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NASA Holds Competition to Develop Space Vehicles
BlueCup writes to tell us that the US space agency is holding a competition to develop space vehicles NASA doesn't have the time or resources to develop. The winning companies will get $500 million and NASA will merely lease them as the need arises. From the article: "NASA hopes the private-sector vehicles can bridge an expected gap between when the space shuttle fleet is grounded in 2010 and the crew exploration vehicle is flying in 2014. A thriving commercial space transportation industry also can offer researchers, and others, opportunities to send payloads into space without relying on NASA's crowded space shuttle schedule or worrying 'that the government will decide next month or next year not to launch,' Griffin said."
They have a reliable and well tested system, why doesn't NASA use that?
The latest Slashdot meme.
If private industry can come up with a spacecraft that can meet the needs from 2010 to 2014, why shouldn't it meet the needs from 2014 forward?
Isn't this ust a reiteration of the X-Prize?
(by a different entity)
Purple, because ice cream has no bones.
And Nasa launched the last of its deep space probes...
... helium? Something like that...
Sadly, I worry that might well be true.
Why not simply turn over access to "deep space" to private enterprise? Asteroid belt mining is a staple of SF - is there a real commercial incentive today or do we have to wait till ol' Mother Earth runs out of diggable dirt-based useful stuff first?
And wasn't there a story about the moon being made not of cheese but of some kind of minable
(wanders off to google for a bit)
I am a leaf on the wind
If you mean what you say in your sig...you'll never subscribe. Typo's are a defining trait of Slashdut.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
Oooh! I have a design I've been working on in the weekends, not that I'm an engineer or anything. If anyone had a link to where we can submit our designs...I'm sure I would win. Umm, they're not asking for a working prototype are they? So, when can I expect my 500 million?
Before you die, you see DoubleRing...
500 million isn't enough to develop a long term, repeatable, economical vehicle for launches. 500 million gets you one vehicle that MAY launch successfully...once.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
Frickin' finally. This is possibly the best possibly future for the public space agencies - fund research and development through a combination of grants and prizes, and not actually work on the problems themselves. They've done good work in the past, but they've simply become too large and inefficient, and that's exactly what privitisation is best at combating. This is very good news for people looking towards the future of space exploration, exploitation and colonisation
are we seeing the forming of an equivilant of the Military-Industrial_Complex in the field of Space Exloration? Will the government contracts to private companies lead to massive spending in the field of space exloration like it did for the Millitary starting after WWII?
A curious thought here: if a corporation could launch a fleet of ships to outer space, wouldn't that put them out of government reach? Sure, seize their ground control, they'll just land in another country. (If not drop a bomb of their own!) Obviously we would need a way to destroy such a threat! Let's contract out for a solution!
@HbFyo0$k8 tH!$
"When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything, the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks." ;)
- Fight Club
It's bad enough now with the Telco's thinking they own the internet. So NASA will lease them for some of the time, what about the rest of the time...? Does the company get to use it's own gear to put up satellites and what not?
To be objective, I guess someone's got to pay for it. But space travel and the means to do so should not be patented away, preventing anyone else the means to get to space should they wish to build their own machine and get off this rock; perhaps assurances against something like this will be needed?
(Toungue-in-cheek throughout.)
If civvies can get into space, then there's surely no further need for a federal space program and embarrasments like the shuttle can be put behind us.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Finally...
The only part of the government that should be in the business of building and flying space vehicles is the military.
Deleted
This isn't a race to devolop products, this is a race to design an Intergalactic Business Model.
Look at that, maybe IBM had it right all along.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
NASA should get a hold of him - his ship even made it to the moon, and was built using an old cement mixer!
Too right. If NASA + contractors can't build something that works reliably aand cost effectively then why should they be protected? Let market forces dominate and offshore the whole lot!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Because the FAA will declare the non-governmental one unsafe.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
But they're our Friends! (this is the motto that has let the US (and many other governments) give weapons/money/support/etc. to such friendly faces as Saddam Hussein, S. Vietnam, the Saudi dynasty, the Contras, etc. etc.)
Since we're already supporters of Mr. KGB and his new Tsarist state, we might as well get something out of it, like a crutch for our limping space program.
