Anyone else watch the launch? It never gets old does it?
03-06-2009, 07:28 PM
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Anyone else watch the launch? It never gets old does it?
The Delta is what, 30 yrs old? Can you imagine where we would be if we had pursued the space program with the same vigor that we did in the 50's and 60's? They accomplished moon landings with all the computing power of a modern calculator.
I think another space race is just what we need to get out of this funk as a country.
I think another space race is just what we need to get out of this funk as a country.
03-07-2009, 10:46 AM
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I love the night launches...but
...my support of the space program tends to favor unmanned missions (like last night's mission) over manned missions. To hijack your supposition and twist it...Can you imaginewhere we would be if we had pursued the unmanned space program?
In my opinion, the ROI for manned missions is low compared to that of unmanned missions. I'd rather plow the money we spend on hauling around air, food and waste in to more unmanned missions including telescopes, robotics, exploration, etc.
In my opinion, the ROI for manned missions is low compared to that of unmanned missions. I'd rather plow the money we spend on hauling around air, food and waste in to more unmanned missions including telescopes, robotics, exploration, etc.
03-07-2009, 02:17 PM
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I agree. The main advantage to the manned flight is the moral boost/pride it generates.
I guess it's the inspiration from people that are brave enough to strap themselves to a loosely controlled explosion for the sole purpose of exploration and discovery that motivates people. Can you imagine a little kid saying he wants to do well in math and science just to send unmanned rockets up? How many kids wanted to be astronauts over the past 30-40 years?
None of it really it home for me until I saw just how rickety and small the Redstone rockets that powered some of our first flights really were. Those things were not much bigger than a long range air to air missile! The guys that volunteered for those rides had some serious cajones.
But yeah, strictly from an ROI perspective, manned flight makes no sense. To take it one step further, we could reduce the cost per launch tenfold if we allowed more failures. IIRC, the current reliability ratings for flight hardware is 6 nines. Drop that to 3 or 4 nines and launches get real cheap real fast. This is how the Russians made so much progress so quickly (coupled with no regard for range safety or human life).
Our current system would allow us to lower the reliability requirements for flight hardware and still maintain range safety standards (command destruct etc)
None of it really it home for me until I saw just how rickety and small the Redstone rockets that powered some of our first flights really were. Those things were not much bigger than a long range air to air missile! The guys that volunteered for those rides had some serious cajones.
But yeah, strictly from an ROI perspective, manned flight makes no sense. To take it one step further, we could reduce the cost per launch tenfold if we allowed more failures. IIRC, the current reliability ratings for flight hardware is 6 nines. Drop that to 3 or 4 nines and launches get real cheap real fast. This is how the Russians made so much progress so quickly (coupled with no regard for range safety or human life).
Our current system would allow us to lower the reliability requirements for flight hardware and still maintain range safety standards (command destruct etc)
