back to article Neil Armstrong: US space program 'embarrassing'

The first and last men to walk upon the moon have testified at a Congressional hearing that NASA is a national disgrace. The US space program is "embarrassing and unacceptable," said Neil Armstrong, who on July 21, 1969, first set foot on the surface of the earthly companion that, in his testimony, he referred to as Luna. " …

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  1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Meh

    They seem to advocate the SLS

    Which suggests if you ask the wrong question you'll get the wrong answer.

    In their times they have done great things. Two of which should have been to make space flight easier *and* safer.

    I'm not sure how many Americans really want to *watch* space on their TV's.

    But several 100 thousands want to *go* there.

    Which under SLS will *never* happen in their lifetimes.

    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      "But several 100 thousands want to *go* there. Which under SLS will *never* happen in their lifetimes."

      As long as you are using chemical rockets as your launch system, there's no way "several 100 thousands" are going to get into space. (Probably more like several hundred.)

      The only thing that will change that is some breakthrough in the technology of getting folks up there, which is largely an exercise in giving several hundred megajoules of energy per kilogram to your payload, remotely, without destroying it in the process. It will probably need the help of some physics that we simply don't know yet. Perhaps we should be diverting NASA's manned space budget to Fermilab.

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Boffin

        @Ken Hagan

        As long as you are using chemical rockets as your launch system, there's no way "several 100 thousands" are going to get into space. (Probably more like several hundred.)

        This item covers the maths in detail

        http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/07/space-shuttle-launch-equator-vs-mountains/

        Quick and dirty is the potential energy (mass x height x gravity) + kinetic energy (1/2 x mass x velocity ^2)

        It's less than 32Mj/Kg of payload. You're out by about an order of magnitude.

        When Philip Bono of McDonell Douglas did this in the mid 1960's it was equal to the fuel needed for a round trip jet flight between London and Sydney.

        As to 100 000 passenger movements that is 1/450 of *one* airport in the world (Atlanta Georgia. Admittedly the busiest airport in the world) per year.

        I will note that it is extremely unlikely that would happen in a single year any time soon.

        If you do what you've always done you'll get what you've always got.

    2. Mike Flugennock

      "watching" space on TV?

      "I'm not sure how many Americans really want to *watch* space on their TV's."

      Well, I won't speak for succeeding generations of Americans, but as someone who has Shepard's Mercury flight as one of his earliest childhood memories (I was 4) and who watched the first human visit to another world (I was 12) and who has seen watched every Gemini and Apollo launch, every Apollo EVA, and nearly every Shuttle launch, landing and associated EVA, and every Soyuz launch to the ISS, I can tell you for sure that I get a big-assed thrill out of watching space on my TV. I know I'll likely never get to go into space myself, so watching it on TV is the next best thing -- especially now that astronauts' EVA gear includes those miniature helmet-cams, so I can get an excellent POV of an EVA as seen by an astronaut working outside on the ISS. That's some awesome shit.

      Luckily, we have a quality DSL pipe to our house, so I can watch the NASA TV stream on my computer, and not have to fight my wife for the remote so I can tune in NASA TV to watch a launch on our "regular" TV.

      It's just a shame that I still have to settle for still images from the MER rovers and the Cassini probe. Thanks to advances in digital imaging, the fotos are gorgeous, but, still, you can't beat actually watching it happen. With any luck, in my lifetime, a Mars rover or other planetary probe will have the bandwidth to send back full-motion video of flybys of the Jovian or Saturnian moons, or of robotic geological field work on Mars.

  2. jason 7
    Stop

    Its not really about cost.

    It's just political manouvering and maybe the undercurrent of anti-science that pervades the US at the moment.

    People always mention how expensive Apollo was but it wasnt. I bet at the end the Apollo project ended up making money and the US still reaps many financial benefits today from it.

    All that govt money created thousands of jobs, hundreds of businesses, marketable patents and products, science programs, scholarships, blah blah blah. Fantastic stuff, never has such value for public money been given.

    Inverstment in space and science makes money.

