Neil Armstrong to NASA: You Are an Embarassment

[MajorDolphin]

if they want to fork up the fucking billions of dollars, let em keep nasa. until we're out of this ridiculous debt we cant spend that much money on a non essential program.

Yeah man! Lets just spend several trillion on nonessential wars! Its much smarter to spend 100 bucks to do a single load of laundry in Iraq than explore and study our solar system. Its not as if the Space Shuttle ever delivered useful payloads into orbit....

 

[draythefingerless]

..Fuck yeah! I agree with Cernan. Dust the fucking shuttles off and send them back up. Just because they're old doesn't mean they're not useful!

The space shuttle was the biggest mistake NASA ever made. It was a political showboat and little better. What we needed were proper heavy lift vehicles, not star trek style rubbish.

lolwut? What dimension are you from? The Space Shuttles are the best thing that's ever happened to space travel. No longer did we have to spend billions on disposeable hardware. The expensive parts, computers and whatnot, were reuseable. But hey, if you think they're just political showboating then how about you break out the drawing board and come up with a reuseable spacecraft to replace them.


Go on. The world waits.

The problem with the Space Shuttle was a distinct lack of reliability. As I stated earlier, even having only two fatal accidents out of hundreds of flights is two too many. During the entirety of the capsule-based Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, there was a single fatal accident and it had nothing to do with the rocket itself (Apollo 1 had more to do with engineers' arrogance). The Apollo program's Saturn V rocket packed roughly the same amount of power as the Shuttle, and yet there was not a single accident with the rocket itself. Aside from a small glitch in the Saturn V during Apollo 13 (one of the engines cut out too early, but didn't cause any trouble), a lightning strike during the Apollo 12 launch that was fixed due to John Aaron's quick thinking, and a glitch with the modified Saturn V used for Skylab (which was also later corrected) there were no troubles with this behemoth. The Shuttle was so inefficient that there was probably just as much money going into restoring each one after a mission as was saved by their reusable nature. The most expensive part of the shuttle, the heat-resistant tiles, were not reusable. Each and every tile needed to be replaced after each flight, and those tiles are not at all cheap.

Honestly, having a reusable spacecraft isn't nearly as important as having one that works. If a crew dies because a part of the rocket couldn't take cold weather, that's fairly poor design. If another crew dies because a piece of foam wasn't secured well enough for the supersonic speeds of launch, that's poor design. A rocket with as many moving parts and complexities as the Shuttle was just asking for trouble.

..idunno, the shuttles were quite reliable. They have a much better safety record than any car you care to name, and that car is orders of magnitude simpler than the Shuttle. Hell, more people have died in car crashes between your post and my response than have died on the shuttles during the entire program! I don't suppose you've ever seen how many unmanned Saturn rockets exploded during the building and testing phases, eh? They were as bad as the Soviet rockets at first. The only reason they don't have such a large death toll is that we didn't stick men on them from day one, but that doesn't mean they were perfectly reliable.

If you want to believe they're unreliable pieces of shit because they failed twice out of over 120 missions, then you go right on ahead. I do believe there's something about nothing humans ever do is perfect that you're forgetting, but hey, I'm not going to try to force you into not being wrong and/or unreasonable. That's for you to realize and change on your own.

while i agree with you that the Shuttle is in the same safety terms as the Apollos and Saturns, your comparison to cars is far fetched and unreliable. There are million upon millions upon milions of cars circulating the streets in the world every SECOND. There have been 120 shuttle flights over 40 years. There are more cars circulating on the street in a microsecond than space shuttles launched in history.

 

[The Long Road]

http://xkcd.com/893/

Go there. Read the mouseover text.

Recessions are temporary. Nations are fleeting. Money is secondary.

Light the fires again.

 

[BabyRaptor]

Yeah, America's debt is over 14 trillion! Let's spend money on going into space to do...

What exactly?

Apart from jingoistic pride, what exactly does America gain from this? We're talking large sums of money just to hit the atmosphere, so surely there needs to be some tangible gain. Especially to such a deeply capitalist country. Where's the business here? Where's the profit?

Hit up Google and check out all the ways that technology developed for the Space Race has been used in other things. That should answer your question.

 

[draythefingerless]

Yeah, America's debt is over 14 trillion! Let's spend money on going into space to do...

What exactly?

Apart from jingoistic pride, what exactly does America gain from this? We're talking large sums of money just to hit the atmosphere, so surely there needs to be some tangible gain. Especially to such a deeply capitalist country. Where's the business here? Where's the profit?

Hit up Google and check out all the ways that technology developed for the Space Race has been used in other things. That should answer your question.

That was the Space Race. its ended. there is no nationalistic and collective global pressure to develop fast and good. Putting money now in the Space Program wont yield, BY FAR, the same progress it yelded in the Cold War.

