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NASA 'Moving On' From Low-Earth Orbit (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: NASA has issued a warning to private space companies: the agency is moving on from its focus on low-Earth orbit. William Gerstenmaier, chief of human spaceflight, said, "We're going to get out of ISS as quickly as we can. Whether it gets filled in by the private sector or not, NASA's vision is we're trying to move out." This leaves a void for the private companies building rockets to supply the ISS. "NASA says it would like to see the private space industry "take over" low-Earth orbit, although it acknowledges that any successor space station or orbiting module will be far smaller than the $140 billion space station, a collaboration between 15 countries. The message from NASA to the US industry is simple: we're serious about the commercialization of low-Earth orbit, we have this marvelous facility available with unique capabilities, and we want you to use the heck out of it."
...to continue to collect money for doing nothing.
There really is not much reason for private industry to go to LEO unless it's to support NASA. If NASA vacates, then the only real reason to go there goes along with it. Some will espouse about knowledge, scientific research, exploration, blah blah blah. There's no money to be made there so private industry will not be interested, unless it on the whims of people like Musk or Bezos.
It's a nice idea: commercial space exploration. But what are commercial, for-profit companies supposed to do in LEO? Space tourism, maybe some very specific R&D that requires freefall, but other than that?
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
>> NASA...acknowledges that any successor space station or orbiting module will be far smaller than the $140 billion space station...message from NASA to the US industry is simple: ...we have this marvelous facility available with unique capabilities, and we want you to use the heck out of it."
So...are you selling off taxpayers' $140B investment for pennies on the dollar or are you going to deorbit the existing spacestation and prod private industry to replace it when it's gone?
The USA's continued cooperation with Russia on the ISS mission has been one of the many things that keeps me assured that we're not going to just completely devolve into war, because nobody wants to come to blows over that particular asset. And now we're trying to get out of ISS involvement "as quickly as we can."
Wow.
What is the difference between legitimate government expense and corporate welfare to you?
And - don't corporations sell food? So isn't feeding children corporate welfare? Or is corporate welfare just a slogan you fling out when you disagree with the expenditure?
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
NASA has been a wreck ever since the destructive leftist, Obama assumed office. His first act was to kill Project Constellation, which would have gotten us back to the moon. Inevitably his successor (Lord hope it is The Donald) will reestablish the moon as a goal with the SLS rocket.
What is the difference between legitimate government expense and corporate welfare to you?
Isn't it obvious? Anything that doesn't fit into a narrow preconceived world view is clearly corporate welfare.
Like farm subsidies?
This is actually great news for many who were pro-space exploration.
After their wildly successful lunar missions, NASA got stuck in LEO decades ago and has never been able to escape. It's continuously drained all of their money and talent into stationkeeping for the US military and corporations and eliminated the possibility of human exploration in space.
Ultimately, I think this is just gamesmanship. The government won't let NASA completely abandon LEO, it's really a strategic asset. However, they may have to cough up more funding or split the agency to support both LEO efforts and actual space exploration. That is likely what NASA wants.
http://www.windows2universe.org/kids_space/sat.html
http://www.universetoday.com/42198/how-many-satellites-in-space/
Gently reply
Did you hear about the group of cows that NASA wanted to send into low earth orbit?
It was the herd shot round the world.
Yeah, because absolutely no good has come from NASA, ever. Absolutely no materials science or technology that allows for more efficient food production to "feed the children". Definitely not things like weather satellites or GPS - those are complete boondoggles that have absolutely no effect on modern agriculture.
People like you would still have us using oxen to plow fields, and then bitch that so many still go hungry.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Well let's see if NASA abandons ISS will Russians or Europeans take control of it? There is Japan as they have an awesome module on ISS and they are very capable. Then there is the new spacers, let's see if they can maintain this facility. Several "Ayd Rand in Space" people have been saying for years they can do it better and cheaper without govt funds...
mfwright@batnet.com
All right. This one's pretty good.
The less red tape needed to just use the thing the more use it will get. Part of the reason the ISS is so ridiculously over budgets is because of all the BS redundancy and BS "safe" tech high-pork approach (as in, scared to use fancy new things like "kevlar" and "carbon fiber", or scary words like "inflatables"....but lets keep using laptops from 15 years ago because they are COTS approved.).
As someone who used to work there, all I can say is NASA is often NASA's worst enemy....budget issues aside.
Various experiments have taught us what the effects of micro gravity on humans as well as several other species. Just this year, we have started to grow and consume food in space. We are trying to get more species up there and for longer iterations. These studies allow us to extrapolate what potential long term effects of micro gravity will have as we try to explore other planets and asteroids. I look forward to continued experimentation and exploration.
Place something witty here
Originally, I was thinking it was a bad idea to throw away this expensive space station, but now that you mention it, there is a silver lining. NASA will have done its highest priority research by then. China will have a small space station up by then. The ISS can be treated as something, that can be allowed to fail. Corners can the be cut on maintenance and operations. The ISS can be put in a lower orbit.
I wonder how much the current purveyors of unaccountable, opaquely financed, space junk (such as SpaceX) bribed them to say that.
No thank you, but NASA would do well to return to high-quality space travel, no matter the distance. They'd also do well to return back to at least the 1980's with a more Shuttle-like (and not Apollo-like) design.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Did you hear about the group of cows that NASA wanted to send into low earth orbit?
It was the herd shot round the world.
LOL..... Time to MOOOOOve on...
It was funny when the Meow Meow Army did it. That was 20 years ago.
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The recent Commercial Space Bill mandates that NASA maintains the ISS as a "viable and productive facility capable of potential U.S. utilization through at least 30 September 2024".
Moving on is hard to do sometimes.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Private industry needs to build a wheel space station with artificial gravity so that people can work in space in 0 g or stay up there for extended periods by being in the 1 g spinning part. So much money could be made and this overcomes 90% of the problems that makes the ISS so impractical and expensive that it takes 20 nations to build and maintain it.
Build the wheel!
successor space station ... will be far smaller...
Because NASA plans to piss in the punch bowl by deorbiting the thing, instead of letting someone else have it?
Why wouldn't a "successor space station" be exactly the same size, because it's the same station, only new and improved, with all the NASA cleaned out of it?
Seems a little asshole-y, given that they didn't pay for the whole thing, and didn't even orbit all of the modules.
And if they end up with squatters? Guess what: develop an orbital capability of your own and fly up and post an eviction notice, but if you are going to abandon the property, don't expect it to stay vacant, just because you happen to be the bank that holds the mortgage, and want to keep other people from using the thing because they won't pay you enough rent.
Space based power DOES have a use. The first should be about supplying power to the DOD along with power to disaster areas. In FOB in Afghanistan, it cost America $200-400 PER GALLON of DIESEL. Most of that went to providing electricity. If we can beam down energy to a relatively small receptor , then the DOD will gladly buy the energy. Likewise, if a drone can be put at say 10-60k feet, receive power and then dish it out to various area with small receptors ( I.e. dish TV size ) , then this will work for the DOD as well as disaster area. Beyond that, the economics is not there for earth. However, said system would then work for the moon and/or mars, well, now you have a winner.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Actually, Bigelow will be bigger than ISS with only 3 launches. So, do not fret.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Sometimes moving on can be hard and hurts, but holding on to something that can never be is even harder and hurtful.
Success is the sum of small efforts - repeated day in and day out.
You're giving credit to NASA to which they are not due. GPS was a DoD project.
Who built GPS? The Naval Research Lab, the USAF, Aerospace Corp, and Rockwell International.
Who didn't build GPS? NASA.