Spaceship dreams get real

Average Joe, D.C. — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 02:10:49 GMT

Nasa is wasting its time and money. We need more than the CEV. The plan is to eventually build a base on the moon and then head to Mars. While the moon may not have an atmosphere Mars does and we have decades of current experience with the shuttle. We need to scale the shuttle up and mount it to the top of a rocket like the apollo capsule and launch it like that. then we wouldn't have to worry about anymore foam hitting the ship. 1 ship that can perform Scientific, civilian and hopefully never needed military needs. Think the shuttles from armaggedon but on steroids. Help the private space sector if you want but build a ship that can do more than go to the moon.

Spaceship dreams get real

Joe, Toledo — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 08:19:21 GMT

Sure, D.C., you can get a shuttle like that. All it's going to cost is fifty billion dollars minimum.

You can get any of these for a fraction - and adapt them to other roles too.

Spaceship dreams get real

Terry Green, — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 10:31:07 GMT

'Can you imagine U-Haul making a profit on government business alone?'

U-Haul and government contracts? LOL. You obviously haven't done price comparison for either circumstance.

Spaceship dreams get real

Wade Whitlock, Aberdeen, MD — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 13:05:07 GMT

... Somebody needs to define just what we want in orbital, and beyond, vehicles. If you want to go to the moon, von Braun had it right. You don't need streamlining and similar weight. If you want to plunk down, you don't need wings. If you want precision landings, then you either need wings or the ability to tail-sit. See von Braun/Ley/Bonestell of the 1950's or any of many 1950's SciFi spaceships. If you want re-use you will have a problem with plunk-down spam-cans. Relatively light flight structures don't react well to impacts. Therefore, you must have redundant impact reduction devices which add weight, requiring larger launchers, reduced weight to orbit or both.

Tailsitters have to have fuel for landing, unless you want to go the tribfluegel (convert to a helicopter mode) which requires weight, controls and the joy of laying on your back and setting down backwards. See the reports for the Navy tailsitters of the 1950's.

Leads to a winged vehicle, eh? The penalty here is the weight of the streamlined structure, wings and landing gear. At least you don't have to have a recovery fleet chasing around the ocean yelling "I've got it!".

The logic is: Design a vehicle to meet a purpose. Don't ry for an all-singing, all-dancing aberration that carries all the penalties with few advantages. And shall we try to eliminate the throw-away devices, hmm?

Spaceship dreams get real

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 13:14:57 GMT

A while back someone was pointing to budget cuts at NASA as a sure sign that Republicans were waging a war on science. One of my rebuttals was that it is Republican to encourage the private sector to do what

Spaceship dreams get real

Kraven, Canada — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 13:59:41 GMT

The shuttles should have been retired and replaced years ago. As far as technology goes, they are flying dinosaurs. I never understand why the government is so hesitant to give NASA more funding, they work on the absolute cutting edge of technology and the things they create for space travel more than often lead to new or improved products and materials that everyone can use. I can understand that it might be better for now to focus on trying to fix the problems we have here on Earth before we go populating Mars, but if the government claims to be commited to going to the moon and Mars, they should act like it, and stop forcing NASA to aim for the bare minimum due to funding and time constraints.

Spaceship dreams get real

John, West Coast — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 15:36:45 GMT

These ideas feels like the saying, "Two steps forward, one step back." It is nice that NASA is trying to get private ships, but semi or not reusable seems so 'old school'.
Some of the test ships from a few years back would have been great. That vertical take off and landing one would have made a nice lunar lander (no junk to leave behind). They need a ship that will be built in space and "travel" to the moon or to Mars and something else ferries the crew up from Earth and down to the planet/moon.
Being inexpensivie is nice.... but....

Spaceship dreams get real

Bruce Smith, Barstow, Calif. — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 16:01:59 GMT

NASA will still have its place but its high time for private industry to get a share in the pie. There are some exciting things afoot with companies like SpaceDev, Bigelow Aerospace and Virgin Galactic.

Spaceship dreams get real

ceejayoz, Rochester NY — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 17:10:47 GMT

> These ideas feels like the saying, "Two steps forward, one step back." It is nice that NASA is trying to get private ships, but semi or not reusable seems so 'old school'.

