USAF Space Competency

B

Byeman

ACCESS: Top Secret
Senior Member
Joined
8 January 2010
Messages
3,463
Reaction score
3,062
It seems that a few members have taken pot shots at the Air Force for its role as the lead military service for space related matters.
I have tabulated the number of launches managed by NASA and the Air Force from the late 50's to the Challenger accident. I chose the Challenger accident as a demarcation because soon after that NASA no longer Delta or Atlas Centaur and so after was the advent of commercial launch providers.
I didn't include ICBM test flights or those for reentry vehicles (ABRES) for the Air Force. I included NASA heritage organizations launches like Vanguard and Juno. And a note, Mercury Atlas and all Gemini related launches were managed by the USAF.
The results show that the USAF managed more launches than NASA over same time period.
The USAF had a very dedicated space cadre, who often rotated between the Cape, Vandenberg, Sunnyvale ad Los Angeles.

1771284176501.png
 
publiusr said:
ABMA not dead enough for you?

All.....see page 112 (119 here) about a biased pre-selection towards Titan Gemini:

https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/mol/800.pdf
--which helps explain why the chart above looks the way it does.
Click to expand...
You keep bringing up and harping on the same stuff, even when you have been disproven with facts. Ignoring facts and maintaining beliefs is Confirmation Bias, Cognitive Dissonance and Belief Perseverance among other things.
I disproved this and other points here:
Go back and read this
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/mol.4024/post-564930
But to reiterate, it wasn't a "biased" preselection

"Another major handicap NASA faced in promoting the Saturn/Apollo configuration involved schedules and costs"
1. Because of the priority commitment to the lunar landing program, the space agency found it would be unable to make Saturn IB boosters available to DOD until mid-1969 and Saturn V until 1970--too late for the proposed Air Force launch schedule.
2. Also, Saturn/Apollo costs were substantially higher than the Air Force estimates for Titan III/Gemini B

And what is so wrong with this?
".......early flight schedules required in the interest of national security" would tend to prejudge the hardware selection "in favor of Gemini B/Titan IIIC."
That is a no brainer. Of course, they are going to "prejudge" selection to the hardware that can make the schedule. That is not a "bias"

As for the chart. Apollo/Saturn launching MOL would have little affect on it.
a. it wasn't that many launches, 10 or so
b. It was canceled anyways. And Apollo/Saturn would not have helped except for maybe canceling sooner.
c. The DOD and NASA would have found out earlier that they did not like working large projects together.

ABMA did not die. It continued on after Von Braun left. Von Braun was going to leave regardless. There was only Pershing after Jupiter.
 
Oh geez, this thread should be fun. Well, if it serves as a "lightning rod" and keep the bickering away from the space threads - then, why not ?

Statler-Waldorf-thumbs.png


[Waldorf]
Why do we always come here ?

[Statler]
I guess we'll never know !

[Waldorf]
It's like a kind of torture

To have to watch the show !
 
Archibald said:
Oh geez, this thread should be fun. Well, if it serves as a "lightning rod" and keep the bickering away from the space threads - then, why not ?
Click to expand...
This wasn't directed at him. There were others on the now deleted pots on the XB-70 thread. And the long standing "Air Farce" by OM.
 
Last edited:

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom