Date: Mon, 03 Feb 2003 10:27:12 -0800 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Larry Sica <lomion@mac.com> Cc: "f.johan.beisser" <jan@caustic.org>, Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be>, John Martinez <rolnif@mac.com>, barbish@a1poweruser.com, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: oh my god the nasa shuttle blewup Message-ID: <3E3EB480.87EE0356@mindspring.com> References: <C276E97B-3781-11D7-B48B-000393A335A2@mac.com>
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Larry Sica wrote: > On Monday, February 3, 2003, at 02:30 AM, f.johan.beisser wrote: > >> Wont happen, this is way to important to NASA, and the rest of the > >> world. This is not a US project, but a world project. > > > > this project is more important to the US than anyone else. while ESA > > and our Russian friends are involved, we're the ones that've invested > > the most time and money in to it. > > Still doesn't mean it is not important. Consider that the US is the > primary way materials are going up. This is unlikely to remain true in the future. With this most recent loss, the U.S. has lost 25% of it's heavy lift capability, and if you include the Challenger, it has lost 40% of the designed total heavy lift capability. The National Aerospace plane project has been quietly cancelled, with the inability to manufacture the necessary fuel tank for the anhydride fuel storage for the linear aerospike engine, and unlike previous efforts, the DC-X "Delta Clipper" developement was scrapped before either of the competitors had built anthing but parts or scaled down models. Meanwhile China is aggressively pursuing a manned spaceflight program, and the Russians still have the ability to loft heavier payloads than anyone else on the planet, even if we were capable of restarting the Saturn V assembly line, which we're not. The Japanese also have a program, and it's likely that India and other nations will enter the launch services market more strongly. -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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