Fifty years ago today, Apollo VIII brought us to the moon for the first time ever.

[Vort]

As a child of the Space Age, I regret our fatally stupid diversion with the space shuttle and the lost opportunities afforded by the Apollo program, surely one of the biggest technopolitical bunglings in human history.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20181220-the-nasa-mission-that-broadcast-to-a-billion-people

Edited December 21, 2018 by Vort

[unixknight]

What makes the shuttle program a stupid diversion?

[JohnsonJones]

28 minutes ago, unixknight said:

What makes the shuttle program a stupid diversion?

I imagine because it led to us spending more time on discovery of the earth's closer environs with our eyes seeking other means outwards instead of pushing onwards and outwards in the exploration of other bodies beyond the earth.  The Moon is in the Earth's gravity, but it could have led to further expansion in exploration where some imagine we might be at Mars or further by now if we had continued down that route.

I may be wrong in my guess, but that's one of the things I hear occasionally from those who feel we took the wrong route in building Skylab and the Space Shuttle programs.

[Vort]

40 minutes ago, unixknight said:

What makes the shuttle program a stupid diversion?

Worst space program possible. Vehicle designed by committee that outright killed 2% of its crews. It was an ungainly bastardization that was a jack of few trades and most definitely a master of none.

When Apollo was ending, there were several possible continuations floated for taking us forward: Heavy lift vehicles for constructing an LEO station and/or Mars transport, continuation of the lunar programs, a super-rocket to take us to Mars (this was Werner von Braun's idea), several cooperative ventures, a deep-space program for probe launches, and a few others. The proponents of these programs argued, sometimes bitterly, for their own ideas.

At the end of the day, the issue was decided by committee. And the committee came up with the Ugly Bastard that was the space shuttle. It had two enormous advantages, neither of which had anything to do with, you know, rocketry or space exploration, namely:

1. It didn't favor one plan over another; rather, it pretended it could sort of accomplish ALL the plans pretty well;
2. The nature of the space shuttle meant its production could be spread throughout the nation, bringing jobs and prestige to the senators, who would thereby gain reelection.

#1 was an outright lie. The space shuttle was unable to accomplish any of the objectives well. #2 was only too true, and IMnaaHO was a good example of trading human life for money and power. Cain would have been proud.

The space shuttle was a boondoggle and a national embarrassment. We could have had four decades of real advancement; instead, we have four decades of pissing away our technological lead playing with an inherently flawed vehicle, while most of the real work that got done rested on the shoulders of other rocket designs such as Titan and Atlas.

If I sound bitter and disillusioned, that's only because I am.

Edited December 21, 2018 by Vort

[unixknight]

9 minutes ago, JohnsonJones said:

I may be wrong in my guess, but that's one of the things I hear occasionally from those who feel we took the wrong route in building Skylab and the Space Shuttle programs.

Maybe you're right.  I guess we'll see when @Vort returns to the thread.  

I'll hold my rebuttal until then 

[Just_A_Guy]

Didn’t I read somewhere that NASA threw out the blueprints for the Saturn V rocket, and we couldn’t build another one now if we wanted to?

[unixknight]

2 minutes ago, Vort said:

Worst space program possible. Vehicle designed by committee that outright killed 2% of its crews. It was an ungainly bastardization that was a jack of a few trades and most definitely a master of none.

I'd agree with the jack of all trades master of none remark.  That's fair.  I don't blame the shuttle itself for the deaths though.  In both cases, the loss of the vehicle was directly attributable to negligence and stupidity on the part of decision makers... and that, sadly, can happen no matter how good your equipment is.

2 minutes ago, Vort said:

When Apollo was ending, there were several possible continuations floated for taking us forward: Heavy lift vehicles for constructing an LEO station and/or Mars transport, continuation of the lunar programs, a super-rocket to take us to Mars (this was Werner von Braun's idea), several cooperative ventures, a deep-space program for probe launches, and a few others. The proponents of these programs argued, sometimes bitterly, for their own ideas.

At the end of the day, the issue was decided by committee. And the committee came up with the Ugly Bastard that was the space shuttle.