    Nowadays here in the UK we dont bat an eyelid at pissing half a billion on empty 999 centres or 11Bn quid on another NHS nothing project.

    Priorities skewed perhaps?

    1. Charles 9

      All good things end eventually...

      ...even exploration. Once you've been to a place a hundred times and back, it becomes rather dull and dreary. Those first trips to the moon and such were exciting because they were novel. But now near-earh-orbit's just part of the neighborhood, and if you want to go much beyond that, you're gonna need some SERIOUS boodle. Plus, it's hostile territory out there, so the risks are higher than before.

    2. Mike Flugennock
      Thumb Up

      re: not really about cost

      "People always mention how expensive Apollo was but it wasnt. I bet at the end the Apollo project ended up making money and the US still reaps many financial benefits today from it."

      For many years, I've worked in peace, anti-militarist and other social-change-type activism, and I've lost track of how many times I've had to straighten out my "comrades" on the true cost of Apollo and the size of the NASA budget as a percentage of overall US budget whenever they piss and moan about how much money we spend on space exploration vs. social programs. (I'm kind of an odd bird that way -- a hippie who's also a hardcore spaceflight geek)

      Even at the peak of its glory days, Apollo's budget percentage was in single digits -- 4%, something like that. NASA's percentage is even less today, and as you rightly point out, a lot of that is likely due to the US legislature being increasingly dominated by creationists, flat-earthers, climate-change denialists and other cranks who are scared shitless of scientific endeavours as they almost always reveal facts that contradict the Bible.

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Unhappy

        @Mike flugennock

        "(I'm kind of an odd bird that way -- a hippie who's also a hardcore spaceflight geek)"

        I wonder how many times people have thought you're a plant for the FBI? :).

        On a serious note while Wikipedia may not be the most reliable source it does have this article

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA

        It makes interesting reading. At it's absolute *peak* (1966) NASA took 4.41% of *all* federal spending at roughly $32Bn in 2007 dollars. Nasa in 2011 is taking a < 0.5% at about $17Bn.

        Inflation really cuts the value of your dollars down to size.

        In federal terms it's small change you'd find down the back of a settee.

        My current favorite. Americans spend $27Bn on getting their pizzas delivered.

        Which sort of puts the current legislatures view of the US space programme in perspective.

        1. Mike Flugennock

          Pizza

          "My current favorite. Americans spend $27Bn on getting their pizzas delivered."

          Jeezus, $27 billion? Shit.

          Sad thing is, it still wouldn't be enough to pay to have Domino's pizza delivered to the Moon.

          1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
            Unhappy

            @Mike Flugennock

            "Jeezus, $27 billion? Shit."

            Afraid so. The same article mentioned that the army aircon bill for it's assorted tents and buildings came to $40Bn. Which it *could* be argued serves the more valuable purpose of stopping US soldiers dropping from heat exhaustion.

            Weather or not you agree with the size of US forces abroad (especially in the Middle East) is another matter.

            "Sad thing is, it still wouldn't be enough to pay to have Domino's pizza delivered to the Moon."

            Now that's *quite* interesting. There's a private group looking to land a rover on the move from a Falcon 9 and IIRC the landing stage is fairly generic.

            A pizza company *could* arrange to have a small warming box put on another landing stage (perhaps in concert with a supplier of a carbonated beverage. Maker TBC).

            Not so much a "flags and footprints" mission as a "soda and a pie" delivery.

            On the upside a great photo op for both companies involved (naturally the stage will have cameras or a rover with one on board) and a fair sized chunk of cash to Spacex and the landing stage suppliers.

            On the downside the total trivialization of a *massive* engineering achievement.

            Sometimes life is an ethical minefield for the dedicated space activist.

  3. Kharkov
    Megaphone

    Lead, follow or get the hell out of the way.

