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The Return of Apollo?
hpulley writes "Bell bottoms are back, the Stones are still touring and Time has a piece on how NASA's _new_ space vehicle may actually be the return of a very old friend, a highly modified and modernized version of the Apollo Space Capsule. Manned spacecraft might actually leave low earth orbit again! Initially they'd fly with Delta and Atlas but more powerful boosters could be developed. We could go to the Moon again, and perhaps to Mars but I'm getting ahead of myself. Does that mean the last 30 years of space flight have been for naught? Expensive steps backward?"
Just wait until you hear about their Icarus project.
Regards,
--
*Art
Kick in the Head
First we bring back the Apple I, now Apollo. Please tell me disco isn't coming back too.
why this would be necessary when we already have the Eagles used on Moonbase Alpha? I mean, they were built more then four years ago and they're still going strong (though they do occasionally get blown up by marauding aliens and stored nuclear waste).
We've been to the moon? I thought Jonathan Frakes proved that it was a 40 billion dollar hoax!
In other news, the website reporting this releases their 50 year old bandwidth. Which is really slow because well, there wasnt the internet then.
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
Initially they'd fly with Delta
Bad decision. They should fly with Southwest or Jet Blue.
Avoid Delta. United too, for that matter.
Disco never died - it always smelled that way.
T-shirt in 22nd century: "Disco _still_ sucks." (from an old Omni magazine contest)
Bell bottoms are back, the Stones are still touring and...
Oh, wait. For a minute there I was expecting this apollo.
Great idea. The Rocky franchise bottomed out after Drago broke him in that exhibition. I foresee dozens of Rocky sequels featuring Apollo and other members of the undead...
As long as it is a one-way ticket....two words:
Lance Bass.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
"Express elevator to Hell, goin' _DOWN_!"
Sounds like a fun ride. Screw bungee jumping!
... I had heard a rumour that they were going to use an Edsel.
Or at least according to the caption on the picture accompanying that article. It shows one of the capsules floating in an ocean, with the orange airbags around it, but says the photo is from 1974. Considering Apollo 12 landed on the moon on Nov. 14th, 1969, that's quite a feat!
Mod me funny or die, earthling scum.
Allegedly real newspaper headline from 1998:
Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge
Just because Apollo is getting a little old doesn't mean he can't still box.
All this talk about the return of apollo has me wondering when we can finally get the return of Rocky.
Adrienne!
Saturn 5, Ariane 4.
Well, they used to send an aircraft carrier loaded with about 5000 sailors and various support ships just to fish 3 people and a capsule the size of a Volkswagen out of the drink... that's pretty complicated and expensive.
I say the capsule floats... why not just put an outboard motor on the thing and drive it home? You could do some fishing while you're at it...
On second thought, maybe there's a solution somewhere in the middle.
Your multimillion dollar Boeing 777 aircraft still has windshield wipers.
Yeah, but at least they're high enough off the ground so that those damn squeegee guys can't reach 'em.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
You will agree with me the first time you get on one and find out that the jerk who got off on the previous floor pressed all 677,803 floor buttons on the way out.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Like a space shuttle, only instead of reusable tiles they use ablative poorly-researched Greek mythology.
"explain that to my 1998 Ford Ranger? It's built like a truck."
I sure would hope that the Ford engineers would reach a point where a truck would be built like a truck.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I'm a big fan of capsules to go into space
What a goofy turn of phrase.
I picture you sitting there with a "Go Capsules!" pennant in one hand and a giant foam hand with #1 written on it on the other. Wearing one of those dual beer-can hats, your shirt off and "Appolo" in written in greasepaint across your beergut.
I'm so fucking bored it isn't even funny.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
As a resident of Pittsgburgh, all I can say is - man, thats depressing.
Oh, wait. For a minute there I was expecting this Richard Hatch. =)
"Yeah, well, Dracula called and he's coming over tonight for you and I said okay."
That is a spacecraft, sir.
We do not refer to it as a capsule.
" Given the choice, I would fly to space on a Soyuz any day over the shuttle."
Bottle of vodka? $16 rubles.
That pretty Ludmilla sitting next to you in babushka-and-spacesuit? $30 a night at a Tel Aviv brothel.
Lance Bass, earthbound and angry because you stole his seat? Priceless.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
""But when my brand new abrams tank crashes into your 30-year-old Dodge, which car do you want to be in?""
If it was a Pinto, I'd rather be in the Pinto. If it looks like I am about be rear-rended by the tank, I'd be able to open the door and jump out and roll away within seconds. It takes a lot longer to get out of a tank, and that is the unfortunate thing as both vehicles are incinerated from the massive explosion that results from a rear-end collision on a Ford Pinto.
How to set up a viable mission* to Mars:
1) Install Dictator on Mars.
2) Hype Evilness of Dictator. (Name Mars, Venus & Uranus new Axis of Evil. Hint at WMD capability of Mars. )
3) Declare mission to free the poor oppressed microbes of Mars
4) Mass Deployment of forces to Mars
*Note: Will also result in long-term commitment of forces to Mars necessary to search for WMD, bring the hostile environment to more tolerable levels, and to create the infrastructure necessary for the peoples of Mars to thrive.
-R.I.