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Commercial Space: Spirit of Apollo Or Spirit of Solyndra?
MarkWhittington writes "Andrew Chaikin, the author of A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts, believes that the spirit of Apollo no longer resides at NASA, but rather in the nascent commercial space companies such as SpaceX. This assessment is disputed by many, who see in the Obama administration program of government subsidies for commercial space the spirit of Solyndra."
They deliver stuff that works. They also don't have Chinese competition (at least for US customers). Solyndra had a bit of an Iridium-style problem, where the market got undercut by other sources.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
If SpaceX gets humans back on the moon, then more power to them. Currently, though, the notion that "private sector will solve all!" seems like more of an ideological excuse than an honest assessment of what the U.S. is capable of in space.
I'm starting to think we haven't gone to the moon since 1972 because we forgot how.
I generally see Mark Whittington as being the chief cheerleader for the "let's do Apollo again" school of space flight. There's nothing wrong with that, except that NASA has pretty definitively proven over a period of decades that it's too bureaucratic, too sclerotic, and too much organized as a patronage/jobs organization to do anything big in manned space flight. Even were that not the case, it's a shame that Whittington continually elides the fact that the commercial space contracts — both cargo and crew — only pay out when specific milestones are achieved, and they pay fixed amounts for those milestones. In other words, this isn't Solyndra, where money is just thrown down the drain with no expectation of success; that actually better describes NASA's normal manned space flight program than it does the commercial space companies.
I think Chaikin's right, and that the entrepreneurial spirit that characterized NASA in the 1960s now resides in the private space companies. And as a bitter critic of the Obama administration on pretty much every other point, I nonetheless have to say that this is the one area where they've definitely improved on the Republicans.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
I am unimpressed by your static analysis. Even taking all your points as true (which I don't), what happens when the price of getting material into space is reduced by an order of magnitude? It's certainly likely that we'll see an order of magnitude reduction in the next decade, given the advances made by SpaceX and others.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
A segment of people want to enforce their way of life on everyone else, and knowing that their beliefs are unpopular with voters, seek government power to forcefully do it. It's a story as old as time.
what these fucking morons forget is that the only ONLY ONLY reason we went into space was because the Soviet Union did.
the ONLY reason we went to the moon was to beat the Soviet Union.
there hasn't been a Soviet Union in 20 years. there is not going to be another space program.
Don't know who Jack K. is, but I sure wish for the spirit of Deke Slayton right about now.
We show geeks how to get their dream girl at EyesOfOdessa.com
You clearly don't understand how dangerous it is to put someone in space, even with every precaution we can think of. Maybe you've forgotten the 17 deaths that have occurred so far?
Going to space isn't like assaulting Omaha beach. Throwing more cannon fodder out in unsafe vehicles that are likely to fail will not overcome or wear down space and allow later people to make it through.
Who are the ones who ...
The lawyers.
Considering that Deke Slayton was heavily involved with the construction of the Conestoga rocket system in the 1980's, I'd say he certainly has a foot in both the early days of Apollo (even being one of the original Mercury seven), and in some ways one of the very early pioneers of commercial rocketry. He embodies perhaps the whole of what was once upon a time NASA of a long ago era and what could have become of commercial spaceflight.... if America will only let it happen.
Yeah, the spirit of Deke Slayton would be of particular interest at the moment, and it would be good to invoke him in any such discussion of the intersections of NASA's past glories and what is happening now for spaceflight in America today.
Why are the lives of astronauts any more precious than those of fishermen?
Over a 30 year career, according to dept of labour statistics, 5% will die.
If you asked the average trawlerman if they would prefer to make 3 or 4 flights in shirt-sleeve conditions, taking perhaps a week at a time, and make what they would make over 10-15 years, a huge fraction will leap at it, even knowing the risks.
The rocket they delivered worked. End of story.
Going to space is, however, more like some of the early flights that were done in aviation. Many of those early aircraft were incredibly flimsy and there were thousands of (non-military combat) related deaths each year in the early years. If anything it is the risk aversion that is to me something that is repugnant, other than the fact that nobody wants to be responsible for the death of somebody else.
