Geek Stuff
Two space things, and a separate item that shows how geeks get older, not better.
The Pad Abort 1 (PA-1) test for the Orion launch abort system is today. I wonder how Constellation Program deniers will explain away a success.
And speaking of Constellation Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has a pretty good op-ed in The Hill on the "crisis of purpose for America's space program." How about this for a purpose: to develop the vehicles and technologies that enable human beings to live and work throughout the solar system? Or is that too simple?
Not-so-random question: if the ultimate goal of dating is to find yourself a spouse (with whom, presumably, you're supposed to spend the rest of your life with), why should you not take it seriously or personally if your dating experiences do not go well?
Showing posts with label Orion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Orion. Show all posts
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Ares I-X Rollout
I try not to talk about my day job much because quite frankly I like to keep my work life separate from my blogging life, but today is a little different. After three years or so of writing conference papers for the Ares I-X flight test, I watched the rocket actually roll out to the launch pad today and it is now a week away from lifting off. This is a major deal, not just for NASA (or me), but for the country as a whole. We've needed something to inspire us for awhile...something beyond politics, something we could all look upon with pride, as an actual achievement. Ares I-X just might be it--the first test flight (but not the last, if I can help it) of the Constellation Program.
Why is this flight important? Allow me to backtrack a little bit, to when we lost the Space Shuttle Columbia. People in the media, in the White House, and in the general public were asking, "Is going into space worth all the risk? All they ever do is go around in slow-motion circles in that space station up there." The Columbia Accident Investigation Board took the nation and its leaders to task for not doing something more ambitious. After all, if astronauts are going somewhere new and exciting--doing something worthy of a spacefaring nation--then yeah, any heroic losses might be deemed acceptable.
The Bush Administration came out with the "Vision for Space Exploration," which gave NASA the mission of restarting Shuttle (safely), finishing the International Space Station (ISS), building a new crew exploration vehicle, and building a base on the Moon in preparation for more ambitious missions to Mars. They theoretically promised NASA increased funding to do the job, with LOTS more funding after Shuttle retired. In 2005 NASA got a new administrator, Mike Griffin, who put together a study to decide what vehicle types would be best to execute the series of missions Bush tasked NASA to accomplish.
The study came up with new rockets that would eventually be known as the Orion crew exploration vehicle, Ares I crew launch vehicle, and Ares V cargo launch vehicle. Ares I would launch crews into low-Earth orbit (LEO) to support both ISS and missions beyond low-Earth orbit. Ares V, a rocket bigger than the Apollo-era Saturn V, would launch a lander into orbit along with an upper-stage rocket that could send the lander and the crew off to the Moon, asteroids, wherever. This two-launch concept is what NASA has been building for the last four years.
Ares I is the rocket being built now. It's needed first, and soon, because we're planning to retire the Space Shuttle as soon as the ISS is completed. Now there's a lot of debate going on in Washington about whether to keep Ares I, Ares V, Orion, and the rest of what's called the Constellation Program. The Obama administration tasked the Augustine Human Spaceflight Review Panel with reviewing the current plans and making recommendations about what to do next. Will we continue with Constellation? Turn over low-Earth orbit to commercial companies and international competitors? Or something else entirely? The Panel doesn't have the final word--Congress and the President do--so if you care about whether America keeps doing great things with people in space, it's not too late to have your voice heard. The Congressional switchboards are always open. :-)
So where does Ares I-X fit into the picture? Ares I-X is the first development test for Ares I. It's not a full-up launch vehicle, as it lacks an upper stage, a five-segment solid rocket booster for the first stage, and an Orion spacecraft on top. But the point of the test is not to get into space, the point of the flight is to get the beast to lift off and fly in the proper way and direction, under control, within the atmosphere. While the rocket might look like many others you've seen (long and cylindrical, pointy end on top, fire coming out of the bottom), Ares I does in fact have a different design from any rocket tried before. The upper half of the rocket is about six feet wider than the bottom. A human-rated rocket has never flown with only a solid rocket motor for the first stage. So there are a few things that this rocket will test that engineers haven't done before. They need to:
Ares I-X has a four-segment solid rocket motor from the Space Shuttle's inventory and a hollow fifth segment simulator that both simulates the length of the Ares I first stage and houses most of the avionics that control the vehicle. The upper stage, crew module, and launch abort system are all simulator hardware, shaped to look as much like Ares I as was possible when the design was conceived three years ago. The upper sections also have hundreds of sensors aboard that will measure temperatures, pressures, vibrations, noise, winds, and any other forces that could affect this rocket in flight. Some of the data these sensors collect will be transmitted down to the ground "live," and some will be stored on board in that first stage avionics module and will be picked up when the first stage splashes down in the ocean.
