Thursday, August 21, 2008

Helping Hands

Who would have thought just a couple of weeks ago, that we'd now be talking about a new "gap?" Ahhhh, you think we are just being funny and pointing to the space race with the Chinese to put footprints on the moon, don't you?

You would, of course, be wrong.

No, the new space race is to see who can get a new rocket with a man on top into orbit first. No, we're not talking about COTS either. Nope. The next space race appears to be setting up between ARES/ORION and .... the Iranian Safir.

Iran has announced that the goal of its nascent space program will be to put a man in space within 10 years. And we here at RandS have a suggestion on how to "help" them.

We propose that we trade their nuclear aspirations for some help from our rocket scientists. Make the planet a better place to live. Let's give The Emperor, Steve C, Jeff H, Doc H, and BroomHilda to the Iranians in a gesture of peace. All that and a bag of chips.

If that doesn't set back their program 10 more years, nothing will.

(p.s. We know the Iranians don't usually think of women as technically adept. So giving them BroomHilda shouldn't be cause for alarm, and she already knows how to wear a bag on her head anyway.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know, that just might work! When asked about the extra weight on the first stage, the reply was, no problem, we have lift capacity to spare. This booster is tough!

Why not rent out the spare capacity to the Iranians? Make them a good price. After all, the Safir has made it farther than Ares and on a whole lot less money and time. Just might learn something from them.

I'll bet they already equal us in the ability to build a specification!

Anonymous said...

You overlooked a simple fact. The iranian's said "Launch" not return safely.

Laika comes to mind ...