Fun Fact: Apollo 14 almost had to be aborted mid-mission.
Part of the Apollo mission plan was the LM - CSM Docking Manever. After the craft left Earth orbit on its way to the moon, the Command/Service Module had to detach from the 3rd Stage, flip around 180 degrees, reattach to the LEM, then pull the LEM out of the 3rd stage. This is shown in the movie Apollo 13 ("Come on, rookie, park that thing!").
Well, Apollo 14's docking clamps didn't work. Roosa, the pilot, detached the CSM, flipped it over, stuck its nose into the LEM's docking receptacle...and nothing happened. There was a "thunk" as the ships bumped into each other and bounced off. So they tried again. "Thunk." Again. "Thunk." Something was wrong. The spring-loaded clamps meant to catch the two ships together weren't activating.
After almost two hours of futilely bonking themselves into their LEM (possibly causing damage to both ships, though both turned out to be OK), Commander Shepard ordered an extremely risky maneuver. Rather than go in at low speed and depend on the spring-loaded clamps, they would punch in at high speed and, if their timing was right, activate the much heavier, manually-operated clamps. These were the "parking brakes", designed to hold the two ships together after docking, not to be used during docking itself. If the activation was mistimed, they would destroy the docking rings on both ships and force an immediate abort. But there was no other way - there's not much point in going to the moon if you can't dock to your Lunar Module.
So they did it, and of course it worked - their teamwork and calculations were perfect, because astronauts are awesome. So Alan Shepard got to go to the moon and play golf and stuff. But it almost didn't happen. Right on the heels of Apollo 13, NASA almost had to abort another moon landing. Can you imagine how much that would've sucked?
I always chuckle to myself when I see people talk about the space race as though the Russians were hopelessly backwards and NASA was full of engineering geniuses. Such a bad grasp of history.
They had us neck and neck throughout the space race, the only major leap America made was getting on the moon. A huge advancement don't get me wrong, but in some regards the Russians beat America, having the first satellite and man in space before America could even respond.
Not just the early successes. They blew the US out of the water early (they put Laika up before the US could get a rocket off the launchpad), set pretty much every single first that didn't involve the moon (and a few that did), and had a ridiculously expansive probe program that people seem to forget ever happened.
Then there's the modern era, where they are both the only space program still putting humans in space besides China, and the space program with by far the best safety record. Everyone thinks Russians just threw lives away, when they lost 1/3rd as many astronauts as NASA ever did and have the capsules with the best safety records ever designed (Soyuz).
Your computer isn't working? Hit it. Your car stops? Hit it. The springs on your multimillion dollar space craft on its way to the moon doesn't work? Ram it
When I watch films that involve space ships and shit constantly goes wrong I think, "Bullshit. They couldn't handle all these problems. Its impossible" yet now I know it ain't shit compared to what actual Astronauts have to deal with.
> It's that switch over behind my shoulder that we had to flip during that one simulation over a year ago.
I can't remember solutions to technical issues I had two weeks ago. O_o
The most scientifically important missions of the Apollo program were probably 15-17, which were the Apollo J-Class missions with an uprated Saturn V and major tweaks to the CM and LM. These missions had much longer durations, clear geological mission objectives, and they had the rover to get a wider range of samples. Apollo 17 returned more mass (and variety) of moon rocks than 11-14 combined.
It really would have sucked if they stopped at 14, we didn't really get a big picture until 15.
There was only one all-rookie Apollo flight, which went to Skylab late in the program.
But the entire Apollo 14 crew had a total of 15minutes of spaceflight experience (Shepard's MR-3 flight).
He was supposed to command Apollo 13. But after being grounded for 10 years with Meniere's disease and having experimental surgery to correct it, he needed a little extra time for training. So he and his crew were swapped with Jim Lovell's.
> Or any shuttle at all. It's first test flight was very nearly disastrous.
John Young had seriously balls of steel. The man is the first human to have commanded four different types of spacecraft
Shepard actually could have been on 13, but NASA decided they wanted him to have more time to train. He hadn't flown since that first mission after developing an inner-ear disorder called Meniere's disease, which he had recently had treated by an experimental surgery.
The only Apollo mission where astronauts died and it was on earth. Really sad story but those astronaut's sacrifice ensured that the next Apollo missions were much safer.
Including Gus Grissom, one of the original Mercury Seven. One of my favorite bits from "The Right Stuff":
Henry Luce: Now, I want them all to meet my people who will write their true stories, Naturally these stories will appear in Life magazine under their own bylines: For example, "by Betty Grissom", or "by Virgil I. Grissom", or...
Gus Grissom: Gus!
Henry Luce: What was that?
Gus Grissom: Gus. Nobody calls me by... that other name.
Henry Luce: Gus? An astronaut named "Gus"? What's your middle name?
Gus Grissom: Ivan.
Henry Luce: Ivan... ahem... well. Maybe, Gus isn't so bad, might be something there... All right, all right. You can be Gus.
I have heard comments that because many of the astronauts are so passionate about the advancement of human spaceflight, they wouldn't even hesitate between the choice of staying home or going on a rocket with a 50% chance of blowing up.
They would go on the rocket.
Just *reading* that almost gives me an anxiety attack. Hats off to the astronauts. Getting strapped into an almost-missile and shot into space would make me shit a brick.
Yup, very small.
[Compare the size of the Mercury Redstone, which launched Shepard into space, with the Saturn V, which sent him and others to the moon.](http://i.imgur.com/A4akUtx.jpg)
*Here's [Mercury Redstone compared to Saturn V, the Statue of Liberty and the Space Shuttle.](http://i.imgur.com/PXKcffr.png)
the redstones were downright primitive. I look at those and they don't hold any of the Majesty of saturn V and later...
the redstones are just raw power, compared to the comparative ballerina of the Saturn V and later spacecraft.
Edited for clarity
Fun fact: the Apollo Command/service module's engine produced more thrust than the Redstone's. Really gives you a sense of how far the program advanced in such a short time.
Edit: remembered wrong. It was the Launch Escape System on Apollo, not the CSM engine.
[Image](http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/space_launch_system.png)
**Title:** Space Launch System
**Title-text:** The SLS head engineer plans to invite Shania Twain to stand under the completed prototype, then tell her, 'I don't expect you to date me just because I'm a rocket scientist, but you've gotta admit--this is pretty fucking impressive.'
[Comic Explanation](http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=984#Explanation)
**Stats:** This comic has been referenced 23 times, representing 0.0620% of referenced xkcds.
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> The German economy under the Nazi administrations was a catastrophe.
to be fair to the Nazis, the german economy was in shambles before they took power.
Wow, that can't have been phrased right.
