"Like-- how would monkeys in space-suits react to the Moon's reduced gravity? "

You, my friend, deserve a Nobel Prize.

Ace, just so you know, what you called for *is* the plan. In case you bothered to, you know, read about it.

I'm just sayin' ;-)

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Ouch Dave... you gotta give him credit since he thought of the same thing NASA came up with. ACE can't help it if NASA pays their computer geeks millions to get their ideas out faster.

There doesn't seem to be any big lizard men up there for me to fight or green-skinned women to tear my shirt off for, so, really, what's the point?

You've seen one big empty void with the occasional ball of hot gas you've seen 'em all.

Way to work in a Stacey Q reference. That can't be easy.

Yes, it's been done, but not in my lifetime (or at least not in the working-memory part of my lifetime), and I'm sure they can think of some new twist on the mission to make it seem new.

They can make it a reality show where astronauts get voted off the moon. That'll get the viewers watching.

BTW, the term "hoopty" to describe a broken-down vehicle has been around for years and years.

The original intent was for shuttle flights to be far more frequent than proved feasible. The whole program turned into a boutique operation once that plan failed.

So now you are right, but then it looked like it could be a real winner, and greatly lower the cost of lifting satellites into orbit and doing other things.

Live and learn.

The whole space progrman's been an anticlimatic 'er, I guess that's kinda interesting or something' letdown since the 'man on the moon' moment. Nothing can ever again match that.

People still say 'If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we..."

No one ever or will say: 'If we can put a manned, reusable quasi plane looking thing in low space orbit, why can't we..."

I mean, who cares? I get it. We can go into space. We proved it. What else ya got? Frankly, nothing up there interests me anyway. Maybe, maybe if the Chinese plan on putting a man on Mars, we try to beat them (just out of spite) but even then, big deal.

Where I'm from it's hoopy. (no t)

Ouch, Ace-- that's cold. Just trying to help.

Anyway, as you read for yourself, the Shuttle will be used for the missions it has to be used for, mainly, finishing up ISS. And then it's gone. Manned flight after that will be handled purely by partially reusable vehicles, namely the Crew Excursion Vehicle, which will be an unpowered capsule atop expendable rockets. And, the plan is to incorporate the CEV into the designs for the Moon vehicle (basically, as the front-end "control pod" for the larger, almost-certainly-to-be-built-in-orbit lunar hotrod).

Dynamite on paper, surely to be expensive and delayed.

Still, a long, sad way from the X-Wing they keep promising me.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Where I'm from we call them 'beaters'

it would be just terrific to see Steven Dorff mauled by junkie hipster pumas

Finally, someone has the balls to say what we've all been thinking. Bravo, sir. Bravo.

Only launch them when actually, genuinely needed

Example?

There's not one single aspect of the space program that is needed. If it were part of a focused plan to make bigger and better weapons, i could see the point, but the Air Force takes care of all that. NASA is one of the biggest wastes of taxpayer money in the federal budget.

Even funnier than watching monkeys in spacesuits chasing bananas in zero-gee?

Watching monkeys in spacesuits and space helmets trying to eat a banana.

The experiment that I want to see is an explosion in space.

We've seen billions of movie special effects space explosions, but we have no idea what one really looks like.

So, they had to land Discovery in Cali, eh?

If they were smart, they'd douse the thing in gasoline, right there at the end of Runway 22 at Edwards, torch it, and collect the insurance money. Use the $1 million or so saved from not having to bring that heap back to Florida to study the feasibility of your intriguing monkey-moon idea.

If NASA hadn't been pissing away all this money on the space shuttle, I'd have my damn flying car by now.

shakes fist

Already done that, Rob.

Without atmosphere and gravity, explosions are spherical.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

P.S. Those "Trinity" videos are outstanding products, worth every penny. Oh, and they're narrated by William Shatner-- what a two-fer!

The experiment that everyone REALLY wanted to see performed, in full color video, is all the positions in the Kama Sutra in zero-G.

Still no word (or video) on sex in space. That would perk up public interest, would it not?

In fact, the Shuttle was hobbled in the beginning by political compromise. I'd give the engineers behind it credit for making something, anything, out of it.

Here's more on the super pointless space shuttle: http://www.idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm

Iraq critic arguments and Shuttle critic arguments always sounded similar to me in that they both base them on money, necessity, risk and return benefits.

The Iraq war never did all that much. I think it was originally sold not according to its usefulness -- it can't do much that a conventional embargo can't -- but on the basis of its putative gee-whiz factor, a real live war, launching rockets into the heavens and landing again. It was sold, I imagine, on the intangible benefits of a exiciting whole new government about the wonders of democracy and freedom.

Look into the concept of "sunk costs". You do not judge a project's value based on how much capital has gone into it. Is the ISS of value? If yes, continue funding. If no, let it burn up over Papau New Guinea.