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
The X-prize has been won. SpaceShipOne achieved its most spectacular flight yet, climbing to an altitude of 377591 feet (71 1/2 miles) to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize back in Oct 2005. This is a MUCH bigger and much tougher contest, however knowing NASA they'll drag this thing out 2-3-5 years and then all these companies will either be gone or have commercialized the systems on thier own and won't need the NASA $$$. Or NASA could split the prize money 2 or 3 ways and none of the winners would get adequate funding. NASA should give the money to a private foundation (like maybe Ansara???) who then makes the awards.
wouldn't this make a fantastic project for science departments in universities? It seems like it would be a great connection for some venture capitalist and NASA to create several design centers that would share all information and create a plan that would have as its goal to be inexpensive, creative, and efficient. It's probably a pipe-dream, but it would be an incredible way to invigorate science work in this country at all levels, to engage funding in educational institutions, and likely earn an incredible profit down the road.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
Why not just privatise NASA altogether, and stop wasting billions of dollars of taxpayers money? The X-Prize has shown that the future of space travel is clearly private - IMO, this venture shows that NASA realises it too, and is trying to delay the inevitable.
NASA already has an extremely well-tested and effective vehicle. The Space Shuttle is a weak and complex design that replaced a great and simple design.
For less than $500 million NASA could replace the Apollo program 1960's computers (on board and ground control) and develop a new hatch to allow the Apollo command module to connect to the Space Station. Beyond that, just mass produce Saturn 5's and Command/Lander modules.
This new competition is a Feel Good(TM) program that hands out money to the contractors, when NASA has already done the job.
I think its great giving free enterprise a shot at this. This kind of thing would be impossible in the Marxist societies I have been seeing advocated all weekend on Slashdot.
Name it. The Buran? Nope, not well-tested and uses 70s technology. Soyuz? Yes, it's undergone upgrades throughout the years but might an original design in the 21st century be better? The Soyuz is as conventional as any other rocket system. Yes, it works, but it is hardly the best. It's good current technology; NASA wants something that pushes towards the future. Note that all of the finalist companies are start-ups.
And I can't believe a post got modded +3 without listing a single specific. Oh well, who needs evidence to be "insightful"? Evidently, not the mods.
Where's George Lucas when you need him?
Do not mark in this space. For official office use only.
Not Invented Here...
Oh well, what the hell...
What NASA should be doing is developing a workable business model that will make itself self-sufficient.
NASA SHOULD BE OFFERING commercial services to American Civilians.
1. Suborbital Flights.
2. Cremation Services with Partial ashes launched into space.
3. For Fee Licensing of Patents resulting from NASA Research.
4. And any other compettiive services Comercial companies plan to offer.
And those who think government shouldn't be making money, you should be reminded of United States Postal Service. USPS is a self-sufficient government agency. They rarely ask for federal money.
\
The sad thing is that for 20 mill a pop, you can contract Energia to fly soyuz/progress. Much cheaper, safer and reliable. But politics just get in the way of good science. If I were NASA I would buy the design and rights to manufacture it, but they never would because it aint made in the US.
That way, they can cut out the middleman.
I started to laugh so hard after I read the title. The first thing that came me was some weird looking space mobile with spinners, hydraulics and the aliens from mars keep on yelling turn down the bass bro!
Off the exit on I-75 near Warner Robins Airforce base on the Way to Macon, GA, stands (vertically) in a Krystal parking lot, a Titan I missle, erected by the Confederate Airforce (whats that, what? the Confederacy has an airforce? one they lost, two.. airplanes weren't even invented yet) on a plot of ground 10ft by 10ft.
Here's my proposal. NASA dumps a cool 10 million on me (a bargain).... me and my slashdot hacker buddies with get that bird flying again and lob that bitch into space with a monkey on board (any polititians willing to volunteer? lots of free publicity)
I'm going to need several trucks full of highly explosive LOX, a case load of AMD Dualcore X2 boxs to setup mission control in the trailer behind my house, and an armful of Kryon spraypaint from Walmart and some hippies to paint it with plenty of Vietnam era peace logos and flowers. Also, several 1960's era Volkswagen buses for field vehicles.
There's no time to lose. North Korea is about to lob one of their protype nukes at us, we must make a display of force as a country lest the rest of the world realizes the US is really the puffed up pansies we really are. We didn't use a single nuke in Iraq, but yet like complete idiots hurled depleted uranium around the battlefield which did nothing but cause horrible mutations for the next 2000 years in any child born in the area. What kind of country is that. We have to show them we're boss again, like when we dropped those nukes on those slat eyed civilian cities in World War II. Boy them were the good old days. Damn any transplanted American children or women living in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki, they should of been back in Kansas where they belonged.
