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In Leaked Email, NASA Chief Vents On Shuttle Program's End
jerryasher writes "In a leaked memo, NASA Administrator Mike Griffin discusses 'the jihad' to prematurely terminate the Shuttle and what that means for the International Space Station. One implication: there may come a long interval when only our Russian Allies are aboard the Space Station. Add that bit of irony to your new cold war kit and then wonder why Griffin discusses why we wouldn't sabotage the Space Station, and how and why the memo got leaked in the first place."
I hate the fad of anonymous sources today.
Doesn't anonymous source = baseless article?
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
And get something new and awesomer in the skies to replace it.
Something that could get people going wow again would be nice.
With Putin doing his best Stalin imitation lately, it's moronic to trust the Russians to be a reliable stopgap until our new rockets and spacecraft are ready. We need to simply accept the fact that we'll be needing the Shuttle for a little while longer, and budget appropriately.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I would imagine he's covering scenarios. But I'm sure someone will manage to read something sinister in to it.
I think the leaked email was a warning that NASA/Gov't could secretly sabotate the ISS, but I'm not sure to whom.
Was it to Putin's government to get them back in line?
To congressman who oppose allowing us to buy seats on Russian craft?
To Obama or McCain warning them that to fail to back NASA can be used against them in the election?
To Alex Krycek, who is rumored to be an ISS visitor in 2009?
To the black oil alien hybrids that we can and will take down the ISS if we need to?
To PepsiCo/Fritolay that we can and will take down the ISS if we need to?
It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, sent in an email, read on a blog, noticed on twitter.
It's hard to sift what's really going on anymore..
This is the same Mike Griffin that has advocated shutting down manned space programs for AGES..
ISS has been nothing but a money pit so far. If we take an extended vacation from it, so be it.
Are we afraid the Russians will take over it like Northern Georgia or something and decorate it with Soviet nick-nacks? What's the deal?
Table-ized A.I.
It's a serious question since McCain has already said the Russians should be thrown out of the G8 Summit. How likely is he going to be to continue cooperating with the Russians or how happy are they going to be dealing with some one that speaks openly against them? The Cold War is coming back at a very bad time for the ISS.
"Premature"? The shuttle program should have been terminated decades ago when it was clear it wouldn't meet stated design goals, i.e. low cost transportation to orbit. The termination of the shuttle program is very, very post-mature. The only reason it survived is the number of jobs it provided in the right congressional districts.
The more serious question is - how the hell did the email leak out? Is everyone tapping everyone these days?
Anyway NASA, I'm waiting for more moon pics (the ones taken in Utah).
slashdot rocks
Having lived through one such gap in my lifetime I have to say they seem brief at first, but can extend some. A lot more than you would think at first.
It is not acceptable to me to surrender U.S. spaceflight capability. Not for one minute. Not for 12 years. Not at all. Dammit do we have to let the rest of the world own space? Did you hear? There's a lot more space in space than there is land on land. And more resources. There are entire moons made of hydrocarbons. And the conquering of space leads to us learning valuable lessons that help everyone stuck to this ball of mud. And then there's that whole "an 8' length of rebar dropped from low earth orbit can destroy any tank ever made" thing.
Hey, I heard that a retail 12 megapixel camera attached to a retail telescope can, from orbit, discriminate objects as small as fingerprints, and that advanced video analysis software can identify an individual by his gait if not by his impossible-to-mask facial features. Doesn't that make you wonder what the kind or money that launches stuff into orbit could buy? Could they scan you for cancer? Do I have your attention yet?
Obligatory Toynbee Tiles reference. If you don't know what they are, it behooves you to find out.
I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but no. Just no. We will not surrender space. It is not in our national interest to do so. If the odds of survival are 1:9 we'll still have enough volunteers that filtering them is the biggest challenge of the endeavor. Money is not an issue.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
When the banks wrote the mortgages and held them, they were less likely to give money to unqualified buyers. When they were allowed to repackage the debt and sell it to other corporations, to no one's surprise, everyone got greedy and started trading the debt.