    NASA has proven that it can't lead. To lead it has to put either a science program that's way ahead of what the rest of the world is likely to do - no budget for that - or else build a launcher - like SLS - that is faster, cheaper, better. SLS is set to enter limited commercial service in 2024 and full-scale commercial service in 2032, 10 and 18 years after Falcon Heavy. It's going to cost 100 times more than Falcon Heavy and won't lift any more in 2017 than Falcon Heavy is likely to in 2017.

    So follow. Ooops, can't do that. That would fly in the face of 'American Exceptionalism'. So it'll faff around until the Europeans, the Russians, the Chinese and the rest leave it in the dust.

    So get out of the way? How about be left behind while everyone else mines the asteroids, brings back the wealth, develops the technology spin-offs and generally makes a lot of money out of space.

    Poor NASA... It used to be something, once...

    1. Mike Flugennock

      They coulda' been a contender

      Y'know, I'm not surprised or disappointed with the idea that your standard-issue US Govt agencies totally suck at leadership. I pretty much expect them to suck at it.

      I am, however, seriously disappointed and saddened to see that NASA can't lead for shit, because I'm old enough to remember a time when they totally kicked ass at leadership. I'm totally rooting for SLS to be built and flown successfully -- not just because of all the exploration possibilities that'd flow from it, but also because I'd get back a teensy bit of the pride I used to have in my country being able to do something momentous that didn't cause the whole goddamn' world to hate our guts. Not that I'm big on all that exceptionalism bullshit, but it _would_ be nice to see this country do something like this that I could point to and say, "fuck, yeah, we did that". I haven't felt that way since Apollo 11.

  4. Dan Paul
    Boffin

    Space Flight will help transfer Aerospace Industry from War to Peacetime footing

    If we want to keep hundreds of thousands of skilled Aerospace manufacturing jobs off the dole, we need to understand that something has to replace the existing "wartime" economy.

    Manned spaceflight to Mars is exactly the kind of project that would help wean Boeing, Lockheed, Etc off building war machines.

    Next, it is extremely important to recognize that investment in space flight brings huge leaps in technology which continue to positively impact the daily lives of most people. Unfortunately, so does War.

    We have a choice to blow tax money on destructive technology or productive technology.

    Do we need more ways to kill each other or should we invest in ways to get a viable population off planet so the human race won't all be killed when some political cowboy from Texas or Pakistan decides to "Push the Button"?

    The real problem for corporations is not can they make space flight to Mars happen, but rather how to monetize it. If there is no Government support those big corporations won't bother.

    This is where entrepreneurs like Elon Musk have an innovation advantage over the big guys.

    Too bad our elected leaders don't get the majority of their campaign contributions from entrepreneurs!

  5. Brandon 2
    Mushroom

    waste of money...

    I'm all for science for science's sake, but at some point, the engineers must turn it into something useful and marketable. In the last 10 years, what has resulted from the Shuttle program that the millions of tax paying citizens that fund it use on a daily basis? Hopes and dreams? Thank you, but I'll go read a book. There's your answer to, "why the space program is in decline." It's not this administration (as much as I'd like to blame every bad thing on the planet on it), or that administration (that did not inhale, mind you), etc... it's that the risk-benefit analysis sucks.

    Also, 1/70 of the shuttles blows up... you'd have to certifiably insane to get on an airplane if 1/70 of them blew up. There's a fine line between bravery and insanity, and when a program ceases to produce usable results, it leans toward the latter. Was it really worth risking 7 or 8 astronauts' lives to put glasses on a telescope? Or should they have just built another one and measured twice before cutting the mirror?

    Not with my tax money, thank you very much... I'm busy funding a ponzi scheme...

    1. jason 7
      Facepalm

      What do they use on a daily basis?

      Are you a bit out of touch?

      NASA and the shuttle have helped provide worldwide TV and telecoms, Hubble, medical research etc. etc.

      I'm sure the US taxpayers would notice if they suddenly dissapeared.

      The shuttle program made your life better. Just because you didnt get a ride in one, dont think it didnt.

      1. Steven Jones

        Satellites were put into orbit long before the Shuttle. Indeed the Shuttle turned out to be an expensive and unreliable way of putting communication satellites into orbit. Satellite communications would exist if the Shuttle had never been heard of.

