Lockheed Martin wins NASA contract to build moon spaceship

[waste gate]

http://9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=662101db-0abe-421a-00a7-7948883b4461&TEMPLATEID=0c76dce6-ac1f-02d8-0047-c589c01ca7bf

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/01/business/01nasa.html?ex=1157688000&en=511beb99946bf34a&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVERNEWS

[Yahoshua]

I wonder how fast that contract will be pulled when all the crap flying into the fan gets the Gov. attention.

(I'm referring to the Whistleblower on Youtube).

[TteFAboB]

Lots of jibber-jabber, not a single picture.:shifty:

You suck, give me pictures! :down:

:cool:

[Yahoshua]

Miss your sugar rush for the day or something?

[The Avon Lady]

Miss your sugar rush for the day or something?
Either that.............

.............. or too much popcorn. :smug:

[P_Funk]

This is great news! Another direct slush fund of taxpayer's dollars directly into the hands of the military industrial complex. Eisenhower was a bright chap.

NASA decided to do something different and go with a company that has not been in manned space before, sort of spreading the wealth....

Genius. Multibillion dollars they say. Wheres the free market when you need it? I wonder how you justify that expense with a deficit that's making the counter obsolte?

[Takeda Shingen]

That giant sucking sound that you just heard was the rush of billions of taxpayer dollars flying at incalculable speed into the fiscal black hole that is NASA.

ET phone the Pentagon. Maybe we could just send all of NASA to Mars, rather than just one probe. It may be cheaper in the long run.

[Onkel Neal]

I support this 100%. Game on, NASA!:up:

OT: I wish taxpayers could designate where they want their tax dollars spent, like we used to do with the United Way. I would split my tax payment 25/75 between NASA and the military.

[Onkel Neal]

Lots of jibber-jabber, not a single picture.:shifty:

You suck, give me pictures! :down:

:cool:

Here you go:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14594789/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14594789/)

and concept video
http://www.space.com/php/popup/mediaplayer/noad_frameset.php?id=b050919_cvedit&mode=play (http://www.space.com/php/popup/mediaplayer/noad_frameset.php?id=b050919_cvedit&mode=play)

[bradclark1]

The Russians have been useing a design like this for a while haven't they? :)

[TteFAboB]

Lots of jibber-jabber, not a single picture.:shifty:

You suck, give me pictures! :down:

:cool:

Here you go:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14594789/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14594789/)

and concept video
http://www.space.com/php/popup/mediaplayer/noad_frameset.php?id=b050919_cvedit&mode=play (http://www.space.com/php/popup/mediaplayer/noad_frameset.php?id=b050919_cvedit&mode=play)

Thanks Neal. :D :up:

[STEED]

Stuff the Moon, we have been there, seen it, done it, who cares. NASA get your arse to Mars. Get man on Mars and stop all this Moon rubbish. :p ;) :smug:

[Linton]

I just hope that it is a different project team at Lockheed than the one doing coast guard boats-otherwise it will never get airborne!

[bradclark1]

Maybe Lockheed made a series of large campaign contributions.

[waste gate]

Such cynicism I haven't seen since the Clinton administration. I understand the negative comments from our Canadian contingent, it's why their nation will always be second class and under the shadow of the United States, and I know how much pain it causes those folks.

I don't understand the lack of imagination and sense of exploration that the rest of you are exhibitng. Great nations and great people have always endevoured to stretch their horizons in the face of adversity. The long term benefits for the whole world far out weigh the short term cost and risk. If you cannot see it then I suspect you work for someone else, because this is the marco-euntreprenurial spirit which has and always will make the United States a great nation regardless of what is expediant today.

[PeriscopeDepth]

Gee, hopefully for the money being spent we get more than a model this time around.

PD

[Onkel Neal]

Such cynicism I haven't seen since the Clinton administration. I understand the negative comments from our Canadian contingent, it's why their nation will always be second class and under the shadow of the United States, and I know how much pain it causes those folks.


Come on, man, that's not very nice :-? Ease off Canada, they've never been anything but a good friend to the US.

[Takeda Shingen]

Canada has a universal health care system and has managed their prescription drug costs to the point that American senior citizens cross the border to illegally smuggle medication back to their own country. We [United States] on the other hand, spend trillions of dollars on 'imagination and the sense of exploration', while the poor and elderly go without critical prescriptions and health care in a system run amok.

Tell me who has their priorities backwards?

[stabiz]

Such cynicism I haven't seen since the Clinton administration. I understand the negative comments from our Canadian contingent, it's why their nation will always be second class and under the shadow of the United States, and I know how much pain it causes those folks.