What can you expect to see on this flight? If all goes well--and there are hundreds of people working around the clock at Kennedy Space Center right now to ensure just that--the first stage will ignite just like the Shuttle's boosters, and the rocket will move upward past the tower. It should take about six seconds from the time the hold-down posts release until the aft skirt clears the tower. Once past the tower, the roll control system (RoCS) will rotate the rocket 90 degrees to orient the rocket the way Ares I would fly and to point the antennas so they can send their data to receiving stations on the ground. After that, the rocket will continue accelerating upward and outward at Mach 4.7 (over 3,500 miles per hour) toward the Atlantic, the booster firing for about two minutes, just like Shuttle.
I try not to talk about my day job much because quite frankly I like to keep my work life separate from my blogging life, but today is a little different. After three years or so of writing conference papers for the Ares I-X flight test, I watched the rocket actually roll out to the launch pad today and it is now a week away from lifting off. This is a major deal, not just for NASA (or me), but for the country as a whole. We've needed something to inspire us for awhile...something beyond politics, something we could all look upon with pride, as an actual achievement. Ares I-X just might be it--the first test flight (but not the last, if I can help it) of the Constellation Program.
Why is this flight important? Allow me to backtrack a little bit, to when we lost the Space Shuttle Columbia. People in the media, in the White House, and in the general public were asking, "Is going into space worth all the risk? All they ever do is go around in slow-motion circles in that space station up there." The Columbia Accident Investigation Board took the nation and its leaders to task for not doing something more ambitious. After all, if astronauts are going somewhere new and exciting--doing something worthy of a spacefaring nation--then yeah, any heroic losses might be deemed acceptable.
The Bush Administration came out with the "Vision for Space Exploration," which gave NASA the mission of restarting Shuttle (safely), finishing the International Space Station (ISS), building a new crew exploration vehicle, and building a base on the Moon in preparation for more ambitious missions to Mars. They theoretically promised NASA increased funding to do the job, with LOTS more funding after Shuttle retired. In 2005 NASA got a new administrator, Mike Griffin, who put together a study to decide what vehicle types would be best to execute the series of missions Bush tasked NASA to accomplish.
The study came up with new rockets that would eventually be known as the Orion crew exploration vehicle, Ares I crew launch vehicle, and Ares V cargo launch vehicle. Ares I would launch crews into low-Earth orbit (LEO) to support both ISS and missions beyond low-Earth orbit. Ares V, a rocket bigger than the Apollo-era Saturn V, would launch a lander into orbit along with an upper-stage rocket that could send the lander and the crew off to the Moon, asteroids, wherever. This two-launch concept is what NASA has been building for the last four years.
Ares I is the rocket being built now. It's needed first, and soon, because we're planning to retire the Space Shuttle as soon as the ISS is completed. Now there's a lot of debate going on in Washington about whether to keep Ares I, Ares V, Orion, and the rest of what's called the Constellation Program. The Obama administration tasked the Augustine Human Spaceflight Review Panel with reviewing the current plans and making recommendations about what to do next. Will we continue with Constellation? Turn over low-Earth orbit to commercial companies and international competitors? Or something else entirely? The Panel doesn't have the final word--Congress and the President do--so if you care about whether America keeps doing great things with people in space, it's not too late to have your voice heard. The Congressional switchboards are always open. :-)
So where does Ares I-X fit into the picture? Ares I-X is the first development test for Ares I. It's not a full-up launch vehicle, as it lacks an upper stage, a five-segment solid rocket booster for the first stage, and an Orion spacecraft on top. But the point of the test is not to get into space, the point of the flight is to get the beast to lift off and fly in the proper way and direction, under control, within the atmosphere. While the rocket might look like many others you've seen (long and cylindrical, pointy end on top, fire coming out of the bottom), Ares I does in fact have a different design from any rocket tried before. The upper half of the rocket is about six feet wider than the bottom. A human-rated rocket has never flown with only a solid rocket motor for the first stage. So there are a few things that this rocket will test that engineers haven't done before. They need to:
- Fly and control a rocket that is dynamically similar to the Ares I
- Test the separation system that splits the first stage from the upper stage and see how the rocket reacts to that separation.
