Re: Re: RE: starship-design: Depressing news

[Kelly St <KellySt@aol.com>]

In a message dated 1/28/98 1:18:17 AM, lindberg@olywa.net wrote:

>>>Uh-oh, that probably includes most of JPL's work on advanced engine
designs.
>>>Well, we'll just have to wait and see how much noise is made by the various
>>>people/organizations who just lost their funding.
>>>
>>>I still think we can do this without NASA.
>>>
>>>Lee Parker
>>
>>Easier to do without them, then with them.
>>
>>Kelly
>sender new on list (name: nels lindberg)
>i saw the news too.  in a sad, bitter way, it's probably a good thing,
>since it will focus nasa (which, as a slave to congress must operate in the
>short term) to focus on the things which they can do in the short term,
>such as the ISS etc.  since there is no need to demonstrate the effiaccy of
>our rockets (read:ICBM's) we are unlikely to see a US-only return to the
>moon, let alone a martian landing.  internat'l groups are likely to do so,
>but the space station is the baby step which will (hopefully) lead to
>private enterprise on the moon and international starships etc...
>
>Nels Lindberg

Ah, I hate top burst your buble, but one thing space station has conclusivly
shown is the impracticality of inmternational projects.  NASA estimates were
that if it had to do the whole spacestation itself.  It would cost NASA about
10% less then its current cost for its part of the current station program.
International programs bring multinational overhead and contradictory
political goals.  This slows things down a lot, and raises costs.

For example the US skylab station (in many ways larger and more capable then
the current design) took us 18 months to plan, design, build, and launch.
Regan started this station project in '84.

Kelly