By day, the engineers work on NASA's new Ares moon rockets. By night, some go undercover to work on a competing design.
These dissenting scientists and their backers insist they have created an alternative rocket that would be safer, cheaper and easier to build than the two Ares spacecraft that will replace the space shuttle.
They call their project Jupiter, and like Ares, it's a brainchild of workers at the
The Jupiter design is being reviewed by a team of 57 volunteer engineers, from line engineers up to NASA middle managers, Tierney said. Those numbers are dwarfed by NASA's Ares workforce, which has thousands of government workers and contractors...
The debate reflects disagreement over the direction of
Besides being a simpler, more powerful system, backers say, the Jupiter rockets would save NASA $19 billion in development costs and another $16 billion in operating costs over two decades.
I read this yesterday with excited disbelief. Apparently some NASA engineers whose creative urges have not been crushed by NASA’s bureaucratic demeanor have been spending their spare time developing Jupiter, a rocket design to compete with NASA’s own Ares rocket.
It is a most important decision that we make as a nation. But all of you have lived through the last four years and have seen the significance of space and the adventures in space, and no one can predict with certainty what the ultimate meaning will be of mastery of space.
I believe we should go to the moon.
Cold-hearted orb that rules the night
Removes the colors from our sight
Red is grey and yellow white
But we decide which is right
And which is an illusion
Ed, What the heck is going on over there? This is practically in your backyard.
7 comments:
Fraud, waste, and abuse....the hallmarks of any government project. Clearly the standard NASA contractors want as much tax-payer money as they can get so they overbid on costly, wasteful processes. You are correct sir, the private sector can always, always accomplish any task more efficiently, safer, faster, and better than government. Health care, energy management, education, and space travel all are better served by the private sector. If enough people raise a stink about this, the outcry will force NASA to consider the Jupiter design...in theory. The cynic in me says that no matter what, these deals are done in cozy back rooms where the right palms are greased and favors promised to industry buddies. So much more could get accomplished if there were total transparency in government.
I visited Kennedy Space Center last year with the family. I was shocked at how expensive it was - over $250 for my family of four to visit/eat there. Granted it was a full day but I was underwhelmed by all time the guides spent telling me how big the stars (painted on the side of the Hanger) were as part of the national flag and how much paint was used.
I think they missed the point and squandered a golden opportunity to inspire people, except maybe to become painters.
We did the Hunstville Space and Rocket Center a couple of years ago and while interesting, it was like a Van Halen reunion concert, extremely expensive and underwhelming.
Much better. Thanks for optimizing the graphic and thanks to the makers of The Far Side.
What is the purpose of NASA anyway? We have already been to the moon and I guess Hubble was a good idea but, other than that, what in the hell in space is worth this kind of taxpayer expenditure, other than a jobs program for geeky, four-eyed, virgins? What have they discovered on the ISS? A cure for cancer? Life-saving proteins? Obama's political positions?
NASA should be in the business of building weapons to kill our enemies, and defense shields to keep them from killing us, and putting the occasional telescope up there to take pretty pictures of the universe. Other than that, I can't think of anything.
Well we do have satellites in space, without which we probably couldn't do 99% of our daily activities. That is why we go to space. Those satellites don't repair themselves. But government funded organizations are terrible. You get grant money, but you are extremely limited in your use of it. Private R&D is 1000 times better, and has provided by far the largest results. I personally think we should go back to the moon. We can build a space station there, and then when we get the technology right blast off from there to Mars. Moon's gravity is significantly less than that of Earth so we would fight a smaller force, and therefore consume much less fuel. Mars looks to be terra-formable and would provide a second home for earthlings!
We should kill all the Martian leaders and convert the rest to Christianity. Then we should install dozens of nuclear-powered oxygen generators to convert the CO2 atmosphere. In a few hundred years, it'll be mostly habitable by humans provided there's enough liquid water....which there probably isn't. Manifest destiny, baby, manifest destiny!
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