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Reported Obama Plan Would Privatize Manned Launches
couchslug writes with this excerpt from the not-yet-paywalled New York Times: "President Obama will end NASA's return mission to the moon and turn to private companies to launch astronauts into space when he unveils his budget request to Congress next week, an administration official said Thursday. The shift would 'put NASA on a more sustainable and ambitious path to the future' said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. But the changes have angered some members of Congress, particularly from Texas, the location of the Johnson Space Center, and Florida, the location of the Kennedy Space Center. 'My biggest fear is that this amounts to a slow death of our nation's human space flight program,' Representative Bill Posey, Republican of Florida, said in a statement." If true, this won't please the federal panel that recommended against just such privatization.
Before anyone jumps up and shouts make sure that you're not being taken in by lobbyists who are trying to either support specific companies or jobs in specific states. They are apt to shout out about the sky falling before the real information is known.
Sit back, relax and wait until the report is actually published, read it and make up your own mind. Don't believe what has been filtered through potentially biased news media companies.
Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"
Plan : increase the budget to NASA, and ask for them to purchase rides to space from newly formed private companies.
The article says that NASA has "50 years of institutional experience" in doing spaceflight, and that this would be a bad idea.
The "institutional" part of that statement is the problem. NASA stinks for spaceflight. The problem isn't in their engineering, it's in the fact that they have many, many masters all trying to stir the pot. Their budget depends upon the whim of Congressmen, not performing to a contract.
Privatization has many failures. There's a lot of goods and services that it doesn't make sense to privatize. But I think the high tech industry of space travel is one that will benefit enormously from privatization.
The only downside? Private firms can probably get a LOT more manned launches done per year for the same cost, but they'll be a little riskier. More astronauts will be killed. I don't see this as a problem : there's 6 billion people on the planet, and I for one if faced between possibly dying during a trip to space or dying from old age would choose the former.
Who gives a flying fuck about privatized LEO launches of some tycoon (apart of the tycoons themselves)? Private companies will not undertake the large-scale, visionary projects like sending people to Mars, building permanent bases on Mars and Moon, reaching Europa and exploring her oceans. Private companies only produce as little science as they possibly can get away with, putting much more emphasis on patenting the crap out of the little they do produce, and then keep it for themselves.
In other words: FAIL!
When Obama said he'll cancel Constellation, he crushed the dreams and hopes of MY generation. Those who grew up in the 50s and 60s in the US and Europe had the ride of their lives, if they had even the slightest affinity for science. That was science that inspired millions, and from the sci-fi movies of the 70's, I'd say people were probably less dumb on average than they are today ("Andromeda Strain", for one example. Compare that to the blockbuster space-operas some call "Sci-fi"). Nowadays scientists are only prodded to make cheaper electronic components and larger plasma screens.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Every damn article posted on Slashdot about privatization of space has been packed with complaints that this is the end of the world. It's really not. God willing, it may be the start of a new one.
NASA was pursuing a completely impossible architecture. Ares was underfunded and unable to be effectively used until 2017 at the latest. By forcing NASA to buy services from private corporations we can develop our domestic launch infrastructure as opposed to keeping it under government control.
And yes, I said BUY! This is not cost-plus contracting, which defense contractors famously use to rip us off every chance they get. This is a straight purchase of services, cash for deliveries and milestones met. In other words, actual free-market capitalism.
As for those claiming that we should have blown our cash on another Apollo-like shot: what cash? Obama is not a dictator, he's a President. His budget requests have to be approved by Congress which would have balked at any substantial increase in spending on space exploration. Not to mention that we tried Apollo and it was nowhere near substainable. Development of regular deliveries to orbital space by private companies - that's sustainable. That's what will provide us with the groundwork to move beyond earth orbit and lower the cost to orbit to the point where we can actually do something.
I value politeness. If you extend it to me, I'll extend it to you.
Nowadays everything is about branding, even politics. In order to differentiate their brand from brand of the Democrat Party (as they like to call it), the Republic Party (as I like to call them) has to avoid showing any support for anything Obama does. Their marketing division (or, to use an old-fashioned term, their political strategists) understand that any show of bipartisanship confuse the consumers (I guess most people still call them "voters") and dilute the brand. So the party has to maintain a uniform anti-Democrat (not to be confused with anti-Democratic) message, even when the Democrats propose a product (officially a "policy") that the Republics invented in the first place.
