Shuttle Launch Success 355
mkosmo writes to tell us NASA is reporting that shuttle launch today was successful. This launch occurred despite the safety warnings from many top NASA officials.
He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion
When is it my turn? (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet, here alongside these feelings of grandeur in my heart are these off-putting notions of what the shuttle actually means. How, even though it's one of the most amazing creations in the history of mankind, it represents so many of our failings.
The cost of a shuttle launch, while great, is dwarfed by the day-to-day costs of modern wars.
The shuttle, while technologically impressive, is still very much a cut-back version of what it was intended to be [slashdot.org].
If you have the time I recommend watching and listening to Rutan's adress [google.com] to the National Space Society.
Rutan makes many points to ponder - which highlight questions I myself have wondered. For instance, why can't I fly to space yet? Why is it so hard?
Burt Rutan makes the observation that when he saw the Redstone rocket at the national air museum he wondered, "why don't we fly this anymore?".
Indeed why! It's cheap, it's simple - simpler can and often does mean safer. The Redstone can get a person or two into orbit. And why not launch a couple a week? Burt Rutan goes on to point out that after each new space vehicle is created the old designs are never used again.
He states that if we followed this philosophy with aircraft we would have only one airplane flying right now, the B2 bomber!
I don't mean to be a naysayer on this great launch day. I don't mean to steal thunder from such a remarkable achievement (and few are greater fans of the space shuttle than myself). But I think there is a problem with NASA's philosophy of what space exploration is - what it means to the average person.
For me, space exploration means the exploration of space. And I want to be the explorer.
As far as I know, NASA doesn't have me slated for any launches in the foreseeable future.
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is the demand really there? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do you suppose that is? Is that 'being first' was enough of a motivator to get to the point where the x-prize was claimed, but once you get into the nuts and bolts of going to the next step there just isn't the demand, or if there is the demand the economics just don't work out?
How much would you pay to go into space? Would you be able to affo
Re:Is the demand really there? (Score:2, Offtopic)
As long as there are plce I haven't yet been on Earth that I would pay good money to visit, I wouldn't really have much desire to go into Space.
I've travelled a bit, but there are just SO many places I haven't been that I want to see right here on the planet.
Re:Is the demand really there? (Score:3, Informative)
from The Space Review [thespacereview.com]. So yes, I think there's a market.
The demand is there, but ... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The demand is there, but ... (Score:3, Interesting)
As for SS2 possibly being orbital.. no. It's not likely. We're probably talking 20 more years until anyone but the russians start offering orbital flights.
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:5, Insightful)
Get some perspective. You want a real failure? How about going to the Moon 35 years ago, and then dicking around in LEO ever since then. THAT is a travesty.
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:3, Informative)
Serving as a stepping-off point for future, more productive space exploration? Check!
Providing a nice spot for space telescopes? Check!
More?
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, so the Redstone's no good anymore. But why scrap Gemini? That was good enough for orbital flight. Why scrap the Saturn? That was good for going to the moon, and it could have "retired" as a heavy-lift cargo vehicle. Rutan's main point remains: why did NASA scrap the older launch systems (like Saturn) after the advent of the new system? Even if they didn't have the money to maintain 2 concurrent launch systems, they could have released the plans to private industry, so that these "tried and true" vehicles could be put to commercial use.
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well.. (Score:2)
The problem is that once in space, that payload can then be dropped on any location on the planet.
Yes we care -- surprise package delivery... (Score:3, Interesting)
On reflection, that's pretty scary: a nav system capable of a rendezvous on-orbit is also capable of rendezvous with other similarly sized objects such as th
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/saturn_five _000313.html [space.com]
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if they didn't have the money to maintain 2 concurrent launch systems, they could have released the plans to private industry, so that these "tried and true" vehicles could be put to commercial use.
A lot of the older systems did make it to private industry (although that's an odd way of putting it, NASA didn't build rockets, they contracted Lockheed, Martin Marietta, etc. to do it for them - private industry already had the plans - they developed them).
