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comment by ButterflyEffect
ButterflyEffect  ·  1957 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Space and Space Launch Updates

Are there other agencies capable of doing what NASA does? Moving a project schedule up four years is incredible to me.



user-inactivated  ·  1957 days ago  ·  link  ·  
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OftenBen  ·  1956 days ago  ·  link  ·  

If you combined the lifting capacity of all of these different organizations and gave them a unified goal how much could they put in orbit?

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user-inactivated  ·  1956 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  
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kleinbl00  ·  1955 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Frontline quoted a 70s-era Senator Al Gore about the time the Columbia broke up as saying "If we could launch the Shuttle with a bay full of feathers and have it return with a bay full of gold, we'd only lose $200m per flight."

At modern prices, 50 tons of gold at today's price is $850m. The average shuttle mission cost was $450m.

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user-inactivated  ·  1954 days ago  ·  link  ·  
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am_Unition  ·  1954 days ago  ·  link  ·  

When I was about 10, my dad woke me up around 2 or 3 AM, with a twinkle in his eye. He told me to put on my coat and come downstairs and meet him on the front porch. I asked why, but he said it was a surprise. He told me to look up into the sky, near the northwestern horizon. Out from behind a tree emerged this bright, moving light, shimmering, and leaving a trail of smoke behind it. At first, I thought it was fuckin' aliens. I remember my spine tingling like it never had before. He explained that we were watching the space shuttle re-entering the atmosphere, and I just stood there, jaw on the front lawn, until it vanished to the east.

Yeah, my dad is the shit.

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kleinbl00  ·  1954 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I was so mad at the shuttle I refused to see it hauled through the streets of Compton. I mean, I coulda walked.

The shuttle was a dare the NRO made to NASA and NASA called their bluff.

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OftenBen  ·  1956 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You are a kickass person. I have so much reading to do! I've never heard of the Sea Dragon before!

I've never been a happier badger.

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