        The Hubble is a bit different, of only because of the maintenance tasks. However, even that could have been done with manned rockets. The shuttle has been an expensive mistake and never came remotely near the original ambition of weekly launches.

        The idea that the Shuttle improved anybody's life is a nonsense. It could have been done cheaper using other means.

        Of course it's nothing like the waste of money of the ISS...

  6. henrydddd

    no wonder

    The reason that the space program is lagging is that smart bombs, weapons of war, war, and new tanks are the priority of the US, not space exploration. Sad

  7. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Joke

    On the positive side

    With the Indian programme progressing so well when US Astronauts *eventually* return to the Moon they will have no trouble locating pre placed food supplies, with a choice of nans or popadoms.

    I just hope they remember to bring their plastic.

  8. heyrick Silver badge

    Luna?

    It's the "Moon". Luna is just a fancy modern era name from the adjective, derived from Latin, and no doubt popular with the sort of people that want to call the Moon "Luna" to distinguish it from other moons (as if that's ever going to be an issue in most people's discussions) or decide that Pluto is not really a planet (duh, it is a cartoon dog, I thought everybody knew that).

  9. The Grinning Duck
    Linux

    Why can't we just have a global version?

    Share the cost, experience, technology, etc between everyone who wants to play?

    A GASA, if you will.

    I mean, frankly, the last thing we need in space are nations.

  10. plunder

    Engineering

    When the UK killed Black Arrow it started to decline, look at us now.

    No space program = no future in engineering = no future.

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Meh

      @plunder

      "When the UK killed Black Arrow it started to decline, look at us now.

      No space program = no future in engineering = no future."

      Interesting point. The UK (like France) had *both* nuclear weapons and orbital launch (France achieved orbital launch before the UK).

      South Africa had nuclear weapons but put them beyond use.

      The UK had orbital launch and put it beyond use (as those nice Americans could always be relied upon to launch the satellites blighty might *occasionally* need).

      It's an interesting question which one came out of the deal better off.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @plunder

        "The UK had orbital launch and put it beyond use (as those nice Americans could always be relied upon to launch the satellites blighty might *occasionally* need)."

        Britain pulled off one or two tricks with the Americans around nuclear weapons and nuclear technology, but one gets the impression that every subsequent generation of politicians thought they were just as cunning and the Americans just as easily manipulated. Even Thatcher could only pull the strings so hard to get favours.

        Of course, all this is just more documentation of the ridiculous political Britard instinct that says, "We don't need to make or do anything any more: we can buy anything we need!" The upshot is the idolisation of "The City" and the delusion that the rest of the planet needs a nation of middlemen.

        Still, the scientists and engineers did pretty well propping up two orbital launch programmes as inadequately funded and prematurely cancelled government side-projects.

  11. The Grump
    Mushroom

    The Lefty Libs are out in force here...

    Wow. Everyone here would rather spend Nasa's budget on a bankrupt solar panel company and a bunch of lazy drunks who will wizz their welfare money away after a hard days drinking. Nice to see the libs have their priorities in order. Better to roll in misery than reach for the stars. Nice thinkin' there, Odumbo. Meantime, what if the GPS satellites fail ? Who cares ? We have a bridge to nowhere in Alaska to build. Nasa would just blow the money on Mars and stuff.

    Please remember to spay or neuter your liberals. This has been a public service announcement. Thank you.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The US has a liberal constitution, originally devised by, well, liberals. You might as well have let King George III keep it if you have a problem with that! Or, indeed left it to the native population.

      Reach for the stars? Are you joking? The kind of pond life who have grabbed the bulk of the nations's wealth over the past 30 years are incapable of *any* sort of vision that reaches beyond them, personally, consuming / owning something. The Apollo Program was, like the Manhattan Project, an all out, no expense spared effort to achieve a goal. This was fighting the Cold War by peaceful means and demonstrating US global predominance in technology and economic power.

