Too bad the contest ideas aren't being submitted via a wiki instead. It would be fun to take some of the contest ideas and have some collaborative writing to help refine the ideas and improve them to something worth paying attention to.
Yeah, I know that isn't the usual proposal process for an organization like NASA, but it is an alternative that could improve the quality of submissions and be able to even have some "self-organizing" in terms of getting a community of interested folks put together and helping to perform the scoring a well.
I've seen wiki projects where there are some outstanding gems but also a whole bunch of garbage... and that the gems seem to rise out of the ashes as well. Wikipedia is an excellent example of that, but I've seen it happen elsewhere.
Launch loops do have some significant engineering and even pure physical challenges in order to get them to work.... many of which they do share with space elevators. While I will admit that launch loops seem to be a bit more practical than a space elevator, both technologies are years or even centuries away from happening on a realistic level.
This is a technology that I think would be incredibly exciting to see happen, but there certainly are some advances needed in materials science and even engineering in order to get this to work.
If you can teleport even a single amino acid, I would be very much impressed. Right now most of the work is teleporting a single atom or perhaps for the very ambitious are sending a complete water molecule... and getting published in peer-reviewed scientific journals for doing that too!
While in theory it may be possible (teleportation is a side effect of quantum computing), that is something for the far, far distant future... if it ever will happen at all on a macroscopic basis. I'm floored that it is even remotely possible, but it is an area of active research if for nothing more than pure physical science and just trying to figure out what is happening.
While the naming contest was strictly a publicity stunt, the issue about the hardware development contests is a bit more serious.
The #1 problem facing the Centennial Prize program is that it hasn't received any funding at all for the past 3 years. Money already allocated to the program hasn't been eliminated by congress, but at the same time nothing new has been added. It still is a line-item on the annual federal budget and is mentioned in several appropriations bills, but it makes it difficult to get anything accomplished if no money is forthcoming.
I can only hope that Charles Bolden is one of those pushing for this request for proposals and that the Obama administration is taking this seriously as well. This can be amazing and generate a lot of goodwill toward NASA if it happens, but you won't get anything to happen unless there is funding to get the contests held at all.
What this request for proposals is all about is so NASA can come to congress with a pile of hopefully good ideas that can be considered for a future contest. Smaller contests that cost on the order of a few hundred thousand dollars to perhaps a million dollars is something that congress can certainly be able to support and fund, but you need to make a compelling case about it. Hopefully congress will be willing to fund this in the future.... which I think is the reason for doing this in the first place.
I don't think you quote know the extent of the support for spaceflight that there really is, and the ability to watch something like a shuttle flight is something that may get better ratings for network television than they might think.
With the advent of live streaming via the internet, you no longer have to depend on one of the "big 3" television networks to decide if something is worth airing. You have the choice of either watching the launch on NASA-TV (I've done that a few times), or my current favorite: Watching on SpaceVidCast
Seriously, if you want to see full coverage of a shuttle flight from launch to landing, that is the place to go. On launch day, I've seen as many as 10k "viewers" on that website simultaneously during a "broadcast" or "webcast"... and this is just a backwater website that has spread only by word of mouth. Yes, when astronauts are sleeping and all that is being shown is a view out of one of the windows of the shuttle as the Earth goes by will only have a dozen or so people "logged in" and making the occasional comment. Still, there is interest in what is happening and it is awesome that you can even get such content at all.
SpaceVidcast also has a weekly "news show" about spaceflight, which is also entertaining to see in its own way. Public support for spaceflight is actually larger than you might think, and comes from a surprisingly broad group of individuals with an incredibly diverse range of backgrounds.... both conservative and liberal I might add as well, and there are strong arguments to encourage spaceflight that can be made from either a liberal or conservative viewpoint.
While I know this was intended to be funny, not "insightful", there is a little kernel of truth here. NASA really doesn't have the time or funding to do all of this research themselves.
Still, the point of doing this is due to the fact that there are many in the space exploration "fan clubs" (to use at least one term for the loosely organized groups of various kinds that support spaceflight) that have some pretty interesting ideas, and it would be a shame to throw out some very good ideas while a boring committee of government bureaucrats comes up with some stuff that doesn't really make a difference.
If NASA can get a whole bunch of excellent ideas from a wide variety of sources, perhaps one or two of those ideas can make actual contests. All of the original Centennial Challenges have been wildly successful in terms of leveraging modest amounts of government funding with a whole bunch of private investment to come up with some very useful technologies for NASA to work with in the future. From just a pure fiscal standpoint, creating these contests are an incredible boon for NASA and do several things very well:
promote NASA as an agency - Seriously, if only for P.R. purposes, all of the contests including the Northrup-Grumman Lunar Landing Challenge and many of the other contests have brought some amazingly positive P.R. for NASA that by itself is perhaps more cost-effective than other P.R. efforts by NASA such as NASA-TV and frankly the public relations office at Johnson Space Center alone.
Developing folks with skills and talent that NASA needs in the future - I could cite a whole bunch of examples here, but there has been an incredible amount of innovation with all of the recent space prize contests. Essentially a whole new industry has been created out of whole cloth... in some ways mostly out of a response to enter and win these challenges. Even more significant is how these companies are coming back to NASA and working on non-contest contracts... now that they have the experience in making space-related projects.
Encouraging the growth of the space enthusiasts community - First of all, the contests give something for folks to write about and discuss. When folks are writing about traditional NASA projects (like the Ares I), there will be the hardcore fanbois that will always be ardent supporters of NASA, but there will also be detractors. While the same can be said about the contests, what is exciting with them is that with enough people trying to compete in the contests, there is usually something to write about with all of the contestants involved. Either a new entrant into the contest, a milestone reached by one of the contestants, or perhaps upcoming "competitions" and speculating on how they will be working. More significantly, stuff is getting done.... and that is being talked about as well in usually a very positive manner when somebody "wins" the contest. Often that will even spill over into the mainstream press as well.
The contests have an end - This may seem a little bit weird, but this is also important from a taxpayer/effective use of money standpoint. Other than a few accountants and managers to oversee the broad operations of the contests as a whole, no particular contest is creating any permanent bureaucracy. The same can't be said about other NASA projects, where for example the Apollo project is still getting funding in 2009. Bureaucracies love to stick around for a very long time, and sometimes even minor projects seem to just last and last forever. Once the contest is over, it is over. Perhaps a follow-up prize can be offered, but those involved in the contest can pack their bags and move on.
Contests are results oriented - No money changes hands until after the objective has been met. While you might be able to say that perhaps a contest isn't getting enough support and the prize purse should be raised to encourage more participation, ultimately the point is that people won't get p
NASA has been involved with the development of the Falcon 9 at many of the stages, and there have been numerous design reviews that have happened as well... as per the COTS contracts.
