Give Space a Chance, Says Phil Plait 279
The Bad Astronomer writes "A lot of pundits, scientists, and people who should know better are decrying the demise of NASA, saying that the President's budget cutting the Constellation program and the Ares rockets will sound the death knell of manned space exploration. This simply is not true. The budget will call for a new rocket design, and a lot of money will go toward private space companies, who may be able to launch people into orbit years ahead of Ares being ready anyway."
Bravo. (Score:5, Interesting)
I follow Phil via twitter, he's pretty spot on about space and space exploration. He even goes into the false dichotemy of funding social spending programs first then NASA in one of his posts. NASA research lead to cheaper, more viable foodstuffs for the poor in the past, I don't see why it's breakthroughs couldn't assist us in our search for solutions to problems here on Earth.
Re:Losing Constellation is a set back (Score:4, Interesting)
Try again. Wikipedia (optimistically) puts the current incremental cost of a Shuttle launch at about $60 million. There have been over 100 launches since Challenger. In other words, we have spent at least $6,000,000,000 -- six billion dollars -- on shuttle flights since NASA's incompetence was put on display for the world.
In the last eight years with just a few hundred million in funding, SpaceX has developed vehicles now capable of launching payloads to LEO at roughly 2x the price of the Shuttle, and cost to a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit is actually the same or _LOWER_ for the Falcon 9.
Can you possibly imagine how cheap spaceflight would be if that six BILLION dollars had been poured into something other than NASA's horrifically broken bureaucracy for the last 24 years?
Re:Wishful thinking is bad science too (Score:5, Interesting)
It amazes me how many people think that what we're dealing with is a choice between outsourcing to industry vs. having the government do it. That's not the case. It's a choice between outsourcing to "small" (relatively) companies vs. outsourcing to huge corporate giants (Lockheed, Boeing, etc), which they currently do. The former should give much better pricing and innovation, at the downside of greater risk.
Re:Yeah, orbit! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Yeah, orbit! (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm pretty sure people value Platinum and other rare metals as they are chemically, metallurgically and catalytically useful. There is no evidence that the demand for the metals will just suddenly disappear. Even if it did, the supply would simply drop to the level of demand. Econ101.
Re:Yeah, orbit! (Score:3, Interesting)
In the US this might be true but China will probably think otherwise. The US is far too risk adverse to actually do anything interesting and if it continues, China will kick the US's ass badly.
Phobos and Deimos are C/D type asteroids rich in Nickel and contain roughly 400x the concentration of Plainum group metals as your backyard. They have masses in the range of 10 trillion tons each. So no, you wouldn't get more resources by "digging a hole in your backyard."
Re:Yeah, orbit! (Score:2, Interesting)
The private industry is decades away from what NASA can do today.
Actually, it is the private industry that does what NASA do for NASA. Rocketdyne, Boeing, Lockheed et al ARE private companies.
The private industry can already do what NASA can, and probably more, given a budget. NASA is mostly there to manage the projects.
So it not decades away, it is billions of dollars away.
The only reason companies like Virgin Galactic don't do what NASA do is the fact that their customers aren't willing to pay billions.
It is probably just as hard, if not harder, to get people into LEO on a small budget, than it is to get them to Mars on a huge one.
Personally, I am far more impressed by SpaceShipTwo and its carrier(which is really cool) than I am of most of the (new) things the constellations program was supposed to create.
Re:Yeah, orbit! (Score:3, Interesting)
Part of that prize system is the requirement that the money be put into escrow until it is claimed. That's the hardest part to convince NASA of, please pay now for something that someone may never claim, and then we'll give it back ok?
Time for a trust fund (Score:4, Interesting)
We really need to get away from all this political BS.
Let's just setup a multi trillion dollar trust fund over the next 20 years and be done with it. Then we won't have to support it with taxes anymore. I think we can afford to spend 20 years frugally developing space engineering. Let's work on getting garbage collectors and street cleaners in space before we start polluting the moon and mars.
We spend how many billions of dollars putting the ISS into space and it's scheduled for a 2020 end of service...? How many billions do we spend on satellites only to have them come crashing back into the atmosphere? It costs way too much money sending all those pounds of metal up there only to waste it.
We need to concentrate on manufacturing and recycling. We need more automation in space.
We need plans to harvest asteroids and comets and put then into orbit around mars and Saturn for future manufacturing; I seriously doubt with all the asteroid doomsday movies that putting asteroids into earth orbit will get that much support. Mars is the scene of the next industrial revolution. The next wild west though it may take us a couple hundred years. And if you didn't realize it farming is destined for space. Power? You don't want a nuclear reactor next door? Guess where we can put it? It's all about real estate baby. Always has been and always will be and fortunately there is a quite a bit of it.
Re:Yeah, orbit! (Score:4, Interesting)
The shuttle is the government's doing. SpaceX could do it for less than a million$ as it is. Even better considering that the price drops with time and when we start building structures in space for the purpose of space industry. Self sufficient colonies don't need to launch much from Earth. Mine the Gold and de-orbit it using a space tether and a flat, ablative, throw away heat shield.
Re:Meh. I don't like it one bit (Score:4, Interesting)
You're under the impression that NASA is currently capable of creating an HLV using its old contracting methods. NASA has been incapable of creating a new launch vehicle since the shuttle, not at the fault of the dedicated civil servants, but by a paralyzing management and political structure.
People and talent are mobile, and most of vehicle design in the past was done by private contractors anyway. Having NASA write you a paycheck doesn't make you more (or less) capable. What's going on here is simply a shift from cost-plus to fixed-price contracts. These are less subject to political manipulation, and push more management to distinct companies with their own structures -- if one company becomes paralyzed, it isn't a single point of failure for US human spaceflight.
And yes, currently 'commercial space' vehicles concentrate on simple LEO transport, because this is the largest, most guaranteed market. However, if NASA needs to buy an HLV, there's no reason that one can't be provided by similar methods. A less risky (and less efficient) cost-plus development contract may be necessary occasionally, but if everyone is used to fixed-price approaches, and there's an understanding that eventual acquisition of more vehicles will be at a fixed-price then the same improved efficiencies will hopefully dominate.
NASA doesn't need to design its own launch vehicles -- it needs to define requirements. If it needs something it buys it, and if it can't it can fund development, same as it always has, with modified expectations.
Re:Bravo. (Score:3, Interesting)
I like this game, let's try another one:
Social problem: Corrupt government
Technological solution: ?
Result: ?
We know. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think international competition is more likely to drive space exploration than all of us holding hands and doing it together.
Those of us who are in the right wing and have no problem shoveling money into NASA see this coming from a mile away. Keeping the USA in the forefront in space is more important than the development of the lateen sail was to the arabs or the silk worm was to the Chinese. It's absolutely, strategically, important.
In fact, I would say that you could the cut the US military budget in half, spend the balance on developing heavy lift boosters, exploring asteroids, getting serious about the whole thing, and get way more out of your taxpayer dollar in terms of geopolitical power than 6 aircraft carriers and 1000 fighters.