Re: Griffin Wants Inline SDLV and 5 Segment SRB/CEV

Rand Simberg wrote:

> >
> >Why? Nostalgia over Apollo makes a boatload of sense. It was the single
> >most impressive event in human history, with the possible exception of
> >the Trinity test. That it was strangled at birth, or used the wrong
> >architecture, or was based on a shaky premise or whatever are minor
> >points compared to the achievement.
>
> It was unaffordable, unsustainable, and resulted in decades of
> relative stagnation--even retrograde activity--in space, relative to
> what could have been accomplished had a different path been chosen.
> And it looks like Dr. Griffin wants to repeat the same mistake.

this "alt.space" version of space history jumped the shark right about
the time Rotary Rocket went tits up. What different path could have
been chosen? Developing the X-15 into a reusable orbital vehicle over
the next 50 years? Maybe launching the shuttle on top of a DC-X?

If Apollo had been chosen instead of the space shuttle, we never would
have stopped going to the moon. Saturn V would probably cost about what
medium EELVs do today. And the ISS would have been finished two or
three years after the first launch. Jeez, Skylab'd still be in orbit.

The failures of the space program subsequent to Apollo can be laid at
the feet of the Nixon administration and Shuttle, not Apollo. It's time
to put the canard about the 'unsustainability of Apollo' to rest once
and for all. There was no magic silver bullet government program that
could have made opening the solar system dramatically cheaper and
'sustainable.' There was no secret government plot to cause stagnation
in spaceflight, there is NO BELIEVABLE MODEL THAT WOULD HAVE MADE
SPACEFLIGHT SEVERAL ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE CHEAPER three decades ago and
continued repetition of that fantasy borders on tinfoil hat
crackpottery.

cuddihy

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Griffin Wants Inline SDLV and 5 Segment SRB/CEV
    ... Nostalgia over Apollo makes a boatload of sense. ... We'd have had cheap launch in the eighties. ... >Maybe launching the shuttle on top of a DC-X? ... >in spaceflight, there is NO BELIEVABLE MODEL THAT WOULD HAVE MADE ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: FOBS as a Primary Motivator for Human Spaceflight
    ... Space Race up through Apollo. ... A logically valid rebuttal would simply show one human spaceflight ... Have you read how NASA was set as a non-military agency? ... National security is more tied to oil than it is to space. ...
    (sci.space.history)
  • Re: Earliest five?
    ... My admittedly simplistic analysis of spacecraft vs motor vehicle ... I worked on the Apollo capsules during the fire abatement modification ... They were trapped in the capsule behind a simple metal plate hatch with ... If NASA was as cautious in 1969 was they have been on the Space Shuttle ...
    (rec.motorcycles.tech)
  • Re: Buran evolution - wish I understood Russian!
    ... to declare the shuttle "operational" so they could be removed: ... "Also unlearned?not forgotten?was the reason for Apollo 13 success. ... 13, it was the conception that NASA could get itself into a fix in space, ... Anyone who claims NASA invented "crash test dummy" testing of escape ...
    (sci.space.history)
  • Re: Astronauts like capsules
    ... G-loading for an Apollo capsule on a LEO mission. ... Say something like an ISS node attached to an ISS ... Lets not forget that dropping the shuttle also drops the whole concept ...
    (sci.space.shuttle)