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2003-02-09
Today's Cleveland Plain Dealer reported on a new concept
design for a future space shuttle. The article was written by David Wood
of Newhouse News Service.
It basically stated that with budget restrictions,
squabbles between NASA and the pentagon over what the future space shuttle
should look like, mismanagement of funds by NASA, the global downturn causing a
drop in orders for sending satellites into space, etc., there won't be a new
shuttle for at least 10 years.
Ironically, the article stated:
"The truth is that the manned space program began to wind
down once we beat the Russians to the moon," Thompson said. "That ought to tell
you something about the kind of motivation you need to sustain these
programs".
Help may be on the horizon. According to Walker, the
U.S. lead in space is being smartly challenged by a host of foreign countries,
most significantly China.
"They are a major challenge to us in manned flight,"
Walker said. I expect the Chinese will fly a human in orbit sometime this
year and within a decade will put a man on the moon and announce that they're
going to stay there.
I don't hear much about Ariennespace these days. I'm
wondering what they are doing. Do they produce their parts and rockets in
metric or are they like the Airbus and use FFU? What does anyone know
about the Chinese efforts in space? Do we know for sure if they use metric
in their designs? If they surpass NASA in space, can we be guaranteed that
they will be a powerful force in metricating space and help reverse the US's
FFU-ing of space? Will the future space shuttles be designed and built in
metric?
The article had a "picture" of a concept shuttle, with
Boeing's name all over it. If Boeing designs a future replacement shuttle,
can we count on it being metric? Can we really trust NASA to follow their
own rules and design all future projects in metric?
John
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