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Daily news for Seattle's Ballard neighborhood |
shelley
offlineMember
Ten years ago today, 15 minutes from touchdown, we lost the Columbia over Texas.
It was the final straw for us for having faith in NASA. Andy called me from work that day (it was a Saturday) with the news.
Just looked through the NASA website pages for this. http://history.nasa.gov/columbia/
Edog
offlineMember
"..final straw for us for having faith in NASA"
Really? I never read this that way. I thought this was about national budget priorities and pushing an ageing set of spacecraft past its lifespan? You know guns and butter in the leadership vortex created by officials appointed by those who don't what to hear what those officials really want to say?
I mean, I've always believed that if you gave NASA the tools and budget, they could accomplish their mission.
shelley
offlineMember
Andy worked for a couple of NASA contractors for a while in the 90s. Very disturbing the lack of meaningful agency oversight of contracted work and corner cutting. Thought they finally got their s**t together after the Challenger disaster. Andy explained it: "Three strikes, you're out." From the sheet of paper over his home desk.
Engineering failures:
Jan 27 1967, 3 lost, AS-204
Jan 28 1986, 7 lost, STS-51
Feb 1 2003, 7 lost, STS-107
Edog
offlineMember
I always thought the winged craft gliding back to earth thing was a bit strange. It always felt like the answer to a question defense contractors would ask, not the government. Rather than take a simpler robust and timeless solution and pound it again and again, lets make it complicated and expensive and boldly go....
iPlod
offlineMember
Traveling on land ha been risky ever since we came down from the trees. But we still do it.
Traveling by sea has been risky ever since the first log raft. But we still do it.
Traveling by air has been risky since 1908 with the first fatality. But we still do it.
Traveling by space has been risky since the 1960's but we are still trying to do it.
Any chance for success?
great idea
offlineMember
edog--are you really saying thar a capsule plummeting to Earth with a parachute was a 'timeless' solution?
granted it was good fodder for a Gilligan's Island episode, but we can do better than that.
VeganBiker
offlineMember
gi - that is still the only way to get back from the ISS thanks to the Russians! And it works.
pennygirl
offlineMember
I agree with iPlod.
Edog
offlineMember
I used to know a guy who worked on the propulsion system for the shuttles. He said an old style capsule is way easier and cheaper, but not nearly as cool. I take his word for it. Granted he died in a plane crash flying on his own but I still take his word for it.
Mondoman
offlineMember
Shelley, the more I learn about Andy, the more I'm convinced I would have really liked to chat with him IRL. Edog, NASA hasn't had a real manned space exploration goal since the 1970s, and the organization has ossified.
Here's one example: the hundreds of people in a giant NASA Mission Control room -- why are they there? Nowadays, that job should be easily doable with at most a few dozen people, as they have shown at SpaceX for their missions.
The part of NASA that actually has a mission -- the space science part -- does a lot better, but has also been infected by the bureaucracy and petty fiefdoms of the rest of NASA.
Access to low-earth orbit will only become common and affordable once it's run on an airline model (hopefully Southwest rather than PanAm!).
iPlod
offlineMember
"Access to low-earth orbit will only become common and affordable once it's run on an airline model..."
Unfortunately airline models won't be forthcoming until there's a business reason for schlepping into low earth orbit vs an overpriced microgravity Ferris Wheel reason.
Mondoman
offlineMember
iPlod, there's already a booming business launching satellites. Energy-wise, almost all the cost is from the first part, getting to LEO. If you can make that part cheaper (and hopefully more reliable than e.g. the recent SeaLaunch), it's fairly simple to include a booster to get your satellite (or evil death-ray platform) to the higher altitude you want.
PS - I agree with you on the overpriced microgravity Ferris Wheel, except that for all that money, we didn't even get a Ferris Wheel, just a one-armed, multi-winged purple people holder!
PPS - You should check out Bigelow Aerospace (?) -- it's wackos//////eccentrics//////////visionaries like that who will probably end up actually achieving real things. Imagine making $100s of millions from a hotel company, then using the money to pursue a dream of giant inflatable rooms in space!
Iplod!
Had a great thought! The city builds a sky bridge from high on the hill, terminating at the top of the ferris wheel arc. People pay to use the wheel, then pay to walk across the skybridge to shopping opportunities in the higher elevations of downtown! A public/private partnership/. Watcha think?
iPlod
offlineMember
Why dsomers, I think we ought to extend your idea from the top of the ferris wheel arc all the way over to Bainbridge. That would solve a few Washington State Ferries problems & piss off a few islanders.
Go for it, I say.
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