Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

How President Jimmy Carter Saved The Space Shuttle (blastingnews.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the mystery-solved dept.

MarkWhittington writes: Eric Berger has published an account in Ars Technica about how President Jimmy Carter saved the space shuttle program. The article is well worth reading for its detail. In essence, around 1978 the space shuttle program had undergone a crisis with technical challenges surrounding its heat-resistant tiles and its reusable rocket engines and cost overruns. President Carter was not all that enthused about human space flight to begin with, adhering to the since discredited notion that robotic space probes were adequate for exploring the universe. His vice president, Walter Mondale, was a vehement foe of human space flight programs, maintaining that money spent on them were better used for social programs.

7 of 237 comments (clear)

  1. Carter was a great President! by EzInKy · · Score: 5, Funny

    If it weren't for pussy weakling Republicans willing to sellout to Iran he would have had a second term and our great Nation would be on a solid progressive course.

    --
    Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
    1. Re: Carter was a great President! by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, Iran contra was half a dozen years later. Do you idiots even wiki this shit?

      Iran-Contra was discovered some years later. Specifically, getting arms to an enemy of the united States and to another group via an end-around in order to circumvent the Boland amendment was started as a way to attempt to get some hostages held by Hezbolla in Lebanon.

      Now might such a thing have happened in the goings on in the 1980 election? Who knows? But a group that is wiling to give aid to enemies of the US, it is at least plausible that a very similar thing happened a few years earlier, merely undiscovered.

      In the meantime, it was interesting that this whole thing included a metric shitload of illegal actions, like destroying classified evidence to avoid prosecutions, removing classified materials under cloathing, selling arms to an enemy of the US and violating laws passed by congress.

      In the end? Acquittals and pre-emptive pardons, and the party of the moral high ground was pleased.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  2. Since discredited? by nekosej · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Star Trek is fiction, you realize. That ship taking pictures of Jupiter right now? Kirk isn't on it.

    --
    Never pet a burning dog.
    1. Re: Since discredited? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Because there aren't any chicks on Jupiter.

  3. Since discredited by jemmyw · · Score: 5, Insightful

    adhering to the since discredited notion that robotic space probes were adequate for exploring the universe.

    Since discredited by what? I think there might be some bias in the reporting there, because it should say "since credited by 4 decades of remote robotic exploration"

    1. Re:Since discredited by tsotha · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If anything has been discredited it's the idea we need a manned space program for exploration.

  4. What "discredited notion"? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the since discredited notion that robotic space probes were adequate for exploring the universe

    Hah. What? Robotic space probes are bloody brilliant for exploring the universe, and they've done far more of it than could have been achieved if we'd had to send a meatbag along for the ride.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.