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Ares Manager Steve Cook Resigns From NASA
FleaPlus writes "Steve Cook, project manager for the Ares I-X, Ares I, and Ares V rockets, announced that he will resign from NASA MSFC after 19 years at the agency, leaving for an executive position at Dynetics, Inc. This raises doubts about the future of the Ares program, which has been plagued with development problems and massive cost/schedule overruns since its inception. Steve Cook also oversaw the (since discredited) 2005 ESAS study which scrapped NASA's prior plans to adapt already-existing commercial rockets for human/beyond-LEO exploration in favor of internally developing the Ares rockets."
I know how to use MS Project - I'm qualified! I'll send my resume. First, I'll have to get aquainted with some Congresscritters so they can order NASA to hire me!
I need ajob.
Sounds like there's going to be new disappointing information coming out in the near future about the Ares program.
Here I sit, all broken hearted.
Came to poop, but only farted.
He is leaving NASA to become a scientologist? This is a sad loss for science.
When the going gets tough, the tough gets going (out the door).
BTW, who thought solid propellant primary propulsion was a good idea (no rocket scientist but you got zero control of the burn).
Why would the departure of Steve Cook raise doubts about the future of an entire program? If that is the case, then NASA really needs to work on hiring and/or training more Program Managers.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
What's really interesting is that much Russian space technology hasn't changed from the 70s as a result of limited funding. As a result, they've pretty much got all the bugs out of their craft and it's very reliable. I think it's impressive that the American space hardware is just as reliable considering equally strenuous time constraints and stupid management in the US. Just imagine what could be accomplished if these space agencies were globally integrated, well-funded and properly managed. Spaceflight continues to be the crowning achievement of humanity; something we can all be proud of, no matter where we're from.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
Maybe he's going to build some space-ships that look like DC-8s, and fly to the Galactic Confederacy to meet Xenu.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
Regardless of the reason for construction, a vehicle capable of interstellar travel is an impressive feat of engineering.
[http://it-tastes-so-good.blogspot.com] Are you hungry?
Steve Cook, project manager for the Ares .... which has been plagued with development problems and massive cost/schedule overruns since its inception. Steve Cook also oversaw the (since discredited) 2005 ESAS study...
So, has he done anything good lately? Either the summary is very unfair to the guy or this Dynetics thing is doomed.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
This wasn't in the summary, but it's also worth noting that in his 19 years at NASA, Steve Cook was also manager of the failed X-33, X-34, and Delta Clipper (after it was transferred to NASA). I'm trying to find validation, but I think he was also manager for the failed ISS Propulsion Module project as well.
In fact, I've been earnestly looking, and I can't find a single example of a project he managed which didn't end overbudget and in utter failure. The only possible exception I can think of is the Delta Clipper, which actually started under somebody else's management, experienced some success, and was killed off so NASA could focus on the X-33 (also managed by Steve Cook).
The following post by a (now-former) NASA engineer does a great job of summarizing what Steve Cook was like as a manager, although Deger blames it more on NASA management culture than Steve Cook himself:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=18523.msg467693#msg467693
My cut is: the story was "The stick is safe in every way". This made the program not look at problems with the stick that could have been taken care of with some careful engineering design work. Thrust Oscillation, Vibro-acoustics, and SRB disposal all have engineering design solutions, but the party line up front was "none of these are a problem". Any engineer that attempted to fix these problems was removed from the program and made into what the Japanese call a window watcher. I was one of them for trying to get the program to realize the stack was going to be not healthy after an abort and this fact needed to taken care of. I even had a simple design solution to the problem, to take care of it.
I have heard many people that tried to fix TO [thrust oscillation] were removed. I bet the same happened to the first people that recognize vibro-acoustic were an issue that need to be dealt with.
I am in the process of doing my best to design solutions to these problems. It may not be possible because there is no performance margin left.
And to this day, the requirements have not still not been defined.
Danny Deger
Edit: And none of this was caused by Mr. Cook. He did his job exactly as he was trained to do by NASA.
