Restored Shuttlecraft Galileo To Debut

19 thoughts on “Restored Shuttlecraft Galileo To Debut”

1. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the Galileo! As a kid in the 1960’s, I had a model of the shuttlecraft BEFORE I had a model of the U.S.S Enterprise! It feels like a little bit of my youth has been restored, too. Thank you!

2. It looks great in that pic.

3. Now we just need to build the real thing. Now where did I put that impulse drive?

4. I hope you’re not American. I have some bad news… We don’t send people to space anymore, thanks to Mr. Obama.

5. Goodness, finished already! It looks terrific. Excellent job. I’m glad it’s found a permanent home. Too bad I can’t be there for the ceremonies. Kang’s ankle bracelet would disapprove.

6. You’re so right! All Mr. Obama would have to do is snap his fingers and SHAZAM! the funding would magically appear. He wouldn’t need to get the votes of ignorant Goper trash at all!

7. Oh, I thought we were talking about reality. If you want to play pretend we can.

   However, George W. Bush wanted to go to Mars and had secured the funding through the Congress. It was a done deal. Obama decided that was a place easy enough to cut, rather than actually dealing with the structural debts that will destroy this nation… Obama ended manned spaceflight under American power. Obama decided to pin Americans travel into space on paying the Russians for transport and handing it over to civilian companies for the most banal of things, tourism…

   I’ll say again, George Bush had us going to Mars and had funded it. Barack Obama ended manned spaceflight originating in the United States for purposes other than tourism. But, my bad, we’re playing pretend, so none of that is true.

   You can quibble about us needing to borrow the money, but money legislated for something would’ve been borrowed for that thing. So, however you want to look at it, Bush had a mission to Mars on the books, funded, and Obama ended that. You’re entitled to your opinion that Obama is somehow powerless, but don’t confuse that with facts and reality.

8. Besides being desperately wrong about it being funded and the destination, the rest is true

9. The destination was the moon as a precursor to Mars, per NASA, not a politician… and that was, indeed, funded. Was the entire project given the cash up front? No, obviously, or they would still be doing it. But was NASA appropriated the funds to begin the mission as laid out by the then President? Indeed. And did the subsequent President cancel US manned spaceflight? Indeed he did.

   So, yeah, I didn’t get into the fiscal or scientific aspects, but, what you’re saying would be akin to Johnson in 1964 deciding to scrap the moon shot. Could you have said at that point that the goal wasn’t really the moon because they had to reach certain levels of achievement, like orbiting, spacewalking, etc before and that that would have been their specific goal when defunded? And if defunded in 1964, in 1967 you could easily suggest that the moon shot had never been funded… except it had been and was going to be, but nothing is ever funded up front for an entire project… So, I fail to see how those aspects were wrong, as opposed to being on track for Mars while being progressively (ironic use of the word) funded… Until Obama decided we can hitch rides with the ruskies and play space tourist.

10. I’m a fan of the Constellation program, but It was never fully funded in the NASA budget. Mandating that it be done and funding it are two different things.
    The good news is congress mandated the SLS so most of the program is in tact (but still not funded) and human space flight will continue with the COTS program in the next few years.

11. Dig it! Those guys did fast work. Wish there were pics or a video. Would love to see it.

12. You can see it in the pic above. If you mean you want to see the restoration work in progress… can’t help you.

13. Mandating it and funding it, even if only partially.

    vs.

    Defunding it entirely and mandating that it not be done.

    George Bush did one of those things and Barack Obama did the other.

    Notice, I also never remotely said that manned space flight was over. If the United States doesn’t have the balls or intelligence to continue doing it, it doesn’t mean someone else won’t pick up the slack… which is why there never should’ve been slack to give them.

    We can debate all day, the result is the same: Mr. Obama ended manned spaceflight under US controlling authority. These little side details don’t change that fundamental reality… regardless of how much people dislike George Bush.

14. “Notice, I also never remotely said that manned space flight was over” and the next sentence “Mr. Obama ended manned spaceflight ”
    You went from Mars to “yeah really the moon”, and from secured funding to “yeah only partly funded, but it was mandated”, Do you really want to keep going? I challenge you to read the last paragraph for yourself in the 2010 White House Budget that talks about the White House’s stance on human space flight. It’s on page 18.

15. You see, when quoting me and using that as a means to discredit my comment, you may want to actually finish the sentence.

    “Notice, I also never remotely said that manned space flight was over”… Indeed, that was not only what I said, but an accurate quotation of my sentiment.

    “Mr. Obama ended manned spaceflight” Indeed, that was what I said, but NO, it was not the sentiment conveyed, were you being honest.

    At the end of the first quotation, a period would’ve been appropriate, as there was one in the original. Would a period be appropriate after the second quotation? NO… INDEED NOT. BECAUSE YOU DID NOT FINISH THE QUOTATION.

    “Mr. Obama ended manned spaceflight under US controlling authority.”

    UNDER US CONTROLLING AUTHORITY.
    Did you miss that part the first time?

    Secondly, yeah, they were going to the moon as a specific precursor to going to Mars. I’ll ask again, and probably have the question ignored again: In the early 1960’s, when they didn’t have the technology to go to the Moon, were they abandoning the moonshot when they were focused on precursor technology? When they sent a man into space, was that abandoning the mission to the moon, or prepping for it? The first orbit? Abandonment, or preparation? Spacewalk? Flight of fancy, or necessity to test the spacesuits in true vacuum? Yes, the plan was to go back to the moon……… as a means to getting to Mars. Quibble about that if you want, that was the state objective: Go to the moon as a springboard to Mars. You don’t get to Mars via this plan without the moon anymore than you got to the moon without a spacewalk.

    Thirdly, yes, they did not write a check for several billion dollars in order to pre-fund the entire mission to Mars that wouldn’t have actually been conducted until sometime in the next decade… the 2020s… So, no, they didn’t break with the fundamental bedrock of how our politics and economy and budget works in order to give NASA the full funding for the entire project. But, I already said that. They did, however, mandate the mission and fund NASA for the project through the years when it was funded…

    If it wasn’t funded during the Bush Administration, then how was the Obama Administration any different? Because they said we were going to Mars and Obama says that we aren’t? Well… partly… Bush did say we were, Obama says we aren’t… so, that’s true… But it certainly does go beyond that. Under the Bush Administration, NASA had greater funding and had funding specifically for the mission to Mars. After? No, indeed not.

    But, I’m kind of tired of explaining this in detail and having you come back and quote half my comment and pretend the other half of the sentence, and the rest of the paragraphs don’t exist.

16. I wasn’t trying to misquote you, I just didn’t think the extra works were needed. Who else controls US space flight besides the US? It just sounds like you are talking in circles to me.

    The above book is full of factual errors. You don’t understand how annual budgets work and what the rates were, and since you don’t have time to even read one paragraph of real space policy, I wish you well.

17. If you think NASA is in charge of Russian spaceflights, you’re delusional, and, since we have no way of sending our own astronauts into space at the moment and are paying the Russians to do it, how, exactly, are we in charge of our own flights? To suggest so is asinine and plainly contradictory for the sake of contradiction.

18. I didn’t suggest anything close to that. US means from the US; not Russia. Who thinks a Soyuz flight is US controlled? Regardless of who would be the president in 2008, there was always going to be a gap in US spaceflight with the VSE that Bush laid out. Not an end… a gap. Just like the gap between Apollo and STS, but this gap will be much shorter if things go well with Dragon and Falcon Heavy. Hopefully STS, or whatever the name will be with the next administration, will be flying by the mid 2020s. 🙂

19. lol is the only response I can muster for that.

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