grouplinkdave's comments

About 20 years ago as a young engineer I was given the opportunity to propose some solutions to NASA, and was invited to the Kennedy Space Center’s LCC for the presentation. Prior to meeting with the exec team at the LCC they took me on a tour of the VAB, where I saw all the operations and was allowed to take digital images of some of the vehicle assembly and maintenance operations to demonstrate possible improvements. Such great energy at the whole KSC. What an honor to be there to feel that passion and gratitude!

Last month I was again at the KSC and LCC as a tourist, and the energy was just a minute fraction of what I'd seen 20 years before. We need this kind of vision [from SpaceX and others, e.g., like this other NASA-based article today with the young engineer comments, who did the hydroponics in microgravity at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13743196 ] to push science and technology beyond the video game and entertainment markets. Congratulations to SpaceX, the microgravity hydroponics engineer, and the others with vision who are once-again elevating the bright eyes of brilliant youth, scientists and engineers.

Reading through the comments from the main article it seems the commentators are in two camps: 1) "...let's improve our engineering capabilities to solve this intriguing challenge..." [and later enjoy all the other side-benefits that come from being great engineers and problem-solvers]; and 2) why challenge ourselves in the first place [?]. I like to encourage and invest in visionary [and realistic] problem-solvers. Let's connect on that.

Reading through the comments from the main article it seems the commentators are in two camps: 1) "...let's improve our engineering capabilities to solve this intriguing challenge..." [and later enjoy all the other side-benefits that come from being great engineers and problem-solvers]; and 2) why challenge ourselves in the first place [?]. I like to encourage and invest in visionary [and realistic] problem-solvers.