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It has taken us longer to duplicate what we did in the 60's than it did for us to do it in the first place. Kind of reminds me of the Soviets reverse engineering the B-29.
For 9 years we have swallowed our pride. Hat in hand. Head bowed. Asked our enemies to safely put our people in space. Yeah that is also part of the Obama legacy .
You mean two countries putting their differences aside to explore space is a bad thing? Granted we should have our own program and crafts too.
But when it comes to space, it’s for al of us. Atleast that’s how it should be.
So your right to an extent. But I doubt astronauts and cosmonauts saw each other as enemies.
The US is poised to launch humans into space for the first time since 2011 on Wednesday. For the first time in history, this will be done with a commercial rocket (SpaceX - Elon Musk, CEO).
In a historic moment a decade in the making, the skies above Florida will light up on Wednesday when the launch of a rocket born from a groundbreaking public-private partnership returns the United States to the business of human spaceflight.
Not since the retirement of Nasa’s space shuttle fleet in 2011 has the US possessed the capability to send its own astronauts into orbit, and the success of this week’s mission, formally known as SpaceX Demo-2, is likely to shape the direction of the space agency’s near-Earth ambitions for a generation.
At 4.33pm, a Dragon crew capsule attached to a Falcon 9 rocket is set to take flight from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, bound for the international space station (ISS). It will carry two Americans as test pilots, both veterans of previous space shuttle missions. They will remain there for up to three months while mission managers evaluate the spaceship’s performance.
The hardware was built by SpaceX, the private California-based company founded by the controversial billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, and funded by the US government under Nasa’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP).
This is a proof of concept for a scheme to send rich people into space for thrill rides. We should not be wasting money on it. Let the rich fund their own research.
Retiring the shuttle program with nothing even in the works to replace it and depending on the Russians was a mistake in my book.
The space program is pretty important in my book. Didnt and still dont understand Obama's reasoning. I guess he just saw it as a military budget cut. Even though much of the shuttles mission was non military.
It certainly saw its share if military use. But it had a big R&D role as well. IDK. But it's gone. I'll have to read up a bit on this new system.
The space shuttle program was never designed to last through 2020. The equipment was becoming dated. Not just the shuttles themselves, but all the specialized equipment necessary to maintain the shuttle program. It was only extended to finish the International Space Station.
There was no need for the space shuttle after the ISS was completed. The technology to launch satellites has overtaken what the space shuttle can do. There wasn't much else that we needed a cargo shuttle for. It was an overly expensive way to bring astronauts and supplies to/from the space station. Considering we can send supplies up there with an unmanned capsule - that only leaves shuttling astronauts. Russia does that. Considering the US did the heavy lifting (literally) of bringing the parts up there to build it, they can maintain the ability to shuttle humans back and forth.
The private options that are coming available might work out and will be a great solution going forward.
Retiring the shuttle program with nothing even in the works to replace it and depending on the Russians was a mistake in my book.
The space program is pretty important in my book. Didnt and still dont understand Obama's reasoning. I guess he just saw it as a military budget cut. Even though much of the shuttles mission was non military.
It certainly saw its share if military use. But it had a big R&D role as well. IDK. But it's gone. I'll have to read up a bit on this new system.
The Shuttle retirement predated Obama - and it was the right decision on GWB's part, the vehicles were getting old and the inherent flaws in the design were catching up. The replacement program - and it was in the works - was an utterly mismanaged boondoggle of porkbarrel spending and canceling that was the right decision on Obama's part. The Falcon 9 equivalent - Ares I - was on track to cost $20 billion to develop. (Falcon 9 cost less than $500 million, most of which wasn't taxpayer funds.)
With the commercial crew program, we're about to have two up-to-date manned platforms - one from SpaceX, and one from Boeing. It took longer than one could have wished for (didn't help that parts of Congress and insiders in NASA did everything in their power to stomp the program out), but if this launch goes well, we can flip the bird at Roscosmos.
Besides, landing the 1st stage on a robotic barge will never not be cool.
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