It must be annoying or disappointing for NASA engineers, spending so much time and effort on sending other people into space… Something to think about.
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Interesting. ;)
How unappreciated they are.
after all was a nice launch… after 3 times, they have to be a llittle paranoid…
Oh, don’t let any NASA engineers come crying to me. We’ve been putting people in space for, like, 40 years! And still all this fuss about how hard it is.
Come on guys. It’s not rocket science.
While I’m not a NASA badge, I do work in the space program. [External carriers for ISS these days … I touched a fair amount of hardware that went to orbit just this morning. :)] It’s really not frustrating at all. I think of it as a REALLY long, pointy stick … and the people crazy enough to ride the rocket are at the pointy end. Me, I’m way back at the handle, but we’re all a part of the team.
Like Gus Grissom so eloquently said back in the 1960s, as quoted by Tom Wolfe in The Right Stuff: “Do good work.”
I’m not allowed to say who, but, the company i work for also assisted in rtf.
True that. I was thinking in a similar fashion about the Air Force the other day – hundreds are needed to put a fighter in the air, with one or two pilots taking all the glory.
dont feel too bad. after all, these are the same scientists who couldnt figure out not to put foam on their spaceship again
i think if they personally wanted to go themselves they would do things right. currently theyre only playing with other people lives, not their own.
Yeah, you know what, “e”? We don’t get unlimited funds. Someone made the evaluation that this part of the foam section was unlikely to shed foam. If NASA hadn’t spent the money to add all the imaging to the tank, we would have most likely never known that there was an issue. Foam’s falled off on pretty much every mission; once, it caused a horrible, tragic accident.
Tell you what: if you can do it better, get on a plane to New Orleans. Have a cabbie take you to the Michoud Assembly Facility. I’m sure the union guys down there will be happy to watch you try it on your own.
A whole lot of nerve you have, posting this. You’re an anonymous ass-clown from Costa Mesa [thanks, Whois.sc]. I’ll tell you who I am and who I work for.
You know, the main reason that I ever went into aerospace engineering was because of the Columbia disaster. I wanted to make sure that something like that never happened again. I was in first grade at the time; in the interim since that point, I’ve learned that, no matter how much care and concern you give it, there’s always an error out there waiting for you. I hope you don’t have to learn that in your job on an international stage.
Those who can, do. Those who can’t, well, they criticize anonymously on the Internet. :roll:
Agreed, Geof. Again, as we all know, most worldwide incidents can be reduced to one nice jab. But not being the first to say it doesn’t make you innovative or a whistle-blower. Besides that, you (meaning anyone) get a space company funded by government with all of the factors currently surrounding NASA, with the same amount of employees, the same everything, in fact, and you launch an aging spacecraft with older technology into space so many times and never have an accident… It’s so massive. It can’t be reduced to 1 semi-anonymous yell from the ether. Yes NASA isn’t 100% efficient, but YOU fix it. Seriously.
Sorry, M. This one is a bit touchy.
i want to apologize for the confusion. i normally go by e. its short for erik. i had no intention of being anonymous.
i reread it. yup, it was supposed to be funny and lighthearted. wait, yup still supposed to be funny and lighthearted.
seriously, who takes me seriously? in a way im flattered but you missed the point. there was no point.
no talent ass clown would have been funnier…that is, if your an office space fan :)
Yes, Erik, sorry to have to step in.
I won’t talk much about politics, but this issue, well, it is both annoying and frustrating. Glad to see we are all in good spirits now.
Fact is, I missed the actual launch by 5 minutes because of traffic in the carpool lane. Damn. I’ve never seen a launch live. sigh
I don’t see where you’re being “lighthearted”, but I’m glad that you do.
Is Shuttle an aging, decrepit system? You bet. The design’s older than I am. That we’re still using the STS in 2005 is pretty disappointing. After going from no time in space to the moon in under a decade, it’s pretty jaw-dropping to think that we’ve then spent 35 years futzing around in low-Earth orbit.
[You can take that as an opportunity to talk about privatization, etc. Funny how the missile-makers have figured out that there is a commercial satellite market but have never found a market for transport up and down to low Earth orbit. Seems like the market-based answer to me is that their really isn’t an answer. If there were, Boeing or Lockheed would have done it by now—-getting capped on profit margins like you do with government contracts isn’t all that exciting for the bottom line.]
I guess it still disappoints me that we use liquid-fueled rockets anymore; if we used something other than a liquid or a solid, well … foam wouldn’t necessarily be an issue. Some of those propellants would require pressure but not exacting temperature control. [I’d say what I mean by that, but I recognize that Michael’s Web site is nominally a foreign-to-the-U.S. concern, and I can remember, even at 2:00 in the morning, that the propulsion method that I’m thinking of is ITAR-restricted … even though you can read about it most anywhere on the Internet.]
If you’ve never seen one of these go off live on TV, you’re missing out. Having seen a night launch in person back in 1997, I’ve gotta urge you to catch a night launch in person. It’s absolutely and utterly stunning.
it is a pitty, people spent so much time for sending human into space but on earth it is getting more sad then ever.
Thinking not sending people into space will cure Earth’s problems faster is a falacy.
Maybe we should drop technology and go back to pre iron-age man?
Thatll fix all the problems.
it does not mean to go back in the iron-age but sometimes money is needed otherwise
Mamo, there are other places, consuming much much more money and attain much less at the same time. Space travel is the least of your concerns if you want to divert funds to humanitarian and sociological aid.
If we as a human race arent gong to pursue such boundries as space travel then there aint much point existing to be honest.
when you say “pre” iron age, does that mean we have wrinkle-free shirts? cause that was a point in the technological progression of man I seem to have missed.
Of course, a bigger problem is the apparent whole in my lip for coffee everytime i wear a button-up to work. I go through button-ups pretty fast. solution? Wear t-shirts. You could say t-shirts are a regression, but, hey, you never lose a button, and they’re cheaper, and….. a whole nuther discussion. [going to Target to buy a 3pack of pocket tees rainman style]
Re: costs of space: go see NASA Administrator Michael Griffin’s breakdown of the costs of all of NASA’s budget, not just manned spaceflight, on the 31 Jul 2005 edition of Meet The Press on the US’s NBC network.
“The average American tax bill is about $8,000 a year. Of that $8,000 or so, $60 dollars goes towards NASA’s budget.”
Then later …
“If you poll people and say, ‘If NASA is going to get a budget that’s less than one-tenth of the defense budget’—-and on average, NASA will—-and then ask the question, ‘What would you like that money spent on?’ I’m willing to bet that the answers are going to lean strongly towards manned spaceflight missions to the moon, Mars, and beyond.”
I agree with Administrator Griffin.