SpaceX's Dragon capsule captured by ISS

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

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GIThruster
Posts: 4686
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 8:17 pm

Post by GIThruster »

Skipjack wrote:
Seriously Skippy, you're a moron wishing he had a clue.
Ohhh, again the ad hominem attacks. They make you appear very smart.
I don't much care about what appears. What I care about is what IS.
Last edited by GIThruster on Sun Jul 22, 2012 9:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Post by Skipjack »

I don't much care about what appears. What I care about is what IS.

Skippy is a douchbag support of illegal drugs.

No "appearances" concerned.
Actually I am NOT in support of illegal drugs... You obviously dont know shit about me, which is surprising after all these years we have been on the board together.
You also dont know shit about space policy.

Betruger
Posts: 2321
Joined: Tue May 06, 2008 11:54 am

power without traction

Post by Betruger »

GIThruster wrote: NO VISION!!!
Vision (and polyticks' backing) is of little use without good upper management.
You can do anything you want with laws except make Americans obey them. | What I want to do is to look up S. . . . I call him the Schadenfreudean Man.

GIThruster
Posts: 4686
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 8:17 pm

Re: power without traction

Post by GIThruster »

Betruger wrote:
GIThruster wrote: NO VISION!!!
Vision (and polyticks' backing) is of little use without good upper management.
I have to agree with Betruger.

NASA would not suck the way it does if their people weren't busy filing their pockets with no reward to the taxpayer.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

pbelter
Posts: 188
Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2008 2:52 am

Post by pbelter »

Skipjack wrote:
Seriously Skippy, you're a moron wishing he had a clue.
Ohhh, again the ad hominem attacks. They make you appear very smart.

He seems to specialize in those. According to GIThruster MSimon is a drug addict because he has Paruresis, Paul March is pathetic because he does not want to limit his experiments to the dogma GIThruster believes in. This is just to name a few from the top of my head.

A truly troubled personality. The only way to treat those is not to respond to any of their posts. Ignored into obscurity they will leave this forum, paving a way for a discussion about science and facts.

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Post by Skipjack »

NASA would not suck the way it does if their people weren't busy filing their pockets with no reward to the taxpayer.
Yeah which is thanks to Hall, Hutchinson, Shelby, Nelson, Wolf and co who make sure that the pork keeps flowing.
I am so glad that there are people like Dana Rohrabacher and Andrew Gasser. They are among the few politicians that I think have something like integrity (at least judging from their space politics). A few years ago Andrew asked me to give the tea party in space movement a chance. He really changed my opinion on it to the positive. Good man that.

COTS and CCDev are wonderful examples of how much you can achieve with fixed cost contracts and real industry competition.
In two months SpaceX will start testing their atmospheric RLV test article for a reusable first stage. If they manage to do quick turnarround of a reusable first stage, they will have achieved more in regards to reusable launch vehicle development than NASA ever has. Once the grasshopper will be flying, they will already have already achieved more in this regard than NASA has in the past 30 years.

ScottL
Posts: 1122
Joined: Thu Jun 02, 2011 11:26 pm

Post by ScottL »

GIThruster wrote:You're presenting Scott, that you know nothing of how DC works.

It is completely true, that Obama is not sympathetic with any space development.

Look at the evidence! Obama has provided NO direction for NASA.

NASA is now full of bureaucratic bullshit, managing thousands of people's jobs with no direction.

NO DIRECTION!!!!

Get a clue.
GIT, I'm inclined to think the same of you. YOu don't appear to have any clue how it works or how priorities work either. Your arguments don't make sense in the slightest. While upper management is always needed, you continue to ignore the fact that Obama has laid out a vision, however; the House and Senate have disagreed with that vision and since it takes all 3 to fund anything, you get problems.

I still like my previously posted stance of privatization in the space sector and it looks like I"ll get my wish. Speaking of a failed Senate, how about that jobs bill that got shot down. You know, the one where we raise taxes on corporations that outsource jobs and give huge breaks to those who don't. Go figure it's the GOP again blocking a good thing.

KitemanSA
Posts: 6179
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 3:05 pm
Location: OlyPen WA

Post by KitemanSA »

Yet again, the troll-ettes have highjacked a thread.

What a surprise!!!

GIThruster
Posts: 4686
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 8:17 pm

Post by GIThruster »

ScottL wrote:Your arguments don't make sense in the slightest. While upper management is always needed, you continue to ignore the fact that Obama has laid out a vision, however; the House and Senate have disagreed with that vision and since it takes all 3 to fund anything, you get problems.
What was that vision, Scott? We were talking about TRITON and Nautilus-X. Are you suggesting Obama put those on the table and congress refused to fund them? Don't be absurd. Congress didn't refuse to fund anything Obama asked for. Note this is the precise opposite of what happened when Nancy Pelosi threatened Bush stating her congress would not authorize any funds for NASA that were to be used for Mars exploration.