I like certain libertarians ideals, but the fact is that regulation is to industry what police are to neighborhoods. If you take a cop off a beat, crime will go up. If you take your eyes off corporate shenanigans, they will go up. This has been obvious from the days of Enron. What we need is reasonable regulation with national standards, state enforcement, and some new laws against the revolving door between business and government. There should be a separation of business and state, for the sake of both.
Of course, you can always argue that the fact that there was regulation that was removed led to the crisis. But you'd be wrong.
Might the Russians decide to sabotage the ISS? How badly do they need us to keep the thing running? Sounds like they don't need us at all.
Here's a wacky idea so bear with me. Could the Russians "steal" the ISS? They have the capability to dock with the ISS but we will not (without their cooperation) between 2011 and 2014. That date of our being unable to reach the station may come sooner if Russia becomes even less "friendly" and the date we can reach the station might be pushed back because of technical difficulties, further budget diversions, etc.
What would they do with the ISS if given free reign over its operation for four years? What COULD they do with the ISS in four years? They could arm it. They could turn it into a spying platform. They could let it rot and fall into the ocean.
I'm sure someone is thinking, why would they arm it? What could they possibly shoot from orbit that they can't already shoot from the ground? If they start to militarize it as a platform for spying then it becomes a target. They might feel the need to put an anti missile defense system to keep the US Navy from putting a SM-3 in a coincident orbit.
That's all crazy talk. The Russians would never use ISS as a military platform, right?
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
... then Richard Nixon would not have been caught at all his bullshit.
Anonymous sources must not only be paid attention to, they must be protected in a Democratic society. Thus the laws protecting whistle blowers, and so on.
How can this be called the premature end to the shuttle program? Shuttles were an ill-conceived idea from the beginning and now they are almost 30 years old. Surely they should have been retired long ago.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The shuttle failed to meet design specifications as you state (cost is only one area in which it failed). But unfortunately, all our eggs are in one basket. Nobody did sufficient forward planning to replace the space shuttle... planning that should have begun no later than the day it first launched.
Nevertheless, you don't throw away the only tool you have, even if it is expensive and unwieldly. Granted, we should have had a replacement for the shuttle a long time ago. But we don't, so that means we fly the shuttle until we do!!!
The PRC initially designed the Shenzhou spacecraft with docking technologies imported from Russia, therefore compatible with the International Space Station (ISS). The Shenzhou 8 unmanned space laboratory module, the Shenzhou 9 unmanned Shenzhou cargo and a manned Shenzhou 10 will be docked in late 2010 to form a first step small orbital space laboratory complex. This first step will allow China to master key technologies prerequisites for the following larger permanent space station. The Shenzhou 11 mission will carry the second crew to the complex
The Cold War is coming back at a very bad time for the US.
When politics turn sour because of internal factors, politicians try to create an external enemy.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1188/1
Time is short. Senior NASA management is committed to beginning the destruction of the tooling used to construct the Space Shuttle's External Tank as early as next month. This destruction is completely unnecessary to support the current Ares 1 production plan because the floor space NASA plans to use is not occupied by the External Tank tooling. The only apparent objective of beginning the destruction of this $12-billion national asset next month, used by both the Space Shuttle and Jupiter Launch System, is to maliciously eliminate any competition to the current plan. In an attempt to put a halt to this unnecessary destruction of government property, the Senate version of 2009 NASA authorization bill sought to make this imminent action of the NASA administrator explicitly illegal. Specifically, the Senate provision directed the NASA administrator "to terminate or suspend any activity of the Agency that, if continued, would preclude the continued safe and effective flight of the Space Shuttle Orbiter after fiscal year 2010." Unfortunately, this provision, that cost us nothing to include yet wisely keeps our options open, was removed from the Senate-House conference bill just before the summer recess.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Man, if SpaceX gets even just the Falcon 1 in orbit successfully soon they're gonna make big bucks. Seriously big.
I hope they succeed.
Send your spendthrift head of state this
.... quite do not understand, why NASA and ESA won t join all their forces to get the ATV and it s planned offsprings running high: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/ATV/SEMNFZOR4CF_0.html It still puzzles me, that such closed allies run amok regarding the nationalistic approach inbuilding those technologies. I truly believe that this would speed up the programs schedule by 50% the least. It seems like the best concept out there, in direct comparison to the american proposal and the Kliper/Parom technology not yet developed by the russians due to unsolid fundings.
