What have space experiments accomplished?

Awww come on, I'm sure NASA would love to test the effects of Mullets on Mars.


C.

 

memory foam in beds, HA!

 

Don't forget the pen that writes upside-down.

 

Superglue for holding the tiles on the shuttle.

 

Absolutely, These days there is some good news for space exploration. The Chinese are behind both The Chinese already put their 1st man in space & have stated that they want to land a man on the moon. Also the fact that the Saudis have stated that they wont be able to keep up w world oil demand in 5 years & the fact that the Chinese are devouring megatons of raw material & threatening US industry's supply of steel, copper, aluminum, oil etc all should come together to tell the geniuses in DC that we need a serious space EXPLOITATION program now

I would vote for taking NASA apart & replacing it w a fresh agency, All NASA seems to do these days is work to keep its $ & "prestige". Replace NASA w JPL & Burt Rutan & then you'd have something worthwhile

 

A contest between US and Russia on who has the biggest wiener. So far Russia is leading. They are the only ones currently who can reliably put a man in space at a moments notice. Not to mention first in space. First on the moon with a probe (moon rover). US can barely put a man into space now. One launch and look how much trouble.

 

theres a lot to be said for the Russian philosophy of space exploration, they keep & cheap & rugged while NASA used to build hyper exotic gear.

Now the Saturn 5 & the Apollo were THE definition of COOL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Russia aint got nothing on APollo

Burt Rutan who I respect a lot more than NASA seems to be halfway between Russia & NASA but on a shoestring budget & he is getting the job done

Look for the worlds first passenger spacecraft to be ready within 5 years flying under VIRGIN GALACTIC

Sir Richard Branson rules too

 

Don't let the shabby paint jobs fool you. Russian Space program is very high-tec. Russia was using plasma drives in the 70's when they were still sci-fi stuff. Plus, who cares about the past. Nasa sucks.

 

Not to get on a soapbox, but Rutan seems to have a more elegant and simple approach.. quite a few people in mission control are biting their nails as I write this, but he found a way to gently re-enter the atmosphere without the drama. Will that work on orbit? I don't know, but he's come awfully close on 1/10,000th the budget. How many SS1's could we build for the cost of one shuttle flight? 10.. 20?

In all seriousness, Rutan isn't getting any younger. IF I was calling the shots, he'd be heading up flight development at NASA for the next ten years and all existing projects would be scrapped (including the shuttle) in the meantime.

Right now he's probably shut out from a lot of tech that his team may be able to find a new use for, and it's unfortunate that my tax dollars support that. It's a sad fact, but I believe that most test-pilots and astronauts used to assume they wouldn't be coming back; now they assume they will.

More heros, more innovation, less CYA engineering and weight. Going to the Moon or Mars isn't the same as mowing your lawn.

/soapbox

C.

 

Yes NASA seriously sux

I dont think Rutan would want anything to do w NASA, he's a free thinker, NASA is just the opposite

 

I wouldnt say that NASA sucks. Far from it. They have the best and brightest scientists and engineers working for them, and also have some of the most capable government resources backing them up. In fact, a lot of people who work in my department were involved in the return to flight project over the past 2 and a half years to find out what caused the loss of the columbia and to make the shuttle fleet (thats only a part of this lab's $2.5 billion a year budget goes towards). You cant blame them for what has been going on recently. No matter how you want to look at it, human spaceflight is dangerous. It always has been and it always will be. What makes the space shuttle a good idea is also the reason it is inherently flawed. What I mean by that is the fact that it has cargo space just leaves more opportunities for things to go wrong. I do think we will see a new reuseable space lift vehicle in the near future (maybe if our pres didnt feed so much of our tax dollars into the middle east paper shredder we would see t sooner) , however the space shuttle is still extremely capable. What burt rutan did sending a private aircraft into space is a great accomplishment, but it isnt impressive. All he did was put someone high enough to be in what is defined as space, he was no where near achieving obrit though. Without a very large budget and vast resources the production and most importantly, the testing, isnt possible.

 

The SS1 wasnt subjected to the same intense heat that the shuttle is upon reentry. It wasnt traveling at anywhere near the 17,500 mph that the shuttle orbits at. The fact remains that it takes a tremendous amount of fuel to get something the mass of the shuttle's payload and crew into space. The ss1 wasnt carrying anything close to the payload and crew of a single shuttle mission (which can be as high as 20,000+kg), and it made it about 1/3rd as high above the earth as an average shuttle mission. F still equals MA, even if you are burt rutan.

 

During the space race of the 1960's, NASA was faced with a major problem.

Astronauts needed a pen that would write in the vacuum of space. NASA went to work. At a cost of $1.5 million they developed the "Astronaut Pen" . It enjoyed limited success on the commercial market known as the Fisher Space Pen.


The Russians were faced with the same dilemma.

They used a pencil.

 

I have always followed space exploration with a great deal of interest, and I agree with much of what you stated. Space exploration is dangerous,, and always will be. It is important that we realize that, and take steps to be sure it does not cripple our progress, which from a manned exploration standpoint, has been slow.

I disagree with you that Rutan's accomplishment was not impressive. It proved a huge point: that the government is not the only entity that can go into space. Your comment that it requires a very large budget and vast resources is true, but only to a point. Rutan's experiment had a very large budget, but I have to believe that it was a fraction of what the government would have spent for the same results. An assertion that VAST RESOURCES and HUGE BUDGETS are required sounds like someone who is convinced that the only way to live is from government grant to government grant.

 

I agree that the goverment would have spent a lot more for the same results. I'll go into detail on that in a minute. However, something as capable as the shuttle is a lot more complicated than what rutan had to deal with. All the recent concerns of shuttle safety go back to reentry. Rutan's SS1 didnt have to really worry about it on nearly the same scale as the shuttle does. Im not saying that he couldnt do it, he would just need some more resources/facilities to do it. Would it help to have a mach 14 wind tunnel like the one around the block from my office? Sure it would (industry owned ones do exist too). Thats just one example of the technical challenges that can be overcome when these resources are available. Ok, i'll admit rutans achievement is impressive, but not as impressive as the space shuttle, and not 1/100th as impressive as what NASA did in the 60's (we dont have the capabilities needed to send a man to the moon now i we wanted to). The real amazing achievements(of which i have many examples), in both aerospace and allother branches of science is happening because of government grants, whether at corporate resrach facilities, or government funded ones.
Getting back to your comment on spending the government spending a lot more money for the same result...you are correct. In government work, people feel a lot less accountable for things. This isnt to say gov employees (or ones in technical fields at least, i cant speak for other fields) dont do work, or do it to the best of their ability. Its quite the opposite. Its difficult to explain, but things always seem to take longer than expected and cost more than expected. An example of this is a project I worked on for a test that will be conducted in a few months. A cable was needed to carry data (about a 10th of a second worth) from over 100 accelerometers mounted on the thing being tested to where it would be collected. Without going into details, building this ~15 foot long cable must have cost the government well over $15,000 in materials, but moreso in time it took to make (over 1 man month). This test in total is probably costing the government $10 million. The most important thing to realize is that even though its expensive, the results of it are worth the time and money spent on it. I feel the same is true for spaceflight. Humans are curious by nature. We like to explore and learn more about what's around us.

 

Thermal-resistant tiles and super computers are nice, but seriously, the best thing to come from space is hands down freeze dried ice cream.