The Return of Apollo?

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Posted by michael on Tuesday September 9, 2003 @05:42AM from the flyboy dept.

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?"

26 of 653 comments (clear)

Re:Are you kidding me? by arth1 · 2003-09-09 05:44 · Score: 5, Funny

Didn't they just come off of serious embarassment with the Columbia disaster and now they are going to re-instate 50-year-old technology?

Just wait until you hear about their Icarus project.

Regards,
--
*Art
to be prepared... by yoshi1013 · 2003-09-09 05:46 · Score: 2, Funny

As long as they remember their inanimate carbon rod I think they'll do just fine.

--
Kick in the Head
Retro is in.... by banzai75 · 2003-09-09 05:47 · Score: 5, Funny

First we bring back the Apple I, now Apollo. Please tell me disco isn't coming back too.
Could someone please explain ... by burgburgburg · 2003-09-09 05:47 · Score: 2, Funny

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).
1. Re:Could someone please explain ... by Waffle+Iron · 2003-09-09 06:07 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  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
  Call me a conspiracy theorist, but after recently reviewing the film footage from Moonbase Alpha, I've joined the group of people who believe that the whole thing was a hoax.
  I'd love it just as much as the next guy if our government really had built a moonbase, and Eagles, and everything else back in 1999. However, if you carefully look at the coverage of the events at the moonbase, there are just too many inconsistencies that can't be explained away: Serious violations of physics; handwaving passing for engineering; predictable news stories that seem contrived; people with stilted behaviours (as if they were bad actors) who wear clothes that have never been in fashion; images that just basically look faked.
  I've read the websites that cast doubt on the whole scenario, and I have to say that I agree with what they're saying. Until somebody shows me some real compelling proof, I highly doubt that any of that stuff actually existed.
2. Re:Could someone please explain ... by jabber01 · 2003-09-09 06:16 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Absolutely. That, the space station, the lunar base, the interplanetary spacecraft in Jupiter orbit, the incredible advances in heuristic and algorithmic AI (the odd crisis of cybernetic conscience not withstanding), and the fact that Pan Am never really went bankrupt but instead monopolized orbital travel, and that weird thing on the Moon, have all been leaked to the public years ago, and then covered up by the government as though it were all just some story intended to amuse and entertain.
  
  But we know better, don't we?
  
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  The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
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What? by teamhasnoi · 2003-09-09 05:47 · Score: 4, Funny

We've been to the moon? I thought Jonathan Frakes proved that it was a 40 billion dollar hoax!
50 year old bandwidth by mrtroy · 2003-09-09 05:48 · Score: 3, Funny

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]
Bad Decision by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-09 05:50 · Score: 5, Funny

Initially they'd fly with Delta

Bad decision. They should fly with Southwest or Jet Blue.

Avoid Delta. United too, for that matter.
Disco by Tumbleweed · 2003-09-09 05:50 · Score: 3, Funny

Disco never died - it always smelled that way.

T-shirt in 22nd century: "Disco _still_ sucks." (from an old Omni magazine contest)
1. Re:Disco by Soko · 2003-09-09 06:01 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  *Ahem*
  
  Can we embelish this a tad to add even more relevance, please?
  
  T-shirt in 22nd century: "DiSCO _still_ sucks." (origionally from an old Omni magazine contest)
  
  Soko
  
  --
  "Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Apollo? Deltas? by Cerberus9 · 2003-09-09 05:52 · Score: 4, Funny

Bell bottoms are back, the Stones are still touring and...

Oh, wait. For a minute there I was expecting this apollo.
The Return Of Apollo? by redtail1 · 2003-09-09 05:53 · Score: 4, Funny

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...
Two words by AtariAmarok · 2003-09-09 05:54 · Score: 4, Funny

As long as it is a one-way ticket....two words:

Lance Bass.

--
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
On the ride down, Hudson says... by Tumbleweed · 2003-09-09 05:55 · Score: 2, Funny

"Express elevator to Hell, goin' _DOWN_!"

Sounds like a fun ride. Screw bungee jumping!
Wow! Five years on the moon! by mforbes · 2003-09-09 05:56 · Score: 2, Funny

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.

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Allegedly real newspaper headline from 1998:
Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge
Late result by GoneGaryT · 2003-09-09 06:06 · Score: 3, Funny

Saturn 5, Ariane 4.
Re:Why not? by tinrobot · 2003-09-09 06:08 · Score: 4, Funny

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.
Re:Are you kidding me? by corebreech · 2003-09-09 06:11 · Score: 4, Funny

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?
Space elevators? No thanks by AtariAmarok · 2003-09-09 06:18 · Score: 4, Funny

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.
Re:Are you kidding me? by fenix+down · 2003-09-09 06:23 · Score: 3, Funny

Like a space shuttle, only instead of reusable tiles they use ablative poorly-researched Greek mythology.
Those incredible Ford engineers by AtariAmarok · 2003-09-09 06:25 · Score: 2, Funny

"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.
Re:Yay! by stratjakt · 2003-09-09 06:25 · Score: 3, Funny

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!!!!
Re:Infrastructure by CrazyTalk · 2003-09-09 06:50 · Score: 2, Funny

As a resident of Pittsgburgh, all I can say is - man, thats depressing.
Re:Apollo? Deltas? by breon.halling · 2003-09-09 07:11 · Score: 3, Funny

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."
It's the vodka, right? by AtariAmarok · 2003-09-09 07:21 · Score: 2, Funny

" 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.