In the article it shows he's implying that Russia can do whatever they like with the ISS apart from the unlikely situation where the USA declares war and actively sabotages it. It is a way to say that due to cuts NASA will be completely irrelevant to the ISS after the shuttle is retired.
Who need the shuttle, when NASA+Air Force been sending team to other planets through Chapa'ai
"Vents On Shuttle Program's End" - That just sounds so wrong.
Table-ized A.I.
I hate apple pie and will do my best to censor any talk about it!
Excuse me, but where does "safer" as a value weigh in with the importance of exploring the unknown? Does it scare you? Then stay home and brew some tea.
As for me and mine - if you won't go, I will. Strap a nuke to my butt with 3" of lead for shielding and a 1% chance of survival. But I might get to the great unknown? Let's go!
Help stamp out iliturcy.
"One implication: there may come a long interval when only our Russian Allies are aboard the Space Station..."
AFAICT there will soon be Chinese up there as well - they announced a space walk for later this month yesterday....
So when we get back to the ISS we'd better get used to borsch, vodka and two helpings of No.27....
What's with those bracketed codes after the names in the printed/faxed email, eg (HQ-AA000)? What email system are they using? Just curious that's all ...
Does anyone else still remember all the videos shown on Discovery Channel and the like on the Lockheed Martin "VentureStar"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VentureStar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_X-33
I know they had some technological problems, but somehow I've always had the feeling that the project was canceled /way/ too soon!
I especially like the idea of the Aerospike engine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerospike_engine
But the moment they canceled that project, it was for me a given that they would run into problems with the Shuttle in the years 2010-2015-2020.
Lack of persistence, vision and looking ahead IMHO.
I certainly agree that we should be more interested in reviving Apollo-era technologies. And, along with people inside NASA I certainly agree that they've got a real clusterfuck going by now and really could do lot better.
But, oddly enough, we're actually far less capable of doing things like building Apollo-scale systems than we were back in the seventies. Ya see, that's what happens when a country outsources all of its manufacturing for an entire generation. The manufacturing infrastructure gets torn out to make room for condos and nail salons.
Truth is, we're screwed, We simply don't have the industrial base to build that kind of thing anymore. Not to weld tanks that are big enough. Not to move cargos by rail through as many places. Not to even have the population of machinists and glassblowers and chemical plant technicians to populate the assembly systems.
Should this be a call to arms? Yet another reason to require that kids take industrial arts (as I had to) and that government agencies buy American-made-products? Yes. But for now, we're S.O.L.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
If the first 50 launches blew up on the pad and I was offered the rare privilege of riding in the 51st, I would go. Perhaps I'm insane. Perhaps the people who volunteer for such things all are. The prairie is littered with the arrow ridden corpses of the pioneers. Still they risk it and I would too. Who are you to deny us a beautiful death, reaching for the frontier? Somebody has to go. All of us are given with our life one death. Not all of us get to spend it reaching to expand the realm of all mankind. If there are none better qualified who would go, send me!
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Well, whether we put new vehicles into service or not, we can be damned sure that other countries will keep on motoring along. A few people in this thread have mentioned the Chinese space program. I would have *thought* that somebody would remember that the ESA has been launching craft for years now. But, for that matter, so have the Japanese. And India's program is going nicely. The Brazilian space program is a bit gunshy these days, but, make no mistake, they'll be launching more rockets some time soon. Though we have to wonder how they feel about the Guyanese launch capability, which has been a pretty serious thing for over ten years now.
Folks, there are more governments with space programs then there are well-known Linux distros these days. And plenty of them have or are well on the way to developing their own launch vehicles and facilities. And that doesn't even begin to address all the possible private actors. How many of y'all know how many organizations were vying for the original X Prize? A hell of a lot more than the three or four that most media outlets are aware of. And even that doesn't include some relevant players.