While true, none of those things would have happened, with or without the shuttle.  As it was, the Apollo program was cancelled earlier than it could have, thanks to Democrats wanting to divert the money to social programs (which I'm seeing no evidence of any success from).  When Apollo 17 launched, it was the last Apollo mission to the Moon but we still had two command modules remaining.  One of them was used in the Apollo - Soyuz orbital docking publicity maneuver.   I don't remember what happened to the other.  Both were intended to go to the Moon originally, though.  

With the Apollo program canceled, there is absolutely *no way* a Mars mission or any part of one was going to get any budget.  MAYBE if the Soviets had made a play for it we may have tried to beat them there as well but by the beginning of the '80s the Soviet space program was a joke.  And if you think OUR shuttle turned out to be oversold...

What was needed was the idea of reusability as a selling point.  NASA wanted to build something that could become an active component in future missions like a space station (which it was), repair and maintenance of orbiting satellites (which it was) and a Mars mission (which it wasn't).  It made sense, if you're trying to sell Congress on getting that budget money to characterize it as an investment that would give options later.  Which it did... though it never became as cost effective as it was promised to be. 

They really did push the notion of reusability, which it did accomplish reasonably well.  The orbiter and SRBs were all reusable, and while the ET wasn't, it was the simplest (despite being the largest) component on the stack.    

2 minutes ago, Vort said:

It had two enormous advantages, neither of which had anything to do with, you know, rocketry or space exploration, namely:

1. It didn't favor one plan over another; rather, it pretended it could sort of accomplish ALL the plans pretty well;
2. The nature of the space shuttle meant its production could be spread throughout the nation, bringing jobs and prestige to the senators, who would thereby gain reelection.

Both true, but I'd say it did accomplish a lot of less obvious gains: 

1: It pushed the development and implementation of more new technologies that have been used in other space projects and will continue to do into the future.  30 years of Space Shuttle trips has taught us a thing or two about space flight.  

2: We have a wealth of experience, data and lessons learned about space, how to get to it, how to work there, etc.  We have an astronaut corps with plenty of practical experience in space (and we need to put them to work sooner rather than later.  They ain't getting any younger.)

3: The shuttle did serve several practical purposes that could have been accomplished without it, but not as easily.  Building the Space Station, repairing the Hubble (which I'll grant could have been larger had it not needed to fit into the Shuttle's cargo bay... but if being bigger were that important it could have been launched on an Atlas) and even a rescue mission to Mir.

4: It kept the U.S. relevant in space exploration.  Throughout the '80s, '90s and '00s it kept the U.S. at the forefront of things happening in space.  NASA is mostly on the backburner now, with the Russians providing all the transportation of crew to and from the ISS and private companies sending up supplies.  

So I would agree that the space shuttle program never really lived up to its promises, that's as good as it was ever gonna get.  

[unixknight]

2 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Didn’t I read somewhere that NASA threw out the blueprints for the Saturn V rocket, and we couldn’t build another one now if we wanted to?

Sort of.  The problem is that the specifics of the manufacturing and tuning of the F1 engines are a skillset that is now lost.  We still have the blueprints, but not the ability to reconstruct them as they were.  It would actually be simpler and more efficient to just start over at this point.

[Guest MormonGator]

Why should my tax dollars go to space exploration? 

[unixknight]

14 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

Why should my tax dollars go to space exploration? 

Quote

Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics, and you'll get ten different answers. But there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-Tzu, and Einstein, and Morobuto, and Buddy Holly, and Aristophanes, and all of this…all of this…was for nothing. Unless we go to the stars.

-Commander Jeffrey Sinclair, Babylon 5

https://youtu.be/xkj2IR9CT08

Edited December 21, 2018 by unixknight

[Guest]

32 minutes ago, Vort said:

Worst space program possible. Vehicle designed by committee that outright killed 2% of its crews. It was an ungainly bastardization that was a jack of few trades and most definitely a master of none.

When Apollo was ending, there were several possible continuations floated for taking us forward: Heavy lift vehicles for constructing an LEO station and/or Mars transport, continuation of the lunar programs, a super-rocket to take us to Mars (this was Werner von Braun's idea), several cooperative ventures, a deep-space program for probe launches, and a few others. The proponents of these programs argued, sometimes bitterly, for their own ideas.

