How President Jimmy Carter Saved The Space Shuttle (blastingnews.com) 237
MarkWhittington writes: Eric Berger has published an account in Ars Technica about how President Jimmy Carter saved the space shuttle program. The article is well worth reading for its detail. In essence, around 1978 the space shuttle program had undergone a crisis with technical challenges surrounding its heat-resistant tiles and its reusable rocket engines and cost overruns. President Carter was not all that enthused about human space flight to begin with, adhering to the since discredited notion that robotic space probes were adequate for exploring the universe. His vice president, Walter Mondale, was a vehement foe of human space flight programs, maintaining that money spent on them were better used for social programs.
Carter was a great President! (Score:5, Funny)
If it weren't for pussy weakling Republicans willing to sellout to Iran he would have had a second term and our great Nation would be on a solid progressive course.
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Discredited? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
"adhering to the since discredited notion that robotic space probes were adequate for exploring the universe." Uh, forgot a source for this one. :) Not only are robotic probes "adequate" but they are essential, since humans are fragile bags of water that can't withstand heat, cold, radiation, or lack of oxygen.
I wonder how much more knowledge about our solar system we would have if we hadn't wasted so much money and political capital on human space flight. And please don't tell me we are going to send humans on a generation ship to Wolf 1061c. (maybe frozen embryo's to be raised by an AI but that's it)
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Agreed robotic space probes ARE adequate for exploring the universe. The only reason anyone sends meat sacks into space these days is to do experiments on low orbit space stations. Going anywhere further requires wasting money at a rate that only politicians flattering their own vanity can afford. The last time humans were part of the space race was in the 1970's.
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You must not read much then. Reagen created the "rust belt".
Re: Carter was a great President! (Score:2)
Yes, but Reagan didn't win the coveted "giant swimming rabbit" vote.
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It's the best example that I know of of a foreign power successfully choosing an American president (or anti-choosing one, this was anti-Carter rather than pro-Reagan). But the point is: this wasn't the Republicans selling out to Iran, it was Iran giving them a gift and they just ran with it.
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it was Iran giving them a gift and they just ran with it.
A gift they could've have refused.
Re:Carter was a great President! (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, possibly. I tend to think they were frightened about Reagan would do. After he'd been elected and before inauguration, I believe in January, he was getting into a vehicle and a reporter shouted a question: would the Iranians be better off waiting until you are president before dealing on the hostages. Reagan, without missing a beat, looked over his shoulder and said in a rather icy tone, "I wouldn't if I were them."
Reagan scared the crap out of a lot of the rest of the world. Carter's canoe was attacked by a swimming rabbit. That summed up the election right there, Americans didn't want another 4 more years of someone who could be attacked by a rabbit.
Re:Carter was a great President! (Score:5, Insightful)
That is the image that Ronald "we will not deal with terrorists" Reagan projected.
The truth is that President Reagan and his staff cut a deal with the Iranian terrorists. In order to negotiate the release of American hostages held by Lebanese terrorists who were backed by Iran, Reagan was willing to sell the Iranian terrorists arms so they could spread terrorism and threaten more people. These arms weren't shipped directly from the USA to Iranian terrorists. That would have been illegal. Reagan's team worked out a deal where the arms were sold through third parties to the Iranians.
Not satisfied with just supporting and spreading Iranian terrorism, Reagan's team wanted to also support a bunch of narco-terrorists, called the Contras. Monetary and material support for the Contras was prohibited by law. The Republican administration didn't like the left leaning Sandinista government of Nicaragua and wanted to support a right wing revolution so a puppet government could be installed. Similar to the support for the Shah's puppet government in Iran that lead the Iranian people to hate America so much.
American intelligence officials syphoned some of the money made selling arms to Iranian terrorists, to the drug trafficking Contras in Nicaragua who opposed the left leaning government there. The Republicans called these drug trafficking scum 'Freedom Fighters'.
The Iranian revolutionary terrorists were completely aware of the arms deal Reagan had made with them, although the American people were not.
So when the Iranians saw President Reagan give the icy stare and say those scary words, the Iranians were in no way frightened. The Iranians knew Reagan was a liar with no morals. A man who would sell out his own principles in order to gain power and high office. They labelled him "The Great Satan" because of his skill at lying.