If We are to REALLY get private space off the ground, THEN WE MUST fund Bigelow. Now. The reason is that we need him to get his production line going and start building ANOTHER destination or more. The easiest and cheapest way to pull this off is to buy a sundancer from Bigelow and attach it to the ISS and use it for storage. Then buy the BA-330 and attach it as well. The BA-330 can be used for lots of scientific storage. It would have the ability to place lots of science experiments in there. Later switch to using the Sundancer for living (much much quieter than the tin cans). Also create an X-prize (like COTs) for a "tug" to do-orbit some of our old sats and put up a fuel depot. If we do this, we can clean up our space while at the same setting up private companies to be hired by other nations. But if we want to get to the moon by say 2017, then we need to push private with some incentives.
If Steve Cook's track record is what it takes to get a cushy "executive position," where do I sign up? I can probably lead several failed engineering projects in a row, if I am willing to ignore ethics and I try hard enough.
-Todd
Omne ignotum pro magnifico.
Flea, normally, we see eye to eye and agree on most everything, but you are dead wrong here. The X-33, 34, and Delta Clipper deaths can be blamed on Congress and Bush. The X-33 WAS delayed on the tanks, but Bush's admin killed it (contrary to opinion, it was NOT NASA that killed it; History is funny about that; Bush saw that many things were blamed on just about everybody else even though a number of people are now out and out saying that they were doing what Bush's admin said to do). At the time that the X-33 was killed, it was ready to test fly. The DOD tried for 5 VERY LONG YEARS to be allowed to simply launch it and test it. BUSH PERSONALLY SAID NOT A CHANCE IN HELL. They forbade it. Likewise, X-34 was killed by Bush's people. As to the Delta Clipper, that was Clinton's screw up. He should have been smart and continued funding of BOTH X-33 and the Clipper. I never thought that the clipper really made sense for cargo launch from Earth, but it was perfect for the moon, and for people. To blame Mr. Cook for having been on these projects is dead wrong. He did excellent work, but was in the wrong place at the wrong times. I think that it is a lose to NASA for his leaving. OTH, perhaps, he will be able to build real LVs.
Really reliable except for a series of Soyuz spacecraft that nearly burned up on reentry, due to the thrust unit not being released properly. They still have no idea what is causing it. See for example: http://www.universetoday.com/2008/04/20/soyuz-crew-safe-after-a-violent-re-entry-and-landing-400km-off-target/
Marvin knew: "Think of a number, any number..."
http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/08/29/2047237/Communication-Lost-With-Indian-Moon-Satellite
I heard even the Indians are taking a pass on the services of Stevo.
Steve Cook has done more to damange the US space program than any foreign enemy government could hope for. Now that he's gone, maybe things can start to get back on track. He will /not/ be missed.
Flea, normally, we see eye to eye and agree on most everything, but you are dead wrong here. The X-33, 34, and Delta Clipper deaths can be blamed on Congress and Bush.
Do you have any references for your claims? I'm not suggesting you're wrong of course, I'd just like to read up more on it. From what I've read, the X-33 seems to have failed largely due to the requirement of having to test many high-risk technologies in a single prototype, instead of validating the technologies individually. With the X-34, Wikipedia sez, "when the first flight vehicle was near completion, the programme died after NASA demanded sizable design changes without providing any new funding, and the contractor, Orbital Sciences, refused." The Delta Clipper I thought was progressing along nicely, although its minuscule budget was cancelled in favor of the X-33.
To blame Mr. Cook for having been on these projects is dead wrong. He did excellent work, but was in the wrong place at the wrong times.
This is actually something I've been trying to get better clarification on, without much luck: How much of the blame for NASA's failed attempts at developing new launch vehicles should be placed on Steve Cook, versus NASA MSFC, NASA in general, the executive branch, or Congress. If anybody has additional insights regarding this question, I'd love to hear.
Danny Deger is a dipshit. He has tried since entering NASA to get into design work but he simply isn't qualified.. that's why he's an astronaut trainer. Rather than go get the qualifications, he makes waves.. and shitty books.
Basically, if it appears on NASA Watch, it's bullshit, ignore it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Yep, Ares P2P network might use some improvements...
Thanks for the memories, NASA.
It's about time.
Just imagine what could be accomplished if these space agencies were globally integrated, well-funded and properly managed.
That's like asking for dehydrated water.
One might suspect that his departure would raise hopes and not doubts. Consider that if he was project manager of a project that experienced bad management results, maybe it was about damn time the helm was given to someone else.
Spaceflight continues to be the crowning achievement of humanity; something we can all be proud of, no matter where we're from.