Most of the commercial American heavy launch vehicles (Boeing Delta, Lockheed-Martin Atlas) have their early roots in the NASA and military space and missile programs in the early 60's. In fact, the government has a vested interest in commerical exploitation of launch vehicles, since the more that are built, the lower the unit cost for government launches.
Now, if you are talking about the Saturn V...there simply was not a commercially viable market for a launcher of that size in the 1970s. If there was one, industry would have been free to exploit it. Even the government (traditionally the customer for very heavy launchers, even today) never used the Saturn V outside of the Apollo and Skylab launches. While many bemoan the fact that the infrastructure for the Saturn V was not maintained, the decision was made that it was not of enough national significance to do so when Congress and the Executive branch (not NASA) made the decision to shut down that program.
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:3, Funny)
For the same reason most folks scrap their little roadsters when they have kids. Like Gemini, they are cool, sporty, and 'good enough' to get around town in - but that's about it. Once you want to actually *do* anything in orbit, you need docking capa
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:4, Informative)
Burt Rutan makes the observation that when he saw the Redstone rocket at the national air museum he wondered, "why don't we fly this anymore?".
Indeed why! It's cheap, it's simple - simpler can and often does mean safer. The Redstone can get a person or two into orbit. And why not launch a couple a week? Burt Rutan goes on to point out that after each new space vehicle is created the old designs are never used again.
Rutan does have a point, but the Redstone isn't a good example. It never took a man into full orbit, only the sub-orbital run and it was bettered by the Atlas which got Glenn into orbit. It was never powerful enough for orbital launch.
If anything he should be talking about Atlas and Titan. Which have evolved into the new EELV systems that the military are using. So the designs and evolutions are still there.
The Saturn 5 was a massive beast of a launcher, but they canned it after Apollo. With a heavy lifter like that, NASA could have launched the space station in half the time and much safer. And now they are redesigning the whole heavy-lift launch vehicle for the Moon project.
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:3, Insightful)
they probablly don't have much choice, if you keep building something for years you make lots of changes incrementally to take into account technological improvements and component availibility. If on the other hand you haven't built your item for decades then even if you still have the plans you are going to find it very very difficult to build as you keep finding parts unobtainable, things that were judged by eye by a pa
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:5, Informative)
The Energiya [wikipedia.org] booster is configurable to 400,000 lbs, and that exceeds the 285,000 lbs orbital lift capacity of Saturn V. This is not surprising, given that Energiya was designed decades later and was using the latest technologies.
There were only two flights of Energiya, compared to 32 of Saturn V, and it is not manufactured any more. However its technology is not only up to date, it is being actively used [wikipedia.org] in other boosters [pratt-whitney.com]. So if anyone wants to lift 175 tons to the orbit, it can be done. It only costs money. See here [k26.com] for available configurations.
If you really need to launch anything that heavy, it would be cheaper and smarter to pay for manufacturing of Energiya rather than for redesign and manufacturing of Saturn V, and you get more bang for the buck at the same time. Engines of that power that are time-tested and proven to be OK are invaluable.
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure sure. It was designed that way in large part because it had to be, because of the extreme northern latitude of the soviet launch site, they don't get as much of a kick from the Earth's rotation as the US or ESA. So they *have* to build larger rockets to put the same payload into orbit.
Sadly, Energia was never actually tested with anything anywhere near the capability of the Saturn V
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to nit-pick, but this isn't really the case.
Granted, the US only flies one manned orbiter at the mom
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:2)
Indeed why! It's cheap, it's simple - simpler can and often does mean safer. The Redstone can get a person or two into orbit. And why not launch a couple a week? Burt Rutan goes on to point out that after each new space vehicle is created the old designs are never used again.
Oh come on. If we did that it would be too simple. The staff of tens of thousands of shuttle and space station design and redesign engineers would have nothing to do. We must create new and ever more complicated space welfare pro
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:4, Interesting)
In doing some reading on the Redstone rocket I came across this odd duck [wikipedia.org]. A medium range ICBM that flew a total distance of 4 inches (100mm).
