He has some advice for the Augustine Panel, over at Popular Mechanics. He wants to go to Mars, and he doesn’t like solids. Scrap Ares I.
[Update on Thursday afternoon]
Newsflash! Mark Whittington has finally revealed one of the members of his secretive Internet Rocketeers Club:
Rand Simberg, the Bill Maher of the Internet Rocketeers.
Well, like Bill Maher, except funny. And not an asshat.
And I’ve never gotten a decoder ring (who do I complain to, Mark?). So I guess I got gypped. And I actually work on space stuff for a living, so I can’t figure out what the criteria are for membership in his heretofore imaginary club. I guess it must just be anyone who is smarter than Mark and talks about space on the Internet. Which is, admittedly, a pretty darned big club.
I do not like solids either. Variable thrust? Forget about it. Thrust termination? Kind of, but not really. Reusability? Surely you must be joking.
Solids are good for ICBMs and other fire and forget military missiles which require long storage times and quick launch. For spaceflight you can wait a couple of minutes to fuel the rocket before flight. It is not like someone is going to bomb you before you do it…
It’s good to read the writing of one who’s been there proposing that the trip to Mars be one-way. That’s been my position for years. NASA Mars mission concepts fail at the start because they begin with astronauts landing on earth, then work backward to build up a stupendous infrastructure of launch vehicles, orbital way-stations, etc. At the end of the day, NASA has the following conversation with Congress:
NASA: All of this will cost only $250 billion.
Congress: And where are the astronauts at the end of it?
NASA: Why, right here on earth.
Congress: I just figured out how to achieve that same end, and save $250 billion…
Here’s another whiny internet rocketeer sniping at a perfectly good system! Let’s all spin our propeller hats and rub our magic decoder rings in support!
And to think that people say I’m mean to Mark.
Better be careful — he’ll tell you that you’re screaming, leaping the full length of your chain, and filled with rage.
Huh?
That wasn’t a response to you, Mike. It’s an inside joke having to do with Mark Whittington and his imaginary Internet Rocketeer’s Club, of which Buzz has apparently become a member.
“Better be careful — he’ll tell you that you’re screaming, leaping the full length of your chain, and filled with rage.”
You left out the misspelled words…
Actually Buzz, with all due respect, seems to be getting a pass for his flag and footsteps on Mars proposal just because he also wants to scrap Ares 1. Ordinarily sensible space advocates tend to roll their eyes at the former. But because he wants the latter, he suddenly gets some strange new respect.
By the way. Buzz Aldrin cannot possibly be a member of the Internet Rocketeer Club. He wants a big government, expensive space project, which I understand is considered ananthema to the Internet Rocketeers. But then maybe consistancy is the hobgoblin of small minds…
But because he wants the latter, he suddenly gets some strange new respect.
From whom? I didn’t say I agreed with him (though I do about scrapping Ares I).
And why would respect for Buzz be “strange” or “new”? He was the second man on the moon, and has done more than any former astronaut to promote the cause and keep the dream alive.
Do you ever think about what you write?
“He was the second man on the moon, and has done more than any former astronaut to promote the cause and keep the dream alive. ”
He’s also a pretty good rap artist for an old, white guy. I’m not sure what your point is? Aldrin deserves respect for being an Apollo moonwalker. It does not buy him anything when he proposes what amounts to a flag and footsteps lunge at Mars, which I thought you have opposed. He also wants to abandon the Moon to a foreign consortium. The really only good part of his plan is putting more money into COTS.
Mark, you’re inability to comprehend English is showing again. I respect him, but didn’t say that I agreed with him about anything he wrote, other than scrapping Ares I.
“I respect him, but didn’t say that I agreed with him about anything he wrote, other than scrapping Ares I.”
Sorry, Rand, but as the playwright Robert Bolt once wrote, silence implies consent. And you have been silent on some of the sillier aspects of the Aldrin Plan.
Um, “flag and footsteps” refers to going there and coming back, leaving nothing but a flag and footsteps, taking nothing but pictures and a few rocks. It is a kind of photo-op, publicity-based tourism. In fact, it is a term specifically used to deride plans that do not involve long-term presence and exploitaition. In other words, Aldrin is proposing a goal that is exactly NOT “flags and footsteps.”
Normally, I try to avoid mere name calling, but you, Mark, have seriously beclowned yourself on this. Not having ever read you, I always had ignored Rand’s sniping, but from your comments here alone, it is clear that you cannot be other than a moron or a troll, unless it is that you are both. Please don’t mistake this for Rand’s contempt: you are not worth my contempt.
Sorry, Rand, but as the playwright Robert Bolt once wrote, silence implies consent. And you have been silent on some of the sillier aspects of the Aldrin Plan.
This is just lunacy. I’m glad I don’t live in a Mark’s binary world.
Sorry, Rand, but as the playwright Robert Bolt once wrote, silence implies consent. .
Sorry, Mark, but just because some playwright wrote something doesn’t make it true, or sane (or useful in some other context).
I’m glad I don’t live in a Mark’s binary world.
Fortunately for them, few people do.
This is one of the reasons I strike out blindly in fear and terror at those who disagree with me. How can anyone who supports Ares I expect either an independent US presence on the Moon or a more intensive Martian effort than “flag and footprints”? NASA neither has a good track record of delivering on such a long term project nor much experience with doing so. These show with the problems that Ares I has had. The facts are that Ares I is a weak design (with several big flaws introduced simply because they insist on a solid rocket motor Shuttle-derived first stage) and justified with phony performance and safety numbers over the Delta IV Heavy which flies now.