In terms of some of those deaths on spaceflight, all 14 of the Shuttle-related deaths could have been prevented had NASA simply followed their own safety guidelines. Apollo 1 was also an unfortunate accident, and something which should have been preventable.... also something which didn't even happen during the course of the actual flight but during a ground test that could have even been inside of a factory. On top of that, the number 17, while technically accurate by figures that NASA claims, is only Americans and not deaths by other people who have attempted spaceflight or deaths by Russian Cosmonauts. It also doesn't include other astronauts who died "on the job" through other means, nor does it include deaths of ground personnel in many countries that can also be related to spaceflight.
Yes, it is dangerous, but so is simply living as a person. You take risks, but you also take measures to try and avoid the most serious injuries and hopefully take safety measures seriously. The trick is to learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of others so you don't repeat them... particularly the most dangerous mistakes.
BTW, in terms of spaceflight, most vehicles have built into them the knowledge and experience of the previous generations of astronauts where those mistakes... especially fatal mistakes... are not likely to be repeated. That is true for anybody trying to push the boundaries of human experience. I certainly would assert that anybody going into space today on board any modern spacecraft is going to be far safer than their predecessors by an order of magnitude or better, and I expect that to improve over time. It certainly isn't a reason to fear going into space.
By far the largest problem in terms of going into space is simply the cost. That is, of course, what the whole point of commercializing spaceflight is all about. There is certainly room to make the trip to space much cheaper.
The Obama administration has a lot of problematic policies related to tech (Solyndra, Yucca Mountain, green energy, etc.) but as far as NASA and space is concerned, they for once have the right idea of buying services from the private sector.
Congress is the group that wants the return to the old NASA, primarily because that keeps the money flowing to the old NASA centers.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
We should be willing to take risks. But spending hundreds of billions on a manned space program with poorly defined goals only to watch the astronauts burn up in reentry is not the kind of risk we should be taking. You found a very good way of pointing out how little truth there is in claims that dead astronauts' sacrifices pave the way for others.
Until we're willing to make large and meaningful goals and commitments (like a lunar base/observatory) we have little reason to spend money and lives taking unnecessary risks.
I don't know about your conclusion either. There is an economic presumption that there is a price/demand curve for spaceflight services where dropping the price for a launch is necessarily going to bring increased demand.
Yes, at a certain point there will be some markets that will grow exponentially with a drop in price, but here is the main question: If you drop the price of the launch in half, will you double (or more) the demand for launch services?
At the moment, I'd have to say the answer is a resounding "No". There is a slightly increased demand, but not really much more of one. That is one of the reasons why commercial space (I'm talking Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, ATK, etc.) has been stuck in a doldrums of gradually reducing numbers of launches from one year to the next and not much reduction in the price of their vehicles as well. There is no economic incentive to drop the price of their vehicles unless it is a huge drop in the price of their vehicles with a corresponding dramatic drop in their profits. From a pure profit standpoint, the traditional commercial launcher companies certainly have had no profit motive for dropping their prices.
I'm not convinced SpaceX has the incentive to substantially drop the price of their launches either, for much of the same reason. They had to have an angle to get into the market, which price is a good way to get customers interested. They are also able to sustain the company at those new lower prices, so in effect they are taking market share away from the traditional launcher companies and launching a few additional payloads because of the new lower price. Still, if SpaceX drops the price of their vehicles in half yet again, will they be selling enough in terms of volume to make up for the loss of profits?
For me, the "jury is still out" on that last question. Elon Musk has a political agenda he is trying to push through as well, but in the end he is a practical businessman and is acting more and more like the traditional launcher companies. Yes, he has pushed the price point for almost all commercial launches into orbit to a new lower rate, and I don't see that going up substantially, but I'm not convinced it is going to go down much either.
The real trick is to see what other commercial enterprises might start to require launch services, and if this new lower price is going to attract new kinds of business opportunities to open up that hasn't been tried earlier. Some other aspects of the SpaceX business model is a much more reliable launch schedule where they might be able to promise a launch within a few days instead of the current launch dates that can slip by several months or even years at the moment. The ability to recycle a launch abort and try again within an hour or so after a scrub is certainly something that puts SpaceX ahead of their competition. The Space Shuttle, by comparison, required a 24 hour recycle time before another attempt to launch under the same circumstances. If they can nail launch dates and make the process of launching rockets much more predictable, they may get even more customers.
