AH space programs
- Thread starter sunsurf
- Start date
When you're nearly bankrupt, you tend not to be too choosy.Straha said:
Grey Woolf- not entirely sure, but I think Gordon Brown announced a couple years back that we had finished paying off the loan to the US.
Stephen Baxter wrote a book called "Voyage" which talked about a voyage to Mars in the 1980's. It postulated that we could have gone to Mars with such things as a gravity boost from Venus, and better political impetus.
We could have gone to Mars years ago if we had had the political insight and will to do so. Instead we got entangled in wastes of money like extensions of the shuttle program, the international space station, and the 90-day report. The 90-day report was a report NASA gave Bush Sr. outlining the cost of a mission to Mars; it involved a lot of unnecessary garbage like a moon base and space station, and the final price tag was 450 billion dollars. So, obviously, congress didn't even go near it, and the possibility of a Mars mission suffered.
Robert Zubrin says that we could go to Mars with current technology or technology that we have the potential to easily develop. The idea is that we could make most of the rocket fuel on Mars with a little factory that takes the elements from Mars' atmosphere. Anyway, I believe that Mars could have been achievable if we had really spent our money elsewhere, ONLY focused on Mars (as opposed to the idea that we must build a space station or moon base first), and so forth.
Oh, by the way, this is my first post since the new forums started up. I wonder if anyone remembers me from the old forums, heh.
We could have gone to Mars years ago if we had had the political insight and will to do so. Instead we got entangled in wastes of money like extensions of the shuttle program, the international space station, and the 90-day report. The 90-day report was a report NASA gave Bush Sr. outlining the cost of a mission to Mars; it involved a lot of unnecessary garbage like a moon base and space station, and the final price tag was 450 billion dollars. So, obviously, congress didn't even go near it, and the possibility of a Mars mission suffered.
Robert Zubrin says that we could go to Mars with current technology or technology that we have the potential to easily develop. The idea is that we could make most of the rocket fuel on Mars with a little factory that takes the elements from Mars' atmosphere. Anyway, I believe that Mars could have been achievable if we had really spent our money elsewhere, ONLY focused on Mars (as opposed to the idea that we must build a space station or moon base first), and so forth.
Oh, by the way, this is my first post since the new forums started up. I wonder if anyone remembers me from the old forums, heh.
Straha said:
Please tell me how you think USA ( which is what I suppose you mean by america ) can avoid being involved in WWII. Last time I checked, Japan attacked and Hitler declared war.
Hint : it only takes one to start a war.
BTW : supposing USA had NOT been involved in WWII, do you think you would now be ruled by the Reichfuhrer fur Amerika or by the People's Comissar for America? Those were the only solutions by that time
I'm guessing Straha means either 1. No sanctions against Japan, which would lead to Japan not attacking the US, and the US staying out of the European war, or 2. The US only attacking Japan, and the US just keeping up lend/lease etc. for European allies. OR forming a separate peace with Germany.
You need money and public support for science. Avoid WWI and you avoid WWII and the cold war.
So kill off the British royal family at the 1900 Jubilee. Wilhelm gets to be King of England and Germany. He has the world's best navy and the world's best army, and is very, very, happy. No war. he indulges his 'yellow peril' fantasies and tells the Japanese to stay out of Korea and get out of Taiwan. Maybe the English and the Japanese fight a very different Tsushima?
But the evil French and vile Russians start to develop an air force all through the twenties. What is to be done?
No battleship race. Now it's an aviation race, and later, a space race.
So kill off the British royal family at the 1900 Jubilee. Wilhelm gets to be King of England and Germany. He has the world's best navy and the world's best army, and is very, very, happy. No war. he indulges his 'yellow peril' fantasies and tells the Japanese to stay out of Korea and get out of Taiwan. Maybe the English and the Japanese fight a very different Tsushima?
But the evil French and vile Russians start to develop an air force all through the twenties. What is to be done?
No battleship race. Now it's an aviation race, and later, a space race.
The idea for Mars is called 'Mars Direct' and would be a tiny fraction of the cost of what was proposed to Bush the Elder. Unfortunately, as Leo notes, it is based on the idea of developing the fuel via unmanned facility on Mars itself, which is good sense IN THEORY but how to ensure we manage to land in just the right spot? Do we have to go to Mars to find the perfect spot, so that we can then send the fuel factory, so we can then go back to Mars? Or can we locate the proper location from all the way back on Earth?
One major blow to the space program was JFK. His near hysteria when the Russians launched the first man in space resulted in a diversion from Eisenhower's slow and steady approach to theatrics that cost a great deal more, and once the public's enthusiasm died out over the moon, it was impossible for NASA to go back to the old way. For one thing, they'ld have had to scrap Houston Control and given LBJ and all the Texas politicians since then...
Had we continued with Eisenhower's plan, we'ld have something comparable to the International Space Station by 1970, along with a fleet of proven reusable launchers, and going to the moon would then have been much easier to do. Also the space shuttle would probably have been cancelled as being too expensive in cost for only a marginal improvement in performence.
One major blow to the space program was JFK. His near hysteria when the Russians launched the first man in space resulted in a diversion from Eisenhower's slow and steady approach to theatrics that cost a great deal more, and once the public's enthusiasm died out over the moon, it was impossible for NASA to go back to the old way. For one thing, they'ld have had to scrap Houston Control and given LBJ and all the Texas politicians since then...
Had we continued with Eisenhower's plan, we'ld have something comparable to the International Space Station by 1970, along with a fleet of proven reusable launchers, and going to the moon would then have been much easier to do. Also the space shuttle would probably have been cancelled as being too expensive in cost for only a marginal improvement in performence.
Leo euler said:
1 is possible, but requires a PoD at about 1937, I'd guess, and the elimination, one way or another, of the China Lobby in US politics, which I doubt is possible ( unless yopu put the PoD much earlier ). The end result of this is that either Hitler or Stalin control all of Europe and Africa and most of Asia. 20-30 years forward, USA is invaded.
2 I fail to see in any possibility. Hitler declared war on the USA and had the U-boats sink all ships on along the US coast, not the reverse.