"John R. Carroll" wrote:

I built a new coax design two years ago.
With modern equipment and an improved design, it developed 30 percent more
thrust and because it had been designed on a computer, we were able to
eliminate the acustic chamber needed on the original. That alone reduced the
weight by half.

I have a feeling we still know how to lift things into space. We launch satellites, we
work on systems to take out abm's and a year or so ago, we demonstrated a quick and dirty
ASAT weapon to take out a falling satellite. I still think that was a shot across the
bows to any nation that thought we couldn't back up our words.

We can still build launch vehicals.

Believe me, during the entitre build I was thinking about how some guy on a
manual Jig Bore had done what we were doing on a 5 axis milling machine.
They went through a lot of set up parts in the old days.

A whole lot of fixturing isn't needed now due to CNC.

I wonder if the desire to put a man on the moon for the first time was made by our current
President, given our current state of technology if it would have taken even half the time
from when JFK made his statement? The only think I believe would cloud or hamper progress
is the quicksand of federal regs impeding progress of all sorts of projects.

The Pentagon was inhabited in 11 months, finished in 17 months. Could we get an
enviromental impact study and the lawsuits settled in 17 months now?


Wes
--
"Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect
government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home
in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller