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NASA To Propose Commercial Space Initiative
MarkWhittington writes "The Wall Street Journal is reporting that starting with the FY2011 budget request for NASA, the Obama administration intends to propose a new program to encourage the development of a commercial space flight industry. 'The controversial proposal, expected to be included in the Obama administration's next budget, would open a new chapter in the US space program. The goal is to set up a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar initiative allowing private firms, including some start-ups, to compete to build and operate spacecraft capable of ferrying US astronauts into orbit—and eventually deeper into the solar system. Congress is likely to challenge the concept's safety and may balk at shifting dollars from existing National Aeronautics and Space Administration programs already hurting for funding to the new initiative. The White House's ultimate commitment to the initiative is murky, according to these people, because the budget isn't expected to outline a clear, long-term funding plan.'"
This is just another step in the hollowing out of the state. Private firms already fight our wars. What's next, private firms taking over the "service" of governing the country? Oh wait...
how about you just let private enterprise go to space or not, and just get out of their way? government $ is the last thing we need to give the private sector at this point.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Gee - this is encouraging. Just a week ago, an expert panel warned NASA not to outsource manned space to commercial entities.
Clearly, this panel was stacked with government bureaucrats, obviously biased against upstanding American businesses. The fact that commercial space has been 90% vaporware for the past three decades had nothing to do with it. And God forbid anyone suggest that for-profit organizations would cut corners for the sake of making more money.
And certainly corporate capture of NASA had nothing to do with today's announcement. Perish the thought.
/sarcasm
I can see the fnords!
How many shuttle successors have come and gone? And the whole Aeres thing looks like it's fixing to be another clusterfuck.
It seems like the current government agency/government contractor model of development and procurement is broken. The same boondoggles we see in the military are repeated pretty much across the board. I know they say not to ascribe to malice what can best be described by incompetence but it seems like there's usually malice and greed at work here. The government will sign a very lucrative contract with a company that will then have massive cost overruns, fail to deliver on time and thus draw even more funds to eventually deliver a poorly-designed piece of shit that cannot do what was requested of it.
Sometimes you can blame the government for screwing things up. The shuttle was promised to do too many things for too many people and the engineers were left with trying to make the best compromise they could. That was the government's bad. And the whole Ares bit, that sounds like a government bad, too. NASA got all turned on by the idea of reusing shuttle tech and saving bundles on false economies and it was the contractor's fault for not disabusing them of this notion. Engineers both at NASA and the contractor probably knew better but management would have been unwilling to listen, obviously, or else we wouldn't be in the situation we are now.
The thing that really kills me is the contractor's motivation as a business is maximizing revenue from the contracts and thus maximizing profits. It's not in their interest to be on-time and on-budget. And it's also not in their own interest to offer cheaper, better solutions. So we get this perpetual game where they promise the moon for low prices and NASA pretends to believe them and the costs spiral and until projects are canceled. I would see that as a complete failure but the business would regard that failure as a profitable venture and thus a success. Therefore, there's no incentive for them to do things any differently!!! Argh.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
to go about it. Commercialising helps to drive costs down, as an goverment program, being the only one capable to do, without a drive to use commercial sector for it's operations, NASA is inherently flawed: No ultimate, inherent need to drive costs down. Businesses survive only by driving costs down, and down, further down. Businesses have to get their base cost down in order to be profitable, in order to survive.
Yes, definitely businesses will cut corners etc, but not at the expense of human lifes, as that would mean end of business for them. Space endeavours are really tight on safety, and despite a company being able to do way cheaper than anyone, if it's not safe, they will not gather good business.
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
Government programs don't "encourage" free enterprise. At best, they steal from some people who would not have spent it The Right Way and give the money to the wonderful people who will use it the way the Bureaucracy feels is Much Better.
The way to actually encourage free enterprise, is to stop threatening violence against the people who practice it.
I don't know of any aerospace engineering collectives out there, buddy. Last I checked, all the aerospace companies were firmly in the military-industrial complex which enjoys that nice, tight, cozy relationship with government. But don't worry, I'm sure the CEO's of those companies will promise you they are defenders of the free market.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I make this post with the caveat that I usually fall more toward the left on the political spectrum. To me this seems like an area where the private sector could greatly assist this government program and possibly help reduce cost to the taxpayer. This also seems to comport with my belief that our President is really more of a middle of the road politician, as opposed to the "leftist" that we consistently hear. Let's give it a chance and see what happens.