- Test larger parachutes on a much longer five-segment motor (the Space Shuttle boosters have four segments and are shorter and lighter than Ares I's first stage).
- Control the rocket's roll and also see how much roll a single-solid first stage can create.
- Build and test new ground operations equipment and procedures for a rocket that is quite different from the Space Shuttle.
Ares I-X has a four-segment solid rocket motor from the Space Shuttle's inventory and a hollow fifth segment simulator that both simulates the length of the Ares I first stage and houses most of the avionics that control the vehicle. The upper stage, crew module, and launch abort system are all simulator hardware, shaped to look as much like Ares I as was possible when the design was conceived three years ago. The upper sections also have hundreds of sensors aboard that will measure temperatures, pressures, vibrations, noise, winds, and any other forces that could affect this rocket in flight. Some of the data these sensors collect will be transmitted down to the ground "live," and some will be stored on board in that first stage avionics module and will be picked up when the first stage splashes down in the ocean.What can you expect to see on this flight? If all goes well--and there are hundreds of people working around the clock at Kennedy Space Center right now to ensure just that--the first stage will ignite just like the Shuttle's boosters, and the rocket will move upward past the tower. It should take about six seconds from the time the hold-down posts release until the aft skirt clears the tower. Once past the tower, the roll control system (RoCS) will rotate the rocket 90 degrees to orient the rocket the way Ares I would fly and to point the antennas so they can send their data to receiving stations on the ground. After that, the rocket will continue accelerating upward and outward at Mach 4.7 (over 3,500 miles per hour) toward the Atlantic, the booster firing for about two minutes, just like Shuttle. Then, just over two minutes into flight, a ring of explosive charges on top of the first stage will ignite and a set of smaller rockets on the aft skirt of the first stage will fire forward to split the first stage from the upper stage and pull it backward. The upper stage will continue downrange like a cannonball, and eventually fall into the ocean. The first stage booster will fall toward the ocean, and the main parachutes will open when it's about 3 miles above the ocean. Total mission time, just over five minutes.
And that's it? I can hear people ask. Yeah, but anyone who has ever been to a live launch will tell you that that's plenty of excitement for five minutes. And it's a bunch of things we haven't done before with a rocket that has never flown before. Are there dangers? Are there risks? Are there things that can go wrong? Of course, because it's a test, and it's never been done before. But jeez, what's life without a little risk? And if we really want to set America back on the path to being an exploring, spacefaring nation, it's definitely a step in the right direction.
The launch window opens at 8 a.m. Eastern Time (12 noon Greenwich Mean Time) on October 27, and lasts for four hours. Tune in, and have a look at what your space program has been up to while you've been ignoring it. They just might surprise you.
Oh, yeah...I will heading down to Florida to support Ares I-X starting Thursday. Is this a cool job, or what?
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Returning to Business As Usual
The three weeks off have cured me of a creeping burnout, but they have also curbed my enthusiasm for things here when I'm still entranced by things I saw in Europe. I'll get back to "normal" in due course, but don't be too surprised if I continue to dwell on the past and my vacation on this page for a bit. I also owe Darlene the Science Cheerleader a short piece on some of NASA's public outreach efforts on the web, so that will show up on her blog in the next day or so. Meanwhile, I need to clear some science and technology stuff from my inbox, and this seemed like a good night to do it.
I haven't read Jerry Pournelle's blog (or much of anything else) in three weeks. He has a series of reflections on healthcare, the rule of law, and the war in Afghanistan that deserve reading.
Wired Science has a blog discussing the Augustine Panel hearings. Apparently while I was away Congress was less than receptive to some of the ideas coming out of the panel's deliberations. Interesting, since they decide which bills will get paid. This ain't over by a long shot.
Facebook, where most of my vacation articles are being published first because their picture-uploading app is better, now has a "population" nearly equal to the U.S.
Lockheed Martin has a good page of communication tools for the Orion crew exploration vehicle.
Here's a site developed by some young professionals that talks about the benefits of space exploration and includes a petition form to help you tell your elected representative(s) why space is important to you.