 

[Adventurer2626]

Why use tax money? As little as I like being at the mercy of corporations for things like jobs, it's kind of late to be worrying about it as the shackles are already on. That said, I think privatizing the "space race" could do wonders for the economy. There's tourism coin, gov't contracts, exploration and resources (not mention the jobs to do it all)that could be gained from a merchant-run space program. And by all means everyone should be involved, not just the U.S. Competition keeps prices low and the safety record high. I appreciate all that NASA and it's heroes from the Golden Age have done for research but it might be time to pass the baton. Let companies carry the burden of R&D and shuttle maintenance while the gov'ts and universities focus on exploration and interpretation.

Nationalism will fill the heart but not the stomach.

 

[Necron_warrior]

The Space Shuttle is old, fallible and downright dangerous.

I say it's time to develop something new and hopefully more reliable.

Yeah your right it is, too bad then that Obama has dashed those hopes by forbidding any new shuttle developments in the immediate future. To be fair he's right to do so, far more important that money be spent on fixing the economy than putting blokes in space.

But I ask him this, what's cooler, the moon or Wall Street?

But what's cooler, Some old heroes on a dusty rock or Money not becoming worth the paper its printed on?

I don't care, I still want to see people on the moon!

Fair enough. I guess I WOULD like to say Ive been part of a generation where people have been on the moon, but what excactly would they DO up there?
...besides 0-G basketball.

Moon-Sex? It would either be terrible or absolutely amazing.

D:...but WHO WOULD TOP?
And how would they STAY there?
I may need my higher physics to fully work this out...

 

[SuperWombat6]

..Fuck yeah! I agree with Cernan. Dust the fucking shuttles off and send them back up. Just because they're old doesn't mean they're not useful!

The space shuttle was the biggest mistake NASA ever made. It was a political showboat and little better. What we needed were proper heavy lift vehicles, not star trek style rubbish.

lolwut? What dimension are you from? The Space Shuttles are the best thing that's ever happened to space travel. No longer did we have to spend billions on disposeable hardware. The expensive parts, computers and whatnot, were reuseable. But hey, if you think they're just political showboating then how about you break out the drawing board and come up with a reuseable spacecraft to replace them.


Go on. The world waits.

The problem with the Space Shuttle was a distinct lack of reliability. As I stated earlier, even having only two fatal accidents out of hundreds of flights is two too many. During the entirety of the capsule-based Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, there was a single fatal accident and it had nothing to do with the rocket itself (Apollo 1 had more to do with engineers' arrogance). The Apollo program's Saturn V rocket packed roughly the same amount of power as the Shuttle, and yet there was not a single accident with the rocket itself. Aside from a small glitch in the Saturn V during Apollo 13 (one of the engines cut out too early, but didn't cause any trouble), a lightning strike during the Apollo 12 launch that was fixed due to John Aaron's quick thinking, and a glitch with the modified Saturn V used for Skylab (which was also later corrected) there were no troubles with this behemoth. The Shuttle was so inefficient that there was probably just as much money going into restoring each one after a mission as was saved by their reusable nature. The most expensive part of the shuttle, the heat-resistant tiles, were not reusable. Each and every tile needed to be replaced after each flight, and those tiles are not at all cheap.

Honestly, having a reusable spacecraft isn't nearly as important as having one that works. If a crew dies because a part of the rocket couldn't take cold weather, that's fairly poor design. If another crew dies because a piece of foam wasn't secured well enough for the supersonic speeds of launch, that's poor design. A rocket with as many moving parts and complexities as the Shuttle was just asking for trouble.

..idunno, the shuttles were quite reliable. They have a much better safety record than any car you care to name, and that car is orders of magnitude simpler than the Shuttle. Hell, more people have died in car crashes between your post and my response than have died on the shuttles during the entire program! I don't suppose you've ever seen how many unmanned Saturn rockets exploded during the building and testing phases, eh? They were as bad as the Soviet rockets at first. The only reason they don't have such a large death toll is that we didn't stick men on them from day one, but that doesn't mean they were perfectly reliable.

If you want to believe they're unreliable pieces of shit because they failed twice out of over 120 missions, then you go right on ahead. I do believe there's something about nothing humans ever do is perfect that you're forgetting, but hey, I'm not going to try to force you into not being wrong and/or unreasonable. That's for you to realize and change on your own.

The Saturn V rocket was honestly the first of its kind -- a space rocket that was designed for the specific purpose of space travel, rather than being a redesigned missile rocket as previous rockets had been. On top of that, the Saturn V was enormously powerful -- to this day, it remains the most powerful machine ever built by mankind. In the field of engineering, failure is regarded as a learning experience; failure is inevitable, but when you do fail you learn what you did wrong and what you did right, and how to fix problems in the future. Taking all these factors into account, it makes sense that the Saturn V failed several times in testing. That is, after all, what testing is. From these failures, the flaws were uncovered and corrected, leading to a remarkably reliable machine. As you said, they were as bad as the Soviet rockets at first -- "at first" being the operative term. There is a reason why rockets are unmanned initially. To engineer is human, after all, and humans are inherently imperfect.

