My one concern is that when money gets tight, it's easy to cut R&D funding that isn't tied to a specific project - look at what's happened to NASA's aviation research. Henry Spencer aviationconcerncut Change image and share on social
Historically, the U.S.'s big launchers fly seldom enough that their costs are dominated by annual upkeep of facilities and staff, not by the actual cost of each launch. The expensive part is maintaining the launch capability, not actually conducting launches. Henry Spencer actualannualbig share on social
In a small spacecraft, it was hard for the other two guys to sleep when the on-duty man was talking to Mission Control regularly. Henry Spencer controldutyguy Change image and share on social
In the long run, it's impossible to make progress without sometimes having setbacks, although people who get lucky on their first attempt sometimes forget this. Henry Spencer attemptforgetimpossible Change image and share on social
NASA has never had a problem finding capable people to be astronauts. NASA's problem was, and still is, finding ways to cut the list of capable applicants down to a manageable length. Henry Spencer applicantastronautcapable Change image and share on social
Is manned space exploration important? Yes - not least because it simply works much better than sending robots. Henry Spencer explorationimportantman Change image and share on social
Past experience, on the shuttle and the Titan rockets, suggests that large multi-segment solid rockets have a probability of failure of 0.5 to 1 per cent. Henry Spencer centexperiencefailure Change image and share on social
The Apollo programme of the 1960s had some weight problems, too; in particular, the lunar lander needed some fairly drastic weight-reduction work. Henry Spencer 1960sapollodrastic Change image and share on social
On the technical side, Apollo 8 was mainly a test flight for the Saturn V and the Apollo spacecraft. The main spacecraft system that needed testing on a real lunar flight was the onboard navigation system. Henry Spencer apolloflightlunar share on social
Large solid rockets have never been a very good way to build launchers that might have crews on top, especially because of the problems in getting the crew away from a failing launcher. Henry Spencer buildcrewcrow Change image and share on social