Let me guess: you're from the US? Spaceflight is just another technological achievement. Something great for propaganda but FAR behind things like industrialisation, automotives, ships, trains and so on.
Ascending into beings of pure energy, that could be a crowning moment. Propelling something into space is just another result of plain old technological progress.
Basically, if it appears on NASA Watch, it's bullshit, ignore it.
Sorry - not everything on NASA Watch is bullshit. Granted - being all hell-bent on whistle-blowing NASA means a lot of bullshit does surface there. But it's not all crap. The problem, of course, is separating the wheat from the chaff.
I was about to say the same thing - Danny Deger is always 110% right but completely unappreciated by his bosses. Or so his story goes, in reality, he's an complete loon. After he was scoffed at on the sci.space.* newsgroups, I'm unsurprised to find him in bed with Kieth Cowing. (Another complete loon.)
Just imagine what could be accomplished if these space agencies were globally integrated, well-funded and properly managed.
Forget space... Just imagine what humanity could do as a race if our governments were globally integrated, well-funded and properly managed. Too bad we will never see it in our lifetime.
Or efficient bureacracy. :/
krenshala
Read this for most of what you want to know. There is more, but not on-line.
Actually, the issue with detaching the thrust unit is that one of a number of bolts didn't fire. The unit ended up tearing itself off due to aerodynamic drag, but there's evidence this issue has been around since the first Soyuz missions. There was a pretty good article on it in the June 2009 AIAA magazine. PDF here: http://www.aiaa.org/Aerospace/images/articleimages/pdf/Soyuz_JUN2009.pdf
Marvin knew: "Think of a number, any number..."
Ares was a nasty god of bloodlust and slaughter. Why would anyone name a, supposedly, peaceful civilian program after him?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
What's even funnier is how many people will deny it, no matter how much supporting evidence accumulates.
From the article you linked: "However, this was no surprise to those working on the program, with new information now showing that engineers and designers had protested at the very moment they were informed of a management decision to build a composite LH2 tank."
Do you have any idea if (X-33 manager) Scott Cook was the one who made that poor management decision, was merely a supporter of it, or if he fought it?
Spaceflight continues to be the crowning achievement of humanity
I agreed with everything you said up to this point. What about the elimination of smallpox? The Internet? Sanitation? Prenatal genetic testing? I won't argue that space flight has been a terrific triumph of engineering, but I'd hesitate to say it's the most important and impressive thing humans've ever done. Say it again when we have a permanent settlement on another planet and maybe I'll change my mind, but for now I'd rank it not quite at the top. Certainly very, very high on the list, tho'.
Space is more important than that. There will always be dissidents and those folks need a place to go. One of the reasons the US grew to such power was we were the release valve for so many other countries. Anyone unhappy with their homeland could go to the 'new world' and if they didn't like how things went there they could just 'go west' until they didn't have to even see another settler much less a government agent. Sadly that is gone in todays world. There is no where for those of us who disagree with how things are, no where for us to go and live without having someone tell us what to do. All the land is taken, it may not be in use but someone has claimed it and if you build it into a viable home they'll come and tell you that at gunpoint. This is why I consider space so vitally important. A one world government is meaningless in comparison to that sort of freedom. Even if you personally don't take it up you'll benefit that those who strongly disagree with how things are done since they can just leave and go knowing they'll never have to deal with those problems again. Both sides benefit.
... that is why cryonics is a better choice than being buried in the ground for worms or burned to ash... there is at least a chance. Not like you can take your money with you when you die anyways, the kids should have paid attention on how to make their own fortune and not rely on inheritance, I haven't, neither did my dad.
As for seeing it in our life times... well
The Goal: A long simple life filled with many complex toys.
Disclaimer: I am an employee of NOAA
Your words on "having to test many high-risk technologies in a single prototype, instead of validating the technologies individually" are true. That is very similar to what is happening with the joint NASA/NOAA/DoD program, The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS).
NPOESS' gigantic cost overruns are mainly from an experimental imager named VIIRS being placed onto the constellation. The type of contract used for the acquisition doesn't help either..
WTF? Ares has a manager? P2P my ass! I'm using one swarm for now and on...
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
We've already had the bad news - moon and mars are utterly unattainable with the current budget. Everyone's said it over the last few weeks, and I just heard it reiterated again in a dinner talk by Charles Kennel, who used to be a NASA associate administrator and is now on the Augustine Commission. So if you're Cook, you know your baby got knifed. No harm in bailing.
