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NASA May Have to Buy Trips to Space
MattSparkes writes "Budget cuts could leave NASA without a Space Shuttle replacement, and leave it reliant on private firms to get payloads into space. A similar scenario happened between 1975 and 1981 when NASA made the transition from Apollo to the Space Shuttle. It seems like a strange state of affairs when a magazine can take people to space, but the USA can't."
If its cheaper than the shuttle, and works just as well, why not?
Not to stir the pot, but think of how many space missions the war in Iraq could have paid for...
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A sub-orbital 90 second flight is not the same thing as what NASA usually does. These comparisons where NASA is ridiculed do not make sense.
Just swallow the pride and buy a few Soyuz .... too bad its built in the wrong congressional district .... :-(
As well they should.
This is despicable. We need to ensure that our astronauts are up in space. Down here, they try to kill each other.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
And a whole lot of other useful things like teachers, public housing, additional health care and other benefits to our country if we weren't spending our money somewhere else at the moment.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
...considering that as of this morning, the Shuttle crew has turned into its very own episode of the Jerry Springer Show.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
I'd expect this issue to be brought up during the 2008 presidential campaign. It'd be highly unlikely for the US to abandon the shuttle program until a suitable replacement is found, given the current Chinese space program's ambitions. Remember - it doesn't matter how much it costs, as long as it makes the US #1.
"Budget cuts could leave NASA without a Space Shuttle replacement, and leave it reliant on private firms to get payloads into space.
This is a GOOD thing, if NASA would allow private firms to develop a robust launch capability. Truthfully, launching has become a routine event (if you aren't using a 25+ year old monstrosity like the Shuttle), and NASA doesn't need to spend the time and money producing equipment that doesn't respond to real world conditions, but does suppress innovation by the private sector.
The real question is: Should NASA have launch capability at all? I suspect that it always will have some, but if we are ever to get off this Earth, it had better not be the primary means of doing so.
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
"Everyone knows republicans are afraid of space. As for war...bring er on."
-b.
The US government doesn't design and build trucks. If they need something shipped, they use a shipping company. If the president needs to make a speech, they buy microphones and pay TV stations. Space should be no different.
This is just a small step toward the commercialization of space, and the use of off-the-shelf parts to get a job done. Perhaps one day, the Virgin Galactic, Armadillo Aerospace, and Scaled Composites will be bidding to deliver the next satellite into orbit around Mars.
I'm no rocket scientist, but I think there's a big difference between:
1) Sending someone on a sub-orbital flight at 62 miles altitude and;
2) Bringing several working payloads into space, docking with a space station at 236 miles altitude, and performing orbital repairs on satellites at 355 miles altitude.
It's not like NASA is so incompetent that some private firm is beating them at this whole space thing.
NASA is a government agency, the purpose of which is to advance science in the fields of astrophysics, spaceflight and aeronautics. It does not exist to offer a commercial service to members of the public who wish to travel into space for recreation. To do so would be to give unfair privilege to the wealthy, and would take up time and payload capacity which could be better used for other purposes. If NASA is having trouble funding its operations, that would suggest that its budget is insufficent, and needs increasing. Were the Bush administration not to have gone tax-cut-happy the moment it came to power, NASA might have slightly more resources at its disposal.
However, the problem here seems to be partly developmental as well as funding based. If I recall correctly, a gap between the shuttle's retirement and the CEV's first launch was expected, just not of this duration.
If NASA is going to rely on private enterprises, wont it be more expensive for NASA. Given that they are facing budget cuts, where are they going to find the extra money to pay for these more expensive launches? And if most of the reduced budget goes into paying these private operators, where is the money needed to fund the shuttle replacement program?
Regards,
Mahesh
provided we can hitch a ride on a vogon destructor ship.
seems like a strange state of affairs when a magazine can take people to space, but the USA can't.
More like the USA won't. It is really a matter of priority. Bush and his cadre are focused on their idiodic Persian Excursion.
Now, look at what they've become.
Scrap it, before they just waste more. Time to focus on providing incentives directly to private industry. NASA is just a wasteful old baby-boomer pipe dream.
