> -----Original Message----- > From: Jerry Johnson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 9:43 PM > To: CF-Community > Subject: Re: Shuttle damage > > My father worked as a draftsman on the electronics parts for the lunar > rover. I have a couple of blueprints he did at the time. (Collins > Radio)
Very cool. ;^) My friend is rather self-abashed on the topic so I don't to here as much as I would like - but when pressed he does have stories about most of the astronauts and some of the nastier kludges they did. He left the program to go to Australia where they were applying some of the Apollo technology to deep-sea exploration. What a lot of people seem to forget about the shuttle and the Apollo before it is how OLD it really is. The Apollo project did what it did with essentially no computers - everything was hard wired. The core technology of the shuttle is nearing thirty-years old despite tacked-on upgrades. By any measure both projects were remarkably successful despite their (few) dramatic failures. People tend to crucify NASA for their mistakes. When taken out of context their mistakes are obviously stupid. What kind of idiot fails to convert feet to meters? But that's one disastrous problem out of potentially billions of problems that they solve quietly and efficiently. They get no public accolades when they're able to reprogram 25-year old hardware from several million miles away to extend the life of a probe. Or completely rewrite the operating system of a rover that's been affected by a bad memory chip. NASA's success rate may be the highest of any government agency and they waste less money. How many billions do we spend on missile-defense tests that simply don't work for every Mars Polar Lander that fails? Due to budget cuts and increased administration demands NASA may have to cancel the global climatology survey for several years (leaving a gap of up to five years in an unbroken 25 year dataset). They may have to cut the Voyager probes loose although they are the only instruments ever to penetrate interstellar space. There's no replacement for the Hubble on the books or for several solar- and earth-survey satellites. The administration is forcing the agency to focus on manned missions at the vast expense of the (generally more scientifically profitable) unmanned missions. I'd like to see a man on Mars in my lifetime - but not at the expense of all this other good science. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Discover CFTicket - The leading ColdFusion Help Desk and Trouble Ticket application http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=48 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:164713 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