We're entering a world where many space programs are becoming more like seventies Silicon Valley startups than like NASA. For anybody to think that they understand what will be available in three or four years and how just shows that they either haven't looked into it, that they're very warped by Big Company Think, or that they've got their head so far up their ass that they're seeing daylight up their throat.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
Lets face it they have no imagination at all over there they are just another govt. bureaucracy. The shuttle was tired in the 80's. Its a flying Volkswagen bus, they were cool don't get me wrong but, its time is done...
No. he sure didn't, did he? Well.. the next time you don't go making Stalin comparisons until someone has killed a million of their own people at a minimum. I mean... there are standards here.
In fact, what actually happened was Karl Rove took a trip to the Crimea to meet with the Saakashvili, the President of Georgia, and then Georgia gets a wild hair up their ass right after Karl Rove left the Crimea and started bombing civilian targets within S. Ossetia without provocation.
"...Since Karl Rove skipped out on his subpoena to appear before the House Judiciary Committee last month, the whereabouts of Bushâ(TM)s longtime political strategist have emergedâ"Rove was in Crimea, Ukraine, for the fifth annual Yalta European Strategy summit. Also in attendance: former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Hereâ(TM)s an excerpt from his panel discussion about how U.S. policy toward Ukraine would change, if at all, after Novemberâ(TM)s American presidential elections...."
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20080815_karl_roves_ukranian_sojourn/
Putin actually reacted to stop Georgia from bombing civilian targets in S. Ossetia
Bush and Cheney told you they wanted another war before the election. They haven't been allowed to invade Iran like they wanted to, so they had to arrange a different war... between Georgia and Russia.
Worst haiku ever.
It is interesting how both source and the discussion here is almost entirely about the USA versus Russia. The fact that Europe is also involved, and now actually has it's own (unmanned, but there is talk about a manned version) space vehicle to reach the ISS (the ATV) independent of either Russian Soyuz/Progress or American Shuttle flights, is completely ignored. Europeans will also continue to fly aboard Russian Soyuz flights (certainly now Kourou is ready to launch Soyuz rockets).
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem delendam esse
Soviet Russia - 1 : USA - 0
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I'll take Griffin's assertions of context at face value and assume he thinks it's the right thing to replace the STS with Constellation.
He did, however, say the retirement of the STS was not based on engineering. I can see why he might say that.
The most incredible thing about the STS is the main engine, both incredibly amazing and incredibly problematic. The development of those machines as been long and winding. Here is a nice summary of the problems they had just up to first flight.
The thing is, work on improving those engines has continued non-stop since 1972, and finally their performance and reliability is in the ballpark of where is was originally spec'd to be.
Mainly due to new fuel and oxidizer turbopumps.
And now they throw it all away. I just don't get it. It's too Arrow-esque for me.
Why not re-do the STS instead of re-doing Apollo?
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
You can blame Bush as much as you want for the Fannie Mae debacle, but if you actually have been following the issue for twenty years, you would find in the Op Ed web pages of the Wall Streetn Journal a steady stream of Republican voices arguing that the finances of these two institutions are basically crap and have been that way for decades. Democrats have resisted any sort of legislative effort to bring reform to these two agencies. In fact, if you look at whose donating to whose campaign you could see that Wall Street overwhelming prefers Obama because they are look for the big handout to shareholders whereas Republicans are always more inclined to let companies simply fail.
This is my sig.
Dudes, usa is already bankcrupt, and not even selling all assets will fix it, well.. unless they count nukes as assets.
Unless USA pulls out all their area51 hitech and says, "ok we have spaceships, death rays etc..., time travel, we rule earth, now STFU and pay up"
All empires fall, even in stargate /\
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
The primary problem is that it's a lot harder to convince people to allow speech than it is to convince people to ban speech. Give people an inch and they'll ban everything that they don't like.
Myself, I always default to believing that speech should be free unless it's completely clear that the damage caused by the speech cannot be counteracted with more free speech.
On a related note, I wish that no one was allowed to say anything on TV without first taking a legal oath that what they say is true under penalty of perjury. (And they would further be prevented from adding "I think" or any other prevarications to their talk.) The Republican party would essentially be barred from advertising in any way.
Nevertheless, would I ever want to disallow their hateful damaging lies by actually passing a law that made it illegal for them to spew their economy and world damaging nonsense?
