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| Savor the limelight |
Comcast can't fix things on Earth. I doubt they can do it on the Moon any better. | |||
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| Muzzle flash aficionado  |
Technically, it would be considered a Solar orbit that is perturbed by the Earth's gravitational pull (in a very special and stable way). flashguy Texan by choice, not accident of birth | |||
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Fire begets Fire |
Time for a government to step aside… They don’t do anything very well anymore. Not sure they really ever did, but there’s a case to be made that government investment now is worse than ever. Equity, and social justice directives along with climate change have burdened every single program, project and contract. Ever contract under 8a? And I’m sorry for those that you that love it, but the space shuttle program was a Flippin joke… Always. "Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty." ~Robert A. Heinlein | |||
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| women dug his snuff and his gallant stroll |
Unfortunately, the NASA of today isn't the same NASA as 50-60 years ago. Lots of engineers and scientists who behave like bureaucrats, unable to make a decision without group consensus. The days of Gene Krantz are long gone. I say slash the NASA budget and distribute it to the private companies who are still willing to be risk takers: SpaceX, Blue Origin, Firefly, Rocket Lab, etc. | |||
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| Oh stewardess, I speak jive.  |
Bah. Build ten new Shuttles... Go to more planets. Launch 3x more probes... Work with the private sector, too, obviously. | |||
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| women dug his snuff and his gallant stroll |
What would 10 new shuttles do for us? Because they aren't going to other planets or even the Moon. We could have launched more probes, but instead we've spent $10B on JWST... | |||
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| Muzzle flash aficionado |
Until travel is made much faster, exploration of more distant planets will be unfeasible. Even going just to Mars takes at least 5 months, and that only when the 2 planets are at their closest. Going to any more distant planets would take much longer--years in most cases, and to planets around nearby stars, even decades or centuries. There are limits to recycling human waste to sustain life over long periods. There have been sci-fi stories written about huge spaceships designed to carry large populations between planets, but we are far short of being able to do that at this time. flashguy Texan by choice, not accident of birth | |||
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| Member |
Just curious why the space shuttle couldn't make it to the moon | |||
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Political Cynic |
the shuttle was a compromise program that ultimately had its requirements set around lofting military payloads it was never being thought of as anything more than a truck to haul stuff to orbit, and it was incapable of working anywhere outside LEO. As for deep space....not a chance | |||
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| women dug his snuff and his gallant stroll |
Way too heavy to get the needed deltaV. Think back to the Apollo-era capsule and the size of the Saturn V booster in comparison. The capsule was a tiny fraction of the total mass. Compare that to the shuttle, the external fuel tank, and two SRBs. We would need something much larger than a Saturn V to get a space shuttle to the Moon. | |||
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Waiting for Hachiko |
Those science fiction books about huge spaceships carrying mass migrations of people were a mainstay of my teen age reading. 美しい犬 | |||
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| Muzzle flash aficionado |
Me, too. Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov were my favorites--I've read just about everything they wrote. flashguy Texan by choice, not accident of birth | |||
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Baroque Bloke |
^^^^^^^^ And “Tom Corbett, Space Cadet”. Saturday morning TV, right after Roy Rogers! Serious about crackers | |||
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| women dug his snuff and his gallant stroll |
Reminder about the JWST launch. It’s been postponed until Christmas morning with the launch window opening at 7:20a EST. | |||
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always with a hat or sunscreen |
Tom Corbett books (yeah Astro!) along with Tom Swift and Miss Pickerell series were my pre-teen fodder.  Certifiable member of the gun toting, septuagenarian, bucket list workin', crazed retiree, bald is beautiful club! USN (RET), COTEP #192 | |||
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| SIGforum Official Eye Doc  |
Anybody else watching? 15 minutes now… | |||
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| women dug his snuff and his gallant stroll |
Looked like a flawless launch through payload separation. The glimpse of the first solar array unfurling and capturing the Sun reflection was pretty neat. | |||
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| Oh stewardess, I speak jive. |
Yeah, that was great, especially the real footage of the last separation and solar array unfolding. | |||
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| Oh stewardess, I speak jive. |
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Void Where Prohibited |
So the complex Sunshield deployment in three days is the critical step toward getting an operational platform I about thirty days? "If Gun Control worked, Chicago would look like Mayberry, not Thunderdome" - Cam Edwards | |||
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