Next shuttle launch delayed until "at least" March!

[drwayne]

"You would think they could have another tank or two ready by the end of September and try for a target date in mid or late October at the latest."<br /><br />I don't think there is a window in October with the required lighting conditions, is there?<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[lunatio_gordin]

you better hope SG doesn't see that. or you're gonna fry. <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" />

 

[shuttle_rtf]

>Its sad that a March time frame is the best they can do?<br /><br />You would think they could have another tank or two ready by the end of September and try for a target date in mid or late October at the latest.<br /><br />So much for ISS completion and I dont see 5 shuttle missions a year to complete the ISS either. I don't have that much confidence in United Space Alliance to do that.<br /><br />Thats sad isnt it? <<br /><br />Got to ask you - seen as that view is wrong, really wrong - what you believe is the reason why March is the next opportunity they are shooting for?

 

[john_316]

The tid bit on daylight launches is unnerving in a way. I do have a few suggestions or ideas for this but they may seem very impractical.<br /><br />1. Use night vision cameras on the ET for launch.<br />2. I guess they never heard of renting some spotlights or search lights either. I dont know I think a half dozen or so can follow and track the the shuttle while launching.<br />3. Dont you think the SSME and SRB would produce enough light while launch that the cameras on the shuttle stack would pick up shedding.<br />4. But as 5 launches per year. I still say its dubious to say that they can get that trick off with out another delay or problem. <br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" /><br />

 

[shuttle_rtf]

No on all counts.<br /><br />Again, I have to ask the question in my previous post.

 

[SpaceKiwi]

I'm not sure john has done much reading of the relevant M&L threads. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em><font size="2" color="#ff0000">Who is this superhero?  Henry, the mild-mannered janitor ... could be!</font></em></p><p><em><font size="2">-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</font></em></p><p><font size="5">Bring Back The Black!</font></p> </div>

 

[halman]

frodo1008,<br /><br />I seem to recall reading somewhere that several analysts close to John F. Kennedy believed that he intended the Apollo program to be in part a barginning chip, something which could be pulled off the table if the other player's bluff was called. (Many people seem unaware that the Soviet Union was leading the race for the Moon through most of the 1960's. Only a catastrophic failure on the pad set their plans back so far that it was decided to scrap the program and focus on building space stations, which are far more important to getting off the planet than any other activity.) If JFK were as intelligent as he was purported to be, he certainly would have seen that the Apollo program was a dead end. <br /><br />Sending ships directly to the Moon from Earth is like sending rowboats to unload a cruise ship. Without a space station to provide a staging area in orbit, we are reduced to ridiculously tiny payloads landing on the Moon. (Am I wrong to believe that the Vision has been reduced to symbolic landings by a handful of people at a time? The discussion over whether to rendeavouz in Earth orbit or in Lunar orbit seems to be an echo of a discussion that was held in about 1963. There is no space station in the plan, there are no Lunar Transports, shuttling back and forth between the Moon and Earth orbit, there are just capsules going to the Moon, and then returning. Haven't we seen this movie before?) I would like to believe that, if Kennedy had not been carried willy-nilly through Dealy Plaza, he would have added a space station to the Apollo program, (One Saturn 5 launch would fly most of the International Space Station, I believe.) and some type of reusable spacecraft to get to and from the Moon. The Apollo program would probably have been superseded by a sustainable development program very quickly, because that is what the Russians were planning for.<br /><br />Be that as it may, this furor about the delay in shuttle flights strikes me as b <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[shuttle_rtf]

>I'm not sure john has done much reading of the relevant M&L threads. <<br /><br />I'm not sure John's done much reading, period.

