The dream is over for the Space Shuttle Atlantis... a white elephant with no ...
But the Alternate was, if we are brutally honest, a white elephant, a engine with no real mission and beset by wild exaggerations about its abilities and unqualifiedly unrealistic ambitions as to how it would make space base and attainable.
The Shuttle was born out of the ashes of Apollo which did everything it was putative to do (get a man to the Moon and back in one piece) and more. The problem NASA had, in 1969, was the ‘what now?’ event.
Even before Neil and Buzz made their Giant Leap for Mankind, the politicians and beancounters were circling NASA like a meet of vultures.
The last three Moon landings were quietly cancelled (even though the rockets had been built) and President Nixon authorised the edifice of the Shuttle partly as a stop-gap while America wondered whether it could yield to go on to Mars (it couldn’t), partly as a pork-barrel bring to bear (creating jobs in swing-vote states) and partly to placate the Seat Cadets, the monstrously powerful Astronaut Column in NASA who, despite dwindling public earnestness for space, still commanded significant public shore up as heroes.
When congress prices were so high and taking so much of the disposable income, this elementary part of home ownership may have taken a back seat. and more »
Thanksgiving carry gatherings & crowded travel could spread swine flu Is the eatables served on sanitary paper plates and disposable sham utensils? On top of that, who is sitting next to you on both sides and across the table and more »
Translation of Vladimir Putin's question and comeback sessionThis will explain the result: people's genuine disposable incomes have decreased by only 0.4%, which is almost nothing. This is a rough as a rule estimate, and more »