The American people were unaware of the deal that Reagan had made to give arms and money to the Iranian terrorists, and were unaware that the freedom fighters were really drug traffickers sending poison to the streets of America and spreading terrorism throughout Central America. The American people saw Reagan as a tough guy who would never deal with terrorists and never waiver on truth, justice and the American way.
So once you read up on the Iran Contra affair, you will realise that the tough talk and that icy stare threatening the Iranian terrorists was one of Ronald Reagan's best acting jobs.
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He met with the parents of one of the hostages and listened to their sob story. That's right. He developed a bleeding heart.
Re:Carter was a great President! (Score:4, Informative)
Thanks, I didn't mean to imply that but the way I wrote it sure does.
Probably better to say that when Reagan made a deal with terrorists over the hostages held in Lebanon, having said those words with his icy stare previously, the Iranians knew he was a liar.
The Iranian hostages were released in on January 20th, 1981 (the day Reagan was inaugurated) because the US and Iran had negotiated the release and signed the Algiers Accords of January 19th, 1981. Part of the Algiers accords had the Iranian revolutionary government releasing the hostages as part of its terms. It was the Carter administration that secured the release of the hostages as the last act of the Carter administration, bringing and end to the crisis that plagued his term in office. Carter had promised to bring them home, by any means. That would include dealing with the terrorists. The US was first referred to as the great satan, Iblis. Severeal western leaders, including Regan, have been compared to Iblis as well. The Iran Contra affair came to public attention in 1986, Reagan's second term. However, the actual events trade deals and shipments took place over several years during the first and second terms.
He was the kind of pres people THINK they want. (Score:5, Interesting)
Reagan scared the crap out of a lot of the rest of the world.
Which only a fool thinks is a good thing. But there are a lot of fools who fantasize about other people being submissive toward them because they're scared. The problem is that scared people don't necessarily act submissively. They often respond aggressively as well.
Put in a Cold War context, the Soviets and the US were in a Mexican standoff, with both sides having their hammers cocked and fingers on the nuclear trigger. In that situation you don't want to alarm anyone, but that is exactly what [wikipedia.org] the senile fool did.
That summed up the election right there, Americans didn't want another 4 more years of someone who could be attacked by a rabbit.
I voted in that election, and I remember it well. You capture the way people were thinking accurately, but not critically. Anyone can be attacked by a (possibly rabid) animal; it wasn't a real issue. There were three actual substantive things people were reacting to in the election: (1) stagflation, (2) the Iran hostage crisis, (3) the energy crisis. While Carter's leadership style might leave a lot to be desired, it's hard to criticize his actions in any of these situations.
(1) Stagflation was the result of his and Paul Volker's successful attempt to ward off imminent hyperinflation by a combination of austerity (reducing the federal debt-to-gdp ratio of 3.3%) and sky high Federal Funds rates. Economic growth resumed pretty much in sync with the reductions in Fed interest rates, in fact under the last Carter budget (Presidents in their first year govern under their predecessor's last budget). Arguably milder steps might have done the job without causing the recession, but the fact that inflation continued even as the Federal Funds rate hit 20% suggest that weaker measures wouldn't have worked.
(2) Carter's handling of the Iran crisis is probably what brought his presidency down, but it came down to this: the military was still dealing with the aftermath of the Vietnam war and couldn't execute the rescue mission successfully. Contrary to popular myth Carter actually raised military spending, from 282 billion under the last Ford budget to 303 billion under the last Carter budget. Yes, some big programs were eliminated or trimmed, but ironically operations and maintenance was a major area of increased spending in Carter's budgets.
(3) The second oil crisis was caused by the Iran Iraq War. In response Carter deregulated oil prices, which caused domestic production to rise and imports to fall.
In short, Carter was the kind of president people think they want: honest, prudent, and responsible willing to do unpopular things because they were right. Had two of the eight helicopters in Operation Eagle Claw failed instead of three, he'd be remembered very differently.
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Sellout to Iran? The Republicans certainly used the hostage crisis to campaign against Carter, but they didn't really do anything special to get the hostages released.
Better check with Ollie North and Casper Weinberger about that statement.
