Commercial Space: Spirit of Apollo Or Spirit of Solyndra? 157
MarkWhittington writes "Andrew Chaikin, the author of A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts, believes that the spirit of Apollo no longer resides at NASA, but rather in the nascent commercial space companies such as SpaceX. This assessment is disputed by many, who see in the Obama administration program of government subsidies for commercial space the spirit of Solyndra."
SpaceX rocks! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:SpaceX rocks! (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is they deliver stuff that works the same way stuff worked 50 years ago. There just isn't any room in physics and engineering to allow the massive amounts of energy the overoptimistic delusions of the Space Aged promised.
Considering the source... (Score:5, Insightful)
I generally see Mark Whittington as being the chief cheerleader for the "let's do Apollo again" school of space flight. There's nothing wrong with that, except that NASA has pretty definitively proven over a period of decades that it's too bureaucratic, too sclerotic, and too much organized as a patronage/jobs organization to do anything big in manned space flight. Even were that not the case, it's a shame that Whittington continually elides the fact that the commercial space contracts — both cargo and crew — only pay out when specific milestones are achieved, and they pay fixed amounts for those milestones. In other words, this isn't Solyndra, where money is just thrown down the drain with no expectation of success; that actually better describes NASA's normal manned space flight program than it does the commercial space companies.
I think Chaikin's right, and that the entrepreneurial spirit that characterized NASA in the 1960s now resides in the private space companies. And as a bitter critic of the Obama administration on pretty much every other point, I nonetheless have to say that this is the one area where they've definitely improved on the Republicans.
Re:Considering the source... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why have Americans become nancies? (Score:2, Insightful)
You clearly don't understand how dangerous it is to put someone in space, even with every precaution we can think of. Maybe you've forgotten the 17 deaths that have occurred so far?
Going to space isn't like assaulting Omaha beach. Throwing more cannon fodder out in unsafe vehicles that are likely to fail will not overcome or wear down space and allow later people to make it through.
Re:How about the Spirit of Jack? (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering that Deke Slayton was heavily involved with the construction of the Conestoga rocket system [wikipedia.org] in the 1980's, I'd say he certainly has a foot in both the early days of Apollo (even being one of the original Mercury seven), and in some ways one of the very early pioneers of commercial rocketry. He embodies perhaps the whole of what was once upon a time NASA of a long ago era and what could have become of commercial spaceflight.... if America will only let it happen.
Yeah, the spirit of Deke Slayton would be of particular interest at the moment, and it would be good to invoke him in any such discussion of the intersections of NASA's past glories and what is happening now for spaceflight in America today.
Re:Considering the source... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Name the only organization to have sent a man on an extra-orbital space flight"
That organization hasn't done that for nearly 40 years. Most of the people at that organization who did do that have retired or passed away. You simply can't keep milking your long past accomplishments forever. You pretty much have to stop when none of the people who did the great things is in that organization now.
If you saw the feeble attempt that was the first test launch of Ares, or watched every other one of NASA's failed attempts at a new launcher design since the Space Shuttle you seriously have to question if NASA can ever build a successful new launcher. The Space Shuttle, though it had some positives, was a pretty flawed one too and its over 30 years old.
SpaceX may ultimately fail but a lot of people are really pegging their hopes on it being the best shot the U.S. has of actually leading and innovating in space again.
If you've actually watched NASA, Boeing or Lockheed over the last 40 years you can be pretty confident they've just been milking Congress to perpetuate a high tech jobs program, while feeding the states and districts of a few poweful Congressmen who are adept at doling out port. They seem to have very little fire in their belly to do ANYTHING interesting, innovative or risky. When youÂclosely couple that with a political system that completely changes direction every 4-8 years you have a system designed to go nowhere. SpaceX is at least somewhat decoupled from all that BS.
Re:I'll believe it when I see it (Score:2, Insightful)
Or it could be that there's nothing at all on the Moon, it's far away, deadly and hostile? Is there a big market for radiation blasted vacuums?
Re:SpaceX rocks! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuclear propulsion was entirely possible 50 years ago, but this thing called an Arms Race made it politically a no-go.
More the lack of an arms race, really. NERVA was pretty much ready to go, but had no use for ICBMs: it was aimed squarely at a mission to Mars. A very expensive, not particularly-useful-in-competing-with-the-USSR mission to Mars.
Re:I'll believe it when I see it (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not really about commercial vs private, they've framed it that way to simplify the debate for the public. This is about fixed firm contacts versus cost plus contracts. And if the early results are any indication, fixed firm is much better.
The spirit of Solyndra is in Congress (Score:5, Insightful)
The Obama administration has a lot of problematic policies related to tech (Solyndra, Yucca Mountain, green energy, etc.) but as far as NASA and space is concerned, they for once have the right idea of buying services from the private sector.