Kennel said he thinks it's time we suck it up and treat our international partners like actual partners, including depending on them for launch capability when we need to (after all, we already depended on Russia for a few years after Columbia) - and for really big projects like moon or mars, not go it alone when there's really nothing to gain by doing so.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Really reliable except for a series of Soyuz spacecraft that nearly burned up on reentry, due to the thrust unit not being released properly. They still have no idea what is causing it. See for example: http://www.universetoday.com/2008/04/20/soyuz-crew-safe-after-a-violent-re-entry-and-landing-400km-off-target/
Any landing you can walk away from is a success, and the crew survived, didn't they? How would a shuttle deal with this sort of punishment, you think?
If given a choice to travel on either a Soyuz or a shuttle, I'd fly on a Soyuz in a heartbeat. Not that anyone will ever ask me of course...
If Soyuz has a severe problem during landing, it ends up in another country.
If the Shuttle has a severe problem during landing, it blows up. There is literally no room for error.
Do you see where I'm going here? There were likely some gross oversights that led to the incident you linked to -- however, by virtue of the fact that Soyuz is both simple and mature, the craft is able to survive the statistical fluke of a faulty explosive bolt.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
That's really uninformed and outdated scare mongering. The soyuz spacecraft did NOT nearly burn up, it entered in a ballistic trajectory (i.e.without lift). This is uncomfortable, and undesirable as it is a backup emagency mode, which causes brief periods of high G and causes the craft to land off-course but is still safe. The problem was investigated, fixes determined, and recent soyuz launches work fine. Cites : http://www.spaceflightnow.com/station/exp16/080422descent.html http://www.universetoday.com/2008/04/24/soyuz-hard-landing-the-facts/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/23/nasa_says_soyuz_all_fixed_now/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TMA-13
So the guy leaves a couple of turds on the rug at NASA, then slinks out the back door to work for a private company. And people think corporations do a better job of running things than the government?
NASA probably didn't know any better when they hired him. What's Dynetics' excuse?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
[...] Ares program, which has been plagued with development problems and massive cost/schedule overruns since its inception. Steve Cook also oversaw the (since discredited) 2005 ESAS study [...]
So, the guy's name is associated with development problems, massive cost / schedule overruns and discredited studies, yet we are supposed to care that this guys is finally out?
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
... and run by the UN. Or Saddam Hussein. Or insert our favorite strongman name here.
If it were to exist a greater integration between governments, it won't be a safe bet to count on Western-style democracy to rule.
I don't know about you, but I am quite happy with the lack of such "global integration".
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
This is exactly the world we would be living in if Germany won WWII.
And, if you think about it, all the Soviet and US space technology were "hand me downs" from the German military effort.
Q: For just how long was Bush Emperor of America?
A: Not for a single nanosecond, the US has Presidents not Emperors.
Q: Why is the US a failed federation masquerading as a nearly failed state?
A: In order of most blame: voters (not necessarily citizens hah), citizens, Congress, Presidents, and States.
That's right, the buck stops with the US voters! Not the other way around! You have yourself to blame. The truth sucks and I bet you can't handle it.
Truth is you've had and still have better politicians than you ever deserved. Yeah they suck but you suck worse.
300,000 pieces, all built by the cheapest bidder.
This is a good thing.
Neil Armstrong got to the moon first because the American German scientists were better than the Russian German scientists.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If Soyuz has a severe problem during landing, it ends up in another country.
If the Shuttle has a severe problem during landing, it ends up in different countries.
When it comes to dying in a fireball, I'll take a nearly over a really any day.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Apollo 1 quote from discovery channel interview:
Astronaut: "That wiring is pretty bad."
Flight Controller: "I can't say anything about it or I'll lose my job".
After that disaster there was a period of very good management focusing on ability instead of political connections, but then it crept back in years later, another disaster, now creeping back in again.
NASA is pretty well a global organisation anyway. Some of my education is Australia was paid for by NASA simply because I went to classes in the same building as a hypersonic shock tunnel. The trick would be finding a way to subcontract to the Russians without politics creeping in
If Soyuz has a severe problem during landing, it ends up in another country.
Usually it ends up in another region of Russia, just due to the size of the latter.
And that's exactly the same reason America launched the a satellite and manned spacecraft to orbit first!
