[HN Gopher] A darker shade of blue: The unknown Air Force manned...
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       A darker shade of blue: The unknown Air Force manned space program
        
       Author : belter
       Score  : 65 points
       Date   : 2022-10-15 12:26 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.thespacereview.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.thespacereview.com)
        
       | MomoXenosaga wrote:
        
         | PhasmaFelis wrote:
         | I'm not clear which of those options you think is a trap.
        
         | ausbah wrote:
         | what are you saying? countries with the economic might of China
         | and the US could pretty easily do both
        
           | michael1999 wrote:
           | That's not obviously true. Apollo crested 5% of the budget,
           | and the crazy USA health care system already consumes 17% of
           | GDP. There's a reason Nixon wound NASA down.
        
             | KerrAvon wrote:
             | Have you looked at the defense budget lately?
        
             | csdvrx wrote:
             | Too bad Nixon chose NASA instead of healthcare.
        
           | dctoedt wrote:
           | > _countries with the economic might of China_ [read: CCP]
           | _and the US could pretty easily do both_ [healthcare and
           | lunar exploration]
           | 
           | That assumes facts not in evidence, viz., the political
           | support (doubtless less of a problem for the CCP than for the
           | U.S.).
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents.
         | They're predictable and lead to flamewars, which we don't want
         | here.
         | 
         | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
         | aaaaaart wrote:
        
       | JKCalhoun wrote:
       | From all I've read, the Gemini was a fantastic spacecraft that
       | had a lot of un-utilized potential. While NASA saw Gemini as a
       | stepping stone to Apollo the Air Force saw it as the workhorse it
       | was.
       | 
       | It's too bad it was relegated to history so quickly. I have read
       | that, unlike the hack that was Mercury, the Gemini was designed
       | to be easy to work on, service -- components accessible from the
       | outside of the craft by simply removing an exterior panel or two.
       | And with designs like the Blue Gemini [1] and the Big Gemini [2]
       | the Air Force at least saw it as extensible.
       | 
       | It was the future I was promised, and although military in
       | nature, I am sad nonetheless that it never came to be.
       | 
       | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Gemini
       | 
       | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Gemini
        
         | KineticLensman wrote:
         | It was also said that Gemini was a 'Pilot's spacecraft' because
         | of it ergonomics and fly-ability.
        
           | pram wrote:
           | I can see why, the whole thing looks like an F-111 cockpit.
        
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