Discovery ready to fly

[jnevis]

However, it also seems that after we landed on the moon, NASA has had no real vision for the future. They just kind of quit after that. Since then what have they REALLY accomplished that has inspired the world to push the boundaries of what we thought was possible. I guess it's just like every other government agency, do just enough so that your budget doesn't get cut next year.

A brief list of what NASA (and DARPA) have brought you since Apollo:
The PC, Internet, cell phone, better weather prediction, better/safer travel air; both air and surface, more efficient refrigerators/microwaves/stoves, medical treatments and diagnostic tools...

Yes they haven't had a lot of big flashy all over the news discoveries but a LOT of little help the everyday stuff that would have never been thought of if somebody hadn't needed it to get to the Moon or beyond.  We're still working on the Apollo advancements.  Just think what we could build from the advances we'd need to go farther and stay out longer.

[Timothy]

The Width of a Horse's Ass!

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were built by English expatriates.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe (including England) were built by Imperial Rome for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? The initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels, were first formed by Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

So the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's patute came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses. Thus, we have the answer to the original question.

Now a twist to the story…

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are Solid Rocket Boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Morton-Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs, therefore, had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' behinds. So, a major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of two horse's behinds.
 

 

[jnevis]

Just so happens I was looking at SRB rail cars just before I clicked over here.  May build models of a couple for something different

[billt]

In the 60's we put Mission Control together. Or better, Gene Kranz did. He took a bunch of coyboys and instilled a spirit into them that took us to the Moon. I remember that day. There was nothing like it. We have been decreasing as a country ever since. What do we have now? Nothing. You talk about a "Welfare state for engineers". What the hell do we have now? We can't "engineer" ourselves out of a rusty, dilapidated old bridge. No money, and less brains.

In 1972 John Arron saved an entire multi million dollar Moon mission with one, single sentence, "Flight, tell em' to take the SCE to AUX!" Now we can't get the Space Shuttle back from low Earth orbit. Look at what came from the space program of the 60's. Microwave Ovens, pocket calculators, the microchip, and dozens of other inventions that didn't exist before we flew into space.

It was the greatest time in the history of this nation. Now we dismiss it as "too much money". Look at NASA's budget. It took only $25.7 Billion dollars in the 60's to go to the Moon. What do we now piss away on illegals and the UN? Not to mention foreign aid. NASA was a bargain in comparison. This nation is in a downward spiral. Talking about what we do best this way proves it. What else should we do? Advance some piss pot nation? Educate idiots who cannot be educated?

Gene Kranz said when he talked to his controllers just before the Lunar landing attempt when they were off camera:

 "Lock the doors. From this point on no one enters or leaves this room until we either land on the Moon, abort, or crash. Whatever decision any or all of you make from this point on, I will back you all of the way no matter what. How ever this turns out you will all have my total support. Now let's go to work!"

20 minutes later we were on the Moon. Today we can't repair our highways, or win a war. We as a nation are pathetic. We fight over wages for bus drivers. We can't plow our streets after a blizzard. Our teachers whine they can't pay their bills without a salary increase. We elect an incompetent idiot as President, then make excuses for him as he travels the world apologising for all of us. And we sit here and think NASA gets too much money. The one good thing the government does, and we want to chop it off at the knees. And do what with it? Educate mexicans? We're done. God this sickens me. Bill T.

[cookie62]

I too remember that day (actually it was night) like it was yesterday. laying on the living room floor, watching that black & white console TV. I was young at the time, but still proud and excited. I agree with Billt on this. I just wish we could pull off something like that again. Maybe it would bring this country back and give people something to believe in again. Probably not, but at least we would be accomplishing something for the money and not just giving it away.

[Sponsor]

[Timothy]

I agree entirely with your last statement Bill!  However, I still question the necessity of trying to go to Mars or any other planet for that matter.  If NASA wants to further the development of more useful projects in telecommunication, aircraft, or any number of things that would make more sense, I'm all for it!

Personally, I don't care nor do I want to know if there are "aliens" out there.  We may find that they ain't that friendly and that we humans are the three toed sloths of the known universe.  Remember the airport locker community praying to a Casio watch in Men in Black?

 

[billt]

The technology that would come from a manned Mars mission would be immense. This would serve all fields like medicine, engineering, not to mention the electronic and computer advancements it would require. Just like going to the Moon, people don't realize just how much it effects things we use every day. If you look at a pie chart showing NASA'a budget, even during the manned Apollo Lunar Missions, the cost was minuscule compared to the money we totally waste on social programs in this country that do nothing but make people stupid, lazy, and dependant.  Bill T.

[tombogan03884]

I'm pressed for time but I want to make a quick comment on Bill's posts.
First, I'm not disagreeing that there are benefits to the exploration of Space, I'm with Cookie on Watching the Moon landing.
Heck, Allan Shepherd  grew up not THAT far from where I lived, (It's a small state, nothing is THAT far away    )
I just don't think that Govt, especially with the current economic situation, is going to be the right group to run it. I think this is similar to the aviation industry, in the teen's and 20's Govt spurred airplane research with WWI and civilian prizes for different stuff, by the 30's (the  Depression ) Industry was taking over, finding ways such as airmail, cargo and passenger services, to make it pay.
I think that we re now at, or at least approaching that point in space exploration.
There are at least 3 technologies we need to advance before Mars is truly practical, Less expensive launch technology,better propulsion for higher speed of transit, and light speed or better communication.
I got to go now, but I'll be looking for this thread. It was people kicking idas around that took us from watching birds to walking on the Moon.

[JdePietro]

Just a thought, I know very scary  but we don't exactly blast large piles of money into orbit, than again if we did our money would be worth more.

Seriously, money spent at NASA is money spent at the American industial core. NASA orders huge amounts of materials from the very factories that are shutting down as we speak. You want to save the industrial side of the US? Pump money into infastructure and NASA. 

[kmitch200]

Playing libertarian devils advocate - did NASA do anything that private industry couldn't do cheaper?
We got a ton of great tech stuff from the space program, but letting private industry instead of the gubmint do it might have saved us taxpayers a ton of money.

I know that private industy doesn't do anything for free, but you would have the choice of spending your $$ on it or not. Even a great agency like NASA is funded with our money without us having any say in it. (along with a bunch of turd agencies that should be cut off at the knees)