No. And honestly, it's a LOT harder for me to say that than it is for me to stick up for neo nazis or other hate groups. That's because, unlike neo nazis, the Republicans are actually successful with their hate speech. Seriously, they actually have people convinced they are a party of small government. (biggest lie ever)
But, I still want it all protected.
Cow Cube
Surely they have documentation or can reverse engineer stuff. And if no one makes 512k, then use a damn higher specced part. So that 32meg chip is .05% worse, but run it in raid64 mode with 63 redudency levels for gods sake. Its like saying, oh its too hard. Bull shit it is. Just VM it if you dont have the hardware. The shuttle isnt going to Jupiter, we already have other space hardware with higher specs flying.
They just wont do it because theres no ROI in it, and no bean counter will say, "ok do your techy magic and create something 'thesame' but is new" .
I cant imagine why no one could trust a modern cpu cut into say 32 cores, and runs the same code 32 times in vm mode to emu the old hardware. You could test it 10000x faster with todays sims than in the 80s.
Give google 8billion and they could do it.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Nothing wrong with old OSes really, after all its all logics and math, and math doesnt change. 1+1 is as old as anyone can guess.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
by israel.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Clearly a way to make dollars, use it to full capacity, ie 4 scientists, + 3 tourists, $60m/month is no small change.
Send the acedemics back to economic school.
Do what capitalists do best.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
And so we are witness to the start of the great liquidation sale of the US. It's been going on for years but now we see program after program get closed, slashed, reduced and buried. Is Rome burning yet?
....... Thus ends my attempt at wit or whatever
Or the next bond film, or
Austin powers 4.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
We have combat airplanes and ships that receive a heck of a lot LESS stress than the shuttle receives, and we replace them in less than 30 years. The cost per flight is outrageous on the shuttle. They basically REBUILD THE SHUTTLE every flight! Engines stripped down and overhauled, tires, flight control hydraulics, etc. You just can't dump out the port-a-potty and put it back on the launch pad like was originally designed. If the shuttle worked as it was designed, it would be one thing, but just as with every government program, it is behind schedule, over priced, and under used.
If you want people (Apart from the Slashdot circle jerk group think I mean) to take you seriously, stop intentionally peppering your posts with hyperbole and inaccuracies.
I have an instinctive response to people who think screaming their political diatribes at me is an effective way to interact, that being to ignore you.
For example, "Forget dreaming at all, for we can no longer afford it. Our future has been pissed away in 8 years".
I mean, could you be any more chicken little if you tried? The sky isn't falling, and screaming it over and over like you're doing doesn't make it so.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
A few years ago, I was looking for a pie chart that showed the top 10-20 things my taxes go towards. The best way to manage priorities is to set the budget relative to other priorities. Health care, military, edutainment, social security and NASA are some of my budget concerns.
Couldn't find it.
Why? Because each department uses different budget techniques. They don't use a standard accounting method. Crazy huh?
Most citizens think that NASA gets between 2-10% of our budget. Er, they're wrong. NASA gets about 0.5% of the budget. Does that funding level really reflect the priorities of our country?
Full disclosure - I used to work as a contractor on the space shuttle and space station projects. Generally, JPL does better off-earth science for the price, but "manned spaceflight" is what gets the public excited. Low Earth orbit is boring for the same reason time-share vacations are a bad idea. Been there, done that.
So what if human missions decline? The space station is primarily political in purpose, and science will advance at a far higher rate per dollar invested if NASA rebalanced its budget to more robotic missions. See for example: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/machine.html
Wow, really? Tell me more. I thought sponsoring *coughRocket* industry will allow us (yep, I'm Russian) to create more... rockets?
And I don't think that even our stupid government is stupid enough to outsource nuclear technology to our (not yours) not-so-peaceful neighbors.
America does not profit from the "captured oil fields". The profits are going to Iraq, when we *buy* their oil at *market prices*.
Restricting the supply and quality of Iraqi oil keeps the price of Saudi oil high, which in turn keeps the price of Texas oil high.
First rule of Texas politics: "ya dance with them what brung ya". Honest politicians stay bought!