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:2, Insightful)
9.8 m/s/s. It's not a small number.
orbiter burns up on re-entry? (Score:2)
I love how the contingency plan is that if problems with Discovery are found during its inspection, the crew will stay on the ISS while another shuttle goes to rescue them!
Great plan!
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:2, Insightful)
Modern wars created the space shuttle.
We wouldn't even have launched anything into space if it weren't damned convienent to lob an unstoppable nuke at our enemies from there.
All the rest, just side benefits.
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:5, Insightful)
you have no idea. My daughter and I were 20+ miles away at my brothers home and watched the column of smoke rise in the sky. She is 14 and is of the "whatever" generation not caring about anything. I pointed at the sky and said, "there goes the shuttle" and she turned into an 8 year old kid once again. She then marvelled at the fact that I mentioned that I watched the exact same thing when I was 14 and that she will probably be the last of the family to ever witness a shuttle launch.
Seeing it for real although miles away is more awe inspiring... Even for a who cares 14 year old girl that still thinks emo is cool and that adults are stupid.
And my family though I was mential for vacationing in florida in early july... I was given one of those father daughter moments that will be in her memory long after I am gone.
That's how awe inspiring it is.
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:4, Funny)
I'd bet NASA could make just as awe-inspiring of a spectacle by lighting fire to a billion one-dollar bills soaked in jet fuel.
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:3, Funny)
-Eric
Re:When is it my turn? (Score:3, Informative)
No. The "Return of the Jedi" has eight lessons:
Just want to say... (Score:4)
Re:Just want to say... (Score:2, Insightful)
No. This is the designers and planners and builders and maintainers who put together a complex set of systems. If they all did their job right, the risk should be so low that nobody feels the need to say 'Godspeed.'
This isn't a flame, and it's not meant as flame-bait. It's just that when people say 'Godspeed' they're really misplacing their w
Re:Just want to say... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just want to say... (Score:2)
Re:Just want to say... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just want to say... (Score:3, Funny)
"The mst complex machine ever built, blaah, blaah" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"The mst complex machine ever built, blaah, bla (Score:3, Funny)
Re:"The mst complex machine ever built, blaah, bla (Score:2)
Re:No, they don't... (Score:2)
Re:No, they don't... (Score:2)
generally in "zero G" little bits (especially conductive ones) breaking off anything is a bad thing. they won't just fall to the floor but will instead move until they hit something, get wafted arround by air currents and moved arround (relative to the vehircle) by acceleration etc. This greatly increases the risk they will get
Re:"The mst complex machine ever built, blaah, bla (Score:4, Insightful)
I would be the last person to argue that the shuttle isn't overly complex. Because of the dueling priorities between NASA and the Pentagon during its design phases combined with the basic nature of design-by-committee, it ended up trying to do too many things. The shuttle is one of my favorite cautionary examples to bring up during requirements meetings because of this.
That aside, it's a serious mistake to take KISS too far -- this is something I see over and over again. Once you start diking complexity out of anything, it's always tempting to keep going even to the point where it starts impacting your actual goals (a fact which, in my experience, you won't realize until you go into testing, at which point you get to try and tack it back in at the expense of timelines, vast amounts of money and the jobs of easily-blamed underlings).
But I guess that's the value of experience.
Re:"The mst complex machine ever built, blaah, bla (Score:3, Insightful)
Just the same, the next generation of American spacecraft should be based on the SRB/ET system but with a robust reentry/crew vehicle, and not one covered in glass. At
Re:"The mst complex machine ever built, blaah, bla (Score:2)
It's not the launch that matters anymore (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's not the launch that matters anymore (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably mostly because that's what went wrong most recently. One shuttle has been lost during take-off, one during re-entry. I think is small sigh of relief that all is well so far is justified.
Re:It's not the launch that matters anymore (Score:3, Informative)
I suppose we'll know for sure after they've landed safely though.
Re:It's not the launch that matters anymore (Score:2)
Well, we've had two catastrophic failures, and one of them was at launch. The launches are supposed to be safe now, but they were also supposed to be safe before Challenger blew up.
