Re: FOBS as a Primary Motivator for Human Spaceflight
- From: Eric Chomko <pne.chomko@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 09:59:34 -0800 (PST)
On Jan 5, 5:36 pm, Stuf4 <tdadamemd-spamblo...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From Eric Chomko:
As for Hubble, it is an irrefutable fact that active duty military
members from DoD have been sent on every single Hubble mission,
including deploy and repair. And STS-125 is training for this to
happen again for the final scheduled repair.
So what? Hubble is not military payload, nor is the Hubble repair/
upgrade mission considered "military".
Now we at least seem to be in agreement that DoD gets their hands
dirty with the zero-g wrench bending, and is not stuck in some
peripheral role for the shuttle program.
Most people that do EVAs are not military, they are mission
specialists. For HST repair missions, the military IS peripheral. See
here for space shuttle DOD missions:http://www.thespaceplace.com/shuttle/past.html
I don't see how Colonel Michael Good's role in the upcoming STS-125
Hubble repair can be taken as peripheral. He is an Air Force
navigator who flew the B-2 bomber, and soon he will be bending
wrenches on Hubble. You are *not* on the periphery of the mission
when your face is filled with the satellite, and mission success or
failure is totally in your hands.
HST is not classified nor are its artifacts. You can search the web
for Hubble images and get them. The fact that Col. Good works for the
DOD doing unclassified stuff doesn't make his work a national security
issue.
I have not run the stats, but I am certain that the overwhelming
majority of shuttle missions have had DoD crew on board.
And when they have ONLY military vs. part civilian crew, then those
are "military missions". But when one or more of the crew are mission
specialists who are civilians, then those are not military missions.
That would be one way to define the term. But I don't think that fits
with NASA definition, nor DoD's. And which missions get referred to
as "military" and which ones don't never had anything to do with my
main point.
Then you never had a point, or you were wrong. As you confused NASA as
being part of the national security apparatus of the US like the DOD
is. Which is truly false.
One of Eisenhower's options for responding to Sputnik was to give all
of these space programs to ARPA instead of creating NASA out of the
NACA. I hope you are aware that the exact same missions could have
been accomplished with the exact same personnel, all under DoD instead
of NASA.
But they were not. NASA earth and planetary scientists are not part of
the nation security apparatus of the US.
Imagine how silly it would be if that had happened and then
someone was here posting that Project Mercury or the Space Shuttle was
not a national security program.
They aren't. You have no idea what national security means.
I'll repeat that for emphasis:
It is totally plausible for all of the US human spaceflight programs
to have been undertaken under DoD (instead of creating NASA).
They were not. If they had been, then you maybe would have a point.
But they were not, so you do not have a point.
You imply that the "Big Brother" has somehow penetrated NASA in some
way that would imply that the "people" have failed. You are wrong! You
obviously can't believe that two parts of the govt. can exist and
actually oppose the other. Hell look at the Republicans and Democrats
in Congress and tell me otherwise.
All of
these space missions could have been accomplished with the exact same
people at the exact same locations at the exact same times using the
exact same hardware.
So what? They were not!
The only difference stems from that one decision
made by Eisenhower to put these programs under a new civilian
organization instead of putting these programs under the DoD.
Right, which has been my point the whole time! He didn't want the DOD
to have NASA become their instrument. Do you even recall Ike's
fairwell address? His warning about the "Military Industrial Complex"?
Geez, get a history lesson!!
All of the stuff that was shifted away from the Army, Air Force and
Navy and handed over to NASA could easily have been kept under DoD.
It wasn't! And "shifted" is the worng word, "created for (NASA)",
makes more sense as the facilities in the various states are NOT DOD
except Redstone borders MSFC. But not so with GSFC, JPL, GSC, JSC,
KSC, etc.
That includes Von Braun's Saturn along with his Huntsville operation.
It all got rebranded as "civilian", and viola... today the masses
will refuse to recognize that these were national security programs.
The were of vital insterest and still are, but not "national
security".
They could have flown the entire program without having a
single DoD payload and without calling *any* mission a military
mission, yet the primary point would still stand: Human spaceflight
has always been funded by the US Congress with the primary motivation
being national security.
Again, false. There is nothing about manned spaceflight that makes it
related to national security. Nothing. Economics has more of a bearing
on NS than does manned spaceflight.