I don't understand the lack of imagination and sense of exploration that the rest of you are exhibitng. Great nations and great people have always endevoured to stretch their horizons in the face of adversity. The long term benefits for the whole world far out weigh the short term cost and risk. If you cannot see it then I suspect you work for someone else, because this is the marco-euntreprenurial spirit which has and always will make the United States a great nation regardless of what is expediant today.

:rotfl:You need to get laid.

[Onkel Neal]

Canada has a universal health care system and has managed their prescription drug costs to the point that American senior citizens cross the border to illegally smuggle medication back to their own country. We [United States] on the other hand, spend trillions of dollars on 'imagination and the sense of exploration', while the poor and elderly go without critical prescriptions and health care in a system run amok.

Tell me who has their priorities backwards?

If the US would only dispense health care vouchers as winnings at casinos, we could get help for those poor senior citizens!;)

[Takeda Shingen]

If the US would only dispense health care vouchers as winnings at casinos, we could get help for those poor senior citizens!;)

What's next, Geritol jokes? This is a gross misrepresentation of senior citizen life, and you know it. Of course, if you would like to discuss the nature of corporate vice and it's near-predatory focus on the most vunerable and downtroden members of our society, I will oblige you. However, this is probably not what you meant.

I may have been insensitive in my critique of NASA. I sometimes become absent from the fact that the administration is a large part of the greater Houston area, and most likely employs a lot of people that you know. I do not wish them financial harm, for having grown up in southeastern Pennsylvania, I have seen how the closing of Bethlehem Steel affected people that I know, and it was not nice to see. However, I have a hard time justifying a program to send people to the Moon or Mars just for the sake of sending people to the Moon or Mars. Unlike Bethlehem Steel, NASA is pork, plain and simple.

[Marriott]

I don't think they should spend 20 billion dollars going BACK to the moon. They need to get on over to Mars and bring back some martians.

[fredbass]

There have been a number of things that this world has advanced upon by our space exploration. One of great importance is a nations defense. All the benefits of various satelites in space are easily taken for granted.

I'm sure we all can have issues concerning certain portions of our governments budget including some of what they spend with Nasa, but I think it would be quite unfair to make a blanket statement that Nasa is a complete waste.

[waste gate]

As a percentage of GPD social sevices use up approx 42%, while NASA uses less than 1%. Also conservative estimates, attribute $7.00 added to the economy for every $1.00 spent on manned space flight. I looked for similar estimates regarding social services, but to no avail (if someone can find something please post it). The lack of info, I suspect, is due to the drain on the economy social services has become.

[Torplexed]

Everbody thinks that returning to the moon is a waste of time and money. Until one day when China or some other future rival power lands there and starts setting up permanent installations. Then the complaint willl become: How did we let them get ahead of us?" ;)

[Subnuts]

Has anyone ever read Robert Zubrin's The Case For Mars? The author is an aerospace enginner and he discovered a way to put humans on Mars, and have them do real science over a 400-mile radius, within the next 10 years for less than $50 billion. It's sorta preachy in places but it makes you think about our options for an affordable space program.

[Takeda Shingen]

Everbody thinks that returning to the moon is a waste of time and money. Until one day when China or some other future rival power lands there and starts setting up permanent installations. Then the complaint willl become: How did we let them get ahead of us?" ;)

Let China go to the moon. If they'd take Iran with them, I think we should consider covering some of the cost.

[Takeda Shingen]

As a percentage of GPD social sevices use up approx 42%, while NASA uses less than 1%. Also conservative estimates, attribute $7.00 added to the economy for every $1.00 spent on manned space flight. I looked for similar estimates regarding social services, but to no avail (if someone can find something please post it). The lack of info, I suspect, is due to the drain on the economy social services has become.

NASA generates a return of seven times that of the initial investment? I would like to see those statistics.

A nation should be spending 40% of it's GDP on social services. The problem is that special interest has hindered both the govnerment and private sector to the point of stagnation.

[waste gate]

Here ya go.


II. NASA's Influence on the U.S. Economy Analyses of the macroeconomic effects of the U.S. space program attempt to identify and measure that portion of economic growth attributable to technological progress. A Midwest Research Institute (MRI) study of the relationship between R&D expenditures and technology-induced increases in GNP indicated that each dollar spent on R&D returns an average of slightly over seven dollars in GNP over an eighteen-year period following the expenditure (3). Assuming that NASA's R&D expenditures produce the same economic payoff as the average R&D expenditure, MRI concluded that the $25 billion (1958) spent on civilian space R&D during the 1959-69 period returned $52 billion through 1970 and will continue to stimulate benefits through 1987, for a total gain of $181 billion.

[Takeda Shingen]

A nameless source from before 1987. That's what I thought.

Anyway, I did a little research on my own. NASA's 2007 budget is allotted at $16.8 billion. (http://www.nasa.gov/about/budget/index.html) For the afforementioned statistic to hold true we should expect a return of $117.6 billion. Everyone get your wallets ready.