At the end of the day, the issue was decided by committee. And the committee came up with the Ugly Bastard that was the space shuttle. It had two enormous advantages, neither of which had anything to do with, you know, rocketry or space exploration, namely:

1. It didn't favor one plan over another; rather, it pretended it could sort of accomplish ALL the plans pretty well;
2. The nature of the space shuttle meant its production could be spread throughout the nation, bringing jobs and prestige to the senators, who would thereby gain reelection.

#1 was an outright lie. The space shuttle was unable to accomplish any of the objectives well. #2 was only too true, and IMnaaHO was a good example of trading human life for money and power. Cain would have been proud.

The space shuttle was a boondoggle and a national embarrassment. We could have had four decades of real advancement; instead, we have four decades of pissing away our technological lead playing with an inherently flawed vehicle, while most of the real work that got done rested on the shoulders of other rocket designs such as Titan and Atlas.

If I sound bitter and disillusioned, that's only because I am.

So, I sense that you are kind of cosi-cosi on the shuttle program.

[Guest]

34 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Didn’t I read somewhere that NASA threw out the blueprints for the Saturn V rocket, and we couldn’t build another one now if we wanted to?

Not exactly.

The design work was divided up among dozens of companies.  And while NASA has the overall plans, it did not include all the details of each part.  Those were kept by individual companies.  Dozens of companies were contracted to each take an aspect of the design.  They each had details of each part that they designed.  So, the overall plans called out a make and model number with a schematic of the actual part as an image.  The exact dimensions and sometimes hidden details simply never showed up on the overall plans.

The individual companies have met a variety of destinies.  Some went out of business.  Others got bought out.  Some became bigger and records got lost in a computer upgrade...  You get the picture.

But the overall plans are still in NASA's archives somewhere.  They're just useless without having to do a LOT of reverse engineering.

Edited December 21, 2018 by Guest

[Vort]

13 minutes ago, unixknight said:

While true, none of those things would have happened, with or without the shuttle.

This is, to coin a Latin phrase, an argumentum ad fatalem. It's easy to say "thus and such would never have happened", but what is more improbable than the existence of the space program itself? In August 1957, what individual or group in their right minds would have said, "Twelve years from today, we will have landed men on the moon and returned them safely to earth"?

Any of the proposed follow-ons to Apollo were far more likely to happen than the space program itself. It required political leadership, perhaps at the expense of political profit-taking. JFK was no one's idea of a noble, self-sacrificing fellow; he fell into the role when Soviet ambitions for domination of space became apparent. So "it couldn't have happened" is a non-starter of an excuse, and "the space shuttle was the best we could do" is an affront to every man and woman who ever worked in Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. The space shuttle was far beyond merely mediocre; it was an affront to the very values that Apollo exemplified.

24 minutes ago, unixknight said:

They really did push the notion of reusability, which it did accomplish reasonably well.

Baloney. Why was "reusability" even a thing? Who cares about reusability per se? "Reusability" was the warcry and watch word for those who wanted financial efficiency. That was all anyone really cared about. "Reusability" meant, "We don't have to keep building the same expensive thing over and over." But is that what happened? Not on your life. Under the space shuttle, costs for access to space soared. The space shuttle promised to drop space access costs almost an order of magnitude; instead, it cost TEN TIMES MORE than projected. If you're keeping track, that's a net loss in efficiency. We paid MORE to be able to launch LESS.

And that is the bottom line, both financially and metaphorically.

Was new technology developed under the space shuttle? Of course. New technology would have been developed in any case. Was there any development specific to the shuttle program that was valuable? Again, of course. The space shuttle main engine, for example, was a veritable wonder of 1980s technology, and a basis for current rocket engine designs. But again, that would have happened in any case; it just happened to have to be attached to the space shuttle, because all of our national spacefaring eggs had been put in that basket. Did the space shuttle accomplish anything useful? Well, of course it did. The Hubble space telescope may well have been the crown jewel of the space shuttle program, both its delivery and its servicing. But we used the space shuttle to do that because that's what we had available. Without the shuttle, we couldn't have serviced the Hubble, you say? True enough; but without the cost overruns of the space shuttle, assuming modest evolutionary improvements in launch technology (which occurred anyway), we could have paid for a brand new Hubble every five years, including launch costs, AND STILL SAVED MONEY.