I didn't see a link to the memo, here it is:
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=29133
Whine and bitch about a O-ring blowing, Ice Encrusted, insulation shedding, Astronaut wasting piece of over budgeted crap.
We want space access that actually works, so until you get anti-gravity drive working we will have to do it with rocket and capsule, not Wylie E Coyote rocket powered brick covered glider theatrics.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
A bad policy is one which leaves you at some point in the future with no good options.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well, what Russia did is small potatoes compared to what America's foreign policy has been for quite some time. They have attacked a country without provocation and have been occupying it for the past 5 years
What a pile of horseshit.
If you're talking about Iraq*, its actions under Saddam Hussein were perfect examples of provocation. Indeed, Iraq acted so badly that President Bill Clinton -- a Democrat and therefore a super-genius! -- President Clinton repeatedly launched missiles in its general direction.
It's good that you're able to forget, just to make a smartassed comment.
if the US set the example returning to a non-interventionist foreign policy
If the US did that you'd be bitching about the ISOLATIONIST United States.
Because you're just another aintellectual working backwards from the conclusion "the United States is wrong" and selectively omitting facts until you've got a cute little joke.
--
* it's necessary to have this qualifier, because the fantasyland you inhabit might have the United States invading Canadia or Oblivia and occupying Dakistan for the past five years.
Sounds more like "retire equipment from the Carter era and replace it with new equipment based on designs from the Kennedy-Johnson era."
Perhaps only a minor quibble, but hey.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
The ATV is fully human-rated. Slap some seats in there and call it good!
Then again, for ESA to put an astronaut up on its own would probably require an amendment to whatever treaties it's bound by....
(It's never too late to join the Renaissance)
When I went down to Marshall Space Flight Centre last year, I saw it all laid bare. NASA is still stuck in the Cold War.
All the presentations were highly nationalistic, and the histories omit the Russians except as adversaries. The TVs at the cafeteria were set to Fox News. And in private moments, the engineers are still griping about the switch to metric units for the Ares rocket. Some of them don't even know what a Newton is!
I don't know why NASA continues to persist in this mindset, but it's not going to help them in their long-term goals.
(It's never too late to join the Renaissance)
Your Russian heritage duly noted - there was a tremendous fear post-breakup that that's exactly what would have happened. Not that the government would have sanctioned it, but that economic survival would have driven nuclear and rocket scientists to defect/emigrate en-masse to unfriendly countries.
Feeding your family is a damn good motivator.
When Hernando Cortez arrived in Mexico, he ordered his ships to be burned. As there was no turning back, no options left open other than to proceed ahead, his men were incredibly well motivated.
I'm going to propose that having the shuttle program intact is possibly the biggest hindrance to advancement. As long as it is there, any viable alternatives are so easily canceled by Congress whenever they need an influx of cash by cutting NASA's budget, just as they've done dozens of times before over the last couple of decades.
However, with the Shuttle program completely disassembled, their ships burned as it were, and the embarrassment that would be seen that the United States has no viable space program while China and India are out doing spacewalks, Congress will be well motivated to make sure that NASA has all the funding they need. While it could just be the romantic in me, or simply wishful thinking, this provision might perhaps bring in a golden age of space that we've not seen since the race to the moon with the Russians in 1969.
The
Maybe NASA could buy flights on Arianne 5 with a modified ATV ( c.f. Jules Verne)? Both are intended to be used for human flight. Arianne needs man-rating and there are designs for modifications to the ATV to carry astronauts. It's maiden flight has shown that it works. Just while they're busy building their own rockets. And what about Atlas and Delta? Weren't there proposals to man-rate them too? They're pretty reliable and capable of lifting a few people into LEO.
Looks like the race to Mars will be between China and Russia.
Stick Men
You know, Eisenhower warned Americans about that, in the late 50s. But this culture has that memory hole thing, and after a few years things just sort of disappear. We just need to Oh, look how tiny my new cell is!
Eisenhower was a wise, experienced leader. What he said made sense.
