tchad49

Recent Actions

• Commented on While We All Argue - Let's Not Lose Sight of The Ultimate Goal

  What is the "ultimate goal"? Whatever hardware you champion, whatever destination you think NASA should shoot for, I believe almost everyone interested in human spaceflight can agree on one ultimate goal -- and yet we never make it explicit. We...

• Commented on Is A Human Space Flight Compromise Emerging?

  One thing puzzles me about the side-mount shuttle-derived HLV concept. Why use shuttle main engines? They are highly complex and expensive because they are designed for reuse. Once the existing engines are used up, would it not be cheaper to...

• Commented on NASA and the future of space exploration: what do YOU think?

  As the Augustine Commission report says, "destinations should derive from goals." Not the other way around. The report also includes a rather audacious statement: "the ultimate goal of human exploration is to chart a path for human expansion into the...

• Commented on We Still Need To Go Back To The Moon

  We could go back to the Moon with NASA's usual command economy approach, but I think its better to go WHEREVER entrepreneurs take us in space. Ultimately, that's THE ONLY WAY to make "human expansion into the solar system" (the...

• Commented on We Still Need To Go Back To The Moon

  These are good reasons to go to Near Earth Objects, and to focus on space-based solar (not mentioned in the new NASA policy), but NOT specifically to go to the Moon. Why do we have this need to walk around...

• Commented on Bolden Meets With Obama

  The White House has made its decision. See this leak: http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/12/exclusiveobama.html#more December 17, 2009 Exclusive: Obama Backs New Launcher and Bigger NASA Budget...

• Commented on Human Missions to Asteroids

  Actually, I'm more agnostic about the Moon, but very antagonistic about all the Mars hype. If Mars is the goal, I'm actually afraid we WILL get there, just as we did with Apollo and the Moon. We'll walk around a...

• Commented on Human Missions to Asteroids

  The Augustine Committee set a bold and audacious goal for human exploration, "to chart a path for human expansion into the solar system." This will require two supporting objectives: (1) physical sustainability, and (2) economic sustainability. The first requires volatiles...

• Commented on Beyond Augustine

  Why? Where do we really want to go? Let's figure out these questions first. --tchad (similar name)...

• Commented on Beyond Augustine

  Many of you are too inside. You can't see the forest for the Ares. You want to debate the most appropriate technologies, but the question right now is politics, money, ultimate goals and objectives, and the destinations that derive from...

• Commented on Beyond Augustine

  Mars is not the right destination for "human expansion into the solar system" (the ultimate goal set by the Augustine Commission). This goal implies a need for physical and economic sustainability. I don't see how we can achieve either on...