Using the most modest reasonable estimates of cost and development, there is no path that lay before us in 1970 that would have ended up worse than the space shuttle. Literally anything we might have done would have been better than we got. The space shuttle sucked. Period. The only reason anyone thinks differently is because the space shuttle not only sucked, it sucked up all the funding that might have gone to other (even simultaneous) space launch efforts, so there's no obvious way to point to something else and say, "Look, that went better." The space shuttle is the cuckoo bird chick that ate all the worms so that his adoptive siblings starved to death.

35 minutes ago, unixknight said:

Both true, but I'd say it did accomplish a lot of less obvious gains:

The first three of these would have been the result of any space program; the shuttle deserves no credit for simply existing. The fourth point is rather the opposite of true: The space shuttle insured that, eventually, the US would lose preeminence in space, to the point that we have to contract with other countries or private entities to launch our astronauts into space, because the US no longer has that technological capability.

Thanks, space shuttle!

A few links for your perusal and consideration:

• https://www.technologyreview.com/s/424586/was-the-space-shuttle-a-mistake/
• https://splinternews.com/face-it-america-the-space-shuttle-was-a-total-failure-1793854408 (Honestly, this is kind of a stupid article, but the author pulls no punches, which is what I appreciated)
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2018/06/07/why-didnt-the-space-shuttle-program-continue/#292d5807690a (This is a really great article, where a literal rocket scientist describes exactly why the space shuttle was such a horrible idea)
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpinchefsky/2012/04/18/5-horrifying-facts-you-didnt-know-about-the-space-shuttle/#1fb122bf9d44
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Space_Shuttle_program (good old Wikipedia)

[Vort]

In 2005, Michael Griffin, a NASA administrator, openly admitted what everyone already knew: The space shuttle was a mistake and "not the right path".

https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2005-09-27-nasa-griffin-interview_x.htm

[Vort]

Having criticized the space shuttle, let me emphasize that the point of this thread was to celebrate Apollo VIII, not rag on the space shuttle.

[Vort]

57 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

Why should my tax dollars go to space exploration? 

This falls under the general umbrella of "promote the general welfare".

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Didn’t I read somewhere that NASA threw out the blueprints for the Saturn V rocket, and we couldn’t build another one now if we wanted to?

Here are the plans if you're interested...

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Vort said:

As a child of the Space Age, I regret our fatally stupid diversion with the space shuttle and the lost opportunities afforded by the Apollo program, surely one of the biggest technopolitical bunglings in human history.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20181220-the-nasa-mission-that-broadcast-to-a-billion-people

 

[unixknight]

14 minutes ago, Vort said:

This is, to coin a Latin phrase, an argumentum ad fatalem. It's easy to say "thus and such would never have happened", but what is more improbable than the existence of the space program itself? In August 1957, what individual or group in their right minds would have said, "Twelve years from today, we will have landed men on the moon and returned them safely to earth"?

Any of the proposed follow-ons to Apollo were far more likely to happen than the space program itself. It required political leadership, perhaps at the expense of political profit-taking. JFK was no one's idea of a noble, self-sacrificing fellow; he fell into the role when Soviet ambitions for domination of space became apparent. So "it couldn't have happened" is a non-starter of an excuse, and "the space shuttle was the best we could do" is an affront to every man and woman who ever worked in Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. The space shuttle was far beyond merely mediocre; it was an affront to the very values that Apollo exemplified.

I don't agree.  The '60s were incredibly unique geopolitically.  Those conditions just didn't exist anymore by the late '70s when the shuttle was being designed.  NASA had a harder and harder time justifying its mission and if they were gonna sell Congress on anything, it had to be something that used lots of fiscally impressive buzzwords like...

14 minutes ago, Vort said:

Baloney. Why was "reusability" even a thing? Who cares about reusability per se? "Reusability" was the warcry and watch word for those who wanted financial efficiency. That was all anyone really cared about. "Reusability" meant, "We don't have to keep building the same expensive thing over and over." But is that what happened? Not on your life. Under the space shuttle, costs for access to space soared. The space shuttle promised to drop space access costs almost an order of magnitude; instead, it cost TEN TIMES MORE than projected. If you're keeping track, that's a net loss in efficiency. We paid MORE to be able to launch LESS.

