Do You Know The Silly Reason Why America Put A Man On The Moon?

[cheri1122]

On topic:
Another reason [if you needed one] to love NASA

Bobak Ferdowsi, Adam Steltzner: NASA's Mars rover Curiosity team includes a "mohawk guy."

Not just that he looks cool, but that his colleagues chose the hairstyle for that mission. That speaks volumes about the kind of teamwork that can accomplish amazing things, especially when extremely intelligent and dedicated people 'get it'. NASA gets it.

 

[Turtle]

My goodness. It gets more laughable every time you post. Every penny of DOD money that "found" its way into a NASA program was and is accounted for. It's purpose was to develop ways to miniatirize computers? LOL That's funny. And to develop ICBMs? Uhm, we already HAD those. They were repurposed for manned spaceflight. Most of the rocket propulsion advances that von Braun developed at NASA wasn't even applicable to ICBMs, because ICBMs and moon shot rockets require incompatible parameters that aren't transferable between each other. And secure communications? If that was a mandate, they failed miserably, since their communications was literally off the shelf ham radio technology. No attempt whatsoever was made to secure their communications until after the Apollo program had ended and they began doing some military satellite launches.

I gotta give you props for the most ludicrous statement I've ever read about the space program, though, that we'd have put men on the moon sooner if private enterprise had done it and NASA hadn't been involved. I laugh out loud every time I think about that. Thank you.

 

[layoutshooter]

I have emailed my nephew, it may not get done until his move is complete. I want you to see that picture. You already are going to owe me dinner on a "GPS" bet, SO, want to make it double or nothing? I KNOW you don't know about what is in that picture, or how it will "Shine the light" on much of what I speak of.

There is SO much of what took place then that is NOT the history books, and likely will never make it in them, even though most of it has long been declassified. Very little of what is in history books is accurate, and yet, many want to believe that.

Yeah, we had ICBM's then, there was NO reason to be testing NEW stuff. Once you have them, that is all you ever need.

 

[Turtle]

I'm not talking history books, I'm talking mission books, research books, project books, and financial books, none of which were ever classified or declassified. Even the military projects, while it wasn't necessarily public about what they were for, or the details of the project, the project itself is accounted for to the penny when NASA budgets were involved. Just because the bulk of US government agencies are corrupt and incompetent doesn't mean therefor thus NASA must be, too. There is an army of space geek nerds that keep a tight watch on it all.

As for the Department of Agriculture and their shenanigans, there is nothing you can surprise me with on that one. My aunt in Tucson spent nearly her entire adult life working for Agriculture, yet had her office in the White House from 1964 to 1976, and her paycheck came out of Langley.

 

[layoutshooter]

I KNOW that there were "nerds" all over NASA, I worked with several who left NASA after Apollo ended so they could have something to do.

I am not talking about what was done on mission, although, there was a LOT of "secret stuff" that went up on early manned missions. They were testing several hypotheses for space born collection/imagery etc. I am speaking of some of the "under handed" stuff that went on. ANYTIME billions of government, you know, the People's money, is being handed out like candy there is corruption.

ANYTIME elected officials are involved, there will be corruption. NASA was hardly immune to that. They are not now.

I agree that MOST of those who were employed by NASA were there for the "thrill" of taking part in the program, but to believe that it was not politics as usual at NASA is naive.

All of the guys I worked with that worked on the manned space program were either contractors from day one, or became contractors, when Apollo was cancelled. They had worked in mission control, capsule design, booster design, designed orbits, software design etc. They did the same jobs when I worked with them that they did when they were with, or contracting for, NASA. Most of the contractors were with the same company that they were with when they worked with NASA. Just as when they were with NASA, they were inventing everything as they went along. Just as when they were with NASA, congress controlled the purse strings and just like when they were with NASA, "favors" were always in play.

All it takes is billions and elected officials.

It was the same in the Soviet Union. The R-7 booster that was used to put Sputnik into orbit was an ICBM being tested.

ALL of the US launch vehicles, as they were called in NASA, were ICBM's. All of the work that was done was to advance ICBM development faster than DOD could do it alone. How could that happen? MORE FUNDING. Funding that was not going to be given to DOD on it's own. So, they had a "space race" to find a way to fund it.