John, old school got us to the moon, and we've been d**king around in low orbit ever since we implemented new school.

I'd *love* to go back to the old school if it means more Apollo and Voyager style missions and fewer "hey let's take some photos of Hawaii" ones.

Spaceship dreams get real

Mark, Hermosa Beach, Ca — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 17:14:06 GMT

The whole problem with current space flight is that all we are doing is making bigger and more expensive ways to send miniscule payloads into the near regions of Space. If the dream is to eventually explore the planets, we are not going to be able to do it with any practical application of chemical rockets. I'm sorry, but the real money should go into alternative propulsion systems. Trying to spend years of astronauts lives just roaming around in space with chemical rockets is like building another coal powered electric generator. Put money into NEW technology, not just trying to find yet another way to adapt old technology. We need basic research !

Spaceship dreams get real

Sid Goldstein, North East, PA — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 18:12:31 GMT

The goal of creating a space faring society will require a long term commitment by the government for permanent manned bases on the moon, mars, and orbital space, as well as a doubling of annual funds for robotic probes. Have the private sector compete for the business to provide the transportation. Create large financial incentives for private investment in transportation, energy and resource production in space, and habitats. Do it as quickly as possible to lower costs and get results. The go slow, one step at time approach, while depending on a government designed, do-it-all vehicle will get us nowhere and waste billions (and lives). We already did this with the shuttle. We can make it so, but it won't be cheap, quick, or easy. The public needs to understand the economic, environmental, and energy benefits that would accrue from a sustained commitment to conquer space.

Spaceship dreams get real

Greg Frey, Seattle, WA — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 18:42:43 GMT

Considering all the possibilities of future space exploration/colonization/commercialization and reading all the commentary regarding where NASA should spend their time and effort, reinforces my stance that space ventures should be more a function of the private sector than government funded. NASA ought to be geared more toward space defense, and other applications directly related to Government interests.

Spaceship dreams get real

Tony, Las Vegas, NV — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 19:12:38 GMT

I remember as a child of 6 years old watching the first moon landing. Over forty years from that date, we will still be doing low orbit wasting of money. Get on with exploration!! As for COTS, from what I can tell, the most exciting prospect is coming from the OK based, Rocketplane.

Spaceship dreams get real

D. Gordon — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 19:14:07 GMT

I approve of large numbers of corporate space vehicles. Can you imagine the trouble the crew of ISS would have been in if both the Shuttle and the Soyuz had been grounded? But as usual, it's hard to get investors that lack imagination to see the ultimate benefits. One of the fallouts of our "instant gratification/pay-off" society.

As for put-putting around on chemical rockets, I agree that more research needs to be done, but that will require a dogmatic shift in the science community, because anybody who dares to suggest a way to do anything "outside the box" is relegated to the lunatic fringe and is never given the funding to continue their research. I'd hate to say it, but I'd rather give 1 billion to a scientist who says he's figured out how to build a warp drive and have it fail and learn something from those experiments than just look at him like he's crazy and spend that billion making a slightly better version of what I already have.

Spaceship dreams get real

Doug Hardester, Baltimore MD — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 19:28:04 GMT

Don't understand why the government keeps cutting funding?

Try the reasoning that it's a horribly managed bureaucracy who spends $250 on a pencil.

I trust the private sector to manage what is done with their money a lot more then I trust NASA with mine.

Spaceship dreams get real

Space Babe, USA — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 19:44:59 GMT

These private companies are truly the future of the space industry. NASA having to "baby sit" the shuttle program, plus the budget cuts and inadequate funding, have severely slowed down true space exploration. Now that the shuttle is being retired, NASA finally has the chance to go after planets again! There are lots of people who have money that WANT to invest in space, and these companies finally have the chance to let them with NASA's blessing and a bit of seed money to get them started.

And watch out! When NASA finds that the new CEV & CLV are more expensive than they can afford (Doing more with less $$--um, I don't think so...) some of these companies will be prepared to scale up and take us back to the moon! Yee-haw!