Still, I'm not completely convinced the business model is in place for continued downward price pressure on access to space, even assuming that the technical capability of doing so might exist. Only if another billionaire is willing to risk their fortune to try and start up another rocket company might that happen, and even then it is a huge risky gamble. Even Elon Musk admitted that commercial rocketry is a good way to make millionaires out of billionaires.
18.
* Soyuz 1 (1)
* Soyuz 11 (3)
* Challenger (7)
* Columbia (7)
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
The only reason that 5% of those fishermen die is that they're willing to put their lives in that sort of jeopardy in exchange for the money that they might make. For people with no real skills beyond the ability to perform manual labor, a job on a fishing trawler can be very lucrative because it usually pays a hell of a lot more than minimum wage. If nobody was willing to take the risks, there would be more effort put towards safety ...or the boat fishing industry would collapse and we'd only have farmed fish and all the fishermen could concentrate on becoming astronauts.
That aside, they can be astronauts if they want. All they have to do is apply and be accepted, but why would we spend millions of dollars to send fishermen somewhere where they have no useful skills beyond a tolerance for seasickness?
Astronauts are more valuable in space because of the skills they've spent a lifetime developing.
SpaceX does not have anybody experienced in MANNED SPACE FLIGHT. At best, all they got is a few Electrical Engineers that managed some satellite project while at JPL.
JPL is known for claiming that they built this and that, when in reality all they have done is manage or coordinate the work done by others. For example, out of all the Mars proves and rovers they claim to have built, not a single one was designed or built by JPL personnel or anywhere near a JPL facility. Every single one of them were designed and built by sub-contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, TRW, General Dynamics, Space Science Corp, etc.
WTF?
Seriously, who ever posted this preceding post is simply clueless about what SpaceX has accomplished. Yes, they had a couple of spectacular failures with the Falcon 1, including one "loss of vehicle". Three flights that were clearly "test flights" that had some problems followed by two flights of the Falcon 1 that were clear successes including a delivered commercial payload. That isn't even a "partial" success but a complete success and the satellite is still in use.
As for the Falcon 9, it has had two successful launches, and the Dragon returned successfully. Please, if you are going to claim that the Dragon crashed upon re-entry, please prove it by a reasonable citation because I'm calling this utter bullshit. I've known people who ate some of the cheese wheel that flew into space and returned in the Dragon that is being claimed as "destroyed".
Yes, there is room for caution and the SpaceX fanbois do push the potential a bit more, but don't make up sheer lies out of whole cloth either when the facts completely contradict what you say. Then again, a poster like this likely believes that none of the Saturn Vs that launched out of KSC ever had astronauts on board either.
Why isn't the Apollo 1 fire counted? Whether or not they made it into space, they died during the process of getting there.
I was counting NASA's deaths... 7 in each shuttle, 3 in Apollo -= 17.
I didn't include Russia's space program deaths because, having read some of the history of their space program, I feel confident in saying that risk aversion wasn't holding them back.
I'm not sure if you're serious or not, but here are the facts.
First of all, the Falcon 9 has flown twice. The first time there was a problem when the second stage separated, and the dummy cargoe ended up in a lower than intended orbit. But it made it to orbit. And of course it crash landed because it had no landing systems. It was a mock up of a dragon module. It was only there to give the rocket something to lift.
On the second flight, it lifted a first generation dragon module into the correct orbit. The dragon then re-entered the atmosphere and splashed down. The flight went nominally, it and it's cargoe were recovered. This was the flight NASA paid for, and Space X delivered it.
They had a secondary objective of recovering the first stage of their rocket, but the first stage burned up as it re-entered the atmosphere. That was not something NASA had paid for, it is an experimental program SpaceX is undertaking to try to further reduce the cost of their launch system.
Why is an astronaut - as a special little snowflake - more valuable than the fisherman.
