Spacecraft Forum - Where have you been?

[GrandpaDave]

Hello.

Since the Space Shuttles have retired and the ISS is not in the news too much what's happening out there in Spacecraft-land.
I assume there are Space-X types of activities and other military and commercial spacecraft launches?
It's just strange to see this forum very quiet.

I came out of retirement in 2007 to work on Ares I, and then Obama shuts down the program in 2010.
Then it was RIF-time for all the contractors so the government could keep the civil servant employed
but who knows what they were doing other than marching in step waiting for some direction.
IMHO, they are still trying to figure out what they are doing for the future.

Grandpa Dave,
Just curious and retired in Florida

 

[mfgenggear]

Dave

lack of post is a sign of very little work or maybe busy people.
I would have like to finished up on the Atlas & Atlas Centaur. as a career finisher.



Mfgenggear
if it can be built it can be calculated.
if it can be calculated it can be built.

 

[btrueblood]

Welcome to the post-perestroika world. NASA has lost prestige, as much because the evil Russians have gone away leaving no threat, as to their repeated failures to get traction on a consistent long term plan. I got out of the rocket engine biz some 20 years ago; at the time, there were still 5 large manufacturers of booster-type rocket engines, and a few small ones building spacecraft thrusters. As foreign boosters and thrusters became more available, there was inevitable contraction in the amount of work coming to domestic companies. Now there are two large engine manufacturers left (with the sale of former Rocketdyne to GenCorp), and most of what they build in the way of liquid propellant engines is more and more liscense-built copies of Russian engines. Tough place to work, especially given the financial troubles they have been having.

It is good to see the Richard Bransons and other private industry efforts to develop launch vehicles to try and tap the billionaire-tourist market; one could hope some real space industry (besides just comsats) develops as a result...but it seems like a long shot from here.

 

[GrandpaDave]

" ...evil Russians have gone away leaving no threat... " I'm assuming you are saying this in jest?
But of course Assumption is the "Mother-of-all-Screw-ups". Just because the CCCP no longer exist does not mean
the Russians are good guys now. IMHO they are more evil now than before. Look who’s running Russia now. They are waiting
for President Obama's more flexibility... Whatever he meant by that. But of course the USA will fall from within as my
HS civics teacher told me back in the 1950s and we are rapidly heading there.

 

[mfgenggear]

Back when the fall of the Berlin wall, end of the CCCP was when my career took a steep dive.
thousands of USA workers based on Military Contract where now expendable.
Now it appears to me the USA has gotten lax. The perceived threat is gone.
I hope to make it to retirement. which is 5 - 7 years.
I maybe wrong but Japan & Germany also believed the USA would fall easily.
but it was a very bad under estimate.

I look forward to Cabin in the woods.

Mfgenggear
if it can be built it can be calculated.
if it can be calculated it can be built.

 

[IRstuff]

I don't think it was in jest, nor do I think it was inaccurate. Yes, Russia is run by a large gang of thugs, but they are nowhere near the aerospace power they were prior to 1980.

The big threats are clearly China and North Korea, particularly China, given their aspirations as both a space and naval power.

TTFN
faq731-376

 

[DHambley]

I've had two contracting jobs in the last several years developing electronics for satellites. There's activity there but I don't see government activity on new large thrusters and engines. Private firms like SpaceX yes but, not from NASA.