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  #21  
Old 01-25-2023, 09:22 AM
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luke strawwalker luke strawwalker is offline
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Originally Posted by Winston2021
Thanks! I'll try interlibrary loan. My library system is great and according to WorldCat 58 libraries within 200 miles have a copy. Not as rare as I expected. They've even gotten me a technical book so rare that it had to come from the Library of CONgress. Too bad CONgress apparently doeasn't use that library much based upon legislative results.


Yes, definitely... it's shocking how ill-informed and uneducated our "leaders" are now... why they make such stupid decisions IMHO. No experience with anything, but wow they got that liberal arts degree which hasn't taught them how to tie their shoes LOL Oh well... OL J R
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  #22  
Old 01-25-2023, 09:33 AM
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Well, since money for key players in CONgress and their states/districts is what drives NASA funding more than science return resulting in, for instance, the vastly expensive Shuttle jobs continuation program called SLS, it's just a matter of the gradual phasing out of the legacy aerospace industries in their states/districts over time to be replaced by the many new highly innovative entrants thinking outside the box and located elsewhere. Thereby, the economic incentives for manned stuff established in the 60s mainly for political rather than scientific reasons will hopefully fade as the money associated with that decreases.

The deorbiting of the $150 billion dollar scientific return literal waste of space called the ISS will free up the $3 billion spent per year spent sending supplies to it. That will at least theoretically free up that much to spend on, for instance, one of the latest small car sized nuclear powered Mars Science Laboratory rover missions PER YEAR instead, two of which are roving around on Mars right now or, for another instance, six of the older and smaller MER rovers PER YEAR or, more preferably, other unmanned probe/lander missions.

If SpaceX succeeds with Starship, that'll bring the price of SPAM in a can missions way down, freeing up funds for scientifically productive missions. If Starship doesn't succeed and that doesn't manage to bankrupt SpaceX, they might come up with a second best fully reusable super-lift booster which I'll call Super Falcon 9 using 9 of the highly efficient and low cost Raptor 2 engines developed for Starship and a Super Falcon Heavy using three Super Falcon 9s.


Exactly... I'm not completely "anti-manned spaceflight", I'm just against the STUPID EXPENSIVE way it's being done NOW, particularly by NASA. Hopefully Starship works (or they can work the kinks out of it) and hopefully it reduces the cost of manned spaceflight by an order of magnitude. Eventually we'll adopt the technology that NASA has refused to use because it would render their gigantic super-expensive colossal waste of money dinosaur rocket (SLS) obsolete, that being fuel depots in orbit and orbital assembly of spacecraft (docked together and fueled up in orbit) which will enable serious missions going beyond Earth. It'll also enable realistic technologies in orbit, such as MAN-TENDED space stations versus full-time manned stations, which makes INFINITELY more sense than ISS, sending up smaller centifugal-generated gravity stations, which can be used to test various health effects of varying levels of artificial gravity on the various maladies that affect long-term zero-gee exposed astronauts, and actually building the infrastructure to actually go places and do things in a sustainable, more affordable way.

What's aggravating is, instead of NASA doing what it does best to further this type of future, it's wasting time and billions of bucks on stupid dinosaur rockets out of old shuttle junk. NASA has the experience with deep-space manned operations, or HAD I suppose one should say, since they've not done any deep space manned operations in 50 years-- everybody who worked on Apollo is long retired or dead by now. NASA isn't interested in doing anything actually affordable-- if it's not a "battleship program" they're not interested, which is why they haven't put things like orbital refueling on the "critical path"-- it negates the need for giant dinosaur rockets and all the rest. They'd rather do nothing at all than do anything smaller and more sustainable or affordable, and build on the technology.