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The Republicans certainly used the hostage crisis to campaign against Carter, but they didn't really do anything special to get the hostages released.
Other than sell weapon parts [fas.org], probably violate the Logan Act, and lay the seeds for the IranContra scandal.
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The Iranians held the hostages because the Republicans promised them weapons. They got them with Iran-Contra.
Re: Carter was a great President! (Score:5, Informative)
No, Iran contra was half a dozen years later. Do you idiots even wiki this shit?
Iran-Contra was discovered some years later. Specifically, getting arms to an enemy of the united States and to another group via an end-around in order to circumvent the Boland amendment was started as a way to attempt to get some hostages held by Hezbolla in Lebanon.
Now might such a thing have happened in the goings on in the 1980 election? Who knows? But a group that is wiling to give aid to enemies of the US, it is at least plausible that a very similar thing happened a few years earlier, merely undiscovered.
In the meantime, it was interesting that this whole thing included a metric shitload of illegal actions, like destroying classified evidence to avoid prosecutions, removing classified materials under cloathing, selling arms to an enemy of the US and violating laws passed by congress.
In the end? Acquittals and pre-emptive pardons, and the party of the moral high ground was pleased.
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If it weren't for pussy weakling Republicans willing to sellout to Iran he would have had a second term and our great Nation would be on a solid progressive course.
Yeah, but there was a lot of money to be made by selling arms to Iran and the Contras afterwards.
That's the best thing about them - they won't let little things like enemies of the US or violating laws get in the way.
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And even more money to be made by selling Iran's oil and stopping all those silly profit-eating conservation and energy independence programs. Better to sell our national security for a few bucks. The oilies figured that if things got bad in the states, they'd just move elsewhere.
Just like now.
Since discredited? (Score:5, Insightful)
Star Trek is fiction, you realize. That ship taking pictures of Jupiter right now? Kirk isn't on it.
Re: Since discredited? (Score:5, Funny)
Because there aren't any chicks on Jupiter.
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Because there aren't any chicks on Jupiter.
How do we know if we don't go ?
Re: Since discredited? (Score:4, Funny)
Since discredited (Score:5, Insightful)
Since discredited by what? I think there might be some bias in the reporting there, because it should say "since credited by 4 decades of remote robotic exploration"
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I don't see anything like that in the Ars[e] article, so it looks like either the submitter or BeauHD made that bit up.
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It's in the blastingnews article, the one linked next to the story's title. Still forgetting to check that one ? I do, too :)
And the submitter actually cited [slashdot.org] that bit.
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Editorial license, if the notion of robotic probes being inadequate to explore the universe is discredited, we have yet to accomplish anything concrete in the restart of manned exploration - Orion is on a slow track to early cancellation.
Since discredited? Been to Mars lately? (Score:4, Interesting)
Since discredited? Been to Mars lately?
Mars is a planet entirely populated by robots.
We built the robots and sent them there, but it is still a planet entirely populated by robots.
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Check his posting history - seems he's a bit of a space nutter.
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A lot of manned-space advocates don't seem to understand that it's far better to send an expendable unmanned probe or robot now than it is to wait around decades or even centuries until we can send a manned mission. If we solely relied on manned space flight, we would never have had a close up look at the outer planets, at least within our life times.
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No, the answer is that we should be doing both.
Automated space probes are certainly the best choice for doing early science reconnaissance for outer planets and really just about anything: Pluto, Jupiter, etc. Sending people to Pluto to take photos and collect some data would be silly when we can send a probe to do it, especially considering how long it takes to get there with current technology (New Horizons took 10 years to get there).
Manned exploration is for close-up stuff where 1) you've already done
Re:Since discredited (Score:5, Insightful)
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Suppose we could put a couple of scientists on Mars, with tools, a rover, and lab equipment, and let them work for a few weeks (in reality they need to stay for a few months IIRC to get a feasible return trajectory to home). In those weeks, what would they be able to do in terms of science that a
Re: Since discredited (Score:2)
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The claim isn't that robots have no use or that humans are better for exploration. Strictly speaking it only claims that there is some exploration that only humans can do well.
Yes, we could get lots of science done fairly quickly by putting a couple of people on Mars for a few months. However, it still comes down to that for the resources it would take to do that, we could put hundreds of robots on Mars that could work for years, each doing their own little specialized job, and do more science and get the results sooner.