A slew of news from Hu:
- Commissioner Wants 500000 Letters To Save Shuttle Program
- Can a letter-writing campaign save Florida jobs?
- Commissioner Wants 500000 Letters To Save Shuttle Program
- Space Coast organizing letter-writing effort to support NASA
- Help Save America's Human Space Exploration Program
- How Will Future Of Spaceflight Affect Space Coast?
- Don't plan your shuttle going-away party for 2010. Try 2011.
From my NewSpace News feed from the Space Frontier Foundation:
- A story about Boeing teaming up with Bigelow Aerospace to bid on NASA's Commercial Crew Transport System.
- The Rocket Racing League seems to be in trouble. They're losing their lease on hangar space in Las Cruces.
That's it for now. Be patient, y'all. I'll get back to "Bart-normal" eventually. In the meantime, enjoy the quiet.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Potpourri LXXXI
More interesting stuff coming out of the Augustine Panel. Folks are reporting that the Panel is considering (reviewing?) a really long Shuttle extension...like 2014. Has anyone even looked at the costs of reinstating Shuttle production lines? If they don't reinstate the lines, we're looking at one Shuttle flight per year from now until 2014.
There's also been some talk about a scaled-down version of Ares V.
The Huntsville Times' Shelby Spires is reporting that Ares I and Orion might be delayed.
Okay, this is just gross and terrifying at the same time. Scientists are looking at combining spider DNA with goat DNA to turn goat's milk into spider thread.
Did you know that President Obama was upset about the speed with which the Bush Administration passed legislation? Funny how that doesn't matter anymore.
MIT's technology blog addresses rocket vibrations, referencing an article contributed to by yours truly...
From the Down Under Defense Expert (DUDE): Environmentalism as a religion for Western urban elites? I'm shocked, shocked...
From Cousin Andy the Real Rocket Scientist: a virtual tour of the Peak of Eternal Light. Cool! Andy forwarded this link because he was one of my readers for Pilgrimage, a science fiction experiment I wrote but never submitted because I missed a deadline.
Here's an online poll on Obama's handling of the economy. Respond as you see fit and then read the results.
From Da Sis, a possible future vacation destination.
And I'm just adding this video because I like it.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Potpourri LII
The weirdness continues...
The Orion launch abort system (LAS) is under criticism.
Brief commentary from South of the Equator Scott:
[N]ow that the world is climbing out of recession, despite what’s been happening in Washington, how long will the US government keep trying to impose its communist ways on everything and everyone?
Thankfully, voters in Europe have rejected Labour/the libs/the socialists in the latest round of elections. It’s looking like the US will be the only socialist government standing after a year or so.
Also from Scott, a Bloomberg column about Obama's relationship with the economy.
New from Hu: a do-it-yourself manual for building Apollo 11. Every home should have one.
The NASA Human Spaceflight Panel will be holding a series of town halls, er, public meetings regarding NASA's human spaceflight program. Locations include:
June 17, 2009 - 9am - 5pm EDT
Public Meeting (Washington, D.C.)
July 28, 2009
Public Meeting (Huntsville, AL)
July 30, 2009
Public Meeting
(Cape Canaveral, FL)
August 5, 2009
Public Meeting (Washington, D.C.)
A planet might have been found in another galaxy. Wow. I mean, really. Wow.
I encountered a couple of "future-minded" societies on Facebook recently, including:
Both of these groups seem to have big problems with capitalism and money. They also steer clear of religion and a lot of philosophy, except where it emphasizes progress or getting along. And, if you dig deeply enough, you find admiration for Marxism, socialism, etc.
Here's my moral objection to such socialist schemes: it substitutes the freedom for individuals to choose what they want for the freedom of "experts" in government to decide what is "equitable" or "fair." Individuals are not created equal in abilities. They are morally equal under the law. It's the difference between Rawlsian social justice ("If society were allowed to collapse and/or hit the reset button, free people would choose for everyone to have material equality") and the American Founders' belief in equality of opportunity ("Society comprises human individuals with different, unequal capablities--we're going to make everyone follow the same set of rules to achieve their own levels of achievement or incompetence"). Some folks don't like the Founders' experiment--many of those folks are, distressingly, in positions of political power.
