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- erkokite, on 04/07/2008, -1/+19I would. I quite appreciate the work that NASA does. And no private corporation is going to spend money on pure research the way that NASA does.
- inactive, on 04/07/2008, -2/+14Just because you anti-science-extreme-right-wing-idiots don't appreciate the technology developed by NASA (which extends far beyond what is used for purely space exploration), doesn't mean it's "corporate welfare"
I know you people practically wet yourselves at the thought of a Laissez-faire market, but the kind of work NASA does is NOT something that is even remotely profitable in the short term for any kind of business venture, and would never get accomplished in the free market.
In summary, kindly pull your head out of your ass before making more ignorant comments about something you don't understand. - vault, on 04/07/2008, -1/+8I want us researching outer space, new methods of propulsion, aerodynamics, etc. Wow, some companies make money from it and those companies employ workers...what a tragedy.
- saleem, on 04/07/2008, -0/+7completely false. they would do less innovative, less far-reaching research because it might not have a positive impact on the Q4 portfolio they're preparing for shareholders.
- sonnysavage, on 04/07/2008, -0/+6I love low-tech solutions in high-tech environments. An example is the classic story/myth of the pens vs pencils in space.
http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp - Popninety, on 04/07/2008, -2/+8"fuuuucckkkk iss thisiiss reeaaallly gannnannana woorrrkkkk?!!!!"
- saleem, on 04/07/2008, -1/+7any clue how much the war is costing? NASA's budget is a small fraction of the annual cost of our operations in Iraq. Any idea the GOOD and the SCIENCE that could result from that sort of investment??
- WhereAmI, on 04/07/2008, -0/+5I'd miss it. If it weren't for NASA along with many other things we wouldn't be in the computer age. And then I wouldn't be able to talk to fine gents like you...and senixon.
- lolnix, on 04/07/2008, -3/+8"These are actually absorbers that are used in vehicles today, especially 1-ton and 1½-ton pickup trucks," Lyles said Thursday.
This is what happens when you outsource your shuttle maintenance crew to Ford Country. - joshblufs, on 04/07/2008, -1/+6If you can find American ROCKET SCIENTISTS willing to work on a russian pay scale maybe you can cut the NASA budget till then stop trying to compare the US and russian budgets. the cost of doing business between the 2 accounts for much of the difference. The defense budget is the obscene money pit. The volume of fundamental science research that nasa conducts may be one of the best investments in the future of our nation and the world in general.
- NeoNightmareX, on 04/07/2008, -1/+5Duct it or ***** it
- TheMikeMiller, on 04/07/2008, -0/+4"The Government Accountability Office highlighted other potential problems, including too much weight in both the rocket and Orion capsule, design issues with a new engine for a booster, insufficient facilities for certain types of testing, and private industry's inability to make the Orion capsule's 1960s-style peel-away heat shield."
If only we still had the technology we had in the 1960's, then we could go to the moon. - erkokite, on 04/07/2008, -0/+3The x-prize sent a person into outer space, but couldn't even reach LEO. It was basically a ballistic trajectory that couldn't reach orbit. It was a far cry from the stuff NASA does in human spaceflight on a regular basis. Don't get me wrong- impressive, but no substitute for the heavy lifting that NASA does. It really wasn't on the same level, and it like all commercial ventures, cash comes before research. A commercial organization would pursue economic benefits at the lowest possible cost, with hardly a care for the pursuit of knowledge. NASA is a SCIENTIFIC organization, it is not meant for generating revenue.
- camino262, on 04/07/2008, -1/+4There really is nothing low tech in a shock absorber. Think of the countless hours mechanical engineers have devoted to running computer simulations to make our rides smoother, and also think of the fabrication process.
- erkokite, on 04/07/2008, -0/+3A corporation would pursue whatever research is best for their bottom line. Fundamental physics, climate change, and cosmology and other important things that NASA pursues would fall by the wayside because they don't generate profit. There are commercial space organizations out there. They are technologically far behind NASA, ESA, JAXA, and the FKA. They are mainly space tourism outfits with no scientific value. And, like most contractors, they'll probably just end up leeching taxpayer money anyway. What is your real-life experience with government contractors? From what I understand, they usually do the job over budget and past the deadline because they have no oversight.
- carpespasm, on 04/07/2008, -3/+6Mud doesn't stain a vehicle, you can wash it off.
- Dokument, on 04/07/2008, -0/+3actually it can stain it. especially all the new plastic body parts.
- S1ngular1ty1, on 04/07/2008, -0/+3This is a perfectly acceptable fix. What are they supposed to use? Force shields? How do you think vibration problems are solved in most industries? I guess you never heard of keep it simple, stupid.
- rspeed, on 04/08/2008, -0/+3I'm not saying that SC is doing something especially remarkable, just that NASA is doing it wrong. They're using an engine that wasn't designed for lifting passengers and tossing a crew capsule on top. I'd have the same criticism if the ESA was hacking the Ariane 5 into the same role.
- shadowblade989, on 04/07/2008, -0/+3NASA should invest in a good set of Star Fleet inertial dampeners.
- NeilVickers, on 04/07/2008, -0/+3Hey, the Apollo launch system had exactly the same problem. The 'shaking' is actually a harmonic oscillation that's caused through the interaction of high thrust engines and their mounts. It's a well understood problem - you just put dampers into the system to cancel out the oscillations.
I'm as much a fan of Scaled Composites as the next guy, but we're comparing apples and oranges here. There's a WORLD of difference between engines designed to get you to the edge of space and those designed to get you up to orbital velocity (around 17,500mph.) If Scaled Composites were designing and building orbital systems then they'd likely be running into exactly the same set of problems. - flashingcurser, on 04/07/2008, -0/+3A quick google search will show that shock absorbers are not just for rednecks in trucks:
http://www.efdyn.com/
They are used for many industrial processes. I would be willing to be that the ones that end up in the shuttle will be the well made industrial variety. The ones used in testing will likely be the 1/2 ton pickup variety. - rspeed, on 04/07/2008, -0/+3In this case, however, the original design was developed to lift the Shuttle's external fuel tank. Further proof that this whole design is *****. Meanwhile Scaled Composites continues work on their hybrid engines despite the major setback last July.
- Anpheus, on 04/07/2008, -1/+4Most X-Prize rewards are insignificant compared to the cost required to reach them.
Mostly the X-Prize is just publicity.
Which means yes, it still requires millions in either private or public funding. - chroko, on 04/07/2008, -0/+3Does anyone else think that this is a ridiculous problem? The original design might accidentally shake the pilots to death during normal operation. Doesn't this mean that the original design sucks?
I don't know of any other engineering field that would prefer a quick fix to negate deadly side-effects, rather than removing the deadly side-effects out of the design before something was built. - Osiriscky3, on 04/07/2008, -0/+3OH THE HUMANTIY
- GliTCH82, on 04/07/2008, -1/+3Great, another ghetto-rigging of our space program. Pretty soon we're going to be flying trailers up there.
- carpespasm, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2Hey, it worked for Apollo 13. NASA's always been as much about bodging things to work as it has been about spending huge brainpower on making things work precisely as they should. Sometimes they get those two confused though it seems.
- groverblue, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2They did something like this with the hubble, i think.
- NeilVickers, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2The Hubble's vibration problems came primarily from the solar panels. Shortly after the Hubble was launched NASA found that the sudden temperature change from -90C to 100C that occurs during the transition from night to day caused the solar panels to violently shake. Original tests had showed that the panels would shake slowly for a period of about five minutes (something that was manageable and correctable by the Hubble's gyroscopes) but practice showed that the shaking was violent and lasted about 11 seconds. Rather than fit dampers onto the solar panels they were later replaced with panels that were far more rigid. These brought the shaking down to manageable levels.
- erkokite, on 04/08/2008, -0/+2SC's engines are nowhere even close to the same performance range as NASA's. NASA's engines are meant for delivering very large payloads to the moon. SC's are meant to take a couple people into a non-orbital trajectory. We're talking about comparing something that can deliver 10's of thousands of kilos of payload to the moon to something that can't even orbit a few thousand. Entirely different tasks. Big difference.
