Astronaut says Mexico needs its own space program
November 25th, 2009 . by TexasFredAstronaut says Mexico needs its own space program
MEXICO CITY (AP) - A NASA astronaut says he wants to help Mexican officials start the country’s first space agency.
Astronaut Jose Hernandez says he has no plans to leave his job at NASA, but hopes to help Mexico’s program get off the ground.
Hernandez, the U.S.-born son of Mexican migrant farm workers who spent much of his childhood moving between Mexico and the U.S., lobbied for a space program in meetings with Mexican lawmakers Tuesday.
He says officials must invest more money in science, technology and education to make Mexico more competitive and diversify its economy.
Legislators have set aside 10 million pesos ($775,000) for the Mexican Space Agency in next year’s budget, but the program has not yet been officially established.
Full Story Here:
Astronaut says Mexico needs its own space program
This is terribly reminiscent of a story I heard many years ago. The Mexican government wanted a Navy, a big one. They wanted to be a world power on the high seas.
The Mexican government began to do research on exactly what it was going to take to build a Navy. They priced the ships they wanted to build and were sad to find that they were immediately out of luck due to the massive costs involved.
Not to be deterred, they then began to look into buying used ships from other nations, ships that were about be retired and decommissioned.
As it turns out, even that was beyond the price range of the Mexican government, so, they had an idea that maybe they could just buy one mighty ship, and the search continued.
They got the price of a used aircraft carrier, a battle ship, a cruiser, a destroyer, even a used submarine was considered. Again, ALL of these vessels were out of reach for the Mexicans.
It was at this time that the most brilliant Mexican designer to ever live came forth and offered a solution. He would build the Mexican government a ship, a submarine actually, and he would do so at a very cheap rate as well.
So, this brilliant Mexican engineer and his team begin construction on Mexico’s very 1st submarine, but, there was a bit of a glitch. There was only enough money to build a 2-man *midget sub*.
The work on this *midget sub* continued for several weeks and the sub was finally launched.
The crowd roared as the crew boarded the new Mexican Navy sub to begin sea trials off of the Mexican west coast. What follows is a description of the activities in the ensuing weeks.
The Capatin and Engineer are in position and the Captain says: “Senor Engineer, theese is your Captain, take theese submarine down to 50 feet and scheck for leaks!”
The Engineer replies, “Senor Captain, theese is Senor Enginner, the submarine is at 50 feet and we got NO leaks!”
The Captain says, “Senor Engineer, theese is your Captain, take theese submarine down to 100 feet and scheck for leaks!”
The Engineer replies, “Senor Captain, theese is Senor Enginner, the submarine is at 100 feet and we got NO leaks!”
The Captain says, “Senor Engineer, theese is your Captain, take theese submarine down to 250 feet and scheck for leaks!”
The Engineer replies, “Senor Captain, theese is Senor Enginner, the submarine is at 250 feet and we got NO leaks!”
The Captain says, “Senor Engineer, theese is your Captain, take theese submarine down to 500 feet and scheck for leaks!”
Sadly, as the sub was diving to 500 feet, it suddenly broke up and was completely destroyed.
The Captain was killed, but by some miracle, the Engineer lived and once he was able to testify, the Mexican Navy conducted an inquiry to determine what exactly had happened.
The Mexican Navy official asks the Engineer, “Senor Engineer, please to tell us, what happened to our beautiful, and very expensive submarine!”
The Engineer tells his tale like this.
“Senor Captain orders me to take the submarine to 50 feet and scheck for leaks, so I take the submarine to 50 feet and we got no leaks!”
“Senor Captain orders me to take the submarine to 100 feet and scheck for leaks, so I take the submarine to 100 feet and we got no leaks!”
“Senor Captain orders me to take the submarine to 250 feet and scheck for leaks, so I take the submarine to 250 feet and we got no leaks!”
“Senor Captain orders me to take the submarine to 500 feet and scheck for leaks!”
“Well Senor Navy official, it’s like theese, on the way to 500 feet, the damned adobe collapsed.”
