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Astronaut Group Endorses Commercial Spaceflight
FleaPlus writes "Buzz Aldrin and twelve other astronauts have published a joint endorsement of commercial human spaceflight, stating that 'while it's completely appropriate for NASA to continue developing systems and the new technologies necessary to take crews farther out into our solar system, [the astronauts] believe that the commercial sector is fully capable of safely handling the critical task of low-Earth-orbit human transportation.' They are confident that commercial systems (which NASA already relies on for launching multibillion-dollar science payloads) can provide a level of safety equal to the Russian Soyuz and higher than the Space Shuttle, while strengthening US economic competitiveness. They also support the expected endorsement of the White House's Augustine Commission regarding NASA's use of commercial spaceflight — the Commission's final report will be released today." And here's the Augustine report itself (PDF).
What you expect to happen:
Government: "Hey, guys, you know that whole space exploration thing we have? That thing that has in the past and could in the future do one hell of a lot of good for humanity and has advanced technology quite wildly before? Well, turns out it costs money. If we split it up, it's around an extra $110/year. How about it?"
People: "Sure! That's a pretty paltry amount to pay. Would be nice to actually have advancements in our culture so that the rest of the world doesn't mock us quite as often as they do!"
What Reality(tm) says will happen:
Government: "Hey, guys, you know that whole space exploration thing we have? That thing-"
Stupid people: "ZOMG moon == hoax and government == EVIL EVIL they take money and I GET NOTHINGZ why should I ever give you ANYTHING U DUM POLTICANS hate hate hat"
Government: "But... but it's only around 30 cents/day... what-"
Stupid people: "SEE TAHT they want to take mah moneiz and my jobs and I *degrades into incoherence and shotgun blasts*"
Sorry, man, but stupid people are stubborn people. The dark ages were a good time for them.
Heavy lift: A heavy-lift launch capability to low-Earth orbit, combined with the ability to inject heavy payloads away from the Earth, is beneficial to exploration. It will also be useful to the national security space and scientific communities. The Committee reviewed: the Ares family of launchers; Shuttle-derived vehicles; and launchers derived from the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle family. Each approach has advantages and disadvantages, trading capability, life-cycle costs, maturity, operational complexity and the "way of doing business" within the program and NASA.
I still don't understand the seeming obsession with heavy lift. Why develop and fly a new huge expensive rocket, putting all your payload eggs in one basket, rather than use a greater number of smaller, cheaper, existing rockets? The more rockets you fly, the more you have to build, and you can begin to take advantage of economies of scale and reduce the dollars per kg cost to orbit. Another advantage is that if your rocket does encounter some calamity, you don't lose your entire (much more expensive than the rocket itself) payload, but rather just a piece of it. Yes, flying your moon/mars/where-ever spacecraft into orbit a piece at a time means that you have to assemble it once you are up there, but that just puts into use all this lovely experience gained building the ISS. So, more light to medium lift: give it a chance.