You have some things backward, my friend.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

ScottL
Posts: 1122
Joined: Thu Jun 02, 2011 11:26 pm

Post by ScottL »

GIThruster wrote:
ScottL wrote:Your arguments don't make sense in the slightest. While upper management is always needed, you continue to ignore the fact that Obama has laid out a vision, however; the House and Senate have disagreed with that vision and since it takes all 3 to fund anything, you get problems.
What was that vision, Scott? We were talking about TRITON and Nautilus-X. Are you suggesting Obama put those on the table and congress refused to fund them? Don't be absurd. Congress didn't refuse to fund anything Obama asked for. Note this is the precise opposite of what happened when Nancy Pelosi threatened Bush stating her congress would not authorize any funds for NASA that were to be used for Mars exploration.

You have some things backward, my friend.
At the risk of derailing the thread further, yes please do go back and read what the commission recommended and then what actually got funded. As per SpaceX's Dragon, I think they should continue on doing what they're doing. Not only have they shown the know-how, but also the fortitude to follow through. Privatization can't come fast enough in this sector.

dnavas
Posts: 84
Joined: Sun Nov 11, 2007 3:59 am

Post by dnavas »

ScottL wrote:At the risk of derailing the thread further....
Folks that wish to discuss this farther should probably return from whence this board came -- back to nasaspaceflight.

That place is full of supporters for privatization, as well as supporters of current policy, as well as supporters of completely different alternatives that haven't been mentioned yet. I could add my opinion here, but why? If you care for something more than validation, feel free to research the historical record.

GIThruster
Posts: 4686
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 8:17 pm

Post by GIThruster »

ScottL wrote:please do go back and read what the commission recommended and then what actually got funded.
Em, pardon me as I recall what the Augustine commission recommended:

1) Kill the shuttle program. Check
2) Continue with COTS and such. Check
3) Keep ISS going. Check
3) Keep Aries and Orion going, or maybe scrap Aries 1 for some other alternative, pick one. Check

Hence we have SLS, which was not the recommendation of the committee, but rather that of the senate.

The problem with all of this is of course that there's no vision. The Augustine committee wasn't designed to provide the country with vision. It was designed to be an independent review of possibilities and options. There was no serious discussion of vision. In fact, the chief complain against the Augustine commission was that it put the cart before the horse once more. It didn't start out by saying, "lets build an interplanetary human exploration program" and from there begin to examine options. Rather, it looked at what was supposedly on offer, and delivered this to the president. It did not, as I recall; look at all at things like TRITON and Nautilus X, which is precisely what would have happened had they put the horse before the cart.

Again just saying, I agree with ending shuttle, continuing ISS, and more COTS style funding. What I disagree with is the utter lack of vision. We should not be talking about going to an asteroid with a 40 year old spacecraft design, updated more than a decade before it can be used. We should be looking at nuclear engines and true interplanetary spacecraft, like Nautilus X.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Post by Skipjack »

Are you suggesting Obama put those on the table and congress refused to fund them?
Actually congress did two things.
They reduced NASAs budget compared to the budget requested by the administration.
They reduced the funding of everything but the SLS/Orion compared to the budget requested by the administration.
Make your own conclusions from that.

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Post by Skipjack »

1) Kill the shuttle program. Check
2) Continue with COTS and such. Check
3) Keep ISS going. Check
3) Keep Aries and Orion going, or maybe scrap Aries 1 for some other alternative, pick one. Check
Actually they found that the Constellation programme was years behind schedule and billions over budget. It was unsustainable with the funding provided by Bush and even the slightly increased funding that Obama wanted (but ultimately did not get)
They suggested to focus in economic sustainability for the space programme, which makes total sense. A stunt mission to Mars (or again to the moon) like we did with Apollo is worthless. If we intend to go somewhere, we should have the infrastructure with the supporting industriy in place to do so as often as we want within the budget reality that NASA is facing.
For this they recommended to use private industry.
They also recommended to go to a near earth object prior to going to Mars or the moon.

The vision that you are asking for is a sustainable space infrastructure with affordable routine access to LEO and the ISS. From there you can then go whereever you want, which will realistically be long after Obamas second term (if he has one).
I actually really like that vision. Lower the cost of doing space missions. It is probably the best vision ever and it worked. Space industry in the US has seen a huge growth in recent years. There even is some venture capital and major investors again that put their money into space. Companies like SpaceX have shown that space is not reserved to multi billion USD mega government programs.

