What do you hate that space agencies are not doing, which is possible?

[fredinno]

13 hours ago, Boovie said:

I would argue that sending a separate probe to Europa would absolutely not be pointless. A lander could glean far more information from the surface and sub-surface ocean than the Clipper will gain from orbit. Congress ordered the two to be done together to save money, but what price can you put on data gleaned from other worlds and moons?

But the original proposal was to survey Europa via clipper, and near the end of the nominal mission, send the lander down to Europa. Obviously more risky, but a whole lot less expensive than another flagship probe and lander on SLS.

46 minutes ago, wumpus said:

 

 

While the shuttle had plenty of abort options, my understanding was that they didn't have very good coverage and the ones they had the simulators nearly always ended with total crew death.

Probably because it is vastly easier to become an Air Force general by piloting a plane than by being a missile jockey.  I wonder if the Navy was still had its turf, would we have Orion [the big boy]?  Possibly with an admiral or two with a distinct bias toward capital ships?

While the shuttle obviously had to hit the runway, and the LEMs flew to their intended landing areas, is it possible to know how accurate US capsules were?  I mean, as long as you come within helicopter range of a ship capable of carrying a helicopter (wiki claims HUS-1 for mercury), you can get the collar on and recover.

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While the shuttle had plenty of abort options, my understanding was that they didn't have very good coverage and the ones they had the simulators nearly always ended with total crew death.

I'd image Vostokhod would have those sorts of abort options available- after all, the Shuttle "aborts" were built into a ship without any real abort capability.

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Probably because it is vastly easier to become an Air Force general by piloting a plane than by being a missile jockey.  I wonder if the Navy was still had its turf, would we have Orion [the big boy]?  Possibly with an admiral or two with a distinct bias toward capital ships?

NASA had the same situation, but the Shuttle hit them hard, and spaceplanes at NASA have been on the decline since then. You'd think the USAF would come to the same conclusion after all this time?

In either case, the Nuclear Orion wouldn't have been made, since it capability was way too high in payload to be useful.

[wumpus]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

NASA had the same situation, but the Shuttle hit them hard, and spaceplanes at NASA have been on the decline since then. You'd think the USAF would come to the same conclusion after all this time?

In either case, the Nuclear Orion wouldn't have been made, since it capability was way too high in payload to be useful.

I'd assume that the GS-13/15 who are making all the decisions that can be done without congressional approval all came on board with Apollo and like rockets.  Anyone in NACA at 16 would be 74 today, so I expect nobody at NASA even had a mentor who remembered NACA.  And of course, the Air Force is still full of generals who flew planes (and ICBM babysitting has lost all punsk it might have had after the cold war ended).

I'm not remotely surprised that NASA likes vertical takeoff (and is indifferent to landing) while the DoD (lead by the Air Force) clings to Horizontal landing (and possibly takeoff).  And as far as capability matters, that doesn't really seem to be an issue with congressional funding.

[ProtoJeb21]

What I despise about the Cassini mission is that instead of landing on low-gee Enceladus and just staying there, NASA wants to burn up the poor probe. I don't get why NASA doesn't want to attempt a nice, soft, radiation-free landing on Enceladus! Crashing into that moon will be terrible. But landing on Enceladus? That's incredibly important child's play.

[Bill Phil]

4 hours ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

What I despise about the Cassini mission is that instead of landing on low-gee Enceladus and just staying there, NASA wants to burn up the poor probe. I don't get why NASA doesn't want to attempt a nice, soft, radiation-free landing on Enceladus! Crashing into that moon will be terrible. But landing on Enceladus? That's incredibly important child's play.

What if it contaminates the life that may be there? Or ends up being the cause of life there in the future?

[fredinno]

4 hours ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

What I despise about the Cassini mission is that instead of landing on low-gee Enceladus and just staying there, NASA wants to burn up the poor probe. I don't get why NASA doesn't want to attempt a nice, soft, radiation-free landing on Enceladus! Crashing into that moon will be terrible. But landing on Enceladus? That's incredibly important child's play.

1. Cassini probably was nowhere near the twr on its apogee engine needed to land on that moon.

2. The entire point of burning the probe up is to prevent it from contaminating that moon. Landing on it defeats the purpose.

3. It would probably be better to put it in a graveyard orbit around impetus,  for example, if you really want to save the probe. There , it won't infect anything.

9 hours ago, wumpus said:

I'd assume that the GS-13/15 who are making all the decisions that can be done without congressional approval all came on board with Apollo and like rockets.  Anyone in NACA at 16 would be 74 today, so I expect nobody at NASA even had a mentor who remembered NACA.  And of course, the Air Force is still full of generals who flew planes (and ICBM babysitting has lost all punsk it might have had after the cold war ended).

I'm not remotely surprised that NASA likes vertical takeoff (and is indifferent to landing) while the DoD (lead by the Air Force) clings to Horizontal landing (and possibly takeoff).  And as far as capability matters, that doesn't really seem to be an issue with congressional funding.

Until recently, NASA'S biggest employer was the shuttle, a space plane. Also, a significant portion of nasa is still aeronautics. Granted, nasa supported lifting body/space-based until right before project constellation.

On the other hand, DC-X was a DOD program....

[wumpus]

9 hours ago, fredinno said:

Until recently, NASA'S biggest employer was the shuttle, a space plane. Also, a significant portion of nasa is still aeronautics. Granted, nasa supported lifting body/space-based until right before project constellation.

On the other hand, DC-X was a DOD program....

Considering that SLS is basically a zombie STS (shuttle) program, I'm not aware that it is being heavily pushed by NASA (although I'd expect a ton of support on the bits that actually do the work).

According to wiki, DC-X was sent through Dan Quayle, and with a budget of $60M didn't even show up as a decimal place in congressional funding.  I'd expect tiny exceptions like that in any budget the size of the DoD.  One thing about the DC-X was that it looks like it more closely resembled ICBM launch operations (two guys with keys) and less like NASA (a small army of techs).  Maybe the missilemen finally got a program.

[Findthepin1]

11 hours ago, fredinno said:

1. Cassini probably was nowhere near the twr on its apogee engine needed to land on that moon.

2. The entire point of burning the probe up is to prevent it from contaminating that moon. Landing on it defeats the purpose.

3. It would probably be better to put it in a graveyard orbit around impetus,  for example, if you really want to save the probe. There , it won't infect anything.

Until recently, NASA'S biggest employer was the shuttle, a space plane. Also, a significant portion of nasa is still aeronautics. Granted, nasa supported lifting body/space-based until right before project constellation.

On the other hand, DC-X was a DOD program....

That's your 3000th post!

[fredinno]

2 hours ago, wumpus said:

Considering that SLS is basically a zombie STS (shuttle) program, I'm not aware that it is being heavily pushed by NASA (although I'd expect a ton of support on the bits that actually do the work).

According to wiki, DC-X was sent through Dan Quayle, and with a budget of $60M didn't even show up as a decimal place in congressional funding.  I'd expect tiny exceptions like that in any budget the size of the DoD.  One thing about the DC-X was that it looks like it more closely resembled ICBM launch operations (two guys with keys) and less like NASA (a small army of techs).  Maybe the missilemen finally got a program.

But XS-1 isn't a huge part of the DOD's budget, or any of the other lifting body/spaceplane programs either?

1 minute ago, Findthepin1 said:

That's your 3000th post!

Yey. I don't really care. :/