No, post again when yo
worse than a bottle rocket (Score:2)
Rocket: aluminum powder fuel, powerful per-chlorate oxidizer, a tiny bit of iron catalyst, and a binder.
Bomb: aluminum/magnesium/diesel fuel, weaker nitrate oxidizer
The bomb needs a teaspoon of primary explosive to get it going... unless you are unlucky, as the residents of a Texas harbor town found out with the largest non-nuclear explosion.
I have to wonder, what if NASA gets unlucky? At the v
The launch went great (Score:5, Insightful)
A sad commentary (Score:2)
It's not successful yet. (Score:5, Insightful)
It was a loud one ! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It was a loud one ! (Score:5, Funny)
As long as Slashdot's a good 4 hours behind the times, let's get this outa the way too.
--- BEGIN INTERCEPTED TRANSMISSION ---
"Meh. Running Imperialist Lackey Dogs!
Their shuttle pales in comparison to the People's Glorious Three-Part Fireworks Display that Dear Leader has orchestrated downrange of Pyongyang!"
--- END INTERCEPTED TRANSMISSION ---
Perfect finish to the Fourth, indeed, even if I didn't get to see the Shuttle launch and didn't have a need to know what happened to the non-decoy part of Kim's little fireworks show :)
Nice try, Kim. No cigar. You still so ronery.
Yeah, it was safe... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Yeah, it was safe... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Yeah, it was safe... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Yeah, it was safe... (Score:4, Informative)
I missed it! (Score:2)
I gotta give NASA one thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope to Christ they get through these last few shuttle missions without a problem and manage to stick the remaining three in museums where they belong.
Re:I gotta give NASA one thing... (Score:2)
No disrespect to the shuttle and it's crew, but we have launched a far greater rocket into space, and those were far more dangerous than flying on 20 shuttle launch and return missions. It was a miracle that no Saturn 5 rockets had a mishap and took out most of the cape.
Re:I gotta give NASA one thing... (Score:2)
More to look forward too (Score:2)
Agreed. The video footage during ascent is amazing.
The planned Ares V [nasa.gov] should continue the tradition of spectacular launches. It will use 2 shuttle-derived 5 segment solid rocket boosters and 5 (!) RS-68 [boeing.com] H2/O2 engines that burn even more colorfully [spaceflightnow.com] than the shuttle SSMEs. Should be a great show at night.
This is great and all but (Score:5, Insightful)
On a more serious note, I've often thought of manned deep space exploration as a bit of a Catch 22. I think it's the sort of thing that could really bring humanity together and encourage us to look past our differences and work together towards a common goal - but then I also think that we couldn't achieve a united deep space exploration programme until humanity learned to work together ans set aside our petty squabbles.
I'm holding out for a discovery of some kind that will shunt the human race into a new era of enlightenment, but I doubt I'll see it in my lifetime.
Re:This is great and all but (Score:2)
There's no reason to think so. Discovery of Americas and colonization of Asia and Afr
Re:This is great and all but (Score:2)
Given history and a lot of the space opera/scifi I've read, war between space colonies would be unlikely. MUCH more likely would be war between Space Colonies and Earth where earth gets a couple a great big rocks droped on it from above.
Re:This is great and all but (Score:2)
it will not stop until people stop accepting people like Bush as a leader.
People dont care about grand thinker ideas. they care about getting a Bigger SUV, bigger house and bigger TV for their bedroom. Oh and they like to wave a flag once in a while to make believethey are "patriotic".
Remember money = power.
you dont get money without stepping on people.
Bartering demands a lower standard of living (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, someday when you've turned 13 or 14, you'll realize how ridiculous you sound. "Money," meaning, a token that represents the value of something else (like a sack of flour, or an hour of your labor), isn't a form of control - it's a form of liberty. If you had to rely on the physical movement of bartered goods from one barterer to another, or could only barter your services with people that happened to have in hand just thing you neeeded that day (broccoli? some new refridgerant?), you'd get very, very little done and have very few choices.