Oh. Wait.
The whole problem with NASA is it became hopelessly politicized. Thus, as has been proved with the Bush administration, planning was done in the interest of the 'good old boys', rather than scientific and engineering reality.
That is why the shuttle was not re-furbished and failing components, like the booster tank foam re-designed so it didnt fall off.
The shuttle should be re-ferbed, and more built if needed, see the F15 aircraft programs. Commercial competition should be embraced not excluded and rational program risk analyses re-instated but most of all NASA needs to be run by senior engineers not political flaks.
I agreed with everything you said up to this point. What about the elimination of smallpox?
What about it?
The Internet?
I'd be more impressed if we weren't fighting over net neutrality right now. The internet is not sufficiently inherently peer to peer.
Sanitation?
In which we take dirty water from a river, clean it, shit in it, half-clean it, and put it back in the river for the next city to clean and drink and shit in and put back in the river? Not working out so well in the USA right now. More and more people are finding their tapwater unsafe to drink and having to resort to bottled water.
Prenatal genetic testing?
What? We don't even need this. Just stop preserving so many throwbacks and the genetics will improve on their own. Allowing throwbacks to breed is a massive failure of our society. I understand the slippery slope reasons why we can't regulate it, of course.
I think the crowning achievement of humanity to date has been the fact that we're not extinct. We do seem to be working on rectifying that situation by making our habitat less livable, though.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The Huntsville Times (of all places) gets the story half right and half sensationalistic speculation based on ignoring the rest of the facts, and in posting it here the summary turns to 25/75, prompting shadow tippers to pretend they know enough to continue the line of assumed criticisms and innuendos.
Cook has been on this project since it began, working his way up and filling bigger shoes capably, including those of his previous supervisor. Now he's leaving with the blessings of NASA to rejoin his previous supervisor, working for a contractor specializing in space craft test telemetry and analysis, including that of (The Rocket Boys' "Miss Riley"? no. My Shiny Metal Ass? no. Wait for it...) Ares.
Cook is not leaving the project, he's only leaving federal employment. That's not necessarily true, he may be tasked with other work, but figure the odds they'll waste his experience on something else as long as Ares is viable.
Now, my money says it's not viable and will get canceled and Cook will continue to make good money elsewhere, but at this point neither NASA nor Dynetics is betting that way, and that's how the story should have been written if it had been intended to be journalism. Had it been, it may have even been reported as such here. Of course that would never stop such dedicated and learned critics from toppling every perceived ivory tower with their Tonka Trucks of Truth as long as the facts can be safely kept outside the sandbox.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Sounds like Microsoft and Google...ok nevermind.
In my country there is problem, and that problem is transport. It take very very long, because Kazakhstan is big.
Amazing what 24 hours and a press release can do when combined with the synthetic outrage that the 'net in general (and /. in particular) does so well at generating.
/. had even heard of Steve Cook - though given the high profile projects he's managed and they're all experts on they should have known him well... And now he's Satan incarnate.
24 hours ago, none of the soi-disant experts here on
Spaces, bitches. I'm talkin 'bout the United States of Space!
What? We don't even need this. Just stop preserving so many throwbacks and the genetics will improve on their own. Allowing throwbacks to breed is a massive failure of our society. I understand the slippery slope reasons why we can't regulate it, of course.
Care to define "throwback"?
What? We don't even need this. Just stop preserving so many throwbacks and the genetics will improve on their own. Allowing throwbacks to breed is a massive failure of our society. I understand the slippery slope reasons why we can't regulate it, of course.
Care to define "throwback"?
Niggers, of course.
Care to define "throwback"?
Those who cannot survive without heroic medical care.
We can argue about it and I might change my mind, but that's as good a place to start as any. There are problems I can recognize immediately with this definition, but I didn't want anyone to think I meant what the AC sibling to this comment suggested. I don't recognize the concept of race as being an especially valid one.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I don't know anything about the internal NASA management bureaucracy, but I do know about bureaucracy in business and government agencies. It is by no means guaranteed that Mr. Cook is responsible for the failures of the projects that he managed. He might well be, but it certainly does not automatically follow. Bureaucracies excel at separating authority from responsibility (in fact, it can be argued that this is a core purpose of a bureaucracy, although personally I would disagree with that goal). Mr. Cook might well have known, for example, how to salvage on or more of those projects. Many of the failures to complete R&D on next-generation launch technologies were due to the budget over-run problems of the Space Shuttle program, which left the other programs continually starved for and competing for limited funding pools which were stretched too thin. NASA didn't have the budget flexibility to sustain an R&D program like X-33 through to completion.
