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Give Space a Chance, Says Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer writes "A lot of pundits, scientists, and people who should know better are decrying the demise of NASA, saying that the President's budget cutting the Constellation program and the Ares rockets will sound the death knell of manned space exploration. This simply is not true. The budget will call for a new rocket design, and a lot of money will go toward private space companies, who may be able to launch people into orbit years ahead of Ares being ready anyway."
Weee! They'll be able to launch people into orbit years ahead of Ares! Because putting people into orbit is exactly why Ares was being built, since NASA can't do that with their current rockets.
The private industry is decades away from what NASA can do today. It's at least a century away from what NASA could do 40 years ago. They're never going to get us into mars, because there's simply no profit in it. Government funding is the only way space exploration can go forward.
What you need is for people to realise the benefits that come with space exploration so that they demand, through their votes, that it be included in the budget. What you don't need to do is give up on NASA in favour of private companies that can only ever be expected to be SELF serving. Capitalism as a tool is a good thing, but as a religion it is as stupid as any other religion.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Years of work have gone in Ares I,5 and the capsules. ... but
if its cancelled and NASA have to restart then those years and
dollars are gone
You are suffering from the "sunk costs" fallacy. Those years and dollars are gone, not "if its cancelled", they're gone, period. The question is, what is the best way to proceed from where we are today. If the Ares program is not a good investment, then we shouldn't throw any more money at this. This is equally true whether we've spent nothing or spent a trillion dollars...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Phil is absolutely correct on this.
NASA spending also makes jobs. Everything from top level engineers and administrators down to bag boys in the grocery stores.
I wish people could get it thru their head that we are not launching stacks of 100 dollar bills into space. Every last red cent is spent here on earth.
Why make the poor into hand-out wards of the State? I have never understood the so called (self called) "Progressive" parties propensity to enslave population thusly, and lose the first derivative of government spending.
If NASA did nothing at all and delivered nothing at all but stacks of study after study it would STILL be better for society than handing out food stamps because there were no jobs.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The Shuttle was a great research program. We learned an awful lot. The problem was that we turned what should have been a first generation reusable pilot project into a workhorse.
It might have been a suitable workhorse in some of its original incarnations. Might. But after the design compromises that led up to what we currently know as the shuttle, its chances for affordability were ruined.
Noone ever goes walrus!
The answer to your question is, it's a lot easier for congress to allocate funds to maintain operations than it is for them to allocate funds to build a new system. So they tend to underfund system development, and pay for that many times over in increased operating costs. In particular, there's virtually no consideration given to ground-up redesign, even though we know we could gain a lot of benefits by doing so.
Yes, we do need to separate crew and cargo costs. Again, the Shuttle is an example of underfunded system development, as by merging the two together, they only had to develop one launch stack (there are a lot of even bigger development-cost compromises in the shuttle program, but that's a whole different story).
The SSTO issue is a problem. We need more basic research before we can feel confident in our ability to build a good SSTO. Scramjets or some kinds of metastable fuels could probably pull it off. New types of advanced composites might help. But it's really tough.
Noone ever goes walrus!
Nope, not true in general. While poverty is usually partly due to a few people grabbing too large a part of the resources, a big factor is often that there isn't enough stuff to go around for everyone. In Europe at least a lot of poverty was solved (some of it quite visibly within my lifetime) not by socio-political change, but simply because new tech meant more wealth for everyone. When you look at my country, there are relatively speaking still rich and poor people, just like 50 years ago. The difference is, now the "poor" people can afford enough food and gigantic televisions. There's just more to go by for everyone, and birth control (also a technological solution) has complemented that. Life's wonderful these days, and we mostly have tech to thank for it.
Poverty is a social problem, not a technological one.
Social problem: Famine
Technological Solution: Irrigation
Result: Civilization (Just ask Sid)
Solving social problems with technology is what separates men from animals.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
NASA incompetence? Nothing in engineering is truly bug-free. Unfortunately with NASA the consequences can be dire; doesn't make them incompetent. And your analysis is off the mark - you need to understand that what we got from the money spent on the shuttle [since Challenger] was 20+ years of grunt work. Are your preposing that NASA should've stopped at the Challenger disaster and wait 20 years until SpaceX has the technology to start doing things 'better' ? Getting something done, as the parent says at 95% well, is better than not at all and waiting for the perfect vehicle.
This isn't about engineering. Have you read the investigation reports from Challenger? If not, I suggest you do so. NASA management was absolutely and unequivocally incompetent.
Then go read the reports from Columbia. They haven't gotten any better. NASA shouldn't be allowed to launch a bottle rocket.
As for "waiting 20 years", you're completely missing the point. It wouldn't have _taken_ 20 years if the money had been spent on worthwhile work instead of a vehicle that should have been retired the minute Challenger disintegrated.
Social problem: Corrupt government
Technological solution: transparent and open database of expenses (think UK mps expenses scandal) accessible by citizens
Result: less corruption
having your expenses published in papers and discussed by all have really been a kick in ass for politicians in UK