In terms of the financial situation of Elon Musk, I should point out that Tesla Motors has been sucking him dry recently, and only his direct intervention seemed to turn that company around from a financial point of view. This has also caused SpaceX to be somewhat anemic and stretching Mr. Musk out in a number of other ways that has hurt the spaceflight aspect of his portfolio. SolarCity, on the other hand, has been doing quite well and helping him in terms of financial stability, but I'd have to agree that a whole lot is riding on the launch of the Falcon 9.
More than a couple of huge failures (aka literally blowing up on the launch pad after ignition) might sink the company, but I don't see something that drastic happening. This vehicle has been tested far too much, although almost anything could happen I suppose.
The Ariane is hardly made by a private company, so I highly doubt they would go "out of business" regardless of the price of the Falcon 9.
Still, SpaceX is going to be putting a huge amount of pressure on companies like ULA. From what I've read and heard, Boeing may be trying to break into the commercial spaceflight business with something more along the lines of what SpaceX is doing but using its own engineering experience and financial strength. Certainly there will be some competitors against SpaceX if they prove a business model that works at a lower launch cost like they are proposing.
Other launch companies also seem to be in the wings as well, possibly even giving SpaceX a run for their money if they prove to be successful. Time will tell if the business model that SpaceX is using will be successful, but the progress they have made so far seems to be successful and even profitable. Keep in mind that SpaceX has a business plan to go to Mars, which was one of the reasons why Elon Musk got the company going in the first place. As to if he will get his greenhouse on Mars is another story, but I'd like to see that happening.
SpaceX does seem to have plenty of venture capital, so I do think that this particular angle is being investigated. Due to the successful launches of the Falcon 1, SpaceX has been able to get most of the money it needs for day to day operations, although the government contracts also seem to be helping out quite a bit. Being guaranteed nearly $2 billion in revenue with signed contracts is certainly a huge carrot to dangle in front of potential investors on any project or company.
I think the main issue now with SpaceX is trying to decide on their negotiating position when receiving that kind of money and not giving away the store when getting some of that kind of investment. Most people with substantial amounts of venture capital like to be in charge and in control of the companies they invest into.
In fairness here, it should be pointed out that there was some public money that went into the earlier SpaceX test flights for the Falcon 1. Yes, Elon Musk did put up a whole bunch of his own money and it should be pointed out that neither NASA nor the U.S. Department of Defense put up any money in terms of the R&D on the Falcon 1, but there was some DARPA money spent on most of those early launches with SpaceX.
The main difference between what SpaceX is doing and what the other rocket companies like Boeing and Lockheed-Martin have been doing is that SpaceX is offering a vehicle for a more or less fixed price... a sort of "cash and carry" if you want to be a customer. Previous government contracts had been on what is called a "cost plus" contract where all of the R&D costs were included and very little financial incentive was in place to drive down the costs involved.
Essentially, earlier spacecraft development projects had all of the costs paid for by the government, and once the project was completed there was a guaranteed profit at the end (hence the "plus"). Of course that requires an army of accountants to keep track of where every penny goes and leads to bureaucratic bloat on even trying to keep track of where the money is being spent to keep embezzlement from happening on such a project. For example, on each space shuttle booster that is used on the Shuttle program (mind you, not even R&D here, but just production work in this case) has a mountain of paper work that is almost double the weight of the booster itself before it gets shipped to KSC to be attached to the orbiter for the next flight. There are dedicated cargo planes just for shipping this paperwork to Washington D.C. where it gets tossed into warehouses and sits for years afterward. I've had friends who worked for ATK and their only job was just to get signatures on this paperwork.
While SpaceX still has to deal with a mountain of paperwork, some of that can be culled out through employee trust and more conventional business structures that don't come from a government program. That is the huge difference that SpaceX is offering here, and the fact that SpaceX is still just a few hundred employees.
If NASA blew up three rockets in a row, they would be crucified by the press, and (more notably) by congress
NASA blew up many, many more than three rockets in a row. Heck, they even blew up rockets on the launch pad... live and on nationally broadcast television. One rocket even blew up about a month before Alan Shepard made his first Mercury flight.
Was NASA crucified by the press and congress? Absolutely. Jokes were made about the ineptitude of NASA on the night-time comedy shows like the Tonight Show and other variety programming. Making rockets is a tough business and even seemingly small things can make a significant difference when you are at such razor thin margins of getting things to happen.
Criticizing a private company trying to accomplish the same thing is very disingenuous here and lacking a significant historical perspective on spacecraft of any kind. Also, only one Falcon 1 rocket "blew up" in the sense you are implying here as well, and that wasn't really a blow up either unlike some NASA rockets that did literally blow up like a bomb and have nothing remaining other than some randomly scattered pieces of metal. That Falcon 1 launch had some parts that exhibited some galvanic corrosion due to is exposure to the surf of Omelek Island where it was launched. Selecting different metals for the fasteners did the trick to fix that problem... or do you think SpaceX is going to make that same mistake on the Falcon 9?
The Air Force indeed had a manned spaceflight program. Richard Truly was one of those pilots that was a part of the first "class" of astronauts assigned directly to the U.S. Air Force under the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program. That he did end up flying the Space Shuttle and became the administrator of NASA later on is sort of telling of the links between the military and NASA.
This was not some Air Force pilots who migrated over to NASA but a full-fledged military astronaut program and completely independent of NASA. Yes, this program did end up merging into the NASA astronaut corp which I think you, Xin Jing, were referring to above so this is mainly some clarification.
Military participation in NASA has also been a major component of NASA as well, as NASA did inherit several projects from the U.S. military, including the core rocket program that actually came from the U.S. Army as an artillery research program and a competing program from the U.S. Navy. Yes, the U.S. Navy does engage in spaceflight research as well, although the domain of spaceflight activities is now mostly an Air Force function. Most of the naval research involves the launch of missiles from submarines and other ships.
There are still several astronauts who hold a military commission and are still in the NASA astronaut corps. The current NASA administrator, Charles Bolden, not only held a military commission with the U.S. Marine Corps, but he also went back to the Marines and continued to serve as a general after he commanded two shuttle missions and was a pilot on two others. His service as a general officer in the Marine Corps is nearly as impressive as his service within NASA. Military pilots are often "assigned" to NASA as a billet and "temporary" service as a more complete part of their military careers.
There have also been several DoD spaceflight missions, including shuttle missions that have included "classified" payloads that are more closed monitored and supervised by the joint-chiefs. A total of nine shuttle missions fit into this category, where all of the astronauts involved were military officers and the civilian astronauts were not involved. This list of shuttle missions includes those military payloads involved.
This said, there are some purely civilian astronauts in NASA as well, including many of the pilots and those who have commanded missions as well. Neil Armstrong was explicitly chosen as the commander of Apollo 11 because he was a civilian pilot (NASA didn't want to have a military officer lead the first manned landing for P.R. purposes).
