SpaceX Executive Calls For $22-25 Billion NASA Budget 114
MarkWhittington (1084047) writes "While participating in a panel called "The US Space Enterprise Partnership" at the NewSpace Conference that was held by the Space Frontier Foundation on Saturday, SpaceX Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell opined that NASA's budget should be raised to $22-25 billion, according to a tweet by Space Policy Online's Marcia Smith. The theory is that a lot of political rancor has taken place in the aerospace community because of the space agency's limited budget. If the budget were to be increased to pay for everything on the space wish list, the rancor will cease.
The statement represents something of a departure of the usual mutual antagonism that exists between some in the commercial space community and some at NASA. Indeed Space Politics' Jeff Foust added a tweet, "Thought: a panel at a Space Frontier Foundation conf is talking about how to increase NASA budget. Imagine that in late 90s." The Space Frontier Foundation has been a leading voice for commercializing space, sometimes at the expense of NASA programs."
The statement represents something of a departure of the usual mutual antagonism that exists between some in the commercial space community and some at NASA. Indeed Space Politics' Jeff Foust added a tweet, "Thought: a panel at a Space Frontier Foundation conf is talking about how to increase NASA budget. Imagine that in late 90s." The Space Frontier Foundation has been a leading voice for commercializing space, sometimes at the expense of NASA programs."
don't have money to waste (Score:2, Offtopic)
we're still paying down the 4 to 6 trillion our wars of choice have cost, we can't spare a half of a percent of that for space
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Soon we'll have spent a trillion for a fighter jet that doesn't even work.
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The Air Force isn't the only entity who's opinion matters. Did the Navy want it?
Re:don't have money to waste (Score:4, Insightful)
It should be noted that deficits for Obama's years in office amount to $4T to $6T. And those had nothing to do with our wars.
It should also be noted that unless we're counting Vietnam, Korea, and WW2, we haven't had $4T to $6T in war costs. Military budgets were higher as a result of Iraq and Afghanistan, but you'd have to count the entire military budget as "war costs" to reach even $4T, much less $6T.
It should also be noted that we're making absolutely no attempt to "pay down" our debts. The National Debt goes up every year, by rather more than $500B (rather more than $1T during most of Obama's terms).
Well, hold on. (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's Heritage's numbers. [heritage.org]
Federal entitlements are driving this spending growth, having increased from less than half of total federal outlays just 20 years ago to nearly 62 percent in 2012. Three major programs—Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—dominate in size and growth, soaking up about 44 percent of the budget.
BUT interest on the current debt is also increasing the debt and along with entitlements, it is crowding out other spending.
The thing with entitlements though, is that most of that spending is on old people and is increasing due to our changing demographics. [wikipedia.org]
But we also need to keep in mind that Medicare was expanded greatly under Bush in 2003, greatly increasing the costs [wikipedia.org]. So lets not put all the blame on Obama.
We should also realize that the old people have considerable political clout - hence why you NEVER hear ANYTHING about Medicare or Social Security when the Tea Partiers are demanding budget cuts. That is why you can keep going back and every President of both parties has tapped into taxpayer money to buy the old people's vote.
Poor people on the other hand, have virtually no political clout and are looked upon as lacking moral fiber and deserve to have their programs cut. And why the attacks are continuing on "Obamacare". As a side note, my wife's clinic has actually started doing MORE business (and actually getting paid) because of Obamacare. See, when a medical provider doesnt get paid, they just pass the costs on to the rest of us in the form of higher fees. But that another post .....
Never the less, I see many many criticisms about government spending and vague references to entitlement programs and no mention of the true burdens on our government.
OH! War spending. Here is an interesting article about that and to make it short: nobody knows how much or how it is afftecing the economy. [cfr.org]
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Why not give us Marvin the Martian's numbers too? For all the time the Heritage Foundation has cooked the books on their reporting, you might as well just give us Glenn Beck's numbers.
