Our space program has gone to ****.

[scotchie42]

A paultry O.5% of our National budget went to our once great NASA. That is only 18 billion dollars.
What once was a point of pride for the USA is a downright embarassment.
We are "hitching" rides with the commies now just to get our astronauts into space.
Oh, how the mighty has fallen.

 

[xxxWalkTheDawg]

And the shift to using private sector firms for space transport just took a hit

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...of-dollars-and-could-cause-huge-a7220331.html

The interest on the debt and entitlement spending is pulling funds from everywhere.

 

[patdog]

Lot of very poor decisions at NASA over the past 35 years. No direction, lot of money spent on unnecessary programs. And this send a man to Mars ******** sucking tons of what little resources they do have towards an impossible and completely needless mission. NASA needs to be focused on sending probes to all the planets, especially the outer planets.

 

[KeyserSoze1999]

The whole Astronaut Love Triangle drive nearly 1,000 miles wearing a diaper so you don't have to make Bathroom stops to go kill the Wife (with a BB Gun, little knife, and a mallet) of the male Astronaut with that she was in love with...yeah that was the death of our Space Program for me.

Astronauts used to be brilliant, physically fit, think outside the box people that Americans could be proud of---now if Lance Bass can pony up enough money, they'll take his arse to Outer Space.

View attachment 4814View attachment 4815

 

[xxxWalkTheDawg]

I'm still baffled on the decision to scrap the shuttle program. Yes, the shuttles were aging, but we do not abandon naval ships when they age. The Navy builds better ones.

There is some rush to get to Mars and be the first one to piss on a rock. Yea... Then what?

 

[patdog]

Space Shuttle was part of the huge waste of money at NASA. They were literally sending men and women into space just to launch satellites that could have been launched much easier and cheaper from here on Earth. But yeah, we needed to have something lined up to replace it BEFORE we retired them.

 

[121Josey]

We are "hitching" rides with the commies now just to get our astronauts into space.
Oh, how the mighty has fallen.

It could be worse. They could be catching a ride on a SpaceX shuttle.

 

[dudehead]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...of-dollars-and-could-cause-huge-a7220331.html

The interest on the debt and entitlement spending ... is pulling funds from everywhere.

Don't leave out: unnecessary war

 

[Hoover Dawg]

Sorry, but this is what happens when innovation is no longer the predominant motive of the majority of the country. It has been replaced by social justice, self-interests, and in general having a good time. The economy adjusted to what people wanted. Nobody wants to push the boundaries of what is possible, we want to make a little cash, so we can go and sit in bars and restaurants, gossip and watch sports and be entertained by dumb drama.

We are fat and happy, in other words.

REAL TALK

 

[lazlow]

I hear tebow's next tryout is w/ nasa**

The whole Astronaut Love Triangle drive nearly 1,000 miles wearing a diaper so you don't have to make Bathroom stops to go kill the Wife (with a BB Gun, little knife, and a mallet) of the male Astronaut with that she was in love with...yeah that was the death of our Space Program for me.

Astronauts used to be brilliant, physically fit, think outside the box people that Americans could be proud of---now if Lance Bass can pony up enough money, they'll take his arse to Outer Space.

View attachment 4814View attachment 4815

$$$$

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

Space Shuttle should have never been built in the first place. They had umpteen different military branches and civilian agencies putting requirements into a single vehicle. This would be the equivalent of getting NASCAR, Greyhound, and UPS to design a single motor vehicle for all their needs.

 

[John Lorry]

I'm still baffled on the decision to scrap the shuttle program. Yes, the shuttles were aging, but we do not abandon naval ships when they age. The Navy builds better ones.

There is some rush to get to Mars and be the first one to piss on a rock. Yea... Then what?

Stolen from Reddit:

Massive design oversights due to budgetary cuts made the thing a time bomb. They side mounted a vehicle onto an insulated tank, full well knowing debris coming off of tanks was a reality of space flight, and yet the under side of the vehicle was delicate, and damaged very easily. Bad recipe, and known from the start.

In fact, on STS-1 Columbia lost over 100 thermal tiles. During STS-27, they lost some 7000 and made it back by the skin of their pants. The undercarriage was glowing red hot form entry when they did the post flight inspection.

Months before Challenger, Discovery experienced a similar o-ring failure that was about 1/8 of an inch from total failure. STS-114, the first mission after the Columbia disaster had a foam strike which re-grounded the fleet for another year.

