Dan Schultz

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• Commented on ESA Contact With Phobos-Grunt - Off and On and Off

  Insurance only applies to private sector launches. Government sponsored launches are "self insured", i.e. the taxpayers take the hit when it fails. A repair or rescue mission would be more costly and difficult than simply launching a replacement spacecraft. Sorry...

• Commented on ESA Contact With Phobos-Grunt - Off and On and Off

  The problem is not with the spacecraft but with the upper stage of the launch vehicle. If it failed to fire the Earth departure burn, there is probably nothing that can be done from the ground to command it to...

• Commented on ESA Contact With Phobos-Grunt - Off and On and Off

  The problem is not with the spacecraft but with the upper stage of the launch vehicle. If it failed to fire the Earth departure burn, there is probably nothing that can be done from the ground to command it to...

• Commented on NASA's New Strategy: Close Its Reference Libraries

  There is no way that Goddard's collection of books can be replaced by online resources. The bound journals, sure, getting a PDF file is way better than standing in line at the photocopy machine. But many of the books are...

• Commented on NASA Spinoffs You Never Heard Of

  Why is the smoke detector never mentioned in any list of NASA spinoffs? Wasn't it invented to detect smoldering fires on Skylab, due to NASA's extreme fear of fire following the Apollo 1 tragedy?...

• Commented on NASA Exploration Ideas - With Added China Bashing (Update)

  What shipped to China was generally low-end manufacturing. So what is manufactured in the U.S. today tends to be complex, high-value products. That's called moving up the value chain. How many chip foundries are still in the US? Designers of...

• Commented on First Family at STS-134

  When Bill and Hillary were there I believe they watched it from the VAB roof, thus not disturbing any of the lesser VIPs at the Banana Creek site. Ever since Nixon attended the launch of Apollo 12, which really should...