Yeah, given recent SCOTUS decisions, the government is now available to the highest bidder. Expect to see the power and privileges of multi-national corporations skyrocket, while the little guys get the shaft. I expect that Disney will buy up all our national parks. Everything will be privatized, and the uber-corps will make sure all public services are illegal. Private police forces, fire departments, roads: everything. And if you can't pay, don't expect help. Those who can't pay will be expected to starve to death, like stray dogs in the streets.
The funny thing is that some people on the right still think Obama is a socialist. He's the opposite of that. He's going to make sure health care reform dies a messy and painful death, and he's going to sell off the government to the highest bidders. He showed his real colors when he kowtowed to Wall Street.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I would love to see the world through you eye just for a day.
No, you probably wouldn't.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
wow..thats all in this bill?
You know there are some things that Private Companies can do better then the government. Some things the government can do better. And then there are things that companies can do well with the correct regulations.
For some things the government does creates a lot of red-tape and a lot of trying to please the right person and a lot of compromises in order to get everyone happy or at least equally unhappy. Companies have a more direct approach to this, less politics and more getting the job done. So they can make a profit and complete the project under budget.
However... Private firms are focused a lot of keeping profits high and costs low, which could effect quality. For that case you will need government control or at least regulations/oversight to make sure that nothing critical is being cut or skimped on.
Then there are other tasks such as maintenance wich has a defined job this can run will with government control such as Trash,Water, Sewer etc...
So it is really the right organization for the right job. I personally hate the Politics of saying X is better then Y... It is about getting the right balance.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
National Defense, Homeland Security, Aid to poor people are extra. Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, will be canceled.
Sounds good to me. National defense should be provided primarily by the second amendment (the unorganized militia), with the state national guard forces (the organized militia) providing the framework and the sorts of expensive, high-tech weaponry that the people can't afford. The feds should provide a navy, per the constitution. An air force is debatable; it could be provided at either the state or federal level. The federal government is not supposed to maintain a standing army, only to create one when needed -- and if we'd stop trying to impose our will all over the world, we wouldn't need one very often. National defense should be national defense, meaning defending against incursions by foreign forces, not running around invading other countries.
As for the rest, the federal government has no business being involved in any of them. There is no constitutional basis for any of them (yeah, yeah "General Welfare Clause" -- that's been stretched even worse than the Commerce Clause). Those issues should be handled at the state level.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Not many commenters here seem to realize this, but private firms already handle space launches for the DOD and NRO, as well as all of NASA's unmanned science missions. This has been working well. The only new thing about the recent proposals is to have these same private launchers place people in orbit as well.
I hope my American friends don't take this out of context but I really hope that one day the people of America regain control of their country from the vested interests that are controlling it.
What seems to be the state of the union at the moment is a parody of the original goals set down as the purpose of America for American people and indeed all freedom loving people. I don't mean a hippy commune where we all hold hands and sing kom-by-yah but real freedom as opposed to the image of freedom, real democracy instead of the lobbying for vested interests that occurs today and real capitalism instead of the propping up of the "Too big to fail"s. Somehow the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness has been converted to the pursuit of wealth because money must mean all those things, right?
I don't see it as a political issue anymore more but a series of structural issues designed to deceive and contrived to limit choices. Even Benjamin Franklin said the constitution, as it was framed, would not stop the U.S being a victim of despotism. Perhaps it's a day when Americans accept discomfort for things that are important and real. Noble pursuits.
I hope you don't think I'm a troll, because I'm sincere about missing the nice America who used to be a champion of freedom. It will be a truly awesome and frightening thing to watch a people finally regain control of their country.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
My company has had a lot of trouble convincing our government clients to go with fixed firm pricing. Ultimately, it comes down to control. They like cost plus because it keeps them in charge, they continually approve additional work and ask for things to be redone particular way, and if it costs more it costs more. With fixed firm, they can't really micro-manage us because we will come back and say that it's not what were planning on doing and we can't afford to change it under the fixed firm price.
