"Phil Kouts PhD" is at it again, at AULIS

[gillianren]

I mean, I've always felt that, should I actually manage a PhD, I'd use "Doctor" and so forth everywhere, because I would have done the work for it and would be astonishingly proud of myself for it.  But that's how I feel now, when I don't even have an MFA.  And one place I wouldn't use it would be on professional publications outside my field.  Even if I were writing about history, my strong secondary interest, I'd leave off the "Doctor," because it's in a different field.

[smartcooky]

"Unable to 'return' humans to the Moon..."

His whole premise fails right there. NASA could return humans to the moon if they chose to do so, but they choose not to do so for a number of reasons.

1. Cost/benefit. With Apollo, the US Government poured in shiploads of money to accomplish a task; get to the moon, and the only real cost/benefit considered was "beat the Soviets there whatever it costs.". These days, NASA would have to justify sending people there again.

2. Safety. In the 1960's NASA and the Apollo astronauts were prepared to take HUGE risks to go to the Moon. They killed three astronauts trying to do this, and came perilously close to killing six more. It was a time of the Cold War; sticking it to the Soviets meant compromising safety was acceptable, beside which, "workplace safety" wasn't a term we'd ever heard of. The kinds of risks they took during the Apollo program quite simply would not be tolerated now.

3. Been there, done that. Simply going to the moon to prove we could do it is no longer an option; we've already done that. Any future Lunar missions would have to be looking at a permanent establishment of a human presence, and that is far, far harder than simply sending a few people there for a few days to pick up some rocks. It took six successful missions and the sending of an actual scientist before any real science was done. Looking back it now, I feel a pang of disappointment that with Apollo 17, they finally started making actual important discoveries at the end.....and then  stopped  .

4. Lost/Change of focus. After Apollo, NASA changed its focus to manned LEO and unmanned missions to planets. Manned deep space missions were put on the back burner; there wasn't enough money to keep the old equipment running (launch pads, mission control etc). All that would have to be developed again. Also, the fact is that Apollo was a "single-use-one-off" concept meant that you blasted almost 3000 tonnes of spacecraft into space, and you got less than six tines of it back

[smartcooky]

I feel this is someone who like me grew up in the L5 Society days when the literature was full of NASA think projects. When it was plausible at a first, limited glance that getting to the Moon was a stepping-stone and space stations and lunar colonies and all that could be done by just making enough Saturn V's. And he hasn't accepted emotionally that the next step is fully as high as the step before, and what worked for Apollo really doesn't get us there

You live in California and all you have is a motor scooter on which you have been tootling around the block and taking on the occasional trip to the local shopping mall.

If you now decide you want to drive to New York, your motor scooter is not going to cut the mustard!

[raven]

I feel this is someone who like me grew up in the L5 Society days when the literature was full of NASA think projects. When it was plausible at a first, limited glance that getting to the Moon was a stepping-stone and space stations and lunar colonies and all that could be done by just making enough Saturn V's. And he hasn't accepted emotionally that the next step is fully as high as the step before, and what worked for Apollo really doesn't get us there

You live in California and all you have is a motor scooter on which you have been tootling around the block and taking on the occasional trip to the local shopping mall.

If you now decide you want to drive to New York, your motor scooter is not going to cut the mustard!

I think of it as paddling around the bay verses an ocean going vessel, but similar metaphors.

[Luke Pemberton]

It's the latest by the author going under the pen name "Phil Kouts" and purporting to hold a relevant PhD. 

Not the relevant PhD shtick again. I hold a PhD, and I am quite indefatigable with the the following point - it has no relevance on the authenticity of Apollo, or bearing on one's ability in the field of aerospace engineering.

The notion that holding a higher degree is a passport for remarkable erudition is simply a fallacy. Anyone that purports expertise by invoking PhD status immediately arouses suspicion in my mind.