Comments on: Carolyn Porco’s NYT Op/Ed

By: Irishman

Irishman — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 19:40:20 +0000

Will M., the NASA budget is currently approx. 0.8% of the U.S. budget. It is insignificant compared to the costs required for the other issues you list: health care, Social Security, infrastructure, military expenditures, etc. Even at 1% for all of the space program activities, including manned, robotic, and aeronautical research, that is still negligible compared to what those other situations already get.

By: Ron M.

Ron M. — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 13:40:12 +0000

I read the Porco piece. I was not aware of the Saturn V history. We have spent over
100 billion on the “star wars” boondoggle, and I think that another 15 billion is in the next budget. That’s almost all of NASA’s yearly money. What will happen to the US
economy when the Chinese yuan upsurps the dollar at the World Bank?

By: Will. M.

Will. M. — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 22:49:58 +0000

Gee, Folks:
I think a dose of financial reality is needed: we are a nation which is a trillion or so dollars in debt because of the Iraq war; we have an economy which is inflated by the speculation of the wealthy few who possess or control much of the nation’s money and who have been granted permanent tax breaks by the last Congress (and which surely portends a stock market devaluation in the near future); we have a disappearing middle class which itself is heavily in hock, all of which means the government has to cut programs and spending or else raise taxes at which the public will surely balk. AND we have a disappearing scientific cadre – we are graduating fewer and fewer engineers, scientists, technical people in all areas. Unless we begin to hire and train our space program personnell now, we’ll have to rely on scientists and engineers from other nations to staff the space effort – that is, if it somehow miraculously gets funds. We have a crisis in affordable health care; we have an upcoming crisis in the Social Security program; we have a crisis in repairing/replacing/renewing the nation’s infrastructure. Just where does a “pie-in-the-sky” program like sending manned missions to the moon or Mars, let alone other places, fit in?
[An aside: "nimrod" means HUNTER; it has no meaning relating to dimwit, nutball, oxbrain, doofus, numbnuts, etc.]

By: Jack Hagerty

Jack Hagerty — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 20:44:57 +0000

Ahruman Says: “Shepardâ€™s status as first American in space has been contested as relatively recently unclassified documents have shown that the Air Force broke the 100 km barrier well before that. Unfortunately, I donâ€™t have a handy cite.”

You’re thinking of the X-15 program, and while there were a few astronauts wings presented from those flights (the barrier was 50 miles back then, which is 80 Km), they were, IIRC, done after Shepard’s flight.

================

Al Says: “IIRC there were some very high altitude balloon flights that went more than 100km up.”

Right number, wrong units. The postwar “Farside” project sent pilots up to 100,000 feet (not meters) and slightly higher, but that’s about the limit for surface launched balloons. One of the gondolas is on display at the Air Force museum outside Dayton, OH. If you thought Mercury capsules were small, this thing is a cylinder about 5 feet (1,5 meters) in diameter and maybe 10 feet (3 meters) long. The interior was crammed with equipment so the poor pilot had to sit in this smaller-than-a-phone-booth space for 20 hours or more.

Earlier than that, ascents in the 1930, mostly sponsored by the National Geographic Society, went up to 50,000 feet (15 Km) and higher. Jacques Piccard made the first pressurized gondola ascent to 51,000 feet (15.5 Km) in 1931.

I know, TMI

- Jack

By: Nic Percival

Nic Percival — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 20:15:43 +0000

I’m afraid I don’t believe that the rockets used to launch future astronauts will be used (though they could be..) for unmanned probes. I believe a Saturn V was once considered for an enormous Mars probe (three or four stage with a Centaur on top), and of course it never happened. The problem is – can you really expect to use a $1B+ rocket for a ‘mere’ probe? There’s no reason why not, but I doubt it’d get the funding – so everything will continue to get launched on Delta II’s or perhaps the odd Atlas 5.

A shame really – as I recall Galileo and Cassini cost on the order of $2B, so why not use a really big capable rocket?

By: Kelfazin

Kelfazin — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 19:41:33 +0000

Great article Carolyn, and thanks for the link Phil!

By: Melusine

Melusine — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 18:28:37 +0000

Oh, cool. This is not even my blog and I feel like gushing. So, I'll just repeat some of my old gushing to Carolyn Porco and say thanks, again.

