Re:After a decade, NASA’s big rocket fails its first real test
by pfdietz on Sunday January 17, 2021 @07:58PM
(#25817021)
And had my father had two X chromosomes, he'd have been my mother. There has to be a reason to entertain contrafactuals; you can't just state them and assume that outcome would have been likely.
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Re:After a decade, NASA’s big rocket fails its first real test
by nickik on Monday January 18, 2021 @05:34AM
(#25820324)
The point here being that it was not bureaucracy or the government that trapped NASA in LEO. It was NASA own design process.
Blaming everything always on the congress/president is a way for NASA to never take responsibility. All the success gets credit to NASA but failure is always somebody wrong doing.
Re:After a decade, NASA’s big rocket fails its first real test
by pfdietz on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @06:33AM
(#25832415)
The point I was making was there was no plausible way the shuttle could have been designed so it would have been successful.
Re:After a decade, NASA’s big rocket fails its first real test
by nickik on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @10:29AM
(#25834344)
Totally disagree. With the same budget a much more successful vehicle could have been built.
Simple changes like not going for hydrogen, separating main engines from Shuttle itself, not using hydrogen on the first stage, vertically mounted shuttle and so on.
Re:After a decade, NASA’s big rocket fails its first real test
by pfdietz on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @06:32PM
(#25840444)
No, I don't think so. The underlying problem was the Shuttle was a One Big Bite attempt at developing a very complex technology. That doesn't work. Development of something like that has to be iterative. Shuffling the deck chairs with different propellants wouldn't have made any difference.