Mod me down NASA-lovers. In your heart you still know what I'm saying is true.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
After all, private companys has taken over a great part of what used to be run by the government. The US is getting closer and closer to have a privatly run government. And, no, there is no evidence that this is a good deal for anyone but the companys who gets the contract:n tract.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/washington/04co
I've always thought the private sector could do it better, cheaper, faster than NASA. Profit motivatioin is a powerful force!
One of my biggest inspirations growing up was the NASA of the 60's and 70's. Back then, NASA had a blank check and could not only afford the best of the best, but could also give them whatever they needed to accomplish whatever they had to. I remember Apollo 13....engineers with slide-rules frantically trying to figure out how to get those three guys back down. I was young and, in my mind, there was no question they would figure it out.
I don't think those "seat-of-the-pants, just solve the damn problem" scientist work at NASA anymore....or, at least, they are not allowed to function that way anymore....no, those scientist are all working for the private firms run by some guy with a big enough pair to actually do pioneering work in commercial space flight.
I want those scientist getting more access to space exploration....and, in the absence of a cold war, this might just be how we do that these days.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Why not? Bush's aerospace program already tried to bail out Boeing with $BILLIONS in wasteful jet tanker leases, rather than buying them upfront.
--
make install -not war
I can see it now...giant evil green mermaid plastered all over the side of the shuttle...it's the next advertising frontier
No, a magazine *can't* take people to space.
In a few years they'll be able to fire them into space for a couple minutes - but not into orbit. The US is quite capable of doing this too.
It's a safe bet that NASA's next spacecraft will be taking humans into orbit before the commercial space crowd. (But yes, the commercial space companies are coming soon too.)
In the meantime, expect China to be counting down the days until it can start shooting down all our satellites that pass over it without fear of a shuttle going up there to figure out what happened. If I were China, I know I would.
This could provide much needed funding for the fledging commercial space industry.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Better give NASA what it wants... we don't wanna get on any astronaut's shit-lists...
s tronaut_arrested
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070206/ap_on_re_us/a
How the fuck is someone using money they have earned to buy a trip into space an unfair privilege?
Given the latest crop of astronauts, maybe it's a good thing if NASA is stuck on Earth.e d/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/06/astronaut.arrest
Calling a sub-orbital jaunt a "trip into space" is like calling wading in the Pacific "deep sea diving". Rocket science is difficult and expensive. Only an few private firms can actually get a payload into orbit and if you give a quick google you can get video of quite a few of these guys blowing up on the pad, or failing to get orbit and other mission failing scenarios. So before you pile on NASA make note that it is still the pre-eminent spaceflight operation in the world. No other organization has done what NASA has done. None have even come close. (Full disclosure: I am an SA at NASA).
IMO, NASA should mothball the Shuttle immediately and put all its effort into developing the Ares system. They would have to re-manifest some crews and hardware aboard Soyuz and Proton rockets for the next few years, but that would allow their current engineering talent to focus exclusively on the new system, avoid the brain drain that Administrator Griffin fears, and save a bunch of money in the process. I bet with focus they could have flight-worthy hardware by 2010.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."--Feynman
Good point and as nobody put in the figures. A shuttle mission runs between $500mil to $900mill, depending on whether it is ISS or Hubble servicing (the higher cost). The war is costing the treasury about $364bill. Some of that money is the ongoing cost of the US military 'resting state' costs, i.e. salaries, training and equipment replacement. The fact is that the military has been upscaled for this and most of the costs are multiplied so most of that number realy is *extra* cost.
Even allowing for giving some of the tax back, thats one heck of a lot of missions and probably even a man on mars. Twice.
See my journal, I write things there
- that in America the state is nothing and big money is everything. Some apparently think this is a good thing, but I think it is a shame to see that once great nation becoming just the property of a self-styled big money aristocracy.
The US space biz with NASA and the air force has always relied on outside private companies to build all the components. They don't build fighter planes or stealthy planes or moon rockets,etc, they just *order* them. Actual government employees build very little of anything, it is subbed out all over heck into private industry or into semi private industry academia. All you are talking about here is determining who is the general contractor on the whole project. They have subbed most everything else out, this is just one more aspect to that.
When America goes off to war in far-off lands, it is not a vast fleet of US Navy vessels carrying the mountains of food and equipment to foreign shores. The material goods are transported by civilian cargo companies which the government hires, and the cargo goes on plain old civilian container ships.