There's also the perception that companies can make a lot more profit on fixed firm (which is true, but the risk of losing money is greater also).
I think fixed firm is a better way to go for everyone involved, so it will be neat to see if this works out. On the other hand, I am skeptical that it will pass congress for the reasons I've mentioned above.
A lot of people seem to think that this will lead to corporate profit-taking, or that it will lead to less accountability for government contractors. That is simply not true, since the companies operating under such a contract are required to deliver. Companies failing to perform are still legally required to meet their obligations, so poor decision making would lead to bankruptcy. Likewise, there is a huge incentive to try to lower costs, because any cost savings will be profit at the end of the contract.
Yeah, given recent SCOTUS decisions, the government is now available to the highest bidder.
If the government wasn't so darn powerful then there wouldn't be as many or as high bids and yet the Libertarians here on Slashdot are always modded down for having the temerity to suggest that bigger government is not the answer. One cannot have lots of individual choice and freedom in a big government country; the desire to use the power of big government to limit choices, "manage" freedoms and control outcomes is simply too much for some to resist. The high-minded left often forgets or ignores the fact that not everyone is as altruistic or benevolent as they claim to be and that human nature absolutely will misuse the levers of power given the opportunity; so why magnify the damage by increasing the size and reach of those levers?
As if government is the only source of power. Democratic government is a check on the power of powerful, nondemocratic groups. Just getting rid of government would allow the powerful to control everything. It would NOT magically balance a very unbalanced system. It would make things much worse.
Money is a VERY big lever of control. In fact, beyond a certain dollar amount, all money does is allow you to control others. The more money you have, the more power you have. The more power you have, the more money you can make. Money does not need to be funneled through government to be used to control others. If you are starving you aren't really free at all, and you can be controlled by anyone with a bite to eat. Without government, the powerless have NO recourse.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
This is just another step in the hollowing out of the state. Private firms already fight our wars.
And before you know it, we'll have private companies paving our roads, building our courthouses, driving our ambulances, uniforming our police, everything!
And they will be competing with each other to do this! It will be chaos!
Once you're in orbit, you're halfway to anywhere.
Robert A. Heinlein
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Once you're in orbit, you're halfway to anywhere.
I'm guessing that GP's point is that our current space technologies are so awfully expensive that though technically we, as a society, can once in a lifetime do a stunt like trip to the Moon (or now Mars,) it has near-zero practical use.
It is my personal belief that we won't be flying to planets until we design a propulsion technology that is good enough for SSTO. Then it will be also good enough to move between orbits and land on planets and take off again. The current chemical rockets are not even close. Getting to the LEO is pointless if we have nowhere to go from there.
To offer an analogy, it is possible to cross the Atlantic ocean on a raft, or in a rubber boat - it had been done - but if Europeans were limited to those technologies we'd never see Americas.
IMO, the money should be spent primarily on fundamental science, and a smaller part of it - on good, complex robots that can be launched from time to time to other planets. We need to know how this Universe works. An antigravity-based propulsion would solve all our problems, for example. Teleportation or FTL would also come (or definitively not come) from the same pool of knowledge. I'd even settle on a Space Elevator that we will be able to put together out of new materials. We need to stop paddling our reed canoe across the Atlantic for a moment and instead think if there is a better way.
Most recent polls show a supermajority of the population supports radical health care reform and socialized medicine.
No way. That's completely bull. The Massachusetts election is only the most recent proof that Americans absolutely don't want socialized medicine ala single-payer or individual mandates. It was a mistake on the part of the left to assume that because many Americans favor some sort of health care reform, they also favor socialized medicine ala single-payer; THAT WAS IN ERROR! There is no way that so many Americans, from such diverse and varied backgrounds, could all be so clearly against the Democratic bill if it was simply astroturfing by big pharma and the insurance companies. Incidentally how do you explain Coakley's attendance of a big-money fund raiser in Washington DC, on the eve of the election, jammed packed with pharma and insurance lobbyists? She took her thirty pieces of silver from the very people you claim to detest. Ask yourself this: If a supermajority of Americans favor radical health care reform then why are Obama and Pelosi back-peddling like crazy after the Massachusetts election? Americans favor radical health reform and socialized medicine...yeah right.