The relatively well documented failure of the X-33 VentureStar project, for example, is known to be in part due to a project requirement (a cryogenic carbon fiber composite H2 tank) that the Lockheed Martin engineers identified as a risk (due to immature materials technology). Yes, it was NASA who insisted on taking the risk without proper scheduling and funding for risk reduction, and that is a failure of project management.
However, the internal NASA politics that led to this may be pretty complicated, and I haven't seen any discussion of that. Mr. Cook might well have fought on behalf of the engineers, but lost. It's also possible to look at the X-33 program and decide that it was on the verge of success. The project was under-funded, but the problems appeared to be reasonably clear engineering and materials science problems, which also appeared to have pretty clear solutions paths available (for a fee). The ramp for the aerospike engine was too heavy, and the carbon fiber tank technology was immature. Both of those are materials technology problems where the solutions could be had. In fact, it appears that the tank problem was solvable with current tech (aluminum-lithium alloy, like the modern version of the Space Shuttle external tank) and improved carbon fiber technology, which was apparently demonstrated after the cancellation of the X-33 program. The aerospike ramp weight also could be solved. Meanwhile, the heat shield technology developed was apparently impressive, and the aerospike engine work was also viewed in retrospect as pretty successful.
Another thing I've observed is that government agencies, at least under the Bush administration, were literally obsessed with talking about "lessons learned" from failed projects. Unfortunately, they tended to learn the wrong lessons, often because the real lessons were not politically or organizationally acceptable. Here's an article on the X-33 as an example: Lesson in Failed X-33 Bid, New Engine Promising. The real lessons: doing something useful (reducing the cost of payload to LEO) is hard work, the X-33 was close to achieving the difficult objectives the project was assigned, and yes, it would have been well worth an extra $1 Billion to complete the project and demonstrate the suite of useful technologies developed. Instead, NASA senior management internalized a false "lesson" because they don't need to admit management failure when they simply throw up their hands and blame the concept of a reusable LEO launcher.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
The raging success of the Hubble Space Telescope is due almost entirely to manned spaceflight. Without men and women in space to fix it and upgrade it periodically, that program would be viewed as a hugely embarrassing colossal blunder. Successive generations of instrument replacements have dramatically improved the quality and amount of science that the instrument is capable of performing. It is undoubtedly the single greatest testament to the importance of being able to routinely place men and women in space.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Yeah, that's a fascinating and little-told part of the X-33 history. "Ready to fly" is perhaps a slight overstatement, but the tank problem had basically been solved in two different ways (switching to an aluminum-lithium tank was feasible with the tech demonstrated by the second generation Shuttle external tank, but also, cryogenic carbon fiber technology improvements were demonstrated and ready). X-33 certainly could have been made ready to fly, and DoD was ready to fund it. The other successes of the X-33 program have been overlooked, largely because the vehicle didn't fly. The program was not able to demonstrate the turn-around time and other aspects of the overall system design, which were intended to reduce operations cost.
Bush also torpedoed NASA by giving them the directive of going to the Moon and Mars without funding the directives. This led NASA management scrambling to "get on board" with the Bush directives, with the only mechanism available to them being to cancel all the programs which were designed to advance technology and lower cost of access to space. Oh, and shut down the ISS prematurely.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
What about it?
That article is pure speculation. And it definitely doesn't exist in the wild at the moment.
I'd be more impressed if we weren't fighting over net neutrality right now. The internet is not sufficiently inherently peer to peer.
If you'll allow an analogy, the Library at Alexandria, if it existed at all, was no less impressive for having been burned.
In which we take dirty water from a river, clean it, shit in it, half-clean it, and put it back in the river for the next city to clean and drink and shit in and put back in the river?
Uh, no. Or at least, not entirely. Sanitation as in washing our hands before performing surgery, using septic tanks and sewers instead of dumping waste on the streets, animal control, food safety regulations, and so forth. The development of sanitation is one of the greatest achievements of medicine, surpassing antibiotics or anesthesia in terms of increased life expectancy.