All geeks who want to volunteer to be flight engineers, techie hackers, ground support personell, PR people, mission control specialists, here's your chance. Email me at root@rootpassword.com and lets get the avionics upraded on this multiton flying chunk of rusty steal to the latest linux kernel. I want webcams from every angle on this bird to broadcast live footage across the web to Belarus and every other ruskie state.
Einstein
http://rootpassword.com/
What's NASA? Some kind of lottery agency? Prizes for this. Prizes for that. Are they based in Vegas?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Private industry can't solve NASA's transportation gap with a trickle of funding which dries up in 2014 because NASA will be back to doing their own thing.
Although the article was sparse on details, it's already clear that the economic incentives in the proposal are almost certainly unrealistic. Like everything else they have done, this is likely to fail. This time, however, a couple lucky winners are likely to suck a bunch of venture capital into the unrealistic programs and go down in a dot-com style flame with no vehicle and no customers, probably torpedoing investment in this industry for a decade to follow.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Right on, Mr. Griffin.
Seastead this.
Ok, I just re-watched Ron Howards Apollo 13, the Right Stuff, and Alien with Ripley Scott, old Battlestar Galacticas, and Armagedon, and I realize, what we don't need is any more monkeys in space. Instead, what the Conferation of Planet Earth needs but is sorely lacking is some kind of, any kind of, planetary defense against alien invastion.
We are absolutly a fat, sitting blue green target brightly shining like a Christmas ornament hanging in space. There is no telling how many burned out, hungry and strapped for resources from their own exhausted planets, aliens out there on warships just looking for a virgin juicy planet with lots of lush vegetation, and topaz tropical beaches, to rape, like a black convict fresh out of prison with a switchblade in a dark alley going after some white wiminz. If that don't raise the hair on any god fearing Republican's neck, then by gawd John Wayne isn't the Duke.
So I hearby organize and found the Interstellar Earth Planetary Defense Command (IEPDC) under my emergency leadership, for the confederated defense and protection of planet Earth and all its vested interests.
We ask for an initial minimum of 10 billion, to be contributed to by all nations of the Earth, for its common protection, in direct correlation to its relative ability to contribute (gross nation product, etc).
Initial investments will go into heated brainstorming and research sessions, to develop potentially feasible technical proposals as to the best and most effective and expedient way the planet can be geared up and protected against alien invasions, as well as exploring how these scenarios would ensue, what countermeasures could be taken, and how these threats are to be monitored for with long range surveilance of the skys.
Time is of the essense to pass this through immediatly, because gentlemen, we have been complacent our our little blue green planet too long, living like a baby sucking on its mama's teat oblivious of the frighteningly dangerous and real universe we are living in. There is no time to waste. The time for preparing for the inevitable war is now.
Initially the first commitee will explore, whethere conventioanal intercontinental ballistic missle performance can be enhanced and flight controls modified and expanded, for launch at inbound targets far out headed on an intercept path with Earth. How these weapnos could be protected, until they reach their targets (inbound enemy space craft) and a centralized planetary defense mission control warroom to coordinate this defense.
If you're interested in what John Carmack is doing these days, he's made a bunch of interesting posts on the aRocket list, specifically about developing an OTRAG modular rocket engine vehicle. He recently made this post (he has specifically given premission to reprint his words in the past, BTW). Exciting stuff. Carmack is the only one who I have any confidence in that will be able to go to orbit cheaply.
---------------------
Peter Fairbrother wrote:
> >> First, $100 million isn't enough, several people have tried
> >> and failed at $100 million projects.
> >
> > Failure has not been limited to $100 million projects. I suspect the
> > failures you speak of are where people tried to build $1 billion
> > vehicles for $100 million price tags.
>
>Yes - and a reasonable LEO launch system needs a half-billion-dollar
>vehicle. You can't really do it more cheaply. Reread the minimum mass to
>orbit thread, and then remember we need a decent payload as well.
We have been discussing the modular OTRAG designs for a reason --
they offer an incremental, scaleable, low cost development path to
inexpensive access to LEO.
I'm completely confident that "per-tube" costs can be under $10k, and
they might get below $5k. You should be able to get 10 - 20 pounds
of payload to LEO per-tube, depending on final Isp and mass ratios.
