Nobody’s Perfect: Antares VS SpaceShip Two

 Nobody’s Perfect

Last week, America had not one, but TWO space crashes. Ever since Obama decided to end our space exploration and announce we were going to Mars, American’s lead in space was basically put into the never-never-land Obama bunker. We couldn’t figure out how he was going to go to Mars without NASA, but then, Obama NEVER fills in the details to any of his plans.

Hearing the news that NASA was closing down, it took Richard Branson no longer than a few plane trips to Dubai to get the backing to build his vision of sending rich people into space on his SpaceShipTwo, by next year, which is now going to be delayed.

Yep. We had two big black-eyed, oh THAT’s not good, disasters last week. Two…”Not so perfect” launches by America: Virgin Galactic VS NASA.

Which one was the bigger mistake?

Let’s start with NASA first. When you fire thousands of engineers and put astronauts out to pasture, it’s not always going to go well, and last week the whole world saw that America, couldn’t even get a bunch of crab cakes off the ground.

The Orbital Antares rocket that exploded during a launce at the NASA facility in Virginia costs more than $200 million itself. NASA has also reported significant ground damage at its facility. (Not to mention, what the repairs will cost.)

The accident at Orbital Sciences Corp.’s launch complex at Wallops Island was sure to draw criticism over the space agency’s growing reliance on private U.S. companies in this post-shuttle era. NASA is paying billions of dollars to Orbital Sciences and the SpaceX company to make station deliveries, and it’s counting on SpaceX and Boeing to start flying U.S. astronauts to the orbiting lab as early as 2017. This was the fourth flight by Orbital Sciences to the orbiting lab.

The poor astronauts waiting for their crab cakes, would just have to suffer.

THEN Richard Branson’s test flight of his Virgin Galactic Disney-like ride into space….crashed horribly, leaving the pilot dead, his wife widowed, his little children fatherless,—-well, you can imagine what YOU would be thinking if you were one of the 800 who had already forked out big bucks to go on that very same rocket. (I’m betting Justin Beiber is having second thoughts.)

What went wrong?

Since April 2009, Virgin Galactic had used a hybrid rocket motor built by Sierra Nevada Corp., a Sparks, Nev., company that has contracts with the U.S. military, NASA and commercial space firms. The engine, fueled by nitrous oxide and a rubber compound, had been fired in flight and on the ground about 50 times. SpaceShipTwo had three successful test flights powered by the Sierra Nevada-built engine.

However, in May, Virgin Galactic announced it was switching to an alternate plastic-based rocket fuel. It is not clear when testing began, but Scaled Composites said on its website that there have been 10 test fires since May.

Can we blame Al Gore for plastic fuel? Well, I can.

Richard Branson’s loss was about $150 million he says, but is it his loss?

So, Branson’s gotten investors and taxpayers to pony up just short of $600 million to make his dream of flying into space a reality. Since the Virgin Group is so opaque on its finances, precisely how much Branson and his company have put in is difficult to say. However, thanks to statements by Virgin Galactic officials, we do a bit more about the cost side. We know that, as of October, that roughly $270 million has been spent on the program. And the most recent estimate on cost, as of about 10 months ago, was roughly $400 million. Now, let’s see how this stacks up against known investments not funded by taxpayers…. Aabar Investments: $290 million + $110 million = $390 million WOW! That’s like really close. The Abu Dhabi royal family’s investment covers virtually the entire estimated development cost. And for that, they own only 37.8 percent of the company.

Not to mention, the tickets are already sold at $250,000 a piece, for a trip that will only last two hours, and actual time in space will be about five minutes. Each trip will to have a six tourists and the pilot and co-pilot, but you can BET that the waitresses at the port station before the trip are going to serve you wonderful drinks in their sexy out-of-this-world costumes before your flight. Who wouldn’t want to go?

(Me) Myself, I’d just go see the movie Gravity again.

So, who wins the Nobody’s Perfect Award for the week?

Was it NASA? While they didn’t KILL anyone, you would think after sending men to the moon, a simple rocket to the space station would have been already old hat. AND…they have NO idea they say, what went wrong. In the old days, they said right away.

(No doubt, Louis Lerner’s old computer was used due to an IRS donation.)

Or was it Richard Branson, who while risking millions of dollars from taxpayers and Saudi Kings, should have gotten engineers that weren’t drinking champagne with Al Gore at global warming conventions?

I’m having trouble with this one. To my mind, the space shuttle design seemed to work fine. If they had wanted to give tourist rides to billionaires they would have gotten a MUCH safer trip to a well designed space hotel and charged a lot more. But then again, when America owns the space shuttles, rich men can’t own stocks, can they?

Who wins? Obama. Next load— he’ll probably just send food stamps by balloon.

Let’s send him BACK to Mars, and get our Space Program back up and running, if not, those billionaires will be paying 20 times the price to go into space–to Russia. And who wants to see that happen?

(Don’t answer that.)

November 3, 2014 Posted by Joyanna Adams | NASA, Uncategorized | NASA, Richard Branson | Leave a comment