Comments (13)

• Mark Brabson

  I live about 10 miles from Shuttle launch pad A. And have worked in a support position for a NASA contractor for a decade. In this decade I have watched a typical government bureacracy at it's worst.

  I think the utter lowpoint of stupidity was not the loss of the Shuttle Columbia, but rather the loss of a Mars orbital mission because of the fact that the contractor was using english units and the government was using metrics. Yes the failure was the directly the contractor's fault, but NASA's stupidity in allowing contractors to use english units was the indirect causal factor.

  I can pretty much verify that NASA has produced NOTHING of value for years. They have spent countless billions on a Space Station that has produced NO useful science at all. The only useful science has been produced on unmanned missions and that could be done with privately owned launch companies.

  Oh yeah, they are about to spend trillions on a stupid, moronic quest for Mars.

  Published: September 11, 2006 1:43 PM

• Brent

  Good link.

  The title should read Myths of NASA, however (without the apostrophe).

  Published: September 11, 2006 2:21 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  A great, though probably apocryphal story - NASA spent millions on the development of a pen that could write in zero-g.

  The Russians used pencils instead.

  Don't forget that most of the major government contractors to the space program are largely creatures of government contracting, and cannot rely on the market to steer them to cheap, reliable products.

  They instead innovate, to the feeble degree that they do, by dint of the lucky accident of; 1) a talented engineer getting assigned to; 2) a key program; 3) in his area of competence; 4) with a competent manager; 5)at the same time the program gets funded adequately.

  The rest of the time a program gets what it is after by sheer brute force, political pressure, and tons of taxpayer cash.
  

  Published: September 11, 2006 3:32 PM

• Peter

  NASA delenda est

  Published: September 11, 2006 6:07 PM

• Sooper Dave

  I thought the NASA space pen was a myth?

  Published: September 11, 2006 7:12 PM

• lcslcs

  I guess Government bashers never sleep.

  Published: September 11, 2006 7:33 PM

• Mark Brabson

  The Space Pen was developed at the REQUEST of NASA, but not BY NASA. NASA did not want to use pencils because they thought the debris from pencil shavings would be hazardous.

  However, NASA didn't seem to think that pumping the Apollo 1 spacecraft full of pure oxygen and putting three men inside would be hazardous. Typical government stupidity and three men burned to death. But they got their nice fancy space pens.

  Published: September 11, 2006 7:54 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  Mark, I stayed far away from that one, as it was negligence bordering on criminal indifference to put humans and flammables in a pressurized oxygen environment with massive amounts of unproven electrical equipment. Any Chem 1 student could have pinted that out - NASA needed three dead pilots and an inquiry.

  Published: September 12, 2006 3:18 PM

• Curt Howland

  I, too, worked at NASA for a while.
  

  The ablative heat shield is another massive expenditure to create something unique to fill a specific role.
  

  The Russians used oak. Burn-through time longer than re-entry, just like the ablative heat shield. Cost measured in tens instead of millions.
  

  If they were worried about pencil shavings, there is always wax pencils. Silly NASA.

  Published: September 12, 2006 8:35 PM

• D Nutz

  Studies have shown that a person with higher intelligence can appreciate the space program; apparently there are alot of backwoods retards making comments

  Published: August 28, 2009 10:33 PM

• newson

  studies have shown that many backwoods retards make one-liners without substantiation. it's the space between the ear-lobes that counts.

  Published: August 28, 2009 11:10 PM

• mpolzkill

  newsome,

  Without substantiation? "D Nutz" didn't even make sense. Weak. Even weaker than "lcslcs".

  Published: August 28, 2009 11:48 PM

• Gil

  Actually NASA were worried about graphite chips screwing up the electronic equipment.

  Published: August 29, 2009 12:09 AM