If the government needs to hire a civilian company to haul cargo to space, what is wrong with that? If it is more efficient, then I believe it is a better arrangement.
The more "normal" space travel becomes, the more people are going to have to let go of the notion that space travel is only for government agencies, and let go of the assumption that government space agencies must be more advanced than civilian companies in all areas of space technology.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
All these Republicans and Libertarians do is weaken America.
Actually, I think they're generally indifferent to whether their policies strengthen America, weaken it, or whatever. To the Republicans, a policy or program is considered desirable if and only if it opens the federal treasury to their corporate patrons, who are subsequently expected to return a portion of the loot in the form of campaign contributions and other favors. Thus, privatization is a convenient and reliable way of converting taxpayers' money into campaign funds and continued power. It is the "marriage of State and corporate power" of which Mussolini spoke.
The privatization of the Iraq War is especially alarming, and not just because a lot of people close to the Bush admin are getting very, very rich. These contractors probably have more influence over events on the ground in Iraq than the military does, and they're largely unregulated. Might they have their own agenda? Is it in their collective interest for the war to come to an end, even in victory, if it stops the gravy train? Would it be unprecedented for greed and private financial interest to trump patriotism and our national interest?
> It seems like a strange state of affairs when a magazine can take people to space, but the USA can't.
Why is that sad? Private companies can get into space cheaper and easier. Just look at the bloated, over engineered shuttle that resulted from letting the government monopolize the space industry. If, instead of letting NASA build whatever it wanted, we had put the specs out and let companies compete for NASA's business, then we would probably already have a fully developed space tourism industry just like our airline industry. Instead NASA blew its load on the shuttle, and then development on space vehicles capable of carrying humans stopped. Now, 30 years later, we're still waiting for new space vehicles. It's high time NASA turned development over to the private sector.
-TheDawgLives suckitdown
Not only that, but Lockheed has investigated manrating ATLAS V to support Bigelow. And what rockets do you think NASA has been using to launch interplanetary probes?
NASA should stick to space-ships. Both launch/reentry vessels and in-space only. And while they're at it, they should build their own fuel depot to use for VSE and hire out private rockets to refuel it as needed.
Satellite repair is of questionable value.
With, er, twin parachute recovery system...I bet it turns a profit :)
A goal is a dream with a deadline
... and then get the bureaucracy out of the way.
How much WOULD it be worth to multinational corporations to get their logo on those things? I mean, there's lots of exposure of shuttles during take off and landing.
Maybe future eras might find trashed remains of deep space probes and wonder who this McDonald's guy is anyway.
More Twoson than Cupertino
The American people will still have a vibrant space agency, that can focus on exploration, rather than on space launch, which is rapidly becoming a normal, commercial business.
NASA's COTS contract also includes Rocketplane, which also includes demonstrations for ISS support.
The COTS contract was a polite way for Congress to buy some insurance in case Lockheed's Space Shuttle Replacement spins out of cost control in terms of either dollars or time.
Which I think is a great move as a taxpayer, having watched ISS cost much more than planned and delivering much less than expected.
We just need the safest, soonest, and cheapest way to get people and stuff into space. I don't care who does it, so Lockheed and those people at NASA in bed with Lockheed, watch out, you've got competition.
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
There is no excuse for NASA to build custom rockets when there are suitable commercial offerings. They already use Delta rockets for space probes, they could use Atlas rockets for crew transport / larger payloads.
This money could be better spend on science (insert list of canceled space probes) and development of new technology (solar sails, nuclear pulse propulsion, etc...). It is sad to see how this area always see their budgets cut for the benefit of the shuttle welfare program.
The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up.
If they put a partial military payload on each flight, maybe the DOD could get the budget problems solved. The pres seems to have no problem giving the military carte blanche spending priveleges.
stuff |
>Were the Bush administration not to have gone tax-cut-happy the moment it came to power, NASA might have slightly more resources at its disposal.
The current Aviation Week has an editorial about the budget negotiations. The Administration's Office of Management and Budget is trying to get Congress to reconsider cuts for military bases, energy initiatives, veteran's affairs, Social Security, something called the American Competitiveness Initiative, AIDS expenses, something called the Millenium Challenge Corporation, something called the Economic Support Fund, the DOJ, the General Services Administration, Amtrak, and has raised questions about the budget resolution's language on labor regulations at a "mixed oxide fabrication facility" in South Carolina.
