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Narrowing the Space Flight Gap

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the drive-a-dump-truck-through-it dept.

MarkWhittington writes with an article on the AssociatedContent site, discussing the impending US space flight gap. Between 2010 (the end of the shuttle era) and 2015 (expected date for the launch of the Orion project) the United States will have little or no spaceflight capability. This is an obvious concern to some members of Congress and NASA. "Is all, therefore, doom and gloom? Not necessarily. Just over a year ago, NASA chose two companies for its Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems (COTS) program ... The goal of COTS was for the two companies to build prototype space craft capable of delivering crews and cargo to the International Space Station. A second phase of the COTS program would consist of a competition for a contract to actually deliver crews and cargo to ISS after 2010 ... Private industry may well come to the rescue and preserve American access to space, at least until Orion becomes operational."

6 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. I just know this is gonna kill my karma... by JK_the_Slacker · · Score: 5, Funny

    Try 1: In Soviet Russia, the government bails out private industry!

    Try 2: I for one welcome our new private sector spacefaring overlords!

    Try 3 Yes, it can exit the atmosphere, but can it run Linux?

    Try 4: 2010: Google puts up a spacecraft before Microsoft. Chair sales skyrocket (as do some of the chairs).

    There, that should cover it.

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    I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
    1. Re:I just know this is gonna kill my karma... by WorthlessProgrammer · · Score: 2, Funny

      The way I see the 'privatization' of low-earth orbits, is that Microsoft, IBM, and Google compete, then in 2010 Google buys IBM when they realize that they have the best space hardware. In 2012, Google successfully puts up a spacecraft that exceeds NASA specs, about 6 months after the first two Microsoft launches fail due to memory leaks in the control program that was written in VB.Net and SQL Server, and USB 1.2 for I/O. And Google will control the space craft with multi-threaded Python, and was developed by geek students during two Summers of Code, using 12-core IBM blades, with firewire I/O, and a scheduler-kernel only.

      Toyota, in the meantime, will have built a fleet of small, reliable robotic space transports (called the TacomaTransport) controlled by a Sony Playstation 10 and Linux, with an integral Honda robot.

    2. Re:I just know this is gonna kill my karma... by networkBoy · · Score: 2, Funny

      Toyota, in the meantime, will have built a fleet of small, reliable robotic space transports (called the TacomaTransport) controlled by a Sony Playstation 10 and Linux, with an integral Honda robot. Pfffft! Like that will happen. A Honda robot in a Toyota? Get realistic!
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      whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
  2. Re:COTSS? by dgatwood · · Score: 2, Funny

    Cover Our Total Shortsightedness, Silly.

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    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  3. Re:COTS is the problem. by QuickFox · · Score: 2, Funny

    (known as LDCM, because nobody likes the abbreviation 'L8'). [...] we're going to be 4-8 years late An acronym change is not enough to change your f8.
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    Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
  4. Re:Oh noes!!1! by murdocj · · Score: 3, Funny

    The body of knowledge related to engineering manned space flight systems resides 50% in thousands of volumes of documents from Apollo forward, and 90% in the minds of a small group of very capable engineers

    What about the other 75%?