As for the car analogy, the difference there is that rockets are being guided by state-of-the-art technology, piloted by highly trained and very smart people, and are monitored by engineers and scientists who know their systems inside and out. A car is being controlled by one person, who may or may not be exercising good judgement and who isn't being monitored by a huge room full of people who will tell them when something is wrong. Also, there are always a lot of cars on the road at the same time, unlike spacecraft. This brings a whole other element into play, as communication and interaction between cars is just as important to safety as the individual. The shuttle was supposedly designed for safety, and with the training, experience, and knowledge that backed the development as well as each and every mission, accidents should at the very least be prevented from being fatal. Just look at Apollo 13; the crew seemed to be as good as dead, but due to the ingenuity and the designs of the two spacecraft (The command module and the Lunar module) the three astronauts made it home alive. Accidents do happen, but by making systems redundant and fail-safe, engineers should be able to avoid fatal accidents.

 

[Verlander]

So let me get this straight - a country that prides itself on capitalist democracy should have a socialist space program when they're still arguing socialist health care is a bad thing?

Home of the Brave...I guess the kind of bravery that's a kin to stupidity.

That made me laugh. It's true though, priorities people.

Yeah, America's debt is over 14 trillion! Let's spend money on going into space to do...

What exactly?

Apart from jingoistic pride, what exactly does America gain from this? We're talking large sums of money just to hit the atmosphere, so surely there needs to be some tangible gain. Especially to such a deeply capitalist country. Where's the business here? Where's the profit?

Weeeeeell, while I agree with your point about the silly amounts of debt the US is in (and the worse amounts of borrowing that it's still doing), I have to defend NASA a little. In space they send up loadsa things, but some of the more important ones are bacteria, diseases, biological tissue etc. In zero gravity, and in a pure vacuum, these things show properties and mutations that cannot be reproduced on earth. In short, they have helped us find pretty much every medical breakthrough in the last 30 or 40 years and now make up the foundation of breakthroughs to come.

NASA, and all other space programmes, employ the very finest minds in the world to tackle the hostile environment of space. So many of those scientific breakthroughs are now common features in our everyday life, but the necessity to invent them only ever came from the pressures and funding of the space programme.

So yeah, space exploration is good, and privatisation is bad for it, as all private companies have a shared interest in the results. Think about some of the really stupid "for-the-money" decisions that the games, sports,film or journalism industries have made, and think about the impact it will have on space travel. *sigh*

 

[Continuity]

Boo hoo, the world has changed and America isn't the golden goose any more with money to burn.

Get used to it because its only going to get worse.

 

[lumenadducere]

So let me get this straight - a country that prides itself on capitalist democracy should have a socialist space program when they're still arguing socialist health care is a bad thing?

Home of the Brave...I guess the kind of bravery that's a kin to stupidity.

You mean a nation with hundreds of millions of people and 50 separate smaller governments within it has people with differing opinions? Shocking. Seriously, who would have thought that over 300 million people don't wind up creating some sort of hive-mind? This new revelation must be spread! Quick, to the presses!

Because the notion that there are individuals within that group who vary on what they think the government should or should not be involved in is unfathomable. Let's all just pour blind, blanket disdain upon everyone rather than consider such an idea.

 

[kebab4you]

..Fuck yeah! I agree with Cernan. Dust the fucking shuttles off and send them back up. Just because they're old doesn't mean they're not useful!

Doesn't mean they are safe either. And I have to agree with shutting down the space program in the US, you´re in deep debt as it is already have to cut somewhere to not crash and burn.

 

[mateushac]

I'm not american so I don't feel that "american pride" yack yack. But some advice: less wars in the Middle East. More money for NASA. Sounds fair?

Actually less wars = Less money (including NASA)

 

[spectrenihlus]

Just thought I would add this

http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/sls1.html

 

[Jadak]

Shocker, men who have been in space are upset by end of program that enables going to space.

What's next in today's news? Spaghetti lovers upset by Pasta ban? Crack addicts not pleased by narcotic laws?

 

[Your Fearless Captain]

Is that guy somehow thinking that this is the cold war all over again. Launching money into space won't precisely help your economical problems.

Yes, but another cold war would.

 

[GaltarDude1138]

Geez, when the first guy who walked on the moon gets mad at something space-related, you automatically listen. Although, we're still on track for landing on Mars, in about 20 or so years, which is still ahead of other nations such as China and Russia.

Still, what's with the animosity towards Russia? The Cold War is over. Diplomacy has prevailed. I don't get what's wrong with us hating Russia, a big country, that has a lot of resources, our one-time enemies now our friends, helping us out while our car is in the shop, if that metaphor is apt.

 

[Antari]

While I totally support their ideas, I don't support taking the shuttle out of mothballs. Its wildly inefficient and expensive to use. Do you always need the ability to orbit a 70,000lb load? Nasa needs to go back to the drawingboard. If that takes us off the radar for a few years, so be it. We need a cheaper way to space.