
Neil deGrasse Tyson pushes exploration in Space Chronicles - evo_9
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/03/neil-degrasse-tyson-pushes-exploration-in-space-chronicles.ars
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bediger
I have not read this book, but I did hear him on NPR's "Science Friday" last
week.

I think Tyson misses something huge. The USA actually had a large number of
_career_ engineers to do the Space Program with. From 1945 to 1960, a lot of
WW2 vets went to college, and a lot of those college-goers went into
engineering. Civil, mining and mechanical engineering were traditional "first-
in-family-to-college" majors. They were a way for a farmer's son or a miner's
son to become a professional without having to exhibit all the social graces.

From 1945 to 1960, the US military-industrial complex went from piston-driven
props to jet turbines, from high subsonic aerodynamics to the X-15. A lot of
engineering went into airplanes and rockets and missiles during that time.

The USA, indeed, the world, does not have a stock of engineers to do the
design, nor does it have the scientists to make the spec the design meets.

I don't think the USA, or the world, can duplicate the 1960s "Space Race",
much less surpass it.

