"DH" <dh@stargate.com> wrote in
news:46155126$0$16314$88260bb3@free.teranews.com:

"Fred Stone" <fstone69@earthling.com> wrote in message
news:Xns99097B648347Efreddybear@66.150.105.47...

"DH" <dh@stargate.com> wrote in
news:4614ffb4$0$16331$88260bb3@free.teranews.com:

"Fred Stone" <fstone69@earthling.com> wrote in message
news:Xns99085590E9892freddybear@66.150.105.47...

"Geoff" <gebobs@yahoo.nospam.com> wrote in
news:SYSdnVay79y5go7bnZ2dnUVZWhednZ2d@giganews.com:

dh wrote:

The fact remains that the market is just a mechanism for
establishing a price. It is not an engine of change.

There's no convincing free-marketers like Fred. They all believe
that government is evil, short-sighted and incompetent and all
business is benevolent, visionary and infallible. They would close
the likes of NIH, NASA, CDC, etc. and let the market decide which
strategic avenues to take.

I wouldn't close them. I'd endow the NIH and the CDC as charitable
foundations and sell NASA to the highest bidder.

There's a great idea, considering that private industry has only
recently achieved what "the gummint" achieved with the very first
Mercury test-flight, Shepard's suborbital mission, in 1963 or so.

Umm, helloooo? NASA contracted everything out to private industry.

And who was in charge? NASA. Who provided the money? "The gummint."
Who got to feel the sense of national pride? Citizens of the US.
And lots of NASA engineers and researchers made direct intellectual
contributions to the project (orbital mechanics, aerodynamic studies,
etc).

Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, STS and a long list of others - all NASA
"gummint" projects, all about as successful as one could reasonably
expect.

43 years of advances in miniaturization, materials science,
propellant chemistry development, aeronatical advances (much of it
funded directly or indirectly b "the gummint") and Space Ship One
has tied a 1963 record.

Well done, Space Ship One! A lean and mean organization can do
*anything*! If you wait long enough.

Of course, using an exact copy of that equipment, a few weeks or
months later, John Glenn blew right through that achievement and
orbited the whole globe. A trip around the world in just a couple
hours.

Do you understand anything about physics? Space Ship One has
achieved its full potential; it has hit its limit as a concept,
design and implementation. It can not achieve and would not survive
an orbital flight. If our "space program" were to be nothing but a
series of 2-second "explorations" of the 100km edge of space, Space
Ship One would be a wonderful achievement.

And would we have...
Satellite phones? Nope.
Hubble? Nope.
GPS? Nope.
Weather satellites? Nope.
Spy satellites? Nope.
LandSats and remote sensing? Nope.
Orbital nuclear detonation monitors? Nope.

You're so fucking ignorant it's amazing that you know how to work a
computer. Rutan's SS1 is *reusable*, and it's only a prototype.

So what? The STS Orbiter is reusable, too.

Don't make me laugh. SS1 had a cycle time of two weeks. Try *that* with
a Space Shuttle.

If you think the
reusability aspect of this is the major achievement, the STS was
designed in the late '70's/early '80's and was flying by the early/mid
'80's. After 20 years, Space Ship One's reusability is not a "first."

Are you banking on my being ignorant of these things? That's a bad
plan.

Yep, you're ignorant all right.

Space Ship One has hit its limits. It can reach 100km @ 0 km/sec,
roll over, fall back down, exert drag and then glide when it hits
thick enough air and then, after servicing, do it again, sure.
Project Mercury got to 100km and then went orbital within a few
months. When did Space Ship One achieve its first orbit? It's been,
what? A year? Plenty of time for that first orbit. Did I miss it?
Is it coming up? Should I put something on my calendar?

SS1 isn't flying again, dumbass.

And it
cost a *fraction* of what a NASA project would have cost.

As for the "*fraction*" of the cost, am I supposed to be impressed?
Given that they had 43 years of technological advance and all NASA's
store of knowledge behind them to draw on, I would hope it would be
cheaper to recreate Alan Shepard's flight by now.

And a 1992 Toyota Tercel is a *fraction* of the cost of a Formula 1
car. But that's not a valid comparison, because the Tercel can do
*everything* the F1car can do, except slower. Space Ship One can
*not* do *everything* the STS can do.

It wasn't intended to do everything the STS can do. What a neat strawman
for you to shoot down. Does that make you feel less impotent than you
really are?

Space Ship One's achievement does not even compare well with that of
the Wright brothers. They had to work out critical control problems
all on their own, no engineering or aeronatical guidance from others;
theirs was a breakthrough concept. Space Ship One was able to get
information about hypersonic aerodynamic control from knowledge
learned in the X-15 (1960's) and other "gummint" projects. There was
nothing Rutan didn't know about the project in advance, except whether
or not they had made a mistake. They didn't. Good execution, Bert.
But it wasn't a pioneering effort.

So?

What a dumbass you are, DH. Get away from me.

I understand the difference between suborbital and orbital flight and
the difference in the degree of difficulty of the mission. This makes
it easy for me to see through your pitiful BS and I'm not surprised
you're more than "mildly annoyed." I expect you feel impotent. I
hear that's a very bad feeling to have.

You should know, you impotent fool. I hope you had fun with your
strawmen.

Fred Stone
aa# 1369
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+ @T
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The lame troll hits! The lame troll hits!
You are mildly annoyed.

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