By: Carolyn Porco

Carolyn Porco — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 17:23:12 +0000

Everyone,

Thank you so much for your support. It is wonderful.

I did in fact mean `bodily’, in contrast to going into space with robots.

I’d like to suggest that you all write to your congressmen/women and senators, especially those leading the budget authorization and appropriations committees, and tell them you support NASA’s plans and requested budget. It is a crucial time. The FY2007 has some possible awful cuts in it that must be opposed for NASA to stay on track.

Thanks again. And do visit our CICLOPS website when you get the chance. We are improving it on a regular basis.

Best,
Carolyn Porco

By: The Bad Astronomer

The Bad Astronomer — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 17:08:55 +0000

Dagnabbit. OK, I fixed the mistake. I hate it when I make dumb errors like that. Thanks for pointing it out.

By: Gary Ansorge

Gary Ansorge — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 16:34:35 +0000

Werner Von Braun also laid out a very comprehensive plan to persue the High Frontier, which involved building a space station from expired booster tanks, storing fuel in orbit at the station, building a moon lander in orbit, THEN going to the moon, but it seemed to the politicians at that time to be uninspiring, so they took the direct route, which of course, left us with no space infrastructure in place.

This is what happens when politics and national pride come before good engineering sense,,,

Gary 7

By: Grand Lunar

Grand Lunar — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 15:57:51 +0000

A bit of a nitpick; she writes “bodily” when I think she meant “boldly”.

Anyway, excellent article.
I quite literally grew up with the shuttle program, and thought it a wonderful thing. But further reading showed me that the Saturn 5 was the true powerhouse. And we scrapped it, well before it’s time.
One can only imagine what might have been. I bet a space station, larger than the ISS could’ve been made in a handful of flights with it, just as Carolyn mentioned.

I hope that the Ares rockets do come to pass, and restore the capabilities that we lost.

I believe it was Werner Von Braun that said “Impossible is just the lack of will to do it.”
That phrase hits it right on the money.

By: Freelancer

Freelancer — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 15:55:47 +0000

The link above has her Beyond Belief Speech, she’s the fourth and last person to speak.

By: Greg

Greg — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 15:24:31 +0000

Carolyn rocks! I’ve seen her speak several times. She’s the first one I’ve heard to find the ‘fly in the ointment’ with Bertrand Russell’s China Teapot argument (Beyond Belief conference November 06).

By: Al

Al — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 12:44:42 +0000

IIRC there were some very high altitude balloon flights that went more than 100km up. The USAF also awarded astronaut wings to their X-15 pilots, but they were after Shepard, I think.

I may be alone here, but I think a definition of “Space” that makes it accessible by balloon is fundamentally flawed. I have nothing against balloons, but as aerostats, they are pretty much by definition limited to atmospheric travel.

By: Ahruman

Ahruman — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 10:36:57 +0000

Shepardâ€™s status as first American in space has been contested as relatively recently unclassified documents have shown that the Air Force broke the 100 km barrier well before that. Unfortunately, I donâ€™t have a handy cite.

By: Melusine

Melusine — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 08:54:19 +0000

Odd note: On your last post, you linked to a Jul 2005 entry, so I went back and saw my War of the Worlds comments, and then further back saw that I had forgotten that Carolyn Porco posted here once. I ended up going back to the beginning of the blog, which is coming up on its 2 year anniversary, btw. Carolyn said Glenn was the first in "orbit." Phil just goofed his word. She's the best. I can't find any fault with CICLOPS. Thanks for the link, Phil.

By: Kaptain K

Kaptain K — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 07:51:05 +0000

Excellent. Thanks for the link.
I was eight when I saw Sputnik. I fully expected to be able to live in (not on) the Moon or at least Earth orbit by the end of the 20th century. Anybody who grew up on “golden age” science fiction knows what a space station looks like and ISS AIN’T it!
A solar powered catapult on the Moon (either linear induction or rail gun) could fling payloads anywhere in the Solar system with virtually zero launch fuel cost.

By: bswift

bswift — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 07:31:37 +0000

That’s right, Mark. Alan Shepard was the first American in space (on May 5, 1961) and Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth (Feb 20, 1962).

By: Mark Hansen

Mark Hansen — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 07:03:02 +0000

One small comment, Phil. Wasn’t Glenn the first American in orbit, rather than in space?