"Figures don't lie, but the Heritage Foundation Does"
http://mythfighter.com/2014/01... [mythfighter.com]
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we will have those costs for the Iraqi war
http://www.reuters.com/article... [reuters.com]
Replacing temporary with permanent ... (Score:3)
It should also be noted that we're making absolutely no attempt to "pay down" our debts.
And using cuts in temporary wartime spending to "pay for" new permanent spending, and calling the new spending "deficit neutral" since its "paid for". Political math is amazing.
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Well, it adds up pretty fast when you look at the lost productivity of the men and women who went to fight and the fact that now we're on the hook for a lifetime of medical care for every single one of them, plus other benefits, and a lot of them came back very broken, with pieces missing and will require expensive medical care for the rest of
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those expenses are not considered part of the proper military budget, and can be cut at will.
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The discussion wasn't about the military budget, it was about the cost of the wars.
Surely, when you want to know how much it costs to drive a car, you want to include gas and maintenance, right? Insurance and parking costs. Even the cost of traffic tickets.
The Council on Foreign Relations, who likes wars, tried to minimize the cost of the war just to the line items in the budget. It's worth having a more realistic estimate.
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Read the Brown University study, we're not done paying for Iraq yet
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Brown University isn't named for what you think it is. Go back to your German niche porn.
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At least Obamacare benefits Americans.
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Thats debatable. I'd argue removing personal responsibility for lifestyle choices and giving society a say in them weakens America.
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Some people get a lifestyle choice with ACA coverage that's impossible without the ACA: they can breathe.
Others might remove that choice. There's a civics lesson there. If you're talking about covering people with HIV, or who were smokers, then please charge admission for the times when you walk on water. I genuflect.
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I'd argue removing personal responsibility for lifestyle choices and giving society a say in them weakens America.
People unable to get coverage for cancer they developed through no fault of their own will be interested in your opinion.
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Life style choices start with being born in a good environment. If someone is stupid enough to be born in a toxic dump. well tough.
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Your statement has no bearing on reality let alone the ACA.
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Actually the ACA doesnt cost even close to trillions.
Simple fact of the matter is it doesn't "cost" anything.
It makes more money than it spends.
That's right: it actually turns a profit and REDUCES THE DEFICIT.
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the only one lyiing is you, AC.
1) no part of the bill actually requires you to lose your doctor. they even went out of their way with various waivers and exemptions to make it easier. and anyone with a brain (key phrase, which explains the detractors...like you) knew that the only thing that could get in the way there is if your current plan was sub-standard. very few people actually lost their doctors as a result of moving to a plan that met the standards, particularly if they stayed within the same insura
It's obvious (Score:3)
U had me at "US space ENTERPRISE" (Score:1)
rly!
everyone knows (Score:5, Insightful)
but for some reason, they dont get funded, everyone acts as if NASA wastes money left and right and they get nothing done. I blame congress and the president for always interjecting. They are politicians, not scientists. We should give nasa a blank check and let them do their thing.
perfect solution. Bureaucrats won't find ways to (Score:2, Troll)
> The theory is that a lot of political rancor has taken place in the aerospace community because of the space agency's limited budget. If the budget were to be increased to pay for everything on the space wish list, the rancor will cease.
That will definitely work. Government agencies can never find more ways to spend money.
I bet if we handed 43% of everything we produce to the federal government, they'd stop having budget problems.
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Like they say: "The first rule of economics is that everything depends on scarcity. The first rule of politics is to ignore the first rule of economics."
What is the business case of SpaceX? (Score:2)
Since we're talking about SpaceX, what is the business case of the first "private" space company? Do they plan on being a space tourism company? Or do they intend to make all their money being a government contractor? I fail to see any other possible customers for their services, unless space mining is something more than a pipe dream.
Re:What is the business case of SpaceX? (Score:5, Insightful)
SpaceX has scheduled eleven launches over the next several years with the US Government as the customer (ISS resupply missions).
