Activity

Here is another interesting “log on the fire”http://apnews.excite.com/article/20070924/D8RS0OOO1.html

I have to say, for the money, it is hard to beat the achievements of MER. What they have achieved is nothing short of amazing, especially considering the original program goals.

There are 5 NCR guys that I am aware of going to BALLS — Eric, Kyle, Dale, Larry B., and myself. Everyone is flying at least an L, all the way up to a beefy N. It should be quite…   Read more»

John, since I showed up two hours late, I’m hardly one to speak. But everything went just fine at the cleaning party. Ed cooked up a great lunch, and things (not so much from me) got cleaned up very nicely….   Read more»

Adrian, you are right on the money about MRO. The link you sent had this very famous photo http://tinyurl.com/2ueg5rHow'd the cleaning party go? I’m very sorry I missed it! it will be good to see so many of you in…   Read more»

JW, even from the cornfields of Iowa, you still get us riled up. Gonna miss you at the cleaning party tomorrow…

I work with the guy who designed the optics for the HiRISE instrument. He’ll be coming to Oktoberfest. He’s also flown about 2 dozen Nike/Black Brant shots for an XRay telescope he worked on.Warren

John, no one is dissagreeing with you. BUT it does take a manned space aspect to get the bucks. If people can’t put a human face on it, they won’t pony up. And, YES, it’s been wasteful and, since Apollo,…   Read more»

Hubble is cool, but for my money the most impressive space achievement since Apollo was Viking. Nobody knew almost anything about the environments the landers had to fly through and land in, yet they worked beautifully. To me, the coolest…   Read more»

Oh there is no doubt that Hubble is the coolest thing we’ve done since Apollo – and even with the focus screw-up and repair costs associated with it, it’s been the most return on any dollar ever spent in space.To…   Read more»

Hubble is cool and people support it, but it didn’t excite people the way that Apollo did. I’ll turn that right around at you, though — ISS is cool, but it didn’t excite people the way HUBBLE did.Shuttle is cool,…   Read more»

There is an old saying… “Man is the measure of all things…” Now I’m not going to comment on the right-ness of that statement, but it’s a truism when you’re talking about the masses. Getting funding for a space program…   Read more»

John, I aggree. But there is a human element and a necessary one for space exploration. All of the probes you mention would not have even got off the ground if it wasn’t for what we have learned from human…   Read more»

…robots can collect data and take pretty pictures, but thats about it……..it’s the experience gained from flying the shuttle and building the space station that are the advancements…. I respectfully disagree, on several levels. Many of the probes didn’t just…   Read more»

One day, hopefully very soon, all of the knowledge and experience gained from building the station will be used for building a base on the moon, and then for building a base on mars and then for building a base…   Read more»

Ya know, I’m not taking a position either way, BUT there are alot of things that robots just can’t do. It’s takes the human element for true discovery. True, robots can collect data and take pretty pictures, but thats about…   Read more»

Politics got us into space. The Soviet Union launched Sputnik… they’re in orbit!… we’ll go to the moon, and we did. Russia has recently revealed plans to get to the moon (finally–though it’s a been there, done that) and Mars….   Read more»

See you at Oktoberfest.I work for a little subcontractor to Lockheed Martin. Out of college I got a job working directly for LM, and then I went to a little commerical space company in California, followed by the Jet Propulsion…   Read more»

Very interesting, Adrian. I’d enjoy visiting with you on your experiences sometime.Gotta check THIS out — http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060124.html that was New Horizons leaving home on an Atlas V. NH passed the moon in 9 hours! It was (and is) honkin’ right…   Read more»

I’ve worked directly on 6 Mars robotic exploration missions, on a private commercial lunar entertainment/advertising mission, and now I’m working on Orion, so I’m kind of biased .I totally agree that human spaceflight has contributed basically nothing to science since…   Read more»