Half a Century of Americans in Orbit
Celebrating America’s First Manned Orbital Flight – Friendship 7 50th Anniversary
“February 20th marks the 50th anniversary of the day in 1962 when U.S. Senator John Glenn piloted his Friendship 7 spacecraft on the first U.S. orbital mission. This video recounts that event in history.”
– @SPOTScott (Scott Parazynski): “No way to properly thank my boyhood hero and eventual crewmate, John Glenn- My fav photo: bloodletting w/Dracula fangs!” (Image)
– Video: John Glenn’s Flight
Reminds me that we cannot do today what we could do 50 years ago. 🙁
Or that we need not do today what we needed to do 50 years ago.
Or that we can’t afford to do today what we could afford to do 50 years ago.
… because we don’t have 50 years of acting rationally and responsibly as a nation. Perhaps because we are already … exceptional by divine right? I think every Islamic republic believes the same as well. Both are “dumb”.
Bottom line – we can’t pretend/haggle/”be stupid”/”be uneconomic”/”play for political advantage not for nation”.
Thinkin about the next 50
Steves why to save NASA was great post 🙂
Mr. Consequence feb 20 2012
Thanks for the Slap. I know you are right about NASA. I’m just very frustrated. See pretty clearly how the system has stopped what could have been. And is still stopping what might be. I do realize that our system of government is about the best we can have and still be free.
Had this idea about energy stations.
If NASA wants to build something. Build this. Turn sls and Orion into this.
Orbiting Nuclear/solar power stations power planet earth.
Steve, iPod is plugged into the wall per your suggestion. 🙂 Works good! Lol Where’s my power coming from? Coal, nuke, oil,hydro?
Easy Important space resources for us to go after if we had affordable lift to LEO.
Solar energy plus natural heat sink perfect for generating energy. The sun is the perfect place to junk nuclear waste as well as worn out nuclear cores.
Current events
Global warming, most likely man made. Possibility of gases from ocean floor to bubble up causing earth to go Venus in just a few 1000 years maybe mass extinction sooner.
Japans earthquake makes it obvious that nukes on earth are a bad idea.
40 percent of the 7 billion people/families on earth have washing machines and the other 60 percent want them. Customer demand 🙂
Why not build power stations in Leo don’t we have too?
What would one look like? How would it work?
Wouldn’t you start with a large solar array that has the ability to beam energy down to earth? Guessing your stations would have to either be in a polar orbit to get light always from the sun or in a geo sink orbit to always be over it’s energy beam receiver.
Wouldn’t you want to use the shade from your solar panel as your heat sink for your nuclear reactor? Wouldn’t you use solar energy for emergency cooling systems? Couldn’t you design your core to head for the sun should it get into trouble?
Obviously I know little about how to build a power station in space to power earth in a very green way.
But the demand is there. And our very survival may depend on us using space to provide the green energy we need or want instead, of depleting fossil fuels on earth first, thickening the atmosphere and risking a runaway greenhouse effect.
Just a thought for commercial space and yet another reason to drop the price to Leo SOON NASA!
When you start thinking energy from space it’s pretty hard to say there is no commercial opportunities in space should someone get on the stick and drop the price to LEO.
Ok I did my job trying to save the world today. Guess I’ll go work around the cabin, maybe throw some clothes in the washing machine Lol
Doesn’t take a rocket scientistt
Hummm couldn’t you shape a solar array in a parabola so that the energy that is not absorbed by your solar cells is reflected to a central core with a heat engine that uses the shaded heat sink to max your output?
Is there uranium on other near by rocks or just earth?
I think the idea of beaming electricity to earth from space should be rethought Steve.
Of course all the above ideas are subject to safety concerns do to the crappy nature of most members of our species.
Just like human nature is leading to the unraveling of NASA it will most likely lead to the end of us.
Putting power stations in Leo to light the whole world. Now there is a good reason to build TINKERs HEAVY LIFTER with recoverable oxygen tugs and thrust frame that could double as power station structure. Hummm hydro tank could be square with curved walls that can be taken apart reconfigured to focus light. Lol hydro tank with solar cells or mirrored surface lol.
Hummm what if your 300 foot tall hydro tank had double or triple walls with solar cells that opened, unfolded and telescoped out like flower peddles, couldn’t Tinkers lifter be designed to be a complete energy station all ready to go in one lift of his 6 recoverable oxygen tugs?
So NASA you want to build SLS well change the design to something like Tinkers lifter and make the first generation be a prototype energy station that beams back electricity to earth. Show the world that green power from space is possible and affordable by making reusable heavy lift.
What are we building SLS for again Mr. Bolden? I forgot!
Y’all be smart!
Well this simple idea got a little long so I guess I should apologize.
Anyway I’ll leave the light on for ya 🙂
The problem is not the potential of space but the means by which you chose to attempt to develop it.
In Economics 101, its the “guns/butter” dilemma – all the brouhaha about so called “commercial” vs. “governmental” LV/SC development. Do you see the activity as a means to underwrite an emergent industry, or as a means to field a colossal weapons system.
