Re: Manned space flight after the moon landing

From: Paul F. Dietz (dietz_at_dls.net)
Date: 10/04/04 

Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 07:26:59 -0500

Derek Lyons wrote:
> "Paul F. Dietz" <dietz@dls.net> wrote:
>
>>Please consider this testimony by Robert F. Thompson,
>>who was the manager of the Space Shuttle Program Office from 1970-1981:
>
>
> Please consider the testimony came thirty years later, and is so far
> uncorroborated.

It came after his career is over, and so he won't face reprisal for
telling it like it was. Do read his CAIB testimony; there's other
interesting stuff in there (debunking the 'two stage shuttle would
have been better but for those darned politicians' myth, and
the 'military requirements screwed the shuttle' myth, for example.)

But perhaps you could come up with some similarly placed experts
who have gone on the record, preferably in public testimony,
contradicting him?

> In other words, "No, the radically improved expendables haven't come
> to be".

Even a small factor of improvement from the expendables of that time
would have killed the shuttle in the comparisons. The shuttle,
even at the fraudulently high flight rates, wasn't projected to be
much cheaper than the then-existing expendables.

> But you don't have the balls to admit it, while demanding that action
> of others.

This thread has brought out the pathological defense mechanisms you
folks use to avoid having to face reality. That's another one.

        Paul