I hope we do send men to Mars but I seriously think people do not realize how much that will actually take to do and how long it will take. The ISS is the most ex
Re:Since discredited (Score:5, Insightful)
Since discredited by what?
Self driving cars! Oh no wait never mind.
What "discredited notion"? (Score:5, Insightful)
the since discredited notion that robotic space probes were adequate for exploring the universe
Hah. What? Robotic space probes are bloody brilliant for exploring the universe, and they've done far more of it than could have been achieved if we'd had to send a meatbag along for the ride.
Re:What "discredited notion"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. There is basically no human-based "space exploration", except for a few brief visits to the moon a long time ago. No, there is nothing to explore in low earth orbit, so the ISS does not count as "space exploration". All I see in the non-robotic space is grand and usually stupid and unworkable plans, while in the robotic space I see mars rovers going strong long after they were expected to, deep space probes still being useful after decades and so on.
Anybody that thinks the notion of robots being the way to go in space exploration is "discredited" is a moron.
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Yeah, sending a meatbag to Pluto would have been a real thrill for the meatbag. That last craft took 9 years. And that's only because we were able to chose the optimum orbital positions for Earth and Pluto. So, what, we gonna send Mr. Bag out for 9 years, assume he's not lost his mind on the journey and able to perform experiments for several months, then return Mr. Bag. Of course, with that kind of investment, we couldn't be sure Mr. Bag might not develop a sudden death along the way what with the radiatio
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Mr. Meatbag would have been long dead from radiation sickness, given current technology.
Hubble and Spy Satellites (Score:3)
The shuttle was never about science.
The reason for the shuttle was to launch, repair, and recover spy satellites. It was also used to launch and repair the Hubble (which is nothing more than a spy satellite looking up instead of down).
Given that the shuttle program... (Score:2, Insightful)
... held back usable, affordable space flight for several decades, this was one program that was not worth saving.
Unless, of course, all you care about in space flight is the feeling of awesomeness while getting exactly nowhere. Then the 250mn per "reusable space vehicle" flight might be well worth it?
Hindsight is 20/20 (Score:5, Insightful)
... held back usable, affordable space flight for several decades, this was one program that was not worth saving.
That's obvious in hindsight. For those of us old enough to remember the shuttle when it was new I can tell you anyone who thought that about the shuttle at the time was mostly keeping it to themselves. Yes it was a dead end but it took a while to realize that. That happens sometimes. At the time the shuttle seemed like the next logical evolution of spaceflight.
Unless, of course, all you care about in space flight is the feeling of awesomeness while getting exactly nowhere.
Manned spaceflight has had tremendous benefit to humanity. The amount of technology development that has come from the manned program has been tremendous due to the challenge of the task. The information value of manned spaceflight is easy to overlook but it should not be. We've probably gotten more economic benefit from manned spaceflight than from probes and I would argue that the scientific value has been at least equal.
The argument of probe vs manned space flight is an idiotic one. We need both. Probes can tell us things that would be hard to learn or take MUCH longer and are quite economical for many mission profiles. But there are many things we can only learn though manned spaceflight and the technology and economic side benefits tend to be bigger as well. We need both and to present it as an either/or really is doing all of us a huge disservice in the long run.
Re:Hindsight is 20/20 (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason manned spaceflight developed better technologies is that more money was thrown at it. Give robotic space exploration an Apollo-sized budget and we might see even greater technological advances. Imagine the tech we'd have to develop to drill into Europa, make submarines for Titan, construct rovers that can survive on Venus, or reach other star systems.
Both manned and unmanned spaceflight (Score:3)
The reason manned spaceflight developed better technologies is that more money was thrown at it.
R&D doesn't work quite like that. More money thrown into research does not automatically equal better results. It helps but the relationship isn't causal. The relationship is more of a correlation. You can throw a LOT of money into R&D and get very little to show for it sometimes. Similarly you often can get very good results without spending a fortune. What technology you get out of the R&D depends heavily on the problem domain. Some areas of research are more fertile ground for technolo
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Spinoff technologies (Score:2)
Unless you mean Tang there is nothing that resulted only from manned space flight that had any benefit on man-kind. It's a loss leader.
