ISS Completion

[frodo1008]

I agree with you also. No I don't see NASA getting enough funding to properly complete the "Old" vision and the "New" vision as you put it. The difference is that I don't even see NASA getting enough money to complete the "New" vision alone either!!! Forget it, it isn't going to happen! <br /><br />Our incredibly intelligent congress and current administration isn't even including the costs of the wars in the Mille-East as part of the actual budget deficit! They are funded under "Suplementary" funds, and are therefore not included. Don't you wish you could lie like that in your own household budget?? When the lies come home to roost and the REAL budget deficit is calculated, there won't be enough money to run ANY discretionary part of the Federal Budget. Under these circumstances NASA's budget will become one of the first cut. So forget going to either the moon or Mars!<br /><br />Don't get me wrong here, I really, really wish it were otherwise, but I have been here before!! <br /><br />So, while I still support NASA and its various visions, I have become far more fond of Burt Rutan and HIS visions. Maybe, just maybe, he and others like him will be able to do the job. Of course, it will require more time than some of the more enthusiastic supporters of such efforts on these boards think it will for pure private interests to do the job, but I remain somewhat hopeful that they can do it. After all, by the laws of economics (which are almost as powerful as the laws of physics) they DO have to make a profit somewhere along the way, and this WILL take some time!!

 

[henryhallam]

<font color="yellow"><br />Why do you say less than 87 deg?<br /></font><br /><br />My thinking is that for a truly polar orbit (90 degrees) you don't want any velocity parallel to the Earth's equator, so you have to expend energy to get rid of the ~460m/s that you get due to the Earth's rotation. An 87 degree inclination orbit, though, does have some velocity parallel to the equator, and I figured 7500 m/s * cos(87) = 400 m/s, so that's about the point where having the rotational velocity is an advantage rather than a liability.

 

[lunatio_gordin]

WE should stop getting things half done and then abandoning them.

 

[frodo1008]

Yep, why don't we just abandon the ISS right now. Then the next time the US needs any kind of cooperation from other nations about such things as terrorism, I am sure they will remember what the word of the US is worth, and just jump at the chance to help us! That is, if they don't just call in all of the debt that we owe them and totally ruin our economy while they are at it!<br /><br />I guess we had also cancel the next shuttle flight! Of course, then congress will just dutifully put that money back into NASA's budget to pay for going on to Mars!<br /><br />By the way, I have this bridge in Brocklyn that I was thinking of selling an interest in, interested?