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Saturn V Fallen on Hard Times
n9fzx writes "The best remaining artifact of the Apollo Program, Huntsville's Saturn V, is 'pocked with pits and cracks, and patches of mold and mildew', having survived for forty years outdoors. Alabama's U.S. Space and Rocket Center is trying to raise a measly $5 million in order to preserve the beast, with $1.5 million in the kitty so far. Paypal, anyone?"
I hate to see a piece of our country's history falling apart. A measely $5m? Sure, I'll just write a check...
http://www.astronomers.net/space_rockets/saturn5_r ocket.htm
Sorry about not hyperlinking, new to Slashdot
According to this post, only about $40 million would need to be raised to service the Hubble Space Telescope, one of the best and most productive scientific instruments ever made. The Saturn 5 out at Huntsville is just a big hunk of metal laying on the ground, completely nonfunctional, and sure, maybe it gets even more pockmarked as the years go by, but it's not like it's going to suddenly vanish or anything. And anyway, unless something has happened, there's another one on display at Kennedy Space Center (I saw that one in the early 80's). I'd say put the $5 million toward servicing the Hubble and actually accomplish some useful exploration, rather than just polishing up a relic of glory days gone by.
The hungry are not dieing from lack of money. They are dieing from corruption, apathy and malice, to name a few. Think Zimbabwe.
I know that feeding a troll usally means that one will get biten but here I go. Lets say we can get this money to actually help these refuges and it does not get eaten up by curruption. What happens to the children these people have during a one year period, who feeds them? And then what happens when the money runs dry? they just starve and so do their new kids. They real need to learn to take care of themselfs, not just accept hand outs.
Remember the Viking sailing ships?
Remember Columbus' sailing ships?
Remember the Conestoga wagons?
Remember the first steps off this planet?
and onto another world?
It tells who we are, like it, or not.
Yes, while we're at it, if the Statue of Liberty begins to fall apart, no worries, we'll just let it fall over.
Effiel Tower? Nah, France surrenders.
Big Ben? I already have a watch!
Taj Mahal? Whatever, we can just visit it virtually since they scanned it with 3D lasers or whatever...
</sarcasm>
What's with all the "who cares" posts? If you don't care, don't donate to fix the rocket. Go feed the hungry or whatever. Jeez, I've said this twice before in the last 24 hours, but geeks/engeneers really will find a way to disagree with anything just for the sake of argument. It's the god damned Saturn V! This ain't just America's history, this machine brought the first MAN to the moon. I say preserve it at all costs!
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
I would say it was a hugely bad idea to leave such a complex piece of machinery outside in the elements, unprotected.
It should be restored to all its glory and made into a prominent display. I went to the Saturn V center at Kennedy just a few months ago, and you can almost hear people's jaws drop when they step into the Saturn V display. It's possibly one of the most historically important machines man has ever built, it should not be allowed to rot and decay outside.
Well said. $2 a day given to the world's starving will not reach the starving, it would line the pockets of corrupt officials or get soaked up in the vast inefficiency the majority of charities operate with.
Space exploration (or historic preservation) and removing world poverty are not mutually exclusive. Ending world poverty requires removing corruption and improving logictics in 3rd world countries, pumping money at them will not solve these problems, it will sustain them.
--
FreeNET user? Comfortable with the adverse selection?
Don't spend money on nostalgia when the next generation of space craft are being built by private companies who are short of cash.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
maybe those wetbacks could fix up the damn antique rocket in exchange for green cards and a bowl of rice a day?
We all save 0.00007c of taxes, they get to give their children a chance to be IPO pump and dump scamsters, everybody wins!
In a short-sighted, cold and logical sort of way, you are absolutely correct. However, we as a species like to think that we are both social and moral creatures and our actions today affect our lives tomorrow. Therefore, just letting the 3rd world starve is not just wrong in a moral sense, it's not smart considering what will happen a few years down the road when the remaining billions come for our throats.
Then again, we (the peoples of the "West") really need to have this discussion. We've needed it for over a hundred years, but no one has been willing to pick it up, for various reasons. USA for Africa is just a Band-Aid (in your face, Bob Geldof!), but we will need to help them somehow, and soon - if for no other reason than our own long-term survival on this planet. The present state of affairs is not sustainable.
