the safest (and likely most expensive) version of everything. Or you can do it with trial and error – let’s call the the “airplane” method – spend billions over a decade or two launching much cheaper depots in places where they are unlikely to cause serious debris problems for others, and use a constant redesign cycle to fix problems after they occur. In the second case, you get a market and utility during the FMEA, and the simulation is considerably higher fidelity.

Implying that we can design enough risk out of a prop depot in order to site it near the ISS is completely realistic. But doing so would make the prop depots just like the ISS – expensive, over-specialized, subject to the whims of too many interested parties, of limited use, and frozen to decades-old designs due to the cost of change orders. Prop depots near ISS aren’t unworkable per se, but they are unworkable in any meaningful timeline if you want to use a life cycle paradigm similar to what just about every non-civil-space engineering field uses.

By: SKill Constellation

SKill Constellation — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 14:51:55 +0000

CKilling Constellation for education would be a GOOD THING, because finally you idiots could get the education you so desperately need.