There was a short-lived TV show starring Malcolm McDowell and Rhea Pearlman ("Pearl") where they actually had a Rawlsian experiment: set in a classroom, McDowell tried to teach his students (including Pearlman) the nature of justice by having everyone grade each other's papers. Pearlman led a student "revolt," which ended with her making a self-righteous speech about how it was wrong, immoral, etc., for the prof to insist that individuals judge each other's papers objectively, and that the only "right" solution was for everyone to give each other A's. I found myself screaming at the TV set, "No, no, no! You've missed the whole point!"
And here's the point: let ALL of the students grade everyone else's paper anonymously by applying a price to said paper: $5 for an A, $4 for a B, etc. Let the market decide whose products are better. The cumulative decisions of individuals, making individual decisions about quality, will come up with a better answer than some notion of "fairness." Because, again, everyone is not created equal. Would you really insist on paying $5 for a $1 item? No. So why do you find it reasonable for the government to tell you that it's more "fair" to buy from X supplier instead of Y because X is disenfranchised somehow or is a favored friend of the government?
That's all for now. Heading to Florida Friday. Huzzah!
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Potpourri XI
Rockets could destroy the ozone layer. Waiting to see if this line of argument catches on in the U.S. while the Chinese and Indians continue to go forth boldly.
Morgan Freeman is going to host a Science Channel show on space exploration. Huzzah!
NASA has a presence on FlickR.
Chicago is rated is #1 by AskMen.com as the best city "for dating and sex, sports and entertainment."
India is looking at building its own space shuttle.
A mockup of the Orion crew exploration vehicle's crew module is on display on the National Mall.
The Ares I-X test flight is shifting to August. This is starting to infringe on my trip to Europe. My request to alter the launch window around my vacation was not accepted, unfortunately.
The U.S. is falling behind in cyber-warfare. That's probably because all our IT has been outsourced to Bangalore.
Interesting site on Antarctica and global warming...and another site offering an alternative theory on how ice ages affect the shapes of continents and oceans.
G20 protests turn violent, surprising no one.
From the "If Bush did this" file, President Obama gave Queen Elizabeth II an iPod. It was later revealed that she already has one.
Jeff Krukin from the Space Frontier Foundation posted an April Phule's Day press release on behalf of President Obama. Will Watson at SFF had another PR regarding space. Doc's response was priceless: "It was hard to hear the joke over the sound of all those axes grinding."
As I mentioned yesterday, the ISDC is coming up. I got my leave approved today, so I'll be booking my registration this evening.
And, on a lighter note, North Korea is fueling up its latest rocket. Japan, China, and the U.S. are all on alert, at one level or another. (Okay, I'm kidding. That's not a "lighter note." I'm just snarky this evening.)
Friday, August 15, 2008
The War in Georgia and the Space Program
While the news media is transfixed by the invasion of the oil-producing former Soviet republic of Georgia by its former masters, not too many of them have given much thought to the effect of Russia's actions on the space program.
This has been a big issue for me since Space Adventures started sending tourists to the International Space Station. I questioned my fellow space advocates' embrace of this activity, especially since Russia was not all that reliable. But at the time I was grousing, it was 2000-2001, and my Cold Warrior opinions were not welcome. Well, here's a "See, I Told You So" 7 years later. Now we have Russia invading one of its former client states/satellites.
This invasion makes sense if one has read a bit of European/Russian history as well as The Clash of Civilizations by Samuel Huntington. In short, we're now facing a world situation where large regional powers are trying to reassert and maintain their power over smaller states in their neighborhood. Russia had a "cordon sanitaire" or set of buffer states between itself and the West between 1919 and 1991. Making former satellites like Ukraine, Poland, or Georgia members of NATO was a direct threat to Russina security, as they saw it. That might not be logical, but it is prudent. Russia wants its buffer back.
So why does this affect the space program? Because Russia has been a major partner in building and staffing the International Space Station and, once the Space Shuttle retires in two years, they will be our only transportation provider to ISS. Will Russia refuse the U.S. access to ISS once Shuttle retires? Will they jack up the price of Soyuz flights to ISS the way they held Europe hostage for higher oil prices? Will ISS become the site of the first "space war?" Those are the types of questions and possibilities Bush and the next president must consider if Russia is going to continue to be an aggressor.
On the U.S. side, we have some other questions to consider. For instance:
While the news media is transfixed by the invasion of the oil-producing former Soviet republic of Georgia by its former masters, not too many of them have given much thought to the effect of Russia's actions on the space program.