IMO, if the ISS is not working towards a construction platform for interplanetary spacecraft--either directly or indirectly through fundamental research--then it's not of value. People who jizz over "science" without a qualifier are not the people who should be making these decisions.

One argument for the SS that I have heard before is that it provides a visible face to the public in regards to the space program, which helps keep funding flowing. I see their point, but really, you know what catches folks eyes? The Martian rover; crashing into a comet; Voyager. All of these (unmanned) missions were cheap, interesting, had great visuals, and advance space exploration better than every SS mission where they drank Tang and juggled geese in zero-G.

Sending humans into space is only valuable if it leads to sending lots of humans into space. The SS ain't it.

Look into the concept of "sunk costs". You do not judge a project's value based on how much capital has gone into it.

No, you judge it by the utility of what you get for your money, as compared to the utility of everything else that could possibly have been obtained with that money.

Space-socialism projects don't measure up no matter how you slice it.

One argument for the SS that I have heard before is that it provides a visible face to the public in regards to the space program, which helps keep funding flowing.

There's a term for that: propaganda.

Hey Phinn, I bet I could get $50 bucks at a pawn shop for your computer and spend that feeding some homeless people.

When can I come pick up your stuff?

Its real easy to criticize, alot harder to actually do something. The need for humans to be able to operate beyond Earth is going to be imperative, one of these days. What form that will take, we don't currently know. Maybe a mission to divert an asteroid, maybe a mining mission to collect Helium 3 from the Moon, maybe to form space colonies to escape from Islamic domination of the Earth, who knows? But you know what? The Space Shuttle does some amazing things, and I defy anyone to do it better. Sure, that may be possible, but rather than criticizing, try beating it.

The Space Shuttle just returned 13 tons of test results, replacement and broken parts, and trash from the Space Station. From Earth orbit to California, at very near to 70 degrees F, 50% relative humidity, 100% breathable environment, less than 2G force applied.
Think about that, and try to come up with a system which can do that other than the Space Shuttle.
Little teeny return capsules cannot.

Go ahead, lets see you do it, instead of whining about the Shuttle.

Put up or shut up!

Hey Phinn, I bet I could get $50 bucks at a pawn shop for your computer and spend that feeding some homeless people. When can I come pick up your stuff?

Hey, nameless fuckwad, was my computer bought with tax money? No? Then promptly fuck off.

Show me the part of the Constitution where it says that the federal government has the power to launch science experiments into space. I must have missed the "Space Exploration Clause" in ConLaw class.

Conservatives profess to be for limited government, for a strict reading of the Constitution, for a return to the doctrine of limited and enumerated powers. Why not here? Just because some people find space stuff to be cool, groovy and generally neat-o does NOT give the federal government the power to do it. Go play with your Star Trek dolls and get your fucking hand out of my wallet.

There is nothing about the space program that justifies forcilby extracting people's hard-earned money and spending it on space launches. It's ridiculous.

If it were economically sound, private enterprise would do it (and do it better). Because it's a complete boondoggle, the gov't is naturally the one to do it. No one can piss money away like the good old federal gov't.

My decision to buy my computer, in contrast, was economically sound. I made that decision with my own fucking money, even considering all the other things I could have done with that money.

It's called economic calculation. Look it up.

Go ahead, lets see you do it, instead of whining about the Shuttle. Put up or shut up!

J. Pickens, I have a better challenge for you: you go out and convince people to VOLUNTARILY support a space program.

Solicit donations. Put a call out for investors. Tell them all about the asteroids, the helium, the colonies. Show them your sci fi movies if you like, just to get them in the mood.

See how much money you collect. When you get more than $27, give me a call and we'll talk.

The truth is that the space program is not economically sound. This is the acid test. We have another term for things that are not economically sound: "waste of money."

Or, you can just tax people and spend it for them.

Next time you bitch about welfare or a bloated and inefficient military budget, or the cost of various economic regulations left over from FDR's New Deal, think about how you chose to piss away billions of dollars on wasteful government programs.

See, private enterprise is the way to go.

The federal gov't couldn't make a pot of coffee for $100 million.

The Space Shuttle just returned 13 tons of test results, replacement and broken parts, and trash from the Space Station.

Great. A multi-billion dollar garbage truck.

I still want my freaking flying car!

You want to know why the SS sucks royal @$$?

The Columbia was a prototype. When it was launched everyone was told that it was a prototype. By the time it landed from its first mission, The American Memorial to The Soviet System (aka NASA) had already decided to make 10 IDENTICAL COPIES!! (only 7?8? were built) In other words, 20 years later we STILL don't have a "Production Model" space shuttle.

We would have been better off if NASA hadn't managed to kill off the Air Force's competing "DynaSoar" or X-20 program.

As it is, I'm betting on Mr. Rutan and the Brit.