Comments on: Atlantis Takes First Steps To Hubble

By: erik

erik — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:28:35 +0000

she's a tough looking old bird

By: kcuhC

kcuhC — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:25:59 +0000

It's all global warming's fault.

By: njacres

njacres — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:02:05 +0000

Great post Maxwell! Now about my terrible tomato crop this year……must be the Iraq war……sigh

By: marcellus

marcellus — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 08:05:36 +0000

Amen, Maxwell! Testify!

By: Maxwell

Maxwell — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:42:08 +0000

Money not spent on the war does not automatically go to space programs, or education, or fixing roads, or any of that without first going through those 600 and some politicians on the hill.

Much as it sounds good to say the war is hampering space, thats simply not how our budget works.
Its politicians that are hampering space. They are the ones tasked with finding the money and making sure it gets to Nasa's coffers. They are also on the front lines of being sure this money is tagged in such a way that it goes to the intended programs.

Here, they are failing. The last proposal to pass through their hands was one to extend shuttle fights with spacecraft twice as old as most cars.

They need to fund constellation, they need to fund the upgrade of Canaveral, and they need to fund outside research programs like the X-37, cots, development of aerospike engunes, etc, etc…

Because the US is a democracy the fault also lies in part with us. Until we make space a priority, our representatives wont see any urgency to respond or so much as educate themselves on the subject.

By: alandee

alandee — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 22:46:54 +0000

I love the old look, it shows a well worn magnificence, and a tried and true reliability.
It's not all clean and gleaming and shiny like those other troublesome pointy things they are playing with now, this is like a well loved, well worn, reliable pair of hiking shoes.

All the best Atlantis, here's to another successful ' notch in your heat tiles'

By: David R.

David R. — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:44:00 +0000

I was ready to write something funny…but the sight of the shuttle crawling along, patched together, heading toward the patch-worked launch pad, trudging over a 40 year old crawlpad leaves me, well, utterly depressed. Sort of looks like taking a trip to the salvage yard and deciding whether there's enough left to get something running. But never fear, Ares is here, with Orion and "test technique failures" to boot.

By: alexandre

alexandre — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:14:45 +0000

c'est fantastique…et impresionant

By: Dave S

Dave S — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 17:07:04 +0000

If we could just save the money we are going to spend rebuilding New Orleans below sea level again.

By: NASA_thermal_guy

NASA_thermal_guy — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:43:13 +0000

The Iraq war mainly… we spend billions of dollars a week there. Doesn't leave much room for spending some extra cash in our nations space program that uses less than 1% of our nations budget.

By: LLDIAZ

LLDIAZ — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:05:42 +0000

Its sad to see our nations space ships in such a bad shape. Why dont we upgrade already.
What's holding NASA back from new spaceships?

By: Dave S

Dave S — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:29:54 +0000

This once great machine is beginning to look more and more like my old 72 Dodge Dart. I think they call it hanger rash. I suppose Bondo and some Krylon are out of the question.