Smuggler Archive

man, NASA is out of their minds.

they're still sending these relics into orbit. these shuttles are older than just about all of our cars. and it's going into space! not just driving down the local highway...

today some piece broke off the top of the shuttle and fell 65 feet, striking and breaking one of those heat tiles. luckily this happened while the shuttle was just sitting their, 13 hours before launch...

they fixed the tile, but now they're probably gonna postpone the launch entirely because of weather.

i mean... as a species, we've always been inclined to exploration. so why is it that we haven't developed and utilized new ways of getting ourselves into orbit in about 30 years?
let alone any single way for us to travel through outer space. we've never been to "outer space" since we've never been beyond the orbit of our own moon. the space shuttles only go into a low orbit. i think i read somewhere that they're actually still considered to be within the Earth's atmosphere, just at the extreme upper levels of it.

i feel sorry for anyone who gets on board one of those deathtraps. i hope there will be no more disasters though...

The day I watch a space launch will be the day I am launching the ship myself. And If I ever become a millionaire, I will have them design me a space ship shaped like the Falcon.

Oh yeah, that would rock.

Hey, she may not look like much, but she has it where it counts kid.

The Orion Project
I find the whole nuclear-pulse rocket concept very interesting.

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Akiram_Glockem wrote:
The Orion Project
I find the whole nuclear-pulse rocket concept very interesting.

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Nuclear... *chuckles* It's Nuc-u-lear, the "s" is silent.

It's not that the money is limited. It's that the government now doesn't really feel like giving it to them. The space thing was more, "We have to beat the Commies to it" than anything else. Now who's our enemy? Are the terrorists planning any manned SCUD flights?

And there are ships being developed, but mostly by private indviduals and/or commercial interests. Space tourism, and High-altitude, travel, for the people for whom the Concord just isn't fast or expensive enough, are where it's at these days.

NASA, like every other government body, is restricted by the bureacracy.

Seems like every day I read how the military, on the operating end, is using civilian products to do their jobs more effectively, and back home in washington, there's a bunch of guys in a room drafting a 5,000 page report on why they feel the military would be best off by choosing to replace the humvee with say, a clown car.

Maybe when there are commercially available space craft, NASA will start using them instead Then the government will say, NO! you must use the officially prescribed spacecraft we allotted you 30 years ago.

Come to think of it, the government kinda works like the Devs. "Well, we think the current system works the best. Okay, maybe we need a new system. Well, we've designed a new system, and you should be receiving it by 2015."

NASA's new system of shuttle launching:

- Astronauts must now head to the deserts, forests, and jungles of the world to hunt large game creatures like bears, big cats, and gorillas. we've hidden the keys to the new Space Shuttle in their bellies. Good luck!

They're not that old. Well, okay, they are. But they're fairly solid. They're not cheaply made like cars. Are you aware how old your average airplane is? The flying club my dad used to be in had Cessna's older than I am. They're still good planes. Some of the smaller passenger planes in the fleets of major airlines are pretty old, too.

It's not the age, but how well they were constructed, and how well they're maintained. Cars aren't built to last like that. They used to be, but modern cars seem to be more plastic than metal.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that space exploration simply isn't a money making venture. While the space program adds to our understanding of the cosmos and broadens our range of scientific experimentation, there's not a lot of opportunities for financial reward based on the cost of the program. That's one of the reason many folks believe that the future of the space industry lies in becoming a more open field, allowing private corporations to develop new technologies and programs.

Take the "Pie Finder I" mission. I'm sure the returns on that venture will be huge once we get the program off the ground.

I wish I'd still be alive for the "Cowboy Bebop" future. Probably the closest image of what the space-fareing future will be.

If only they'd scrap the shuttle and go back to simple rockets. Cheaper. Better. Easier. Done. But noooooo. Need some goram space plane to take them up.

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ClevtonRyles wrote:

Just be sure to give it quad laser turrets.... because lasers are cool.

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