What? We don't even need this. Just stop preserving so many throwbacks and the genetics will improve on their own. Allowing throwbacks to breed is a massive failure of our society.
Yeah, animals like Stephen Hawking shouldn't've been allowed to breed.
I think the crowning achievement of humanity to date has been the fact that we're not extinct.
That's... a good point.
Hmm... Stephen Hawking might have something to say about that stance.
There are those who are extremely productive members of society that can only survive with heroic medical care. On the other hand, there are quite a few people who contribute nothing or even cause society to go backwards who are, on paper, as healthy as can be expected.
"Breeding" the problems out of society has been attempted many times. Every time it is attempted it does more harm than good by isolating a segment of society that is seen as "worthless" by the society in power and ultimately ends up in a slaughter of innocents. It's probably one of the best paved roads to hell, with all the good intentions. IT DOES NOT WORK and should be an idea that is left in the dust of history.
Sorry. I'm an Aussie - any spaceflight looks terrific to us, since we blew our chances with Woomera.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
Clearly, we need to figure out how to get the Russians to operate Woomera for us. Why we let that go to rust I will never understand.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
The causes of the X-33 program failure are the subject of considerable debate. Here are several good sources of information. You can see that the program received criticism from the GAO, and other sources. I've seen several references to the DoD effort to fund the flight test program, and that request being over-ruled by the Bush administration. I can't recall if these sources below include that claim or not, but you can probably find one or more if you use Google.
excellent X-33 overview
X-33 VentureStar what really happened?
New Mission for Lockheed Spaceplane?
X-33 and NASA's Proposed 2001-2005 Space Launch Initiative
GAO: SPACE TRANSPORTATION Status of the X-33 Reusable Launch Vehicle Program
GAO: SPACE TRANSPORTATION Progress of the X-33 Reusable Launch Vehicle Program
NASA Defends Itself Against X-33 Critique
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Area Manager? Area man?
So, where am I supposed go for up-to-date, well-informed scare-mongering?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
However, it should be pointed out that America was the first to launch a manned spacecraft... and actually get the astronaut back safely.
IT DOES NOT WORK and should be an idea that is left in the dust of history.
Tell that to the Chinese.
When the average resident of China is 6'8", weighs in at about 300 lbs of solid muscle, and has an average IQ of 180, maybe they'll put you in a cage in the Beijing zoo marked "Enlightened Liberal Doofus".
Awesome. If I had mod points... :D
If Soyuz has a severe problem during landing, it ends up in another country.
If the Shuttle has a severe problem during landing, it blows up. There is literally no room for error.
No.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_abort_modes
It can end up in other countries, like Spain.
how long until
Although Kazakhstan a glorious country, it have a problem, too: economic, social, and Jew.
I'm sure the Soviet's could have gotten the crew back safely too, if they'd had a *requirement* for the crew to return safely. Popular lore would have qualified that as a 'feature' to the Soviets ;-)
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
... but I'll limit myself to this one:
[Citation needed]
Honestly, this is ridiculous. While obviously not perfect, our sanitation systems today do a pretty damn good job of preventing epidemics of cholera, etc, that used to be quite common (and deadly). If you have trouble accepting this, try traveling to Africa or rural India or somewhere else where they don't have such systems.
So, to sum up - sanitation: has saved, without exaggeration, millions of people from horrific deaths. Space program: we got to thumb our nose at the Russians, bring back some moon rocks, and made (admittedly very important) scientific progress. I don't think you've made your case that the space program trumps sanitation as humanity's greatest achievement.
To take your argument full circle...you are a throwback, or will be at some point in your life.
What I think you're getting at is natural selection isn't exactly robust among humans these days. And that I'd agree with. The multitude of things we can 'fix' and cure that previously culled many people don't anymore. When your species is dependent on strength and fortitude to survive, this indeed would be a problem.
However, sometime in the last few hundred years coinciding with medical and industrial revolutions, humans stopped needing to be individually 'strong' to survive. We have strength in the group intelligence to fix problems no other creature on this planet is capable of.