The emergent industry might take 100 years to not develop. The weapons system might be so ineptly done it works backward by inviting attack. Pick your disappointment.
This is the heart of the frustration we all have.
Add to it that space is hard – you need to very specifically design, which means your cost footprint accelerates out of control for the tiniest misstep or change of scope / mission. There is no such thing as a general purpose SC or LV.
The problem of high flight rate is that it requires high flight rate to be established – we thought we’d do that with Shuttle as RLV. But Shuttle wasn’t a RLV.
The problem with HLV is the economics work backwards until they conspire to constrain use and eventually poison the HLV – everyone ever built.
How this will likely work out is that medium LV/SC will eventually become more economic to incrementally increase flight rate, and tax policy will encourage expanding aerospace activity in the direction of eventually getting more return from space.
And government large scale SC and exoatmospheric propulsion systems will provide a means to routinely explore tentatively solar system targets.
We have to wait through the “boot up” of HSF on a more economic LV/SC, and fund to collapse at the same time uneconomic LV/SC so that we learn the lesson of why you don’t do that. Because then the economic LV/SC need greater utilization, they’ll be eventually uprated to allow government large SC and propulsion to be lofted.
So we’ll take the long, costly way around the barn but eventually get there. At a time when the taxpayer is already aggravated, and where everything will be seen as waste. Which will slow things down as well.
The point of NASA is to retain the expertise you’ll find no where else. HSF will be, in itself, many other places. NASA is the “bootstrap” for anything in space. But once bootstrapped, it must pull industry and research into independent action also in space. Then NASA bootstraps even further out.
Mr. C
Thanks for the life line that helped some.
We should celebrate this sure but I can’t help but feel a little bittersweet when I contemplate where we could and should be now, as well as our prospects for the future.
We can do the same with the correct mind-set but as a result of past political and media movements, we’ve become dumb-down and this all started with the narrow-mindedness of the Nixon administration and continued with the Clinton administration. Both lacked the vision to propel us beyond our boundaries and to advance our technology. Both Reagan and Bush attempted to issue challenges but the Congress and media failed to heed their call and laughed due to their narrow-mindness.Today, we’re now paying the price at our failure to take actions.
All presidents exploit NASA for geopolitical gain.
Eisenhauer started it with NASA’s formation after frustration with the military and space, to compete to begin with.
Kennedy accelerated the battle for soft power as a cold war diversion of the conflict into a space race. He thought he’d get a negotiated compromise and coexploration – to bell the conflict quickly.
Johnson flailed with his great society, and space was an all out, way too over funded, assault on space. He wanted to contain an ever unstable, growing cold war on all fronts. Johnson was overextended, and couldn’t afford Apollo/Saturn continued production.
Nixon knew that the cold war was heading towards collapse, and wanted to out wait it. He trimmed back the missions, put Shuttle in as a long legged competitor, accelerated Skylab, and started ASTP. Nixon laid the groundwork for Reagan’s ability to end the cold war. But lost the world’s only space exploration platform – hideously expensive and too dangerous to continue to use. And compromised the Shuttle in like kind as well.
Reagan over promised and under delivered on HSF with SSF – a lot of bluster without funding or presidential imperative to match. But that was consistent with his successful objective – to end the cold war. Shuttle finally made it to flight but at a cost, which included discovering the limits of its use for national security – and the costly need to get a replacement (CELV).
Clinton got Shuttle RTF, and used the joint ISS replacement for SSF to be a fund-able station to resolve the whole point of the Shuttle – to assemble a permanent station – by diverting Russian space into joint assembly and operation, as a continuation of the ASTP of Nixon unlike the insolvent posturing of Reagan. This move in effect caused Kennedy’s expectation of international partnership for exploration to be realized – many believe this is a permanent state. But this also was at a enormous cost – combining diplomacy, industrial goals of international partners, and idiosyncratic nature has meant that the goal of the ISS was more important than the results of that goal (hard to get a science product out of it).
Bush did not start with a consistent policy for space – not a priority. In fact much of the first efforts were to ignorantly yank Clinton era programs, regardless of success/merit/application. This lead to tragedy, and borne out of those reasons a revamp and a vision emerged – long overdue for all presidents since Kennedy. There were mis starts (OSP) that in hindsight, along with several unfortunate choices, actually caused the desired policy to go backwards for a while. And in CxP, its subgoal of undercutting ISS and accelerating Shuttle conclusion, also greatly undermined its intended goal of SDLV replacement – terrifically bad objective setting by an inept NASA administrator.
Obama has played off this ineptness to divide and conquer another unwieldy Shuttle replacement following yet another presidential review commission, and play it off against so called “commercial space”, where the real argument is about weapons systems legacy space verses a non weapons systems newbie’s, at a time when weapons systems will be largely defunded. He is in a fight over this with Congress as they want another unwieldy Shuttle replacement still, so having a vision gets hard when someone else is forcing too much of it irrespectively – perhaps we’ll eventually see a genuine policy after the survival of “commercial space” undercuts its rival.
NOOC,
Excellent summary. Consider writing a description of the decades of actions by U.S Congresses and how they influenced, controlled and puppeted NASA.
