Posted on Mon, 04/28/2008 - 15:41 — by MikeSar
The First Principle is "If it ain´t broke, don´t fix it¨" So, why must the Space Shuttle be abandoned on 2010 and a completely new system be developed? Are we crazy? Why abandon a system that "works" to build a totally new one, with new unknown problems? Like they say in Las Vegasñ "What´s in it for me?"
Even if there were gold nuggets in great abundance, it would not pay to bring them to sell them. Why not stop the dumb plan to send astronauts to Mars or the Moon, robots can do anything an Astronaut can do, remember, every measurement they do is with an instrument, that could be read from the earth. Scientific discoveries? Robots have told us all we need to know about Saturn and the moons of Jupiter. Why do we need to send an Astronaut there?
All that money could be used to keep teachers working, instead of firing them because many states are going broke. Where is our sense of proportion and our sense of Responsibility and Outrage? I believe, the next President, whoever that is, will cancel this Mars trip and the Lunar plans of Mr. Bush, forever. I know, he just wants to be known for something other than the Iraq invasion. ? Why not just build him a Huge Presidential Library, as big as the American Embassy in Baghsad, with 128 buildings at a price of a Billion.
Should we spend $10 Billion going to Mars, for no known reason at all? Or, go to the moon, to stay for a week? How hard would it be to cancel both efforts?
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Joined: Jul 2006
Posts: 188
There is another saying; if it ain't broke fix it until it is.
Are you saying that the Space Shuttle program should continue? You seem to be railing against going to another program system for transporting humans while at the same time cursing the cost of manned flights into space. In any case I believe the Space Shuttle program should be scraped immediately because it serves no purpose other than to aggrandize mans ego to conquer space with his two bare hands.
The Space Shuttle program has a lot of design problems that constantly require a ‘fix’ and most of the time the fixes are after a failure event. It’s like throwing an airplane into the sky to see how many pieces and parts fall off.
One has to question why a manned flight into near space is even necessary for research. Most scientist and accountants agree that robotic flight is hundreds of times cheaper and more cost efficient than manned flights. For one thing unmanned flights can carry bigger payloads drop them off and continue into space to do something else if desired and do not have to return because the equipment is so cheap compared to what is required by the Shuttle program that it is disposable. Robots need not return to Earth and there are a lot less problems in the aggregate since most problems occur when departing through the atmosphere and returning through white hot temperatures caused by friction.
I pretty much agree with your outrage and righteous indignation as to how public money is spent, but think that chasing bin Laden with a V’22 Osprey or any form of military force is a public hoax since the military has already failed on catching him while he was at Tora Bora with US troops on the ground and planes in the air back in 2001. There should have been police investigations on a world wide scale that really could have tracked him down and smoked him out of his cave. As it stands our leadership decided to send in the military and blow up all the evidence including the witnesses. I am beginning to think that bin Laden may have never existed and that sending in the military was a diversion akin to sending in the Keystone cops to catch an illusion. I just find it difficult to believe a cover story.