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Space Tourist Discusses His Vacation
mooneyguy writes: "In a report on cnn.com, the world's first paying space tourist is now saying that astronauts and cosmonauts spent too much time on mundane tasks and too little time on real research. Dennis Tito said, "Most science in space is being conducted by unmanned vehicles. In my view, there is limited amount of science that takes place on the international space station..." It reads as a rather sweeping condemnation of human presence in space, based on a very brief glimpse of life on a structure still under construction. Oh yeah, he's still publically feuding with NASA, too."
The first space tourist was, IMO, John Glenn, the most recent time he went up.
The people that foot the bill for Glenn's vacation in space were the American people.
You may remember at the time, he supposedly was going to study the "effects of aging in space." Did anyone buy this? Does anyone have ANY idea what kinds of rigerous tests were done on Mr. Glenn, or why this powerful Senator (who had been lobbying NASA for years for a last ride) was the most qualified "old guy" in the United States for these important experiments?
In case you think this is partisan-- I'm a lifelong Democrat, but if Glenns' trip was any kind of science, it was the science of PR for NASA. I said as much at the time, and even some NASA PR guy on one of the CNN chats kinda admitted it.
In short, considering a powerful Senator could get himself launched into space for no reason-- and even get the taxpayers to foot the bill-- NASA has no right to get on Tito's case.
Three humans in a tin can in orbit is NOT the route to great science. Dan Goldin chose not to grow a backbone and demand something better then what we have now. As NASA administrator, it was his responsibillity to say 'look, if we are going to do this station, we need to do it right.' Instead, he let every budget cut come without any struggle. In fact, he actually THANKED congress for some of the budget cuts, suggesting that they would make NASA stronger.
Working backwards chronologically, these are some of the big mistakes made:
1. Goldin's public tantrums about Tito. He needs to do anything he can to attract US public support for space, even if it means whoring himself to celebrity. He's not a congressman who can operate on principle, he has a job: make space work.
2. The recent cancellation (oh, they say it's just on hold, but it's cancelled) of the X-38 derived CRV. Without this, there can never be more then 3 permanent crew on the station. WITH it, the crew increases to 7. 3 crew is just about what it takes to maintain the station. If there were 7, you could maintain the station AND do science.
3. Deleting the free-flying science module. You cannot do precision zero-g experiments on a rattling station that has to support a group of breathing, moving astro/cosmo-nauts. You need to be able to deploy a science platform and retrieve it as needed.
4. Not using the Russians enough. No matter how often clueless people rant about how inept the Russians are, the numbers are clear: They have cheaper, more reliable boosters with faster turn around times. We need to utilize this to its fullest, and if that means using some hard cash once in a while, so be it. Our relations are hamstrung by the need to 'barter' for everything.
5. The failure to push for developing our own heavy lift infrastructure. Cancelling the OMV and the Shuttle-C removed our ability to fly a true world class station.
These are not the sort of things that are only visible in 20/20 hindsight. This is all well known in the space community, and NASA leadership has shown an extraordinary skill for disregarding the obviously correct path at times.