My hope is that SpaceX (and hopefully at least 1 more commercial company) can technically succeed soon and then expand the market beyond government so that HSF is not purely at the beck and call of the government and its shifting mood.
Cadet
I so hope you are right you boot strapper you 🙂
Mr. C and Steve
Something bothers me.
In our future I seem to think their is a fundamental flaw in every buddies thinking.
First I’m not talking about robot planet exploration. I’m talking about human or robot space development versus human exploration.
They should be one and the same. This idea of exploring way out there before you develop your way out there in this lean budget economy just doesn’t make any sense!!!
What I see Spacex doing seems to be spot on. They are designing for both right?
For example, shouldn’t NASA be helping the newbies to have computers that can be harder for deep space and lunar flights.
You and Steve both talk about them, exploration and space development like they are to different animals.
They are not or should not be!
Part of the problem as I see it is that for to long you have all been fighting over whose little area gets how much of the budget pie.
As I have said before which are thoughts that grew from Marcel saying first this then that
We should just start with the foundation and let it grow.
When I say railroad I don’t think it’s the same as when others say that. I mean you build ENfrastructure as you go. Just like building a building, foundation structure roof skin etc etc
When building a building you have to do one thing before you can do the next.
Spacex seems to be thinking like that. Shouldn’t we all??
I bought into Greasons Settlement idea as has Musk.
To Me you develop your way to exploration not the reverse.
Isn’t that the way you get everyone on one page with one Goal?
Doesn’t take a rocket scientistt, just a group all working together with one clear goal. Just like when I schedule a construction project to complete a building.
Out
With a good plan a clear schedule, all the parties working together the building pops out of the ground like magic!!!
It’s so easy !
Isn’t the SLS Orion thing a product of this flawed thinking shouldn’t all our eggs be in one planning basket?
Also I think young people today would buy into space settlement if they can see, which Spacex is trying to demonstrate that it doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg.
They see space in a more practical way I believe.
Maybe for the sixtieth we’ll have regained some minimal capability, like to be able to put a new capsule into low earth orbit.
Looking forward to one day having 50 years of continuous occupation of space by humanity. right now we are working on year 12(?). Keeping fingers crossed that ISS stays crewed for the next few years till CCDev gets up and running. And then that there are new Bigelow stations in place by the time that ISS is retired.
An interesting comment on yahoo article by 7againstThebes, “When he didn’t launch the first time…or the second…or the third…etc., he didn’t blame politicians, he didn’t blame the NASA staff, he didn’t blame his fellow astronauts. He’s a real pro in every sense of the word. Kids, watch him and learn.”
I was 6. 50 years ago class was stopped so that we could all stand in a big circle and listion and watch. It was a time of great mystery and wonder. I had that lunch box. That year I learned the planets in order including Pluto lol. I begged my mother to take me to the planetarium near the museum of natural history in New York. She bragged to her friends how her kid that could barley read know so much about the sky. In the planet book most of them were mysteries 🙂
Yes NASA could inspiror back then!
Joe Q Public
Ps
Time for NASA to show us we can be a part of the dream too.
Very good – this captured for me the moment.
Yes it was a different time. One that we must get back in certain ways. And can.
Wow 50 years already! And we are just right back at where we started!
PRESENT
50 years plus the battery goes out.
Gone is my spell checker.
Gone is my note pad.
I’m in the dark.
My thoughts wander.
Using my brain without my new crutches.
I remember seeing John Glens black and white moving pictures on the evening news, of the earth and clouds below. 🙂
What does boot strapping mean?
What did it mean yesterday? Did we redefine it? Words, thoughts become fluid with this new tech.
50 years plus, I don’t just hold a computer in my hand but an extension of my brain. A connection to other brains.
We are becoming Borg 🙂 🙁
My desk top sits idle, in the dark collecting dust since I discovered cut and past.
Where is the charger. I need it!!
Ahhh got it. I’m connected
50 years ago I saw us first orbit the world in a capsule. Lol Today I’m told I’ll be lucky to see us fly in a capsule again by 2017!
And y’ll get excited when I suggest we dump NASA? Lol
Lolol
Where did all our F ing money go ?
Joe Q
FUTURE
I’m pushed back in my seat. I hear the roar of the
Merlins outside I won International Space the lotto about a year ago and I am on my way to visit a new Bigelow Space station. I’m flying Stratolaunch.
Suddenly I feel a jarring rush! I grow dizzy! The feeling eases I hear a computer voice calmly say that we have had an abort but all is under control. I move my arms they are weightless. I realize we are in free fall. I hear the sound of the dracos firing. The computer says she is picking from many possible landing sites and all is nominal. Time passes.
She says landing site chosen.
The dracos fire more often.
I feel the weight of gravity again.
Then feel the thrust of final landing sequence.
The gentle thud of landing.
The seven of us wait.
We are told that we have landed on a hospital helicopter pad and to climb out and go with the medical personnel just to be checked out.
Today 50 years plus Spacex is working the final bugs out of their cargo dragon. Their work will lead to a rocket emergency being this much of a none event.
I can wait for them