Re: Google Cindy Sheehan (was: Re: Peace Mom)


"Josh Hill" wrote:
> "pandora" wrote:
>>"w.d.greene" wrote:
>>> "Josh Hill" wrote:
>>> >
>>> > Another way of looking at it, courtesy of another poster -- we could
>>> > have sent a manned expedition to Mars for less than we've spent in
>>> > Iraq. Which, IMO, would be /much/ more fun.
>>>
>>> FYI. Current total NASA annual budget the last time I checked was about
>>> $16B.
>>>
>>
>>And maybe, just maybe, IF they had spent those billions that went to the
>>war
>>in Iraq on new shuttle technology instead, well, we'd have something to
>>show
>>for it, now wouldn't we?
>
> Estimated cost of building the DC-Y single stage to take off vehicle
> -- a reusable spaceship that would slash the cost of putting stuff in
> orbit -- $6 billion.

Um, no.

Single-stage to orbit (SSTO) does not work. It cannot work. Any fledgling
aerospace engineer with just a passing knowledge of the rocket equation
understands this. Space Shuttle is 1.5 stages and it can only pull it off
by being the highest performing system ever built.

Nobody at NASA that I knew at the time (I was a contractor then) believed in
SSTO, nobody technical that is. So, why was it pursued? Because lobbiests
convinced their congress members to petition for it (and, yes, those
bastards are still there in congress and, yes, they still have the gall to
badmouth the agency when it suits their needs). The authorizing and
appropriations committees basically forced it down NASA's throat and NASA
did what they were told, which amounted to taking a long march down a short
pier into nowhere, because they were required to by law.

I watched this whole affair with a level of absolute disgust that still
leaves a foul taste in my mouth. I am not yet a big-wig in the agency, not
even close, but I vowed to myself then that I would not toe the company line
should anything so utterly stupid and disgraceful ever arise again.

Very few people realized how little of what government agencies do they do
by choice.


> Estimated cost of building the space elevator, which could slash the
> cost of putting stuff in orbit even more -- $10 billion.

Um, no.

The space elevator is silliness. And yes, "silliness" is a highly technical
term for balderdash.

> Estimated cost of developing the hardware for a Mars mission, $20
> billion.
>
> Estimated cost of each mission, $1-2 billion.

This we will do (though I would _not_ sign up to any cost numbers yet)
assuming that it is a goal that remains unsullied by political manipulation.


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