Saturday, January 19, 2008

NASA does the AECL

In some of my earlier works, such as The Claptrap Society, I have included NASA as a dying techno-bureaucracy. Now, NASA has realized that the space shuttle was a horrible mistake, and is going on to make some new mistakes.


Now, they want to take the old Saturn-Apollo design and tack on a solid fuel booster (cheap!). These things have their problems. In something similar to AECL, they are cutting close to the bone. I don't know if they can 'bravado' through this!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you read any of Stephen Baxters Nasa Science Fiction series of "what if" history had nasa actually used the heavy lift capability left over from Apollo to fly manned missions to the outer solar system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Baxter#NASA_Trilogy

"With out the Buck$ there aint no Buck Rogers."

A large organization that has clearly defined objectives and given the proper resources can achieve great things. Then what?
Burnout and self justification.

I am encouraged by the success of Burt Rutan's pioneering Private space endevours. Bringing the costs down is the obvious key.

A single stage to orbit and return vehicle is currently beyond our level of technology. This is exactly the kind of challenge large national aerospace and research orginizations should be pursuing.

Which is not to say that there isn't a covert military version on the hard drive or runway of some secret "area 51". lol

Anonymous said...

Also more fodder for funny.

NASA fixing H2O tank sensors.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts122/solderingteam.html

Soldering the female pins of what should be a de-mateable multi pin connector to their male counterparts so they conduct electricity reliably.

I have so many questions about why they think is is a fix?

Harold Asmis said...

It means they don't have a clue what's going on.