Now, if anybody else says exactly the same thing, they're 'kook lunatic fringe'. Got it? Now get back to MICTV.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Hmm... I never thought of it that way before. So what you're saying is that different nations owns different parts of the space station. Now, lets say Russia is "forced" to protect its "citizens" in Ukraine and decides to invade, triggering Cold War II. This of course will sour their relations with the US. Will they then draw a line demarcating their "territories" on the space station and require passports to cross? What happens if a fight breaks out there and one party takes over the space station. Will this be equivalent to invading another country's soil?
Dude, read the letter. Griffin specifically addresses this and says that the supposed conflicts for those facilities is so much hogwash. RTFA.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
They have been doing that since the 70s, when it was shown that minorities were being racially profiled and either not receiving loans or paying higher interest. And while that is still the case thirty years later, the current problem has nothing to do with thirty year old legislation, and everything to do with corporate faith that their newly unregulated wagers will still be covered by our tax dollars. This year alone they will receive 130 billion dollars in bail outs, just for Fannie, Freddie, and Bear Stearns. That's about 50 billion more than we'll spend on "education."
There's an excellent BBC documentary called Super Rich that has some interesting interviews straight from the horses' mouths.
OBSOLETE
does that bureauCRAZY
not get?
RR NOTE:
http://www.unknowncountry.com/mindframe/opinion/?view=all
hypersapce hyper-space Transfer of Energy Through Time and Coupling of Parallel Universes
http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/transfer_of_energy.htm
Philadelphia Experiment: The Current Whereabouts of the USS Eldridge
http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/current_whereabouts.htm
Roosevelt's 3.5 terms + Truman's 1.5 terms = 20 years, not 30 as the parent stated... but why go with the correct numbers when you can exaggerate and sound so much better?
During the Eisnehower era, congress was still controlled by democrats, excepting his first 2 years. Of the next 4 elected presidents, 3 were democrats, and the democrats controlled congress for the entire time.
More to the point, no president in that entire time, Democrat or Republican, seriously challenged the New Deal. It was only with the election of Regan that things truly changed. Even then I don't think the Reps took over Congress until midway through his term.
So that's actually, what, 1980 - 1932 = 48 years? If anything, I was playing it down.
Russia has already told us that they are willing to break treaties and renew aggressions over (relatively) minor issues. They are and have been very aggressive, even when everybody knew they did not have the muscle to back it up.
The concern -- my concern anyway -- is that they have not been trustworthy and might do something stupid. In fact they haven't been trustworthy. They have taken every opportunity to leverage every advantage they have against the United States.
Effective control of the ISS for a few years is actually a pretty big lever for them to pull. I have no doubt they would lean on it if they thought it would gain them something. To me that is not acceptable.
How would you know to what "minor" issues I referred? I didn't say! Are you just assuming, or were you trying to read my mind? Either way your opening statement has no foundation.
Sure they are suffering negative press over the Ossetia thing! Why shouldn't they? Did you really pay attention to some of the things they threatened to do?
What do you mean by "rather trustworthy"? You mean as trustworthy as our own government? Less? More? That is a pretty poor standard to be using. I will certainly agree with you that far. But it is beside the point. I meant trustworthiness in a more absolute sense, not a relative one. "Rather trustworthy", in today's atmosphere, is not a good recommendation.
And I certainly do not blame someone for taking advantage of the cards they hold. Blame does not enter into the equation. When (at least in part) you are playing for the same pot, you do not show your hand to the other players... much less give them cards, like we would be doing with the space shuttle situation. That is a stupid way to play.
Obviously you do not understand the long-term usefulness of the ISS, or the importance of it as a symbol. You may not care but a lot of people do. It is the people who do that count here. I am well aware of the vulnerabilities and strengths of the ISS, but you seem to have missed my point.
The only reason that running the shuttle delays its replacement is because of shoddy planning, stupid funding decisions by the government (along with voters and special interests), and the bureaucracy that NASA has become. That was my point... this was ill-conceived, ill-planned, and not well carried out. I made that argument when the schedule was announced years ago, and recent political situations (not just Russia) have been proving my point. These projects (and government budgets) have been too short-sighted.
And you underestimate the importance of people in space, as well. Both as a practical matter and as a symbol. It is very important in both respects. I do not intend to argue and I do not expect to convince you, but I stand by that statement, and I believe that future events will bear me out.