We'll cancel spaceflight after spaceflight, but just try and block our
access to oil and see what happens.
ICBMs form a much more immediate threat than any oil supply issue.
From where? Russia? Not anymore, or at least that is what we have been
led to believe. Glasnost, perestroika, Reagan winning the Cold War,
etc.
ICBMs will vaporize the masses and flatten your cities.
Actually, I think we are more of a threat of that than anyone pointing
one our way. So, you might want to rethink saying "your cities".
Pulling the
oil plug will just make your cities go dark and your cars stop
running. And the effect is not realized until several months down the
road after your strategic reserves have dried up. The effect of nukes
is experienced in a matter of minutes.
Right, so what does this have to do with the space shuttle and NASA?
People seem to have totally lost sight as to why John Glenn was
embraced as such a huge hero.
He was our answer to Yuri Gugarin.
All of those ticker tape parades were
because he was seen as a symbolic savior of US national defense.
No, he was an American that did something that only the Russians
thought that they had done, but we evened the score, so to speak. He
was more of a hero in the sense of competition like a sports star than
a war hero. The space race was more sport than it was combat.
His flight was the first solid answer to Sputnik. It said, "See this
Atlas I'm riding on? You try anything and we'll launch a LOT more of
these."
Americans felt a lot more secure because of John Glenn.
Americans felt like we were not losers because of John Glenn.
Do you even know what the National Security Act is? It happened in
1947 under Truman. Do you think 11 years later when NASA was created
by Ike that we amemded the NSA (Act not Agency) to include a provision
for NASA? If anything Ike went out of his way to avoid EXACTLY what
you are claiming by making NASA a civilian agency that is not shrouded
in secrecy. NASA is no more related to national secuirty than is NOAA,
NSF or ATF, or any other government agency. Heck include NIH if you
want to. There is no NASA intelligence branch.
What I would say is that Ike went out of his way to avoid the
*appearance* of militarizing space with programs like Project Mercury.
There is no doubt that creating NASA had ties to the Cold War and the
space race being part of it overall. But trying to tie Apollo into
Vietnam, other than by timeframe, is just silly.
As for NASA and intel, I expect you are aware that critical NASA
decisions were driven by CIA info.
Like what? If anything the CIA learns how to save money on earth
observing satellites by watching how NASA does it.
Perhaps the most critical decision
was NASA pushing to extremes with launching Apollo 8, having people on
top of the Saturn V for its third ever launch, and then sending those
people not just to the Moon, but into orbit around the Moon.
That was what they were supposed to do, just short of doing the
landing.
All
hyperaccelerated because of the CIA estimation that the Soviets were
on the brink of doing it first. So if national security was not the
driver (as so many seem to believe) then that would leave open the
question as to why the CIA got so involved here.
The space race was national prestige not national security. Do you
think that China and now India are less secure nationally because they
are behind the US and Russians in space?
<snip>
You claim that NASA is part of the national security apparatus of the
US. That is false.
When the shuttle reentry failed in Feb 2003, post 9/11 and the
creation of the DHS, did they change the level of the threat code from
green to yellow or yellow to orange or orange to red?! No, our
national security wasn't affected at all.
If sabotage had been suspected, then I expect that the level *would*
have changed.
Correct, but sabotage was NOT expected.
But I would agree that flying the shuttle today, or not
flying it because all our orbiters got grounded or wrecked would have
little impact to our national security.
You make my point!!
The vast majority of national
security justification for funding the shuttle all evaporated shortly
after the Berlin Wall came down.
It wasn't there back then! The implosion of the USSR didn't change
NASA one bit other than the fact that we would cooperate rather than
compete in space.
Other remnants of that lingered
until we forced the Russians to crash their Mir.
They crashed their Mir because no one wanted to fund keeping it up in
space.
Today, almost
nothing from that remains. The biggest threat is from the Chinese.
Only if they stop making toys for our Happy Meals.
Eric
.
- Follow-Ups:
- References:
- Prev by Date: Re: The Right Stuff
- Next by Date: I say old chap!
- Previous by thread: Re: FOBS as a Primary Motivator for Human Spaceflight
- Next by thread: Re: FOBS as a Primary Motivator for Human Spaceflight
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