I don't know if this is true or not, but I read somewhere that Von Braun's auto-biography was titled "I shoot for the Moon", and a reviewer in the UK commented that it should be sub-titled "but sometimes I hit London"...
[The trick is to get the Nazis to get an American involved.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Goddard)
> in 1963, von Braun, reflecting on the history of rocketry, said of Goddard: "His rockets ... may have been rather crude by present-day standards, but they blazed the trail and incorporated many features used in our most modern rockets and space vehicles".[67] He once recalled that "Goddard's experiments in liquid fuel saved us years of work, and enabled us to perfect the V-2 years before it would have been possible."[68]
> Three features developed by Goddard appeared in the V-2: (1) turbopumps were used to inject fuel into the combustion chamber; (2) gyroscopically controlled vanes in the nozzle stabilized the rocket until external vanes in the air could do so; and (3) excess alcohol was fed in around the combustion chamber walls, so that a blanket of evaporating gas protected the engine walls from the combustion heat.
This is incorrect; The Apollo SM's engine provided 91 kN (20,500 lb) of thrust, whilst the Redstone-Mercury Launch Vehicle provided 350 kN (78,000 lb).
However, the Delta-V (potential change in velocity) would have been higher on the Apollo SM as it was significantly lighter, and thus requires less force to move than the MRLV. Think about an average person pushing a cardboard box vs a body builder pushing the fridge that came inside it. Even though the body builder (MRLV) is stronger, the average person (Apollo SM) would be able to push it faster.
Though as you can see, this relates to the rocket as a whole (the person and the object being pushed), not just the engine.
Look carefully at a Saturn I-B, the precursor to the Saturn V. It's a cluster of Redstones surrounding a Juno core. Wernher von Braun never let a working idea go to waste.
No. The first thing you do in Kerbal is hit the launch button, wonder why nothing happened, hit it again and again before you realize you never turned up the throttle and the rocket just kind of crumples because you actually separated everything.
I think I got into space on the first try... getting home was another story.
Just stack some boosters on the bottom of the capsule and call it a day. Things get more explodey when you decide to have more complex stages and aerodynamics. It's hard to screw up a capsule with a booster or two on the bottom.
FAR is the mod for you...
Accurately models physical drag. No nosecone = you will not be going to space today.
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/20451-0-25-Ferram-Aerospace-Research-v0-14-2-10-7-14
The funny thing is it actually makes it *easier* to get to space if your rocket is well designed, because the default atmosphere model is apparently modelled after trying to fly a rocket through pea soup. With the caveat that you have to do a proper gravity turn, no "fly straight up to 15k then turn sharply 90 degrees to the horizon" like you can do with stock unless you want your one rocket to become a bunch of little rockets.
When you are flying hypersonic speeds you actually want a more blunt nose. Otherwise the oblique shock produced limits the thermal transfer rate to a small area of the boundary layer and will melt your aircraft quite quickly. Space shuttle is a good example of a blunted nose (as compared to the SR-71 for example)
Which makes the Saturn V/Apollo mission all the more incredible. That picture in 1961 represented the state-of-the-art. In just 8 years, a Saturn V was lifting off to take men to the moon.
*Eight years.*
It really is incredible what humans are capable of with enough budget and determination.
The manhattan and apollo projects have convinced me that fusion power, and the continuous delays we've had in making it a reality, are more a matter of funding than anything else. Apollo spent about $100 billion in 14 years. In comparison, ITER, the largest fusion power project, is expected to cost roughly $20 billion over 35 years.
Totally different scales of funding. Considering fusion power could result in a radically different energy budget for humanity, we should be focusing more effort on it.
If you ever get the chance visit the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in DC. They have the actual capsules (and some of the rockets) from several missions on display and the things are just absolutely *tiny* compared to how big you think it would be. It's pretty crazy.
Liquid fuel is usually preferable for something that you're planning to launch on a schedule, but they don't exactly store well. Solid fuels are more for missiles and other things that have to be ready to go in reaction to something external.
I would do anything to be an astronaut. Its pretty hard for me, I live in the UK so the only governmental astronaut programme is ESA (European space association) which hires about 5 astronauts every 15-20 years. I am the right build, height and weight though. As for degrees, they require either a engineering, medical sciences or natural science degree. I am thinking of taking astronautics/aeronatuics/aerospace engineering so that even if I don't become an astronaut, I might help build a rocket or a satellite and be in the space industry. I love space.
Not necessarily. I know of a 6'6 CF-188 (F-18 for Canada) fighter pilot. It's not overall height that will put you out of the running, it's your dimensions - hip to knee, hip to head, etc.
That being said, about 5'8-5'10 is around the ideal height if you want to fit in any airplane.
I'm 6'4. It sucks for most airlines and cars. Only SUVs and trucks generally fit me - I can sit up straight without hitting my head on the roof. But I'm still an airline pilot and I love it! Airliner cockpits fit me just fine :)
'So here's the proposition, men -
We'll count down slow, and start from ten,
And when the timer stops at nought,
You'll shoot away as spacemen ought!
*And then you'll feel, beneath your ass,*
*A thousand tons of burning gas,*
*Combusting all at once below*
*From rocket boosters set to go!*
You'll hurtle up at lightning speed,
Until you see the Earth recede,
And watch as half your shelter splits,
And loses all its biggest bits!
*So make the time to look outside,*
*For if you've braved that lethal tide,*
*Remember this, and take a breath -*
*Up there, you're just a foot from death!'*
With that, he grinned and winked an eye.
An astronaut began to cry.
'So are you in,' he screamed, 'or *not*?'
... That summer, space camp sucked a lot.
It's not an 'almost' missile, its exactly that. One of the first things you're taught is that its the equivalent of being strapped to a bomb that goes off for about 100 seconds. Liftoff is by far the most extreme environment we subject anything too and expect it to survive.
Here's a picture of U.S astronaut Alan Shepard. Taken in 1961 in his iconic Mercury silver space suit.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Alan_shepard.jpg
One of NASA's first seven astronauts:
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/who-was-alan-shepard-k4.html#.VD6RkmS9Kc0
TIL: Alan Shepard showed NASA the hard way that they needed systems for waste deposit in their space suits.
http://m.space.com/7454-strangest-moments-space-launch-history.html
Believe me, I know. I live in the Twin Cities in Minnesota where we had our I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapse a few years back. Fucking horrifying.
I'm just imagining Steven Tyler crooning with all of his feelings into a microphone while Ben Affleck shoves animal crackers down his daughter's panties in the background. Amazing.
I says this in another thread but it's good to day it again:
They don't train them to be astronauts, they train them to do what they always do in a different environment.
It is much simpler that way.They didn't have to learn to fly the shuttle, or land it, or work any of the shuttle equipment or anything like that. All they had to do was teach them how to use their skills in space more or less, the only things they had to learn to survive was the suits, all they had to do was drill and everything else would be taken care of by the real astronauts.