Why is it socially permissable for low waged unskilled workers to undertake risky careers, knowing the risks, when it's not permissable for astronauts?
Yet oddly enough they have produced some of the most amazingly capable launch vehicles in the world (seeing as how the US currently has to buy Soyuz launches to get astronauts to the ISS).
Nearly anyone can learn how to work on a fishing boat in less than a week. Learning to pilot a spacecraft is a lot more complicated and few people would take the time and put forth the effort required to develop the necessary skills. We, as a society, value people with rare skills because it's hard to find replacements for those people when needed.
Aside from that, there's the financial aspect of it: If a single trip on a fishing trawler cost half a billion dollars and you had to hire crew and train them for years for the mission, you can bet your mom's ass that there would be a lot more safety precautions taken to ensure that the trip was a success.
The Soviets never produced anything as capable as the space shuttle. They tried with the Buran, but it never amounted to much.
The only reason we buy Soyuz launches is that we decided to end the shuttle program, which was done for reasons which are far too complicated and not relevant to this discussion.
well... not in the strict sense, the fire occurred during a pad test. Challenger was at 48,000 feet, actually lower than the cruise altitude of a certain commercial supersonic airliner. Columbia was doomed before it even reached orbit and the astronauts probably knew it. Could the Americans say they have never lost a man in space and keep a straight face? I would say so.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Eisenhower was clearly interested in space reconnaissance, and almost everything that the NSA does in space is something that Eisenhower not only would approve of, but was actively involved with pushing for in terms of rationale to encourage the development of rocketry and satellites.
That said, I don't think he even remotely considered the public relations impact of manned spaceflight nor even the "missile gap" issue that really was more smoke and mirrors than anything else at the time. There certainly was no reason to think that an ICBM was any better at delivering a nuclear warhead to a target than a veteran bomber crew, and indeed the bomber was much more likely to be accurate in its delivery than a missile of that era ever could be. That hasn't even really changed all that much either over the years, even though the technology to do either kind of delivery has certainly improved considerably over the past several decades.
The other issue is how Walt Disney (yes, the guy who gave us Snow White and Mickey Mouse) teamed up with Werner Von Braun and Willy Ley (a publisher of Science Fiction novels and magazines) to popularize the notion of manned spaceflight. Regardless of anything else that happened in the Cold War, I'd call that effort perhaps one of the best public relations moves ever made in American history, and it worked. That P.R. couldn't sustain itself past the 1960's and the Vietnam War.
Right........ what is your source of information here? Really, I'm interested.
I am guessing it is the same people who have informed you about the Burbank studio where the Apollo 11 landing took place at. Please try to convince me otherwise, but I have to take the word of an AC as just a crank who is clueless about life and thinks grand conspiracy theories rule the universe.
Yes, I do realize that the stuff you see in the publicity reels about the landing is from the test drop that was done from a helicopter and not the actual Dragon capsule that was launched on the 2nd flight of the Falcon 9. Still, I don't see why SpaceX has a reason to lie about this. Again, I ask for a credible source of information. It doesn't have to be from SpaceX, but it had better be somebody "in the industry" or knowledgeable about spaceflight in general and not some random blog just making shit up.
SpaceX has been very up front about their failures. BTW, the person who said there was a cheese wheel that flew into space was Elon Musk, at a press conference and repeated elsewhere. I won't even go into who else has talked about it as that should be sufficient for anybody but an utter crank.
There is a function of cost to perform a given task vs risk.
At one end, it goes up because your launch platform is not reliable enough, and you need to make too many satellites or whatever before one succeeds in being launched.
At the other end, it goes up as you've spent too much money on the launcher.
Somewhere in the middle is the sweet spot of minimum cost.
If however, you insist that no precaution must be omitted to keep astronauts safe, then the cost rises - perhaps prohibitively.
As a proportion of the costs of the entire program, the costs of training astronauts who go on to die in accidents, and their life insurance is a small one.
Certainly, astronaut safety should be pushed as far as is reasonably possible - but you have to at some point accept there is a risk, present it to the astronauts, and ask if they're OK with it, rather than pretending accidents are impossible, and coming up with numbers like the reliabilities quoted of the shuttle prior to the first accident.
