NASA May Have to Buy Trips to Space 256
MattSparkes writes "Budget cuts could leave NASA without a Space Shuttle replacement, and leave it reliant on private firms to get payloads into space. A similar scenario happened between 1975 and 1981 when NASA made the transition from Apollo to the Space Shuttle. It seems like a strange state of affairs when a magazine can take people to space, but the USA can't."
Cost Effective? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but I had to (Score:5, Insightful)
Unlikely. (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't so strange (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just a small step toward the commercialization of space, and the use of off-the-shelf parts to get a job done. Perhaps one day, the Virgin Galactic, Armadillo Aerospace, and Scaled Composites will be bidding to deliver the next satellite into orbit around Mars.
Magazine vs NASA (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Sending someone on a sub-orbital flight at 62 miles altitude and;
2) Bringing several working payloads into space, docking with a space station at 236 miles altitude, and performing orbital repairs on satellites at 355 miles altitude.
It's not like NASA is so incompetent that some private firm is beating them at this whole space thing.
Re:Private companies (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cost Effective? (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that the tax money is coming back to Americans -- in the form of wages, stock dividends, purchases from other US companies, local property taxes -- and even some obscure stuff like corporate university research grants. If you're dealing with tax money that was TAKEN from Americans, I'd rather have it stay within the US.
-b.
Re:Cost Effective? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not a supporter of the war in Iraq. Afghanistan was necessary, yes, but the invasion of Iraq was excessive. And US and British historical meddling in the Middle East (Mossadegh, etc) has done little to make for a stable political situation there now.
As far as my SUV, I don't own one. Honda CB550 motorcycle and an old station wagon that I'm selling in a month before I move to New York. As far as football, I didn't watch the SuperBowl -- I was having dinner with my dad who was in NYC for the day. And we didn't have burgers either.
Your post is proof that Americans aren't the only people who can be ignorant, abusive, ignorant swine. BTW, have you ever BEEN to the US? Come visit some time -- you may like it despite yourself.
-b.
Not Space... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A tragic and pathetic end for NASA (Score:5, Insightful)
On the plus side you must recognize that NASA is putting out a lot of research that is free to the public. This is going to be a keystone in the future of private space flight ventures. So while I agree that NASA is riding the edge of usefulness they have contributed a lot and still have room to contribute more in the areas where the private sector would not see enough ROI on some projects. This pure research could still offer a lot in the overall understanding of what it's going to take to get people into space, what it's going to take to keep them there on a functional basis and a reason to go that offers a profit motive to corporations.
Without profit motive the private sector is going to be just as slow, if not slower, than NASA. We'd have to ride the coat tails of philanthropy into the final frontier. That's not exactly a glowing prospect.
Re:Star Wars (Score:5, Insightful)
And we don't even need those squishy bodies there to successfully deploy a satellite; sending them up for such a mundane task is just wasting money and putting lives in danger for no good reason.
That is how it has been (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Sorry, but I had to (Score:4, Insightful)
That's probably valid for stuff that pays off quickly. Long term stuff, like the survival of our species, is not gonna attract many for-profit organizations AFAICS. And yes, I do believe the colonization of space is essential for humanity's long term survival.
Also, FWIW, NASA makes you yanks look good world wide, which you might benefit from someday. In these times of dubya and "war on terror", I'm certain stuff like NASA helps alot of us non-americans to keep a nuanced view of your nation.
Re:This isn't so strange (Score:3, Insightful)
Something like space (to date) is exceedingly expensive and difficult to accomplish, and would need to be initially developed by a motivated government with a lot of funding. We're in the initial stages of corporations trying to do this.
You'll notice there isn't a retail market for aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. If a government wants those, they either need to build 'em themselves, or buy them from another government.
It just takes a while to get there.
Cheers
Re:We know (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I think they're generally indifferent to whether their policies strengthen America, weaken it, or whatever. To the Republicans, a policy or program is considered desirable if and only if it opens the federal treasury to their corporate patrons, who are subsequently expected to return a portion of the loot in the form of campaign contributions and other favors. Thus, privatization is a convenient and reliable way of converting taxpayers' money into campaign funds and continued power. It is the "marriage of State and corporate power" of which Mussolini spoke.