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"Besides, Kennedy unlike Johnson was intelligent enough to have seen the trap that we were getting into in Viet Nahm..."</font><br /><br />Interesting concept... especially as space was <b>Johnson's</b> pet project, rather than Kennedy's. Kennedy wanted some great engineering project to prove that the U.S. was more technologically advanced than the Russians. He had three choices: large scale desalination of ocean water, a massive bridge (I forget where to... Hawaii is sticking in my head, but I don't think that was it), and a Moon landing. The moon was his <b>least</b> favorite choice, but the only one that could be accomplished in any reasonable timeframe given the engineering of the time.<br /><br />After his death, Johnson used his memory to shove funding through time and again to keep NASA on-track. JFK's moon speech was very inspirational, there is no doubt. However, his personal opinions about the program were something else entirely.

 

[drwayne]

I have heard that too. Do you recall where you might have read that?<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"Do you recall..."</font><br /><br />Unfortunately, I read so many different books, articles, etc. that recalling a specific one is extremely difficult unless it was very recent. I found a link on his interest in desalination here. And a document with an analysis on Kennedy's ambivalent feelings about the space program here. However, I can't find that specific reference, which means it would have been one of the books chronicaling the US space program I read a few months back. Unfortunately I read about six of them in short order to get a broad-based view while each was fresh in my mind. That part worked just fine... but now separating the data I got from each is a bit... problematic. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />

 

[drwayne]

Cool. My intent was not to quiz you by the way, I was asking out of curiosity....<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[drwayne]

"2. I guess they never heard of renting some spotlights or search lights either. I dont know I think a half dozen or so can follow and track the the shuttle while launching."<br /><br />Combines arragance with ignorance quite nicely, don't you think?<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[frodo1008]

It was during Johnson's administration that the War in Veit Nahm really took off. It was the funding for this war that shut down Wherner von Braun's ideas for further space development. When he went before congress to ask for funding for such things as a true space station, a base on the moon, and even eventually going on to Mars, nobody was listening! Of course, it certainly didn't help that the "Been there, done that" type of mentality had also been developed about the moon by then. I am certain in all your reading you have found that is was the war in Viet Nahn that also killed Johnson's administration.<br /><br />However, I will admit that it wasn't Johnson that cut funding until we ended up with the cheap up front, but far higher cost in the long run STS system. That was Nixon's baby! <br /><br />Do you think that we will now be able to afford President Bush's vision for NASA, while we are fighting even more wars? I hope so, but I do reserve a little skepticism. <br /><br />By the way what I have posted above is certainly not just my opinion. I also read history, but I do have somewhat of an advantage in that I also lived it!<br /><br />PS: I have NO intention of getting into another long drawn out flame war type of discussion with you!<br /><br />Tear apart what I have posted all you wish, but in this case I have looked up the history in books on the history of NASA, and the space shuttle. That Johnson's administration both built up the Viet Nahm war, and was later destroyed by the politics of the very same war, IS history!

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"I also read history, but I do have somewhat of an advantage in that I also lived it!"</font><br /><br />Not necessarily an advantage. It means that you have some preconceived notions about it and therefore are less able to look at a given event objectively. My wife teaches American history at UCF. I'm not really a history buff, but I can't be around her and not have picked up considerable information about JFKs presidency. Popular as he was with the American people, there were a lot of problems with his administration.<br /><br />In any event -- you're arguing <b>around</b> my post once again. I was just taking exception to your black-hat/white-hat characterization of Kennedy/Johnson. Kennedy wasn't the president that made Apollo work, and Johnson wasn't the president that killed it. Without JFK's death and the political clout that bought Johnson to 'land one for the gipper' (so to speak), Apollo might never have even made it to the moon, much less the rest of the package you suggested.

 

[frodo1008]

Thanks, your post was both reasonable, and non-comfrontational. I appreciate that!<br /><br />Perhaps we are both skipping around here, I have no problems with your position on Kennedy. And you are also correct, as terrible as JFK's assasination was (what assasination isn't?) it did give a very great push to the Apollo program. However, it would be very nice (at least to a space supporter like myself) if such a push wasn't needed either for Apollo, or the current Bush initiative! Space should be important on its own rights!