NASA Uncertain How To Proceed In Developing Deep Space Module (examiner.com)

MarkWhittington writes: One of the provisions of the new NASA spending bill, which provided a hefty $1.3 billion boost to the space agency's budget, is a mandate to build a prototype habitation module for deep space exploration by 2018. Space News suggested that NASA is uncertain how to proceed with this sudden largess. Quite some time has passed since the space agency has gotten more money than expected and been told to speed up the development of an item of hardware. Usually, the opposite happens, with accompanying delays and increases in overall costs.

Comments

So...no one was taking the Mars thing seriously?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> NASA Uncertain How To Proceed In Developing Deep Space Module

So...all NESA's noise about preparing for a manned Mars mission was just a joke then?

Be careful what you wish for...

[drooling-dog]

I've had the feeling more than once that NASA promotes a lot of ideas that they know are impractical in order to fire up their base of support, which is largely SF fans who can't or won't distinguish fantasy from reality. With an election coming up the strategy works brilliantly, and now they're handed a big pot of money to begin realizing their dreams. So they have to hire a battalion of scientists and engineers to work on growing crops on Mars, squeezing water out of rocks, mining asteroids for minerals, and all the rest. This should be interesting.

Re:What's the problem?

[Rei]

The model has worked poorly in what regard? SpaceX is actively delivering cargo to ISS for about 40% the per launch cost of ULA (without reuse) and has meet certification to deliver crew. A whole Dragon launch is going to cost NASA about as much as a single seat on Soyuz, and the whole COTS program, yielding two launch vehicles and two automated transfer vehicles cost about the same as a single Shuttle flight. The NASA final report on the program basically goes through every combination of phrases meaning "unqualified success" in the English language in describing the results of the program.

4-year cycle will kill it

[RubberDogBone]

It doesn't really matter what NASA has now. Space exploration requires projects that run 20 or 50 or even 100 years. Yes we have to reach that far if we really want to hit some big goals.

But the 4-year election cycle means NASA's funding is threatened every time we elect a new round of idiots. Sometimes they are Pro-NASA but mostly they aren't, and cutting funding is what happens.

You cannot explore space with a 20-year plan supported by fickle 4-year election cycles and 2-bit politicians.

Other countries like China have no such issues. China can set a 50-year plan and proceed to start on it. NASA is stuck.