To bring this back to the earlier example I was putting.
Why is it desired socially to absolutely minimise risk beyond the minimisation of operating cost including life insurance and training for astronauts, but not fishermen?
2011 is passing and SpaceX hasn't launched jack. I thought these jokers were supposed to be fast. Definitely the 'spirit of Solyndra'.
Uh, dude: http://www.spacex.com/launch_manifest.php
I believe SpaceX have been waiting for NASA to give them the go-ahead to fly the first Dragon flight to ISS, so complaining that SpaceX are slow is amusing.
Nearly anyone can learn how to work on a fishing boat in less than a week. Learning to pilot a spacecraft is a lot more complicated and few people would take the time and put forth the effort required to develop the necessary skills.
Nearly anyone can learn how to work on a space shuttle in less than a week. Here's how the toilet works, here's how you get out after a pad abort, don't get in the way of the flight crew.
And as for the flight crew, most of the time they're pressing a few buttons and watching cockpit displays; NASA gets thousands and thousands of perfectly qualified applicants for those jobs every time they look for new astronauts.
Of course advancing space travel sounds good, we all grew up with science fiction. Also, the notion of "leaving the cradle" has a nice ring to it. ... ? These rocks are filled with it. Then there is also helium-3 on the moon, endless supply of hydrogen in the gas giants, solar radiation which can be harnessed much better from orbit (the old microwave beam idea), ...
But the main problem is the incentive. Why should we really go into space? The cradle argument is valid, but not a very big short-term motivator.
Instead, I think harvesting resources is the real motivation. Getting materials from the asteroid belt alone would end resource problems pretty quickly. Running out of iridium, indium, platinum
The initial costs are enormous, but if there is a realistic reason why space travel should march on, it is this. Not the romantic picture of astronauts zipping through space.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
> If however, you insist that no precaution must be omitted to keep astronauts safe, then the cost rises - perhaps prohibitively.
I never insisted anything of the sort. You're creating straw man arguments.
We've had enough deaths that only an idiot would think that the safety measures in place are overprotective. Fewer safety measures would almost certainly result in more deaths, failed missions and billions of dollars wasted which the theoretical cost-savings of reduced safety measures would almost certainly not make up for.
> Why is it desired socially to absolutely minimise risk beyond the minimisation of operating cost including life insurance and training for astronauts, but not fishermen?
Can you prove that we're minimizing risk beyond minimization of operating cost? Of course not. You're making more straw man arguments.
The cost of a single mission failure can easily be over half a billion dollars. You'd have to lose several hundred fishing trawlers (a used one goes for 1-2 million from what I can tell) and dozens of fishermen (assuming each one has a million dollar life insurance policy) to even begin to match the cost of just one of the shuttle failures.
So... why shouldn't we value an astronaut more than a fisherman? Astronauts are more expensive and more difficult for a society to produce than fishermen and the loss of a space craft and crew represents a far greater loss than the loss of a fishing boat and crew.
Ahahaha... you have clearly never tried to play one of the realistic shuttle flight sims.
I have. It's fucking frustrating and difficult as hell even with a pause button and manual to refer to. There's a hell of a lot more to it than pushing a button once in a while.
Anecdotes from a supplier of NASA and Space-X:
NASA: They called for support, but could not follow suggestions because the person on the phone was a software person, not a hardware person. They were not authorized to use a screwdriver and reseat a PCI card.
Space-X: Support calls from knowledgable people around the clock and on weekends. Apple employees had their "90 hours a week and loving it" t-shirts. From what I can tell, Space-X is living that sentiment.
My motivation for busting America's balls. I hope it get's it head out of its ass.
The result: America learns very quickly to ignore your obnoxious ranting. You are not America's dad, and America does not have to straighten up and be the country you want it to be. Your approval, or lack thereof, isn't relevant.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
So driving full throttle into becoming a 3rd world country is your idea of where we should go? You can't rebuke fools into wisdom, but it's fun trying.
Take the Red Pill.
Many different, diametrically-opposed segments of people want to enforce their way of life on everyone else, and knowing that their beliefs are unpopular with voters, seek government power to forcefully do it.
