40 Years ago today

[ichy]

Even if these products didn't benefit NASA directly, the commercial uses of these products have more than paid for th space program by the massive amounts of tax revenues these products have generated.

Show me one legitimate study with some numbers behind it that proves that. You won't be able to find one. NASA's spin-offs are great but the idea that we're getting hundreds of billions in commercial spin-offs that we wouldn't have gotten otherwise is laughable.

 

[ichy]

Can't say I was around then but sounds like a waste of cash which is why we havnt been back. Kinda like scoring with prom queen. Good to do once but you don't want LTR.

We squandered far, far more on the war in Vietnam and on Johnson's failed Great Society programs than we ever spent on the space race.

 

[a777pilot]

Show me one legitimate study with some numbers behind it that proves that. You won't be able to find one. NASA's spin-offs are great but the idea that we're getting hundreds of billions in commercial spin-offs that we wouldn't have gotten otherwise is laughable.

Then laugh your ass off.

 

[DrPizza]

Could you imagine a space telescope located on the surface of the dark side of the moon? Imagine the observations that could be made with this type of equipment.

Uhhh, and what side of the moon would that be? That's like saying "the dark side of the Earth." It's the side away from the Sun - but if we wait a little while, it'll swap places with the lit side of the Earth. The same side of the moon always faces the Earth. When we see the full moon, that side is lit. Roughly half a month later, during a new moon, the opposite side is completely lit, and the side facing us is dark.

There are a lot of better places to put space telescopes, such as the stable Lagrangian points.

 

[Ausm]

And liberals believe in a Grand Conspiracy of all the Corporations (including those run by women) to pay women 77 cents for every dollar a man makes...

Who is really the crazy one?

That's not a conspiracy but rather a reality.

 

[a777pilot]

That's not a conspiracy but rather a reality.

A reality based on what? Faulty use of statistics, I opine.

I want to see a study that compares the pay of both men and women in comparable jobs.

Are you saying that women doctors, teacher, CEO's or maybe lawyers are well below that paid for men in the same positions?

Are men and women serving customers at Wendy's or McDonald's paid differently?

Are men and women pilots paid differently?

This 77 cents for a dollar is nothing but BS.

 

[ichy]

Then laugh your ass off.

As with practically every other assertion you make you have nothing to back it up except your own loudmouth blathering.

 

[a777pilot]

As with practically every other assertion you make you have nothing to back it up except your own loudmouth blathering.

...and you would be adviced to listen to my loud mouth blathering. I'm usually correct.

 

[Exterous]

You're not the only one. Sadly, we as a country care far more now about tax cuts for the wealthy than we do about national pride in our space program.

That's price we pay for two unfunded Wars in the sandpit from hell.

Goddamnit - at least wait more than a couple of posts to start this fucking partisan bullshit

The declining desire/funding to reach and explore space along with the lack of a shuttle successor program started long before focusing on tax cuts for the wealthy or unfunded sandpit wars.

Personally its posts like yours that are part of the problem. We are so fucking concerned about blaming the other guy we can't fix anything. Not saying it doesn't happen on both sides - but the second fucking post in this thread??!! Come on... there are FAR more things that we as Americans care about than our space program: Welfare, Ourselves, celebrities, Reality TV, Union vs Anti-Union, Tax cuts, Healthcare, stockmarkets, lawsuits, Travon vs Zimmerman etc

But noooooo just go ahead with your overly simplistic 'Derp its them other guys fault derp' bullshit

 

[Brovane]

Uhhh, and what side of the moon would that be? That's like saying "the dark side of the Earth." It's the side away from the Sun - but if we wait a little while, it'll swap places with the lit side of the Earth. The same side of the moon always faces the Earth. When we see the full moon, that side is lit. Roughly half a month later, during a new moon, the opposite side is completely lit, and the side facing us is dark.

There are a lot of better places to put space telescopes, such as the stable Lagrangian points.

yeah I think I missed up the terminology on that. I think I was referencing to putting on the telescope on the side of the moon that always faces away from Earth. Isn't there a side of the Moon that always is facing away from Earth? I do also agree about the Langrangain points. A Space Station at a Langrangian point with Telescope would be interesting.