In addition, it has 17 launches scheduled for other customers (private satellite launches).
So, no, SpaceX doesn't have to do space tourism, nor do asteroid mining, nor make all their money being a government contractor. What they are is a LAUNCH company. They don't do payloads, they just put other people's payloads into orbit for them cheaply.
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They don't do space tourism yet, but once they got the Dragon man-rated I don't see why not. The seven people who've been space tourists so far have in total paid $170 million, while SpaceX has quoted $140 million for a crewed Falcon 9 launch so they're at a price at least some is willing to pay. If they can make the rockets reusable it could significantly increase their launch volume even if only a few hundred super rich want to go. It would be real space flight in LEO and make you a genuine astronaut, not
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That's great, it means they have an independent source of demand that's relatively stable (unlike space tourism where you depend on just a few very rich people). So they could theoretically grow on their own even without the government contracts.
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Right now, it's communication satellites. Take a look at the current launch manifest [spacex.com].
They haven't shown any interest in space tourism, but they would probably be happy to provide launch services for a company that would arrange it. Bigelow Aerospace is another space startup working on flexible space station modules, which could be used on a NASA space station or a commercial/tourist station.
Long term, in order for SpaceX to realize their dreams of transporting passengers to Mars, there will probably need to
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spacex is commercial space.
NASA is federal space.
they are not mutually exclusive.
NASA shouldnt really be in the business of boring day to day work, ie, space trucking.
That role should fall to commercial enterprises, or at least public/private partnerships.
NASA itself should have as its core responsibility research and exploration.
Pushing boundaries, trapping/visiting asteroids, etc.
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The way SpaceX was asking for more funding for NASA made it look like they themselves are counting on that government money.
It will be used as a trough for political cronies (Score:1)
This is just more SLS type pork.
Another example (Score:2, Redundant)
Another example of corporates telling the taxpayer what he should pay. Fuck that. Spacex should fund the 25billion itself.
Re:Another example (Score:4, Insightful)
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"/" and"per" mean the same thing in that context, so "$X per per capita" doesn't make sense.
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Another example of corporates telling the taxpayer what he should pay. Fuck that. Spacex should fund the 25billion itself.
You are aware that ULA, the current American launch monopolist has succeeded, via lobbying, in having the Senate insert a poison pill rider into a bill [chron.com] that seriously harms SpaceX prospects. ULA is deeply afraid of how SpaceX has repurposed older but reliable technologies to create a launch service that is an order of magnitude cheaper than anything they can even imagine providing. SpaceX is hardly a villain here.
Anti-SpaceX Propaganda Campaign (Score:4, Informative)
As this article indicates, United Launch Alliance, the principle competitor to SpaceX has hired Shockey Scofield Solutions [s-3group.com] to initiate a propaganda campaign against SpaceX. You can see ULA listed as a client in the website listed above. The campaign is indirectly mentioned in the following very informative article [defensenews.com], just past the halfway point in the article. You will also notice another client to Shockey Scofield Solutions as Koch Industries, which is a company notorious for its deceptive propaganda campaigns against action on global warming.
Given this fact, I would tend to suspect many of the anti SpaceX comments as being part of an astroturfing campaign. To be honest, I really don't understand why an actual thinking person would have any problem with SpaceX. They build reliable rockets quickly and cheaply. What on Earth is the problem with that?
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I always pictured Elon as Francisco d'Anconia.
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I always pictured Elon as Francisco d'Anconia.
No, that was Alan Greenspan.
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Interesting you should say that when Musk has the cheapest space launch capabilities in the world, is in the process of making his first stage reusable (and thus cheaper still), is in the process of man-rating a seven-man capsule that will be reusable and will cost less to launch than the three-man Soyuz, and is developing a heavy-lift launcher that can put more payload into orbit than Shuttle ever could.
And all on his own dime....
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Sure about Space X being the cheapest? If I remember correctly, Zenit is yet cheaper.