      Who would be impressed by the spectacle of a near bankrupt US throwing money at sending men to Mars to do nothing of any practical value?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      For you, Grump,

      the Enlightenment was something that happened to other people. There IS a reason why only 6% of American scientists are Republicans. (Clue: it's not because they envy the smart, educated people in the Tea Party.) Try having a space programme without scientists!

  12. CyberCod

    Well...

    Considering that corporations are richer and more powerful than governments these days, I'd say that they're the ones in the pilot's seat now.

    There has been more innovation in the last five years of the private space industry than in the last 30 years of NASA.

    I have a lot of respect for Mr. Armstrong, but it isn't the same world it used to be.

  13. Hardcastle the ancient

    I think, lads, that it is not just the 'space program' that is embarrassing.

  14. compdoc

    Neil Armstrong is old

    Time for fresh ideas. The space program will be just fine.

  15. Naughtyhorse

    pair of doddery old twats dont like the modern world...

    there's no story here.

    and given the US still has 50million people with no health cover, 7 million people in jail (gaol), a 14 trillion dollar national debt, routinely flouts international law - protecting war criminals, has a political system which by their own measure is intrinsically unfair and massively corrupt, has one of the few governments in the world that kills it's own people out of vengeance, one of the *very* few governments in the world that murders it's own children - out of vengance.

    but this once great old geezer reckons handing the lead in the space race back to the Russians is the thing the nation should be ashamed of.

    do us a favour Neil - Pull your head out of uranus, it's embarassing!

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    NASA busget should be cut

    The fundamental problem is that manned space travel with our current technology makes no sense. NASA is saddled with the legacy of a cold war era when spending 4.5% of national spending on a pointless proganda exercise seemed sensible. Romantically I would love space travel to be common place and (relatively) cheap, safe and practical but we are a long way from that at the moment and there is no prospect of changes to that on the horizon.

    The reailty is that manned space flight has contributed almost nothing to the state of technology arguably it has hindered development with research money spent very inefficently.

    NASA could prioritise spending on practical scientific work but this would mean rapid decrease in budget and waning of public support, or it could prioritise very long term reseacrh in lower cost safer launching which would mean even more rapid decrease in budget with no visible results or it could continue it's proganda heritage with the illusion of the shuttle project which promised lower costs and routine space flight but could never deliver.

    It chose the illusion. The power of the original proganda is shown in that almost no one in this debate seems to recognise that cheap practical space flight is well beyond our current technological capabilities. The reality is that he US is wasting lots of money on NASA and the budgets sholul be cut. It should refocus on genuine science based priorities and perhaps long term research on new launch technologies and simply buy launchers from ESA or Russia.

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      FAIL

      AC@20:38

      "The fundamental problem is that manned space travel with our current technology makes no sense. "

      Assertion without explanation.

      "NASA is saddled with the legacy of a cold war era when spending 4.5% of national spending on a pointless proganda exercise seemed sensible. Romantically I would love space travel to be common place and (relatively) cheap, safe and practical but we are a long way from that at the moment and there is no prospect of changes to that on the horizon."

      You seem to think the problem is technology. It is not.

      "The reailty is that manned space flight has contributed almost nothing to the state of technology arguably it has hindered development with research money spent very inefficently."

      Assertion without explanation.

      "NASA could prioritise spending on practical scientific work but this would mean rapid decrease in budget and waning of public support, or it could prioritise very long term reseacrh in lower cost safer launching which would mean even more rapid decrease in budget with no visible results or it could continue it's proganda heritage with the illusion of the shuttle project which promised lower costs and routine space flight but could never deliver."

      You're on on *slightly* firmer ground here. Do you know that part of NASA's priorities are set in the Legislatures *Appropriations* act and NASA cannot change them?

      "It chose the illusion. The power of the original proganda is shown in that almost no one in this debate seems to recognise that cheap practical space flight is well beyond our current technological capabilities. "

      Both an assertion without explanation and is flat out wrong. It is not *technology* that keeps flight costs high.

      "The reality is that he US is wasting lots of money on NASA and the budgets sholul be cut."