But wait: I can hear it now... you say: but what about some global version of Craig's List, or some other online way to arrange bartering, so that no one needs evil money? Um... OK, so how do you advetise what you're willing to barter? Say you've got a dozen eggs, and you need everything from some antibiotics for a sick child, new toothpaste, some lumber for your collapsing roof, and a thousand other things. What do you do... list all of the things (and quantities of those things) you're willing to exchange for eggs? Ah... you're setting a price. Now, you've got a thousand other people all doing the same thing... a gigantic, inefficient bartering matrix that requires constant fiddling to see if you can get what you want, and whether it's available for a barter you can make. And, while you're spending all that time trying to get the best barter for your eggs, you could have been better doing what you're good at, and improving your egg production in the first place.
And then, what if you know you'll find such a barter a week from now, but your eggs are only valuable while they're fresh? What do you do, barter them for something else that looks valuable, just to hold the value in your hand while you look around for a good trade on the other things you need? If so, the interim thing you're holding is just a token representing the value of the eggs. What is it, a car battery? Some firewood? A basket of turnips? Here's an idea: how about we get together as a society, and provide everyone a vastly better standard of living by removing the third-world marketplace components of all of that, and use currency instead. Oh, right - we already do that.
And it allows you to do work when and as you can, and then get the goods and services when and as you need them
A group of these smart people developed money.
No, a group of these smart people realized they were wasting their lives carrying their value around on their backs and haggling in vegetable markets all day, just so they could swap out what they produce when they're not busy looking for someone to barter with. Money is super-flexible, time-shifted bartering at distance, and if you can't see that, no wonder you're unhappy.
It's so scary cuz it's no longer the group of smart men, it's became an idea.
You want scary? Go back to standing around with a basket of eggs and wondering how you'll get what you need if no one in the vicinity happens to need your eggs that day. Or having some other need on a week when you don't happen to have any eggs to trade. Currency and a banking system take the capriciousness out of it, and reduce fear. You've got it backwards.
money (Score:3, Interesting)
No, fiat money [wikipedia.org] is a form of control developed by the powerful. Real money was a great invention that controlled no one -- and that is why it had to be replaced.
Thank God... (Score:3, Funny)
"Why doesn't NASA have 4th of July BBQs anymore?"
"They can't convince any of the astronauts to show up."
"New from TNT Fireworks: The Discovery! The biggest bang for your bucks! Fits any space-exploration budget!"
MY PIECE OF S**T CAR (Score:4, Funny)
In fact, everyone knows in my neighborhood I'm about to do a launnch, because I have to run an air compressor to pump up the bald back tires... they gather in lawn chairs to watch and kids on bicycles patrol the streets like F15's to make sure my air space is clear.
If I tune the radio just right I can pick up Rush Limbaugh, which is as close as I get to mission control.
Once it caught on fire, and darn near well exploded. I had to pop the hood right quick and jump on there and take a good p*** on the fuel rail which was on fire... took everything I got to put that one out. That was Grocery Trip number 13. I guess it was jinxed by the number. I hear Ron Howards planning on making a movie short about that trip. I had to patch up the fuel rail with some duck tape and used condoms I found behind the back seat.
You know, buck for buck, I believe the American public gets more drama and excitement out of my car then they do some old space shuttle. With the front end alignment being as shot out as it is, I know it gives me plenty of excitement on the turnpike, jumping all over as it does
Kaboom! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Kaboom! (Score:2)
Beautiful naked-eye sight (Score:5, Informative)
worth defending (Score:5, Insightful)
There are seven people on board that rocket today, they are smarter than you or I, and harder working, and they have seen 14 others go to their deaths on the same craft.
So: let's all do something to make ourselves worth defending, okay?
Disappointed..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Disappointed..... (Score:2, Insightful)
What is it that you gained independence from? Are you still independent of it today?
Re:Disappointed..... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm just going to give this a straightforward answer. I think there may be some anti-US subtext going on in your comment, but it's so short I'm not going to read that into it, or tease it out, as the case may be.