Typical gubmint operation. Later! OL J R
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  #23  
Old 01-25-2023, 10:11 AM
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No need--I just saw the NASM mentioned (it's a wonderful museum, and was even in its old location, when my parents and I visited it back in 1971); I just wanted to pass along their photo archive's wrongdoing regarding official U.S. government agency photographs. To get back on-topic:

You're absolutely right--we (most of the government folks and corporate heads, "on both sides of the aisle") foolishly thought that engaging with mainland China would make Communism go away, or greatly 'mellow out.' (That was what they said in public; I'm sure they saw it as an opportunity to enrich themselves.) I remember when they were often called "The good Communists" here, because--unlike the Soviet Union--they didn't seem intent on gobbling up other countries, but on modernizing their own country, through engagement with the West.

My father once saw that phrase "The Good Communists" in a newspaper article about China, and he told me that it *might* be true, but he also warned me that the Chinese are a very patient people, and that their apparently non-bellicose behavior at that time--the 1980s--(although he reminded me of how they armed and trained North Korea's and North Vietnam's militaries in previous years) might be only a ruse to get what they needed in order to again become "The Middle Kingdom" (the major power on Earth, to whom everyone else must pay tribute). Unfortunately, he was right--like the leopard, the panda does not change his spots...


Well, we've basically sold out to China... after 20 years+ of sending our industrial base over there to take advantage of their lax/nonexistent environmental laws/regs, and cheap resources and cheap labor, NOW suddenly the gubmint has discovered that the barn door was left open and the cows are gone, and are having a fit about it. Meanwhile China has built itself up and modernized and developed capabilities similar to our own, and are poised to become the world's largest economy and is surpassing the US, and SUDDENLY it's a problem... that cow left the shed LONG ago. In truth, we never could have stopped it from happening, just delayed it.

Anybody paying attention to what's going on with Russia, China, India, Saudi Arabia, and the BRICS nations, the impending death of the petrodollar (when we lose world reserve currency status, the dollar will implode and our economy and superpower status with it) can see, we've not only fumbled the ball but kept bumping it and chasing it halfway to the goal line before the play finally stopped... we're now in a position where we're basically screwed, and, finding ourselves in a hole, instead of STOP DIGGING we just are DIGGING FASTER AND HARDER and thus making more of a mess for ourselves. War with China isn't the answer; realizing the fundamental right of China, like all other nations, to live in peace and conduct business/trade around the world and to have the right to defend their own security in their own neighborhood, just as we have done and continue to do, is the correct way forward. Instead we stupidly provoke and anger the Chinese betting we can solve our problems with them through war, when the truth is, if the shooting starts they have the home field advantage, and China today isn't like it was in the 1950's-- hordes of poorly trained peasants flooding over borders with rifles and bayonets... they have modern weapons arguably just as good as anything we've got, and if we go too far, we may learn that fact the hard way (same with Russia in Ukraine). But NO, we just keep provoking like somehow they got stuck in 1950 and never advanced. They're not just some dirtbagistans like we've been fighting the last 30 years, they're modern industrial/military states quite capable of producing high technology and using it, and they (unlike the US) have the industrial capability to back it up-- we sold most of ours to them or sent it over there the last 30 years while letting it wither here at home. Why we're scrambling for junk to send Ukraine and panning the third world for old Soviet equipment and artillery shells and sending our reserve shells from Israel over to Ukraine to try to prop them up before the Russians completely overwhelm them (which they will anyway because despite what the stupid propaganda filled media says, the Russians are producing their own equipment, shells, missiles, etc. at a rate at least 10X our capabilities to produce and they haven't even switched over to a "war economy" because they don't want to damage their economy, and no sanctions haven't done a d@mn thing to hurt them either... instead we've driven China and Russia into each other's arms, quite stupidly, and even our longtime "allies" like India and Saudi Arabia have now taken their side, are turning their backs on us, and making new deals with China and Russia...

Later! OL J R
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  #24  
Old 01-25-2023, 10:19 AM
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Just to drag it back on topic-- NASA should thank its lucky stars for Elon Musk-- if anyone deserves a Presidential Medal of Freedom, he does... if it weren't for him, we'd be stuck sitting on the ground looking up at our own $200 billion dollar space station flying over with NO WAY TO GET TO IT... Remember it wasn't that long ago we spent most of a decade thumbing a ride with the Russians on their Soviet-designed Soyuz rocket and capsule from shuttle retirement in 2011 until Crew Dragon gave us the capability to launch our own astronauts back after 9 years in 2020.