      Again the *whole* NASA budget is less than is spent in the USA on pizza and loess than half the cost of the aircon on US army bases in the middle east.

      " It should refocus on genuine science based priorities and perhaps long term research on new launch technologies and simply buy launchers from ESA or Russia."

      It's priorities are set by Congress.

      You have no idea of NASA's scale relative to the *big* parts of the US govt, no idea of real reasons why launch costs are high or how to lower them and no idea of why NASA does some of the things it does.

      Posting AC would seem to be the *most* knowledgeable thing about your post.

      For such diligent work please accept my award.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "John Smith 19"

        My post was made because of the succession of posts that seem to have an almost religous believe that widespread space travel even colonisation of space is just around the corner and the only thing holding us back is foolish politicans cutting NASA's budget.

        I posted anonymously because I suspected that contradicting this fanatsy would annoy some of the posters and there was a possibility of a flames. Yours however is the only response.

        You seem to think that assertion without explanation is a defect in an argument. It is not a slonga sthe assertion is clear which from your response it clearly is. What I think your are trying to say is 'assertion without evidence'.

        Actually I think this should be turned around and say where is the evidence that Manned space flight has:

        1. Achieved anything significant scientifically that unmanned could not do cheaper and safer.

        2. Achieved any significant spin off technologies.

        I can think of many great sceintific discoveries in space: The mapping of tthe CBR, X-ray astronomy. All of it done unmanned. Hubble was repaired remotely but at the end of the daya a replacement could simply have been launched.

        The case for spin off is very weak the only two I have ever heard are teflon and minaturisation both are bogus Teflon was invented in 1938 by DupOnt and the computers in Apollow ere not at all what we would consider miniture with discrete core memories etc. The drive for micro-electronnics as we know it was not NASA as can be seen from the fact that it has continued to develop as NASA has declined.

        You say I have know idea why lauch costs are high, well I am asserting that it is because putting large objects in space is difficult technically and intrniscally expensive as evidence there is the fact that no one including lots of countires other than the US has managed in over 50 years of trying to think of a cheap safe way.

        The proportion of the US budget spent on NASA is irrelevant if it is fundamentally wasted by spending on media friendly human space travel rather than cost effective unmanned. I like spedning on science but not on wasting lost of money on fantasies.

        A challenge to everyone who thinks a scientific nirvana of mass human space exploration is around the corner simply held back by foolish politicians - where is the evidence?

  17. Beachrider

    LEO is rife...

    ...not just because the costs have leveled, but the technology for rocket building, tracking and controlling is available in so many places...

    Tooo many people on this website WAAAAY underestimate the difference between LEO flight and deepspace flight, probably because it is still mainly exclusive to the USA and RUS.

    As an American taxpayer, it is OK with me that others have joined the competition. The US does its best work when clear objectives and competition prevail.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Gosh and darn it

    The Obama administration and NASA should just read the El Reg comments for their policy ideas!

  19. Ritchie1987
    Mushroom

    What's more embarrassing

    What's more embarrassing, that America doesn't have a space program or that they can't afford one, they probably shouldn't have spent so much money on trying to kill people and blowing things up.

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge

      @Ritchie1987

      "What's more embarrassing, that America doesn't have a space program or that they can't afford one, they probably shouldn't have spent so much money on trying to kill people and blowing things up."

      America *does* have a human space programme.

      It's a *NASA* owned, managed and staffed human space programme that's having problems.

      That's a different thing.

  20. James Micallef Silver badge
    Meh

    "the US aerospace industry is the number-one contributor to the country's balance of payments, with a $50bn positive trade balance in 2010"

    Not surprising, most of that "aerospace industry" export would be fighter planes, missiles etc. There is actually plenty of money for NASA, even to have kept on working the shuttle or developing an alternative, just divert a fraction of a percent of the pentagon's budget. Of copurse that, in American eyes is "not possible" because spending less than 10 times as much as the next-biggest spender would be "dangerous for national security"

    Riiiiiiight!!

