Wednesday, May 18, 2005

NASA: Immensely disappointed...again

It seems that the new NASA chief, Mike Griffin, is cutting a swathe through NASA programs already. While I whole heartedly applaud the moving forward of the CEV from 2014 to 2010 for its first manned flights, I am horribly disappointed with some of the other aspects of what he is doing.

The first bit of dissappointment is the hacking and slashing of the aeronautics side of the house. The basic research done there since before there was a NASA has been fundamental for American aeronautical industries. In this day and age where Airbus is getting a lot of funding helping hands, I have to say the aeronautics industries need that research help especially badly.

The second big disappointment is what he is doing with Pat the new NASA chief, Mike Griffin, is cutting a swathe through NASA programs already. While I whole heartedly applaud the moving forward of the CEV from 2014 to 2010 for its first manned flights, I am horribly disappointed with some of the other aspects of what he is doing.

The first bit of dissappointment is the hacking and slashing of the aeronautics side of the house. The basic research done there since before there was a NASA has been fundamental for American aeronautical industriesroject Prometheus. It was going to produce the first real spaceships. I don't mean SSTOs I don't mean satellites and orbiters. I mean first real attempt at craft capable of entering and leaving orbit of different moons and such. The demonstration mission was going to be JIMO - Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter. That's not going to happen now and there are no plans at all for new outer systems explorers...other than the Pluto mission (New Horizons) and perhaps the Jupiter orbiter to explore its magnetic field. Europa and her sister moons are crying out for a lot of indepth examination. Titan is too if not more so. A standard capable chassis like that would immensely help.

Alas though...

One of these days, I'll dig through the exact NASA budget figures and show what I'd do. But until then, I'll just sigh and see when I can start lobbing my own rockets. Not for a few years yet I think.

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