First off, Tang didn't come from the space program [wikipedia.org]. It was developed by General Foods in 1957. It was used in the space program which popularized it but NASA had nothing to do with its creation.
Second, you couldn't be more wrong [wikipedia.org] that nothing came out of the manned program. Here are just a few of the highlights from the manned program: Infrared ear thermometers, ventricular assist devices, advanced artificial limbs, LEDs in medical therapies, invisible braces, temper foam, enriched baby food, portable co
Tech transfer (Score:2)
Please describe the causal link between having to put a man into a metal tube and your list of supposed spinoffs?
Go research it yourself. There is a great article on wikipedia to get you started regarding NASA spinoffs.
How much cheaper would it have been to subsidize students or engineers directly?
It wouldn't be cheaper. It would be substantially more expensive because the research was undirected. Spinoffs come from solving one problem and finding a use for the technology elsewhere. If you don't solve the original problem you don't develop the technology to spin off. It's not the only way to do things but undirected research is difficult to fund and justify. Engineers don't go around solvin
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The pro
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We've probably gotten more economic benefit from manned spaceflight than from probes...
The most economic benefit we've received from anything spaceflight related is from satellites.
and I would argue that the scientific value has been at least equal.
I don't think this is even close. From the Voyager program to climate satellites, we've learned far more from unmanned missions.
Complementary (Score:2)
The most economic benefit we've received from anything spaceflight related is from satellites.
Fair point. However bear in mind that manned spaceflight has been an integral part of many of those satellites. Hubble not the least among them. Servicing a satellite in space (currently) often requires a manned mission so it's not as if they are neatly on one side of the ledger or the other. A lot of that value from satellites would never have been realized without a manned space program. Furthermore some of the potentially most valuable things we might ever do in space will probably require humans to
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Wrong, we have not had manned exploration of another world for over four decades. Almost all tech for the space program was developed for unmanned flights, before and after the moon program.
The argument for manned space flight at this point in time is an idiotic one, only in the far future could there ever be any kind of benefit. The way we support human life at the present is too primative, prolonged habitation of any space craft or the ISS causes massive damage to the human body. It's not the right way
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Interesting quote in article (Score:4, Insightful)
Carter was not such an idiot.
It would take Baby Bush to be that idiot and leave manned flight to the Russians.
Maybe Obama is also an idiot for not trying to revive a gutted NASA while the capability was still there, but he would have had to fight being blocked all the way.
Re:Interesting quote in article (Score:4, Insightful)
OTOH, O has kept the fundings flowing to CCDev, though it has been a battle all the way. Once we have human flight going, and allow new space to compete, we will see space costs plummet. This will allow us to not only do human flights, but also a lot more automated flights further in the solar system.
Re:Interesting quote in article (Score:4, Insightful)
Also having even China ahead of us will make it difficult to "compete". The big deal about private space is a distraction - it was always as much private space as it is today. Grumman built the Eagle lander that first touched onto the moon and not NASA.
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The difference is:
Old Space = "cost plus" contracts - Whoops, we've gone over the budget, but keep paying us until we're done!
New Space = fixed-price contracts - Whoops, our rocket went RUD from a bad strut, now we have to launch another one without you giving us more money! *
(Yes, I know they lost some expensive cargo, even if they had enabled the Dragon capsule to pop its chute. The final resolution was to add four new launch missions at a discounted price.)
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Yes, I know they lost some expensive cargo,
Didn't matter. The payload was either already insured, or not worth insuring.
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The difference is:
Old Space = "cost plus" contracts - Whoops, we've gone over the budget, but keep paying us until we're done!
New Space = fixed-price contracts - Whoops, our rocket went RUD from a bad strut, now we have to launch another one without you giving us more money!
Slight correction - on fixed price contracts, the contractor doesn't have to pay when a launch fails - that's covered by insurance either way.
The important thing is that on a fixed price, the launch provider gets more profit if they reduce launch costs and schedules. On cost-plus, the provider is incentivized to have cost overruns and schedule slips.
And more important than all of that is that we have ideologically driven billionaires competing to make space cheaper - SpaceX is tremendously affordable (~25%
Re:Interesting quote in article (Score:4, Informative)
The important thing is that on a fixed price, the launch provider gets more profit if they reduce launch costs and schedules. On cost-plus, the provider is incentivized to have cost overruns and schedule slips.