NASA was established to provide a civilian spaceflight option for the U.S. government. The civilian component was incredibly crucial at the time NASA was established, as all previous experience had been gained through military contracts. It is true that DoD participation and links continued (and still continue) within NASA, but most of what NASA does is unclassified and meets the needs of a civilian spaceflight program.
Take out that civilian aspect of NASA and you lose the heart and soul of what NASA is supposed to be.
That NASA needs to be radically overhauled and have somebody with a huge axe willing to cut out bureaucracies by removing redundant jobs by the thousands may be true, but moving it to the DoD would be a huge mistake. For myself, I wouldn't mind seeing a closer relationship between NASA and the National Science Foundation and other research-oriented parts of the government. Heck, putting NASA into a "Department of Science" might be a pretty good idea, with the NASA administrator as a deputy secretary. It would be useful for NASA issues to be dealt with on a cabinet-level basis.
There were payloads on some of the earlier Falcon 1 flights that ended up being a sort of embarrassment to SpaceX when the vehicles failed to reach orbit. Most of these payloads were flights to customers who could not have been able to afford a conventional launch, so it was mostly a free ride for what might have been successful but no guarantee on its success. A couple of satellites designed by the U.S. Air Force Academy cadets were on those flights. It was furthermore unfortunate that when the test flight that actually made it into orbit finally happened, nobody else was willing to put up a potential test article, so SpaceX had to make their own that was mostly a solid hunk of aluminum in the size, shape, and weight of a "typical" commercial satellite.
Still, I'd have to agree that the problems on the Falcon 1 were during the test flights, when clearly it was an unproven system. Problems with the Falcon 1 were not manufacturing errors but rather fundamental design errors. A manufacturing error is something where a tolerances from manufacturing would cause a part to fail occasionally, while a design error is something that would never work in the first place. The Falcon 1 has worked out most of the design issues and the manufacturing methods of SpaceX don't seem to be a huge problem.
I wouldn't call the SpaceX Falcon 9 as "uninsurable", but it certainly would be a risky move to try and be on the first launch. SpaceX also has a rather poor record on what should be test flights too, where several payloads were lost on the Falcon 1 flight attempts before SpaceX got all of the bugs worked out.
Originally, the targeted payload on this flight was just going to be a dummy payload such as the "RatSat"... basically a hunk of aluminum that would be set up to simulate a "typical" payload for future satellite customers. The idea was that it would be a test of the faring system for the Falcon 9, which is something that the Dragon test isn't going to cover.
In all honesty, the faring separation system on the Falcon 1 has not had any problems and there is little real engineering knowledge to be gained by trying to set up a similar test for the Falcon 9 when it uses roughly identical technologies. Much, much more information can be obtained from a study of the Dragon capsule... something that itself may have to go through several iterations before it is declared flight-worthy.
Really, I think this is a smart move, even if it is trying to kill two birds with one stone. An argument on some of the commercial space blogs is that SpaceX may be trying to bite off more than they can chew with this flight, reminiscent of the original Apollo "all up" tests that were a huge gamble if anything went wrong. It was a foolish move that luckily worked out for NASA when almost all of the original Saturn V sub-systems seemed to work as advertised, but sorting out what exactly caused a problem on a failure would have been very difficult to sort out. Von Braun and his engineering team had plenty of experience and had thousands of previous launches under their belts to build on, however, something that SpaceX doesn't quite have yet in spite of some successful orbital launches.
Still, things are looking good for a successful launch. SpaceX is using a rocket engine that has already been proven to work in spaceflight, as the Merlin engine on the Falcon 9 is identical to the engine used on the Falcon 1. It is a slightly different engineering domain to have nine of these engines working simultaneously and side-by-side, but test firings of those engines have already happened with full flight-duration simulations and no problems have been seen. The parts and pieces have all been tested to about as much as possible without actually putting together everything and actually doing a full launch. The experience from the Falcon 1 launches is also going to help as a number of other components are also either identical or very similar.
While there is some demand for light launches, the "medium launch" market seems to be screaming for a vehicle like the Falcon 9, particularly if SpaceX can maintain the proposed price structure that they have been advertising on their website for a number of years. I, too, wish SpaceX luck on this upcoming launch and hope that it turns out successful. Even if it ends up blowing up on the launch pad after going up only a couple of feet, some real engineering knowledge will be gained from whatever happened... and I doubt something that spectacular is going to happen. NASA had rockets that had that happen, including one that "launched" but came right back down on the pad and shut down, with everybody worrying if the thing would tip over.
HardlyManyother docu-dramas have been done by Hollywood about the other missions as well, although Apollo 13 certainly had a gripping story that is worth retelling in cinema.
Even earlier missions have made major theatrical releases from Hollywood as well. I don't think it is the fault for getting the message out. Perhaps not paying attention to this stuff when it does come out, but that isn't the same thing.
They are using sub-orbital class vehicles for the exposition at the moment (similar to Spaceship One), but it at least is something worth paying attention to and watching if it comes into full activity. They missed the Oshkosh expo this year, and the recession has forced them to pull back in terms of the scheduling, but they have made some steady progress and could be exciting.
If you watch NASA-TV and the full mission coverage, you won't be seeing much "pointless zero-G trick" and play. Unfortunately, what gets seen on the evening news broadcasts is the "highlights" of those missions include the screw-ups like losing a tool bag or showing the astronauts while they are on a break.
Do you think a news broadcast is going to show the tedium of taking two hours to put on a spacesuit for an EVA, or the 15 seconds it takes to do a 6x backflip in microgravity?
Yeah, better PR can help here, but some of this is the nature of the beast and how news organizations gather material for their readers/listeners/viewers. I do like movies like Apollo 13 that shows some of the incredibly hard work that astronauts put into doing their job, and more stuff like that can (and fortunately has) been made.
To give a plug here, also check out http://www.spacevidcast.com/ for some amazing commentary on spaceflight in general, and quite a bit on human spaceflight in particular. The Higginbothams do a pretty good job of showing both the fun and the hard work going into spaceflight, and aren't afraid to tell the novice space geek what is going on with simple words and descriptions. More NASA PR should be aimed at doing this sort of promotion of spaceflight in general, but I'm glad that Ben and Cariann have indepenent editorial control too. They cover each and every shuttle launch, landing, and even include a live feed (from NASA-TV) with a chat room during each flight to comment about what is going on. Certainly something to check out, and between flights (or when something newsworthy pops up) that is not NASA related, they also provide coverage, such as the recent coverage of the Lunar Landing Challenge attempts (I guess sort of related to NASA but not quite).
Nuclear propulsion from the Earth's surface to LEO is certainly a stupid idea. So is launching a shuttle from directly over your house. I think that ultimately Orion was proposed to be launched from mid-ocean to minimize environmental impact, but even that had problems even the engineers didn't know how to overcome.
