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Fact is that NASA was to blame, if only for that infamous phrase by Larry Mulloy to the worried Thiokol engineers "By God Thiokol, should I launch this shuttle in April ?" This is probably the exact moment (some hours before the Challenger disaster, and put into the public spotlight by the...

Very well said. Another weird thing to add to all those "weird shuttle related things" I mentionned there. I mean, the NRO / KH-9 connection and also the even weirder Soviet mis-understanding of the Shuttle economics. Both silly things being related through the Vandenberg SLC-6 launch complex...

Many thanks ! I wanted to mention Rowland White amazing book about STS-1 - but I forgot. It is clear right from the first flight that the Shuttle would be troublesome. NASA however staunchly refused to admit the facts and charged ahead until that fateful flight 25...

The final champagne-like failure was real - the infamous "four inch flight", November 1960. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Redstone_1 Most. ridiculous. rocket.failure. ever. ROTFL

Any story with Bundy ascending into politics by the late 70's now has a big credibility issue... it is called Blondie, and Debbie Harry. If her story is true, and with Blondie ascent into super stardom paralleling that of Bundy political career, sooner rather than (OTL) later (1989 when the...

At the beginning (1987- 1997) the CdG was to have a clone. Then the British started retiring the Invincibles and thinking "big carrier" again - except that created an intractable conundrum for the French: CVF and CdG were too different, unlike Foch and Clemenceau. The debate lasted 15 more years...

Curiously mine was never a daredevil of that kind. He was a cautious kid even before he walked. Worst thing he did, was to the metallic heater: he managed to removed the rotating button for the temperatures. And fracking hell, me and my wife had a hard time putting it back into place. How he...

3 - There was a great french song recently, with the catchphrase "marcher sur un Playmobil" (= to step on a Playmobil). D'OOOOH !!! 6 - Paw patrol. must.die. God how I HATE the silly thing. Stupid servile dogs. 7 - and 8 - Hell yes, and hell, yes, again. Geez. Point 7 - Dear God... here is a...

Wait until getting the baby in your arms. I mean, for real. And be warned, right from the beginning, even within the first six months - and even if they can't feed themselves, walk, speak, or going to the toilet - kids are already LEARNING and OBSERVING. Like crazy. ... And then this little baby...

Fact is that Avro Canada (and Canada) had a tremendous potential after 1944. Avro Canada, Canadair, DHC. Yet (somewhat like Great Britain) politics decided otherwise. By 1970 nothing interesting was left. Personally I'm a die-hard fan, not only of the Arrow, but also of the CL-84. Plus the DHC...

Blame whacko Randall Whitcomb "CF-105 conspirationist" for that. Also the true story that, when the Arrow was canned in '59, the 25 brighest Avro Canada engineers went to Houston to create Gemini at NASA. But that's hardly worth a Saturn V !

Many thanks to all who helped publishing that little thing. Yes, that was examined by Nixon back in 69-70. The varied budgetary options are discussed in Tom Heppenheimer "The space shuttle decision". They range from $10 billion annually to $1.5 billion - from a piloted Mars shot in 1982 to...

Some examples of Shuttle / Freedom based manned flights - to the Moon, asteroids, or Mars. Very complicated (compared to a single Saturn V). http://spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/

An example of Goldin era negative side effects : when Columbia shred foam during ascent on January 16, 2003... The long range tracking cameras all around The Cape, which were to track those kind of things - since the dreadful STS-27 close call late 1988 - were either non maintained, broken, or...

Whatever the fate of ze Germans - the US and Soviet rocket scientists were vastly different. America, too, had talented rocket scientists (Karel Bossart, M. Atlas Balloon Tanks) but they were scattered across the aerospace industry. Crucially they had no direct access to the President - it was...

I understand the point you are making. My main issue with the SEI, indeed, is that it produced only paper ware and vapo ware. At least the 1969 IPP /STG plan had building blocks made of solid metal - NERVA existed, Apollo, Saturn V... by contrast the SEI building blocks were Shuttle and Freedom...

INTERNATIONAL and Russia were were important in Clinton and Goldin annual sale pitch to Congress. I'm not sure ISS could survive without at least symbolic Russia participation. Being "international" was essentially a ploy to make it cancellation-proof in Congress every year. Note that Canada /...

France had a tiny amount of germans. They went funding LRBA in Vernon, Yvelines, near Paris, still a hotbed of Ariane rocketry today - all the V- liquid rocket engines from Veronique to Vulcain were bench tested there. Veronique > Diamant > Europa / Ariane stemmed from this group. Main issue...

I should try writting a piece called "How JFK turned manned spaceflight in the wrong direction up to the present day, and beyond". The basic, logical progressions as shown by NASA 1959 long range plan should have been Mercury > Block 1 Apollo => Skylab > Block II Apollo => Apollo 8. And...

Ah the SEI... so much to say about this one... where to start ? Bush was one of the few US presidents genuinely sincere about spaceflight (with JFK, maybe, and of course Reagan) The timing was right at least on paper (Apollo 11 + 20 years) ...and then everything went by the drain. Was seven...