What have they said to Congress about NASA? *crickets chirping*
There are several worthy causes on that list but it speaks volumes that the Administration does not consider NASA a worthy cause.
Just as a point of interest, the massive privatization of the military was an outgrowth of the outsourcing due to forced downsizing caused by the Clintonian military budget cuts.
It was the political and market forces of our perception of waste that caused corporate interests to be able to have such a large stake in warfare. In yesteryear, we bought beans, bullets, and bandaids from private corporations. During the 90's that began to escalate to logistics, non-combatant (Personnel Other than Grunt) jobs, such as secure communications. Now, your field contingent will be wearing cammies but your backend will be former military farmed out by Halliburton or some such to provide services that military 'used' to provide.
Was it for better or worse? Depends on how corrupt you think that politicians are. On both sides of the aisle politicians have been taking loads of cash and selling us up the river. Giving the corporate yahoos more access to the military via politician supported outsourcing seems a bit contrary to a strategy of a quickly resolved conflict.
But that's just one jarhead's view.
There sure is a lot of misinformation in this thread. Here are some ideas I noticed that seem blatantly wrong.
1) There are private companies out there who can do what NASA is doing: If you RTFA, you'll notice that currently only the Shuttle and the Russian Progress and Soyuz ships can make it to the ISS. There may be a possibility of a JAXA craft or an ESA craft in the future. Both government built craft.
2) NASA is afraid/against private industry building space craft: Actually, NASA is highly in favor of a private company building a space ship to go to the ISS. They are actively funding two companies to help them build such a craft. In their current architecture, the CEV/CLV is not really going to be used for ISS. They would rather use a COTS solution for that.
3) We should leave all of space exploration up to private industry: Private industry will only do something if they know they can get money for it. Can you show me the business plan to make money off of trips to the moon? Trips to the ISS? Remember, you have to have a net profit on these endeavors. Until the cost and risk are reduced to manageable levels, the private industry will not do this on their own. The Russians did not get a net profit from their space tourists. They got a little extra money from a mission that had to happen anyway. Virgin Galactic may actually be able to make money by sending people into space, but that is sub-orbital. A huge difference between that and going to the ISS. The reason for government funding into areas like this is to promote activity in areas that are too costly or too risky for a company to do.
4) A magazine can take people to space: No, a Russian Soyuz capsule can take people to space.
That will do for now.
Ever since the Launch Services Purchase Act of 1990 (PL101-611) NASA has been required by LAW to purchase all launch services from the private sector that could be reasonably provided by the private sector. As the person who testified before Congress about the passage of that grass-roots law I was fairly galled by the invitation I received a few years later from NASA to sit in the VIP stand and watch them launch the Advanced Communication Technology Satellite upon a shuttle. Well, actually, by that time I had somewhat come to expect that it was hopeless for a grass-roots legislative effort to actually have an impact on a governmental behavior but to actually receive an invitation to see them blatantly violate the clear intent of the law was still annoying.
Seastead this.
They say it would be a good thing if NASA bought launch services on the open market--they'd have more funds to spend on the important things, like Mars missions, Lunar missions, robotic probes, etc.
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NASA has a very poor record of achieving low cost transportation to orbit. Why not see what the free market can do?
Link to Space Frontier Foundation statement:
http://www.space-frontier.org/PressReleases/2007/
It seems that having no launch vehicle for *any* period of time represents a significant strategic vulnerability. China's military build-up may simply be a superpower coming into its own, as it were, but it may also be a prelude to the standard imperialist actions of a superpower--proxy wars and actual wars taken in what the nation in question believes are its best interests. If the military buildup is a precursor to a possible military solution to the Taiwanese issue, a move against US Satellites would seem like an obvious part of the first strike. (As the US would almost certainly be sharing satellite intel with Taiwan.) Whether that move is an overt move or couched in a rhetorical apology/excuse, having no satellite coverage of the region for any period of time would be a major strategic failing, one that couldn't be rectified without a usable launch vehicle.
(Of course, every part of the previous paragraph is a simplfication.)
