Re: [sarex] ASTRONAUT FRANK CULBERTSON DEPARTS NASA

["A10382" <a10382@xxxxxxxx>]

Space flight is one of the most weight and size conscious endeavors we
engage in.  It does take something like 10,000 (?) pounds of fuel to move 1
pound of payload into orbit.

The technological evolution to satisfy NASA's weight & size restrictions has
probably had more effect on the miniaturization of electronic devices than
anything other market in the past 40 years.

A number of new materials owe their accelerated development to NASA.  A lot
of automotive and more mundane flight safety devices, procedures, and
protocols were also made possible by NASA grants.

The next step may very well include human implantable micro-miniature robots
to do inner brain/cortex and in-organ surgery - something even today's
micro-surgeons cannot yet do effectively.

I'm pretty sure other list members could add significantly to this list.

I'll bet somewhere in NASA's on-line materials is a list(s) of the research
and products produced by 'the space age'.  NASA has had to continually
justify their existence to a congress that is anxious to spend the money on
things that get them re-elected (read: 'pork' ).  I really hope that our
space programs are not being equated with 'pork'..

73
Frank

 ._._.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Oler" <cvn65vf94@msn.com>
To: <N2QBR@compuserve.com>
Cc: <103321.3401@compuserve.com>; <sarex@AMSAT.Org>; <azrowe@juno.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2002 2:57 PM
Subject: Re: [sarex] ASTRONAUT FRANK CULBERTSON DEPARTS NASA


> Hello Bill.
>
> NASA as an organization for human spaceflight consumes about 6.1 billion
or
> so dollars A YEAR all in an effort to maintain three people in LEO with a
> declining number of shuttle flights (Probablydown to three soon) doing
> practically nothing of value to the United States as a whole.  If we didnt
> have a space station what product would we not have, what science would we
> not have invented or what engineering process would we lack that is in use
> in the United States?
>
> It has become an organization where the process to build the station is
such
> that they spent 250,000 dollars to paint the word UNITY on the side of one
> of the modules.  Right now not a single person at NASA can tell the
> leadership ofthe country what the space station has cost or will cost to
> complete to some level.  A level which is far less then what the thing was
> originally sold as doing almost 20 years ago.  The cost management there
is
> so bad not a single person can tell you what a single shuttle flight cost
or
> what they will cost in the future.
>
> Frank was a part of that process and someone who fought valiantly to make
> sure it continues almost unabated.
>
> Reading Dragonfly its pretty clear that the Phase 1 Mir flights were
almost
> valuless in terms of getting anything significant accomplished.  He was in
> charge of those.
>
> If all the nation wants is to spend money on human spaceflight and get
> results which decline in substance every year then NASA's on the right
> track.  I think that there should be more.
>
> Robert WB5MZO
>
>
>
>
> >From: W L Reyna Jr <N2QBR@compuserve.com>
> >To: "Robert Oler" <cvn65vf94@msn.com>
> >CC: W L Reyna Jr <103321.3401@compuserve.com>, sarex@AMSAT.Org,
> >azrowe@juno.com
> >Subject: Re: [sarex] ASTRONAUT FRANK CULBERTSON DEPARTS NASA
> >Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2002 08:14:18 -0400
> >
> >Ok,
> >         I'll bite.
> >         What qualifies him as "dead wood" ?
> >
> >                         Bill Reyna / N2QBR / Pilot / Wayne, NJ
>
>
>
>
> Robert Oler WB5MZO Houston TX
>
>
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