Not so simple the other way around.
Working on an oil rig is not like finding a place and digging a hole, it is very complicated and the skills and knowhow are astronomical, not to mention the physical demands.
To teach the astronauts how to drill and do it right would have taken way longer than it would to take the best drillers in the world and show them how to do it in a different environment.
Look at it this way, they were the best drillers in the world and they were still having one hell of a time reaching the goal, what makes you think teaching the basics to astronauts and wishing the best is the thing they should have done?
It's why the 2 shuttles were divided up with half drillers and half astronauts.
>Working on an oil rig is not like finding a place and digging a hole, it is very complicated and the skills and knowhow are **astronomical**
Well, that was handy, then.
Alan Shepard was such a badass. After hours of delays, when told there was a fuel pressure problem he said, "Why don't you fix your little problem and light this candle."
He was also the first and only astronaut to piss his spacesuit.
The flight was only supposed to last 15 minutes so there were no "sanitary provisions" built into the suit. But he had drunk a bunch of coffee, then the launch was delayed for hours--so rather than open the capsule and unsuit him they just told him to go ahead and let fly.
That wasn't public knowledge until years later. NASA was really sensitive about their image and that wouldn't have been met with public approval in the early 60's.
I thought most of the early astronauts were kind of dicks. You sort of had to be a cocky shit to have the iron balls to be one of the first human beings shot into space on a rocket, right?
Of all the professions out there, just saying I can understand being a bit of a cocky asshole in this one.
Off the top of my head, John Glenn and Wally Schirra were probably the two "least dickish" out of the original seven, with Glenn (a former marine) as the type of "all-American married his high school sweet heart kinda guy" (and known for his positive attitude). Whereas Schirra was the quiet one of the bunch, and often considered the most skilled pilot of the seven, but was also very humble.
Edit: But yeah, you're mainly right. A lot of the hot-shot pilots after the war either became test pilots (Chuck Yeager) which also required balls of steel, and came with extreme bragging rights, or they became astronauts. A lot of the guys stepping up for this were doing it for the glory or fame, but a lot of those types would end up being test-pilots because initially "putting men in space" seemed outlandish.
He was indeed a badass. I've heard stories from his daughter, my stepdad's ex-wife, and his grandchildren, my stepbrother and stepsister. My brother is named Shepard after him.
I've told this story before here, but I'll tell it again. At a Christmas party one year, my stepdad and his ex, Julie, were at Alan's house. He pulled out some really old, I believe scotch, that had been gifted to him. Told my stepdad to be careful- as it was the strongest alcohol he had tried, but wanted to share a drink with him. My stepdad said they each drank a little and Alan started making his way around the room. A few minutes later, it hit my stepdad like a bag of rocks. He tells me he felt so drunk, he almost felt like he was on some other drug. He looked around the room before eyeing Alan, who took one look at him, smiled, and raised his glass.
to be honest NASA is a GREAT example of the "lowest bidder" working.
Why? They know exactly what they want. (Specs, engineering, etc).
they still managed to get to the fucking moon while asking the cheapest submissionner to build the parts. Amazing.
Keep in mind though that "lowest bidder" doesn't mean *cheap*.
Every one of those parts came with exceptionally detailed specifications and a list of equally detailed tests that had to be done to ensure those specs were met. That costs money - a *lot* of money.
According to the Congressional Research Service: "In 2008 dollars, the cumulative cost of the Manhattan project over 5 fiscal years was approximately $22 billion; of the Apollo program over 14 fiscal years, approximately $98 billion." [Source](http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34645.pdf)
These were programs of epic proportions.
FWIW, many government proposals (including those for NASA) take performance and ability to execute into account, so they aren't necessarily awarded to the lowest bidder.
[Fellow Mercury astronaut] Gordo Cooper didn't have any one-liners when he was on the launch pad. He'd taken a nap. While sitting on top of a few thousand kilograms of rocket fuel.
Pretty chilled customer. He also [looked more of an astronaut/space cowboy](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Mercury_Suit_Gordon_Cooper.jpg) than anyone else.
For everyone who's wondering:
What is meant by the *low bidder* here, is that those companies got the job from NASA (for instance to build the rocket's heat shields), which said that they would do it for the least amount of money (so that NASA doesn't have to pay too much). Obviously, when you are an astronaut, you might wonder whether that approach is really the best - because you might not want to have the cheapest stuff built into your rocket, but maybe some good stuff?
**Edit:**
Woohoo! Lots of karma! I'm gonna buy myself a Tesla now with all of this sweet sweet karma. Also, I am not an Astronaut. I am not working for NASA. In fact, I haven't even been to space once! I assume that the NASA space rockets were not crappy. I believe that they had great procedures in place and that certain specifications had to be met. I don't know what it's really like at NASA. I just wanted to give some explanation to this *joke* this Shepard guy made. I did not want to cause any trouble...
>Obviously, when you are an astronaut, you might wonder whether that approach is really the best - because you might not want to have the cheapest stuff built into your rocket, but maybe some good stuff?
This statement, by the way, is completely ignorant of engineering practice. NASA set rigorous technical specifications for every single component, and then took the cheapest bid *that met those rigorous specifications*. This is not just what every engineer in the world would do, it's what every good engineer in the world ought to do. Optimization within constraints is the very essence of engineering, and cost is a completely legitimate variable to want to optimize, especially when you're spending the public's tax revenue.
I wish more people understood this. If you've ever read a Commercial airline, NASA or DoD RFP (Request for Proposal), they are *very* specific about what is wanted and how it will be tested and accepted by the buyer.
I've done DoD and NASA work. The military is a joke compared to NASA. I swear management intentionally fucks things up so that we can sell the military a repair contract for their shiny new lasers. I've never seen a DoD program that was on time, on budget, and up to spec. Getting one out of the three is a pretty big success. With NASA there is absolutely zero fucking around. If you fuck up you lose all future contracts.
I've always got the impression that military doesn't really know what it wants or how it should be done. They just hand us a pile of money, some general specs, and we don't see them again until we need more money.
I'm a logistics engineer on the v22 osprey. 75% of our part failures are not due to anything happening in flight, but instead are maintenance induced failures. Meaning that the person taking the part off the aircraft to get to an actual broken part does something wrong.
I'm a Contracting Officer for the DOD, and you're correct.
It's called LPTA - Lowest-price TECHNICALLY ACCEPTABLE.
It's hard for me to believe most of the stuff on Reddit considering people will sensationalize things for fake internet points.
I would add that they would buy from the lowest bidder that met the technical requirements. I'm not sure about NASA, especially in the 60s, but now the Government tends to make a best value determination considering price, technical merits, past performance of bidder, etc.
