I think that even this is a little bit too much reading into the tea
leaves.
Orion/Ares is a vehicle that has yet to be completely designed. The
operational vehicle is not going to fly for another seven years; it
hasn’t even gone to Preliminary Design Review– that isn’t scheduled
for another year. It’s way too early to say whether the spacecraft is
on, under, or over its weight budget; none of the main engineering is
done yet.
As an overall comment, I’d say that politics tends to be story
focussed (politics is driven by sound-bites and headlines, which need
to tell a good story). On the other hand, real engineering is
focussed on data and engineering requirements. There’s a real
disconnect here– engineers may design something based on good
engineering considerations, but if it’s not glittyer and cutting edge,
or doesn’t fit the story currently in vogue, it’s politically boring.
The commentary on sci.space.* is usually more at the politics level–
a good storyline mostly will out-shout data in this forum, unless the
data is attached to a good story. I see a lot of "engineering review
by commenting on the pictures" comments. This may be amusing, but
it’s not engineering.
On 4/26/07 11:15 PM, "Pat Flannery" <flan…@daktel.com> wrote:
> Assuming you mean "why", NASA Watch loves to sling dirt at NASA, and
> this would be a major news item for them; I can’t believe that they
> haven’t stumbled on it yet, which could mean it’s BS, or somebody named
> Young said something he wasn’t supposed to.
> Note that these quotes of his come from someone’s recollection of what
> he said, not from him himself.
> So in short, all we have on this is Dr. James Busby’s word for it.
> http://collectspace.com/ubb/Forum39/HTML/000114.html
> To me, the remarks he quotes seem awfully severe on Young’s part.
> If this is all indeed the case, then we’ve got a overweight spacecraft
> design matched to a under performing booster; given NASA’s track record
> with manned programs over the past twenty years, this unfortunately
> sounds like business as usual for them.
–
Geoffrey A. Landis
http//www.sff.net/people/geoffrey.landis
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -
Geoffrey A. Landis wrote:
> I think that even this is a little bit too much reading into the tea
> leaves.
> Orion/Ares is a vehicle that has yet to be completely designed. The
> operational vehicle is not going to fly for another seven years; it
> hasn’t even gone to Preliminary Design Review– that isn’t scheduled
> for another year. It’s way too early to say whether the spacecraft is
> on, under, or over its weight budget; none of the main engineering is
> done yet.
> As an overall comment, I’d say that politics tends to be story
> focussed (politics is driven by sound-bites and headlines, which need
> to tell a good story). On the other hand, real engineering is
> focussed on data and engineering requirements. There’s a real
> disconnect here– engineers may design something based on good
> engineering considerations, but if it’s not glittyer and cutting edge,
> or doesn’t fit the story currently in vogue, it’s politically boring.
Not only is the Stick technically boring, it’s technically flawed.
We’re fucked … and at so many different levels! End of story.
> The commentary on sci.space.* is usually more at the politics level–
> a good storyline mostly will out-shout data in this forum, unless the
> data is attached to a good story. I see a lot of "engineering review
> by commenting on the pictures" comments. This may be amusing, but
> it’s not engineering.
Neither is the Stick. It’s been politics from day one.
> On 4/26/07 11:15 PM, "Pat Flannery" <flan…@daktel.com> wrote:
>> Assuming you mean "why", NASA Watch loves to sling dirt at NASA, and
>> this would be a major news item for them; I can’t believe that they
>> haven’t stumbled on it yet, which could mean it’s BS, or somebody named
>> Young said something he wasn’t supposed to.
>> Note that these quotes of his come from someone’s recollection of what
>> he said, not from him himself.
>> So in short, all we have on this is Dr. James Busby’s word for it.
>> http://collectspace.com/ubb/Forum39/HTML/000114.html
>> To me, the remarks he quotes seem awfully severe on Young’s part.
>> If this is all indeed the case, then we’ve got a overweight spacecraft
>> design matched to a under performing booster; given NASA’s track record
>> with manned programs over the past twenty years, this unfortunately
>> sounds like business as usual for them.
–
Get A Free Orbiter Space Flight Simulator :
http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/orbit.html
Why not simply allow Russia to fly our rad-hard astronauts to the
moon, along with our unproven fly-by-rocket landers, and without
hardly any shielding or having incorporated any of those pesky
momentum reaction wheels to boot?
If not Russia, then China or India at not even half the Russian cost,
therefore 20:1 less spendy than anything NASA.
–
Brad Guth
On Apr 27, 9:00 am, "Geoffrey A. Landis" <geoffrey.lan…@gmail.com>
wrote:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -
> I think that even this is a little bit too much reading into the tea
> leaves.
> Orion/Ares is a vehicle that has yet to be completely designed. The
> operational vehicle is not going to fly for another seven years; it
> hasn’t even gone to Preliminary Design Review– that isn’t scheduled
> for another year. It’s way too early to say whether the spacecraft is
> on, under, or over its weight budget; none of the main engineering is
> done yet.
> As an overall comment, I’d say that politics tends to be story
> focussed (politics is driven by sound-bites and headlines, which need
> to tell a good story). On the other hand, real engineering is
> focussed on data and engineering requirements. There’s a real
> disconnect here– engineers may design something based on good
> engineering considerations, but if it’s not glittyer and cutting edge,
> or doesn’t fit the story currently in vogue, it’s politically boring.
> The commentary on sci.space.* is usually more at the politics level–
> a good storyline mostly will out-shout data in this forum, unless the
> data is attached to a good story. I see a lot of "engineering review
> by commenting on the pictures" comments. This may be amusing, but
> it’s not engineering.
> On 4/26/07 11:15 PM, "Pat Flannery" <flan…@daktel.com> wrote:
> > Assuming you mean "why", NASA Watch loves to sling dirt at NASA, and
> > this would be a major news item for them; I can’t believe that they
> > haven’t stumbled on it yet, which could mean it’s BS, or somebody named
> > Young said something he wasn’t supposed to.
> > Note that these quotes of his come from someone’s recollection of what
> > he said, not from him himself.
> > So in short, all we have on this is Dr. James Busby’s word for it.
> >http://collectspace.com/ubb/Forum39/HTML/000114.html
> > To me, the remarks he quotes seem awfully severe on Young’s part.
> > If this is all indeed the case, then we’ve got a overweight spacecraft
> > design matched to a under performing booster; given NASA’s track record
> > with manned programs over the past twenty years, this unfortunately
> > sounds like business as usual for them.
> —
> Geoffrey A. Landis
> http//www.sff.net/people/geoffrey.landis
"Geoffrey A. Landis" <geoffrey.lan…@gmail.com> wrote:
>The commentary on sci.space.* is usually more at the politics level–
>a good storyline mostly will out-shout data in this forum, unless the
>data is attached to a good story.
Well said… not that it will make a bit of difference.
Monte Davis
http://montedavis.livejournal.com