Because a government agency, funded by public money, would be offering a commercial service that would be beyond the financial means of all but a very small segment of the population.
Places on manned NASA flights should be strictly determined by the benefit an individual would impart to the flight either by scientific work in orbit or by ability as a crew member of the launch vehicle. The size of the afformentioned individual's bank account should not be a factor.
It should be an issue now. Congress took too long to pass the 2007 spending bills, so now they're planning to shove it through with everything that didn't get allocated yet funded at the 2006 levels with the same 2006 mandates. This means NASA comes in $500 million below the level outlined in the budget the president originally submitted. It also means they don't have the discretion necessary to shift funds around between projects to properly adjust for the lower-than-promised budget. That means money forcefully allocated to aerospace can't be diverted to space science or exploration projects.
The Mars Science Laboratory should be far enough along to avoid being affected. The JWST has been delayed enough that NASA will probably make sure it gets what it needs, both to get it into action and avoid cost growth that has already plagued this program due to funding delays.
The biggest threat is probably to programs currently in the development stages, especially the Ares 1 second stage. NASA had planned to select the prime contractor for this in 2007, but may have to back off until they're sure they have the money to follow it through. A larger than planned budget increase in 2008 may help, but won't entirely make up for lost time, and there's no reason to expect congress to be any more competent next year than they were this year.
This is just months after the GAO warned NASA to keep the CEV on track to avoid delays in fielding the vehicle and the costs incurred by delays (paying 3rd party launch providers, maintaining infrastructure and trained workforce, etc).
Doesn't NASA already do this? I think the only launch vehicle they own are the shuttles and they are only used infrequently for manned missions. The US Air Force launches more payloads than NASA and all their stuff is contracted. NASA does a few science missions a year this way too.
It seems like a strange state of affairs when a magazine can take people to space, but the USA can't."
Yeah, sure, because the magazine will use its own launchers and launching pad and won't turn to a third party to organize the trip...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
NASA needs to be divided in two. One part should be a scientific and research organization. Sending probes both manned and unmanned "Out There." The other should be the space equivilent of the FAA. You don't see the FAA running an airline. And you don't see American Airlines doing research. This should have happened after Apollo 17.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
NASA would have plenty of money for science missions if they didn't need to spend most of their money on a welfare program for the aerospace industry. The first thing they need to do is pull the plug on the entire manned space program. If contracting out is the cheapest way to get a payload launched, that's what they should do. What NASA should be concentrating on is the missions and the payloads, not overpriced, under performing launch vehicles. The Space Shuttle was marvel of engineering of its time aas were the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, and NASA should be proud of their achievements, but that time is passed.
*discovers rockets are the standard US satellite launch vehicle of choice*
Oops. Silly me. The parent (Also by me) is based on mistaken assumptions. Ignore it. Sorry.
The above post describes my exact and honest thoughts on the matter of current US military expenditures.
So, for this pointless war in Iraq, and which our leaders have taken on with our tax $, there could have been the equivalent of ~ 500 + shuttle flights launched?
I rest my case.
Z.
"It seems like a strange state of affairs when a magazine can take people to space, but the USA can't."
Riiight. Like when I feel all itchy taking a Yellow Cab. What happened to the good ol' days when Uncle Sam drove me to the movies? Before recent times, only governments had the money and controlled the knowledge that got them into space. What makes you think that in a couple of hundred years you won't be driving yourself to the moon? (Besides the fact that you probably won't live that long.)
Isn't this backwards? It seems that NASA should try to make use of private industry whenever possible, and only when private industry is unable to provide what they need should they build their own system from scratch. Otherwise NASA's government monopoly ends up trying to compete with private industry, which generally isn't a good thing. In fact, even NASA's charter says that they should use commercial resources to the "maximum extent possible."
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o rdable.html
This snippet from a recent release by the Space Frontier Foundation phrases it nicely:
http://www.space-frontier.org/PressReleases/2007/
"We applaud the House Democratic leadership for being responsible stewards of taxpayer funds by applying the FY 2007 NASA budget cuts to the unaffordable aspects of Dr. Griffin's Moon-Mars plans. The Democratic Party appears to understand that the taxpayers of this nation just aren't interested in supporting what they see as business as usual at NASA. We are hoping that the Republicans join them soon," said Werb. "This should be a wake-up call for Dr. Griffin that his plans, to pour billions of dollars into massive new launch systems that nobody else wants or needs, are going nowhere. It is time for the agency to re-think how it puts people and payloads into space. It is time for the agency to trust the power of free enterprise."
