New Mars Forums

Hate crime laws were enacted to empower these groups and to demonstrate that society at large would not accept those who actively seek and target minorities to victimize.

Here we go. . .
Laws aren't supposed to "empower" people. They just make clear to all that defined crimes against them result in defined punishments.

We could just as easily change the requirements and level of evidence necessary to charge someone with a hate crime as we could undo the entire legal edifice.

Hate crime laws are very recent additions by and large. Dumping them is hardly undoing the entire legal edifice. No more so than repealing Campaign Finance Reform, the PATRIOT Act or changing a speed limit.

Lockheed CEV design has won preliminary approval as one of the contractors? HA!  :laugh:

There will be sufficient launches over the long term. The “pay as you go” approach favors launching what we can, when we can- not the “here is a billion dollars, launch the big bird”. Testing alone of spiral one (and then ISS taxi duty) will be several dozen launches by the end of the decade.

Roger Launius, former NASA Chief Historian and now with the National Air and Space Museum, described how Houbolt’s approach in 1961–1962 was the kind of thinking that is needed today: “In many ways, the lunar mode decision was an example of heterogeneous engineering, a process that recognizes that technological issues are also simultaneously organizational, economic, social, and political,” he wrote. “Various interests often clash in the decision-making process as difficult calculations have to be made and decisions taken.”

Since that is an accurate description of the current state of NASA efforts to plot its future paths through space, it is sobering to realize that many historians argue that without the Houbolt-led push for LOR almost half a century ago, the entire manned lunar landing program might never have succeeded. And without somebody taking on the Houboltian mantle today and bringing sanity to the current planning chaos, the prospects of a successful human breakout from near-Earth space remain dubious at best.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and NASA Administrator Mike Griffin are expected to meet toward the end of June and Washington sources say the agenda is devoted to that very issue.

In my opinion, the bigger developmental issue for such a vehicle would be the man rating for the second stage. It would be this stage that would be doing the bulk of the flying – likely burning for up to 8 or 10 minutes, depending on the launch profile.

Amen to that MGS... Thats why I am wary about the whole SDV concept, that NASA won't be able to resist stretching the limits of "retaining key, nessesarry personell..." And so the decision should be renderd moot by eliminating all of them unless Griffin can prove he can make it happen.

Who is Robert?

Any how, NASA astronaut Scott Horowitz claims to have run the performance numbers of the SRB on his computer and found that, in his words, it would be “a hell of a ride.” The SRBs burn out after just over two minutes, and although powerful, a single SRB doesn’t have enough performance alone to put a manned spacecraft into orbit. At burnout “you’re going about Mach 18 and pulling about TWENTY g’s,” he said. So much for man-rating the SRB's!

(I assume that a man-rating assumes that a man inside would actually survive the trip to LEO--but I could be mistaken about that little detail. Maybe someone could set me straight on that!)

In addition, turning the SRB into a launch vehicle requires an upper stage.

Despite the discussion within NASA and elsewhere about using the SRB to launch the CEV, it’s not clear whether there’s sufficient momentum behind the idea to at least allow further studies, let alone selection of the concept for development. ATK Thiokol is strongly behind the idea because it gives new life for the SRB—a significant portion of their business—once the shuttle is retired around the end of the decade(Thiokol is behind this absurd concept, Oh there's a surprise!).

There are other technical issues that a SRB-derived launch system would have to address, notably the development of a new upper stage. However, in the long run the bigger challenges that an SRB-based launcher might have to face are perceptions: that the SRB is an old technology, best left to the past; that solid-propellant motors like the SRB, which can’t be turned off once ignited, are unsuited for manned spaceflight applications. All of this equals more billions spent and more years of delay for a CEV. I guess I'm answering my own question!