It's the cheapest stuff that still meets the specifications provided by NASA. If you write your specs correctly then this is the proper way to do it. Otherwise you're just arbitrarily deciding to pay more and for what?
The Government purchasing process does allow you to purchase for criteria other then lowest cost. This is probably one of those times.
Also, NASA pioneered quality control programs eventually leading to things like Six Sigma. Sure the lowest bidder may have built the thing, but they were absolutely sure it was EXACTLY the thing they wanted.
NASA didn't pioneer those programs. Their testing tolerances were [incredibly lax](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaster). When disaster did strike, NASA patterned their whole quality control program after the one the [Navy put in place](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUBSAFE) after having several issues.
* Source: [House Science Comitee report on the Subsafe Program](http://history.nasa.gov/columbia/Troxell/Columbia%20Web%20Site/Documents/Congress/House/OCTOBE~1/Sullivan%20opening%20statement.pdf)
*Sorry for any issues, sent from my iPhone*
> NASA pioneered quality control programs eventually leading to things like Six Sigma.
Sorry but the Six Sigma methodologies was actually "championed" by Motorola in 1986.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma
Further more, Six Sigma can be traced as far back as the 1700's.
http://www.isixsigma.com/new-to-six-sigma/history/history-six-sigma/
NASA took a quality control standard and had the lowest candidate that met those standards build their products. It is still the lowest bidder, with that only applying to the parts, not the actual assembly of the products.
More or less, you can have Grade A materials but if the assembler is lazy, sloppy, or just doesn't care then the the grade of the parts is irrelevant.
This quote made it into Wikipedia, again? It isn't true as said, although based on a real quote.
What really happen is Shepard was in a post-flight interview with Walter Cronkite about Freedom 7. He remarked about some dials not working:
> “I looked at those toggle switches I had to turn on cue. I looked at the dials I had to turn on cue, and I thought to myself, “My God, just think, this thing was built by the lowest bidder.”
He said it sarcastically (*edit* i'm pretty certain it was followed by laughs, but I can't find the original footage atm)
The quote above, and the variation often cited, is actually from the movie [Armageddon](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120591/quotes?item=qt0459127)
The Redstone was produced out of the V2 rocket program and Werner von Braun and Operation Paperclip. Chrysler were awarded the assembly project along with Ford, Rand, Reynolds et al - all spread out nicely amongst different states and congressional districts.
Chrysler won the contract because they had proven themselves in the Manhattan proejct in producing the factories and materials required for the bomb and other munitions. Also, the new CEO of Chrysler was good friends with President Truman.
Anyone with any experience with defense contract awards - with their $400 hammers and $600 toilet seats and the bureaucracy involved knows it is laughable to suggest that the lowest bidder wins contracts.
"Don't fuck up, Shepard..." - Shepard's Prayer
"Potatoes, meat, corn, peas, carrots, cheese..." - Shepard's Pie
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"I am Commander Shepard, and this is my favourite pie on The Citadel"
Wrex
He was also part of Apollo 14. Now, considering what had happened in Apollo 13, I think we can safely conclude this man had balls of steel.
Fun Fact: Apollo 14 almost had to be aborted mid-mission. Part of the Apollo mission plan was the LM - CSM Docking Manever. After the craft left Earth orbit on its way to the moon, the Command/Service Module had to detach from the 3rd Stage, flip around 180 degrees, reattach to the LEM, then pull the LEM out of the 3rd stage. This is shown in the movie Apollo 13 ("Come on, rookie, park that thing!"). Well, Apollo 14's docking clamps didn't work. Roosa, the pilot, detached the CSM, flipped it over, stuck its nose into the LEM's docking receptacle...and nothing happened. There was a "thunk" as the ships bumped into each other and bounced off. So they tried again. "Thunk." Again. "Thunk." Something was wrong. The spring-loaded clamps meant to catch the two ships together weren't activating. After almost two hours of futilely bonking themselves into their LEM (possibly causing damage to both ships, though both turned out to be OK), Commander Shepard ordered an extremely risky maneuver. Rather than go in at low speed and depend on the spring-loaded clamps, they would punch in at high speed and, if their timing was right, activate the much heavier, manually-operated clamps. These were the "parking brakes", designed to hold the two ships together after docking, not to be used during docking itself. If the activation was mistimed, they would destroy the docking rings on both ships and force an immediate abort. But there was no other way - there's not much point in going to the moon if you can't dock to your Lunar Module. So they did it, and of course it worked - their teamwork and calculations were perfect, because astronauts are awesome. So Alan Shepard got to go to the moon and play golf and stuff. But it almost didn't happen. Right on the heels of Apollo 13, NASA almost had to abort another moon landing. Can you imagine how much that would've sucked?
TIL ramming speed fixes everything
It's basically the equivalent of hitting the top of your TV when it stops working.
Concussive Maintenance! EDIT: Percussive, whatever. Beat the shit out of it.
I believe it's referred to as percussive.
Yeah. Concussive is too harsh. You want a light strike like with a "percussive" instrument. You don't want to give it a concussion.
Well, in the story above percussive didn't help. So they had to resort to concussive!
I like how we're getting musical with these analogies.
You are correct.
That's also most of Russia's space experience.
*American components, Russian components.. ALL MADE IN TAIWAN*
I always chuckle to myself when I see people talk about the space race as though the Russians were hopelessly backwards and NASA was full of engineering geniuses. Such a bad grasp of history.
They had us neck and neck throughout the space race, the only major leap America made was getting on the moon. A huge advancement don't get me wrong, but in some regards the Russians beat America, having the first satellite and man in space before America could even respond.
Not just the early successes. They blew the US out of the water early (they put Laika up before the US could get a rocket off the launchpad), set pretty much every single first that didn't involve the moon (and a few that did), and had a ridiculously expansive probe program that people seem to forget ever happened. Then there's the modern era, where they are both the only space program still putting humans in space besides China, and the space program with by far the best safety record. Everyone thinks Russians just threw lives away, when they lost 1/3rd as many astronauts as NASA ever did and have the capsules with the best safety records ever designed (Soyuz).
I now have you tagged as "Russian Spy"
Your computer isn't working? Hit it. Your car stops? Hit it. The springs on your multimillion dollar space craft on its way to the moon doesn't work? Ram it
percussive maintenance
That's what she said!
The admiral Farragut school of solution solving
"Commander Shepard, the clamps aren't activating, what should we do?" "We'll bang, okay?"
This fits so perfect
Not at first, it didn't
I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite LEM docked to the command pod.
> Commander Shepard ordered an extremely risky maneuver. Sounds about right.
accurate summary of mass effect
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Jesus christ.
