BS FAQs

[Sticks]

So I was under a misconception that they were all USAF duh!

It is a pity they discontinued infavour of the Mercury programme, if they could have kept going would we have had a better space plane than the Shuttle and earlier and cheaper?

Anyhue back to the thread topic I suppose, (but the X-programme is kind of interesting and more worthwile than discussing the dribblings of BS)

[Mr Gorsky]

In following this thread, I decided to take my first ever look at BS' own website ... never can one man man have been so full of himself, while at the same being so completely and utterly wrong.

Only serves to reinforce my feeling that the guy is a con artist, pure and simple. He probably knows that Apollo really did land on the moon, but has found that this is a cool way to make:

(a) a fast buck
(b) a reputation for himself

As they say ... never let the facts stand in the way of a good story.

[gwiz]

sticks said:

So I was under a misconception that they were all USAF duh!

It is a pity they discontinued infavour of the Mercury programme, if they could have kept going would we have had a better space plane than the Shuttle and earlier and cheaper?

Well, the miliary pilots included just the one from the US Navy.

The X-15 actually outlasted Mercury, with the last flight in 1964. It was the follow-on programme, the orbital X-20 spaceplane, that was cancelled, possibly because the military couldn't really work out what to do with it if they built it.

In my opinion the two things that compromised the Shuttle were budgetary pressures and having to get the military involved. A fully reusable system without the high cross-range re-entry capability would have been a better bet.

[Obviousman]

This may have been mentioned, but I'll raise it again just in case.

Yes, the original Mercury astronauts were all military. Notice also that there was a good spread amongst the services (albeit no Army).

The reason for this was the requirements; a certain amount of flying hours (jet), a certain amount as a test pilot, having to have experience through a number of types of aircraft, etc.

Within the narrow window, only military people had the required prerequisites.

Later the some NACA people had the required experience. Later still, the requirements were relaxed.

There were good reasons for these eligibility requirements.

That said, however, I think it might be fun to have a debate on whether the requirements were too strict (would others have been just as successful / useful?).

I might start a thread on it.