Ha Ha, oh the funny! *sniff* I swear OJ, reading your sterling commentary on aerospace manufacturing is like watching America's Funniest home videos. Painful yet fascinating in a macabre "waiting for some guy to get hit in the groin" sort of way.

I could note that NASA doesn't open those bids up to foreign competition, so expecting the AEB or ESA to be involved in the bidding is just silly. Or that the French had their own very space agency complete with a successful space program prior to their joining the European Space Agency. Or I could point out that the French aerospace manufacturer Arianespace, produces one of the best, and most reliable, expendable launch systems in the industry, the Ariane rocket. But why bother?

You'd say something mind bogglingly stupid like, "Yes, but where's the third world space shuttle?" and then I'd be forced to point out that the Space Shuttle design is so out of date that the Russians could manufacture them now. Or that we haven't produced the next generation mission module to replace it even though it's been needed for the last ten years. Or that we never should have gotten rid of the Saturn V, because the shuttle only made sense once a space station was in orbit, and the Saturn V was the rocket to help us get one there in under 20 years, which, because we were forced to rely on the shuttle, we never even got. Instead of our own big space stations, we've got a little rinky-dink "International Space Station".

Who was the first Russian to walk on the Moon?

Hey, way to completely ignore all of Mr. Modean's points in favor of a smug one-liner. That's Classic Judd!

That it can't withstand a one-liner is dispositive of the fact that one has no point.

What's funnier is OJ praising the Socialist model he denigrates when it's done elsewhere. How is this Lockheed contract any different than the A380 project?

Who was the first Russian to walk on the Moon?

Ancient history. Apollo became a dead end because there was nothing to build on once they (the NASA-aerospace industrial comnplex) tried to do something else. These (Lockmart) are the same people who brought us the X-33. If that doesn't mean anything to you, than perhaps you should consider limiting your commentary to subjects in which its possible to obscure ignorance.

(Here's a counter retort, just as off topic as yours is: How many spacecraft have the Russians destroyed with the crews inside?)

Didn't we swtich over the Space Shuttle so that we could continue the fiction that the Soviets were our equal partners in space?

That it can't withstand a one-liner is dispositive of the fact that one has no point.

No, that you're response is a non-sequitur, and a maladroit one at that, is illustrative of the fact that you have no standing to criticize. But two can play that game, who was the last American on the moon?

And since you won’t understand the point of that question, let me make it easy for you:

What does it matter if we don’t go there either?

See the point of a “space shuttle” when it was first proposed, was to move people and supplies to a “space station” which in turn would act as a relay point for a “moon base”. Someone decided that the moon base and space station were too expensive, but they canned the Saturn V program to build the shuttle anyway, saddling us with the biggest and most unproductive white elephant in Aerospace history, well at least until the A380 came along.

Funny thing, the guy that made that decision? He reminds me a lot of you at times, OJ.

You don't need the qualifier.

$9 billion for space? Should have built the Super-conducting Super-collider in TX. More "bang" for the buck.

Raoul: Several. They also hold the #1 and #2 (48 killed March 18, 1980 in Plesetsk) spots in the launchpad disaster category.

You're surprised that the government program is an ineffective boondoggle?

What more need be said?

All exploration is a government boondoggle.