Bush's Space initiative...
Jan. 14th, 2004 05:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unclejimboWell, I saw portions of what Georgie has in mind. I'll give him this, he has some good speech writers.
Still, I wonder about whether or not he has the stones to make this dream come true.
He killed the Venture Star project which would have replaced the shuttles and given us the capacity for a single stage to orbit, reusable vehicle.
He killed the construction of the crew return vehicle and the Habitation Module for the ISS, even though we were required by an international treaty to complete it. He wants to complete our commitment to the ISS in 2010, it would be nice if we had met our commitments to it in full.
He wants to build larger rockets to put a space colony on the moon. I say about damn time. We will get a lot of positive benefits from this, most likely new science that will help the environment through recycling and minimizing airborne polutants.
He wants to build an Apollo style vehicle to go out exploring. Fine, great, I still think developing a space plane for crew transfers from the ground to orbit would be beneficial as opposed to building a one-shot vehicle for each mission. This is a huge omisson from his plans.
The ISS is needed for learning about how to survive for extended periods of zero-g. To get to the moon and later Mars, a larger facility in a higher orbit seems to be mandated. I saw no plans for this as well.
His idea for a Heavy Lift launcher is good. We have needed one since we turned the last few Saturn V rockets into display pieces. I say take one apart, learn what we can from how Werner Von Braun designed it and see if we can improve on it with what we have learned in the 40 years since he first built one.
But then again, no one is listening to me... I'm just a registered voter after all...
Still, I wonder about whether or not he has the stones to make this dream come true.
He killed the Venture Star project which would have replaced the shuttles and given us the capacity for a single stage to orbit, reusable vehicle.
He killed the construction of the crew return vehicle and the Habitation Module for the ISS, even though we were required by an international treaty to complete it. He wants to complete our commitment to the ISS in 2010, it would be nice if we had met our commitments to it in full.
He wants to build larger rockets to put a space colony on the moon. I say about damn time. We will get a lot of positive benefits from this, most likely new science that will help the environment through recycling and minimizing airborne polutants.
He wants to build an Apollo style vehicle to go out exploring. Fine, great, I still think developing a space plane for crew transfers from the ground to orbit would be beneficial as opposed to building a one-shot vehicle for each mission. This is a huge omisson from his plans.
The ISS is needed for learning about how to survive for extended periods of zero-g. To get to the moon and later Mars, a larger facility in a higher orbit seems to be mandated. I saw no plans for this as well.
His idea for a Heavy Lift launcher is good. We have needed one since we turned the last few Saturn V rockets into display pieces. I say take one apart, learn what we can from how Werner Von Braun designed it and see if we can improve on it with what we have learned in the 40 years since he first built one.
But then again, no one is listening to me... I'm just a registered voter after all...
