Launching Frequently Key To NASA Success

teeks99 writes "Even NASA could benefit from the 'Launch Often' idea that is frequently referred to in the software development community. However, in NASA's case, the 'launch' is a bit more literal. Edward Lu, writing in the New York Times, points out that by lowering the consequences of launch failure, and making frequent launches available to engineers, NASA could open up a new wave of innovation in space exploration. If there were weekly launches of a rocket, there would be many opportunities for new ideas to be tried out in communications, remote sensing, orbital debris mitigation, robotic exploration, and even in developing technology for human spaceflight. Another benefit would be that the rockets would be well understood, which would improve reliability."

Comments

Not impressed.

[WGFCrafty]

How about we go to the moon every other day? Think of all the stuff we can test then!

Actually, lets just build a voyager probe every four hours and launch it, and shoot it in a slightly different direction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program

Per-launch costs can be measured by dividing the total cost over the life of the program (including buildings, facilities, training, salaries, etc) by the number of launches. With 115 missions (as of 6 August 2006), and a total cost of $150 billion ($145 billion as of early 2005 + $5 billion for 2005,[19] this gives approximately $1.3 billion per launch. Another method is to calculate the incremental (or marginal) cost differential to add or subtract one flight — just the immediate resources expended/saved/involved in that one flight. This is about $60 million U. S. dollars.[21]

Well, the government just spent 800+ Billion dollars this morning. If only we can convince them to trade the health of America for 800 (on the low end) or so rocket launches.

Re:A rocket launch is just like a software launch

[damburger]

Thats insightful? Claiming a company with 2, low payload, orbital launches and a lot of explosions is better than NASA simply because its a corporation rather than a government agency? The fact this comment didn't get modded down to oblivion shows there is quite a lot of blind ideology on /.