With the current events and Russia hatred, we'd be stuck looking for broomsticks and trampolines as the Russian space chief said. Thankfully Elon Musk saved us from that indignity.

Going forward, it's more likely that the Russians will pull out of ISS and team up with China in the future... guess time will tell.

OL J R
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  #25  
Old 01-25-2023, 10:30 AM
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Originally Posted by luke strawwalker


Going forward, it's more likely that the Russians will pull out of ISS and team up with China in the future... guess time will tell.

OL J R



And good riddance...........
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  #26  
Old 01-25-2023, 10:47 AM
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Originally Posted by mojo1986
And good riddance...........
I really enjoy watching adversaries wasting limited space related funding on horrible cost/return mission like manned space stations. It's just Cold War v2.0 (actually, Cold War v1.0 never actually ended) Space Race v2.0.

We’re in a space race’: Nasa sounds alarm at Chinese designs on moon
Administrator Bill Nelson says Beijing could seek ‘own’ resource-rich areas and next two years could be key to US-China contest - 2 Jan 2023

https://www.theguardian.com/science...nasa-space-race

The US is locked in a space race with China and the country needs to “watch out” that its rival does not gain a foothold and try to dominate lunar resources, Nasa’s top official has warned.

The assessment came from the Nasa administrator, Bill Nelson, a former astronaut and Florida senator, who went on to warn that China could eventually claim to “own” the moon’s resource-rich areas.

The contest between the US and China, he added, was intensifying and the next two years could determine which country achieves an advantage.

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The other day I sat next to a woman who has a profound fear of flying. I wanted to comfort her, so I said, "Don't worry, we're not gonna' crash. Statistically, we got a better chance of being bitten by a shark." Then I showed her the scar on my elbow from a shark attack. I said, "I got this when my plane went down off of Florida." - Dennis Regan
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  #27  
Old 04-18-2023, 06:40 AM
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Robots versus SPAM in a Can

How much did the Apollo program cost?

https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-apollo

The national priority of Project Apollo is clear from the following charts. In 13 years, the United States spent the equivalent of $283 billion (2020 dollars) to build a human lunar program from scratch. During this period, 3 out of every 5 dollars for the space program went toward Apollo and related programs.

Lunar Rocks and Soils from Apollo Missions

https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/

[Returned] 382 kilograms (842 pounds) of lunar rocks, core samples, pebbles, sand and dust from the lunar surface.

$283,000,000,000 / 842 = $336,104,513 per pound.

Plus lots of nice, clear surface photos not otherwise possible in those times of ancient (but still extremely impressive accomplishments for what they had to work with) technology. They also left behind some instruments on the surface... that could have been delivered robotically instead, even in those days.

Since then, lunar robots can do the same when desired (but for the boring, lifeless, dusty moon, it pretty much ISN'T except for the investigation of its possible support of human survival on the lunar surface) providing HD images, in-situ analysis, and even returned samples:

The lunar samples collected by China’s Chang’e-5 mission were returned to Earth on December 16, 2020 parachuting down at about 1:00 p.m. ET in Inner Mongolia. Recovery vehicles arrived in the area shortly after touchdown to collect the return capsule, which will be transported to the Chinese Lunar Sample Laboratory in Beijing for study.

List of Solar System probes (long)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...r_System_probes

They have provided surface-level images from places man will likely never visit (Venus) and from Mars and Titan. They have produced ultra high resolution images and maps, made many other science observations from orbit around many planets, made imaging radar scans of Venus, made surface penetrating radar scans of Mars, made many close passes by their moons, made close imaging and sampling passes by comets and asteroids and even orbited, landed on, impacted, sampled and then returned from the latter.

And yet, in 2022, NASA spent 31.59% of it's budget on "Science," only some portion of which is assigned to robotic missions, and 44.9% on SPAM in a can (aka "Human Spaceflight"):

Your Guide to NASA's Budget

https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/nasa-budget

Like I've said, price performance wise, that's a huge waste.