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"As of May 2012, SpaceX had operated on total funding of approximately $1 billion in its first ten years of operation. Of this, private equity provided about $200M, with Musk investing approximately $100M and other investors having put in about $100M"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org]
I think SpaceX is doing some neat stuff, but let's not pretend they're any different than any other government contractor.
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More money won't help (Score:2, Insightful)
In the same way that plunging 2bn on... I think it was Ohio's public education system resulted in more admin buildings but worse sat scores, just more money to NASA won't help. The problem isn't the money, it's the failure to have a goal, as was already argued elsewhere. This is easy to see: After the apollo program the budget didn't change that much (adjusted for inflation), but without structure NASA has done nothing but pursue unconnected tidbits and flounder in its poor management structure.
Besides, Spa
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They have excellent goals, mostly scientific in nature.
The moon shots were a dumbed down jock goal. Who's got the biggest rocket?
The problems in space science are almost completely different to the problems in education. In both cases, money could help if they spent it on the right things.
Look out for the rancor! (Score:2, Funny)
If the budget were to be increased to pay for everything on the space wish list, the rancor will cease.
That won't be enough. You need to drop a heavy door on it's neck.
National Academy of Sciences Says ... (Score:1)
50 years.
As of 2014 the United States of America, NASA and NASA's contractors are not capable to mount a valid effort toward a human space flight mission to the Moon or Mars or an astroid.
Why ?
USA does not have the people, education, engineering, industry, science and technology that would be capable of accomplish such a mission, and furthermore, will not have for another 50 years at least.
The people for the mission in education, in engineering, in science, in technology and those at NASA and its contractor
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Which National Academy report says that, especially the extrapolation in your last sentence?
We went from launching our first satellite on January 31st 1958 to landing a man on the Moon on July 20th 1969.
Don't tell me what we can and can't do based on not having the properly trained workforce. We have brilliant people at NASA and America's private space companies.
What we don't have is the budget and the political will to go to Mars.
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We went from launching our first satellite on January 31st 1958 to landing a man on the Moon on July 20th 1969.
Don't tell me what we can and can't do based on not having the properly trained workforce. We have brilliant people at NASA and America's private space companies.
With all due props to USA-trained contributors to Apollo and its predecessors, it's worth noting that many of the contributors came from outside the USA, particularly from Canada and the United Kingdom.
That said, I agree with your point: you don't need to wait more than a generation to find the talent you need to achieve great things in space.
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Sorry, I forgot the Germans, and probably some others.
Real Money? (Score:2)
"A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you're talking real money."
- Everett McKinley Dirksen
When I was born... (Score:3, Insightful)
By the time I was five, we had been there, done that and decided to never go back again.
If aliens do exist, they are sitting back saying "What the f?ck man, you want to meet us but don't have the energy to get off the couch and answer the door?"
Mankind does not deserve space travel. We had our chance and refused to take it.
We spend less than 5% of our national budget on space travel. Whoops, sorry make that less than 0.5%. It is a joke.
Science and technology have funded our industry for hundreds of years - yet we refuse to spend more on space industry than we do on our aircraft carrier program (old Nimitz class cost about 4.5 billion - and we have 11 of them).
25 billion? Double that and make it a real scientific program. 50 Billion is a reasonable price to pay. Not the paltry less than 20 we currently pay
Re:When I was born... (Score:5, Informative)
yet we refuse to spend more on space industry than we do on our aircraft carrier program (old Nimitz class cost about 4.5 billion - and we have 11 of them).
The Nimitz program [wikipedia.org] produced ten carriers between 1968 and 2006. That is 38 years for a yearly budget of $1.8B. That is approximately 10% of the NASA budget. There are now also 10 large carriers in service. Comparing a long project with a single year budget is inaccurate.
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Without the military the scientific research would be owned by some other country. If one becomes a rich weak country one becomes a ripe target.