This has been a big issue for me since Space Adventures started sending tourists to the International Space Station. I questioned my fellow space advocates' embrace of this activity, especially since Russia was not all that reliable. But at the time I was grousing, it was 2000-2001, and my Cold Warrior opinions were not welcome. Well, here's a "See, I Told You So" 7 years later. Now we have Russia invading one of its former client states/satellites.
This invasion makes sense if one has read a bit of European/Russian history as well as The Clash of Civilizations by Samuel Huntington. In short, we're now facing a world situation where large regional powers are trying to reassert and maintain their power over smaller states in their neighborhood. Russia had a "cordon sanitaire" or set of buffer states between itself and the West between 1919 and 1991. Making former satellites like Ukraine, Poland, or Georgia members of NATO was a direct threat to Russina security, as they saw it. That might not be logical, but it is prudent. Russia wants its buffer back.
So why does this affect the space program? Because Russia has been a major partner in building and staffing the International Space Station and, once the Space Shuttle retires in two years, they will be our only transportation provider to ISS. Will Russia refuse the U.S. access to ISS once Shuttle retires? Will they jack up the price of Soyuz flights to ISS the way they held Europe hostage for higher oil prices? Will ISS become the site of the first "space war?" Those are the types of questions and possibilities Bush and the next president must consider if Russia is going to continue to be an aggressor.
On the U.S. side, we have some other questions to consider. For instance:
- Do we keep the Space Shuttle flying longer?
- Do we increase funding to the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program?
- Do we increase funding for the Constellation Program to speed up development of Ares and Orion?
- Do we do all of the above?
- Do we scrap everything and build a different rocket?
Funding all of the above would probably cost $2-3 billion per year at best. More likely, we'd be looking at $4-5 billion in new funding on top of the current $17 billion NASA budget, assuming the current budget gets past the threat of a continuing resolution in Congress. This, of course, overlooks the operational consequences of extending the Shuttle, which Mike Griffin has addressed again and again:
- As long as we continue to fly Shuttle, the vehicle processing and launch infrastructure at Kennedy Space Center must remain as is. The longer we keep Shuttle in place, the longer it will take for our launch systems (the Vehicle Assembly Building, the launch pads, etc.) to be ready to launch Ares I and Ares V. That might not delay the development time for Ares I, but it will delay our ability to fly it.
- We can increase funding for COTS--and I'm for that anyway--but there will be some resistance, given that the only serious competitor in the field (SpaceX) has failed three times to get something into orbit.
- We can increase funding for Ares and Orion. However, Griffin, Jeff Hanley, and others have pointed out that even if you threw a couple billion dollars at Constellation, money isn't the issue. Roger Bilstein's Stages to Saturn provides an excellent narrative that explains why building new rocket systems is a long, arduous, linear process. That means, even if you threw ten or a hundred billion dollars at a new engine system (say, J-2X), it would still take seven years to build it. You have to build things, test them, have them blow up, try something new, and then retest.
- We could stay on plan: retire the Shuttle, build Ares, accept the five-year gap, suck it up, and pay the Russians whatever they want to charge to get access to the ISS.
- We could shift gears, change direction, try some other rocket design--start from scratch with DIRECT or make EELV human-rated and put an Orion capsule on top of it--and hope that either of these choices shrinks the anticipated five-year gap in America's ability to launch human beings into space. Keep in mind that the last time America had a gap in human spaceflight capabilities were the years 1975 to 1981. Those weren't particularly great years (think: Carter), but civilization did not collapse.
- We could quit. Let the Russians, Chinese, Japanese, Europeans, and Indians inherit the spaceways.
The best question someone could ask the two major candidates would be: "America's space program is a waste of time and resources. Why should be bother spending money on space at all? Why don't we just close it down?" Okay, it's not the best question someone could ask, but it would bring the space issue into focus. Do we really want it shut down completely? Does greatness (okay, pride and power--the things McCain talked about in his space statement--but also future technologies and resources) no longer matter to America? Are we going to give up being the single richest, most powerful nation in history just because it's too much work or too expensive? Ye flippin' gods.
Regardless of what happens in Georgia, the media needs to give more thought to the space aspects of a new Cold War with Russia, because it is nearly here, and our space program looked a lot different the last time we had a Cold War. The last time we had one, we went to the Moon.
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