space: leave it to the machines

>
> On Thursday, February 20, 2003, at 08:53 AM, Ed Minchau
> wrote:
>
>>> On Wednesday, February 19, 2003, at 10:08 AM, Ed Minchau
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Neither of these ideas is beyond NASA's current capabilities. For
>>>> example, the engineers at Michoud designed an Aft Cargo Carrier
>> for
>>>> the space shuttle external tank thirty years ago.
>>>
>>
>> Another explanation for why the ACC idea was dropped: an aft cargo
>> carrier would do away with the need for the already-purchased
>> multibillion dollar orbiters, multibillion dollar international space
>> station, etc. Such considerations as engineering and science fall by
>> the wayside when they interfere with the path to the public trough.
>>
>

Let me summarize this class of argument:

Once upon a time someone did a study that showed that idea-dropped is
much better than idea-implemented in these 4 criteria. The study does
not address the other 1000 criteria necessary for success.
Idea-dropped was canned by agency-you-don't-like in favor of
idea-implemented. Since idea-dropped is better than idea-implemented
in 4 out of 1004 criteria, idea-dropped was ignored by
agency-you-don't-like because they are incompetent scum-bags; even
though more-or-less the same people have done dozens of amazing things
no one else has ever accomplished, and some have died in the process.

Not very convincing, is it?

> -
> ---------------------
> The International Space Station (ISS) most important legacy may be
> jump-starting space tourism. Consider: the first space tourist, Dennis
> Tito, was supposed to go to the Soviet era Mir space station. Under
> pressure from NASA, Russia de-orbited the Mir which resulted in Mr.
> Tito going to the ISS instead. Now the Mir was old, smelly, crowded and
> probably not all that nice. The ISS was brand new, shinny, much more
> roomy, etc. Mr. Tito came back to Earth with glowing accounts of how
> great space is. Would his experience have been as good on Mir?
>
> Al Globus
> CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
> http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html
>
> Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
> position of any organization I'm familiar with.
>

Space tourism could be our ticket to the stars. Save your pennies,
suborbital flights for $100,000 may start in 2005! See
http://www.spaceadventures.com/suborbital for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.