As for nuclear rockets in space itself and once you get above low-Earth orbit... I see no problem at all for several proposals including the original Orion design. Radioactive materials far worse than what you could possible throw into interplanetary space are already "out there", except for somebody within a relatively close proximity to the business end of the vehicle. Over time, that debris would dissipate and not really be of a long term concern.
Genuine spaceships could be built, but it does take some imagination and the ability to build stuff in space... something we have learned how to do by making the ISS. I just hope those skills don't get lost.
It may not be pretty or politically correct, but you can launch something as massive as a nuclear submarine into space for a price cheaper than the U.S. Navy launches stuff into the ocean.
The videos I've seen of the working prototypes are simply amazing, and the engineering drawings included such mundane things as shipping up a 2 ton barber chair in the vehicle... something that is never added to the weight of a nuclear submarine because it weighs too much.
Again, I'm not saying this is even necessarily the best way of sending something into space either, but it is a way to get it accomplished... as per your request.
I would love to see an X-prize competition sponsored by the U.S. Navy that would offer for about USD $10 billion to a private company that would put a spacecraft capable of interplanetary flight (Earth orbit to Mars orbit, for example) and crewed by roughly the same number of crewmen found on a nuclear submarine and at least be capable of carrying weapons to be a genuine space warship. Nuclear fission rockets could certainly provide the propulsion engine for long sustained flights. Offer $3 billion for 2nd and 3rd place organizations who do the same thing and/or a contract for 5 more copies @ $3 billion each (similar to nuclear subs in price).
I bet there would be a whole bunch of companies tripping all over themselves for such a contract/competition. There are no physics breakthroughs to be done here to get this to work either, and would open up space transportation systems in ways that would be amazing. Seriously, I think such a challenge you have made here is very doable as long as the goal is to get the vehicle into space rather than presuming that it must be launched from the ground in one piece. Requiring the vehicle to be capable of atmospheric flight as well is akin to requiring a nuclear submarine to be capable of driving on an interstate highway. While such a contraption might be interesting, it is also pointless.
While I would agree that the engineering domain of getting from the surface of the Earth to Low-Earth orbit is a difficult task that is hard to fix mid-flight (most trips to LEO are on the order of a few minutes), trying to fix things once the vehicle is already in orbit is a completely different issue, however. IMHO the comparisons to nautical issues are quite similar.
Going from the Earth's surface to LEO is like trying to leave a port that has very rough surf and massive tides year-round. In such nautical situations, the vehicle has to be quite well built, have an experienced pilot (or study under that pilot as a first-mate for years) and a little bit of a touch of courage to move out under less than ideal conditions. Trying to perform ship repairs while pushing out to sea under rough conditions is something few mariners would ever attempt... either the ship makes it out to calmer seas or you remain in port. Often even good ships sink under such conditions.
Another good analogy is that this could be compared to a bunch of folks living on a small island with one harbor, or perhaps a couple of harbors in a vast ocean, and not only trying to set out to sea but also having to bring supplies with them to build some ports on what are barren rocks further out that may have access to some valuable minerals and other raw materials but not yet exploited.
Mankind has faced at least analogies to situations we will encounter in space before, and has survived and even thrived as a species for that effort. I really don't see the problems in space as being completely show stoppers that will prevent mankind from moving on... at least within the Solar System itself. Moving on to other star systems, on the other hand, may be a much more difficult and challenging task, but not something we need to face for several centuries if even then.
You can run a power line deep submersible vehicles to supplement their power supply ( as well as supply submersible to support vehicle communication )
You can also run up a power line to space from the ground through a space elevator tether. Not easily, but it could be done.
The point is that in spite of the differences, there are similarities in terms of the difficulty of getting around. Deep sea operations are nearly as complex and require nearly as much personnel as deep space operations... including unmanned operations. There have also been a number of technologies developed for space that have been applied in undersea operations and the other way around.
Also, most vehicles somewhat close to the Sun (aka within the orbit of Mars) can have nearly limitless power from solar cells. Radio communications at those distances has been practical since Marconi. Yeah, I'd call that a different environment.
I agree that most Americans don't care about the loss of life. What we do care about is "wasting" money. It sounds horrible but that's America. And, so, I think many, many people in America think human space exploration is a waste of money at this time. Of course, I'm sure the general contractors in these congressional districts feel differently and that's why you are hearing so much noise about it in Congress right now. As usual what happens in Congress has nothing to do with what the people that elected them want.
Count me in as one of those who thinks that at least NASA's effort at human space exploration as a waste of money at this time. I seriously can't understand why sending up astronauts at a quarter of a billion dollars per seat is considered efficient and healthy use of taxpayer's money when for the same amount of money somebody like Elon Musk has nearly built an entire company that can build a spacecraft to do the same thing... and that is but one example.
I am a huge fan of human spaceflight. I think it is the destiny of mankind to enter space, and we need to get up there and become a multi-planet species. Unfortunately I see NASA as an obstacle to overcome on that path to getting mankind into space rather than a vehicle which can enable that to happen. Its glory days are behind them at NASA and in a great many ways those at NASA seem to be stuck in those glory days too. Could NASA be reformed to be a genuine force for the advancement of mankind's presence in space? Yes, I do think that could happen, but it is going to take somebody with real political courage to do massive layoffs at major development centers and reorganize and restructure that agency to be something worthy of its heritage. So much so that simply killing the agency outright might not be a bad idea in my opinion and starting up something new, something completely different might be cheaper for taxpayers... and simply leveling all existing NASA buildings in the process including at KSC or simply turning them into museums.
So yes, NASA's human spaceflight program is a waste of taxpayer money.
Talk *is* cheap. And I honestly don't think that the US government has the stomach for space exploration any more. The people certainly don't... space is a hostile environment. If you feel that any loss of life is completely unacceptable, you'll never get out there, because the environment itself will kill you if you give it a chance. Take every precaution to avoid losing people, but understand and accept that every time you strap yourself to a rocket and blast into space, you're taking risks with your life. It's that 2nd part that the people at large don't seem to understand, and that's why every time there's an accident and somebody dies, the space program loses support.
Most of those in leadership positions within the U.S. government are far too self-absorbed with their own problems to really pay attention to other issues that are definitely on the "back burner" like U.S. spaceflight and space exploration. Seriously, most politicians know about enough regarding NASA to barely fill a postage stamp and not much more, including our current President. It isn't that they don't care, they simply don't know.... through sheer ignorance rather than malice.
Manned space exploration really ended in the mid-1970's anyway, with the end of the Skylab missions. While some experience and knowledge was gained from the Shuttle program, it unfortunately didn't really allow the astronauts to go anywhere "boldly where no man has gone before" that is the true hallmark of exploration. The Moon certainly could use some more genuine exploration just to find out what is up there, not to mention a great many other places in the Solar System that could use a physical presence of a human mind and be able to take in the environment of those places in real-time using every single one of the human senses to their full range and potential.
