So Apollo part two (rant)

[zyllah]

So yesterday democritus posted about nasa's new plans for apollo part 2. I just read the space.com article and I'm kind of excited. I mean hell we're finally getting off the treadmill of LEO. (thank you china!) That is a genuine reason to be excited. I fully support the privatization of LEO, however I think its overly idealistic to expect the gov't to

Comments

[democritus]

Something that is a little cloudy in your post is the differentiation between the shuttle program and this new program. Their purposes are TOTALLY different. The shuttle is an orbiter whereas this new mission is intended to go to the moon and make a jumping point for further exploration. I don't think it's fair to even compare the two. So many people rip on the shuttle program and I don't know why. We really have learned a lot from the shuttle program, especially about saftey(for example the heat shields on the new vehicles won't even be exposed until shortly before reentry). It may be outdated NOW but, without it we wouldn't have Hubble, not to mention much of the satellites(especially important IMO are some of the advanced weather sats), the Chandra x-ray observatory, and of course the Magellan and Gallileo probes. Don't diss on the shuttle, kid. ;) That money wasn't "wasted" at all, IMO

[zyllah]

You have a point about the shuttle. I might rip on the shuttle but I cry why I see one lift off and I wish it had worked the way it was supposed to I really do. If Nixon hadn't cut the budget to the bone so that NASA had to suck up to the air force and then lost the other components of the system it would have been much better. If skylab hadn't fallen down things would have also been much different. Ideally there would be room for both sorts of vehicles but the cost would be staggering. If its an exploration vehicle design it for exploration not to ferry people to the trailer park. So I suppose yet again I see them trying to do too much with one design. If safety was the deciding factor on weight why are they using solid rockets there is no off switch on those.

[democritus]

I'm not saying it *IS* safety, I'm just saying it might be. I don't know why. Perhaps it's a monetary readon. For sure, solid rockets are the best considering volume/lift, regardless of sheer tonnage. That makes them cheaper, if nothing else, considering you don't have to have a HUGE rocket(and associated ancillary systems) with tons of insulation and secondary cooling. But really, I have no idea why they are choosing these rockets.

[zyllah]

Yeah thats true. I just know there were some studies done about going to a liquid booster. When it comes down to it I have no idea either.