August 4, 2004

           This is the space station proposed by von Braun. He proposed this in 1952. Instead, nearly 50 years later wall we get is another NASA joke of a project. The International Space Station. It's a political thing. Low Earth Orbit shuttles and stations keep employment up over at the spaceports. Figure it out, it is money. One long mission to Mars costs the same as fifty (I'm guessing) shuttle flights. But the high-paid staff isn't waiting months for the transit, they can appear busy day-to-day. Now, I'll tell you the real difference.

           The big plan for the 1952 platform was to use it as a base for further exploration. The transport rockets would be mostly payload to construct other rockets for space travel.
           This, grasshopper, is probably the most efficient use of rocket technology, since each payload is maximized for construction.
           This is where we take note that NASA has never invented anything better than the rocket. Hell, I suggest those deadbeats have not even caught up with von Braun. Given the circumstances, NASA will still be flying around in circles in 2050 unless somebody goes over there and kicks ass.
           This crappy ISS has a mission defined as "biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology, and other fields". All of which should long ago have been turned over to private industry. They have a finger in every pie except what the public wants: deep space exploration. Send them all packing, I say, and start over again with a real space program.