NASA really needs a refocusing of its purpose anyway. What NASA does best is to develop new technology, new techniques, and new ideas. That should be encouraged, including some of the very novel propulsion methods like ion drive and space sails. The concept of an air-bag landing on Mars with the mars rover program is one of those genuinely innovative examples of how NASA can do something amazing if given the chance. Becoming the Amtrack of spacelines is not one of those things that NASA does well, or for that matter any government agency does well for that matter. NASA can and should get out of the LEO transporation business as it is a proven engineering domain that doesn't need yet one more expensive method for getting up there. THAT is why the Ares I needs to be cancelled, in spite of the money already dumped on it.
As for the ISS, I just don't see the public support for deorbiting that thing in 5 years. It will last at least until 2020, when Obama's successor will have to figure out what to do with that albatross of a spacecraft. Hopefully Obama will give his successor the option to deal with it at least.
Slashdot Mirror
Too bad the contest ideas aren't being submitted via a wiki instead. It would be fun to take some of the contest ideas and have some collaborative writing to help refine the ideas and improve them to something worth paying attention to.
Yeah, I know that isn't the usual proposal process for an organization like NASA, but it is an alternative that could improve the quality of submissions and be able to even have some "self-organizing" in terms of getting a community of interested folks put together and helping to perform the scoring a well.
I've seen wiki projects where there are some outstanding gems but also a whole bunch of garbage... and that the gems seem to rise out of the ashes as well. Wikipedia is an excellent example of that, but I've seen it happen elsewhere.
Launch loops do have some significant engineering and even pure physical challenges in order to get them to work.... many of which they do share with space elevators. While I will admit that launch loops seem to be a bit more practical than a space elevator, both technologies are years or even centuries away from happening on a realistic level.
This is a technology that I think would be incredibly exciting to see happen, but there certainly are some advances needed in materials science and even engineering in order to get this to work.
If you can teleport even a single amino acid, I would be very much impressed. Right now most of the work is teleporting a single atom or perhaps for the very ambitious are sending a complete water molecule... and getting published in peer-reviewed scientific journals for doing that too!
While in theory it may be possible (teleportation is a side effect of quantum computing), that is something for the far, far distant future... if it ever will happen at all on a macroscopic basis. I'm floored that it is even remotely possible, but it is an area of active research if for nothing more than pure physical science and just trying to figure out what is happening.
While the naming contest was strictly a publicity stunt, the issue about the hardware development contests is a bit more serious.
The #1 problem facing the Centennial Prize program is that it hasn't received any funding at all for the past 3 years. Money already allocated to the program hasn't been eliminated by congress, but at the same time nothing new has been added. It still is a line-item on the annual federal budget and is mentioned in several appropriations bills, but it makes it difficult to get anything accomplished if no money is forthcoming.
I can only hope that Charles Bolden is one of those pushing for this request for proposals and that the Obama administration is taking this seriously as well. This can be amazing and generate a lot of goodwill toward NASA if it happens, but you won't get anything to happen unless there is funding to get the contests held at all.
What this request for proposals is all about is so NASA can come to congress with a pile of hopefully good ideas that can be considered for a future contest. Smaller contests that cost on the order of a few hundred thousand dollars to perhaps a million dollars is something that congress can certainly be able to support and fund, but you need to make a compelling case about it. Hopefully congress will be willing to fund this in the future.... which I think is the reason for doing this in the first place.
I don't think you quote know the extent of the support for spaceflight that there really is, and the ability to watch something like a shuttle flight is something that may get better ratings for network television than they might think.
With the advent of live streaming via the internet, you no longer have to depend on one of the "big 3" television networks to decide if something is worth airing. You have the choice of either watching the launch on NASA-TV (I've done that a few times), or my current favorite: Watching on SpaceVidCast
Seriously, if you want to see full coverage of a shuttle flight from launch to landing, that is the place to go. On launch day, I've seen as many as 10k "viewers" on that website simultaneously during a "broadcast" or "webcast"... and this is just a backwater website that has spread only by word of mouth. Yes, when astronauts are sleeping and all that is being shown is a view out of one of the windows of the shuttle as the Earth goes by will only have a dozen or so people "logged in" and making the occasional comment. Still, there is interest in what is happening and it is awesome that you can even get such content at all.
SpaceVidcast also has a weekly "news show" about spaceflight, which is also entertaining to see in its own way. Public support for spaceflight is actually larger than you might think, and comes from a surprisingly broad group of individuals with an incredibly diverse range of backgrounds.... both conservative and liberal I might add as well, and there are strong arguments to encourage spaceflight that can be made from either a liberal or conservative viewpoint.
While I know this was intended to be funny, not "insightful", there is a little kernel of truth here. NASA really doesn't have the time or funding to do all of this research themselves.
Still, the point of doing this is due to the fact that there are many in the space exploration "fan clubs" (to use at least one term for the loosely organized groups of various kinds that support spaceflight) that have some pretty interesting ideas, and it would be a shame to throw out some very good ideas while a boring committee of government bureaucrats comes up with some stuff that doesn't really make a difference.
If NASA can get a whole bunch of excellent ideas from a wide variety of sources, perhaps one or two of those ideas can make actual contests. All of the original Centennial Challenges have been wildly successful in terms of leveraging modest amounts of government funding with a whole bunch of private investment to come up with some very useful technologies for NASA to work with in the future. From just a pure fiscal standpoint, creating these contests are an incredible boon for NASA and do several things very well:
NASA has been involved with the development of the Falcon 9 at many of the stages, and there have been numerous design reviews that have happened as well... as per the COTS contracts.
In terms of the financial situation of Elon Musk, I should point out that Tesla Motors has been sucking him dry recently, and only his direct intervention seemed to turn that company around from a financial point of view. This has also caused SpaceX to be somewhat anemic and stretching Mr. Musk out in a number of other ways that has hurt the spaceflight aspect of his portfolio. SolarCity, on the other hand, has been doing quite well and helping him in terms of financial stability, but I'd have to agree that a whole lot is riding on the launch of the Falcon 9.
More than a couple of huge failures (aka literally blowing up on the launch pad after ignition) might sink the company, but I don't see something that drastic happening. This vehicle has been tested far too much, although almost anything could happen I suppose.
The Ariane is hardly made by a private company, so I highly doubt they would go "out of business" regardless of the price of the Falcon 9.
Still, SpaceX is going to be putting a huge amount of pressure on companies like ULA. From what I've read and heard, Boeing may be trying to break into the commercial spaceflight business with something more along the lines of what SpaceX is doing but using its own engineering experience and financial strength. Certainly there will be some competitors against SpaceX if they prove a business model that works at a lower launch cost like they are proposing.