Oh, and lets not forget about "black zones." Those were the portions of a launch where if something went wrong, there was 100% fatality chance. If an engine quit right off the bat? Done. If two engines quit prior to staging? Done (and mind you, that was improved after STS-51L. Before that, the stack couldn't handle even a single engine failure for the first 2 minutes of flight until staging. 1/4 of your assent time is a hell of a window for a "everyone will die" scenario. After 51L, they figured that maybe they should narrow that window down a bit. Even though an engine failure didn't cause the disaster, they were afraid of having another one which might cancel the program...)

Also, it's the only manned space vehicle without an escape plan for the astronauts during assent. Any other capsule craft has an escape tower, but there was no way to implement this for the mid deck. So, since having 4 astronauts saved, and anyone on the mid-deck parish seemed a little unfair, after STS-5 they removed the ejection seats from the flight deck and just had the crew go without. (Hence the total loss of life during 51L).

Literally every launch had at least SOMETHING go wrong. Every launch something failed, something broke off, something got dinged or nicked. Some launches were worse than other, but there was always at least one little issue. With 40% of the fleet being lost in a program that had a failure rate of 1/67.5, and the countless other launches coming WAY too close to failure, it's good the program is done.

And of course, all of this was done so that it would be cost friendly, and yet it wasn't. Because the vehicles were so expensive to maintain, it actually cost the same as disposable vehicles would have, and if a launch was scrubbed and reset for another day, it was actually more expensive.

Don't get me wrong, the shuttles were really cool, and still an engineering marvel given the time they were built, and the sheer complexity. Without Nixon cutting their development budget, they might have been both safe and affordable. We will never know that though. What we do know, is that they were cool, they were complex, but they were not cheap nor were they safe. Capsule launch is the way to go. If it weren't, then it wouldn't be the dominate force coming back onto the scene. Everyone and their mother is clamoring to build capsule based rockets. No one is building a space plane, except Virgin, and that's more a gimmick than anything. (And the US air force, but that thing isn't designed to be useful to the types of missions NASA wants in any way.)

 

[xxxWalkTheDawg]

Don't leave out: unnecessary war

As of the beginning of the fiscal year in October 2016, which one is that?

 

[Xenomorph]

I'm reminded of the line from King Kong (1976)..

"No, you're dead wrong. He was the terror, the mystery of their lives, and the magic. A year from now that will be an island of burnt out drunks."

We won the cold war... now we're the island full of burnt out drunks.

Pic is related..

 

[121Josey]

Space Shuttle should have never been built in the first place. They had umpteen different military branches and civilian agencies putting requirements into a single vehicle. This would be the equivalent of getting NASCAR, Greyhound, and UPS to design a single motor vehicle for all their needs.

This happens all the time. It's called a joint venture project.

 

[TBone.sixpack]

She was smoke.

 

[maroonmadman]

After NASA reached the moon it seemed that they lost direction AND they began to lose a lot of funding. It wasn't as bright and shiny as it was in the beginning. There was nothing with the excitement and challenge to replace Apollo. There were 2 or 3 other moon landing scheduled by the Apollo program but funding was cut off. NASA (and Congress) just kind of rested on their laurels - the old 'well we beat Russia' - and really didn't have something with the bling behind it as did the moon landings. The Space Shuttle, while cool, wasn't as cool as going to the moon. And then we had the Challenger and Columbia disasters that helped kill our appetite and funding for space endeavors. And enter the private sector and Congress saw the opportunity to relieve the tax payers of funding NASA and telling us taxpayers 'Look we just saved BILLIONS! Vote for ME!' NASA and the folks responsible for funding NASA just kind of lost vision. Sad.

I will add this also just to stir some debate. There seems to be, especially from the fringe elements of the political spectrum, both right and left, a concerted effort to deny funding for scientific research. One side doesn't want to find answers that may disprove or disrupt their closely held religious beliefs and the other wants to spend that money on social issues. Neither has a real clue. Sad days we live in.

 

[DreadNought.sixpack]

IMO the problem is not so much the private sector as it is with SpaceX specifically. If I remember correctly General Dynamics built most of the Atlas Rockets for the Apollo missions back in the 50's and 60's and they had their hiccups initially but were used after the moon missions to launch most of the US Sattelites into orbit until we went to the Space Shuttle. Back in the 80's there was an article in Time magazine that was questioning the use of a space shuttle to launch a sattelite when you could use a "Big Dumb Rocket" for a fraction of the cost. In summary, we could launch these satellites with private sector companies with no problem, it's just SpaceX can't get it together with their reusable model.

