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NASA Turns 50
phobos13013 writes "Fifty years ago yesterday, in 1958, President Eisenhower signed the United States Public Law 85-568, National Aeronautics and Space Act to create NASA. In the fifty years since its creation, NASA has made manned missions landing on the Moon, put a space station in orbit, launched numerous unmanned missions to the Moon, Mars, the solar system, and beyond, as well as launching reusable manned spacecraft in orbit. Some of the failures included the loss of two manned spacecraft and their crews as well as the loss of the Apollo 1 crew during a training mission. Although the future of the organization is in question, Americans, and the world, are looking forward to another fifty years of progress including a return trip to the Moon and an eventual manned mission to Mars."
damn it to hell...your post was good until the "Nasa" error...it is spelled "NASA". Never post again.
I grew up reading classic scifi like Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Heinlein, Asimov..... That stuff really got my hopes up. I read that years ago and thought that by now, we should have interstellar travel, contact with extraterrestial entities, faster than light travel, vacations to the moon, colonies on Mars and on and on. But we have none of that. NASA doesn't do anything interesting. It hasn't improved our living conditions. IMHO, NASA is a waste of money and should be abolished. Fsck NASA.
Its about time to send this 50-year agency to retirement. There are good proposals to restructure government-sponsored space activities, with way more focus on development of space, focussed avionics and space technology research and handing pure science over to science organizations. In essence a return to NACA model for aeronautics research, science organizations being in charge of science and then some organizations working as catalysts to commercial space development activities. This, of course, would mean an end to government-run space trucking business ( Shuttle and any other government-operated and built launchers ) which currently takes up better part of a half of the entire space budget. There are gazillions of ways to spend this money better.
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A lot of the initial thrust is wasted on air that gets pushed out of the way, creating an ineffective surface to push against.
IDEA #1
Why not dig a hole about 1000 meters deep (arbitrary for sake of illustration).
Lower the launch vehicle into this hole.
Instead of just allowing the vehicle to push itself out of the hole (much like a cannonball with a controlled burn), augment the launch by attaching a cord to the top of the vehicle to pull it by.
This scenario should greatly decrease the size needed for the primary launch vehicle, and allow cost effective launches.
A parallel hole build next to this one, in which a large container the same weight of the launch vehicle is allowed to cancel the weight of the launch vehicle.
IDEA #2
We've all heard of the proposed tunnel across the Atlantic that will be a vacuum tube, allowing the tube train to travel at extremely high speeds.
Clue: make a vacuum tube in the ground. Pressurize the bottom, making the launch vehicle to rapidly accelerate. Once the vehicle reaches the end of the tunnel, blow the top, and fire the rockets. Viola.
IDEA #3
Create air scoops on the side of the primary launch vehicle, which would force air below the rocket circumferentially , creating a firmer 'platform' upon which to rise. Thus counteracting the loss of thrust to the side.
I should have been an engineer.
if you want NASA to have more money, please feel free to donate your own cash. I want no part of it. Don't force others to fund your desires.