And the Rockets Red Glare…
From the "Open-the-Pod-Bay-Doors, HAL" Department
NASA just outdid all 230 celebrations of the Independence of the United States of America as they lauched a ginormous rocket into the sky off Cape Canaveral.
STS-121 was all go, as Discovery shot into the upper atmosphere. (I don’t call a Shuttle Orbit outer space, I think you have to leave the orbit of the moon for that, in my opinion.)
This is, I think, the first shuttle launch I’ve watched since seeing Challenger. (Yeah, that one)
I’ve mentioned before about my disappointment in the Shuttle Vehicle Platform, on how its sub-par compared to what the public understands about it. But right now, its all we’ve got.
What disappoints me more is that it has been all we’ve had for 26 years.
We’ve been launching humans on Rockets for 45 years.
We went to the moon in 8 years.
Over half of those 45 years has been done with this sub-par Space Shuttle Vehicle.
Can you see why I’m disappointed in NASA?
Yeah, get in line on the disappointment side of things behind me, man. ;)
Comment by Geof F. Morris — July 4, 2006 @ 9:36:30 PM
Well, I can’t entirely blame NASA; the Federal Government all but gave up on the Space Program (Which I support, to an extent. It is not the government’s place to fund scientific research.)
NASA is expected to produce the effect of the 60s with the politics of today; its just not going to happen.
If the Fed would just let go of the Space Program and give it to guys like Scaled Composites we might be in a better position.
Comment by Jeremy — July 4, 2006 @ 9:43:02 PM
I wholeheartedly disagree. :)
Comment by Geof F. Morris — July 5, 2006 @ 8:41:03 AM
Yeah, but Geof, you work for “The Man” (The Aerospace Industry)
[Editor's Note: In Tucson, "The Man" is any government agency, usually, the State of Arizona.]
[The Editors of Jeremy-Gilby-dot-com do not work for "The Man"]
Comment by Jeremy — July 6, 2006 @ 7:13:01 AM
That’s not my reason for arguing this, Jeremy. I’m not doing it out of a desire for job security; I’m facing facts. Manned spaceflight is a vastly capital-driven business. If anyone thought they could make money doing it, they would have—the capital is out there. They haven’t, which brings me to my other point: science that the government does in the public interest will always remain that way. Science that some corporation does for its own interest will be tied up in its patent processes—it’s just how they have to do that business. [You tie up all that capital, and you have to get a return on that investment.]
If some corporate entity could safely and effectively do manned spaceflight, they would have already done so. I welcome anyone to try. The competition would be good for NASA—after all, NASA was at its best in the Sixties, and the VSE push is absolutely driven by the Chinese.
Comment by Geof F. Morris — July 6, 2006 @ 9:26:52 AM
A question for you astro-geeks (I’m just a wanna-be astro geek): do you think the cost of manned space flight is worth the benefit over unmanned?
I don’t see it.
Comment by Cisco — July 6, 2006 @ 9:35:38 AM
Right now, No I don’t see the point of manned space flight (But that is because of my view of the Space Shuttle.)
Now, the Space Station shows promise, but its still in its infancy.
Now if we were going to the Moon, or Mars; I think the benefit of a manned mission is worth the investment. Not in the short term, but in the long term technological benefit.
(Cell Phones, Cisco, are a result of Manned Missions in Space.)
Comment by Jeremy — July 6, 2006 @ 9:39:14 AM
I watched the space station fly overhead on the night of the 4th. Beat the heck out of any fireworks show.
Comment by Cisco — July 6, 2006 @ 9:48:57 AM
The only purpose that STS serves is as a way to build ISS. That’s its only function [Hubble Space Telescope be damned]. If we didn’t have a half-finished ISS [thanks again, Dan Goldin!], we wouldn’t be flying Shuttles: we’d be throwing all the money into developing ARES-1 [formerly the Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV) and ARES-5 [formerly the Cargo Launch Vehicle (CaLV)].
But why manned spaceflight: communications delays. We can plan elaborate landers and such—well, when we don’t let LockMart muck up their units conversions and let JPL fly them into the planet ;)—but those landers have limited capabilities, because they have to be told what to do. We have to do comms back and forth to do commands, etc.
Nothing beats man-on-the-scene.
Let’s put it this way: geeks remember all the unmanned missions. EVERYONE remembers Neil Armstrong. Manned spaceflight captivates the human psyche in a way that no unmanned spacecraft can do.
Man has a relentless need to explore. Having graphed all the above-water Earth and probed most of the depths of the ocean, Man’s next conquest is space. Apollo’s trip to Mars was a brief handhold one step up Mount Everest.
But that’s not to say that there’s not a lot of room for unmanned spaceflight. Unmanned does good reconnaisance and great observation—things that computers are great at. But humans excel at exploration because of our innate curiosity, something that no computer can be reliably programmed to do.
Comment by Geof F. Morris — July 6, 2006 @ 2:48:06 PM
Oh I agree with that, but what’s the cost difference between manned and unmanned space flight?
Could we explore twice as much and twice as quickly for half as much using unmanned flight?
Nothing beats Fillet Mignon either, but when I can’t afford it, a hamburger will keep me from starving just as well.
Comment by Cisco — July 6, 2006 @ 4:46:20 PM
I don’t think the two can be traded against each other, because they each have their own strengths. Manned spaceflight is significantly more expensive, but the benefits are significantly more tremendous in holistic terms.
Comment by Geof F. Morris — July 7, 2006 @ 12:58:26 PM