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Originally posted by jra
Originally posted by AllIsOne
After the retirement of the space shuttle NASA won't have the ability for at least 4 years to send astronauts into space.
A similar thing happened after the Apollo program was stopped. There was a 6 year gap between the last Apollo flight and the first Shuttle flight.
The Ares I rocket with the Orion module will be operational in 2014. (I'm not even going to discuss the fact that said technology is a rehash of the '60s ...).
In what way is it a rehash?
I think that the only superpower remaining on this planet would not give up such a strategic advantage. It just doesn't sound right to me. I believe that we will have a major announcement coming in the next three years that will reveal an "alternate" space vehicle with incredible specs.
I don't see how loosing manned spaceflight for a few years is such a big deal. It's happened before like I pointed out above. Plus, if Space X's Falcon 9 goes up with no issues, we could see commercial manned spaceflight sooner than the Ares 1/Orion (if it doesn't get cancelled).
Originally posted by Truth1000
If the Navy has a space program independent of NASA and the USAF, where are their rockets launching into space from?
As anyone on the Space Coast of Florida or around the Vandenburg launch site in California, it's kind of hard to have a "secret" launch from any launch site, because it is noticeable from 50-100 miles in every direction, just from the sound.
You can sort of hide the payload of a space launch, but it sure is hard to hide an entire space program outside of the Cape and Vandenburg.
Originally posted by pavil
reply to post by Truth1000
I agree that is would be hard to hide a Shuttle like blastoff, they would have to have the site remote and somebody would have picked it up on Google Earth.
Originally posted by AllIsOne
When you get to the bottom of the "new" program it is the Saturn rocket and the Apollo crew module on steroids. But there is no new propulsion system and the splashdown method is so '60s