Robert Landers: My brother’s long career started at Aerojet, then Rocketdyne, then North American, TRW, and finally Martin Marietta before the fusion with Lockheed. It was interesting how many projects he switched from company to company, often on changing phases of the same project, like the lunar ascent engine.
A most interesting thing was when at TRW, the Air Force got a mandate to contract, so TRW “fired” everyone on one evening and they all came back the next morning as “contractors”, at twice the salaries/benefits, plus TRW got a bonus, believe it was around $10 K for EVERY engineer they found to “contract”.
LIquid fuel rockets are extremely complex, and finally “tuned” and machined instruments, with many parts moving very fast in pumps etc, and many things can go wrong, very quickly. The Challenger disaster was 100% a political decision by an idiot appointee to override ALL the engineers at NASA and Hercules etc, ALL of them that said hold the launch because the temperature is too cold for the solid booster seals. The political hack wanted to get Reagan’s school teacher into space on time for the press release, so they launched, and got her in the news. Thanks to my brother’s work on the project and our discussions, I spotted the failure in the very first time they showed the launch, and failure of the seal. The government, read administration, held off on an official cause statement to the public, precisely because they knew full well this was another case of politics overriding science and engineering expertise.
That is exactly where the follow-up pols of today are getting us into real trouble by saying "ignore the scientific fact, tell ’em what we expect them to buy that will benefit our benefactors, in contracting and extractive industries blessed with taxpayer largesse.
BTW: Musk seems to be genuinely concerned with service and progress to his adopted country, with reasonable profits of course, but he’s more science and idealist with dreams of better futures for us all than just his own bottom line. Yes, he obviously likes his money, but he pours much more back into his projects, and dreams, than most. A truly interesting character, actually.
@ Other posters It is becoming clearer that ConserveGov is simply trolling and that its persona is becoming ever more similar to one we’ve had on here before (i.e. its mask is slipping).
And what do we do with trolls? We do not feed them.Thanks.
Dtroutma over 9 years ago
Musk has the better program, and ideas.
ConserveGov over 9 years ago
Yep the Socialists still think Russia is Utopia.
Donaldo Premium Member over 9 years ago
They should have called Elon Musk first
William Bednar Premium Member over 9 years ago
Maybe the scientists should have stuck two WWII V2 rockets to each side of the main rocket. Then, light the fuses and RUN…..!
Dtroutma over 9 years ago
Robert Landers: My brother’s long career started at Aerojet, then Rocketdyne, then North American, TRW, and finally Martin Marietta before the fusion with Lockheed. It was interesting how many projects he switched from company to company, often on changing phases of the same project, like the lunar ascent engine.
A most interesting thing was when at TRW, the Air Force got a mandate to contract, so TRW “fired” everyone on one evening and they all came back the next morning as “contractors”, at twice the salaries/benefits, plus TRW got a bonus, believe it was around $10 K for EVERY engineer they found to “contract”.
LIquid fuel rockets are extremely complex, and finally “tuned” and machined instruments, with many parts moving very fast in pumps etc, and many things can go wrong, very quickly. The Challenger disaster was 100% a political decision by an idiot appointee to override ALL the engineers at NASA and Hercules etc, ALL of them that said hold the launch because the temperature is too cold for the solid booster seals. The political hack wanted to get Reagan’s school teacher into space on time for the press release, so they launched, and got her in the news. Thanks to my brother’s work on the project and our discussions, I spotted the failure in the very first time they showed the launch, and failure of the seal. The government, read administration, held off on an official cause statement to the public, precisely because they knew full well this was another case of politics overriding science and engineering expertise.
That is exactly where the follow-up pols of today are getting us into real trouble by saying "ignore the scientific fact, tell ’em what we expect them to buy that will benefit our benefactors, in contracting and extractive industries blessed with taxpayer largesse.
BTW: Musk seems to be genuinely concerned with service and progress to his adopted country, with reasonable profits of course, but he’s more science and idealist with dreams of better futures for us all than just his own bottom line. Yes, he obviously likes his money, but he pours much more back into his projects, and dreams, than most. A truly interesting character, actually.
OmqR-IV.0 over 9 years ago
@ Other posters It is becoming clearer that ConserveGov is simply trolling and that its persona is becoming ever more similar to one we’ve had on here before (i.e. its mask is slipping).
And what do we do with trolls? We do not feed them.Thanks.