So, the answer is, the thing we are celebrating our independence from, most specifically, is British rule. As someone else has already pointed out, July 4, 1776 is the date of the public announcement of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. (It was signed a few days before July 4th.)
A little less specifically, we are celebrating our independence from colonial rule. This is something about a zillion other countries do, on account of so many countries being former colonies. You can count India, Australia, 90+% of the countries in Africa, 90+% of the countries in South America, and several other countries as members of the club of former colonies.
More philsophically, the US is celebrating its independence from monarchy, and not just monarchy specifically, but all forms of arbitrary, non-representative government in general. The government of the US is explicitly a contract between the people and the state. The state's power is justified because the people have given it the power, rather than (say) divine right or tradition. There are term limits on most offices, regular elections, and just about any regular person can stand for office: there is no need to be royalty or to be a member of a ruling class. Indeed, the US Constitution explicity forbids the granting of any "title of nobility".
Whether all this idealistic stuff really represents the way things work in reality is another question. A decent argument can be made that the US declared independence because it didn't want to pay taxes to Britain back home and it thought it could get away with it. That a constitutional government was set up afterwards might not have been the main point, although it was a good thing. In fact, it wasn't until after the Revolution was sucessful and we were independent that it was even determined what independence would mean and what we had fought for. The US Constitution wasn't even ratified until after the Articles of Confederation failed. In a sense, we are United States 2.0, because United States 1.0 was a failure after about a decade. And even after the Constitution was put in place, it took a few decades before we really had decided how the country was going to operate. One could argue that our national identity wasn't really defined until Jefferson's presidency, which started a full 25 years after the Declaration of Independence.
So basically, we are celebrating independence from Britain, independence from colonialism, and independence from arbitrary, non-respresentative rule. We are still independent of all three of these things, mostly. In fact, most of the rest of the world is free of them now, too. There are still some monarchies in the world, but most of them (such as Britain) are in name only. Liberalism and democracy are virtually the norm in governments these days.
Re:Disappointed..... (Score:5, Interesting)
2. Comparing it to India is pretty much bullshit, since India was under foreign occupation. The american colonies were British citizens, no less favoured than those in the UK.
3. Taxes. Ah-ha. Now we're getting somewhere. I hope you do, however, understand that an average citizen in the colonies paid insignifficant taxes compared to the citizens back home in the UK. As in, IIRC somewhere between 20 to 30 times less per capita. It also didn't help that the colonists threatened any tax collectors with tarring and feathering.
A lot of the special tax acts, e.g., the stamp act, weren't just to fleece the colonists, but because they paid almost nothing else. So the UK government just tried to figure out ways to keep it fair. Ok, so you don't want to pay other taxes, but, seriously, you're not _that_ special to pay nothing whatsoever. How about you pay this other tax instead, if the old one isn't to your liking?
The Boston Tea Party? Let's remember that that wasn't about some new tax, but about elliminating a tax. Smugglers like John Hancock were making a small fortune by smuggling tea into the USA without paying customs, and thus being able to undercut the prices of the East India Company. So when the British government allowed the East India Company to stop paying that tax too, oh looky, the smugglers were outraged at losing their own unfair advantage.
So exactly what oppressive taxation are we talking about? If paying 20-30 times less taxes than a mainland British citizen was too oppressive, exactly how much tax would be OK for their liking? Zero? Are you still paying that much?
Tyranny and taxation without representation? Heh. Try doing the same today in your land of the free, and see if you'd get away with that. No, seriously. Get your own village (most colonies were about that size) suddenly saying that you don't want to pay taxes any more and threatening violence against the IRS. Or deciding that you can stop paying customs taxes. See how long it would take for your representative and democratic government's men to show up on your doorsteps with flak vests and M16's.
Re:Disappointed..... (Score:3, Informative)
NASA's MP4 video file of the space shuttle launch! (Score:5, Informative)
404 error... Try this download link. (Score:2)
The most complex machine? (Score:3, Interesting)
The shuttles are decades old...surely someone somewhere has built some much more complex machines....