Spaceship dreams get real

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Spaceship dreams get real

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Spaceship dreams get real

Nathan Wilson, Oklahoma City, OK — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 20:56:21 GMT

It's about time NASA finally gives private industry the keys to low Earth orbit. In order for COTS to be successful though, the NASA needs to avoid a sole-source situation, which would prevent any cost savings. Competition is the fire that drives us.

Spaceship dreams get real

Joe Cerl, Indianapolis, IN — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 22:03:14 GMT

NASA will relinquish its role in space exploration to make way for the U.S. military's intended domination of space ("Take up Space" being one of their slogans). Leave it to America to give up on exploratory science in favor of more aggressive hardware to threaten the rest of the world with.

At the current rate, we will never go back to our Moon, and we will never visit Mars, because the human race will have wiped itself out. Exponential population growth, global warming, pollution of our air/water/soil, nuclear warfare...

The human race is no good at caring for itself as a whole; instead, we get the 1% of humanity who think that the world exists just to please them and let them live in decadent luxury. This is not a recipe for a stable civilization, and that is why civilization as we know it will probably collapse.

Humans are clever at making new gadgets, but we're pretty stupid at actually putting these gadgets to good uses that help everyone. Instead, the prosperous few get mega-rich by exploiting the sale of such gadgets, vechicles, and weapons, and the rest of us kiss our taxes goodbye to fund projects that only benefit the elite ruling class.

So don't expect to hear anything about NASA doing great work for humanity--those dreams are over. The dawning age of space is one centered on space-based weapons, military satellites, and military space vehicles. The people running the show don't even care to know very much about global warming, so what makes us think that they have some deep desire to know what Mars is like? Money is the only thing that matters to groups like NASA anymore.

Spaceship dreams get real

Alfred Salter,greenwood s.c. — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 23:09:24 GMT

I think we had the right idea with the space station.
We should be more aggressive in how to build and maintain our space vehicles in earth orbit. Our transports between earth and moon could then be
larger, more complete vehicles more adept at interplanetary travel, with only the need for smaller ships to resupply this effort. You can only maintain a sustained effort with reusable infrastructure to make this effort cost effective. All business knows this and they will proceed in this manner, letting NASA bite off the new frontiers and grandiose exploration. All business is bottom line driven

Spaceship dreams get real

noname Jacksonville, NC — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 10:47:45 GMT

What i have seen in these messages is that people think that the private sector should be allowed to send shuttles, or make their own craft for their business to further the plane of space exploration, and even inhabitance.

The fact remains that the private sector relies on profits from the masses to further their research and testing. The problem with that is, I don't know about you, but I don't want, and can't afford to put anything useful in space.

Spaceship dreams get real

Mike in Florida — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 23:15:33 GMT

I suggest everyone look at the tremendous leaps in technology that have allowed us as HUMAN beings to reach the moon and send landers/rovers to Mars and satellite probes beyond...in a historical perspective. It was several hundred years after America "the new world" was successfully landed on and returned safely from before colonization of this new hostile land was successfully undertaken. This was a giant leap forward for HUMANS in our native atmosphere. This was also a joint effort of independant /private organizations and national governments. The conquest of the extra-terrestrial inhabitation will take steadfast determination measured in bold leaps forward and recovering from setbacks and failures accross multiple generations...in other words patience. True entreprenuers who are willing to sacrifice now for future genrations benefit.

Spaceship dreams get real

sameer,jaipur — Wed, 13 May 2009 18:24:03 GMT

This section provides detailed discussions of spacecraft by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Hermann Oberth, Eugen Sänger, Chesley Bonestell/Willy Ley, and Von Braun. Although the book provides a great deal of historical information, it does not represent a comprehensive history since the book, by design, only covers theoretical rockets and spaceships. Although this section is dominated by Von Braun, it only covers his theoretical works - you won’t find a V2 in there. As it turns out, Von Braun did a good deal of work for television shows produced by Walt Disney. Although developed for the early entertainment industry, these were backed up by some level of actual engineering thought. They thus fit nicely in this section, while providing a perfect transition to the next…
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Spaceship dreams get real

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