Yup.  And the answer to your question is Bean Counters.  They like words like "reusability." because it sounds cheap.  I already acknowledged earlier that it failed to live up to that, but the only way it was gonna get off the ground (metaphorically speaking) was to convince the bean counters that it was a smart move.

In fact, I'll even take your argument to the next level.  The Space Shuttle was actually supposed to become self sufficient, financially.  They were expecting a launch every month or two carrying satellites for paying customers like large companies and foreign governments.  

It didn't work, but it's not accurate to say that something else could have been done instead.  There is no way NASA was  going to convince Congress in the 1970s to give them money for anything that sounded super expensive.  It was gonna be something like the Shuttle or nothing at all.

14 minutes ago, Vort said:

Was new technology developed under the space shuttle? Of course. New technology would have been developed in any case. Was there any development specific to the shuttle program that was valuable? Again, of course. The space shuttle main engine, for example, was a veritable wonder of 1980s technology, and a basis for current rocket engine designs. But again, that would have happened in any case; it just happened to have to be attached to the space shuttle, because all of our national spacefaring eggs had been put in that basket. 

No, I don't think so.  That assumes we'd have some other program operating.  MAYBE something new would have gotten started during the '80s, when things were good economically and the country's morale was high (though I think the space shuttle was a big  part of that morale in the early '80s.)  But there's no way to know.  Reagan was dealing with a Democrat controlled Congress for most of his presidency and Democrats ain't known for their enthusiasm for space exploration.

14 minutes ago, Vort said:

The Hubble space telescope may well have been the crown jewel of the space shuttle program, both its delivery and its servicing. But we used the space shuttle to do that because that's what we had available. Without the shuttle, we couldn't have serviced the Hubble, you say? True enough; but without the cost overruns of the space shuttle, assuming modest evolutionary improvements in launch technology (which occurred anyway), we could have paid for a brand new Hubble every five years, including launch costs, AND STILL SAVED MONEY.

Maybe so, but that would never have actually occurred.  "Ladies and gentlemen of the Congress, we'd like an appropriations bill for NASA and JPL to put up another space telescope."  They'd be laughed out of the Capitol.  As it is, the Hubble was almost given up on more than once but the cost of repairing it was just low enough to get it through the budget.  It was designed to be able to get repairs and upgrades in space.

14 minutes ago, Vort said:

Using the most modest reasonable estimates of cost and development, there is no path that lay before us in 1970 that would have ended up worse than the space shuttle. Literally anything we might have done would have been better than we got. The space shuttle sucked. Period. The only reason anyone thinks differently is because the space shuttle not only sucked, it sucked up all the funding that might have gone to other (even simultaneous) space launch efforts, so there's no obvious way to point to something else and say, "Look, that went better." The space shuttle is the cuckoo bird chick that ate all the worms so that his adoptive siblings starved to death.

Maybe not, but nothing else would likely have been attempted.  Remember, my point isn't that the shuttle was financially successful.  My point is that the promise of financial success was its initial selling point.  NOTHING else would have even been attempted.  Apollo - Soyuz did nothing innovative, it was just a publicity stunt that used an existing spacecraft.  Skylab?  Also only got sent up because a Saturn V, which we had left over from the Apollo program, could put it into orbit.  Now THAT was a hunk of comically useless junk. 

14 minutes ago, Vort said:

The first three of these would have been the result of any space program; the shuttle deserves no credit for simply existing. The fourth point is rather the opposite of true: The space shuttle insured that, eventually, the US would lose preeminence in space, to the point that we have to contract with other countries or private entities to launch our astronauts into space, because the US no longer has that technological capability.

I don't agree.  The thing that makes those first three items so relevant is the sheer volume of launches performed by the shuttle program.  Other projects would not have provided that same benefit.  Technology, maybe, but not the others.  

As for U.S. prominence, I don't blame the shuttle for that, I blame the illustrious Obama.  Diverting NASA funding to outreach programs to Islamic nations to make them feel included?  Idiocy.  The fact that we don't have the capability isn't the space shuttle program's fault.  The last shuttle launch was in July, 2011.  It's now almost 2019.  In all that time we couldn't come up with a simple vehicle that does what the Soyuz does?  Can't blame the space shuttle for that one, my friend.