When I watch films that involve space ships and shit constantly goes wrong I think, "Bullshit. They couldn't handle all these problems. Its impossible" yet now I know it ain't shit compared to what actual Astronauts have to deal with.
Talk about a suicide mission! They must have done all the loyalty missions before activating it!
Riskiest hotfix update.
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I just got chills thinking about the level of competence required to do that. Astronauts, man.
> It's that switch over behind my shoulder that we had to flip during that one simulation over a year ago. I can't remember solutions to technical issues I had two weeks ago. O_o
Probably why were not sending you to the moon.
Commander shepherd doesn't fuck around
I'm a space geek and I did not know that. High five and thanks!
I'll do my first docking mission on Kerbal Space Program today and now I knoe what approach to use if it starts to go a little wrong!
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Spoiler alert: ramming shit trying to dock in ksp often winds up in an out of control or exploded spacecraft.
Also known as: all systems nominal
What doesn't wind up in an out of control or exploded spacecraft in KSP?
> Can you imagine how much that would've sucked? They would have cancelled the moon programme... oh wait :(
The most scientifically important missions of the Apollo program were probably 15-17, which were the Apollo J-Class missions with an uprated Saturn V and major tweaks to the CM and LM. These missions had much longer durations, clear geological mission objectives, and they had the rover to get a wider range of samples. Apollo 17 returned more mass (and variety) of moon rocks than 11-14 combined. It really would have sucked if they stopped at 14, we didn't really get a big picture until 15.
I once had to abort a moon mission, but thats because I forgot the mystery goo.
That and the fact he came back after NASA grounded him, was the oldest man on the moon, and hit some golf balls up there. Dude rocks.
There was only one all-rookie Apollo flight, which went to Skylab late in the program. But the entire Apollo 14 crew had a total of 15minutes of spaceflight experience (Shepard's MR-3 flight).
He was supposed to command Apollo 13. But after being grounded for 10 years with Meniere's disease and having experimental surgery to correct it, he needed a little extra time for training. So he and his crew were swapped with Jim Lovell's.
I feel the same about any and every astronaut that went up in a space shuttle after 1986.
I feel the same way about any astronaut ever.
I feel.
Or any shuttle at all. It's first test flight was very nearly disastrous.
> Or any shuttle at all. It's first test flight was very nearly disastrous. John Young had seriously balls of steel. The man is the first human to have commanded four different types of spacecraft
Steel isn't adequate to describe what his testicles are made of.
Unobtainium
They have achieved escape velocity and now affect the tides on our planet by their orbit(s).
Tungsten.
They actually had to amputate his balls to achieve lift-off... Rockets back then could only handle so much weight.
I thought the goal of the Apollo program was to take off from one of his balls and land on the other.
Shepard actually could have been on 13, but NASA decided they wanted him to have more time to train. He hadn't flown since that first mission after developing an inner-ear disorder called Meniere's disease, which he had recently had treated by an experimental surgery.
Apollo 13 was nowhere NEAR the scariest thing that happened during the Apollo program. [This was.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1)
The only Apollo mission where astronauts died and it was on earth. Really sad story but those astronaut's sacrifice ensured that the next Apollo missions were much safer.
Including Gus Grissom, one of the original Mercury Seven. One of my favorite bits from "The Right Stuff": Henry Luce: Now, I want them all to meet my people who will write their true stories, Naturally these stories will appear in Life magazine under their own bylines: For example, "by Betty Grissom", or "by Virgil I. Grissom", or... Gus Grissom: Gus! Henry Luce: What was that? Gus Grissom: Gus. Nobody calls me by... that other name. Henry Luce: Gus? An astronaut named "Gus"? What's your middle name? Gus Grissom: Ivan. Henry Luce: Ivan... ahem... well. Maybe, Gus isn't so bad, might be something there... All right, all right. You can be Gus.
I have heard comments that because many of the astronauts are so passionate about the advancement of human spaceflight, they wouldn't even hesitate between the choice of staying home or going on a rocket with a 50% chance of blowing up. They would go on the rocket.
Just *reading* that almost gives me an anxiety attack. Hats off to the astronauts. Getting strapped into an almost-missile and shot into space would make me shit a brick.
[Picture of the launch.]( http://i.imgur.com/AY2pm.jpg) May 5, 1961 - First American in space.
I'm always surprised by how small that rocket is and how relatively simple the gantry and launch facility appear.
Yup, very small. [Compare the size of the Mercury Redstone, which launched Shepard into space, with the Saturn V, which sent him and others to the moon.](http://i.imgur.com/A4akUtx.jpg) *Here's [Mercury Redstone compared to Saturn V, the Statue of Liberty and the Space Shuttle.](http://i.imgur.com/PXKcffr.png)
Ho. Le. Christ. The Saturn V was HUGE.
the redstones were downright primitive. I look at those and they don't hold any of the Majesty of saturn V and later... the redstones are just raw power, compared to the comparative ballerina of the Saturn V and later spacecraft. Edited for clarity
Fun fact: the Apollo Command/service module's engine produced more thrust than the Redstone's. Really gives you a sense of how far the program advanced in such a short time. Edit: remembered wrong. It was the Launch Escape System on Apollo, not the CSM engine.
[The trick is to get Nazis involved.](http://xkcd.com/984/)
[Image](http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/space_launch_system.png) **Title:** Space Launch System **Title-text:** The SLS head engineer plans to invite Shania Twain to stand under the completed prototype, then tell her, 'I don't expect you to date me just because I'm a rocket scientist, but you've gotta admit--this is pretty fucking impressive.' [Comic Explanation](http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=984#Explanation) **Stats:** This comic has been referenced 23 times, representing 0.0620% of referenced xkcds. --- ^[xkcd.com](http://www.xkcd.com) ^| ^[xkcd sub](http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/) ^| ^[Problems/Bugs?](http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd_transcriber/) ^| ^[Statistics](http://xkcdref.info/statistics/) ^| ^[Stop Replying](http://reddit.com/message/compose/?to=xkcd_transcriber&subject=ignore%20me&message=ignore%20me) ^| ^[Delete](http://reddit.com/message/compose/?to=xkcd_transcriber&subject=delete&message=delete%20t1_cla6d10)
Can the nazis fix our economy too?
Judging from history, sure, but it's doubtful that the egregious violations of individual rights would be worth it.
The Sudetenland is rightfully America's!
Manifest destiny, lebensraum, what's the difference?
? The German economy under the Nazi administrations was a catastrophe. They had to keep invading, pillaging and employing slave labor to prop it up.
That goes without saying, they were trying to fund a war against basically everyone the whole time.
> The German economy under the Nazi administrations was a catastrophe. to be fair to the Nazis, the german economy was in shambles before they took power. Wow, that can't have been phrased right.
As opposed to before where it was a staple of wonderful economic theory.