I have several good friends who work for ATK, maker of the shuttle boosters among lots of other aerospace components. They say the old and new approaches are radically different... so different that ATK is having a hell of a time making the transition. The old organizational structure was enormous, with tremendous amounts of fat and redundancy at every level, because cost management was not a concern, at all. At best they basically ignored costs, at worst they actively worked to increase costs, because that boosted profits. Learning how to operate like a real business has required a complete restructuring of their world, including massive layoffs not just to cut costs but to remove all of the people with decades of "cost plus" methodology ingrained into their thought processes.
Old space and new space are both largely private, but they're dramatically different, even aside from Musk's ambitions.
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Secondly, if you noticed, I said NEW space, not private. The new space companies are aggressive and doing what old space USED to do back in the 60s, i.e. R&D on their own.
Sadly, old space (Boeing, L-Mart, ULA, etc) are ran by MBAs that make sure that their executives and stock holders get every single penny that come there way, rather than invest into their company.
Look at ULA. They fought to keep RD-180 claimi
Most current NASA programs were funded by Bush (Score:2)
Advisor claims Obama "revitalized" planetary science, but the opposite is true.
Casey Dreier, director of space policy for The Planetary Society
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The US Government is so fucked up now, not being able to fund/run important programs, not managing the banking industry, and throwing away money on the military, I don't see any point in bitching about how the US has dropped the ball with space programs.
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You are correct that neither party has been all that keen on Space/NASA. Sad. I would argue that the GOP has been the worst, though at times, they have had leaders that pushed it.
BUT, Dems have been fine with funding NASA. In fact, every program that comes along, they want to fund. The idea of CUTTING would not make sense to them, EXCEPT, when they have a PERSONAL project that they want to have more money. THe
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The Misconception: You make rational decisions based on the future value of objects, investments and experiences.
The Truth: Your decisions are tainted by the emotional investments you accumulate, and the more you invest in something the harder it becomes to abandon it.
Sunk Cost Fallacy: https://youarenotsosmart.com/2... [youarenotsosmart.com]
How many people died on shuttle flights ? How much more expensive was the program than expendable launch vehicles ?
The finish line was an expensive and dangerous vehicle that was more a hindrance to getting into space than a help. Hell we would have been better off just using the 5 billion to restart Saturn V production. The knowledge and materials were considerably more available back then.
Obama, you're kidding MR "Nasa should be about Muslim outreach" ??
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Restarting Saturn V production wasn't a reasonable choice either, unless you also had the budget to fund the sort of missions that the Saturn V was designed to launch.
The Shuttle was a classic case of the hazards of ignoring TRL. It should have been designed as a small-scale tech deliverable, which may or may not also prove to provide great economic advantages in spaceflight as only a secondary objective - not as a giant vehicle designed from scratch to be the cornerstone of all launch business in the west
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"The NACA model, where the agency was an entity for funding basic research and cooperative collaboration with external entities toward the advancement of the state of the art, rather than a body for carrying out congressional megaproject-mandates, seems much more desirable." -- interesting idea that has merits but in the absence of NASA, the Air Force would have certainly taken over crewed spaceflight in the US in the 1960s. I don't think that would have turned out so well; at least under NASA the militar
Shuttle, Saturn [Re:Interesting quote in article] (Score:3)
I will suggest instead that the problem with the shuttle was that it was kept in service so long.
In the 1960s, we went from launching humans on Redstone, to Titan-II, to Saturn 1B, to Saturn V. Four generations of human launch vehicles in ten years.
In the 1970s, we developed: shuttle. One vehicle in a decade.
In the 1980s, we developed-- nothing new.
The problem isn't that the shuttle didn't turn out to be as cheap and as reliable as it had been expected to be. The problem is that we stopped the practice of
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The problem is that you hit material and physical limits. That's the end of the space fantasies, you neck-bearded virgin. Look at air travel, same thing there too, a lot of development in a short period, then... coasting. We don't even have the Concorde anymore, you four-eyed sci-fi writing nerd.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function
I'm sorry you're so emotionally invested in dead fantasies and metal boxes that go into space that you can't see the reality that's right in front of you.
