Originally posted by jackinthebox
reply to post by re22666
so....NASA went back to the horse and buggy with the space shuttle?
I was only trying to make an example, about technolgy trees. If you don't stay on the same branch, it will wither and die, even if the tree gets
bigger overall.
Say we made the jump to "more advanced" electric cars instead of going back to horses. But suddenly in a half century we wanted to have a standard
combustion NASCAR race. It would still take a lot of work to bring that technology back on line.
that is a terribly flawed analogy. first of all, it is based on a hypothetical. you do not know it would be hard to bring that technology back in
line. you just believe that it would. but that is completely beside the point.
let me correct it so it actually fits the point I made.
if we suddenly made the jump to electric cars but in 40 year wanted to have a standard combustion nascar race, we would have no idea how, no
capabilities, no technology, no knowledge of how to pull it off. we would have to completely rediscover cumbustion engines.
does that seem logical to you?
it would be fine if the problem was that nasa was "having trouble bringing that technology back in line." but that is not the problem is it? no, the
problem is that they have NO IDEA how to achieve something they already did decades ago. NO IDEA. not trouble bringing it back inline, they CANNOT
accomplish it. do you see the difference? do you see the absurdity in the very concept?
lets look at it another way.
what is NASA doing? working on space exploration right? so what they spend their time working on is better ways to explore space right?
ok, cars are for getting us from here to there right?
changing from combustion to electric, will still get us from here to there right?
so the same goal is achieved with the new technology as with the old, just in a different way. to go back to a combustion race would be simply for
novelty purposes since we can still move a car from here to there right?
so NASA's goal is to get into space
has that goal changed?
we are not talking about digging up the ol' LEM and gettin 'er runnin' out in the yard. we are still talking about getting from here to there.