Thursday, July 16, 2009
Apollo 11
It launched 40 years ago today. I wish I could have seen an Apollo launch. Well, since we're wasting billions hand over fist, there's one Saturn V left at JSC. Maybe NASA can refurbish that sucker and launch it so we can all watch it in HD with really bass-heavy stereo. Sure it's a waste, but I'd rather have my money go for that than to pay bonuses to Goldman Sachs execs.
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If you've never seen the Saturn V in person you cannot fathom how big this machine is. A major chunk of our nation's GDP went to build these.
The only thing going to the Moon nowadays are Wall Street bonuses.
Soon enough, inflation of the dollar will send everyday prices to the Moon as well. Maybe even beyond to Mars. :-p
As I understand it, there's no way to ever do another Saturn V. NASA management had some of the more important drawings destroyed to ensure that the shuttle would have primacy over disposable boosters. As far as I ca tell, and from accoutns of people who work there, NASA has lost the ability to manage major programs, and consists mostly of time fillers sitting at their desks reading the paper for 8 hours. The only work that goes on is figuring out how to perpetuate the organization. Perhaps it's time for a change.
You want to toss a few dozen tons of stuff into a high earth orbit? Easy and cheap relative to Saturn. BECAUSE of Saturn. I was overruled 20 years ago as to how to stake out the high frontier. The winners got their fancy. I was pushing for flexibility and failure and redundancy in numbers not complexity.
The space station is an insane structure. This is like sailing to the new world and staying on the ship.
When Skylab was going up it would have taken the same amount of fuel to put the second stage fuel tank in LEO than the controlled deorbit.
One of my ideas. Launch a woven composite balloon with a docking hatch. Deploy in darkness, inflate with low pressure and use light activated epoxies to harden when we come around the light side. Crazy me.
As far as I ca tell, and from accoutns of people who work there, NASA has lost the ability to manage major programs, and consists mostly of time fillers sitting at their desks reading the paper for 8 hours.
OK. That's just not true. If you don't agree with spending money on the space program, that's your opinion. But spreading lies is just wrong. And falsely claiming to base it upon people you supposedly know who work there is just sad.
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