NASA’s $3.5 billion plan to redesign its aging spacesuits (and you can bet it will be more than that)
FEB 22 2023


https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/22/nas...spacesuits.html

That's more than another nuclear powered, compact car sized Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover or three Mars Exploration Rovers (MER):

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The other day I sat next to a woman who has a profound fear of flying. I wanted to comfort her, so I said, "Don't worry, we're not gonna' crash. Statistically, we got a better chance of being bitten by a shark." Then I showed her the scar on my elbow from a shark attack. I said, "I got this when my plane went down off of Florida." - Dennis Regan
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  #28  
Old 05-29-2023, 07:00 AM
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Dear God. Here we go again! Huge sums, most of which we borrow and create out of thin air, wasted on this scientifically bankrupt SPAM in can crap.

MAY 29, 2023
China plans to land astronauts on moon before 2030, another step in what looks like a new space race


https://phys.org/news/2023-05-china...moon-space.html

On the following, not that they won't do exactly as deep pocket lobbies want them to (see "SLS"), but if I thought sending key Congress critters the book, "The End of Astronauts: Why Robots Are the Future of Exploration," would accomplish anything, I would.

NASA seeks to shore up congressional support for Artemis
May 21, 2023


https://spacenews.com/nasa-seeks-to...rt-for-artemis/

WASHINGTON — As NASA faces both short-term and long-term uncertainty about its funding, the agency is turning to its most powerful advocates: its astronauts.

The four members of the Artemis 2 crew, named in April, were in Washington last week, spending parts of two days meeting with members of Congress. The three Americans and one Canadian assigned to the mission, slated to be the first crew flight to go to the moon in more than half a century, reported a warm reception from their meetings.


About the latest joy ride (at least privately funded for PR purposes) to the ISS by four people who will contribute nothing other than consumption of incredibly expensive consumables required by dunsel (I learned that word in the "The Ultimate Computer" episode of the original Star Trek - "something, especially part of a vessel, that is useless, or superfluous or unnecessary").

Axiom Mission 2 Launches to the International Space Station
21 May 2023


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osqZvV-RdCE

HUGE scientific returns pending like this ISS menu video by ESA:

Healthy food in the International Space Station

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MqBn9WEqo8

On the other hand:

Huygens Descent Imager (great data even thought Huygens' creator, ESA, failed to command the turn on of one of the two receivers on Cassini and, as a result, lost half the data from it)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbmcoL3OqPk
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The other day I sat next to a woman who has a profound fear of flying. I wanted to comfort her, so I said, "Don't worry, we're not gonna' crash. Statistically, we got a better chance of being bitten by a shark." Then I showed her the scar on my elbow from a shark attack. I said, "I got this when my plane went down off of Florida." - Dennis Regan
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  #29  
Old 09-07-2023, 02:05 PM
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Hey, Ajey, tell that to the people in charge of the incredibly expensive but nearly scientifically useless SPAM in a can US manned missions including the head of NASA explicitly saying we're in a race with China to the moon.

India is on the Moon, but needs to avoid the 'Moon Race' trap
by Ajey Lele (a consultant with MP-IDSA, New Delhi.)
September 5, 2023

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4645/1

Sample of an idiot's comment below the article:

The International Energy Agency has already published that the global mineral requirements needed to support the transition towards renewable energy (and net zero carbon emissions) is beyond current mining levels, even exceeding known reserves for some metals. So, depending on the throw of the climate dice, the marathon could quickly evolve into a middle distance race, or even a sprint!

The fool doesn't take into consideration what it would cost to mine the moon AND return what would have to be PROCESSED metals back to Earth. I won't comment much on the fact that, first of all, he's fallen for the "climate emergency" BS.
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The other day I sat next to a woman who has a profound fear of flying. I wanted to comfort her, so I said, "Don't worry, we're not gonna' crash. Statistically, we got a better chance of being bitten by a shark." Then I showed her the scar on my elbow from a shark attack. I said, "I got this when my plane went down off of Florida." - Dennis Regan
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