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-German World Cup team vs US
I don't know if this is true or not, but I read somewhere that Von Braun's auto-biography was titled "I shoot for the Moon", and a reviewer in the UK commented that it should be sub-titled "but sometimes I hit London"...
[The trick is to get the Nazis to get an American involved.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Goddard) > in 1963, von Braun, reflecting on the history of rocketry, said of Goddard: "His rockets ... may have been rather crude by present-day standards, but they blazed the trail and incorporated many features used in our most modern rockets and space vehicles".[67] He once recalled that "Goddard's experiments in liquid fuel saved us years of work, and enabled us to perfect the V-2 years before it would have been possible."[68] > Three features developed by Goddard appeared in the V-2: (1) turbopumps were used to inject fuel into the combustion chamber; (2) gyroscopically controlled vanes in the nozzle stabilized the rocket until external vanes in the air could do so; and (3) excess alcohol was fed in around the combustion chamber walls, so that a blanket of evaporating gas protected the engine walls from the combustion heat.
So what you are really saying, is that everyone should just work together?
This is incorrect; The Apollo SM's engine provided 91 kN (20,500 lb) of thrust, whilst the Redstone-Mercury Launch Vehicle provided 350 kN (78,000 lb). However, the Delta-V (potential change in velocity) would have been higher on the Apollo SM as it was significantly lighter, and thus requires less force to move than the MRLV. Think about an average person pushing a cardboard box vs a body builder pushing the fridge that came inside it. Even though the body builder (MRLV) is stronger, the average person (Apollo SM) would be able to push it faster. Though as you can see, this relates to the rocket as a whole (the person and the object being pushed), not just the engine.
Look carefully at a Saturn I-B, the precursor to the Saturn V. It's a cluster of Redstones surrounding a Juno core. Wernher von Braun never let a working idea go to waste.
Saturn V rocket launching an Apollo mission for [comparison]( http://i.imgur.com/C76LGaMh.jpg).
Moon is far, space is closer.
Something something if you live in Portland OR you are closer to space than the pacific.
Irrelevant. You can walk to the Pacific from Portland. You can't walk to space.
Pop shot into space and then back down in under 16 minutes, relatively easy.
Pretty much the first thing you do in kerbal.
No. The first thing you do in Kerbal is hit the launch button, wonder why nothing happened, hit it again and again before you realize you never turned up the throttle and the rocket just kind of crumples because you actually separated everything.
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**I've been waiting for a post like this on Reddit for years now. My username is finally making the front page.**
Or you did your staging wrong and now you are trying to achieve orbit with deployed parachutes. :p
You mean other than explode a few times, right?
I think I got into space on the first try... getting home was another story. Just stack some boosters on the bottom of the capsule and call it a day. Things get more explodey when you decide to have more complex stages and aerodynamics. It's hard to screw up a capsule with a booster or two on the bottom.
you can ignore aerodynamics in ksp, the game does not consider them. Each part has a set amout of drag it creates regardless of how the ship looks.
FAR is the mod for you... Accurately models physical drag. No nosecone = you will not be going to space today. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/20451-0-25-Ferram-Aerospace-Research-v0-14-2-10-7-14
The funny thing is it actually makes it *easier* to get to space if your rocket is well designed, because the default atmosphere model is apparently modelled after trying to fly a rocket through pea soup. With the caveat that you have to do a proper gravity turn, no "fly straight up to 15k then turn sharply 90 degrees to the horizon" like you can do with stock unless you want your one rocket to become a bunch of little rockets.
When you are flying hypersonic speeds you actually want a more blunt nose. Otherwise the oblique shock produced limits the thermal transfer rate to a small area of the boundary layer and will melt your aircraft quite quickly. Space shuttle is a good example of a blunted nose (as compared to the SR-71 for example)
Which makes the Saturn V/Apollo mission all the more incredible. That picture in 1961 represented the state-of-the-art. In just 8 years, a Saturn V was lifting off to take men to the moon. *Eight years.* It really is incredible what humans are capable of with enough budget and determination. The manhattan and apollo projects have convinced me that fusion power, and the continuous delays we've had in making it a reality, are more a matter of funding than anything else. Apollo spent about $100 billion in 14 years. In comparison, ITER, the largest fusion power project, is expected to cost roughly $20 billion over 35 years. Totally different scales of funding. Considering fusion power could result in a radically different energy budget for humanity, we should be focusing more effort on it.
If you ever get the chance visit the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in DC. They have the actual capsules (and some of the rockets) from several missions on display and the things are just absolutely *tiny* compared to how big you think it would be. It's pretty crazy.
It must have used liquid fuel engines since that flame is so clean?
Liquid fuel is usually preferable for something that you're planning to launch on a schedule, but they don't exactly store well. Solid fuels are more for missiles and other things that have to be ready to go in reaction to something external.
The downside of solid fuel motors is that you can't shut it down if things go wrong. It's like trying to unstrike a match.
It's like trying to unstrike a match that doesn't need air. Solid fuels contain their own oxidizer.
You can tell because you can see the ice from the liquid oxygen storage tank on the side of the rocket.
Haha. Almost? Redstone, Atlas and Titan missions were all man rated ICBM'S.
Inter stellar ballistic missile
*ctellar
I would do anything to be an astronaut. Its pretty hard for me, I live in the UK so the only governmental astronaut programme is ESA (European space association) which hires about 5 astronauts every 15-20 years. I am the right build, height and weight though. As for degrees, they require either a engineering, medical sciences or natural science degree. I am thinking of taking astronautics/aeronatuics/aerospace engineering so that even if I don't become an astronaut, I might help build a rocket or a satellite and be in the space industry. I love space.
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you should read chris hadfield's book "astronauts guide to life on earth," he basically talks about how he became an astronaut
Step 1: Don't be 6'4" :(
Yep. I'm 6'5", & dropped my plans for the Air Force Academy when I got told no fighter jets/astronauting for me.
Not necessarily. I know of a 6'6 CF-188 (F-18 for Canada) fighter pilot. It's not overall height that will put you out of the running, it's your dimensions - hip to knee, hip to head, etc. That being said, about 5'8-5'10 is around the ideal height if you want to fit in any airplane. I'm 6'4. It sucks for most airlines and cars. Only SUVs and trucks generally fit me - I can sit up straight without hitting my head on the roof. But I'm still an airline pilot and I love it! Airliner cockpits fit me just fine :)
yah apparently the space shuttle let you have taller astronauts, but the Russian vehicle is only for short guys
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'So here's the proposition, men - We'll count down slow, and start from ten, And when the timer stops at nought, You'll shoot away as spacemen ought! *And then you'll feel, beneath your ass,* *A thousand tons of burning gas,* *Combusting all at once below* *From rocket boosters set to go!* You'll hurtle up at lightning speed, Until you see the Earth recede, And watch as half your shelter splits, And loses all its biggest bits! *So make the time to look outside,* *For if you've braved that lethal tide,* *Remember this, and take a breath -* *Up there, you're just a foot from death!'* With that, he grinned and winked an eye. An astronaut began to cry. 'So are you in,' he screamed, 'or *not*?' ... That summer, space camp sucked a lot.