Further, your plans simply don’t make sense in the absence of anything past Ares I. As I see it, the Ares V is just a decoy to get the Ares I started. If NASA were serious about producing a new heavy lift vehicle, then they’d be developing the vehicle itself right now not in a couple of election cycles. Such frontloading of costs with backloading of promised capabilities is typical of failed government contracts. I think it likely some present or future Congress will look at the program’s meager return and cancel it.
What puzzles me is why rather than notice these unusual flaws (for would-be successful space programs), you start to generate this fantasy of the Internet Rocketeers’ Club. For some reason, all the naysayers on the internet are supposed to all just go with an old, very bad decision to avoid choice paralysis rather than disagree. Personally, I think going with this choice is going to be worse than reevaluating it.
Despite the problems with the Obama administration, this is the first real chance to evaluate the Ares program (and Constellation as a whole) since the beginning of the program.
This is one of the reasons I strike out blindly in fear and terror at those who disagree with me.
I predict that Mark will not discern the sarcasm here, and will hyperinflate it to Karl’s obvious desire to gruesomely murder three quarters of the people on the Internet with a chainsaw. While screaming and leaping the length of his chain, of course.
Obviously, Mark heartily approves of the massacre in Tehran, since he linked it without comment. After all, silence implies consent.
He’s also a pretty good rap artist for an old, white guy. I’m not sure what your point is?
What on gods green earth (or wherever you are) is YOUR point with that???
It does not buy him anything when he proposes what amounts to a flag and footsteps lunge at Mars
Can you read? He specifically states we should not send pilots/scientists/engineers, but SURVIVORS, to stay there as pilgrims. Are you over 8 years old?
I like him embracing one-way settlement flights.
I’m not sure where I disagree with Buzz on the short and mid term goals. If you go with the assumption that NASA is something the US should keep, and keep it as it is today; then his short term plan makes a lot of sense.
Of course, there is that line about never reaching the right answer, when you start off with a bad assumption. Then again, this is the age of Obama and a Democratic Congress, so in keeping the NASA jobs program going, Buzz I think has a cost-effective solution. And as we have been told by our Democratic members of Minitru, a cost-effective solution of any kind, regardless of additional waste and baggage, is something we should all support.
It is like I commented a few weeks back. Buzz must see the same writing on the wall. Shuttle extensions beyond 2010 are a high probability.
Continuing with STS is not a desirable outcome by any stretch. Buzz made a good point though with regards to what Ares development has gotten us into. Canceling Constellation and continuing with Shuttle can actually be looked at as a cost saving measure at this point.
It’s good to read the writing of one who’s been there proposing that the trip to Mars be one-way
That idea is not new. Burt Rutan’s been advocating one-way missions for several years now. In the last couple years, it’s started to get some traction at NASA and with some members of Congress.
Sorry, Rand, but as the playwright Robert Bolt once wrote, silence implies consent.
Ahem! 🙂
Silence implies consent — “qui tacet consentit”– is an old legal maxim.
Of course, I also remember the time you attributed Mark 8:36 to Robert Bolt.
Robert Bolt must be a very influential playwright, if his work was quoted by Roman lawyers and Jesus of Nazareth. Do you know his date of birth by any chance? 🙂
Buzz Aldrin cannot possibly be a member of the Internet Rocketeer Club. He wants a big government,
There are rules for membership in your club? Are they the same rules you have for membership in the “Clear Lake Group”?
“He’s also a pretty good rap artist for an old, white guy. ”
Yup, and Dr. Aldrin is also the old, white guy who as a young man wrote his MIT PhD thesis on the solution to the navigation problem of orbital rendezvous. The key enabling technology of LOR and hence Apollo. Hence his role in space exploration is much more than being Neil Armstrong’s second banana.
And then there are his more recent scholarly publications on Earth-Mars “cycler” spacecraft for logistical support of a Mars settlement. So not only did the man help develop the working Moon landing “architecture” – LOR – at its inception, he may end up being the person to develop the Mars exploration “architecture” as well.
Besides, a person who has been to the moon, done the whole “celebrity former astronaut” bit, including the obligatory chin music on some Moon landing-denier doofus, and is still publishing in the area of his thesis research, let me tell you, that person has a lot of street cred in my book.
[Buzz] suddenly gets some strange new respect.
Yeah, I understood what you meant to say Mark, but it certainly was said in the peak of tone deafness.
One of the first two people to walk on the Moon is not someone you question respect for.
When he popped that guy in the nose that called the Moon landing a hoax to his face, I stood up and cheered. My respect went way up after that. Oh, and he’s advocating we do something about space… I’m for that even when I disagree on the details.
Mark, Rand is right about you glossing over the things he says resulting in misinterpretation and you should be more careful which I respectfully say. I would have said with all due respect but some might interpret that to mean none which I do not intend.
One-way missions are certainly not “new”; I’ve been advocating them since 1974. It’s just good to see that a person who has actually walked on the moon — do you realize how significant that is? — would advocate such a thing.
I’m going to see Buzz give a talk on the USS Hornet (anchored in Alameda, CA) on July 25th, the 40th anniversary of the pick-up of Apollo 11 in the Pacific. Hopefully he’ll touch on his opinion of the Ares I then.
Silence implies consent — “qui tacet consentit”– is an old legal maxim.
Sure. Originally applied to determine whether someone was committing the crime of rape, as opposed to a consensual act. But when someone is not actually trying to rape me, or commit some other crime against me such that I am very motivated to speak, silence really only implies that I’m not speaking.
In other words, misapplication of an old maxim will lead to faulty results. Actual thought may be required.
Yours,
Tom