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

On Sun, 21 Aug 2005 16:18:50 -0500, "w.d.greene" <bil64@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

>"Josh Hill" wrote:

>> Sadly, the money /was/ there. Check out the NASA budget:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget
>>
>> After accounting for inflation, NASA's annual budget is 74% of what it
>> was from 1963 to 1972, when we went to the moon.
>>
>> By trashing the space program, Nixon set NASA on the path to the
>> shuttle disasters and the relative lack of accomplishment of the next
>> 35 years.
>
>I would argue against this notion strenuously. Yes, the manned space
>program has been restricted to low earth orbit, but beyond that the
>accomplishments have been astonishing. The space telescopes alone have
>revolutionized everything that we thought we knew about the universe. We
>have completely mapped every square mile of the planet. We have mapped
>nearly all of Mars. We have had rovers on Mars, sent probes out to Saturn
>and beyond, etc., etc. Please, please, don't think that Shuttle is the
>summation of NASA. However, even when you talk about Shuttle please
>remember that it has accomplished 113 successful missions and without it and
>ISS, any notion of travel to Mars would be impossible for what we have
>learned over the last quarter century. And, of course, I could start
>talking about aeronautics and life sciences and ...

I didn't mean to imply that NASA had accomplished nothing. The Shuttle
was a wonderful accomplishment, and unmanned missions and the space
telescope have done excellent science.

That being said, the accomplishments of the last 35 years pale to
those of the few short years between the launch of our first satellite
and Skylab, years which included our first suborbital and orbital
flights, our first space walks and dockings, our first space station,
trips to the moon. And that, essentially, is because NASA wasted money
on the International Space Station, which yielded no engineering or
scientific knowledge that more modest manned and unmanned facilities
couldn't have done for much less money, and the Shuttle -- a superb
experimental vehicle and necessary to staff the original space
station, but a ridiculously expensive way to loft cargo and people for
the scaled-down ISS, at according to one estimate $20,000 per pound
vs. $3800 per pound for the Saturn V.

NASA's original plan had called for the shuttle to be a crew vehicle
to service the Freedom Space Station and for a second run of Saturn
V's to loft the station's components in only a handful of flights. The
Shuttle was also to have been a completely reusable design. "Nixon
shut down the Saturn production lines (January 1970), approved the
Space Shuttle with inadequate funding support (January 1972), and
indefinitely deferred a permanent space station, moon base, and Mars
missions."

AFAIK, neither the shuttle nor the space station have made
contributions to Mars missions that couldn't have been made at much
lower cost through other means. Measurements of the long-term effects
of spaceflight, for example, could have been/were made in Skylab and
Mir. We could have gone to Mars after Apollo.

NASA wanted to send manned flyby missions to Mars and Venus between
1975 and 1980, using three stretched Saturn V's for each mission; the
Mars flyby, in 1975, would have retrieved a sample of Martian soil
delivered from the surface by another craft. Also, NASA's Space Task
Group wrote in 1969, "We conclude that NASA has the demonstrated
organizational competence and technology base, by virtue of the Apollo
success and other achievements, to carry out a successful program to
land man on Mars within 15 years," and NASA proposed a Mars landing in
1981: "NASA has outlined plans that would include a manned Mars
mission in 1981 with the development decision on a Mars Excursion
Module in FY 1974, if the Nation were to accept this commitment. Such
a program would result in maximum stimulation of our technology and
creation of new capability. There are many precursor activities that
will be required before a manned Mars mission is attempted, such as
detailed study of biomedical aspects, both physiological and
psychological, of flights lasting 500-600 days, unmanned
reconnaissance of the planets, creation of highly reliable life
support systems, power supplies, and propulsion capability adequate
for the rigors of such a voyage and reliable enough to support man.
Decision to proceed with a 1981 mission would require early attention
to these precursor activities."

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/taskgrp.html

Despite the Bush Administration's decision to retire the shuttle by
2010, it looks like we're still stuck with it and with ISS
construction until 2010. Horrifying plans were being floated about to
use the shuttle until 2030, which would have meant the things would
have been 55 years old at retirement!

--
Josh

"You know I could run for governor but I'm basically
a media creation. I've never done anything. I've
worked for my dad. I worked in the oil business. But
that's not the kind of profile you have to have
to get elected to public office." - George W. Bush
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Bush says about the shuttle....and that the White House would not be all that upset if it never
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    (rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated)
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    (rec.radio.amateur.policy)
  • Re: Space Shuttle Grounding....depressing....
    ... >Mars is where NASA's time and effort should be going? ... the following eight years saw pioneering unmanned missions, ... our first orbital flight, our first flight with multiple astronauts, ... NASA has done some good stuff in the 35 years since the first moonwalk ...
    (rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated)
  • Re: RUSSIAN ASTROLOGER SUES NASA, TRIES TO STOP DEEP IMPACT MISSION
    ... it proves that NASA can, has, and will make statistical errors. ... The shuttle disasters are of an entirely different league from the ... > No. NASA should have immediatly proceeded with shuttle missions as ... interfering with that comet's path through space. ...
    (sci.physics)