Journal rdewald's Journal: The Bush Doctrine in the Shuttle Program 6
Guess what? Even though their own press release states "no workers were injured and no spacecraft or hardware [were] damaged" during the recent cluster of hurricanes that hit Florida, they are using the hurricanes as the centerpiece of their announcement that they are not going to make the May 2005 launch window for the Space Shuttle's return to flight. Way to go, Mr. O'Keefe, you're learning well from Rove and Co. Shift the focus to something you can't be blamed for.
While no reasonable person can doubt that the natural disaster of four major hurricanes making landfall in Florida in six weeks has an effect on the program, it would inspire a lot more confidence in the public if NASA wouldn't hide behind them. This has to be demoralizing for the scientists and engineers at NASA who have devoted their lives to the pursuit of discovery of truth and fact, however many of that ilk are left at NASA, anyway.
The truth is that NASA has only met a few of the "return to flight" requirements that the CAIB recommended last year. That's because the program is in terrible disarray, it has been since before Challenger, it was really Nixon that poisoned the program, the hemlock has just been creeping up from it's toes ever since.
BTW, we could have completely financed (in 2004 dollars), all 17 missions of the Apollo program for what we spent in Iraq from March 2003 through last summer. We'll spend that much again in Iraq between now and the Inaugural in January.
Just Die Already (Score:1)
I wish NASA would just die already, and I really hope that the X Prize is a good step toward driving a stake into its heart. It has been so iirrelevant for so long that I just don't see any point in continuing to waste money on it. Hopefully privatization can start to bring back the discoveries and innovation that originally drove the agency back when it actually had a goal.
What he said (Score:2)
Although... (Score:2)
Of course, the administration is quite incompetent, and it is true that they seem to be const
Re:Although... (Score:2)
The Shuttle is still, technically, a developmental vehicle. That is, every time the vehicle goes up the mission really represents (in some measure) an *experiment* to see if they can get it safely back down again.
This fact, something engineers should never lose sight of, became obscured by the preformance record of the vehicle. Then, a developmental vehicle was prematurely burdened with a launch schedule (and the concommitant expectations) only
Re:Although... (Score:2)
They will never finish the shuttle. No serious development has been done on the platform for decades. The only way forward is a new platform, but I seriously doubt that NASA has the managerial skills to ever finish development development of a manned space vehicle - just look at the long list of cancelled projects, some of which showed great proespects early on, only to be killed off due to mismanagement.
One of NASA'
Re:Although... (Score:2)
While I agree with you on the lack of competance on NASA management's part, I have to point out that they are most likely able to budget quite well. The problem is that politicians add requirements when they approve funding, first, and second, that NASA has to purposly make assumptions the