I'll check out the links later on.  Thanks for posting them.

Realtalk:  I'm disappointed too about how the space shuttle program turned out.  When I was a kid, I remember watching that first launch of the Columbia and juts devouring any reading material I could find on it.  I mean I was nuts to learn what I could and that was mostly all these flowery promises about how the ship was reusable, how it was gonna launch 10 times a year and make back more money than was spent on it.  I remember how it was going to completely revolutionize how we get to space and it was going to be the workhorse that built real space stations.  Of all those things, only that last item was even close to coming true.

I was sad when the program didn't live up to its promises.  I was baffled when NASA stupidly tried to make space travel look so routine that they wanted to start bringing civilians into space, and that ended about as horribly as possible in 1986, because the very people whose job it was to make safety decisions prioritized appearances over procedure and seven people died as a direct result.  It was crushing when it happened, but I was thrilled to listen as Discovery punched back into space in 1989 on a little portable radio I was listening to in the grass outside my high school during lunch.  No space shuttle enthusiast was blind to the reality that the shuttle program was unsustainable in the long term, and frankly I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did.  Another publicity stunt in 2000 saw John Glenn ride into orbit and I guess that helped raise awareness... to anyone who was paying attention already.  When Columbia was lost (again, because decision makers chose to roll the dice instead of make wiser decisions) I was convinced there'd never be another shuttle launch.  I was wrong, obviously, but the writing was on the wall.

What I was expecting, and I think what everybody assumed, was that when the Shuttle retired it would be because some other, newer, better vehicle would be in place to take over.  It could have happened, but it didn't.

Personally, I'm putting my hopes into SpaceX and Virgin Galactic.

[unixknight]

38 minutes ago, Vort said:

Having criticized the space shuttle, let me emphasize that the point of this thread was to celebrate Apollo VIII, not rag on the space shuttle.

I want to see if I remember right without looking it up.  That was the first mission to orbit the Moon, right?  With Jim Lovell as CMP?

(and dude, I feel ya.  My Star Trek threads keep getting turned into Star Wars threads.  😑)

Edited December 21, 2018 by unixknight

[Guest MormonGator]

59 minutes ago, Vort said:

This falls under the general umbrella of "promote the general welfare".

It falls under "a waste of my tax dollars". 

[Vort]

@unixknight, while we're not likely to agree on the specifics, it looks like we're both space program lovers, albeit from different generations. Our expectations from childhood appear to be different, but our overall desires not so much.

One last point I'd like to bring up is about the shuttle failures being caused by management errors. This is true, of course. But let me point out that, as you mentioned, the promise of the shuttle was monthly launches. Think about that. MONTHLY LAUNCHES. When that didn't happen, who got the heat for it? I mean specifically? The guys who scrubbed the launches, that's who. It should have been obvious (as it is in retrospect) to see that the pressure would be on the program managers responsible for thumbs-up. When we engineer social situations, it's not enough to assign responsibilities. People need to be incentivized to "do the right thing", even when the "right thing" is simply their responsibility. Yeas/nays should have been decided by (or at least veto power given to) team engineers.

My point is: This is a failure of the shuttle program. This is a design flaw, and was designed into the program from the moment they set unrealistic and even ridiculous expectations and made impossible promises. Saying it's the fault of duplicitous or immoral program managers is not sufficient. These were not evil people, and their actions were perfectly predictable. Even if they were to blame, that's just another way of saying it was a weakness in the space shuttle program.

[Vort]

7 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

It falls under "a waste of my tax dollars". 

I disagree with you, but I think you have a reasonably solid basis for that belief.

[Guest MormonGator]

2 minutes ago, Vort said:

I disagree with you, but I think you have a reasonably solid basis for that belief.

I think it might be an age thing. My old man is about your age @Vort (70) and he thinks the same way about the space program. 

[Vort]

3 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

I think it might be an age thing. My old man is about your age @Vort (70) and he thinks the same way about the space program. 

Well, I'm probably closer to his age than I am to yours...