So, what's more complex than the shuttle?
Re:The most complex machine? (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, since then, they've cut back on major new features. So maybe now it isn't the most complex thing that humans have ever built.
But there are many ways to define complexity. Someone at MS (or one of their detractors) is probably right now working on a definition that will restore the claim.
Re:The most complex machine? (Score:3, Funny)
The dangers of going into space (Score:2, Insightful)
Epcot (Score:5, Interesting)
And sure enough, about 30 seconds later, it came into view. You could see the shuttle, the fire from the rockets and the thick column of smoke, right over the Mission Space building. The entire theme park was at a stand still looking at the spectacle. Some people cried, most clapped. It was a great moment.
The foam debris... (Score:3, Funny)
Time for a replacement. (Score:5, Insightful)
Fred DeJarnette, who worked on the original tile engineering [wral.com] is ready for a replacement. Let's do some real engineering and come up with a better spacecraft! (The Onion has an interesting take on the Shuttle program [theonion.com].)
What should we be doing in space? We should be using robots to explore (like the Mars rovers [nasa.gov]) and perform experiments in orbit. We should send people when we get the fuel to vehicle mass ratio better than 97%, and when it can warrant the expense of taking life support systems on a mission.
The Moon/Mars trips are another bigger jobs program, but they don't even have to get anywhere because the guy who called for them (and his successor, for that matter) will be safely out of office before the promised arrival date of 2018, so when it falls short, he won't have a
price to pay.
If Mars is the goal, the Mars Direct [wikipedia.org] plan is much more economical. If the Moon is the target, go straight there, but don't use the Moon as a lillypad to get to Mars because landing and launching from there takes a certain amount of energy that needs not be expended on the way to Mars.
I want to see us (humans) explore space. I want to learn about the cosmos and I'd love to leave the planet (and probably return). I've followed the U.S. space program since I was old enough to know what a rocket was, and I've learned about the Soviet program since Glasnost. Now I'd like to see us do something meaningful - not just run a space truck to orbit and back, and not just design a fantastical Moon/Mars mission for the sake of it, but really learn about better forms of transportation and about the universe.
Richard Feynman's Paper on the Challenger Disaster (Score:5, Informative)
For those who don't know Richard Feynman, he won the Nobel prize, helped develop the atom bomb, and suggested ways for geeks to pick up women.
Re:Richard Feynman's Paper on the Challenger Disas (Score:3, Interesting)
NASA engineers demand precision to the point of insanity. The managment knows this is not possible, and that if the engineers were in charge, the thing would never even get off the ground.
The problem we have is that the engineers tend to over-dramatize the risks, causing the managment to often disregard them completely.
It's a problem, and honestly, I'm not sure that there's any easy solution other than redesigning the craft to be significantly simpler (less
Re:Richard Feynman's Paper on the Challenger Disas (Score:3, Interesting)
The Shuttle was a good experimental design, and it did push some technologies further
Re:Richard Feynman's Paper on the Challenger Disas (Score:3, Insightful)
Consider the question: "what is an acceptable risk?". The important point is that there is no correct answer to this question. When you decide whether or not to take a risk you usually perform a cost-benefit analysis (even if it's a trivial one like "just one more drink won't do me any harm") and that analysis is a function of your costs and your benefits. Those costs and benefits differ between people, and between groups of people. Engineers and management have
Moron (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It was a great success. (Score:2, Funny)
Your caps aren't big enough for it to hear/read.
Maybe try to add bold...
Re:Must be (Score:5, Funny)
It's still more of a news story than Dork-vorak's latest opinion on any random subject or an article about "Is [insert the name of a lame duck technology] dead/obsolete?". How many "news stories" did we have to endure about Bluetooth being a dead technology only to mill through waste-deep comments from pizza delivery boys who talked up how bitchin' their bluetooth mouse is. Not to say that the opinion of a pizza delivery boy isn't just as legitimate as Dvorak's...