Other launch companies also seem to be in the wings as well, possibly even giving SpaceX a run for their money if they prove to be successful. Time will tell if the business model that SpaceX is using will be successful, but the progress they have made so far seems to be successful and even profitable. Keep in mind that SpaceX has a business plan to go to Mars, which was one of the reasons why Elon Musk got the company going in the first place. As to if he will get his greenhouse on Mars is another story, but I'd like to see that happening.
SpaceX does seem to have plenty of venture capital, so I do think that this particular angle is being investigated. Due to the successful launches of the Falcon 1, SpaceX has been able to get most of the money it needs for day to day operations, although the government contracts also seem to be helping out quite a bit. Being guaranteed nearly $2 billion in revenue with signed contracts is certainly a huge carrot to dangle in front of potential investors on any project or company.
I think the main issue now with SpaceX is trying to decide on their negotiating position when receiving that kind of money and not giving away the store when getting some of that kind of investment. Most people with substantial amounts of venture capital like to be in charge and in control of the companies they invest into.
In fairness here, it should be pointed out that there was some public money that went into the earlier SpaceX test flights for the Falcon 1. Yes, Elon Musk did put up a whole bunch of his own money and it should be pointed out that neither NASA nor the U.S. Department of Defense put up any money in terms of the R&D on the Falcon 1, but there was some DARPA money spent on most of those early launches with SpaceX.
The main difference between what SpaceX is doing and what the other rocket companies like Boeing and Lockheed-Martin have been doing is that SpaceX is offering a vehicle for a more or less fixed price... a sort of "cash and carry" if you want to be a customer. Previous government contracts had been on what is called a "cost plus" contract where all of the R&D costs were included and very little financial incentive was in place to drive down the costs involved.
Essentially, earlier spacecraft development projects had all of the costs paid for by the government, and once the project was completed there was a guaranteed profit at the end (hence the "plus"). Of course that requires an army of accountants to keep track of where every penny goes and leads to bureaucratic bloat on even trying to keep track of where the money is being spent to keep embezzlement from happening on such a project. For example, on each space shuttle booster that is used on the Shuttle program (mind you, not even R&D here, but just production work in this case) has a mountain of paper work that is almost double the weight of the booster itself before it gets shipped to KSC to be attached to the orbiter for the next flight. There are dedicated cargo planes just for shipping this paperwork to Washington D.C. where it gets tossed into warehouses and sits for years afterward. I've had friends who worked for ATK and their only job was just to get signatures on this paperwork.
While SpaceX still has to deal with a mountain of paperwork, some of that can be culled out through employee trust and more conventional business structures that don't come from a government program. That is the huge difference that SpaceX is offering here, and the fact that SpaceX is still just a few hundred employees.
If NASA blew up three rockets in a row, they would be crucified by the press, and (more notably) by congress
NASA blew up many, many more than three rockets in a row. Heck, they even blew up rockets on the launch pad... live and on nationally broadcast television. One rocket even blew up about a month before Alan Shepard made his first Mercury flight.
Was NASA crucified by the press and congress? Absolutely. Jokes were made about the ineptitude of NASA on the night-time comedy shows like the Tonight Show and other variety programming. Making rockets is a tough business and even seemingly small things can make a significant difference when you are at such razor thin margins of getting things to happen.
Criticizing a private company trying to accomplish the same thing is very disingenuous here and lacking a significant historical perspective on spacecraft of any kind. Also, only one Falcon 1 rocket "blew up" in the sense you are implying here as well, and that wasn't really a blow up either unlike some NASA rockets that did literally blow up like a bomb and have nothing remaining other than some randomly scattered pieces of metal. That Falcon 1 launch had some parts that exhibited some galvanic corrosion due to is exposure to the surf of Omelek Island where it was launched. Selecting different metals for the fasteners did the trick to fix that problem... or do you think SpaceX is going to make that same mistake on the Falcon 9?
The Air Force indeed had a manned spaceflight program. Richard Truly was one of those pilots that was a part of the first "class" of astronauts assigned directly to the U.S. Air Force under the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program. That he did end up flying the Space Shuttle and became the administrator of NASA later on is sort of telling of the links between the military and NASA.
This was not some Air Force pilots who migrated over to NASA but a full-fledged military astronaut program and completely independent of NASA. Yes, this program did end up merging into the NASA astronaut corp which I think you, Xin Jing, were referring to above so this is mainly some clarification.
Military participation in NASA has also been a major component of NASA as well, as NASA did inherit several projects from the U.S. military, including the core rocket program that actually came from the U.S. Army as an artillery research program and a competing program from the U.S. Navy. Yes, the U.S. Navy does engage in spaceflight research as well, although the domain of spaceflight activities is now mostly an Air Force function. Most of the naval research involves the launch of missiles from submarines and other ships.
There are still several astronauts who hold a military commission and are still in the NASA astronaut corps. The current NASA administrator, Charles Bolden, not only held a military commission with the U.S. Marine Corps, but he also went back to the Marines and continued to serve as a general after he commanded two shuttle missions and was a pilot on two others. His service as a general officer in the Marine Corps is nearly as impressive as his service within NASA. Military pilots are often "assigned" to NASA as a billet and "temporary" service as a more complete part of their military careers.
There have also been several DoD spaceflight missions, including shuttle missions that have included "classified" payloads that are more closed monitored and supervised by the joint-chiefs. A total of nine shuttle missions fit into this category, where all of the astronauts involved were military officers and the civilian astronauts were not involved. This list of shuttle missions includes those military payloads involved.
This said, there are some purely civilian astronauts in NASA as well, including many of the pilots and those who have commanded missions as well. Neil Armstrong was explicitly chosen as the commander of Apollo 11 because he was a civilian pilot (NASA didn't want to have a military officer lead the first manned landing for P.R. purposes).
NASA was established to provide a civilian spaceflight option for the U.S. government. The civilian component was incredibly crucial at the time NASA was established, as all previous experience had been gained through military contracts. It is true that DoD participation and links continued (and still continue) within NASA, but most of what NASA does is unclassified and meets the needs of a civilian spaceflight program.
Take out that civilian aspect of NASA and you lose the heart and soul of what NASA is supposed to be.
That NASA needs to be radically overhauled and have somebody with a huge axe willing to cut out bureaucracies by removing redundant jobs by the thousands may be true, but moving it to the DoD would be a huge mistake. For myself, I wouldn't mind seeing a closer relationship between NASA and the National Science Foundation and other research-oriented parts of the government. Heck, putting NASA into a "Department of Science" might be a pretty good idea, with the NASA administrator as a deputy secretary. It would be useful for NASA issues to be dealt with on a cabinet-level basis.
neither.... it is an American falcon!
