John F. Kerry

Controversy Over NASA's Next Heavy-Lift Rocket - Technology Review

nasa has told congress that it simply cannot do what the presidents 2010 budget authorization told them to do.

make a heavy lift launcher for cheaper than the ares and have it finished before the ares was scheduled to be finished.

Now remember when people like Me, Neil Armstrong, 20 other apollo astronauts, space enthusiasts around the country, and the world all said that cancelling ares would be stupid.... and obamas reply was "we will have a new heavy lift launcher by 2015....blah blah blah"... so some of you were like 'well he said they have a better plan so how can u be mad at that'.... well now , it turns out, that just like all those people said, you cant make a rocket for cheaper, faster, and more reliable , just because obama, instead of bush, says so.


So instead of being 9 years away from the next moon landing (as we would have been if we would have stayed the course) we now get to 2011 and we see that the bs obama has been selling for 2 years , CANT POSSIBLY WORK.


so now we'll start back at square one, JUST EXACTLY LIKE I SAID WE WOULD.... well come up with something else, take as long as ares did to get to its halfway point, which is where the program was when cancelled, and then it will take another full half of that amount of time to get finished....

project constellation was started in 2003, in 2010 it was cancelled.... so if we're lucky, and if they actualy manage to come up with a new program by 2012, which is doubtful, but if they do, then it will be 2019 before we are as far with the new rocket as we were with ares in 2010....and still will have at least another 10 years to go...

.....wait for it.....





I TOLD YOU SO




....maybe now that obama is seeing sense on so many other issues he will come around and get nasas house in order....maybe start listening to the masses of people who told you this was wrong from the start.

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Nasa under Obama

Captain Cannabis

you are special

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fuck the monkeys

Sugar420

oh poo poo j wonder! you are so concerned with bloated government until it comes to your pet rocket project, then you want to tax and spend just like a democrat.

the issue isnt obamas' fault, its the huge bureaucracy of nasa that cant do anything on time and on budget.
give me 6.9 billion bux, a free hand and with a little help of the xiang cheung manufacturing company i betcha i could get a rocket built with plenty money left over for a great launch party

SageTree

Gold

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Roach

LOL

If I remember correctly, Obama could give a shit about 20,000 over paid space engineers,
because he's currently facing near 20% unemployment (long term uemployment) for jobs that no longer exist, who's taxes would help pay for a peice of pie in the sky.

no one expected his "plan" to work....that's why it was approved.

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~1~

Kill NASA, privatize the space industry and we'll be on Mars in six weeks.

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Roach

Tickets to Space
Aviation pioneer ready to ride into space
Updated: Sunday, 05 Dec 2010, 11:43 AM MST
Published : Sunday, 05 Dec 2010, 11:43 AM MST

RENE ROMO,Albuquerque Journal
LAS CRUCES (AP) - Wally Funk, 71, has had her sights set on the heavens all her life.

With the purchase of a $200,000 ticket to ride Virgin Galactic's spaceplane from southern New Mexico, the flight instructor who five decades ago was part of a group called the First Lady Astronaut Trainees is finally on the doorstep of her dream of spaceflight.

When she was 6, a Superman cape hanging from her shoulders, Funk repeatedly jumped off the roof of the barn at her parents' Taos home into a pile of hay.

"I just kept jumping in the hay, hoping to learn how to fly," Funk said in a telephone interview from her north Texas home. "Mother said, 'Honey, you can always be a flight attendant.'

"And I said, 'No, I want to be in the front of the machine.' ... Aviation was part of my bloodstream."

Funk came closest to her dream of being a pioneering female astronaut in 1961 when, at 21, she became the youngest volunteer in an Albuquerque-based private program that evaluated women's fitness for spaceflight.

Twenty-five women from around the country were invited to participate, 19 accepted, and the baker's dozen who passed the demanding series of tests were dubbed the Mercury 13.

The name is a spinoff of the Mercury 7 male astronauts, introduced to the public by NASA in early 1959, who would take part in the nation's initial spaceflight program.

"All the guys got the glory," Funk said. "We didn't."

The program was canceled before the women could take part in advanced testing at a naval facility in Pensacola, Fla. Funk was disappointed but didn't let go of her dream.

"This kid didn't give up," Funk said. "I've been waiting since '61 to get there (space), and I'm going."

Funk attended the Oct. 22 runway dedication ceremony at Spaceport America, the publicly financed spaceport under construction southeast of Truth or Consequences. There, Virgin Galactic plans to begin flying commercial passengers on suborbital flights in the next 18 months.

A twin-fuselage aircraft, the mothership, will release a six-passenger spaceship at 50,000 feet, where the smaller craft will rocket to the edge of space for a few minutes of weightlessness and an eye-popping view of Earth.