- joshblufs, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2Thanks for posting this, its a myth that needs continual busting.
- HolyShiite, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2duct tape would also do the trick... and it's cheaper
- yellowdragon, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2This just in: the bottom of the solid rocket boosters will be festooned with mudflaps bearing the image of the Trucker Lady! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudflap_girl
Details at 11 - rspeed, on 04/08/2008, -1/+3No, the rocket in question is designed to deliver payloads to low Earth orbit. I agree there's a big difference, but my opinion remains unchanged. NASA is trying to shoehorn existing technology into a role where it's arguably unfit.
- joshblufs, on 04/07/2008, -1/+3There are inefficiencies in NASA... No *****... You did post that you agree that nasa is corporate welfare and it would not be missed if it were gone tomorrow.
"So in the end it's all about money and NOT science." WTF? who said that? Any govt. organization that has been around as long as nasa will have some outstanding problems but If your case is that we would be better off without it all I can say is shove it where the sun don't shine..... and do me a favor, shove it hard. - baralo, on 04/08/2008, -0/+2Robots do not have the ability to interpret the contextually sensitive nature of their observations. Real science needs real people. Robots are hugely valuable tools for space research but they are NOT a replacement for humans.
- erkokite, on 04/08/2008, -1/+2The CEV that we are building now is actually significantly larger, safer, and more computerized. You'd be surprised at how complex this stuff is. A single engineer can spend 10 years working on a small part of the program- a heat shield for example. I believe that it is understood how the Apollo technology works, but we lack the infrastructure and machinery to produce it. The stuff that was originally built was probably very highly specialized, and wouldn't have been used outside of NASA for the Apollo program. Undoubtedly, private industry has never built something for this purpose and would lack the know-how.
- baralo, on 04/08/2008, -1/+2You miss my point. Part of our research agenda when we landed on the moon was to find clues as to the moon's origin. The major breakthrough, a specific type of rock, would have been missed entirely were it not for eyes trained in geological context.
While the new era of exploration (IR, RADAR, and thermal emission imaging) has definitely allowed for our expanded understanding of our solar system, hard science is still the domain of man. - Chakat, on 04/07/2008, -1/+2That's the problem with nasa. They've done good stuff...in the past. I appreciate what they've done, however, at the same time, their current projects have been mired in politics and Not Invented Here. Look at the DC-X fiasco, for example. There's definitely an innovative industry in NASA. The problem is that it's surrounded in bureaucracy.
- joshblufs, on 04/08/2008, -1/+2...... er........ thats why robots send data back to earth..... for the all important sensitive contextual interpretations. Imagine interpreting sensitive observations from the comfort of earth for a fraction of the price.
- farfegnugen, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1And this is where I hope to work when I get out of college...
- Culero, on 04/07/2008, -2/+2Spinners or it didn't happen
- senixon, on 04/07/2008, -3/+3what if the there were no shareholders, just a portion of NASA's money... look at how much has been achieved by XPrize for so little. You think those guys needed the Million dollars? THINK!
- DuffyDirect, on 04/07/2008, -2/+2the government DOES NOT fund anything for "pure science" -- idealism about exploring mysteries of the universe and all that hoo ha are sadly misguided. NASA has accomplished the impossible, but sometimes I feel like they really just need to grow up and stop with this manned exploration nonsense. It's way cheaper, easier, and safer to send robots, why don't they just do that and be happy?
- Zaneris, on 04/07/2008, -2/+1I think you overestimate the amount of thought and design they put into the cars we drive...
- senixon, on 04/07/2008, -5/+2Do you always answer question with another question?
- JuanBay, on 04/07/2008, -4/+1ummm... yes.
- DrDragun, on 04/07/2008, -6/+3zzzzzzzzzzzzz
- senixon, on 04/07/2008, -6/+2So in the end it's all about money and NOT science. Russia was just an example, there is JAPAN, China entering, and a few European agencies doing fine work for fraction of the cost. Not sure what you're trying to prove, but NASA is BLOATED and NOT worth the MONEY they SPEND each YEAR.
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