 

[MaroonNation]

If the navy had a 50/50 chance of those aging ships spontaneously combusting I guarentee you they would have mothballed them. It was getting to the point they were holding their breath for shuttle launches/returns.

 

[Hoover Dawg]

I will add this also just to stir some debate. There seems to be, especially from the fringe elements of the political spectrum, both right and left, a concerted effort to deny funding for scientific research. One side doesn't want to find answers that may disprove or disrupt their closely held religious beliefs and the other wants to spend that money on social issues. Neither has a real clue. Sad days we live in.

Interesting take, with a little truth in there. I don't really agree with the bolded part. I think that side just doesn't want to spend much money period, they want it for themselves. The other side wants THAT side to give it to them because, well, entitlement, reparations, whatever, etc.

Selfishness, again. I think your religious bit is just showing your own disdain for religion. Religion has been exiting this country at an alarming rate, on every side. UNFORTUNATELY. Yeah, I said it.

 

[o_MojoJojo]

Long article, but it's amazing the scope of what Elon Musk is trying to pull off, and how (despite today's setback) he's pretty much on target to get a million people on mars within this century. Dude's playing chess while others play checkers.
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/08/how-and-why-spacex-will-colonize-mars.html

 

[MarkDallas]

There is some rush to get to Mars and be the first one to piss on a rock. Yea... Then what?

Lot of very poor decisions at NASA over the past 35 years. No direction, lot of money spent on unnecessary programs. And this send a man to Mars ******** sucking tons of what little resources they do have towards an impossible and completely needless mission. NASA needs to be focused on sending probes to all the planets, especially the outer planets.

You guys have no idea what you're talking about. NASA has always been about driving innovation. Was going to the moon "impossible and completely needless"? Yes! But we did it. And most people would point to that event as one of the crowning achievements of the 20th century. That program drove so many innovations in science and technology that we use today but take for granted.

Mars is the same way. Do we REALLY need to get there? No. But we are going to make a lot of advancements along the way. We will learn much more from the process of getting there than actually being there.

Also, NASA has always relied heavily on private sector companies to achieve their goals. But now the contracting structures that have changed and it's much more visible.

Sorry, but this is what happens when innovation is no longer the predominant motive of the majority of the country.

Hoover gets it.

 

[xxxWalkTheDawg]

It was a dangerous vehicle, no doubt. But it made launching satellites easier, made launching and subsequent maintenance on Hubble much easier, made the assembly of the space station much easier, etc.

i guess I'm just partial to it because it was just another sign of space dominance of the US for so long.

 

[patdog]

But it made launching satellites easier

Actually, it was just the opposite. Sending a satellite up on top of a small rocket is simple and relatively cheap. Using the shuttle to launch them exponentially increased the cost and risk. Only reason they used the shuttle to launch satellites was because the political decision was made to mandate it so there would be an excuse to build the shuttle. I do agree it was much more useful for building and staffing the International Space Station though. But that was many years after the shuttle program started.

 

[patdog]

it's just SpaceX can't get it together with their reusable model.

The problem is the infatuation and insistence on reusable rockets that has been out there for close to 40 years now. Big, dumb booster is a much cheaper and safer option.

 

[maroonmadman]

Interesting take, with a little truth in there. I don't really agree with the bolded part. I think that side just doesn't want to spend much money period, they want it for themselves. The other side wants THAT side to give it to them because, well, entitlement, reparations, whatever, etc.

Selfishness, again. I think your religious bit is just showing your own disdain for religion. Religion has been exiting this country at an alarming rate, on every side. UNFORTUNATELY. Yeah, I said it.

I don't particularly disagree with religion per se but primarily that of the far right i.e. TV evangelist and the 'Prosperity Gospel' folks. Religion, practiced as the Bible says by, being an example of Christ love, is a good thing. This stuff that a lot of folks call religion these days, well I have no idea where in the Bible they get it from. That hypocrisy is the primary reason many are being driven away from organized religion as we know it.

Morality and good moral principles and good old fashioned human civility are what we as a country are severely lacking. We have very few examples in our leadership chain. And one doesn't have to be religious to be moral and civil.

 

[ShrubDog]

NASA has turned into a spy machine especially with CISA.

 

[EngDawg]

IMO the problem is not so much the private sector as it is with SpaceX specifically. If I remember correctly General Dynamics built most of the Atlas Rockets for the Apollo missions back in the 50's and 60's and they had their hiccups initially but were used after the moon missions to launch most of the US Sattelites into orbit until we went to the Space Shuttle. Back in the 80's there was an article in Time magazine that was questioning the use of a space shuttle to launch a sattelite when you could use a "Big Dumb Rocket" for a fraction of the cost. In summary, we could launch these satellites with private sector companies with no problem, it's just SpaceX can't get it together with their reusable model.