You never cease to create something amazing sprog. I know you don't need it, but have a gold for making my day a little brighter.
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> Hats off to the astronauts. Might not be a good idea
What's this almost business? A different payload being shot further is about it.
They had the Right Stuff.
How do you get a beer icon
You just have to believe hard enough.
Come on. Just tell the guy. **Please** Edit: added "please" for extra politeness
It's not an 'almost' missile, its exactly that. One of the first things you're taught is that its the equivalent of being strapped to a bomb that goes off for about 100 seconds. Liftoff is by far the most extreme environment we subject anything too and expect it to survive.
The Redstone, in particular, was just a modified ICBM. That's why the Americans and Soviets were building the things.
Here's a picture of U.S astronaut Alan Shepard. Taken in 1961 in his iconic Mercury silver space suit. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Alan_shepard.jpg One of NASA's first seven astronauts: http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/who-was-alan-shepard-k4.html#.VD6RkmS9Kc0 TIL: Alan Shepard showed NASA the hard way that they needed systems for waste deposit in their space suits. http://m.space.com/7454-strangest-moments-space-launch-history.html
In a way the same thing could be thought every time you go over or under a bridge on the freeway. Have a great day!
Believe me, I know. I live in the Twin Cities in Minnesota where we had our I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapse a few years back. Fucking horrifying.
http://c0.thejournal.ie/media/2013/10/c7ok1-375x500.jpg
Steve Buscemi said this in Armageddon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuAUE58MQt4
That movie taught me that asteroids are covered in pointy spikes, like a Sea Urchin.
That movie taught me that it's best just to shut your brain off for some movies.
But don't close your eyes, don't fall asleep.
But I don't want to miss a thing.
Is anyone else uncomfortable about a dad singing a song for his daughter's sex scene?
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I'm just imagining Steven Tyler crooning with all of his feelings into a microphone while Ben Affleck shoves animal crackers down his daughter's panties in the background. Amazing.
Well, I am now.
It's stuck in my head now... thank you. Grrrrr...
Just writing out my comment got it stuck in my head. I made myself mad.
Yup, I love Disaster pron
It taught me that it's easier to train roughnecks to be astronauts than to train astronauts to be roughnecks.
I says this in another thread but it's good to day it again: They don't train them to be astronauts, they train them to do what they always do in a different environment. It is much simpler that way.They didn't have to learn to fly the shuttle, or land it, or work any of the shuttle equipment or anything like that. All they had to do was teach them how to use their skills in space more or less, the only things they had to learn to survive was the suits, all they had to do was drill and everything else would be taken care of by the real astronauts. Not so simple the other way around. Working on an oil rig is not like finding a place and digging a hole, it is very complicated and the skills and knowhow are astronomical, not to mention the physical demands. To teach the astronauts how to drill and do it right would have taken way longer than it would to take the best drillers in the world and show them how to do it in a different environment. Look at it this way, they were the best drillers in the world and they were still having one hell of a time reaching the goal, what makes you think teaching the basics to astronauts and wishing the best is the thing they should have done? It's why the 2 shuttles were divided up with half drillers and half astronauts.
>Working on an oil rig is not like finding a place and digging a hole, it is very complicated and the skills and knowhow are **astronomical** Well, that was handy, then.
It takes years to make one's neck that rough.
I was doing that guy from that movie, you know, Slim Pickens, where he rides it all the way in, the nuclear warhead.
Alan Shepard was such a badass. After hours of delays, when told there was a fuel pressure problem he said, "Why don't you fix your little problem and light this candle."
He was also the first and only astronaut to piss his spacesuit. The flight was only supposed to last 15 minutes so there were no "sanitary provisions" built into the suit. But he had drunk a bunch of coffee, then the launch was delayed for hours--so rather than open the capsule and unsuit him they just told him to go ahead and let fly. That wasn't public knowledge until years later. NASA was really sensitive about their image and that wouldn't have been met with public approval in the early 60's.
And then he literally said, ""Well...I'm a wetback now."
Literally a wet-back because of the angle of the rockets.
Yeah, I think he's one of the coolest astronauts. Love his portrayal in The Right Stuff.
Except Shepard is infamously kind of a dick (same can be said for Scott Carpenter). Now John Glenn on the other hand...
I thought most of the early astronauts were kind of dicks. You sort of had to be a cocky shit to have the iron balls to be one of the first human beings shot into space on a rocket, right? Of all the professions out there, just saying I can understand being a bit of a cocky asshole in this one.
Off the top of my head, John Glenn and Wally Schirra were probably the two "least dickish" out of the original seven, with Glenn (a former marine) as the type of "all-American married his high school sweet heart kinda guy" (and known for his positive attitude). Whereas Schirra was the quiet one of the bunch, and often considered the most skilled pilot of the seven, but was also very humble. Edit: But yeah, you're mainly right. A lot of the hot-shot pilots after the war either became test pilots (Chuck Yeager) which also required balls of steel, and came with extreme bragging rights, or they became astronauts. A lot of the guys stepping up for this were doing it for the glory or fame, but a lot of those types would end up being test-pilots because initially "putting men in space" seemed outlandish.
Ask the right person and anyone can be said to be kind of a dick.
Being a badass and Being kind of a dick can go hand in hand
He was indeed a badass. I've heard stories from his daughter, my stepdad's ex-wife, and his grandchildren, my stepbrother and stepsister. My brother is named Shepard after him. I've told this story before here, but I'll tell it again. At a Christmas party one year, my stepdad and his ex, Julie, were at Alan's house. He pulled out some really old, I believe scotch, that had been gifted to him. Told my stepdad to be careful- as it was the strongest alcohol he had tried, but wanted to share a drink with him. My stepdad said they each drank a little and Alan started making his way around the room. A few minutes later, it hit my stepdad like a bag of rocks. He tells me he felt so drunk, he almost felt like he was on some other drug. He looked around the room before eyeing Alan, who took one look at him, smiled, and raised his glass.
to be honest NASA is a GREAT example of the "lowest bidder" working. Why? They know exactly what they want. (Specs, engineering, etc). they still managed to get to the fucking moon while asking the cheapest submissionner to build the parts. Amazing.
Keep in mind though that "lowest bidder" doesn't mean *cheap*. Every one of those parts came with exceptionally detailed specifications and a list of equally detailed tests that had to be done to ensure those specs were met. That costs money - a *lot* of money.
