trinker: "NASA hasn't done anything since..."

Trinker (

trinker) wrote,
@ 2004-06-22 10:05:00

"NASA hasn't done anything since..."

betnoir has already done some eloquent speaking on this topic, but I read a caption on a SpaceShipOne-related photo today that disgusted me. Some guy named Larry Ewing said to a reporter, "I’m disgusted with NASA. They haven’t done anything since they went to the moon." (Caption on the first photo.)

Well, Larry...

Just off the top of my head, we've got an International Space Station in orbit that's become such a routine concept that they barely do reporting on it anymore, and it doesn't attract crowds. Have you been watching the Mars Exploration Rover news? How about the stuff from Cassini? Were you one of the people who urged the speedy return of Shuttle launches?

I hope you were misquoted, Larry. I know this happens in the rush to publish the news.

EDITED TO ADD: I'd just like to mention that my readership rocks today, and they just keep adding and adding to the list of names of NASA projects. Thank you!

(Post a new comment)

	misia 2004-06-22 10:21 am UTC (link)
	What a dorkus. Maybe Mr. Ewing has been living under a rock near the test flight area? (Reply to this)

wcg
2004-06-22 10:50 am UTC (link)

Let's see... assuming Larry doesn't notice a mission if it doesn't have a human in it, what has NASA done since Apollo 17 returned from the Moon for the last time?

Apollo-Soyuz
Skylab
102 Shuttle flights (with two major mishaps, compare to X-15 record)
Building and staffing of ISS in conjunction with Russians and Japanese

Now if we throw in the unmanned missions, that adds:

Project Viking. Two landers and two orbiters exploring Mars in 1977.
Voyagers I and II. Grand Tour missions of the outer solar system, providing flyby imaging of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and their associated rings and moons.
Project Galileo to Jupiter.
Project Magellen to Venus, providing full planetary mapping via synthetic aperture radar to 10 meter resolution.
Project Cassini to Saturn
Mars Pathfinder/Sojourner
Mars Global Surveyor
Mars Polar Observer
Spirit/Opportunity
The Great Observatories: Compton Gamma-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory, Lyman Infrared Space Observatory.
The Explorer Projects: FUSE, XTE, IUE, Einstein X-ray observatory, HEA0-1, OA0-1 through 4, many others studying space from Earth orbit.
The Sun-Earth Project: SOHO (Solar Heliospherical Observatory), Project Ulysses over the poles of the Sun
Earth Observing Systems: LANDSAT, TRMM, many others
In Conjunction with NOAA: GOES (12 of them so far), POES, NPOESS

Nope. Not a damn thing.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	trinker 2004-06-22 10:55 am UTC (link)
	Thanks, Bill. I knew there were lots and lots of things I hadn't listed, but wasn't willing to create a more complete list myself when I knew I was unable to assess the completeness of someone else's list. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	marswalker 2004-06-22 11:39 am UTC (link)
	Deep Space One Stardust Spitzer (aka SIRTF) Space Telescope Mars Odyssey SORCE Gravity Probe B ... yah, there have been a "couple" of missions since then. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	western_slope 2004-06-22 02:39 pm UTC (link)
	Lunar Prospector Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous TOPEX/Poseidon Tethered Satellite Experiment Shuttle/Mir missions (like the Tethered Satellite Experiment, part of the 102 shuttle flights that Bill G. mentioned) X-43a successful scramjet demonstration Nope, nuff'n here, Marpha! (Reply to this)(Parent)

brian1789
2004-06-22 11:21 am UTC (link)

I admire private space-access, and fervently hope they succeed. But in the effort to build up and market it, I'm annoyed that some of the public advocates feel the need to trash-talk WRT NASA, to do the "We're not *them*" schtick in order to differentiate their own worthwhile efforts. While NASA may be inefficient sometimes, given its existence at the mercy of the political process, we've still accomplished a lot... and many of our successes grew out of low-budget or internally-unfunded studies that later grew into real missions.

If any of the current humans-back-to-the-Moon effort bears fruit, it will have been after the groundwork was laid by a sometimes-covert, unfunded "Mars Underground" over the decade prior.

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	wild_irises 2004-06-22 11:22 am UTC (link)
	The Libertarian fervor to eat NASA alive is one of the things that's keeping me from feeling purely joyous about SpaceShip One. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	trinker 2004-06-22 11:35 am UTC (link)
	Yep. I was there with a former aerospace engineer, and two current aerospace engineers -- one who works for a small aerospace company that gets its funding (in some part, I do not know the breakdown) from the government, and another who works for JPL/NASA. All of us were happy to see Rutan's crew succeed. The idea that there's a cabal in this case... (Reply to this)(Parent)

whumpdotcom
2004-06-23 12:44 am UTC (link)

I didn't hear much NASA bashing in the crowd. But since Mojave is wing-nut country there was plenty of Government-bashing during the pre-launch speeches.

Lots of cognitive dissonance as they were simultaneously thanking China Lake and Edwards for their help, and the Kern County Sheriff and the Highway Patrol were directing traffic. I guess it's like the guy who makes a racist joke, but tries to cover for it by saying "but I have friends who are black." Gov't is bad, unless they are giving you free help or protecting your property from "the collectivist mob."

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	trinker 2004-06-23 08:31 am UTC (link)
	There was that sign, which I understand came out of the crowd. Mojave as wing-nut country...yeah. The stuff that people have been trumpeting, acting as if there was some sort of virgin purity to Scaled Composite's effort -- I would laugh if it wasn't such a stupid concept. You might be interested in this article, written by a friend of mine. (Reply to this)(Parent)

marswalker
2004-06-22 11:46 am UTC (link)

Much of the NASA ideal is to keep space, and science, alive and intersting to the public in general, and youngsters in specific. That's part of why it's such an honor to be involved with NASA/JPL/GSFC/..., even in just minute details. It was a real kick to see Bill Nye The Science Guy at the Opportunity launch - knowing that it was being filmed for the kids.

must.resist.temptation.to.flame.noob.named.Larry... everyone has a right to make a fool of themselves occasionaly. (I've nearly become an expert at it.)

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	trinker 2004-06-22 11:59 am UTC (link)
	Sending you e-mail offline. (Reply to this)(Parent)

tacit
2004-06-23 02:03 pm UTC (link)

To be fair, there are many people in the scientific community who believe the International Space Station is an expensive, worthless, scientifically useless boondoggle, created for no reason other than to give the Space Shuttle something to do--and it seems that the same money spent in other ways (such as on unmanned probes and missions) would probably carry less risk and a much higher payoff in terms of exploration and discovery.

That doesn't mean NASA has "done nothing," of course--but I don't know I'd really call the ISS one of its accomplishments. With a price tag topping $60 billion, it's becoming tough to see what the payoff is. It's more about politics than it is about science.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	trinker 2004-06-23 04:34 pm UTC (link)
	You might want to read what western_slope has to say on this. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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