Money for nothing, pix for free
This may sound a bit callous, but I think preserving the rocket is more important than feeding 7,000 starving people for a year. The rocket is part of our history; it is a fully functional launch vehicle that may be needed in the future. "Plans and working diagrams" aren't the only things that go into building a rocket: a lot of experience goes into it too, and this can't be shown in plans. All of the original builders of the Apollo are retired, and in another 30 years, all will be dead. You can't simply build a working model off of the plans if all the designers are dead. Having a working model to dissect and recover the technology provides many more clues as to the technology if the designers are dead.
And don't pretend like the Apollos are ancient history. It may not seem like it now, but there will be a time when we need that technology again. Shuttles are one thing, but if we want another manned mission to the Moon, we're going to need the old, powerful rocket technology found in the Apollos. We haven't built them in 30 years, so letting our final working model turn into rust would be foolish.
As for the 7,000 starving people, they don't amount to much. If we feed 'em for a year, they'll die after that anyway. They won't contribute to mankind's future in space. This is the callous part, and many (religious) people probably wouldn't agree with me here, but a rocket is worth more than the lives of 7,000 starving 3rd-world-country-dwellers who will never amount to anything. Think of it in another way: a lot more than 7,000-lives-worth of effort went into the Apollo program, so letting all of that go to waste over only 7,000 current lives wouldn't be worth it.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
People who are dying of famine in many parts of the world are dying because the land they are attempting to farm is not suitable. It is the enviroment that has driven them out. There is nothing that can be done about it, and certainly handing out cash so that these people can continue to try and live in semi-arid conditions is non-sensical.
Think about it this way; if you lived on a clifftop and woke one morning to find that the cliff had eroded and was now only a foot from your house, would you ask for money to divert the sea, or would you just move?
Out of that 5 million, only about 500 thousand is really needed. The rest goes to politics and pork.
If you want to fix it, get a group of volunteers that are willing to fix it themselves and then offer to do it.
As was discussed recently, they have a lot to teach us.
I'm not convinced at all that we should be spending billions of dollars of government money on new launchers when we have a system sitting around that works very nicely, thank you very much.
Sure, a brand new system would be better, but between the brevity of our pass by-with Mars, the vitality of private space programs, and our humbled and abused government finances, perhaps the Saturn should be more then a five million dollar paperweight and conversation piece.
And even beyond that, nothing gives perspective on a subject liking getting to look up close and personal at the gear used to do it. Especially since leading-edge gear from the seventies and earlier (like, say, the Spirit of St. Louis) always looks so DIY to anybody who pays attention.
I found it very energizing when I was a kid to see the Kennedy Space Center Saturn and think "hmm.... that wouldn't be so hard to build at all".
Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
The Saturn V that is standing up is a mockup, the real Saturn V is lying horizontally on its land transport carriages (essentially individual, blue, trailers) Interesting anecdote, back in the 70's someone wanted to take the Saturn V away, to the smithsonian or something. Werner von Braun, outraged, went out one night and smashed in the axles on the transport carriages to prevent their movement. They decided not to take it away. For being in such bad shape it still looks beautiful. I saw it about a month ago (I go to school in huntsville) Very impressive to be a mere 10 feet from the vehilcle. I remember in high school when I visited on a trip they let us sit in one of the rocket nozzles to get our pictures taken (which probably didnt help the damage any) but even as a kid youre awe inspired sitting in a vehicle that could take man to the moon
-philski-
As for the 7,000 starving people, they don't amount to much. If we feed 'em for a year, they'll die after that anyway.
Actually, feeding 7,000 uneducated people living in chaos or under the thumb of corrupt leaders will only leave you with 10,000 or more people to feed next year.... You create MORE suffering.
Feeding the starving, without looking any deeper as to WHY they are starving is about as smart as giving your money to someone with gambling problems.
But what the hell- I'm sure it will make some people feel better about themselves. That's what is important after all, isn't it?
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
Frankly I hope they DO, I would really like to see this country get back into real space exploration and something like that would REALLY kick us into overdrive. I've been saying for a while now what we need is a good competitor for space exploration, once Russia went kaboom we quit going ourselves, nothing like a good pissing match to get us back in space.
--- www.f-theocean.com