The privatization of the Iraq War is especially alarming, and not just because a lot of people close to the Bush admin are getting very, very rich. These contractors probably have more influence over events on the ground in Iraq than the military does, and they're largely unregulated. Might they have their own agenda? Is it in their collective interest for the war to come to an end, even in victory, if it stops the gravy train? Would it be unprecedented for greed and private financial interest to trump patriotism and our national interest?
Re:This isn't so strange (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, it doesn't, the US has an army for that kind of thing. Some things are best done in-house, the discussion is whether space travel is one of them. Pointing out different situations where things are not done in-house isn't really very useful unless it's used to illustrate an advantage.
Although it should be pointed out that while NASA operates the shuttles, all the major components were built by contractors anyway (Lockheed-Martin IIRC) - perhaps the fact that most of the space program has not been done as an in-house project would have been a better example.
You mean NASA is going to follow the law? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sorry, but I had to (Score:1, Insightful)
Thats fine then; you are perfectly free to give your own money to whatever pure-research facilities you wish.
You are not, however, free to make that decision for others.
Re:Magazine vs NASA (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not a fair comparison. Atlas V and Delta IV have capabilities that approach that of the proposed Ares I though these vehicles aren't designed for manned use. And unlike the Space Shuttle, these platforms do a variety of useful things. And the suborbital flights were using an almost completely reusable vehicle with rapid turnaround time which is a new threshhold that hasn't been reached before. If that can be scaled up to orbit (and I think it will within a couple of decades), then it's a huge step beyond anything that has yet flown.
Satellite repair isn't a useful activity for NASA right now (especially since there's only one satellite, the Hubble Space Telescope that is designed to be repaired and still works). My take is that with seeing as the US will spend considerable funds on manned spaceflight through NASA, the better approach is to develope a competitive launch market than in developing yet another poorly used (ie, infrequently used, hence poor economies of scale) and expensive launch vehicle (NASA can't hand off some or all of the development and operating costs to a private company). Currently, the Shuttle is used to build/service the ISS and might be used to repair the Hubble. That's not a lot.
Imagine if back in 1910, the US had decided to build the equivalent of Airforce One [wikipedia.org] (the plane that transports the US President and a portion of his entourage). Even if they threw the equivalent of tens of billions of dollars at the problem over the decades, they wouldn't have come up with a design any more reliable than the current one using a standard 747 frame. The private aerospace industry made it and a host of other specialized government applications possible at a far cheaper cost than if government had done it alone.
We're at a stage where we almost have private launch vehicles that can do what NASA needs done. Rather that construct another generation of NASA manned launch vehicles, I believe it would be far better for NASA to encourage private industry to enter this market. Seems to me that if NASA is capable of making its own launch vehicle, then it is capable of creating a competitive US-based space launch industry. The latter would be a far more effective in the long run.
Strange thing to say (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, sure, because the magazine will use its own launchers and launching pad and won't turn to a third party to organize the trip...
Re:We know (Score:2, Insightful)
As long as your party loyalty is more important to getting on the ballot than the content of your character, America is going to continue its slide into corruption.
Re:Not Space... (Score:1, Insightful)
Really?
What about the RKA/Soviet space program? I can see how your hackles were raised, but thats no reason to ignore history and give in to hyperbole. They not only came "close", they surpassed NASA in quite a few areas from the 1950's onwards.
Re:Cost Effective? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is how bureaucracies work:
I don't support it, I just pay my taxes.
I don't support it, I just authorized the use of necessary force, but this isn't what I meant.
I don't support it, I just move cargo from point A to point B.
I don't support it, I just carry out the orders of my political leadership.
And on an on. And yet when you put all the pieces together, presto! A war machine. A whole country full of people waging war, with nobody responsible. At the top is a guy who says "I accept full responsibility" yet who, in fact, pays no discernible cost for failure.