Comments on: As Europa looks more inviting, one group presses NASA for a mission there

By: Hiram

Hiram — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 15:25:46 +0000

“The manned launch of a Dragon capsule to the ISS wonâ€™t remotely affect peopleâ€™s lives either!”

Um, who just said “the U.S. merely makes further multi-million-dollar payments to Russia, so that theyâ€™ll launch OUR astronauts into space!! This is, of course, since we as a nation totally lack even a single space capsule, with which to send anybody up!” ?

A manned launch of a Dragon capsule may not affect most peoples lives, but it really seems that it would affect yours. You could even use fewer exclamation marks in your posts.

By: Hiram

Hiram — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 15:15:06 +0000

“The task of soft-landing a space probe & rover onto the Moon may be hard & challenging for Chinaâ€”â€”but it isnâ€™t ANY easier for the U.S. to do, as well!”

Complete and utter BS. The U.S. has successfully landed *tons* of instruments on Mars. Farther away, making for stiffer lifetime and comm issues, entry and descent hurdles, and higher gravity. Landing such tonnage on the Moon by the U.S. would not be a big challenge. It is astonishing the way lunar scolds ignore our demonstrated capabilities elsewhere in the solar system.

If China is smart, it will figure out why landing humans on the Moon is of value in the long run. We haven’t. They may well leapfrog past LEO, and go directly to landing a few humans on the Moon, who will be trying to figure out what they’re doing there besides flag planting and celebratory waving back to the Earth.

In fact, one of the powerful roles of ISS is developing international cooperation in space accomplishment that can be brought to more distant challenges. China doesn’t have that now. International cooperation, especially in highly technical arenas, isn’t something you flick on and off like a light switch. The days of huge space accomplishments done solely by the U.S., without cooperation and investment by other countries, are over. A fair complaint is that this development hasn’t yet been used, but that gets back to the problem of establishing value in the long run.

By: Chris Castro

Chris Castro — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 08:41:57 +0000

@Robert G. Oler,…. The manned launch of a Dragon capsule to the ISS won’t remotely affect people’s lives either! Putt-putting around in Earth’s backyard, with a Commercial spacecraft, in mere LEO, won’t electrify nor mesmerize the general public either! It won’t matter which company or whose capsule is doing the flight!
If Chang’e 3, is a repeat of the old Soviet Lunokhods, then a manned flight of the Dragon would be merely a repeat of the Gemini 1960’s flights! Oh, you say that Commercial Crew is sending men to a space station?—-then, that flight will be a mere repeat of the Skylab, from the 1970’s!!

By: Chris Castro

Chris Castro — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 08:24:42 +0000

@Frank Glover,…..NOT exactly: the U.S. merely makes further multi-million-dollar payments to Russia, so that they’ll launch OUR astronauts into space!! This is, of course, since we as a nation totally lack even a single space capsule, with which to send anybody up!

By: Chris Castro

Chris Castro — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 08:17:13 +0000

@Hiram,….The task of soft-landing a space probe & rover onto the Moon may be hard & challenging for China——but it isn’t ANY easier for the U.S. to do, as well! In case you all haven’t noticed: China isn’t the nation that currently needs Russia to launch their spacemen to space! America lacks even a basic man-rated capsule, to reach LEO! At least the Chinese have their Shenzou craft, in which to fly missions with!
If China is smart, it will leapfrog past the “need” to repeat the same old boring LEO station exercise, and will merely use the Tiangong as mainly a target vehicle, for practicing the reaching of a deep-space-bound craft, in a parking orbit. Tiangong could be the proto-type of a cis-lunar transport vehicle, which would involve both a lunar lander & an earth-escape-stage rocket. There’s clearly NO need for them to duplicate, in full scope, the ISS program! Sure, they could dabble a bit with a spartan, basic-type Skylab-like vehicle, for a while. But getting themselves fully bogged-down in Low Earth Orbit?—–THAT would be China’s true entry into stagnation & mediocrity!!

By: Chris Castro

Chris Castro — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 07:47:55 +0000

DCSCA is right! The waste of further decades hovering around in LEO, is the clear tragedy, going on right now, with the American space program!! Commercial Crew will get us nothing & to nowhere!!
I see great future promise & the lead-up to grand ambitions, with the Chinese unmanned soft-landing of a probe & rover upon the Moon! Chang’e 3, carries with it, strong implications for the future Chinese occupation of the Moon! It is in THIS arena, that true interplanetary space-flight with astronauts, will be hatched out! Luna offers the best test-bed & proving ground, for getting through all of the big engineering hurdles, involved in any departure from cis-lunar space.

By: Chris Castro

Chris Castro — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 07:32:17 +0000

@Coastal Ron,…..THAT WAS 40 SOLID YEARS AGO!!! America ignoring the Moon, & just bragging about its forty-years-ago laurels is like Spain quitting New World exploration in the 1510’s, and just being content with having other European nations do it, thenafter. China is building up, little by little, its space technology capabilities. Sure, it would be great if they could just leapfrog past all that stupid space-station repeat-of-the-U.S. thing—–and get their spacemen to the Moon by the 2020’s, but we’ll see how it eventually goes. LEO stations are the real dead end!
I find it ludicrous how you anti-Moon people denigrate any manned return to the Moon, yet had no issues with a hundred LEO manned sortie missions——one after the other, on board the Shuttle, lasting roughly two weeks each, going around in circles, over & over again, throughout the 80’s & the 90’s!! If NASA can devote THAT much time & effort hovering in LEO, what could possibly be wrong with getting astronauts to the Lunar surface, once more??!
I congratulate heartily, China’s emplacement of the first unmanned Moon-landing spacecraft, in the 21st century——something that has not been done in well over thirty years——not since the 1970’s!!! This soft-landing enterprise will have bountiful technological implications for future, ultra-advanced taikonaut expeditions. Expeditions that will exceed all that was possible, during the old Apollo missions—–four solid decades ago!

By: Robert G. Oler

Robert G. Oler — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 19:52:47 +0000

Yes of course, had the shuttle say even flown 25 times a year at prices somewhere near what it was sold for history is very different. so I agree with you but my point was that 1) it didnt happen and 2) really never could have happened.

there is a reason SpaceX is trying (and to be fair lets see if it works) to inch up the fight rate…if they cannot do that I bet they cannot make their cost numbers

Robert G. Oler

By: Vladislaw

Vladislaw — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 18:26:22 +0000

I kinda disagree Robert. The american taxpayer, I believe was sold on the idea that the Nation would fund the development of this new transportation system and then IMMEDIATELY like ALL transportation systems it would shoveled over into the private sector and mass production would start and everyone would benefit and enjoy the fruits of that development. Hell Pan Am wanted to start selling tickets, Hilton wanted space hotels. But unfortunatly the space program was turned into a heros program. From now until forever, space would be hard and expensive and only america’s best would ever get ride to space.

Congress passed no laws allowing or encouraging private rockets for passenger service. It was now locked up as a NASA only heros program. Flights could not be so routine it became boring. Nine human flights by the shuttle in one year. Can you imagine if only 9 airline flights took place a year?

Once spaceflight became commercialized the NASA hero would disappear along with the big budgets.

By: Vladislaw

Vladislaw — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 17:52:33 +0000

I couldn’t find any reliable polling data that showed a staggering 98% oppossing tarp. Hell only a few percentage of people truely understood what the hell was happening in the banking industry much less what a derivative is and that it can include futures, forwards, swaps, options, and variations like caps, floors, collars, and credit default swaps.

So saying 98% of americans had an opinion on Tarp is laughable. The media ran a ton of anti bailout headlines during tarp there is your opinion.

sheesh