Some of what went on was rather inexpensive, and easy to hide, like the development of the SR-71. Development of ICBM launch platforms is very expensive. Development of orbits needed to be tested. Even "SIGINT" packages were tested on NASA missions, as far back as the early 1960's.

 

[layoutshooter]

One of the first "agreements" signed between DOD and NASA was signed on Jan 13, 1961. It involved "SIGINT" collection.

Link to NSA declassified document. This "history" was only classified "SECRET" so it was never all inclusive.

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_histories/space.pdf

 

[layoutshooter]

Some more really low level, commonly known "STUFF" about NASA and it's military connections, how it came about, etc. As you can see, while NASA was originally envisioned as a non-military agency, congress recognized that DOD HAD to involved.

"National Aeronautics and Space Administration

To avoid the difficulties experienced with Vanguard, which many blamed on faulty management and lack of unified direction, the government created a new agency to solidify national space policy. The National Aeronautics and Space Act created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in July 1958.(50) The act essentially codified the NSC directive of May 1955 by officially dividing the civilian and military sectors. NASA would solidify policy on peaceful uses of space.(51) It absorbed the resources and facilities of NACA and other space-related agencies (such as the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the Advanced Research Projects Agency [ARPA]).(52) NASA was the brainchild of James R. Killian, presidential scientific advisor, and opened its doors on 1 October 1958.(53)

As Killian and Eisenhower had devised it, NASA would be a strictly civilian enterprise, thereby limiting the military's role in the national space program. Within its original charter, there was only a vaguely defined relationship with the military. Congress, on the other hand, envisioned a strong military role in space and wished to modify NASA's relationship with the military. To this end, Congress created the Civilian-Military Liaison Committee (to coordinate NASA and Department of Defense [DOD] activities) and the National Aeronautics and Space Council (chaired by the president as commander in chief of the US military to create national space policy).(54)"

Everything gets perverted once government is involved.
Eisenhower Years: 1953-1960

 

[layoutshooter]

For Turtle:

The picture(S) I am speaking of are located in the Army intelligence museum at Ft. Huachuca, AZ. That is where my nephew's wife is being transferred to. They will arrive there in late August. My nephew told me that he will go to the museum after they get settled, with a better camera and get us several good pictures.

 

[Turtle]

One of the first "agreements" signed between DOD and NASA was signed on Jan 13, 1961. It involved "SIGINT" collection.

Link to NSA declassified document. This "history" was only classified "SECRET" so it was never all inclusive.

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_histories/space.pdf

Not new news, man. It was known about at the time, and was funded entirely by DOD budgets, not out of NASA's budget. Just one of many military projects NASA was involved with that wasn't paid for by NASA, that the details and purpose weren't known, but that they existed were most definitely known.

 

[layoutshooter]

Not new news, man. It was known about at the time, and was funded entirely by DOD budgets, not out of NASA's budget. Just one of many military projects NASA was involved with that wasn't paid for by NASA, that the details and purpose weren't known, but that they existed were most definitely known.

I never said it was "New", I said it was known. Wait till Sept or so, once my nephew gets settled in AZ. There are some revealing picture there that will shed some light on things.

All I said was the primary reason for the Space Race was military and not civilian exploration. EVERYTHING that was done then had two purposes. One civilian and one for exploration. There would have been no "space race" if there was not a perceived threat from the Soviets.

 

[layoutshooter]

Also, like I said, that was ONLY a "secret" document. There are "top secret code word" documents, that have been declassified, that goes into this in much greater detail. I don't ever go looking for them since they have to be requested under the FOIA.

 

[Turtle]

Some more really low level, commonly known "STUFF" about NASA and it's military connections, how it came about, etc. As you can see, while NASA was originally envisioned as a non-military agency, congress recognized that DOD HAD to involved.

What are you talking about? No one, least of all me, ever said that NASA and the military had no connections. They had a boatload of them. NASA launched scores of military satellites (and later in the SST program carried hundreds of military experiments into space), but none of them were done through NASA's budgets, they were all done under military contract with military budgets. And not once was a NASA project put on hold in favor of a military project. They were done along side of NASA's missions.

But none of this copy and pasted stuff supports the ridiculous claims you've made, like that NASA retarded (retarded, I love that word here) our space program, that NASA held back the program and drove up the cost substantially, that there were the corruptions of back door deals, last minute changes in contracts, kick backs, politics, etc. And that if only private enterprise had been in charge rather than NASA, we could have put men on the moon in one-third less time and for half the money.