Congress is the group that wants the return to the old NASA, primarily because that keeps the money flowing to the old NASA centers.
Only if you ignore ALL THE FAILURES (Score:0, Insightful)
SpaceX only had ONE (partially) successful flight. Nothing more. All others were fatal failures with loss of the cargo. And the one where the cargo made it to orbit, it put the spacecraft (satellite) in an orbit lower than the target orbit and the secondary (test) cargo failed miserably.
On the last "test" flight, the nose cone (where the cargo was supposed to be) fell off in mid-flight and the vehicle auto-destroy itself. But SpaceX put out a claim that the flight was a complete success. The ONLY test of the "Dragon" capsule was a success according to the company .... but they failed to tell people that the vehicle crash landed and was destroyed on impact because the "re-entry" system failed to activate.
SpaceX talks the talk, but so far has shown that they CAN'T deliver anything safely.
Re:Considering the source... (Score:5, Insightful)
Certainly.
Who were not making rockets at the time.
Re:Considering the source... (Score:5, Insightful)
It wasn't hard to recruit junior engineers with the following proposal: Do you want to spend the rest of your career building power point presentations and attending conferences, or do you want to work on a clean sheet engine design and actually fly stuff into space?
It doesn't take much brain power to figure out which career path will help you out both professionally and intellectually.
BTW, SpaceX didn't raid just JPL, but also Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, and several other major aerospace companies. They also did a pretty good job of raiding the NASA astronaut corps (as have some other private commercial spaceflight companies) and have been picking up other people along the way that are also extremely talented, including some recent college graduates who also like working for companies that have an active production floor. The manufacturing plant at El Segundo is as busy as any factory was during the glory years of the Cold War when Atlas missiles (and others) were being built for ICBMs. SpaceX right now has more engines in its production queue than all other countries of the Earth combined, with an estimated completion of about one engine each week if the production line goes to full production as is anticipated.
Which place would you rather work for... a company where things are happening or a place where they are reliving the glory days and lamenting why it will never come back?
Re:SpaceX rocks! (Score:4, Insightful)
Too bad there's still no destination for people, eh? It's still a vacuum, it's still a radiation-blasted hell, and it's still empty. Low Earth Orbit is not "space"... Too bad we still need massive amounts of material to build rockets, too bad there's no new physics of propulsion... Why are the dead dreams of bygone eras so important to a small segment of rich, white middle-aged geeks?
What happened to the 1997 Japanese space hotel? Oh yeah, nothing. What's going on with the PG&E space based solar power? Oh yeah, nothing. Space is dead. None of the delusions about orbital ball bearing factories, commuting to the office on the Moon or retiring on Mars make a shred of sense. The two most powerful nations on Earth entered a no-holds-barred contest to get people on the Moon, and even THEY, at the PEAK of their power, weren't able to sustain it.
But somehow, CEO and his magical sidekick, the Free Market, will do it? It's time for a reality check. Metal tubes filled with chemicals don't compensate for the basic fact that people arent' meant for space, there's nothing IN space, and space is so enormously bigger than anything we can conceive... Think we'll colonize the universe with balding middle-aged apes with bad eyesight? Where is the free market life extension effort to go with the size of the universe?
It's very simple. Even here on Earth, where EVERYONE and EVERYTHING is, we couldn't even sustain Concorde. Where are these magical rich people just waiting in line to shower money at the private space buff(oon)s? After the novelty of going nowhere wears off, then what? It wore off already in 1972. It won't change.
Re:I'll believe it when I see it (Score:3, Insightful)
The more the merrier. But unless we find more resources, such as in space, this planet isn't going to sustain this many damn people. Especially as they wish to start raising their lifestyle up the carbon footprint scale. We are dragging our feet at planetary atmosphere scrubbing technology. It's right in front of us in our bongs, but we haven't been smart enough to realize it. Hemp will scrub the shit out of carbon in our atmosphere, give us petroleum, feed us, give us construction materials, paper, clothes, etc, but we are hampered by "church lady mentality", corrupt politicians, stupid politicians, drug money interests, the prison industry's need to keep people in their jails for stupid shit, etc, etc.
I don't know if we as a species are going to make it. Trying to get us to go in the right direction is like herding cats.
We should be out populating the solar system, then galaxy, then universe. Of course human population should rise, but Earth's population should slack off at some point. We need new worlds, even if we have to build them until we can find them.
Re:The spirit of Solyndra is in Congress (Score:1, Insightful)
I find it missing in this whole discussion and this is the only place I see to add my comment without making a 'top' level comment: the Spirit of Solyndra is Crony Capitalism. Obama's White House is loving that stuff. That is the deal we should be discussing.