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When I was born Mankind had not set foot on the moon. By the time I was five, we had been there, done that and decided to never go back again. If aliens do exist, they are sitting back saying "What the f?ck man, you want to meet us but don't have the energy to get off the couch and answer the door?" Mankind does not deserve space travel. We had our chance and refused to take it.
By the time you were five, we had been (384 400 kilometers) / (4.2421 light years) = 9.57827017 x 10^-9 = ~0.000001% of the way to the closest star. Eight years later they launched the Voyager 1 which is now about (127.98 Astronomical Units) / (4.2421 light years) = ~0.05% of the way. And it's probably uninhabited. What chance did we miss to go visit aliens? Do you think if we just put enough money in it we'd invent the warp drive? Chemical rockets can't do it, it'd be like trying to ride a horse to the moo
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As for what we would invent, the thing about research is if we knew what we would invent, we would already have it. Research is a surprise. It always has been and always will be.
Einstein did not know he was inventing GPS, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, etc. etc. when he figured out relativity.
Space travel isn't feasible. (Score:4, Interesting)
Reality check: space travel with chemical fuels just barely works. It takes huge rockets to launch dinky payloads, and that hasn't improved in 45 years. Satellites and probes are useful. Man in space has just been a boondoggle.
If fusion ever works, this may change, but with chemical rockets, it's not getting much better.
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only if you think in terms of leaving the Earth's gravity well every time.
we could, right now, with todays technology, begin exploring.
it would be hard.
it would expensive.
but we could do it.
it starts with learning to harness the resources already in space.
then turn those resources into ships. some of the mterials would have to come from earth, at least initially.
hell, we could turn the moon into a manufacturing and launch facility.
and just being 1/6th the earth's gravity leads to expenentially lower fuel re
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I've also used the word "boondoggle" as a means of describing manned exploration of space.
The moon is a gift. It's tidally-locked and 2.5 light seconds away. It's the perfect place to work on robotic construction of habitats. Yet we seem to look at it as nothing more than a tourist destination; been there, done that, next. Instead of shooting for Mars (God bless Elon Musk), let's start putting machinery on the moon. Soil collectors. Soil processors. Printers. Solar panels. Reflectors. Plants. Put
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Project Orion would have been fission-powered, not fusion. This [wikipedia.org] is fusion-powered!
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Well sure, but the post would have been less amusing if I added that extra detail.
The only thing worth going into debt to fund... (Score:1)
Nothing else we've done in recent memory is as important.
Enabling wasteful spending on SLS? (Score:4, Insightful)
It has been said by many close to these matters that part of the drain on NASA is SLS. Just throwing more money at it could continue to enable the boondoggle. Maybe the money should be contingent on funding launch platforms that can and will compete with other commercial systems to lower cost, to actually compete with Soyuz on cost. The criticisms are that it is a very poor value, and not well designed for reducing cost and efficiency. The result is a launch platform that is far too expensive. One of the core problems is developing a launch platform that is SOLELY for use by the government, this pretty much prevents the market from driving down costs, unlike other launch platforms such as the Ariane and Soyuz which service private companies and thus are incentivized as a requirement to develop better, cheaper technologies.
Maybe someone else can comment on this, but it looks like SLS will be more expensive and costly than anything else, giving us less for more money. Why even waste time developing this when we can use SpaceX, the Deltas, Atlas and so on, perhaps human rated versions of these.
SLS could not compete on price with Soyuz, which is a good sign it should be scrapped. The Soyuz so far has us beat on reliability, cost, performance. If we continue to fund white elephants which are more driven by beauracracy and pork rather than driven by technical innovations to lower cost and improve reliability, we will continue down the road of stagnation and falling behind.
It has often been said that if someone wanted to kill the US space program, the Shuttle and Space Launch System is exactly what they would do, to basically suck all of the resources dry on a far too expensive launch platform that is superior to everything else on the market, thus pulling resources away from the science and exploration missions.
