Re: What's New -- Friday, June 11, 2004 by Bob Park (this week Paul Gresser)

From: Uncle Al (UncleAl0_at_hate.spam.net)
Date: 06/11/04 

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 13:20:57 -0700

Sam Wormley wrote:
>
> Ref: http://www.aps.org/WN/WN04/wn061104.cfm
>
> Friday, June 11, 2004
[snip]

> 4. SPACESHIPONE: IS "LOW-COST SPACE FLIGHT" AN OXYMORON?
> Scheduled for launch on June 21, SpaceOne is the first attempt to
> send a private spacecraft beyond Earth's atmosphere with a human
> cargo. If it can safely ferry three passengers to an altitude of 100
> kilometers twice within two weeks, SpaceShipOne will win the $10
> million Ansari X Prize, a contest intended to stimulate interest in
> the space tourism industry. They hope to "show that people can fly to
> space for very low cost" by using "the lowest technology possible,
> not the highest." Perhaps they 'll be kind enough to fix Hubble (WN
> 26 Mar 04) while they're up there.

  1) The Hubble Space Telescope has a mission.
  2) Despite incredible NASA incompetence (wrong mirror Rx, feed cable
vs. high gain antenna, crappy steering gyros, and 200% cost overrun in
custom building and orbiting its own KeyHole spy satellite), Hubble
works.
  3) Hubble must be destroyed before more damage is done by its
successes. NASA Man in Space!

Uncle Al would sell Hubble to China for $(US)1 and transfer of
liabilty. Figure the NASA paperwork would cost $100 million to
duplicate a one page boilerplate Bill of Sale. Still a bargain.

If you want it done for real, Rutan and a few engineers not NASA and a
thousand bureaucrats. 

-- 
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
 (Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"  The Net!

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