There, fixed that for you...
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
1. the soviets knew they could never compete with US on conventional force levels
ROTFLMAO. The Red Army was *huge* all during the Cold War.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
The fact is that Apollo was one of our greatness. So is Solar PVs. The problem with private space, like solar PV, is that others are cheating. For example, here in America, federal law PROHIBITS the feds from competing against private space. Yet, with Ares and now with the Senate launch system, that is exactly what they are doing. Add to that the fact that China is dumping on the world their heavily subsidized launches, as well as money manipulated system, and it is just digusting.
Now, as to 'Spirit of Solyndra', was it a disaster? Nope. It was profitable. So where was the issue? China was dumping on the market. They are dumping WELL BELOW COSTS. Solyndra SHOULD have had several years of great profits from their plant. It did not happen. Why? All be China dumps heavily. Sadly, O has been like W: do nothing about China's cheating. Thankfully, several weeks ago, Germany, and possibly EU, are screaming about China's illegal actions. So, we joined in on that. BUT, we should have done it 2 years ago. And private space in America is going to have the same issue. It is not just illegal competition from the feds, but from China that is going to cause the real issues.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
SpaceX is not the only one making it happen. NASA is making it happen WITH SpaceX, SNC, Boeing, Blue Horizon, and Bigelow Aerospace. We need all of these, and it is getting numerous engineers working. The problem is that a large number of neo-cons and a few dems are pushing the SLS nightmare.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
True. And the fast and easy way to solve the issue is to rigorously clip government's wings.
The people who put together the Mars Science Laboratory at JPL will be surprised to hear that. Yes, I know that some components such as the robotic arm were developed and built elsewhere.
You really shouldn't just make stuff up.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Only one attempt has been made under the COTS program. And and it was a success. Your subject line would have the reader believe that there were 9 unsuccessful attempts. Both flights of the Falcon 9 to date have been successful (the first of which was not even under COTS).
I would suggest that perhaps you meant to include the Falcon 1 (even though no Falcon 1 flights have been part of COTS), but clearly we would then need to increase the total number of successful missions (even though it had 3 failed launch attempts, it had 2 successful launches). Even though that number is not relevant to a discussion of COTS, it would be 4 successful flights (2 Falcon 9 launches and 2 Falcon 1 launches) and 3 failures (all Falcon 1 launches, none under COTS) that's 3/7 or 43% failure rate. And that's completely misleading because it includes test flights which no sane person would count.
Thank you for not detailing your claim, but perhaps you were referring to this:
Before the launch they noticed some cracks in the second stage engine. Rather than delaying the flight, they trimmed the cracked section from the nozzle and proceeded with the launch. They cleared the change with NASA prior to the flight, and NASA and SpaceX understood that it would interfere with the performance with the vehicle.
Given the nature of the flight, the orbit achieved did not need to precisely match the target in order to meat mission goals. In any case, they did pretty well.
That's right, even if you wish to contend that the orbital objective wasn't met, you can't honestly say that the Falcon 9 was not capable of making them, because after the mission was over they flew the second stage out to a much higher altitude just to show that they could.
In summary, you numbers way off the mark. You either don't know what you are talking about, or you intend to spread lies. Check you facts before spouting nonsense like this.
By the way, I am well aware of the downfalls of Cost Plus contracts. I make most of my money working under them. Suits love them because they allow them more control over the work being done, which means more power for them.
That's why I hope that COTS and SpaceX will be able to show that Fixed Firm contracts are better and put an end (hopefully) to the insanity of how government contracting is typically done today. And so far, they're doing pretty well.
Sorry, but you are talking about a company with a 90% failure
SpaceX doesn't have a 90% failure rate.
The problem is that the government has the tendency to CHANGE THE REQUIREMENTS late in the game
While NASA is notorious for doing this, it's worth noting that for large contractors on cost plus contracts, this is a feature not a bug.
The faster, easier way is to make me absolute ruler of all Earth.