And in case yo
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One word in response to you:
Diazepam.
Re:Interesting quote in article (Score:5, Interesting)
The biggest problem is that the idiots in congress (or more specifically those that represent specific parts of the country) have been forcing NASA to use space shuttle parts in its projects (Constellation and now SLS) even when those parts aren't the right parts for the job.
That's a big part of why Congress doesn't like the "commercial crew" program, namely the fact that the new lightweight companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada etc dont provide all that pork in key congressional districts the way the old guard like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Orbital ATK etc are doing.
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âoeYouâ(TM)d have to be an idiot to get up in front of people and say, âIâ(TM)m now going to trash $5 billion even though weâ(TM)re that close to the finish line, and Iâ(TM)m going to quit human spaceflight.â(TM)
Carter was not such an idiot.
How much cheaper would it have been to throw that thing away and use rockets for our launches, instead? How many less lives would have been lost? Carter was an idiot to save the shuttle.
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“You’d have to be an idiot to get up in front of people and say, ‘I’m now going to trash $5 billion even though we’re that close to the finish line, and I’m going to quit human spaceflight.’
Sunk cost fallacy. How much was spent is irrelevant to the decision to stop or continue. It's spent and you aren't getting it back, so the only question is "can we afford the cost to make Shuttle viable as a spacecraft?"
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It would take Baby Bush to be that idiot and leave manned flight to the Russians.
To be fair to Shrub, it became hideously difficult for Congress to fund rational gov't programs. The Russians aren't enemies, and in this case, a really cheap case of outsourcing an outdated technology. Be honest. What manned space flight? Its only a couple of launches a year, and its below the Earth's Van Allen belts. Hardly worth continuing to blow billions of dollars per year.
Maybe Obama is also an idiot for not trying to revive a gutted NASA while the capability was still there,
No, in this case, you would be the idiot. The best thing the US gov't could do is get NASA out of the way, and support priva
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“You’d have to be an idiot to get up in front of people and say, ‘I’m now going to trash $5 billion even though we’re that close to the finish line
And another kind of idiot that crosses a finish line triumphantly without realizing it is nowhere near the line he was supposed to be aiming for.
Not impressed (Score:5, Insightful)
The shuttle was a terrible program. It set the space program back thirty years by cementing in the public mind the idea manned spaceflight must always be far more expensive than the value of any possible benefit.
And the idea Carter is some sort of hero because he was too weak to say "Let's not throw good money after bad..."? Ugh.
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If you want to read a thrilling, in-depth and well researched background to the Space Shuttle, including its links to the Manned Orbital Laboratory program, then read "Into the Black" by Rowland White - excellent commentary on the Airforce/NASA relationship (its often construed that the Airforces requirements crippled the Shuttle, when in-fact it was highly likely that the Shuttle would have been cancelled completely had the Airforce not been forced to be involved), spy satellites, the MOL program and the
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It never lived up to that hope. For one thing, those damn heat-shielding tiles kept pop
Hindsight is 2020 (Score:2)
There is a bit of hindsight
You got it. Hindsight is perfect.
but it's not entirely because even by the late 90s there were jokes how Russia's shuttle was nothing but a copy of the American shuttle, but the difference between the Russians and the Americans was that the Russians had the good sense to see it as the enormous money waste it was and cancel it long before the Americans did.
The Russians cancelled Buran in 1993. If it had been obvious without the clarity of hindsight that the shuttle had been a bad idea, they wouldn't have started the program in the first place. Cancelling Buran in 1993 is no evidence that it was obvious in 1976 that the shuttle would be a terrible idea.
If you're suggesting that it was obvious that it was a terrible idea in 1976, you need to show this using what was known in 1976.
Robots are discredited? News to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, when I look for any successes in space exploration (and no, low earth orbit does not count as "exploration"), all I see is robots and what I see is that many of them are wildly successful.
It seems the story writer is an idiot.
