Also not to take anything away from NASA (they are the reason I became an engineer) but they only assisted in the design by suggesting improvements etc. We sketched out the original capsule shape right here.
That's one very cool thing to have been doing, half the world is watching this, really neat to see you have played a part in it.
Mining technology (and off-shore stuff) is very impressive. I lived near a very large open pit mine in Germany and the gear they had there was the most impressive machinery I've ever seen.
To me, this sounds like the "old NASA" that I read and heard about from the 60's. Limited time frame, small team and a focused goal. Is there a way we can get NASA back to that type of organization?
If we did that (and had some audacious goals), I think it would get the public interested in space travel again.
By outsourcing NASA to the private sector (e.g. Space X and whoever else enters this potentially lucrative market) and allowing capitalist competition expose the bureaucratic fluff that NASA is composed of these days. Eventually, the giant NASA-yak will be shorn, and scientists will do work again.
Maybe this perception exists because there is less for NASA to do. There's not a lot for astronauts to do in space until we have some kind of breakthrough in propulsion. It's too slow and expensive to get around the solar system until then.
So for now we put up satellites and telescopes, send out probes, help with the ISS, and... study the sky. These jobs get done with what we have now. What great mission would even require the kind of NASA that existed in the 60s? Please don't say Mars.
I had the same thought. Even though the scope of this operation was pretty limited, the can-do! of the NASA folks made me smile. Simple or not (relative to, you know, sending human beings to space and back), that's a lot of guys to throw at this and it can't have been cheap. I'm proud a few cents of my taxes went to this project.
More on the man who has come to embody the 60's NASA you're thinking of:
I think it's inaccurate to think that the type of organisation that NASA was in the 1960s was purely a product of intrinsic factors. I'd think that the reason NASA was as it was during the 60's was because of the external circumstances it found itself in:
- a competitive race with the Soviet Union against a background of the cold war
- a specific and hard presidential goal of "landing a man on the moon..before the decade is out".
Where those external pressures are in place, it would be almost expected that any organisation could (and likely, would) become entrepreneurial and innovative. And the converse is even more true: absent the goals driving the organisation, bureaucratic friction will drag it to a halt.
Seriously. Seems to me it's the 'old NASA' that would pick a name like "the Escape Vehicle". The names NASA picks always strike some kind of chord of passion in me.
Your comment reminded me of the saying, "work expands to fill the time allocated to it." Which means, I think, that, approximately speaking, if you assume it will take 100 people 1 year to solve a certain problem then that is probably about how long it will take. But if you instead say we only have 5 people and 1 month then, surprise surprise, you'll also have a solution too. Speaking in general terms, of course. You tend to need better people and less bureaucracy and friction in order for smaller teams and smaller time windows to be just as effective.
I can only imagine what it would be like to be inside a drill hole compressed inside a capsule and surrounded by rock for 20 minutes with the possibility of it being jammed. I can't help but to drag a comparison between surfacing out of this cramped chamber and birth. Instead of only the mother I'm sure the miners and their families will be under the effects of an endorphin rush.
[+] [-] robchez|15 years ago|reply
Today is one of those "I did something that matters" moments for me.
[+] [-] robchez|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marvin|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacquesm|15 years ago|reply
Mining technology (and off-shore stuff) is very impressive. I lived near a very large open pit mine in Germany and the gear they had there was the most impressive machinery I've ever seen.
[+] [-] rdoherty|15 years ago|reply
If we did that (and had some audacious goals), I think it would get the public interested in space travel again.
[+] [-] ihodes|15 years ago|reply
At least, that's what I think.
[+] [-] bluesnowmonkey|15 years ago|reply
So for now we put up satellites and telescopes, send out probes, help with the ISS, and... study the sky. These jobs get done with what we have now. What great mission would even require the kind of NASA that existed in the 60s? Please don't say Mars.
[+] [-] danilocampos|15 years ago|reply
More on the man who has come to embody the 60's NASA you're thinking of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Kranz
[+] [-] hermanthegerman|15 years ago|reply
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahlbuschbombe
http://www.bergbaumuseum.de/web/Dahlbuschbombe
[+] [-] jlangenauer|15 years ago|reply
- a competitive race with the Soviet Union against a background of the cold war
- a specific and hard presidential goal of "landing a man on the moon..before the decade is out".
Where those external pressures are in place, it would be almost expected that any organisation could (and likely, would) become entrepreneurial and innovative. And the converse is even more true: absent the goals driving the organisation, bureaucratic friction will drag it to a halt.
[+] [-] sliverstorm|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkramlich|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skeletonjelly|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacquesm|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryanwaggoner|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gridspy|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kingofspain|15 years ago|reply