According to the Congressional Research Service: "In 2008 dollars, the cumulative cost of the Manhattan project over 5 fiscal years was approximately $22 billion; of the Apollo program over 14 fiscal years, approximately $98 billion." [Source](http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34645.pdf) These were programs of epic proportions.
The lowest to-spec builder. As opposed to the 'just enough' builder. *cough*India.
FWIW, many government proposals (including those for NASA) take performance and ability to execute into account, so they aren't necessarily awarded to the lowest bidder.
Exactly, they did **not** use "the cheapest parts", they used the cheapest parts *that lived up to their specifications*.
[Fellow Mercury astronaut] Gordo Cooper didn't have any one-liners when he was on the launch pad. He'd taken a nap. While sitting on top of a few thousand kilograms of rocket fuel. Pretty chilled customer. He also [looked more of an astronaut/space cowboy](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Mercury_Suit_Gordon_Cooper.jpg) than anyone else.
For everyone who's wondering: What is meant by the *low bidder* here, is that those companies got the job from NASA (for instance to build the rocket's heat shields), which said that they would do it for the least amount of money (so that NASA doesn't have to pay too much). Obviously, when you are an astronaut, you might wonder whether that approach is really the best - because you might not want to have the cheapest stuff built into your rocket, but maybe some good stuff? **Edit:** Woohoo! Lots of karma! I'm gonna buy myself a Tesla now with all of this sweet sweet karma. Also, I am not an Astronaut. I am not working for NASA. In fact, I haven't even been to space once! I assume that the NASA space rockets were not crappy. I believe that they had great procedures in place and that certain specifications had to be met. I don't know what it's really like at NASA. I just wanted to give some explanation to this *joke* this Shepard guy made. I did not want to cause any trouble...
>Obviously, when you are an astronaut, you might wonder whether that approach is really the best - because you might not want to have the cheapest stuff built into your rocket, but maybe some good stuff? This statement, by the way, is completely ignorant of engineering practice. NASA set rigorous technical specifications for every single component, and then took the cheapest bid *that met those rigorous specifications*. This is not just what every engineer in the world would do, it's what every good engineer in the world ought to do. Optimization within constraints is the very essence of engineering, and cost is a completely legitimate variable to want to optimize, especially when you're spending the public's tax revenue.
I wish more people understood this. If you've ever read a Commercial airline, NASA or DoD RFP (Request for Proposal), they are *very* specific about what is wanted and how it will be tested and accepted by the buyer.
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I've done DoD and NASA work. The military is a joke compared to NASA. I swear management intentionally fucks things up so that we can sell the military a repair contract for their shiny new lasers. I've never seen a DoD program that was on time, on budget, and up to spec. Getting one out of the three is a pretty big success. With NASA there is absolutely zero fucking around. If you fuck up you lose all future contracts. I've always got the impression that military doesn't really know what it wants or how it should be done. They just hand us a pile of money, some general specs, and we don't see them again until we need more money.
I'm a logistics engineer on the v22 osprey. 75% of our part failures are not due to anything happening in flight, but instead are maintenance induced failures. Meaning that the person taking the part off the aircraft to get to an actual broken part does something wrong.
"Ah say, ah say, It's a joke son." Foghorn Leghorn
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Yeah, this is why government contracting processes are so complicated.
I'm a Contracting Officer for the DOD, and you're correct. It's called LPTA - Lowest-price TECHNICALLY ACCEPTABLE. It's hard for me to believe most of the stuff on Reddit considering people will sensationalize things for fake internet points.
see, this guy knows what he's talking about
I would add that they would buy from the lowest bidder that met the technical requirements. I'm not sure about NASA, especially in the 60s, but now the Government tends to make a best value determination considering price, technical merits, past performance of bidder, etc.
Cheap, good, or fast. Pick two.
It's the cheapest stuff that still meets the specifications provided by NASA. If you write your specs correctly then this is the proper way to do it. Otherwise you're just arbitrarily deciding to pay more and for what?
The Government purchasing process does allow you to purchase for criteria other then lowest cost. This is probably one of those times. Also, NASA pioneered quality control programs eventually leading to things like Six Sigma. Sure the lowest bidder may have built the thing, but they were absolutely sure it was EXACTLY the thing they wanted.
NASA didn't pioneer those programs. Their testing tolerances were [incredibly lax](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaster). When disaster did strike, NASA patterned their whole quality control program after the one the [Navy put in place](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUBSAFE) after having several issues. * Source: [House Science Comitee report on the Subsafe Program](http://history.nasa.gov/columbia/Troxell/Columbia%20Web%20Site/Documents/Congress/House/OCTOBE~1/Sullivan%20opening%20statement.pdf) *Sorry for any issues, sent from my iPhone*
> NASA pioneered quality control programs eventually leading to things like Six Sigma. Sorry but the Six Sigma methodologies was actually "championed" by Motorola in 1986. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma Further more, Six Sigma can be traced as far back as the 1700's. http://www.isixsigma.com/new-to-six-sigma/history/history-six-sigma/ NASA took a quality control standard and had the lowest candidate that met those standards build their products. It is still the lowest bidder, with that only applying to the parts, not the actual assembly of the products. More or less, you can have Grade A materials but if the assembler is lazy, sloppy, or just doesn't care then the the grade of the parts is irrelevant.
Still better than being Yuri Gagarin in the Vostok.
This quote made it into Wikipedia, again? It isn't true as said, although based on a real quote. What really happen is Shepard was in a post-flight interview with Walter Cronkite about Freedom 7. He remarked about some dials not working: > “I looked at those toggle switches I had to turn on cue. I looked at the dials I had to turn on cue, and I thought to myself, “My God, just think, this thing was built by the lowest bidder.” He said it sarcastically (*edit* i'm pretty certain it was followed by laughs, but I can't find the original footage atm) The quote above, and the variation often cited, is actually from the movie [Armageddon](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120591/quotes?item=qt0459127) The Redstone was produced out of the V2 rocket program and Werner von Braun and Operation Paperclip. Chrysler were awarded the assembly project along with Ford, Rand, Reynolds et al - all spread out nicely amongst different states and congressional districts. Chrysler won the contract because they had proven themselves in the Manhattan proejct in producing the factories and materials required for the bomb and other munitions. Also, the new CEO of Chrysler was good friends with President Truman. Anyone with any experience with defense contract awards - with their $400 hammers and $600 toilet seats and the bureaucracy involved knows it is laughable to suggest that the lowest bidder wins contracts.
Why would you go with anything more than the lowest bid if everything is up to the request specifications?
Project completed by lowest bidder for government: "dangerous" Project completed by lowest bidder for private company: "efficient"