 

[Brovane]

Just nitpicking here but DynaSoar was a proposed 1960s military spaceplane. The X-33 was a whole different program.

I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding between us here. I agree with you about Apollo's amazing accomplishments and I wish that NASA had built a second batch of Saturn Vs using F-1A engines & launched a second series of lunar missions and additional Skylab-type stations rather than developing the shuttle. I am just trying to be honest about the fact that as a purely scientific endeavor manned spaceflight isn't the most efficient way to do things.

There's a scene in From the Earth to the Moon where Harrison Schmitt meets with Dr. Leon Silver to try to get him to train the Apollo astronauts in geology. Silver's first response is something along the lines of "tell them to send robots, they're cheaper and don't have astronaut egos." Now that scene is probably fictional but I think it's a pretty good depiction of how the scientific community felt about Apollo and manned spaceflight in general. I'm OK with the fact that manned exploration doesn't provide the same scientific bang for the buck that robots do because I believe there are other reasons to send people into space but I try to be realistic about that.

BTW, there's another reason besides money that Apollo ended after 17. NASA was really pushing their existing systems to the limit and sooner or later an Apollo crew was going to die. Nobody likes to talk about this, but there was a definite feeling in NASA's leadership that we'd beaten the Russians and had a set of successful landings, so now let's quit while we're ahead.

Yes I did screw that up. The X-33 and DynaSoar where two different programs. The X-33 was supposeed to be the shuttle replacement.

The next series of Saturn's would have better with the ability for more Payload. Somewhere I have some details on the varity of deratives. The F1A engines would have been great. They where also had developed advanced replacements for the J-2 engines on the 2nd and 3rd stage. These engines eventually developed into the space shuttle main engines. From reading the 1st stage engine power doesn't matter as much as the 2nd and 3rd stage.

I do understand that eventually a Apollo crew could have died. Almost happened on 13. However the Astronauts of Apollo knew the risk and accepted it. What was really said was Apollo 18 cancellation. We had all the hardware. They cancelled the mission to just save operation costs. Talk about a waste.

NASA had a entire follow-up program to Apollo including plans for extended stays of over 30-days on the surface on the Moon. I don't think most people realize that by studying the moon we learn more about Earth. Since the current most likely theory on the Moon creation points to that the Moon was created when a large object impacted Earth over 4 Billion years ago. So basically the Moon has parts of Earth on it. Since the Moon isn't very active geologically we can recover rocks from the Moon from this time period. On Earth because of the active geology the 4 Billion plus year old rocks are usually destroyed and re-formed.

 

[Brovane]

Show me one legitimate study with some numbers behind it that proves that. You won't be able to find one. NASA's spin-offs are great but the idea that we're getting hundreds of billions in commercial spin-offs that we wouldn't have gotten otherwise is laughable.

I agree somehow it is difficult to point to direct spin-offs and the financial part of it.

I think Fuel Cell devleopment was originally pushed by NASA. Now 2x400kw fuel cell generates power for the building I work at with no green house gas emissions.

 

[ichy]

Isn't there a side of the Moon that always is facing away from Earth?

Yep, but it isn't always facing away from the Sun.

 

[a777pilot]

I think Fuel Cell devleopment was originally pushed by NASA. Now 2x400kw fuel cell generates power for the building I work at with no green house gas emissions.

Sorry, but you are going to have to explain that one to me. NO green house gas emissions? How is that even possible? What is that fuel cell powered by? Magic beans?

 

[ichy]

Sorry, but you are going to have to explain that one to me. NO green house gas emissions? How is that even possible? What is that fuel cell powered by? Magic beans?