Obama's attempts to achieve a consensus show his utter contempt for the way business (isn't government a business? if not it should be) is done in the 21st century. If that doesn't convince you he's a communist, nothing will!
On one side I know that (in this economy) there are many more ways to spend money than space.
But few things united the US as much as the space program.
When the political climate was different, the reasons for going to space were different.
Now that the Cold War is over, space has become a primarily scientific endeavor. I'm happy that science (instead of politics) is the motivator, but now it seems that politics is choking one of the greatest achievements of our species.
The idea behind this "private taxi service" to space could go either way. We all know how recent new aircraft have suffered delay after delay. But what if a more competitive environment brings innovation that otherwise would have been unattainable? After-all it was a competitive environment that pushed us to be the first on the moon.
What I am really sad about though is the lack of interest in the moon. I believe that a permanent, self sufficient (however difficult that might be) settlement on the moon should be a priority. And if we don't start soon, India or China might beat us to it.
While I believe that any mission to the moon is an international event, other countries/cultures might not share that view. I would prefer for us to set the bar in both - returning to the moon, and sharing that experience with the rest of the world.
Privatization may seem like a good idea, and I hope it will turn out to be. But I doubt it. Right now, the US has one - count them - one man-rated orbital vehicle. That's the shuttle, and it will be ending soon. Without a replacement, the US will be forced to hitch rides in the short term with Russia, maybe even China. In fact, since we've outsourced much of our manufacturing base to China anyway, why not our space program? Well here's why: other countries, maybe even private companies in the future will fly in space. Maybe they'll let the US hitch rides. Maybe not. Either way they won't be building their launchers and space vehicles with US program goals in mind. They'll be building whatever makes sense for them. It may or may not be what makes sense for US goals. So in the end, we'll have an ISS that we continue to pay for - funding for that is in the budget, and no way to get there from the US. Excellent. The Mercury astronauts had it right... No Bucks, No Buck Rogers. We'll continue to send neat probes to other planets. And we'll continue to get amazing pictures. But in the end, people will tire of that too. That'll leave us with No Bucks. When you look back 200 years from now, this will be the moment that people say the US "jumped the shark"...
Brawndo: It's what plants crave!
I see this as a way to siphon off funds to be redirected to more social programs
TFA: "Mr. Obama’s request, which will be announced on Monday, would add $6 billion over five years to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s budget."
How is increasing NASA's budget and enabling it to buy space launches from private companies "siphoning off funds to be redirected to more social programs"? Your political bias is leading to illogical reasoning.
Pollution isn't really a "private affair" any more than wandering around and punching people in the face is a "private exercise routine".
That is perhaps the aspect of real-world libertarianism that I find most disappointing in comparison to its theoretical counterpart(of which I am actually rather fond, in many respects).
In theory, libertarians want the state to protect people's lives and property from aggression, internal and external, and(depending on which ones you talk to) possibly operate some of the unavoidable natural monopolies of modern life. Great, sounds good.
If you have the temerity to suggest that the state should protect your person and property from other people's emissions of assorting poisons, though, and the support of ostensible libertarians just melts away...
When pollution affects health, it is essentially assault. When pollution impinges upon property, it is some mixture of trespass and theft. Any form of pollution whose effect extends beyond the person and property of the polluter(and anybody with whom he has a valid, informed, uncoerced contract covering the matter) is trivially a valid area of action for even the most minimal of libertarian states.
I clearly don't understand this well enough, as I'm sure will be self-evident in a moment...
How would the private sector end up being 'space tourism' if Nasa contracts private companies to get it's people to the ISS, and to put satellites into LEO?
I'm not saying privatisation is the Best Thing to do, but won't it foster a handful of LEO-capable mini-Nasas? The real Nasa could then concentrate on wider orbit deployment work, moon/mars missions and science (maybe not right now, but in the next 5-10 years). Apart from wider-orbit stuff, all the non-LEO stuff isn't all that interesting to private companies right now, and only the very rich/established can do it, so why not specialise?
The other angle here is obviously money. Knowing the deficit is a bit big, slimming Nasa down a bit makes a bit of sense (I know other things dwarf what it costs, but maybe they're not as easy to cut). If what comes out of Nasa is truly unique and beyond the reach of any other space-going organisation in the world, wouldn't that be better than a sort of "do it all" Nasa that does what others could (in theory at least) do?
What am I missing?