[Coco] Re: off-topic, space program

[jimcox at miba51.com]

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 17:30:50 -0600
  Roger Taylor <rtaylor at bayou.com> wrote:
>At 04:59 PM 1/14/2004 -0600, you wrote:
>Mars has been a source of fascination for me since I saw 
>the first Viking lander images. I completely agree with 
>your sentiments.  Thirty years is a long time to wait. 
>Twenty years to return man to the moon seems a little 
>ridiculous considering we accomplished that feat once 
>before in a much shorter time period with more primitive 
>technology.
>
>>$87 billion could have easily put us on Mars in a decade 
>>but that's another story for another off-topic thread.
>>Brad
>
>Yep, it's rather upsetting.  I just wanted to know if 
>anybody else shared anywhere close to my opinion.  :)
>

The fact that they are talking about an Apollo like 
vehicle is pretty much a sign that the shuttle will be 
phased out and not replaced by another winged craft.  A 
lot of people say that the weight added wings for a 
controlled reentry adds to the cost of fuel, but what is 
the cost of a small fleet of ships to recover the return 
capsule?  That will be that way that the next generation 
of vehicles will return.

I'd rather see us focus on a new space plane, an Apollo 
like vehicle for trans-lunar missions, and a manned 
station on the moon by 2015.  While it would nice to go to 
Mars, I'd like to see us get back to the Moon and do some 
near Earth missions like to that one asteriod that is 
temporarily in an eliptical orbit around Earth (sort of a 
second moon, but not officially consdered one) If there 
were an trans-lunar vehicle based on Apollo, you could 
have it equipted for emergency reentry, but I would still 
like to see something like what Rutan is developing come 
on line.

Jim