It is true that SLS is a drop in the bucket compared to the F-35 and welfare programs, yet if its still more expensive than everything else for less than what you can get from other launch platforms, why waste the money? Why not go with a human rated SpaceX?
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Inferior to everything else on the market I meant to say.
Re:Enabling wasteful spending on SLS? (Score:5, Informative)
Why even waste time developing this when we can use SpaceX, the Deltas, Atlas and so on, perhaps human rated versions of these.
Because the Senator from Alabama wants to keep the NASA center in Huntsville busy.
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Soyuz is a LEO launch system, whereas the SLS is heavy lift for moon/mars/asteroids/Lagrange. The Commercial Crew Program is what should be compared to Soyuz. Currently Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada are competing to develop a new U.S. crew to LEO capability--Boeing and SN launch with AtlasV, SpaceX of course has it's own Falcon launcher. The SLS is a completely different critter. Not saying it doesn't have it's issues.
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Maybe someone else can comment on this, but it looks like SLS will be more expensive and costly than anything else, giving us less for more money. Why even waste time developing this when we can use SpaceX, the Deltas, Atlas and so on, perhaps human rated versions of these.
Because national security.
Thiokol makes the solid fuel for the Shuttle and SLS solid fueled boosters. They make that same fuel for ICBMs. ICBMs have to be periodically replaced. Using NASA's budget is a way to hide some defense spending by paying Thiokol to work on civilian space, when really the point is to maintain the active skill in chemistry and manufacturing to be able to make new ICBMs. ICBMs don't have to be replaced often enough. Thiokol did their work too well, and met the Air Force requireme
What to cut (Score:5, Informative)
Give NASA the $14 billion spent in fiscal 2013 training foreign armies and providing them with weapons. That'll make up the difference nicely. Not enough? Move on to the $24 billion spent on the "National Drug Control Strategy." Two things we don't need more of are dead bodies and prison inmates.
Profits (Score:2)
Fly More Missions and Purchase Launch Services (Score:2)
Necessity and Incentives Opening the Space Frontier
Testimony before the House Subcommittee on Space
by James Bowery, Chairman
Coalition for Science and Commerce
July 31, 1991
Mr. Chairman and Distinguished Members of the Subcommittee:
I am James Bowery, Chairman of the Coalition for Science and Commerce. We greatly appreciate the opportunity to address the subcommittee on the critical and historic topic of commercial incentives to open the space frontier.
The Coalition for Science and Commerce is a grassroots net
Re:Why stop there? (Score:5)
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Probably one of the best things NASA could do at this point is abandon ISS, stop paying for it, and tell the Russians its all theirs. There is a fair chance they would fly Americans to it for free rather than get saddled with that boat anchor.
If the Russians don't want it either its time to deorbit it. It would free up a LOT of money for more useful endeavors. Its never been good for much of anything, certainly nothing to justify the staggering price tag
SpaceX will have the ability to put astronauts in t
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Probably one of the best things NASA could do at this point is abandon ISS, stop paying for it, and tell the Russians its all theirs.
The ISS isn't the sole property of NASA.
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Didn't say it was. I just said NASA should abandon it to whomever wants to pay to keep it operating. Prettty sure its past its original end of life anyway which I think was 2010.
If Russia doesn't want to play nice, or pay to run it themselves, I doubt ESA, Canada or Japan will be able to keep it going if the U.S. pulls out.
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Why would russia need to stay saddled with that boat anchor?
Bring everyone back down, and just leave it. It's constantly aerobraking anyway, without recurring thruster maneuvers it will meet it's end.
Some politicians are just like wall street ... (Score:2)
why should we fund NASA at all?
For exploration, for technology development. Some things are too big, too risky or the return on investment too long for commercial space companies.
Contrary to some of its critics beliefs, some NASA spending does have a return on investment, a benefit to the U.S. economy and U.S. society. Much like some investments in basic scientific research. The problem is that some politicians are just like wall street, they want to see the payback in a fiscal quarter or two -- well unless their district provides som