TomB
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun May 04, 2008 5:46 pm

Space Policy History

Post by TomB »

GIT Thruster opined:

"Well you're obviously wrong, Skippy."

Actually, no, GIT. It is you who are at best very partially right, ...at best.

"Most people who form space advocacy and are interested to support space efforts, think NASA is near dead and buried. NASA is awash with billions of funds, but no vision."

Oh??!! Really??!!

You see, I've just come home from a space advocacy group meeting here in Portland. Like myself, no one there agrees with you. They have been through the wringer in the last 34 years of our chapter's history of space advocacy. They know when and where NASA lost its way, and they know the people who led it astray. Most of that happened before Obama was out of college. I have personally been warning people about where NASA was headed since 1965.

"NO VISION!!!"

Hardly, ...Just no simplistic vision that resembles Apollo. The Apollo Cult is a large part of what has kept NASA in bondage for the last 40 years to the parochial politics of the congressional delegations near to NASA Centers, and the managers at their local Centers, whose advice to those pols strangely always advances projects they know enough about to win ever-higher management positions within, ensuring that new paths remain untrodden.

"It would take very little for a President, or any presidential contender to make NASA relevant."

Sure!!! "Kids! All you have to do to let Tinkerbell live is *believe* really, really hard in fairies, and clap your hands 3 times"!!!

GIT, ...don't be a Tinkerbell!

NASA is not relevant to the rest of the Republic because it serves none of the needs the Republic's citizens focus on in their day to day lives. It does not do that because it has not spent 20 years developing the technologies needed to make spaceflight economically productive. Instead, NASA has been forced to make it politically productive in short-term bursts for the pols, through using the Apollo Cult to whip up enthusiasm for the next super-large program that can look as much like Apollo as possible, but enough different to say it's new. That program then eats the money for all technology development.

Until we *incrementally* develop the technology to make human spaceflight cheaper by several orders of magnitude, NASA will remain irrelevant to the majority in the Republic. That will take about 20 years, whenever we start. We could have started in 1959, or 1969, or in 1989, or any time in between or since, but we did not. The key thing about the program proposed after the Augustine Commission is that it focused on technology needed to make spaceflight cheaper.

Of course, congressmen and senators were interested first in spending money in their home districts, so cheaper is out, as far as they are concerned. Worse, cheaper and not under their control, but following a market is even less politically productive. So, instead we got SLS/MPCV. The $3 Billion they are spending on those each year could lift NASA towards exactly the relevance you seek. But it won't help get Senators Shelby and Nelson elected.


"Direct funds to advanced propulsion of any sort. Support TRITON. Support Nautilus-X. Support anything that grants real "vision"."

Nautilus-X is your best idea for advocacy, so far. Indeed, I would support it. Too bad that in NASA JSC those who put that concept together may be on the chopping block for doing so, because their alternative to MPCV threatens higher-level JSC management. No manager in NASA has experience making anything like Nautilus work! Worse, ...it's too small to support large staffs! Therefore, they cannot be assured that they will move closer to retiring at the highest GS levels, instead of a lower one from managing a smaller project team.

"Obama just can't manage."

Fine, by me! He is a socialist, and his uninterest in NASA means a team of his supporters who know that market drivers for human spaceflight are needed are those who put together the post-Augustine proposals. Unfortunately, we then come to the *true* criticism of Obama in human spaceflight. Since he was uninterested, he refused to trade away any of the *rest* of the programs he *is* interested in, to get Congress to go along with the post-Augustine proposals. So Shelby, Nelson, et al had a field day.

"I wasn't in support of Constillation, but that was a lot better than no interest at all in space exploration."

No, it isn't. Interest in space exploration is useless, without the willingness to support the reason for human spaceflight itself. That is, ... settling the rest of the Solar System. As Jeff Greason put it on the Augustine Commission, .."If you're not going to do that, then you should take the money and do something else, because robots *are* scientifically more cost-effective, as long as you are interested in exploration alone."

"Obama is a nice guy, who wants to see the far left agenda secured. "

Actually, no. Obama is a Chicago street thug with a cultural outlook shared by about 5-15 percent of the US population, inclusive of people like his friend Bill Ayers. He is a Daley Machine pol. IMHO, he is not a nice person at all.

"But really, he's an idiot and ignoramous when it comes to what is necessary for the US to reach out and lead this next century."

No, he's simply interested in the US leading something else.

I deeply disagree with that something else. Luckily, it has nothing to do with human spaceflight, or we'd be really screwed as far as spaceflight!
Oregon L-5 Society
Chapter of National Space Society
http://www.oregonl5.org/

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