Agreed. SpaceX is going to find itself in a difficult position now. The falcon 9 now has a success rate of 13/14 whereas ULA's AtlasV has a success ratio of 63/64. Customers aren't going to pay to see there multi million dollar saltilite turn into fireworks. Revenue (if there ever was any) will dry up, and then it won't matter what kind of flashy PR Elon Musk puts out. The company will be just as dead

 

[DawgatAuburn]

This is really interesting stuff. Much better than talking about football

if you're a nerd

 

[Hoover Dawg]

I don't particularly disagree with religion per se but primarily that of the far right i.e. TV evangelist and the 'Prosperity Gospel' folks. Religion, practiced as the Bible says by, being an example of Christ love, is a good thing. This stuff that a lot of folks call religion these days, well I have no idea where in the Bible they get it from. That hypocrisy is the primary reason many are being driven away from organized religion as we know it.

Morality and good moral principles and good old fashioned human civility are what we as a country are severely lacking. We have very few examples in our leadership chain. And one doesn't have to be religious to be moral and civil.

In that case, I agree.

One thing - don't place your faith in PEOPLE....they will let you down every time.

 

[rynodawg]

There are some interesting articles on that blog. That one, and the Fermi Paradox article are great. It is a fact that humans cannot exist on Earth forever, eventually there will be an extinction event. Politicians are generally focused on the next election cycle, can't depend on them to provide adequate funding for problems that are probably thousands of years into the future.

 

[121Josey]

A visual representation of the NASA program. Tweet

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/HistoryInPix/status/771411250152607744[/TWEET]

 

[xxxWalkTheDawg]

Oh don't get me wrong. I know a huge amount of innovation comes from space exploration and the military. But a lengthy manned mission to Mars seems a lil useless. Hell, start with the Moon colony everyone in the 60s believed would be there by now. Get a good grasp on nuclear fission or fusion engines or Ion based engines then head to Mars. It's the propulsion systems that would make Mars trips worth it. It's not like survival outide the atmosphere of earth for long periods of time is a big hurdle at this point.

 

[dorndawg]

Yeah, we send go carts with cameras to Mars and probably people in a few short years. Some 17ing embarrassment.

MAKE NASA GREAT AGAIN!!!!!111ONE!!1!!111!!!!

 

[BoomBoom.sixpack]

Don't leave out: unnecessary war

Or forget that revenue is lower than it's ever been.

 

[seshomoru]

Nasa launched Juno on August 5th, 2011....

We launched it on a rocket from Florida, shot it out beyond Mars's orbit, swung it back around Earth and used gravity to fling it toward Jupiter.

5 years later, it got there one second behind schedule.

They also named it Juno because that is Jupiter's wife's name, and until now, the only thing orbiting Jupiter has been moons named after his mistresses.

They've landed men on the moon, a research vehicle the size of a Chevy Tahoe on Mars, have sent satellites to every single planet in our solar system (Pluto included), they have satellites providing images and data from around the entire sun, they helped build a freaking space station, the Hubble Telescope is one of man kinds greatest and most important engineering feats (and so were the glasses they put on it when it didn't work the first time), and the James Webb telescope is launching in 2018 is going to be like going from black and white to 4k Ultra.

Like your scratch resistant sunglasses? Thank NASA. Like that your airplane doesn't crash because ice can't form on the wings? Thank NASA. Firefighters have a lot to thank NASA for. That Tempurpedic mattress is a dream right? Thank NASA. Baby formula? Yep, thank NASA. Cordless vacuums, solar panels, water purification, food safety, etc., etc.... All done either by NASA or for NASA by a private company in a joint venture using NASA's funds. There is not a day that goes by that something you use wasn't born out of a technology developed by or for NASA.

But then they started collecting climate data and I guess some geniuses in Congress decided that the guys responsible for so much of the awesome **** in this world were devising some sort of massive conspiracy.

 

[QuaoarsKing]

Sending astronauts to Mars just to bring them home in a few weeks or months is a waste of money. Sending colonists to Mars to stay permanently would be a very good idea to prolong the human race, just in case

 

[BigMotherTucker]

The space shuttle sucked ***... A little over 100 flights with two catastrophic events is not a good success ratio.

 

[dorndawg]

Prolly oughta try out the one before the other, eh?

 

[BulldogBlitz]

I can think of a few people that should be volunteered for such a social experiment.