The Foundation has long held that government designed and operated systems are wasteful, self-defeating dead-ends that will keep the cost of going into space so high that no long-term human exploration or settlement program will be possible. The Foundation believes that the CEV and its launcher are essentially repeats of the shuttle and space station programs, which have consumed hundreds of billions of dollars yet completely failed to meet their promised goals.
"NASA needs to stop competing with the private sector. Sending the CEV to the ISS is not only bad policy, undercutting private sector efforts to raise financing for the same purpose, but the rush to do so requires huge increases in federal funding for the CEV that is just not politically viable" said Rick Tumlinson of the Foundation. "We urge NASA to stick to its real job of exploring the far frontier, of supporting science and discovery, and hand over ISS transportation to American entrepreneurs."
Tumlinson concluded "It is important for NASA to understand this is not a fight they are going to win, even if they restore some of the funding this year. The trend in Congress is going the other way towards balanced budgets, and a better return on investment to the American people. If America really wants to open space to the people, then we cannot dump hundreds of billions into government-based technologies. It simply will not work. We must try something new."
The Foundation's White Paper, Unaffordable and Unsustainable? Signs of Failure in NASA's Earth-to-Orbit Space Transportation Strategy, is at: http://www.space-frontier.org/Presentations/unaff
Frankly this is the way it should be done. Private enterprise can do it faster, better and cheaper every single time then the US government.
NASA doesn't - except for a few experimental vehicles - build its own custom cars or airplanes. It's employees get around using standard automobiles and flying commercial airlines. Why should trips to space - Earth orbit, at least - be any different?
Sure, missions designated for vehicle R & D or back to the Moon may be different, but we've been putting people in LEO for nearly 50 years now. The Shuttle is 30 years old, for crying out loud. Pay Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin or Rocketplane or even the Russians for tickets for routine trips. (And yes, I know the former aren't yet offering orbital trips. How fast do you think that could change if Shuttle is no more and NASA's offering a few $million a seat for rides? Where would we be now if they'd started doing that fifteen years ago?)
(Hey, MGM could re-release "2001: A Space Odyssey" as "2041" with the Pan-Am logo digitally swapped for Virgin Galactic's. That's about the only change needed. Sigh.)
-- Alastair
You'd know more about this than me, perhaps, but war is already a ferociously complex beast even when everyone's on the same page. Throw in a bunch of mixed and crossed motivations, some confused and unclear lines of authority, and a dash of uncertainty about The Plan (and whether there even is one), and you've got quite a chaotic soup simmering there.
When a system gets sufficiently complex, it can get very difficult to predict your outputs given your inputs, and almost impossible to do the inverse (applying inputs to achieve a desired result). There may be more than a little of that going on in the Middle East right now. But if it's all just a big feeding frenzy, if the point is mainly to transfer wealth from taxpayers to a particular group of insiders and industries, then all that hardly matters, does it?
As long as your party loyalty is more important to getting on the ballot than the content of your character, America is going to continue its slide into corruption.
If NASA had outsourced routine transport to private firms instead of managing the design and operation of the Space Shuttle, not only would they have saved a huge amount of money but it would have been a US company rather than a Russian one running the first space tourist operation. NASA is supposed to be the space equivalent of the FAA and NOAA, not Fedex and U-Haul.
If China gives us any trouble, we'll just unleash a cadre of jilted astronauts with pepper spray and mallets. Problem solved!
"Anonymous Coward" is for whistleblowers, not unpopular opinions.
The real problem that most people in the USA have with the government is the high cost of EVERYTHING the government does. If it would cost a company $1000 to do something, the government will pay $10,000 to do the same thing. Now, due to the problems this causes when it comes to money, it's no wonder NASA runs into funding issues for projects.
So, if by outsourcing all of these different things to the private sector is costing more money than it should, the proper solution then is to move many things in-house. If the private sector is NOT able to compete favorably with the cost of doing it in-house, then the jobs should be done in-house. Let the private sector compete with direct government employees when it comes to getting work done.
