Ken
Apollo Program related direct reductions
were not many.
Only one back up of Skylab and perhaps one
or two of Actual Apollo flights were cancelled, but follow-on’s such as
Apollo Soyuz, and Planning for Station and Tug were severely curtailed.
I agree with your comment on subsequent to
Apollo 17 reductions. By the time last mission came with Apollo 17 the
technical community was at a loss and the Nation was confronted with uninteresting
goals as compared to our presence on the Moon.
You do not abandon a program only to
return 40 years later to find if there is water on the permanently shadowed
craters or the poles of the Moon and how hard it is to extract?
This haphazardness leads to loss of
information and please look closely, they are now proposing configurations for
lunar exploration that we could have achieved in the next 2 decades after
Apollo, perhaps computer speeds are better now but the accuracy of software
engineering is similar. In the meantime primarily the spirit but also the best
practices are lost and resulted in both Shuttles being lost due to judgment
errors (also due to hierarchy related fears).
Since the reductions were drastic, many of
my colleagues were not fortunate, and worked in all types of jobs including
department stores and what a loss to the Nation! Part of this was caused by Vietnam
War related financial constraints. Sounds familiar! That is why energy sector
is in doldrums as no long term view is persistent with any predictable outcome
or likelihood of success.
The marketing window of Apollo is to be
appreciated in the light of Russians being ahead of us in space, Bay of Pigs happened
shortly before the Landing on Moon - Apollo Goal was Announced, and a spirit
like of which it is hard to see these days. There is diminished respect or
understanding of contribution of science and technology partly due to media
occupying attention to irrelevant issues and events and becoming closed loop “information”
sources thus leading our society to a long term challenge in as far as support
of new technologies are concerned!
By the way, your introduction of stochastic
aspects (uncertainty reasoning) to semantic field is praiseworthy.
Thanks.
Ravi
(Dr. Ravi Sharma) Senior Enterprise Architect
Vangent, Inc. Technology Excellence Center (TEC)
8618 Westwood Center Drive, Suite 310, Vienna VA 22182
(o) 703-827-0638, (c)
313-204-1740 www.vangent.com
Professional viewpoints do
not necessarily imply organizational endorsement.
From:
ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ken Laskey
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 1:24
PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] How
not to write specifications (VISTA costs)
Couldn't resist this one:
On Jul 3, 2008, at 12:55 PM, Len Yabloko wrote:
Apollo was a 'mission' with clear target. No one (correct me if I am
wrong) had a liberty to adjust it for market conditions or to move that target
closer and make it more attainable.
Actually,
Apollo served many purposes, some of which were constantly at odds. It
had an arbitrary deadline because it had to hit a marketing window. As
the visible success of a landing became more of a reality, there were more
constraints put on budget and overall mission; resources were plentiful when
something daring and impossible was being pursued and public excitement was a
frenzy, but less so when it was following through on engineering.
Finally, after the landing was successful, the interest in exploration
and science was not enough to keep consumer interest and several later flights
were canceled.
It is easier
to draw parallels with something like the iPhone (where new models come out to
reignite the frenzy) than something as mundane as an operating system.
Ken
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ken Laskey
MITRE Corporation, M/S H305 phone: 703-983-7934
7515 Colshire Drive
fax: 703-983-1379
McLean VA 22102-7508