Exploring close to home and far (Score:3, Informative)
low earth orbit does not count as "exploration"
Disagree. With the caveat that it is exploration as long as you learn something. And we've learned a lot from our activities in nearby space. It doesn't have the pretty pictures we get from planetary probes but the technology and economic benefits we get from spaceflight are almost entirely from our activities in low to geosync orbit as is virtually all of what we have learned about biology in space. Those probes we send to Jupiter and Pluto have their technology developed and proven in our low earth or
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You can stop dick riding human exploration. Not one scientist supports the preposition that human space exploration has any scientific value. Not too mention you overlook the ethical implications about sending people into space - since it will
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Indeed. The one thing we may eventually have is some manufacturing and mining capability in space, maybe even something like a permanent moon-base, but humans will play a small role in that, if any. Humans are mostly useless in space or on the moon (but it is a big problem to keep them alive and healthy), while robots are becoming more and more useful there every day.
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Indeed. You could even do space exploration!
robotic probes discredited? (Score:2)
Why are robotic probes discredited?
Getting humans into space is ok, but we can probably get shit loads of robotic probes all over the solar system for a fraction of the cost to get 1 human to mars...
One thing that will help with humans is for us to come up with a commercial reason to have people living on the moon, as once its profitable then we'll find ourselves with a rapidly expanding colony (which will be amazing).
Saved the space shuttle, killed the metric system (Score:3)
FTFY (Score:2)
'discredited notion that robotic space probes were adequate for convincing Americans to fund NASA on a grand scale.'
Carter's True Legacy (Score:2)
So it was Jimmy Carter that delayed the privatization of commercial launch services by decades?
What a legacy!
But... (Score:2)
this is all that's wrong with bleeding hearts (Score:2)
Walter Mondale, was a vehement foe of human space flight programs, maintaining that money spent on them were better used for social programs.
Real science, not to be confused with sociology much less various protected group studies, results in so much return on investment that it boggles the mind that the government doesn't do more of it. Social programs on the other hand tend to beget more social problems. Particularly as they are formed to suppress a disliked group and elevate a protected class. I have no problem with safety nets. I have huge problems with people being idle and unproductive.
His worst mistake (Score:2)
Disclaimer: I voted for him both times.
It isn't even a matter of manned vs. unmanned exploration. The Space Shuttle was the Universe's most cost-overridden project ( until the F35 came along). The original promise was that the materials scientists would produce a monohull insulating layer. The moment they gave up and announced it would take 70-zillion separate, custom "bricks" , the program should have been shut down. Heck, it would have been cheaper to shoot astronauts 3 at a time on Sat-Vs, shoot up s
Probes are discredited? (Score:3)
how President Jimmy Carter saved the space shuttle program.
I like Carter. But I guess no one is perfect.
tl;dr: They told Carter that the shuttle would help spy on and verify Russia's compliance with arms treaties.
President Carter was not all that enthused about human space flight to begin with, adhering to the since discredited notion that robotic space probes were adequate for exploring the universe.
...what? Robotic space probes are most certainly adequate for exploring the universe. At least they are now. In 1978, they had just launched Voyager 1, which was a huge success, right? So it was looking pretty true THEN as well. Jimmy was right on the ball. Just how and when was this crazy notion of sending tools into space discredited?
But ANYWAY, the space shuttle program was a bit of a boondogle. It wasn't worthless, and it achieved a great many things. But all in all, there were better solutions and it never delivered on it's big selling points:
- It wasn't cheaper and faster
- It never captured Russian satellites and brought them back to earth for reverse engineering
Back in 1970, to win Department of Defense support at the program’s outset, NASA had redesigned the shuttle to launch national security payloads. Now, that decision paid off
...Why put the payload inside of the shuttle on top of rocket and not just put the payload on top of a rocket like before and after the shuttle?
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half our ships were sailing unarmend
You may or may not have been in the Navy, but you are a lying bullshitter.
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I always thought it would be better to enable people to create wealth than to hand it to them.
social programs == mostly making people be parasites
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"The US space program.. inspires ... white supremacy" - DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 )
Ah, there's a good reminder that some people are simply crazy and disconnected from reality.
Frankly it's good to have these sort of people. Imagine if we censored him. Every post you'd see would have SOME semblance of truth. It's like that sanitary paradox. Kids gotta get a little dirty to develop an immune system. People have to come into contact with sheer balls-in-the-blender levels of crazy just so they maintain a certain level of skepticism.