Of course, if this is true, then why are we still depending on taxes fund NASA. A 700% return in unheard of in the business world.

And that's mate. Enjoy your day.

EDIT: Hold the phone, I didn't read carefully enough. $25 billion was spend on research and development. There are no operational or administrative costs factored in here. If you ommit convieniently, you can get statistics to say anything

[waste gate]

I'm sure you realize that investment means long term. The return doesn't show up immediately. The study was conducted when we were still vested in the manned moon programs which puts it on point for the discussion of the Orion project.

Here is the acticle in its entirety: http://vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/economics.html

As an after thought the new computer of yours wouldn't have been possible without much of the R&D conducted during the Apollo program. Technology doesn't materialize out of social services.

[Takeda Shingen]

I'm sure you realize that investment means long term. The return doesn't show up immediately. The study was conducted when we were still vested in the manned moon programs which puts it on point for the discussion of the Orion project.

Here is the acticle in its entirety: http://vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/economics.html

As an after thought the new computer of yours wouldn't have been possible without much of the R&D conducted during the Apollo program. Technology doesn't materialize out of social services.

I am violating a rule of mine by replying after I said that I was finished, but I will give one more response and then let you have your last word.

1. This paper is clearly from the early 1980's. The last Apollo mission ended in December of 1972. There is nearly a decade in difference.
2. The returns on funding that are alluded to are scholarship, educational and community programs that are run by NASA. The funding is derrived from seperate tax sources. As such, NASA does not generate financial returns.
3. Medicine always trumps computers. You must have social services. Otherwise, you are left with social Darwinism and a return to the social and economic conditions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries; a simple and indisputable fact.

EDIT: One more thing: This is not a study. This is clearly a research paper from a faculty member at Rugers University, and a very old one at that. There is a big difference in credibility.

[waste gate]

I'm sure you realize that investment means long term. The return doesn't show up immediately. The study was conducted when we were still vested in the manned moon programs which puts it on point for the discussion of the Orion project.

Here is the acticle in its entirety: http://vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/economics.html

As an after thought the new computer of yours wouldn't have been possible without much of the R&D conducted during the Apollo program. Technology doesn't materialize out of social services.

I am violating a rule of mine by replying after I said that I was finished, but I will give one more response and then let you have your last word.

1. This paper is clearly from the early 1980's. The last Apollo mission ended in December of 1972. There is nearly a decade in difference.
2. The returns on funding that are alluded to are scholarship, educational and community programs that are run by NASA. The funding is derrived from seperate tax sources. As such, NASA does not generate financial returns.
3. Medicine always trumps computers. You must have social services. Otherwise, you are left with social Darwinism and a return to the social and economic conditions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries; a simple and indisputable fact.

EDIT: One more thing: This is not a study. This is clearly a research paper from a faculty member at Rugers University, and a very old one at that. There is a big difference in credibility.


1. Since when do meaningfull studies/research papers occur during or immediately after a program?

2. ROI for a federal administration is recouped by the entire nation both economically and technologically.

3. This argument concerning social Darwinism always makes me laugh. I't is almost universally espoused by folks who believe in the evolution of species. Yet cannot be applied to Human Beings just because it is modified by the word 'social'?

[JSLTIGER]

Much of the technology invented within the last fifty years has come from NASA and the requirements of life in space. The microwave sitting in your kitchen? Invented for the purpose of heating up food in a 100% oxygen environment, where flame = death. Your computer/calculators? Solid state modern electronic computers began with the Gemini program and the Apollo DSKY. Other NASA tech includes: Battery powered drills, shrub trimmers, Dustbusters, Smoke detectors, Ionization filters, home insulation, LEDs, IR thermometers, Body imaging systems, football helmet padding, the "Jaws of Life," firefighter breathing systems, and lasers. Most of these things have probably had some kind of an impact at one point or another on your life. I wouldn't be so quick to bash NASA. :up:

[Onkel Neal]

Iranian-American space tourist
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/09/22/space.tourist.reut/index.html (http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/09/22/space.tourist.reut/index.html)

She's very inspiring but I understand there are some business problems surrounding her.

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/TECH/space/09/22/space.tourist.reut/vert.ansari.space.jpg

[SkvyWvr]

Canada has a universal health care system and has managed their prescription drug costs to the point that American senior citizens cross the border to illegally smuggle medication back to their own country. We [United States] on the other hand, spend trillions of dollars on 'imagination and the sense of exploration', while the poor and elderly go without critical prescriptions and health care in a system run amok.

Tell me who has their priorities backwards?

The Canadian perscription system is hands down better that ours, but according to my father-in-law, who has been living in Canada for over 20 years, the health care is lacking. He complains that it takes forever to get an appointment. He always comes across the border for health care in Maine.