Return to Apollo?

5 spacecraft, each slightly different and mission tailored, does not mass production make.

Rephrase the bogus question?

But the report is actually wrong on that point. Unless you are goind to mass-produce expendables and by mass product I mean hundreds, then your theory is bogus.

Now the cost of the bureaucracy greatly exceeds the cost of physically making the product.

Ever hear the saying that for every pound of vehicle there is a pound of documentation? It is not an exaggeration.

I have had unlimited access for about 6 years now so I forgot that feeling. But I regularly find I have rockets to fly (a very hard thing to accomplish) and either no where to fly them or the place I arrange in advance "changes their mind" after a chat with a Tripoli offcial.

So there are plenty of failure modes besides cost descrepencies and tech access.

We have automated the process, given it large tax incentives and very strong state department support. Expect it to accelerate.

Jerry

Sounds like lots of software projects in the open source world. The people who know the tech (these also frequently end users) making the decisions.

definitely thinking in terms of hundreds ... is there a market for that? for human cargo, right now, no. will there be some time soon? depends ... probably not ... why bother ...

it's pandemic. that's the thing that keeps me away from true high-power stuff. I don't feel like driving for 10 hours, twice.

"the human element" - again

I mentioned it several months ago, after Columbia, and I wish I could find the original quote from John Glenn the evening of the Challenger disaster. But his comments have stuck with me ever since: The only surprising thing about Challenger (and now Columbia) is that we got so far into our manned space program before it happened.

The Shuttle is not a VW Beetle. It's not a model T Ford. It's not even a Conestoga wagon that carried pioneers across the wilderness that became this country. And many of them didn't survive their trip. But CNN wasn't there to report it live around the world. After over 4 decades, we're not yet into the barnstorming era of space flight.

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!

Andy Eng wrote: > On Wed, 10 Sep 2003 00:38:05 GMT, David Schultz > wrote: >

Andy, Think about how much an airline ticket would cost if you applied that philosophy to aircraft.

What if we canceled / outlawed every car model that has ever crashed and killed more than 14 people?

I think we as a country have grown far too risk-averse. We seriously erode our quality of life, in return for miniscule perceived improvements in the odds that we won't be killed or hurt or offended accidentally. It just isn't worth it.

Oh, in case it wasn't clear, I am agreeing with you.

-- David

aircraft are completely reuseable. space vehicles are not. so you can't rightly compare the two.

what parts of the shuttle are re-used, really? at what cost?

Why aren't space vehicles reusable? Because we haven't built them that way. There is no reason why they can't be 100% reusable.

Find a copy of "Halfway to Anywhere" by G. Harry Stine. It is a bit dated now (printed before the loss of the DC-XA) but still appropriate.

Executive summary.

That would be the ones. Where will all those birds live in Huntsville if they take away their big birdhouse?

No spares in storage. The left-overs from Apollo and AAP are the lawn ornaments (and are *badly* decayed). There may be some 1B parts here and there, but none have been stored in a state that they could be used, even after refurbishment.

Brett

I wonder about the one at the Saturn center at KSC. It was supposed to be Apollo 19. I saw it last month, and I was amazed at how clean it was. I also about wet myself at its sheer size. Ever since I was a kid, I knew the Saturn V was big, but I didn't think it was *that* big!

Also, I noted that the SA-209 also on display there, which was supposedly the Skylab "rescue vehicle", had covers over the H-1 motors. Why bother if it's just a lawn ornament?

tah

Definitely buy it. It's worth the money.

I especially enjoyed the part about the Three Dolphin Club.

Ad Astra! Bill Sullivan

just to follow up to this one.... Aviation week and space technology has an article on the Delta IV launch vehicle that will boost the beast into orbit...

http://www.aviati> Cool!

That's true, currently. But who says it has to be that way forever? Perhaps the technology doesn't yet exist to make space vehicles completely and economically reuseable, but it seems to me that should be the ultimate goal. Until then there will never be any truly cheap access to space.

Man, those old display Saturns have been sitting around for 40 years, in some cases out in the weather. Who would trust them in actual use??

No but since most of the drawings have been lost perhaps they could duplicate it piece by piece and replace the computer with a PowerPC G5 running the entire infobus.

:)

Jerry

There will NEVER be truely cheap access to space. Denial of the truth will not help. While it may be technicaly possible to build a reusable SSTO vehicle, it will not be economicaly successful. It would have to be built and operated on political will alone, rather than economic sence.

Alan