Anyway, rigorously clipping the government's wings would lead to an even worse corporate oligarchy than now exists.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Mark Whittington is notorious for getting these things so very wrong. For some reason, we're supposed to view SpaceX and related companies as nacent Solyndras waiting to go wrong, but not the companies that will consume vast amounts of federal funding on the space launch system, a heavy lift vehicle that a) isn't planned to do anything for a decade (and may never launch at all!), b) has no payloads planned for it, c) is vastly more expensive than alternatives (such as commercial plus orbital propellant depots), and d) is IMHO less likely to complete than the commercial programs that Whittington slams (yet again).
Have you ever read about the few airborne nuclear propulsion tests they did? Running a small research reactor in a plane, the small amount of shielding they could put in it left the aircraft so radioactive from neutron activation that they couldn't get near it for weeks.
Plus, the plutonium for RTGs is some REALLY nasty stuff. It would be a lot safer if we could put that reactor in lunar orbit - since the RTGs are only used on deep-space missions, and we're getting pretty good at remote processing of fuels, someone will put the idea together. However, ther would never be enough to justify the huge costs associated with it...
Why can't I mod "-1 Idiot"?
The faster, easier way is to make me absolute ruler of all Earth.
- how many lives are you willing to sacrifice to achieve the perfection of a society on this planet? I mean you believe that as an absolute ruler you'll achieve something valuable, some form of 'paradise' on this planet, but doesn't that mean that your goal is so wonderful (in your eyes) and it is so noble and so honorable and so holly almost, that anything and everything must be done to achieve it, and you can then justify any means to achieve your goal?
What if some people disagree and do not do what you want them to do, to achieve your wonderful, holly goal, will you sacrifice the lives of say 5 people?
If the goal is for the benefit of 7,000,000,000 people, will you be able to justify a sacrifice of say 1% of the population to achieve it, if they don't do what you want and go against your rule?
How about 10%, it's still the same wonderful and holly goal, do you think it may be worth the 10% sacrifice?
Maybe anything below 50%, right? But maybe your goal is so great, that it's worth the sacrifice of many more than that, after all, you are aiming for 'perfection', right? And the crowd, if it doesn't go along with your goal, they don't matter, the goal is more important.
Dostoevsky in his The Brothers Karamazov looks at this question in detail, if your goal is what you believe the ultimate goal, a goal of modifying the society and then the men will just 'change their way', because your society will be so perfect... isn't it easier to love the society, the humanity more than loving any specific individual?
How many specific individuals would you sacrifice for your perfect goal? How about 85%? 95%? 99%? Everybody except the few who are totally devoted to your goal?
Is it really such a great goal when it becomes obvious that you need to sacrifice a SINGLE life to achieve it?
You can't handle the truth.
The faster, easier way is to make me absolute ruler of all Earth.
- how many lives are you willing to sacrifice to achieve the perfection of a society on this planet? I mean you believe that as an absolute ruler you'll achieve something valuable, some form of 'paradise' on [snip] Everybody except the few who are totally devoted to your goal?
Is it really such a great goal when it becomes obvious that you need to sacrifice a SINGLE life to achieve it?
I think you forgot to take your medications.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
And at some point, the cost comes down to the point that doing truly new things becomes practical. Consider that if it cost $25,000 to fly to Europe, few would do so, perhaps only a few hundred per year. But at $2500 or less, many thousands of people do so every year. That's more or less exactly what happened between the 1970s and today in commercial air travel. Along with such services as UPS and FedEx, which couldn't exist as global air delivery services if the prices hadn't dropped. I don't know what would happen if the price of access to space were dropped by an order of magnitude. I don't think anyone can convince me that they really do know the answer to that. But I'm betting that what happens in space at that point would be radically different than what happens today.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
As someone who works as a contractor at Goddard Space Flight Center (just outside the Washington DC Beltway), I can tell you that NASA spending in my district is heavily promoted by Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D).
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
It's sort of second-order right now - NASA is one place where shifting activity to the private sector will almost certainly reduce costs, which will leave more money to be redirected elsewhere.
The Obama administration should be supported when they do the right thing, like at NASA, and flamed when they do the wrong thing, like basically everywhere else in tech.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Cargoe?
Is that you, Dan?
>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
>life