If it would cost $1,000,000,000 to design a new space craft and build the first and second attempts on that new design, then if the private sector can do it for $800,000,000, then THEY get the money. The real key is that the government could do it for $1,000,000,000, but pays the private sector $200,000,000,000 for it, thus going way over budget and nothing gets done.
Steel mills, auto plants, and so on that have been closed up for years could be taken over by the government(they are dead and not being used anyway), and people could be put to work making the goods the government/military needs. I'm all for democracy and letting the private sector do work for the government, but not when it ends up costing the government more money than it should.
I swear, the reason the government is always out of money is because not a single person in the US government seems to understand that contractors ALWAYS cost more money for the same labor as a direct employee. There are MANY people out there getting paid $45,000/year that do the same job as government employees that get paid $110,000/year. THAT is the problem, and this issue with NASA is just one symptom.
You're counting fallacies with fallacies. We're not talking about hopping on a private enterprise rocket next week, we're talking about switching NASA to the same basis as any other government agency... including the DoD.
Can you show me the business plan to make money off of trips to the moon? Trips to the ISS?
Can you show me the business plan to make money off trips to the South Pole? And yet trips to Antarctica are made in vehicles bought from private companies, not purpose-built in government shipyards. Just because the customer is the government, that doesn't meen the supplier should be the government as well.
Launching probes is one thing. Sending a team of astronauts into space to perform experiments and deliver people and hardware to and from ISS is something else entirely.
Private industry has a long way to go before it even matches what NASA has been doing for 25 years with the aging vehicle that they're trying moving past.
It's also worth noting that the names on the McCain-Feingold finance reform bill represent one Republican and one Democrat.
What is the reason now, that we can no longer afford Space exploration? In the past, we've done plenty of space exploration. Why now is it a problem? Why is it that we cant afford to now? The Dow is at its highest, certainly much higher than it ever was when we went to the moon...
Why now?
Where did we go wrong?
Arent we a rich nation? or are we a nation provides the home to a few rich people.
What happened? hmmm...
Nasa cant go to space, and we cant afford healthcare, education.... When we went to the moon, you could have a one job household and own a home...
What happened?
Is anyone even thinking about it? Does anyone really care anymore?
Maybe it really isn't government's job anymore, just like the post office. Most of the stuff being put into orbit certainly isn't government anymore. It's private satellites launched on Russian ICBM's which are now managed by private managers.
Keep in mind that the NASA budget in the 1960's was a full 10% of the U.S. Federal budget, second only to spending on the Department of Defense.
Today, even the DoD doesn't rank in the top 5 appropriation categories, and NASA falls into the budget at a measly 0.6% of the budget. That is still rather significant in terms of absolute dollars on a $2.6 trillion budget, but it certainly can't be compared to what happened in the 60's.
I'm also not certain I would want to ride in an Apollo spacecraft, and that was rather well-built compared to the Mercury capsules. There have been some considerable improvements over the years in spacecraft design, where the Soyuz spacecraft are much more reliable and better built today than the Apollo spacecraft were of yesteryear.
As far as education, healthcare, and the other things you are griping about, they are just a giant economic black hole that will never get filled. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be some reasonable efforts in these areas, but completely cutting out NASA or even all military spending isn't going to make that much of a difference in those program. Can you guess what items #1 and #2 are today?
#1 - Interest on the federal debt
#2 - Social Security benefits
So instead of the usual refrain of "If we can send a man to the moon, why can't we....", it should be instead "If grandfathers can golf in Palm Springs, why can't we...."
It seems like a strange state of affairs when a magazine can take people to space, but the USA can't.
I'm not even sure what that sentence is supposed to mean... "The USA can't".. do you mean the US goverment can't? Because the US government would still be funding the trip, so for all intents and purposes, it *IS* doing the sending.
What is the difference between the US goverment contracting out spaceflight to private companies, and it contracting out the construction of military equipment to private companies? The taxpayer still ends up footing the bill... doing i privately however usually ends up being cheaper in the long term (even after you factor the massive pork into it).
Eh, Americanstzi?
Russian Scientists Announce Six-Month Delay In Carving New Space Station
In other words, the "FAA" of outer space is..... the Federal Aviation Administration... the FAA!
Holy Mother of Yeager, the irony's killin' me.