This article's sense of history is... awkward.
"The last time humans left Earth orbit, cars ran on leaded gas, few models had power steering, in-car entertainment was an AM radio, cruise control was a novelty, and air bags were unheard of."
Humans have never left earth orbit (hint: what does the Moon orbit?). Apollo 17 flew in the closing days of 1972.
EPA started regulating lead and auto makers developed catalytic converters starting in 1970.
Most 1972 cars and all full size ones had power steering. The small Pinto and Vega did not.
Most cars came with FM and almost all cars had FM stereo as an option. 8-Track sterios were a common factory and aftermarket option.
Cruise control was common on upmarket cars.
Air bags were patented in 1952 and Mercedes was testing them by 1970. I recall a Ford demonstrator car in 1972 but can't find a link.
Science related articles should pay attention to facts and avoid hyperbole.
I think the key is that few cars has some of those things. I didn't sit in car with an airbag until the 1990s.
As far as the orbit thing goes, obviously the moon orbits the Earth. The point is that it requires a certain amount of energy to leave Earth's gravity well. Roughly 24,000mph is the magic number. With that you can go to the Moon, Mars, or wherever. It just so happened we went to an object that was still influenced by Earth's gravity but technically, they could have gone anywhere they wanted. They'd have died of suffocation eventually but I digress. ;)
Actually that's not true. the Saturn V had just barely enough energy to reach lunar orbit with its heavy payload. Apollo 11 had slowed to about 1700mph relative to earth by the time it had reached the moon . It took only a short burst from the command module engine to insert into lunar orbit and only about a 2 minute burn IIRC to break lunar orbit and fall back to earth. In fact the ship was set for a "free return" to earth (no engine required) should a problem arise and the mission be aborted (see Apollo 13).
The Lagraingian point L2 is well outside the lunar orbit and still well within earth's gravity. Certainly we have sent things beyond the earth's gravity and even 3 things that will escape the sun's gravity. It's all a matter of thrust to weight. Life support and return vehicles are HEAVY and require proportionately Thrust. A=F*M It would have been wasteful to build more acceleration than needed into the Saturn V.
This may seem like a lot of money, but is a TINY drop in the bucket (compared to say, foreign aid, or dare I say it, WELFARE). I personally am happy that at least a very small portion of my tax dollars are going towards this; I know the long-term knowledge gained will be invaluable (much like Apollo). And wow, the first launch (unmanned, but still, that is great progress) is coming up in a few months, can't wait!
Most Americans are innumerate and cant tell you how many millions are in a trillion, have no idea of the size of the US GDP, and think foreign aid is "a lot of money being given away to foreigners". V.S. here can't guess the size of the US foreign aid budget within one order of magnitude w/o looking it up. Even once he has looked it up he won't realize where the money is spent (hint at the end).
Most Americans might think foreign aid is a significant part of US government expenses. Class, can you tell me what the three largest government expenses are? (hint, welfare isn't even close to the top 3).
Pop quiz: What percentage of federal expenses is foreign aid and NASA combined?
Was the food stamp program 10%, 20% or 30% of last years budget?
How much did tax cuts reduce the deficit?
Well class, I hope you have had as much fun as I have. Do your homework and I'll see you tomorrow.
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quiz answers:
2%
8%
$0
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Hint mentioned above: most foreign aid is given as "credits" to buy US made food, tools, and weapons. Most of the cash goes to US citizens. foreign aid is a lot of money being given to American businesses.
BTW, any who wish to dispute can just look up the numbers and post me a link :)
Educate yourself before you talk nonsense. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2...
Notice 526.6 BILLION goes to the Department of Defense. That accounts for 42% of all Discretionary spending.
$6 billion here, $6 billion there. We need to use government-funded prize programs to let the private sector compete for space achievements and projects. It has the benefits of getting government out of the business of wasting money and also multiplies the public's return on investment.
iT WOULD BE TO HARD TO KEEP THERE DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS IF THE PRIVATE SECTOR WAS INVOLVED...... GOOD THOUGHT THOUGH.
The Private Sector will gump up the works stumbling over each other while trying to stab each other in the back. Government all the way. BOO-YAH!!!!! USA!!!!!!
How is this better than the space shuttle? It's just a stupid capsule, not a space faring pick-up truck like the shuttle. How is it supposed to deliver cargo, or return it, and are there any military benefits that aren't available in the space plane? What we need is a larger supersonic space plane, that can build something large, and useful in orbit; about the size of the Enterprise.
A space plane, as today's technology allows, would not be needed for missions that only need the "plane" part for landing. Deep space missions are best served by a capsule/service module configuration because returning to earth from deep space at 25,000 MPH+ is much harder than belly flopping in like the Shuttle did at 17,500 MPH. Wings don't like the heat of hyper speed reentry.
The cargo aspect of the Shuttle is being taken over by private companies and NASA is focusing on deep space while private businesses are focusing on near space.
So in that context, a space plane is not needed or practical for deep space missions. Let private business make the "larger supersonic space plane". It benefits low Earth and transportation, which business should be interested.
Elon Musk built better product in a few years than NASA has in decades with trillions of dollars in funding.
What the public really needs to know about is the "secret" space program where all the money is actually going.
The public face of NASA is a joke and has been for decades!
NASA doesn't even release real color photos of our moon or mars or any other off world body. Everything we see is low res and Photoshop'd at best. Artifacts and anomalies are hidden from the public and the public pays for NASA via our taxes.
and you know this for a fact since you read it on the internet? lovely.
NASA has never got trillions of dollars. NASA budget from 1958 to 2011 amounts to $526.18 billion. Less than an average of $10 billion a year. NASA also does science missions, and does a real lot with only $10 billion a year average and only $18 billion this year. NASA had to create all the technology, develop it, fine tune it, and then business got to build on NASA's foundation. That is why Musk was able to do what he did. If he had to create space flight from scratch, like NASA did, he could not have had enough money and time to do it.
NASA could have built a 500 seat reusable space plane with the money that was flushed down the toilet in pointless wars.
It seems like we are taking a giant leap backwards here,
this is nothing more than updated 1950’s-60’s technology, there is nothing new
here. Yes Rockets and Capsules, we, the Russians, the Chinese and everyone else
have been there and done that 20 times over.
We need to stop thinking that one system has to be used for
the entire operation from launching on earth and then sending off to the moon,
Mars, etc. Can we build bigger rockets, sure, but that’s only going to get so
far with conventional engine technology. We can only lift so much into orbit on
a single launch vehicle. It’s not practical to stick with this concept.
We need infrastructure in orbit, and we should take cue from
the Navy here on shipyards and how large vessels are constructed and work on putting a spaceport/space dock
where finally assembly of a spacecraft can be done in orbit and then launched
to Mars and beyond. We need to think bigger here than a single crew capsule and
lander. That was done for the moon and wouldn’t even be practical now for the
moon, you need a space ferry/shuttle type craft to go back in forth to the moon
on a regular basis from the ISS. To go to Mars you need a large craft with
shuttles and drones and escape pods, etc
We’re never going to get around our own solar system, let
alone leave it, sticking with 1960’s era technology.
Wernher and the gang are in Valhalla, laughing. ;-)
Where's the ship? That's just an escape pod.
The first photo of the cockpits is the Gemini and not Apollo. The shuttle cockpit is the revised and not the original shuttle design.