The size, scope, and complexity of the individual modules is lower
than the work we are currently doing at Armadillo, so development and
tooling expenses are modest. Module design and production can be
improved incrementally to decrease costs, like any mass produced item.
A few screw ups on the way to orbit are probably inevitable, so you
might need to produce several hundred tubes before entering revenue
service, but it still looks like it could be done in the low tens of
millions of dollars, even being rather pessimistic. You could even
buy a few pacific islands for yourself if you really needed to. That
is a long way from half a billion, let alone ten billion.
A system like this won't get to $100 / lb to LEO, but it will
outperform a conventional expendable upper stage on a hypersonic
booster, even disregarding development costs, plus it scales to a
wider range of payloads.
The real point though, is that billion dollar reusable space booster
developments are just fantasy projects at this point. You might as
well posit that you will develop anti-gravity in your garage. If you
were to say something like "The next generation of space vehicles
will prove out an elastic market for space launch, at which point my
ten billion dollar project will look like a sure thing to the smart
money investors" it might be a little more credible, and only have
more standard business and technical arguments against it, instead of
being just nuts.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Instead of being an administration, by administrators, for administrators, with political goals, perhaps it would be better if NASA was replaced by an organisation run by scientists for scientists, with scientific goals. If the scientists saw the money as research funds they'd probably treat it with more respect and make sure they (1) attacked scientific goals and (2) got their money's worth.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
that is why space shuttles are always having problems, they are design flaws. I wonder what it would have been like if they went for the best quality instead of the lowest price?
All I can think of was a Sci Fi TV show called "Salvage 1" where some Junkyard turned junk into a space ship and went to the Moon to salvage the equipment that NASA left there. That is when I think of NASA asking anyone to build a space ship.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
The need for competition is best exemplified by the American automobile industry. The Ford Mustang of 2006 (after nearly 26 years of intense competition with Japanese automobiles like the Honda Prelude) is vastly superior in quality to the Ford Mustang of 1980.
Based on the 26 years of quality improvements in American automobiles due to Japanese competition, we can surmise that opening the NASA contracts to non-American Western companies will likely accelerate space-vehicle development to such an extent that, by 2032 (i.e., 26 years later), the Western allies will launch the first intersellar starship, powered by warp drive and armed with phase cannons. From 2032, the Western alliance has 31 years before first contact in 2063 -- with the Vulcans.
Science fiction is a fun place to go fishing for ideas. It's fiction now, but at one point, so were organ transplants and personal communicators.
Think about it... China wants to be the world's next space power. They've sucessfully launched three men into space so far, and the next two manned missions will test spacewalks and docking with a laboratory module. The last mission in the series, Shenzhou 10, should be complete by 2010, *exactly* when NASA needs this new vehicle. China already has a reputation for manufacturing low-cost products for Walmart; I see no reason why a federal agency like NASA shouldn't benefit from dirt-cheap Chinese labor. Also, you have to imagine that $500 million would go a lot further in China than it would in the US, the EU or in Russia. Hell -- for half-a-billion in cash, the Chinese could probably build NASA a new ship *and* throw in a complete space station too. NASA working with the Chinese seems to me, if you'll pardon the pun, like a match made in heaven.
The parent poster claims the Moon is made out of Helium, when in fact it is made up mostly of Oxygen, Magnesium, and Silicon. Sure, the atmosphere is 25% Helium, but how much will you pay for a quarters of the air on the moon? He's a shill from the Hydrogen Industry, who claims that there is "lots and lots of Helium in the universe! oh yeah! We'll get some in by next week!" are clearly false. I will not let them get away with this blatent slashvertising.
In general the idea of competition and prizes is good, however, as the number of 'challenges', 'races', and 'prizes' increase, I don't see a similar increase in traditional funding of basic research.
As a person working in research at a university, who will be paying my expenses for material and labor (=graduate student and tuition fees, I'm not counting my summer). There are two ways for me:
1) I take the full risk and hope to win the prize or
2) I screw a funding agency and use some of their grant money to compete here as well.
Clearly 2) is the way to go. Moreover, I even have to rip them off even more, since I won't win the prize each time I seriously compete and have to compensate these losses.
Again, don't get me wrong. Competition is good, prizes and challenges are good, however, not at the expense of traditionally funded basic research. Unfortunately, that's what's happening, since it moves the risk from the sponsor to the researcher and that just looks good in the public.
They should do this same thing to get some better alternative energy cars or what have you out there. Get some people out there working on this that don't have the conflict of interest with oil.
simple, fast homepage with your links: http://www.ngumbi.com/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I can't wait to see an Oscar Meiyer Rover.
