Which again has nothing to do w/space policy. But if you want to crow over a 33% success rate, go for it– but batting .333 only rates in baseball. Into the valley rode the 600…

Robert G. Oler wrote @ February 12th, 2012 at 12:41 am

Uhm, actually hailing a 33% success rate makes my point. But you know that.>>

You remind me of the lecture I attended at Sandhurst. The subject was about G. (drum roll’s) Washington’s tactics in the (our) Revolutionary war (our first civil war)…the speaker kept noting that G. (drum roll) Washington lost more battles then he won.

so did the North Vietnamese. RGO

“Ugly” is relative. As Volkswagen said in 1969 for its VW Beetle, using an image of a LM: “It’s ugly. But it gets you there.”

Uhm, actually hailing a 33% success rate makes my point. But you know that.

I wrote:
“One of the least heralded but most successful “fixes” In space history was the Ranger program.”

you replied
Odd way to keep score. Only 33% of the Ranger series were rated a success- 7,8 & 9 worked..

Which of course makes my point.

After the failure of 5 the program was halted and a big descope of the program was made with a single point focus. 6 was a “near miss” it hit the moon exactly where they wanted it (which none of the other Rangers 3-5 had done) the failure was in the surge protection system of the TV camera which they fixed on 7 and it worked like a charm. There was no need for follow on Rangers, which would have been successful, the successful three answered the question.

The Ranger program is a story book effort of how to turn a program around, this is particularly true since “most” of the lessons including the bus frame went to Mariner and resulted in a very successful program. None of the Mariner spacecraft failed, all the failures were related to launch vehicles issues.

If you could put fuel in Mariner IV and 9…they would likely both work today… as would 6 and7…II and V are a little more iffy there were solar heating issues. Just in case I will be listening for IV when it comes by the earth next year! RGO

Odd way to keep score. Only 33% of the Ranger series were rated a success- 7,8 & 9 worked..

NASA is not a business, they will never ever operate with the same effeciencies as a business. NASA should have never been launching in the first place. We rely on commercial companies for ALL our transportation needs. To try and depend on a disfunctial government to provide the Nation with something as crucial as transportation is insanity on a bun. How’s that AmTrac, with all it’s pork, doing versus other commercial rail?

Let NASA handle what they are supposed to, and launching rockets isn’t it.

“still taking things out of context and picking nits I see.”

I’m just responding to what you write. If you are unable to fully express your thoughts and ideas, that’s not my fault. Do you assume everyone can “read between the lines” of what you write?

“When I said a majority of NASA I meant the rocket scientists.”

Then why didn’t you write that? Instead you wrote an unqualified statement that said “The majority of NASA was for a SD HLV.” The “majority” of NASA. Learn to write better.

It would be like me saying “your thoughts are idiotic” – do I mean one or two of the things you have said, or everything you say? Don’t be fuzzy. Write what you mean, and mean what you write.

“As for the people hired by this administration, I meant that they were hired to be “yes men” not for their talent.”

Piffle. Another unqualified statement. Not “some”, or not “most”, or even “upper management”. You are implying everyone this administration has hired into NASA – janitors, technicians, engineers, specialists – everyone. How do you know this? Are you in HR? Are you a NASA hiring manager, so you see the directives that come from above on future hires? Piffle I say.

“Griffin and Weiler tried their best to lock in their “visions’ for the future of NASA before they left…”

That’s not saying much.

Any grossly oversized expendable launcher that utilizes SRBs and SSMEs is intrinsically an ugly design. It will be unaffordable to both develop and operate, and any other program that relies on its existence will be very high risk.