It sure is refreshing to see him addressing one of the major impediments to lowering the cost of spaceflight. That comment about the Trident is spot on. It might be a bit ambitious to think you could launch a crewed vehicle with such a small group of operators, but he's thinking in the right direction.
I only wonder how his efforts to reduce the size of the operations force will sit with the operators themselves and their political patrons.
Orbiter Obvious - 22/11/2005 3:47 PMIs that Griffin being a little arrogant with a rewording of saying the STS was a mistake, again?
CuddlyRocket - 23/11/2005 8:33 AMYes, one of the big flaws with the STS is the standing army of people you have to have even if it doesn't launch at all. This means that when there's a problem you don't get savings from not launching that you can use to fix the problem, hence budgetary difficulties.
Dobbins - 23/11/2005 8:05 AMIf a 737 crashes we don't ground all 737s for two or three years. We don't stop all Boeing Jets from flying.
Dobbins - 23/11/2005 3:05 PMIf a 737 crashes we don't ground all 737s for two or three years. We don't stop all Boeing Jets from flying. We simply accept the fact that accidents happen. For some strange reason we aren't willing to accept the same thing about space flight even though it's a far more dangerous venture than flying on an airliner. We have lost some crews, and at some point in the future we are going to lose some more regardless of how careful we are. That is the nature of something as bold and daring as reaching for the heavens. The Apollo 1 plaque at the remains of Launch Complex 34 reads Ad Astra Per Aspera (A Rough Road Leads To The Stars) That is something that we can't lose sight of.