I sort of see this as a 'reverse' natural selection. Rather than breed out problems, we've progressed to the point where we'll be able to medically and technically engineer them out of the populations. It's obviously still very much in its infancy, but gene therapy is coming. You'll be diagnosed with genetic disposition to certain cancers and you'll get a shot that will alter your DNA to remove that disposition. Much like the opinion that space flight is the most amazing thing ever, which I suspect the jury will be out until it provides significant value to everyone, your opinion of 'throwbacks' is simply a point in time where we don't yet, but likely will soon have the ability to solve the 'problems' of increased life expectancy that we've created for ourselves. Most people would probably want those 'problems' rather than the alternatives of dying.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Sell NASA to the highest bidder and pay down the debt. Who's with me?
I will never, as long as I live, understand the Slashdot readership's fascination with the idea of offworld mining. So here's a challenge: name something, anything, that can be mined in space and delivered to customers on earth more cost-effectively than we can just mine it on earth. Don't bother telling me that mining space minerals would be great for building stuff in space, because we don't have any reason to build stuff in space... except maybe more space mines. Hopefully the circular nature of that argument is self-evident. Nobody lives there, remember? Neither does anyone have any reason to live there (economically speaking).
Also don't bother bringing up any materials that have no earthly use (example: He3), or are used in such small quantities that it's unlikely anyone would finance such a mining operation in view of the risks involved.
Look, do really think that if there were such vast amounts of money to be made in space, the US government would be able to STOP private companies from getting involved? The Lockheed Martins and Boeings of the world would just buy them a few senators, and they'd be in business. The fact that no such thing has happened speaks volumes. Private industry is not going into space because there is quite simply no money to be made in space.
Teh stupid! It burns me! No, they almost certainly will not. Based on even wildly optimistic estimates for drops in space travel costs, there's no way you could count on more than a few space tourists per year. You couldn't build a hotel on freakin' earth with that kind of occupancy rate, and of course a space hotel is going to cost unimaginably much more.
This is the biggest non-sequitur that I, personally, have ever read.
Slashdot space economics fan-boyism: I'll never understand it.
Perhaps I used the wrong link, and yes, it entered a ballistic trajectory after the thrust unit tore off. But prior to that, it was reentering without its heatshield forward. Currently, they do think they have the problem fixed, but they've yet to find the original cause. Interesting article here: http://www.aiaa.org/Aerospace/images/articleimages/pdf/Soyuz_JUN2009.pdf
Marvin knew: "Think of a number, any number..."
Most anybody who was left at the end of the 70s was fired by Reagan
Got a citation for that? Reagan's administration began in 1981 and according to this wiki article, NASA's budget for that year was $11.2 billion, and steadily increased (in real dollars, adjusted for inflation - these are real increases) except for one year, 1985. There was a one-time spike in the budget in 1987 when they got extra money to replace Challenger.
I haven't heard that Reagan fired engineers, and I'd love to see your source
I don't propose to prevent anyone from breeding, but I do propose to stop spending state money on helping them. I find asking me to support people who probably should not be breeding as absurd as asking me to support eugenics. Arguably, welfare is a system for breeding undesirables. I don't propose to eliminate it; I think the five year limit was a worthy type of reform.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
A draft report form Chinas Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released late last month, however, could set off the alarm bells in boardrooms around the world.
The report is weighing a total ban on exporting rare earth metals needed to produce circuitry in consumer electronics, such as smartphones, MP3 music players, liquid crystal displays, and advanced battery technologies. The problem? China currently produces more than 90 percent of the global supply for production of such electronics.
Perhaps more importantly, in respect to green technology initiatives, the ban will also give China control of the development of green technology with products like electronic or hybrid cars, wind turbines, and energy efficient light bulbs all reliant on rare earth metals.
If the above happens, then it will KILL manufactuering around the world. What is shows is that China is VERY much in a cold war with the west and reagan, Clinton, and W really fucked things up. Esp. W. More interesting, the west will either need to consider one of several different actions:
Personally, I want to see us looking amongst the solar system now for these elements. They are out there. More importantly, we CAN find it. I also suspect that we can find more of these around the earth, but they WILL be limited.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It's likely that, with current technology, it wouldn't have been possible to send robots to perform the repairs that humans actually did perform, to the Hubble. The idea was explored by NASA and rejected due to the almost certain failure of such a mission.
The argument that you meant to posit is that it might have been cheaper to build 4 generations of Hubble telescopes and launch them, than it was to remodel one telescope in orbit. (This argument doesn't get you laughed out of the room.)
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Did Gagarin get injured or killed? No. This means that he landed safely. If your opinion is different, please provide information supporting it.