[TracyCoxx]

Originally Posted by sesame

Do you think NASA uses this mad system in it's space programs? No. They use the metric system for scientific endeavours.

Nasa software uses metric... especially after the units mix-up with the mars orbiter. But Nasa hardware often uses english because their tools and machines are still in english. It would be a huge expense to retool their shops.

Originally Posted by Jenae LaTorque

It went boom! But at least they learned a valuable lesson there. NASA has had quite a few "expensive" lessons; both in wasted time and money, and in human life.

It didn't go boom, it just didn't didn't enter mars orbit and kept on going because of mistakes with english vs metric units.

I'm going to get on my Nasa soapbox now. Yes, Nasa learned a lesson from that, and from the shuttle accidents. But the real lesson to be learned was with congress, and it certainly fell on deaf ears. I've heard a lot of complaints against Nasa. The shuttle is too expensive. They have too many accidents. They don't have their eye on the real mission - sending people to mars. Well the problem all along has been with congress and presidents. Nasa knows how to reduce costs in the shuttle. They can reduce accidents, and they would love nothing more than to send humans to mars. The problem is lack of funding. Congress and the American people would like nasa to do all these things, but Congress & presidents won't pay for it.

The shuttle has high operating costs because they were short changed during the development of the shuttle. So they skimped on design and shifted the costs to operational costs. The shuttle had to prove to be cost effective so they had to have a high flight rate and launch satellites that could have been launched by unmanned rockets. So they didn't listen to engineers that said it was too cold to launch Challenger.

They also skimped on testing because there were no funds for testing. Testing that would have shown the real dangers of falling debris which led to the Columbia accident.

So did congress & Bush learn from past mistakes? No. Bush proposed a new program called Vision for Space Exploration. The program is fantastic, and exactly what our country's space program needs to make huge advances. All the rockets required are being developed under a program called Constellation. The aim is not the moon, not mars, but for Nasa to learn how humans can travel, live and work throughout the solar system to exploit literally new worlds of resources. Bush can't even provide full funding for his own plan. Again Nasa is having to skimp on design which will translate into higher operational costs, and possibly lives of future astronauts. Democrats in congress criticized him on underfunding Nasa throughout his terms. So what do the democrats do now that they are in charge? Rather than correcting Bush's mistake of underfunding Nasa they throw together the Augustine Commission with the initial goal of declaring Ares I (the launcher for the new capsule) as too expensive. It is clear that congress will NEVER learn the consequences of underfunding space programs. This is rocket science... it's going to take some dollars. To fully fund the Constellation program would take another $3 billion per year. Congress belched out $2 billion for the cash for clunkers program like it was chump change, and Obama just spend about $2 trillion on BS programs. Don't get cheap now. Nasa's budget is just .5% of the nations budget. And on top of Nasa's budget, lawmakers tacked on an extra $750 million in pork barrel spending for their districts - for things like a dinosaur museum and other non-Nasa business.

Look at this:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/co...s_aug09_1.html

This is the Ares 1-X launcher that's assembled and ready to go within a couple of months. It's the first test Ares launcher and it could very well get canceled before it can even launch.