  21. Goffee

    Mars awaits careful landers

    Don't worry about the Russians, China is next up to bat - even India - and there will be little stopping them getting to Mars when they choose to and doing all the road signs in funny languages.

  22. goldcd

    http://xkcd.com/893/

  23. Burch
    Mushroom

    Bully for those guys

    They got to live the dreams of millions, and think that space exploration is more important than real people trying to live decent lives.

    Landing on the moon, as cool as that is, didn't actually propel humanity forward. It was a willy-waving exercise with the Soviets.

    Tell us oh great ones. What did the moon landings give us?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bully for those guys

      "Tell us oh great ones. What did the moon landings give us?"

      Sheesh: trying reading for a change! Straight away, everyone knows that without the need to stick a computer in a small two-person craft aimed at the lunar surface, miniaturisation of the components for digital computing would not have had the same degree of urgency.

      1. Charles 9

        Debatable.

        After all, the Integrated Circuit had been around since the late 50's, before Kennedy took office. There was a cost-savings motive for developing it, since you used less materials and could mass-produce more easily. Many of the space program innovations revolved around low-power electronics due to the limited power capacity of the lunar craft, and low-power tech has only become in vogue pretty recently when phones and tablets produced another need for low-power electronics.

  24. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Happy

    By the way

    Both speakers were *younger* than the committee chairman.

    I don't think either Congress or the Senate *have* a retirement age. At least one Senator went on till he was a 100.

    "inertia" is not just for physics lectures.

  25. maclovinz

    THIS Administration?

    What the hell?

    Where the hell was he when the last Administration was keeping funding from scientific research on stem cells that can advance humankind, and spending all that money on multiple wars that ruined our possibility for funding anything else, including reducing the possibility of maintaining the shuttle program, or possible missions to Mars.

    In fact, it's THIS Administration that wants a mission to Mars, as, well, we've already BEEN to the moon.

    I respect the hell out of him for what he did....er, ~40 years ago. But, times change....

    Mediocrity my ass, that was before, this is NOW. Sounds like the Republicans got another guy to throw some vitriol around for them as well.

    I mean, the guy isn't exactly a scientist...his career began as a warm body to test different experimental aircraft.....

    (Oh no he ditn't!)

  26. Maty

    'Without the discipline of the Cold War the US appears to have as much future as the Roman Empire.'

    That's pretty optimistic, when you think about it. The Roman state lasted from the foundation c. 750 BC until the fall of Constantinople in AD 1453 - or well over 2000 years. The US gained independence in 1776 and so is 235 years old.

    Even if we take the most pessimistic view, ignore the Byzantine empire and assume the Roman empire only started in 146 BC (after the third Punic War, when it was undoubtedly an empire) and finished in AD 470 that's 616 years.

    Which gives the USA another 381 years to go.

  27. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Happy

    A few notes on the Democrat /Republican divide.

    Dem. Apollo at up to 4.4% of federal funding.

    Rep. Shuttle. With $1Bn/yr funding cap.

    Rep. Challenger crash.

    Rep. Space station Alpha started, designed, re-designed, re-re-designed and canceled. There might have been a few more re-designs in there.

    Dem ISS *finally* starts construction.

    Dem. X33

    Rep. Columbia crash

    Rep. VSE with *no* additional funding and 1 public speech.

    Rep. Constellation with *no* funding.

    Rep. X37b.

    Rep. SDIO inc DC-X. Crashed when handed over to NASA.

    Now in politics things started by one administration might only come to fruition in another.

    But a *superficial* list of this stuff suggests Republican administrations don't get much done for space *except* if it's defense related and driven by an organisation with a *need* to have it so they can get stuff done. They may have handed out *more* cost+ contracts and so the amount of cash they've transferred over to the aerospace industry may be more but they've had less *actual* usable systems from the money.

    Just some superficial observations.

    1. maclovinz
      Unhappy

      Look...

      You can't go injecting facts and history into the equation....

      Seriously, just make something up, and people in my country will believe it!

      Sigh....

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