The Space Shuttle

[EricW]

Space Shuttle + Space Station = White Collar Welfare

Welfare is as welfare does: Nada.

At least with the WPA and CCC during the Depression, we got useful stuff like roads, trails, cabins and ski chalets. What the hell am I supposed to do with a tiny scrap of burnt up space station?

[atek3]

It's got wings and it goes in space.  Why the hell would anything in space need wings?  It's got windows that takes a crew of four PhD's 3 weeks to polish after every mission.  Why the hell does it need windows?  It's also got a 2% failure rate.  Haven't these guys heard of five nines reliability?

Propulsion technology being what it is, it's much cheaper to put things in space with 50's technology than with the crap on the space shuttle.  Custom-built one-off cryo parts are damned expensive.  Build something from COTS stuff and fly it around.  Private industry would be doing that, but it's hard to compete when all of your competitors are subsidized by the government.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree with almost everything in this thread....HEY LOOK ITS HEATH... right on.

atek3

[cking]

The space program went the way all goverment programs go, to H@ll!

Anytime goverment gets involved you get a D- performance for A+ price tag. Look at welfare, education, law enforcement.

Like the old joke I"m from goverment and I'm here to help you!

Research is good however, yes the hubble has been replaced by land based systems that are better. But that technology came from the Star wars project. We just don't need goverment to run it, just give tax breaks in area that we need development.

Getting to Mars is a joke, we don't have any vehicles that can lift the payload needed with our current propulsions systesms. So we would have to stage it off Moon or space station not much chance of that happening.

Unmanned is way to go, then follow up with manned flights.

Lets not talk about welfare, I see it doing far less good, than the bad it does. It has produced a whole generation of helpless people who believe they are entitled to it. We are still paying the dregs to breed! They ain't going to stop with one either.

Geeh I feel better now, THank you