And that’s why I don’t believe a Mexican Space Program is a very good idea… 
son of Mexican migrant farm workers who spent much of his childhood moving between Mexico and the U.S.
Can you say illegal immigrant?
I knew you could…
Well, isn’t their national bird th common house fly? How would that look painted on their space shuttle. It just doesn’t work.
Somehow, I don’t think you guys read it all, OR, you didn’t *get it*…
I read it all the way…I wur tinking de oseen botum wur onlee 400 foots…so ween da hit de adobe brokened ups.
Oh, I read it, Got it, and attempted to contribute a different perspective.
Frankly though, I thought the story would finish with the crew sneaking into Mission Bay in San Diego…
Take it from a USN Vet that finally made it to the Submarine Service (after a stint in the swamp)…. Fred, that story is Rich!!…LOL…!!! Say….I have an idea. They could hire that same brilliant Mexican designer and he could make an adobe spacecraft…..paint it up real nice….set it on a newly poured launch pad…..then the Mexican government can charge those steenking greeengos to come visit this wonderful new spacecraft. They can save up for a real space program……mabe even get some of the drug cartels to contribute some money.
Still LOL Fred….made my day!!!
KEEP YOUR POWDER DRY!
I knew the Texas folks would get it…
Happy Thanksgiving to the man that got me started blogging and all that sh*t. Look at what you started now.
Anyhow……Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours Fred, Merry Christmas and GOD BLESS YOU MY FRIEND.
Sheridan / aka MadIrishMan
Thats a good one Fred. I had the great honor one time to see Mexican Naval base just up the coast for Acapulco on the road to Zihuatanejo there is a small road that exists left and goes down to the sleepy little village of Pie de la Cuesta at the end of the short 2 land road is the Mexican Naval station, maybe the only one. There is no gate and only a small adobe hut to protect the one guard from the elements. It was here in 1967 that I saw the Mexican Pacific Fleet consisting of two WWII Destroyer Escorts and one launch. My buddies and I made jokes about their navy then. To read your post today certainly brought back some great memories of a time almost forgotten in that sleepy Mexican village of Pie de la Cuesta. Seriously, I hadn’t thought of that in years.
Heard they were going to use jumping beans with an air shock assist.
LMAO… Adobe collapses? Damn. Ok I needed a bit of a laugh, thanks.
Way too good! leave it to a Texan to put that face on it!
LOL That was priceless!
It is funny Fred….way funny….when I saw the lead line to this story I was more thinking that they wanted to be the first to establish the drug smuggling routes in space….
MEXICO TESTS DEVICE OF NORTH AMERICAN AVIATION
The FAA prepared a beautiful webpage, unfortunately deactivated, describing one of it’s most ingenious devices. This was a resistance test of aircraft windshields and consisted of a kind of cannon which fired a dead chicken in the direction of the tested aircraft’s windshield.
The shot was exact and reproduced the velocity at which an actual bird would strike an aircraft in flight. Theoreticaly, if the windshield resisted the impact of the carcass, then it would certainly support a collision with an actual bird in real flight. In practice the device functioned perfectly, with hundreds of tests performed in the U.S.
Mexican technicians, who had been developing a super-fast locomotive (bullet train), found the webpage and were interested in the chicken cannon, thinking in applying the idea to the windshields of their new hi-tech train in the final phase of the project. The Mexicans contacted the USFAA, obtained a borrowed chicken cannon and proceeded to effectuate the tests.
On the first shot, the chicken smashed the windshield of the train, broke the instrument panel, ruined the engineer’s seat, wounded two technicians and flew to the rear of the locomotive splattering itself on the rear wall and leaving a deep hole in the doorlock. The Mexicans were completely perplexed with the surprising and violent result.
They documented the scene in detail, produced digital photos, taped eye-witness accounts, elaborated technical documents and sent the information in a “ZIP” file to USFAA via e-mail, asking what they had done wrong. The American technicians studied the received documentation carefully and responded, in a dry and direct e-mail: “THAW OUT THE CHICKEN FIRST”.