Did you know that in NASA's entire history they have never once had a budget increase because of a cost overrun? The military has those every quarter. Unlike the military, NASA doesn't eat cost overruns, the contractors do.

Everything gets perverted once government is involved.
Eisenhower Years: 1953-1960

And NASA has proven itself over and over again to anyone paying attention to be the exception to that rule.

Sort of. There is one bright shining example of where the government needlessly involved itself in NASA in one of your corruption scenarios, against NASA's wishes, and that's when a favorite military contractor was forced onto NASA. That contractor was Morton-Thiokol, who was contracted at nearly twice the bidding price to build the solid rocket boosters and the infamous o-rings that failed on the Challenger. 15 Morton-Thiokol engineers agreed--unanimously--that NASA shouldn't launch the Challenger. But Thiokol Executive Vice President Gerald Mason told the 15 engineers to "take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat." Mason and four top Thiokol executives vetoed the engineers' recommendation, and NASA subsequently launched the Challenger in 38-degree weather. Just over a minute later, the shuttle was consumed in a bright, shining, spectacular fireball. All because of government interference where it shouldn't be involved.

One of the reasons that Mason gave the launch the go-ahead was because if Thiokol nixed the launch, because they were contracted to NASA instead of the military for this project, they would have to eat the cost of a no-launch, something they weren't used to doing or prepared to do. It ended up costing them far more than launch delay costs, however.

 

[Turtle]

For Turtle:

The picture(S) I am speaking of are located in the Army intelligence museum at Ft. Huachuca, AZ. That is where my nephew's wife is being transferred to. They will arrive there in late August. My nephew told me that he will go to the museum after they get settled, with a better camera and get us several good pictures.

Will these pictures prove the ridiculous claims you've made?

 

[layoutshooter]

Will these pictures prove the ridiculous claims you've made?

Without a doubt. There is nothing ridiculous about anything I have said.

 

[layoutshooter]

Any way, I have to run soon. Mrs. Layoutshooter and I have big time plans today and she out trumps you in spades. In fact, we have the rest of the week tied up with DU stuff, starting with that tomorrow.

Are we on for the double or nothing or not?

 

[Turtle]

All I said was the primary reason for the Space Race was military and not civilian exploration. EVERYTHING that was done then had two purposes. One civilian and one for exploration. There would have been no "space race" if there was not a perceived threat from the Soviets.

It was even done for two purposes, the entire reason that NASA was created was to win the space race, pure and simple. It's purpose was never, even a little bit, about space exploration. That's why moon missions stopped the instant the Soviet threat ended. Three planned missions were scrapped, and the last man that walked there, the twelfth, did so in 1972.

Like I've said earlier, the three primary motivators of large, expensive projects are monetary return, in praise of power (or a deity), or fear (defense). There's no money (yet) in exploring space, no reason to go there in praise of power, and with no threat of death there's no motivation out of defense.

We had a brief moment of fear there when Junior announced, in fine Kennedy tradition, grand plans for putting men on Mars, but then a week later the Berlin Wall fell, and that was that. Not surprisingly to everyone but you, private enterprise didn't take on that project. They're barely dabbling in low-earth orbit stuff, and they're not making any money doing it.

Half the money and one-third less time. You crack me up.

 

[layoutshooter]

You can believe what ever you want. This aurgument is silly. Even IF I went to the trouble to get the TS code word documnets, you would not believe it.

I am done, Good night gracey

 

[layoutshooter]

I gottta go. You will have to wait to make fun of opposing views until Monday at the earliest. I have IMPORTANT things to do. Like have a life.

"So long, farewell,auf wiedersehen, good night.
I hate to go and leave this pretty sight.

So long, farewell auf wiedersehen, adieu
Adieu, adieu, to you and you and you."

 

[Turtle]

It's not opposing viewpoints I have issue with, it's the ridiculous claims made, without substantiation, that fails utterly to refute easily verifiable facts, facts that show your claims to be borne of ignorance and assumption. Absurdly ridiculous is what they are.

 

[xiggi]

Turtle stop sugar coating things.

Sent from my Fisher Price - ABC123