When Virgin Galactic's coupled aircraft and spaceship flew over the spaceport during the dedication ceremonies, an animated Funk let out a loud whoop.

"I'm going to make it," she said.

Funk took flight at an early age. At 16, she enrolled at Stephens College in Columbia, Mo., where, along with obtaining an associate of arts degree, she earned her pilot's license. Before graduating in 1958, she competed as a Stephens Suzie in intercollegiate flight contests.

After Stephens, Funk entered Oklahoma State University where, as a Flying Aggie, she continued competing in intercollegiate events until her graduation in 1960. Soon after she took a job as a civilian flight instructor at Fort Sill, Okla.

At the time, Dr. William Randolph Lovelace II, who ran the Lovelace Foundation for Medical Education and Research in Albuquerque, was the head of NASA's Special Committee on Bioastronautics. Lovelace had helped design the physical testing regimen used to select the Mercury 7.

Believing that women, generally smaller and lighter than men, would be well-suited for the tight quarters of a space capsule, Lovelace and an Air Force brigadier general in 1960 invited pilot Geraldyn "Jerrie" Cobb to undergo the same testing that produced the Mercury 7.

Cobb, an Oklahoman who had set world records for nonstop long-distance flying and for flying higher than anyone else in a lightweight aircraft, performed so well that Lovelace sought other female pilots.

Seeing an article about Cobb's testing, Funk promptly wrote Lovelace asking to be part of the program. Lovelace agreed, but only after Funk, still 20 when she applied, received her parents' permission.

Arriving in Albuquerque in February 1961, Funk was subjected to nearly 100 physical and mental endurance tests. The women underwent multiple X-rays, rode stationary bicycles to near exhaustion, swallowed rubber tubes to test stomach acids and had ice water injected into their ears to induce vertigo.

"She (Funk) was outstanding. In fact, she participated at a higher level than most of the men," said Dr. Donald Kilgore, an 88-year-old Albuquerque resident who was an ear, nose and throat specialist at the Lovelace Foundation.

After the initial round of tests, Cobb, Funk and another woman were sent to Oklahoma City for additional psychological testing that included floating in a water-filled sensory deprivation tank. Funk passed, floating for 10 1/2 hours without experiencing the hallucinations that sensory deprivation can induce.

At the time NASA required all astronauts to have engineering degrees and be graduates of military jet test pilot programs. Women could not qualify under those standards.

After the program was canceled, Funk continued testing on her own.

She traveled to El Toro Marine Corps base in California, where she became the first woman to take

the high-altitude chamber test. She was also tested in a spinning centrifuge, subjected four times to five Gs.

In 1971, Funk became the first woman to complete the FAA's General Aviation Operations Inspector Academy course, which covered pilot certification and flight testing procedures.

After four years with the FAA, Funk was hired by the National Transportation Safety Board as its first female air safety investigator in 1974. She retired from that post in 1985.

She has been chief pilot for five aviation schools across the country, been hired as a captain for several small commercial airlines and logged over 18,000 hours of flying time. She continues working as a flight instructor in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

"I'm a happy kid," said Funk, who describes herself as "71 going on 45."

"I've never been bitter. I've never met a stranger. I've had a great life," Funk said. "And I want that one more thing — to be up in a Virgin Galactic spaceship with Sir Richard Branson."



pretty "Funky" huh.

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FourtySecondRip

this thread is lulz. nasa gets less then 1% of budget. there nothing holding private companies from going to the moon. i cant wait until people come to the same realization about his health care and nationwide transportation plans.

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~1~

All I'm saying is kill off the golden goose. Put NASA's 1% into educating children and let the private sector come up with the billions of dollars we shoot into space.

I love when people say 'Fuck, it's only one percent...'

One percent here and one percent there eventually add up.

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~1~

Except demand...



Pretty much the same reason there isn't much of a tourism industry in the north pole.


So outside of Imperialism and a military foot hold, why is we need to go back?

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John F. Kerry

"I believe that space is the new ocean, and the United States must sail on it, and be in a position second to none." John F Kennedy .

"not because its easy, but because is hard"

couldnt have said it any better jack

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Nasa under Obama

John F. Kerry

fyi nasas budget is actually closer to .005 of gdp.

NASA Budget - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

what other program that costs 1 half of one percent of the federal budget has given us so much ?

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Nasa under Obama

farmergiles

Pay the russians to do it. They'll do a better job on a third of the budget.

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Cultivate a stoic calmness

stoneric

It's like defense spending being "only" 4.7 per cent of our GDP.

Roach

wouldn't need space travel if they were all dead.

just sayin'

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Lloydy

Did anyone see the latest top gear? james may drove an excellent new moon buggy that will never go to the moon. it had a toilet and everything

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Keep the red flag flying high