NASA’s limitations have been firmly submerged in the space leadership failures of this nation. Half a cent on the tax dollar doesn’t buy much vision. Constellation would have been easily achievable on a fraction of what NASA had during the Apollo era. The issue today is not staying within the boundaries of what we can afford, it’s having a vision that we SHOULD be willing to pay for in order to continue being a great nation.

Bob Clark

“And that’s the way it is.”

Correction, that’s the way it WAS. And even then it was just one persons opinion, not a fact.

50 years later, when people have far more interaction with technology than they sometimes do with humans, it’s a different world.

You really do have problems letting go of the past, don’t you? You need to enter the 21st century…

“SLS is a geo-political strategy for the United States.”

Apparently when you say that, you mean it’s a commitment we make to borrowing $30B+ money from China, right?

Because that’s the only “geo-political strategy” that’s apparent with the SLS – debt, with nothing to show for it.

You’re saying that the Detroit riverfront plaza landing party for Curiosity was an “EDL success” celebration? That’s like saying that the celebrations about the killing of Osama bin Laden were about the successful firing of an M-16. When was the last Detroit riverfront landing party for Shuttle and Soyuz astronauts? What, they don’t get “EDL success” celebrations as well? I had no idea that EDL was that popular with the American public.

What was being celebrated in Detroit (and many other venues) was the success in emplacing a piece of us that would do great things for human inquisitiveness.

Whoaho! And I thought SLS was an HLV. Thanks for the clarification! A geo-political strategy with no established destinations or payloads. That oughta score some geo-political points, no? Now it comes out. SLS as “geo-political strategy”. Can you show me where, in Congressional legislation, it says that. I mean, Congress oughtta know.

“Which is a maningless statment as it wasn’t sent to Mars to determine how long it could function, as it. A probe that lasts an hour can deviler a lot more scuience.. Huygens (sp.) comes to mind. =eyeroll=”

Speaking of meaningless statements … would you like to rephrase in one that has meaning?

“Pot. Kettle. Black.”

I wasn’t reading YOUR mind, as you were mine. I was talking about the taxpayers I meet and talk to every day. Your dubiousness is not shared by them. Your pot seems to be somewhat beige.

:.The great value of Apollo was that it “gave more meaning to the space program because people identify more readily with men than with machines..” –Dr. Thomas O. Paine

And that’s the way it is. Deal with it.

“Thio is nonsense.”

If only you put as much effort into your communications skills (i.e. typing) as you do in digging up useless history references, then maybe you would be better understood.

But just to be clear, even if you did actually use spellcheck, and your sentences made sense, what you wrote in response to Fred Willett still wouldn’t be relevant in the 21st century.

I mean really, why you think our current activities in space (and wanting to go in space) are related in any way to the Polaris program is pretty weird.

“In its September 1969 report to thw president [Nixon], the STG recommended a balanced program of manned and unmanned space exploration and singled out as a primary goal a manned Mars mission before the end of the century. This…had been Mueller’s proposal for a long-term objective to succeed Apollo; but the idea had remained dormant virtually until the launch of Apollo 11, when Vice President Agnew had advanced what he called “a simple, ambitious, optimistic goal.” This was all that Mueller, von Braun, and Paine had needed and this goal, expanded into a plan of impressive scope, became the cornerstone of the STG report:

1. A manned Mars mission by the mid-1980s; an orbiting lunar station; a fifty-man Earth-orbiting space base. Funding would rise from $4 billion in FY 1970 to $8-$10 billion in 1980.72

2. Mars mission in 1986; $8 billion maximum in early 1980s.

3. Initial development of space station and reusable shuttles, as in the first two options, but deferral of decision on Mars landing date, while maintaining goal of a landing at some point after 1980 but before the end of the century. The concurrent development of the shuttle and the space station would call for a rise to $5.7 billion in spending by 1976; if they were developed serially, funding would rise to $4-$5 billion.

The most ambitious goals of the STG report were tacitly dropped; Nixon’s message of 7 March 1970, which was an endorsement of the third and least expensive of the STG options, made no mention of a Mars landing. The result of FOUR YEARS OF STUDIES and long-range planning was one “dry” orbital workshop launched in May 1973, four years behind schedule; three “visits” to the workshop by astronaut crews; and the commitment by President Nixon in January 1972 that a reusable space shuttle would be built.”

The only person who has ‘no clue’ about this it appears, is you, Stephen.

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4102/contents.htm

Thio is nonsense.

“NASA managers saw their responsibilities in political terms and took it upon themselves to justify NASA where it mattered most: to the President, to the Bureau of the Budget, whose fiscal authorities set the terms of the annual budget request, and to Congress, which had the power to modify that request. What Sapolsky has said about Polaris surely applies here: Competitors had to be eliminated; reviewing agencies had to be outmaneuvered; congressmen . . . newspapermen and academicians had to be co-opted. Politics is a systemic requirement. What distinguishes programs in government is not that some play politics and others do not, but, rather, that some are better at it than others

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4102/contents.htm