Re: Space Access Update #112 9/19/05

On Tue, 04 Oct 2005 19:55:52 -0500, "Paul F. Dietz" <dietz@xxxxxxx>
wrote:

>Alan Anderson wrote:
>
>> The small rocket scenario *will* have spares, unless it's designed as a
>> dead-end program, which would be idiotic for many reasons.
>
>Josh appears to be dead-set on having an idiotic program.

And where are the shining alternatives? Because I haven't seen many,
just calls to use paper boosters, unobtanium, or technology that's
either undeveloped or way beyond NASA's budgetary reach.

It's a lot easier to design missions on newsgroups than it is in real
life. The use of 20K boosters to go to the moon and Mars violates KISS
and IMO would be an N-1 like kludge.

I'm all in favor of finding better ways of doing things, and for
better or worse have thrown out some ideas myself. I question some of
the priorities of these programs. But I've been an engineer long
enough to know that one's options narrow significantly when one moves
from "Hey, what if we did this?" to "This is our budget, this is our
deadline, and this is our goal."

I genuinely want to learn about/think up better ways to do things --
it's why I'm hanging out on a group that doesn't have anything to do
with my own line of work. And I have my own doubts about some of
NASA's decisions, such as the decision to develop the stick rather
than using EELV's, or to go with what seems to me an almost timid
engineering approach. But alternatives have to be justifiable and
realistic, both from an engineering and financial perspective.

--
Josh

"It was amazing I won. I was running against peace and prosperity
and incumbency." - George W. Bush
.

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