S
Swampcat
Guest
Methane Rocket Fuel: A Lot of Hot Gas and Nowhere to Blow"<br /><br />Selected quotes [all emphases mine]...<br /><br /><font color="orange">"I don’t know if you noticed—between fashion reports from red carpets of Hollywood awards shows or the return of new Battlestar Galactica episodes—but NASA is thinking about dropping methane-type propellants from its requirements for the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) program in favor of harder to handle, yet more dangerous hypergolic propellants like those used in the shuttle and other <i><b>old-school systems</b></i>."<br /><br />"Due to internal and external pressures from old timers and those who think they’re supporting our space program in Congress (but are actually hurting it), NASA is trying to make sure that there is no gap between the shuttle’s 2010 retirement and the arrival of its '<b><i>Crude Exploitation Vehicle</i></b>'.<br /><br />"Their [NASA's] goal, if one can tease it out from their actions, is to look really busy doing really important things, while spending our money propping up certain major companies and political constituencies. They may have themselves fooled into thinking they are going somewhere, but with few exceptions, they are building a system that will lead us nowhere. This will be done at the greatest possible cost to the taxpayers and return the highest possible profit to the entrenched aerospace cabal that created the concepts in the first place."</font><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="3" color="#ff9900"><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong><em>------------------------------------------------------------------- </em></strong></font></p><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong><em>"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."</em></strong></font></p><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong>Thomas Jefferson</strong></font></p></font> </div>