Chinese Crew Blasts Off for Space Mission

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by DanS
What are the propulsion advances you're thinking of?

The ones which got us in space in the first place, and which became increasingly reliable with time and money. The ones that makes it possible to launch several tons of payload in far orbit with near absolute certainty, unlike the risky operation to launch a tiny Sputnik barely over the atmosphere.

If the US and China get into a dick contest to know who will reach Mars first, it'll mean dramatic technological progress for space travel, most notably propulsion. Simply because there'll be an incentive to research it

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by Winston
3rd world countries getting their priorities all mixed up in order to prove themselves to others.

Exactly.


And while propulsion is old news to us, so are nuclear capabilities.
To other countries, no.

[DanS]

The ones which got us in space in the first place, and which became increasingly reliable with time and money.

The last great technological advance was the mighty F1 engine for the Saturn V. It was developed in 1959. Soon after, the engines for the Soyuz were developed. Since that time, launch has not become any more reliable.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Spiffor

The ones which got us in space in the first place, and which became increasingly reliable with time and money. The ones that makes it possible to launch several tons of payload in far orbit with near absolute certainty, unlike the risky operation to launch a tiny Sputnik barely over the atmosphere.

If the US and China get into a dick contest to know who will reach Mars first, it'll mean dramatic technological progress for space travel, most notably propulsion. Simply because there'll be an incentive to research it

I find it sad that politicians only fund space programs well when it can be used for jingoistic dick contests. If the funding levels would of stayed high after Apollo, we would be on Mars now.

[Whoha]

Atleast some of the failure to develop new propulsion tech has probably been the aversion to nuclear. They killed Prometheus apparently.

DanS, I think what Gepap meant was the funding level, and manpower commitments of any space program since then. After Apollo a crapload of those guys got fired, and it does make sense that firing all the engineers lead to a complete stop in gains for the technology they were working on.

More then anything else though, the Chinese are proving that they have the willingness to do this. Even if they are only retreading steps taken by the Russians(who are giving them major assists), they are still doing that much. and they will reap the rewards.

[DanS]

After Apollo a crapload of those guys got fired

They got fired well before Apollo ended. They were fired well before we even got to the moon.

[Whoha]

Then they stopped work that much sooner

[DanS]

...because it wasn't sustainable. The invoices were flowing in and the congress was crapping its pants.

[Whoha]

thats never stopped government spending before.

[DanS]

It did with Apollo.

[Whoha]

hence the before qualifier.

[DanS]

I don't understand the significance of what you're trying to say. Indeed, I don't understand clearly what you're trying to say.

We have started major programs after Apollo. We've started them with regularity. All have costed $1 billion+ and some have costed $100 billion+. We have had no real technological breakthroughs during this period, let alone large breakthroughs suggested by Spiffor.

[Whoha]

that it was unsustainable was no reason to cut it, that it was politically easy to cut it was.

[DanS]

Again, I'm having trouble understanding your point. Are you saying that it shouldn't have been cut?

[GePap]

The Space Shuttle was certainly NOT a prestige program- it was an attempt at "sensible", "cost effecitve" earth orbit space travel. It didn;t work out, obviously, cause it remains far too expensive.