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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Sept 7, 2014 7:06:44 GMT -7
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Post by HiTemp on Sept 7, 2014 13:37:59 GMT -7
Don't know how NASA does things now but in the past all these scientific experiments and such was figured out ahead of time so they could get an idea of what the load out should be, how much weight it will be, etc. That was also important to determine staffing needs for the project. If they're drilling for samples, that would justify having x number of geologists on the team, whereas if the dang thing is could gazing, what are we paying the geo docs to do?
NASA made a big mistake by ending the shuttle program because that was it's visible face to most people. If you ask someone to tell you something about NASA, they don't say anything about the Mars RC car, they talk about man on the moon and the space shuttle. Take those away and it's like a business taking down their sign out front. Add to that the fact that we now have to rely on Russian rockets to do anything in space and I think the average citizen thinks along the lines of, "Well, if NASA has given up on doing big things, no point in funding them anymore."
Typical of government, they got the idea to outsource the space chores to private industry, but did not wait until private industry was ready to provide those services. So we give up the only way we had to access space, killed the program to replace it, all while expecting a private corporation to step up and fill the void... only there wasn't one. So, we go begging the Russians to borrow space on one of their ships.
I think we should build our own version of the ISS, except this one will be American-only. No Russians, no Chinese, no mission specialists from countries the State Dept is trying to impress. Just Americans. And we should set up a manufacturing facility up there, perhaps totally automated, to produce things that can't be made on Earth. I don't know if it would be violating an agreement not to weaponize space if we were to put a few old pianos aboard and, if we get the opportunity, kick one out the door in such a way that it falls on an ISIS stronghold, preferably onto the noggin of Jihadi John. That would make me want to write a check to NASA and send in the donation myself.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Sept 9, 2014 17:15:37 GMT -7
Makes you wonder why they have down time for someone to complain about its use for sure. Understanding martian weather is probably important too I would think.
The whole notion of killing our only space borne program while replacing it with nothing has never made sense, especially when we are continually needing stuff lifted into it.
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