It's at least theoretically possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell#Power

One such pilot program is operating on Stuart Island in Washington State. There the Stuart Island Energy Initiative[53] has built a complete, closed-loop system: Solar panels power an electrolyzer which makes hydrogen. The hydrogen is stored in a 500 US gallons (1,900 L) at 200 pounds per square inch (1,400 kPa), and runs a ReliOn fuel cell to provide full electric back-up to the off-the-grid residence. Another closed system loop was unveiled in late 2011 in Hempstead, NY.[54]

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Sorry, but you are going to have to explain that one to me. NO green house gas emissions? How is that even possible? What is that fuel cell powered by? Magic beans?

Hey a777troll...you forgot about your OP here:

Link

Have the balls to defend your lies, or admit you are wrong. But bailing on your own thread is pretty pathetic.

 

[a777pilot]

It's at least theoretically possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell#Power

I agree that is at least theoretically possible. That is exactly why I propose 1,000 nuclear power plants. The excess energy can be used to produce hydrogen.

Good answer.

Thanks, ichy.

 

[a777pilot]

Hey a777troll...you forgot about your OP here:

Link

Have the balls to defend your lies, or admit you are wrong. But bailing on your own thread is pretty pathetic.

I don't know what the religion of this Fool, Bobo, the Post Turtle, has to do with NASA or sustainable non-fossil fuels.

But, he is by muslim law a muslim. You might want to do some research.

 

[a777pilot]

But bailing on your own thread is pretty pathetic.

Oh, nooooooooooooooo!

When did that happen?

 

[DrPizza]

yeah I think I missed up the terminology on that. I think I was referencing to putting on the telescope on the side of the moon that always faces away from Earth. Isn't there a side of the Moon that always is facing away from Earth? I do also agree about the Langrangain points. A Space Station at a Langrangian point with Telescope would be interesting.

If the telescope is on the far side of the moon, how are you going to send signals back to the Earth? How are you going to manage the wild swings in temperature? (It varies by roughly 600 degrees F depending on day/night on the moon.)

 

[a777pilot]

If the telescope is on the far side of the moon, how are you going to send signals back to the Earth? How are you going to manage the wild swings in temperature? (It varies by roughly 600 degrees F depending on day/night on the moon.)

Why not put a large scale telescope in orbit around the moon?

Or a large scale telescope in High earth orbit, say 50,000 miles out.

The Hubble is one of the all time great scientific marvels. I would love to see one at the minimum ten times its size. Now if we can just figure out how to manufacture a mirror that size in zero gravity.

 

[Brovane]

If the telescope is on the far side of the moon, how are you going to send signals back to the Earth? How are you going to manage the wild swings in temperature? (It varies by roughly 600 degrees F depending on day/night on the moon.)

Sending signals back you would have to have a Satellite in orbit around the moon to bounce the signal back to Earth. Not sure about the swing in temperature that is a good point. Maybe put it in a crater that is deep enough to always have a shadow on it. However probably locating a telescope at one the L points would be better.

 

[Orignal Earl]

Why not put a large scale telescope in orbit around the moon?

Or a large scale telescope in High earth orbit, say 50,000 miles out.

The Hubble is one of the all time great scientific marvels. I would love to see one at the minimum ten times its size. Now if we can just figure out how to manufacture a mirror that size in zero gravity.

Before you even get started, you have to tie it into defense somehow.
Sure it's a telescope..but if we turn it around, we can use it to fry incoming NK missiles

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

If the telescope is on the far side of the moon, how are you going to send signals back to the Earth? How are you going to manage the wild swings in temperature? (It varies by roughly 600 degrees F depending on day/night on the moon.)

I think a lunar telescope is not a good idea for a number of technical reasons, gravity and cold being the main problem, but you could dump the data to a lunar satellite to relay to earth and there are craters that do not get sunshine. Having to move heavy parts near absolute zero wouldn't be easy. Best done at L4 or L5. Be nice to have a working space elevator first which is the real key that would unlock the solar system. Nasa being as much a political party piece as anything else hasn't made this a priority, relying on systems who's principles date back to ancient China. Well we have decayed to a small people with high risk adversity and little effective imagination. Lesser children of greater parents.

 

[CaptnKirk]

Didn't ZZ Top write a song about where to place Satellites and telescopes into Earth Orbits?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point