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?"

Comments

Re:Feed The Hungry

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed.

All work on restoring the statue of liberty should cease as well.

Hey Hey

[ZxCv]

At the cost of $2 per day, 5 million dollars wil sustain almost 7,000 refugees/famine victims in less privileged regions of the world for a whole year. I say let the rocket 'depart' since its no longer being used. We can keep the videos, the working diagrams, etc. and generations of the future can 'reconstruct' the rocket through virtual reality whenever they feel the need. That's merely my opinion, though.

Now now, the last thing we need around here is a practical suggestion like that.

Re:Something better to do with the money

[eclectro]

After the moon program closed down in the early 70's, the republican administration at the time (Nixon) did some research into what the next logical step would be: going to mars.

The number NASA came up with then was 300 to 400 billion dollars. And that was 1972 dollars too. Adjusting for inflation, a trillion dollars looks real cheap.

I'm sure you can get NASA to give you any fantasy you want. Instead of mars, we got the fantastic space shuttle that was going to replace all of the unmanned rockets to deliver satellites for companies and the military once a week.

Let me ask you this, is the shuttle deliverying satellites?

Not Really

More delicious irony -- one of the biggest selling points NASA fanboys have been chattering off the top of their head is we need the shuttle to fix the hubble

Well, as you can see in the first link in the parent, that is no more. So much as the next space telescope is concerned, they are putting it in an orbit that is completely unreachable by the shuttle anyway.

I won't get into all the other fantastical promises made by NASA on the shuttle.

Was the shuttle program ever on budget? Not by a long shot.

How about the space station? I know they are going around and around and around in zero G.

What are they proving? That we can kleep a man a long time in space? The russians already did that with Mir.

The truth is the space station was "invented" to give the shuttle a purpose (which really never delivered on a fraction of the promises).

For the same reasons the shuttle was not useful, the space station really isn't either. At least the suttle could land.

Was the space station on budget?
No way (and these are old numbers).

NASA has long said they could develope a cheap space plane to replace the shuttle. After billions of dollars, they have yet to do so

If this was a rap sheet for NASA, they would be in jail.

The fact is there is not a reason for a man to be in space There is no sane argument that can be made for it. Sure "it's neat", but we already went to the moon, and we already know we could go to mars -- it's a question of money which boils down to being financially responsible.

Saying that it could be done for only 100 billion dollars is a bald faced lie, worthy of any other lie that a religious cult would propagate.

Saying that we could afford 90 billion dollars a year is to be blind to all the problems surrounding us now, like seniors having to choose between food and medicine. And don't mention that big lie of a medicare bill that just past too. Hell, to spend a trillion dollars because telepresence is a problem is freakin' insane when my senior citizen mother is about to cancel her health insurance because she can't afford it.

fsck the man on mars

Space travel fanboys need deprogramming, along with proper pharmaceuticals prescribed by a reputable shrink.

I am convinced of this.