There were payloads on some of the earlier Falcon 1 flights that ended up being a sort of embarrassment to SpaceX when the vehicles failed to reach orbit. Most of these payloads were flights to customers who could not have been able to afford a conventional launch, so it was mostly a free ride for what might have been successful but no guarantee on its success. A couple of satellites designed by the U.S. Air Force Academy cadets were on those flights. It was furthermore unfortunate that when the test flight that actually made it into orbit finally happened, nobody else was willing to put up a potential test article, so SpaceX had to make their own that was mostly a solid hunk of aluminum in the size, shape, and weight of a "typical" commercial satellite.
Still, I'd have to agree that the problems on the Falcon 1 were during the test flights, when clearly it was an unproven system. Problems with the Falcon 1 were not manufacturing errors but rather fundamental design errors. A manufacturing error is something where a tolerances from manufacturing would cause a part to fail occasionally, while a design error is something that would never work in the first place. The Falcon 1 has worked out most of the design issues and the manufacturing methods of SpaceX don't seem to be a huge problem.
I wouldn't call the SpaceX Falcon 9 as "uninsurable", but it certainly would be a risky move to try and be on the first launch. SpaceX also has a rather poor record on what should be test flights too, where several payloads were lost on the Falcon 1 flight attempts before SpaceX got all of the bugs worked out.
Originally, the targeted payload on this flight was just going to be a dummy payload such as the "RatSat"... basically a hunk of aluminum that would be set up to simulate a "typical" payload for future satellite customers. The idea was that it would be a test of the faring system for the Falcon 9, which is something that the Dragon test isn't going to cover.
In all honesty, the faring separation system on the Falcon 1 has not had any problems and there is little real engineering knowledge to be gained by trying to set up a similar test for the Falcon 9 when it uses roughly identical technologies. Much, much more information can be obtained from a study of the Dragon capsule... something that itself may have to go through several iterations before it is declared flight-worthy.
Really, I think this is a smart move, even if it is trying to kill two birds with one stone. An argument on some of the commercial space blogs is that SpaceX may be trying to bite off more than they can chew with this flight, reminiscent of the original Apollo "all up" tests that were a huge gamble if anything went wrong. It was a foolish move that luckily worked out for NASA when almost all of the original Saturn V sub-systems seemed to work as advertised, but sorting out what exactly caused a problem on a failure would have been very difficult to sort out. Von Braun and his engineering team had plenty of experience and had thousands of previous launches under their belts to build on, however, something that SpaceX doesn't quite have yet in spite of some successful orbital launches.
Still, things are looking good for a successful launch. SpaceX is using a rocket engine that has already been proven to work in spaceflight, as the Merlin engine on the Falcon 9 is identical to the engine used on the Falcon 1. It is a slightly different engineering domain to have nine of these engines working simultaneously and side-by-side, but test firings of those engines have already happened with full flight-duration simulations and no problems have been seen. The parts and pieces have all been tested to about as much as possible without actually putting together everything and actually doing a full launch. The experience from the Falcon 1 launches is also going to help as a number of other components are also either identical or very similar.
While there is some demand for light launches, the "medium launch" market seems to be screaming for a vehicle like the Falcon 9, particularly if SpaceX can maintain the proposed price structure that they have been advertising on their website for a number of years. I, too, wish SpaceX luck on this upcoming launch and hope that it turns out successful. Even if it ends up blowing up on the launch pad after going up only a couple of feet, some real engineering knowledge will be gained from whatever happened... and I doubt something that spectacular is going to happen. NASA had rockets that had that happen, including one that "launched" but came right back down on the pad and shut down, with everybody worrying if the thing would tip over.
Hardly Many other docu-dramas have been done by Hollywood about the other missions as well, although Apollo 13 certainly had a gripping story that is worth retelling in cinema.
Even earlier missions have made major theatrical releases from Hollywood as well. I don't think it is the fault for getting the message out. Perhaps not paying attention to this stuff when it does come out, but that isn't the same thing.
If you are into deadly crashes of rockets and how things can go boom in space, check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Racing_League
They are using sub-orbital class vehicles for the exposition at the moment (similar to Spaceship One), but it at least is something worth paying attention to and watching if it comes into full activity. They missed the Oshkosh expo this year, and the recession has forced them to pull back in terms of the scheduling, but they have made some steady progress and could be exciting.
If you watch NASA-TV and the full mission coverage, you won't be seeing much "pointless zero-G trick" and play. Unfortunately, what gets seen on the evening news broadcasts is the "highlights" of those missions include the screw-ups like losing a tool bag or showing the astronauts while they are on a break.
Do you think a news broadcast is going to show the tedium of taking two hours to put on a spacesuit for an EVA, or the 15 seconds it takes to do a 6x backflip in microgravity?
Yeah, better PR can help here, but some of this is the nature of the beast and how news organizations gather material for their readers/listeners/viewers. I do like movies like Apollo 13 that shows some of the incredibly hard work that astronauts put into doing their job, and more stuff like that can (and fortunately has) been made.
To give a plug here, also check out http://www.spacevidcast.com/ for some amazing commentary on spaceflight in general, and quite a bit on human spaceflight in particular. The Higginbothams do a pretty good job of showing both the fun and the hard work going into spaceflight, and aren't afraid to tell the novice space geek what is going on with simple words and descriptions. More NASA PR should be aimed at doing this sort of promotion of spaceflight in general, but I'm glad that Ben and Cariann have indepenent editorial control too. They cover each and every shuttle launch, landing, and even include a live feed (from NASA-TV) with a chat room during each flight to comment about what is going on. Certainly something to check out, and between flights (or when something newsworthy pops up) that is not NASA related, they also provide coverage, such as the recent coverage of the Lunar Landing Challenge attempts (I guess sort of related to NASA but not quite).
Nuclear propulsion from the Earth's surface to LEO is certainly a stupid idea. So is launching a shuttle from directly over your house. I think that ultimately Orion was proposed to be launched from mid-ocean to minimize environmental impact, but even that had problems even the engineers didn't know how to overcome.
As for nuclear rockets in space itself and once you get above low-Earth orbit... I see no problem at all for several proposals including the original Orion design. Radioactive materials far worse than what you could possible throw into interplanetary space are already "out there", except for somebody within a relatively close proximity to the business end of the vehicle. Over time, that debris would dissipate and not really be of a long term concern.
Genuine spaceships could be built, but it does take some imagination and the ability to build stuff in space... something we have learned how to do by making the ISS. I just hope those skills don't get lost.
It may not be pretty or politically correct, but you can launch something as massive as a nuclear submarine into space for a price cheaper than the U.S. Navy launches stuff into the ocean.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion) for details
The videos I've seen of the working prototypes are simply amazing, and the engineering drawings included such mundane things as shipping up a 2 ton barber chair in the vehicle... something that is never added to the weight of a nuclear submarine because it weighs too much.
Again, I'm not saying this is even necessarily the best way of sending something into space either, but it is a way to get it accomplished... as per your request.
