This Week in Space 8 - February 26, 2010

valcan321 Says:

Feb 28, 2010 - VASIMR isnt a unicorn. Its being carried to the ISS soon to do station keeping. It will save money because it only uses 5% of the fuel a traditional system uses.

CessnaDriver2 Says:

Feb 28, 2010 - And I support pushing VASIMR technology. Very much so. But only in parallel developmnet with what NASA was accomplishing. Not in lieu of. We can transition over when it's ready. Not before. And not at the expense of Orion and building our BEO capable vehicles.

moneyman10k Says:

Feb 28, 2010 - Sorry there is no money for so much in parallel. You're missing the whole point. There isn't enough money to do what you want.

CessnaDriver2 Says:

Feb 28, 2010 - Sorry, there is enough money, your missing the point. It's about properly funding these endeavors. That is congress and both Bush and Obama's fault. Fund these things properly, they will happen faster and on time. Ausgustine commission already covered that. NASA funding has diminished steadly over the years. Time to fix that, and now is the time to draw attention to it. A good increase will hardly be noticed in the big federal budget spending picture.

moneyman10k Says:

Feb 28, 2010 - People don't want to pay more for NASA, that is all there is to it...

CessnaDriver2 Says:

Feb 28, 2010 - The general populace is ingorant actually of how little a percentage of federal discretionary spending NASA gets.Polls have shown this. Showing them a simple graph like that at federalbudget web site is all it takes to educate. Most think it's some huge percentage. it's tiny.It's congress and presidents that are stingy with NASA! They want a political payoff during their terms. The public isn't going to blink if NASA funding went up a few billion a year.

moneyman10k Says:

Mar 1, 2010 - I wish you luck if you're really trying to convince congress to give NASA a few billion more per year.

LilHACKERR Says:

Mar 1, 2010 - Lol N.A.S.A

lobosolo0333 Says:

Mar 3, 2010 - Bolden stated that he, even with the entire federal budget, he couldn't put a man on Mars ... Well, I'm confident that I could with a lot left over. He continues to parrot the line that we just don't have the "capabilities in our kitbag" to go to Mars.Simply not true! Zubrin has shown us how to do it with current technology in the Mars Direct Program. Bonin has shown us that we can do it economically with medium lift vehicles ... in other words, we don't need to wait for HLVs.

sbergman27 Says:

Mar 3, 2010 - Vitter asks what these changes have to do with anything laid out by the Augustine commission. He wants to be pointed to a page. Apparently, literacy is not a requirement for the post of Republican Senator for Louisiana these days, since the first two sentences in the summary report are these:"The U.S. human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory. It is perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources."

George6736 Says:

Mar 5, 2010 - Thanks for the ride ...

ubuibiok Says:

Mar 12, 2010 - What is not being said outload to the public is that Orion will cost MORE THEN was estamated.All most all the companies that built APOLLO are gone, out of business and the methods used by trial and error to build the parts to work, there records are gone as well...It might be cheaper and faster to build more shuttles.

lobosolo0333 Says:

Mar 12, 2010 - The whole Constellation program was costing more than estimated.It's an urban myth that the Saturn/Apollo records are lost. They're safely in NASA's hands. Even if they weren't, we could back-engineer the static displays and update them modern components ... like powerful computers.It doesn't matter if the companies that built them aren't around. If a company can build a shuttle engine, it can build a Saturn engine.The Shuttle can't go beyond LEO.

ubuibiok Says:

Mar 12, 2010 - NASA has a team running around the country picking threw Bone Yards for missing Staic display parts...the records ARE NOT in NASA hands.The Blueprints are, but not the Methods of mfr. . The Team has reported that some of those records are critical inorder to determine why some of the old Saturn parts were built the way they were ! The Budget to Reverse-engineer is small and there speending most of there time looking for the parts..

ubuibiok Says:

Mar 12, 2010 - @lobosolo0333...."What happened to the technical record of NASA's Apollo Space Program? Well... nothing. There was no record, due to the social context of a "Space Race" against USSR. Now since NASA was told to go to the moon again (the Project Constellation program), it has to look in junkyards - and on eBay - to find out how Saturn V rockets used to work.". Guess what, NASA is also looking for old Shuttle parts as well.

lobosolo0333 Says:

Mar 12, 2010 - WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SATURN V PLANS?Despite a widespread belief to the contrary, the Saturn V blueprints have not been lost. They are kept at Marshall Space Flight Center on microfilm. The Federal "Archives in East Point, GA also has 2,900 cubic feet of Saturn documents. Rocketdyne has in its archives dozens of volumes from its Knowledge Retention Program. This effort was initiated in the late '60s to document every facet of F-1 and J-2 engine production to assist in any future re-start.

lobosolo0333 Says:

Mar 12, 2010 - The upper stage of the Constellation is a souped up J-2. The had the plans for it! Several AIAA papers delivered in recent years discuss reviving the Saturn V. For example, AIAA paper 92-1546, "Launch Vehicles for the Space Exploration Initiative". This paper concluded that a revived Saturn V was actually cheaper than the NLS vehicle.

lobosolo0333 Says:

Mar 12, 2010 - An overview of the infrastructure still available to support production of a 1990s Saturn V and how that vehicle might be used to support First Lunar Outpost missions can be found in the December 1993 issue of _Spaceflight_, published by the British Interplanetary Society."

ubuibiok Says:

Mar 12, 2010 - , Keep on Dreaming , go read The New York Times-"For Old Parts, NASA Boldly Goes . . . on eBay" and the. PBS ORG. What is a "space junkyard?" VIDEOS HERE ON YouTube....

lobosolo0333 Says:

Mar 13, 2010 - Paul Shawcross from NASA's Office of Inspector General states that the Saturn blueprints are on microfiche.Even then, it would be better to have the blueprints AND an actual piece of equipment. Then you can update it or just take to a manufacturer and have them make it for you. That is why there are people out looking for actual parts.

GETitYAdig42 Says:

Mar 21, 2010 - i like this show, though it would be more enjoyable in HD.

Iamnotaparakeet Says:

Mar 23, 2010 - I think the commercialization of space is a good thing, especially if tourism is a possible option. Making it safe is certainly necessary though, as the high risk may be discouraging to most potential customers. NASA seems to not want to give up their control over the industry, and that seems to be a frustration to at least the Space-X CEO. It's sort of like the movie Astronaut Farmer. I think the commercialization of space will be good, unless Wal-Mart gets involved.

ioanpena Says:

Mar 23, 2010 - The ideea of this webcast is very good but we need more information and facts presented as they are and less nerdy filtred information becouse not everyone who is interested in space is a nerd. Why american politicians think that they have to explain everything to the rest of the world like they think we are monkeys. Mr. Bolden what moon are you talking about ? Earth's moon ? I thought that the moon was the goal of J.F.K. ; anyway i wish to congratulate you for your new job at McDonald's !!!

bankslawson Says:

Jan 3, 2011 - Real naughty people here benaughtyman.info

chernobylFarms Says:

Oct 17, 2011 - ...like the commercial says, we've been to the moon and learned it wasn't made of cheese. And we haven't been back since.the space stateion or an equivalent is essential to launching a mothercraft, carrying extra fuel and resources, over to Mars's orbit.