I totally agree SS1 is mainly a modern X-15. But that in itself is something. SS1 is a lot simpler and a lot cheaper, both to develop and to run.
It's a step. But there is still a long way to go. SS1's shuttlecock system of landing won't work at LEO reentry speeds.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I propose the tried and proven design of the Douglas DC-8.
Axe me while I slumber
Sounds like an anal probe to me...
Any credible plan to, for instance, acquire a nickel bearing asteroid into a useful Earth orbit (somehow avoiding an accidental mass extinction event) is going to require vast amounts of investment in systems development with a payoff perhaps around 2050 (based on the actual timescales for lunar and proposed Martian landings.) Can you imagine any group of shareholders that would invest billions in that idea, given that historically and over the longer recent term the price of metal commodities has actually declined? Where would you find the executives, given that modern corporate managers work to timescales measured in quarters rather than even single digit years?
Corporatisation has turned us all into short termists with blinkers, looking for risk-free strategies to maximise the income from incentive schemes. Sadly perhaps, only in some government departments do you get any long term strategic planning - and then they get accused of bureaucracy and inefficiency because they cannot turn things around in three months.
If the Government is handing over the exploitation of space to corporations, that is surely a sign that the government sees no strategic or long term value in space exploration. The longest term is for a successful politician or administrator in his 40s to want to do something for which he can get credit in his 60s. That's a 20 year timeframe, roughly.
Pining for the fjords
The manned Apollo program resulted in fifteen manned launches. (Apollo-Soyuz, three Skylabs, and Apollo 7-17) and one manned launchpad test that is counted as part of the program. That early pre-flight test claimed the lives of three astronauts. One manned mission suffered an in-flight emergency that, while ultimately non-fatal, certainly caused some concern over the survival of those aboard. That gives a 5.8% fatality rate for crewmembers.
In contrast, the Shuttle has recorded 114 flights, with two fatal emergencies, and a 2% fatality rate for crew.
Those numbers don't tell the whole story, of course, but I hope they will illustrate the danger of comparing two very different programs with very different goals.
Apollo met and exceeded its design goals (beat the Russians to the moon) whereas the Shuttle arguably failed to fulfill its design goals (make space travel as cheap and safe as air travel.) But it would be foolish to expect that a resurrected Apollo would fulfill the Shuttle's design goals. Both Apollo and the Shuttle have lessons to teach spacecraft designers, and it would be wise of NASA to learn from its mistakes and successes.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
Probably the latter. Chairmen who have to answer to shareholders will choose short-term small profits over long-term huge profits everytime.
The problem isn't long term over short term profits, people everywhere make 30-year investments all the time. Its called buying property, and no one is saying thats a bad idea (unless you're in a bubble area). In fact with decent initial investments, everyone can make a good living while the space mining program gets off the ground (nyuck nyuck). The big problem is reliability of that investment. No one can say for sure if all that money isn't going to go spiralling down the drain, and the reason for that is cost to orbit. It doesn't matter how much value you are returning, when the cost to get up there reduces that value below current prices. Remove cost to orbit issues, and space is wide open.
But the wealth is up there, insane treasures beyond the dreams of Midas. Lets take for example the relatively close Amun Asteroid, about $20 trillion dollars worth of useable materials. I recall one geologist said it was something like three times the total amount of metals mined in the history of the human race. And that is just one SINGLE asteroid. How many million or billion more are there, in our system alone? The first to economically tap into that reservoir will revloutionise human existence, to the extent that our current economic issues would become moot. What price can you put on a car or a computer if they are manufactured in orbit for pennies by robots?
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Count on NASA to screw this project up, too.
In the late 90's Lockheed Martin wanted to build a single-state-to-orbit (SSTO) replacement for the space shuttle. They were so confident in their design, all they asked for to build it was $100M. They would fund the rest themselves, and recoup their expenses selling the ship commercially.
NASA killed it in stages. The first stage was to take over program management of the project, which they did simply by funding it to $500M, rather than the $100M Lockheed asked for. Then, they spread development of various pieces of VentureStar to several companies, some of whom have a proven track record of failure. Finally, as various companies failed to develop their piece, they turned on the project, claiming it could never work and was a bad idea in the first place. The end result was much additional funding from Congress to continue backing NASA's stupid shuttle program.
