http://news.cnet.com/8301-13512_3-10347397-23.html
I was mostly in agreement with this article until I got to this line: "And if we needed to, we could put the Saturn V rocket back into production, along with the old Lunar Module. NASA still has all the plans for these vehicles on file."
Drawings mean nothing. Conceptual engineering is fairly cheap compared to manufacturing. I doubt any of the Saturn V tooling is around anymore, and all of the expertise is definitely gone.
And now that I go back and read what he actually said, it just makes me more angry. Yes, we have the Atlas and Delta, but it takes a lot of money and effort to man rate a launch vehicle. SpaceX isn't man rated either, as far as I know. Cutting NASA's budget will not do anything, and it's ridiculous to propose that they could continue to function as they were on half as much money. He wants higher risk? You can't have higher risk in spacecraft. It's unacceptable. Save your judgement until after you've worked in the industry, or at least done more research than looking up the names of launch vehicles. Hmph.
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I have heard about this and then some, as a friend of mine was a NASA contractor for a little while.
ReplyDeleteI think it's really important money go to scientific endeavours such as this one, and to an extent that can make this research as safe as possible.