>= Bear in mind, an assault on the moon to establish a permanent
> presence there makes Apollo look like kite flying. ==

But that’s not what Constellation and VSE was going to do.

And lets face it – you could do that for a lot less then the quarter trillion they were talking about for VSE. Hell for that, you should be building the lunar base in 2001!!

Defiantly you need to building stuff well beyond what we did in Apollo – or Constellation.

> == Otherwise, don’t lose your keys to your Tucker.

Can I trade it in on a new Studebaker?

8)

Love it!

Guess that makes as much sence as NASA budgeting $100B to develop "Apollo on Steroids" space flight tech — a half century after they did it the first time.

> Kelly Starks wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 11:10 am The video of news reports from the day of the announcement
> of the contract being awarded in mid 1996 states NASA woud put
> up to $1 billion into development w/ L/M to carry the rest of the
> load and operate/maintain the program for NASA.

I was refering to earlier then that. Origionally it was a shared dev program with each puttling ni as much — I beleave NASA was noly to put in $300M.

L/M aws pushing for most of the year to go past X-33 to a full shuttle usnig all inhouse, NASA responded with just X-33 – but they’ld pay another billion. Most of the industry took that as conclusive proof the customers had no interest in CATS, and NASA in perticular was VERY hostile to it (I was in the office of space access tech at NASA HQ around then, adn someong fieldibng a CATS was their nightmare scenario for obvious reasons.).

Go Sidemount!

"The first launch of the new Conestoga I design took place on 9 Sep 1982, consisting of the core missile stage and a 500 kg dummy payload which included 40 gallons of water. The payload was successfully ejected at 313 km, and the Conestoga I became the first privately funded rocket to reach space." That was 28 years ago.

Letter from several former astronauts and NASA administrators:

“We are very concerned about America ceding its hard earned global leadership in space technology to other nations. We are stunned that, in a time of economic crisis, this move will force as many as 30,000 irreplaceable engineers and managers out of the space industry. We see our human exploration program, one of the most inspirational tools to promote science, technology, engineering and math to our young people, being reduced to mediocrity. NASA’s human space program has inspired awe and wonder in all ages by pursuing the American tradition of exploring the unknown. We strongly urge you to drop this misguided proposal that forces NASA out of human space operations for the foreseeable future…

“Too many men and women have worked too hard and sacrificed too much to achieve America’s preeminence in space, only to see that effort needlessly thrown away. We urge you to demonstrate the vision and determination necessary to keep our nation at the forefront of human space exploration with ambitious goals and the proper resources to see them through. This is not the time to abandon the promise of the space frontier for a lack of will or an unwillingness to pay the price.”

This statement was signed by Walter Cunningham, Apollo 7 astronaut; Chris Kraft former director of Johnson Space Center; Jack Lousma, Skylab 3 astronaut; Vance Brand, Apollo-Soyuz astronaut; Bob Crippen, former director of Kennedy Space Center; Michael D. Griffin, former NASA administrator; Ed Gibson, Skylab 4 astronaut; Jim Kennedy, former director of KSC; Alan Bean, Apollo 12 astronaut; Alfred M. Worden, Apollo 15 astronaut; Scott Carpenter, Mercury astronaut; Glynn Lunney, Gemini-Apollo flight director; Jim McDivitt, Apollo 9 astronaut; Gene Kranz, former director of NASA mission operations; Joe Kerwin, Skylab 2 astronaut; Fred Haise, Apollo 13 astronaut; Gerald Carr, Skylab 4 astronaut; Jim Lovell, Apollo 13 astronaut; Jake Garn, STS-51D astronaut; Charlie Duke, Apollo 16 astronaut; Bruce McCandless, STS-31 astronaut; Frank Borman, Apollo 8 astronaut; Paul Weitz, STS-6 astronaut; George Mueller, former associate administrator for manned space flight; Harrison Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut; Gene Cernan, Apollo 17 astronaut; Dick Gordon, Apollo 12 astronaut.