The legacy of VentureStar was quite interesting, and seems to go back to secret SkunkWorks projects. A previous SkunkWorks director, Ben Rich, who presided over the development of the stealth fighter, wrote a book called SkunkWorks. In it, he denied that the hyper-sonic plane (referred to on the net as Aurora) exists, and further claimed that it could not be built. The skin would get too hot, and the hydrogen/oxygen engines were impractical. Not three years after publishing this book, however, Lockheed was asking for a mere $100M to build VentureStar, using technologies never publicly seen before - linear spiking hydrogen/oxygen engines, and a special metallic skin that could take the heat of reentry. Hmm....
So, Lockheed is still sitting on it's VentureStar plans. Boeing has finally built the linear spiking engines, and just to show how NASA was trying to kill the project, Lockheed's VentureStar crew built a successful fuel tank for free (NASA killed the project after another company failed in this portion of the effort).
Another cool project NASA killed was the DC-X, as well as other related SSTO vertical takeoff and landing craft. The cool thing about this rocket was how cheap it was to fly. They demonstrated on their reduced-scale prototype that they could land on gravel, run out a fuel truck, and launch again. Even though the prototype was clearly successful, NASA killed this project after the prototype fell over due to a simple hydraulic malfunction on one of it's three legs and exploded. One of the reasons stated by NASA for killing the DC-X was to focus funds on the higher performance VentureStar project!
A multi-pronged approach may have been better than NASA's single-minded shuttle focus. A DC-X technology based rocket could cheaply lift satellites and building materials for the ISS to LEO (or even lower). Focusing on low-cost, rather than reliability would greatly reduce the cost per-pound of getting stuff in orbit, but would not be suitable for human flight. Space-tugs, using ion-drive (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_propulsion) could be used to haul the loads from low orbits to higher orbit, and part of the load would be additional fuel for the ion-drive. It would take weeks to months for such a space-tug trip, but that's not long for space borne projects. A separate project like VentureStar or any of the other advanced next-generation designs could be used for human flight.
Oh, well... NASA has a long history of funding and then killing good space concepts. I think this will be no different. It's probably $500M wasted. In the mean-time, thank God for the Russian rockets!
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
Just have it featured on Monster Garage and we'll be back in space in no time... ..with chrome headers, multi-pipes, and air scoops that serve no purpose in orbit.
The science may not be the deepest, but hey - we'd have the most bitchin' ride this side of
the solar system.
Now where's my fuzzy dice...
Firstly, if you want to actually make something, you need engineering not scientific skills. Science is 'How does that work?', engineering is 'How am I going to make that work with this stuff?'.
Secondly, if you did leave it all up to scientists and engineers, you'd probably never have anything on time. The excessive optimism and perfectionism mean that they will see a slightly better way of doing it part way through the implementation, and therefore never get anything finished.
You also need people skilled in politics to protect the projects. That's the same in any sufficiently large endevour.
NASA has held these "competitions" since the earliest days of the space program, always with the same hoopla. Then, after it's over, they say "Thank you, but we'll use our own in-house design". Look at the GE Apollo designs. The Soviets snatched up the idea and out came Soyuz. You really get the feeling that there is a "Not Invented Here" mentality at NASA.
"Well Ranger Brad, I'm a scientist. I don't believe in anything." - Dr. Roger Fleming
Sure, crutches can help a person get around when they are in the early stages of healing from an injury. But as any physical therapist will tell you, there comes a point when reliance on crutches prevents further recovery/development. Government-sponsored corporate welfare doled out to the large defense contractors has been a crutch in the aerospace industry for the last 30 years.
It's well past time to get rid of the crutch and spur some real growth. I'm more hopeful now than I've been in years, with the involvement of successful individuals like Elon Musk (Paypal founder), Robert Bigelow (Budget Suites), and Burt Routan (many successful aircraft designs).
science is a religion
China is the biggest investor in the US (or at least the second biggest) I believe, why would they want to destroy their own property? ;)
..
For Russia the US is one of the biggest export markets
wake up, this is the 21st century..
RocketMan (Sorry, RocketGeek), Is there any forum that you know of where people can discuss technical issues like this without degenerating into polemics? I'm thinking of a sort of meritocracy of ideas and talent, where no question is too stupid and no answer is accepted as dogmatic without a reasoned argument. Faint hope, I know, but if you know of such, let me know. (Call Guiness, I used the word "know" three times in one sentence.) Regards
I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.