I would love to see an X-prize competition sponsored by the U.S. Navy that would offer for about USD $10 billion to a private company that would put a spacecraft capable of interplanetary flight (Earth orbit to Mars orbit, for example) and crewed by roughly the same number of crewmen found on a nuclear submarine and at least be capable of carrying weapons to be a genuine space warship. Nuclear fission rockets could certainly provide the propulsion engine for long sustained flights. Offer $3 billion for 2nd and 3rd place organizations who do the same thing and/or a contract for 5 more copies @ $3 billion each (similar to nuclear subs in price).
I bet there would be a whole bunch of companies tripping all over themselves for such a contract/competition. There are no physics breakthroughs to be done here to get this to work either, and would open up space transportation systems in ways that would be amazing. Seriously, I think such a challenge you have made here is very doable as long as the goal is to get the vehicle into space rather than presuming that it must be launched from the ground in one piece. Requiring the vehicle to be capable of atmospheric flight as well is akin to requiring a nuclear submarine to be capable of driving on an interstate highway. While such a contraption might be interesting, it is also pointless.
While I would agree that the engineering domain of getting from the surface of the Earth to Low-Earth orbit is a difficult task that is hard to fix mid-flight (most trips to LEO are on the order of a few minutes), trying to fix things once the vehicle is already in orbit is a completely different issue, however. IMHO the comparisons to nautical issues are quite similar.
Going from the Earth's surface to LEO is like trying to leave a port that has very rough surf and massive tides year-round. In such nautical situations, the vehicle has to be quite well built, have an experienced pilot (or study under that pilot as a first-mate for years) and a little bit of a touch of courage to move out under less than ideal conditions. Trying to perform ship repairs while pushing out to sea under rough conditions is something few mariners would ever attempt... either the ship makes it out to calmer seas or you remain in port. Often even good ships sink under such conditions.
Another good analogy is that this could be compared to a bunch of folks living on a small island with one harbor, or perhaps a couple of harbors in a vast ocean, and not only trying to set out to sea but also having to bring supplies with them to build some ports on what are barren rocks further out that may have access to some valuable minerals and other raw materials but not yet exploited.
Mankind has faced at least analogies to situations we will encounter in space before, and has survived and even thrived as a species for that effort. I really don't see the problems in space as being completely show stoppers that will prevent mankind from moving on... at least within the Solar System itself. Moving on to other star systems, on the other hand, may be a much more difficult and challenging task, but not something we need to face for several centuries if even then.
You can run a power line deep submersible vehicles to supplement their power supply ( as well as supply submersible to support vehicle communication )
You can also run up a power line to space from the ground through a space elevator tether. Not easily, but it could be done.
The point is that in spite of the differences, there are similarities in terms of the difficulty of getting around. Deep sea operations are nearly as complex and require nearly as much personnel as deep space operations... including unmanned operations. There have also been a number of technologies developed for space that have been applied in undersea operations and the other way around.
Also, most vehicles somewhat close to the Sun (aka within the orbit of Mars) can have nearly limitless power from solar cells. Radio communications at those distances has been practical since Marconi. Yeah, I'd call that a different environment.
I agree that most Americans don't care about the loss of life. What we do care about is "wasting" money. It sounds horrible but that's America. And, so, I think many, many people in America think human space exploration is a waste of money at this time. Of course, I'm sure the general contractors in these congressional districts feel differently and that's why you are hearing so much noise about it in Congress right now. As usual what happens in Congress has nothing to do with what the people that elected them want.
Count me in as one of those who thinks that at least NASA's effort at human space exploration as a waste of money at this time. I seriously can't understand why sending up astronauts at a quarter of a billion dollars per seat is considered efficient and healthy use of taxpayer's money when for the same amount of money somebody like Elon Musk has nearly built an entire company that can build a spacecraft to do the same thing... and that is but one example.
I am a huge fan of human spaceflight. I think it is the destiny of mankind to enter space, and we need to get up there and become a multi-planet species. Unfortunately I see NASA as an obstacle to overcome on that path to getting mankind into space rather than a vehicle which can enable that to happen. Its glory days are behind them at NASA and in a great many ways those at NASA seem to be stuck in those glory days too. Could NASA be reformed to be a genuine force for the advancement of mankind's presence in space? Yes, I do think that could happen, but it is going to take somebody with real political courage to do massive layoffs at major development centers and reorganize and restructure that agency to be something worthy of its heritage. So much so that simply killing the agency outright might not be a bad idea in my opinion and starting up something new, something completely different might be cheaper for taxpayers... and simply leveling all existing NASA buildings in the process including at KSC or simply turning them into museums.
So yes, NASA's human spaceflight program is a waste of taxpayer money.
Talk *is* cheap. And I honestly don't think that the US government has the stomach for space exploration any more. The people certainly don't... space is a hostile environment. If you feel that any loss of life is completely unacceptable, you'll never get out there, because the environment itself will kill you if you give it a chance. Take every precaution to avoid losing people, but understand and accept that every time you strap yourself to a rocket and blast into space, you're taking risks with your life. It's that 2nd part that the people at large don't seem to understand, and that's why every time there's an accident and somebody dies, the space program loses support.
Most of those in leadership positions within the U.S. government are far too self-absorbed with their own problems to really pay attention to other issues that are definitely on the "back burner" like U.S. spaceflight and space exploration. Seriously, most politicians know about enough regarding NASA to barely fill a postage stamp and not much more, including our current President. It isn't that they don't care, they simply don't know.... through sheer ignorance rather than malice.
Manned space exploration really ended in the mid-1970's anyway, with the end of the Skylab missions. While some experience and knowledge was gained from the Shuttle program, it unfortunately didn't really allow the astronauts to go anywhere "boldly where no man has gone before" that is the true hallmark of exploration. The Moon certainly could use some more genuine exploration just to find out what is up there, not to mention a great many other places in the Solar System that could use a physical presence of a human mind and be able to take in the environment of those places in real-time using every single one of the human senses to their full range and potential.
NASA really needs a refocusing of its purpose anyway. What NASA does best is to develop new technology, new techniques, and new ideas. That should be encouraged, including some of the very novel propulsion methods like ion drive and space sails. The concept of an air-bag landing on Mars with the mars rover program is one of those genuinely innovative examples of how NASA can do something amazing if given the chance. Becoming the Amtrack of spacelines is not one of those things that NASA does well, or for that matter any government agency does well for that matter. NASA can and should get out of the LEO transporation business as it is a proven engineering domain that doesn't need yet one more expensive method for getting up there. THAT is why the Ares I needs to be cancelled, in spite of the money already dumped on it.
As for the ISS, I just don't see the public support for deorbiting that thing in 5 years. It will last at least until 2020, when Obama's successor will have to figure out what to do with that albatross of a spacecraft. Hopefully Obama will give his successor the option to deal with it at least.