Time to Get Serious About Space Again
In war, we risk soldiers’, sailors’ and airmens’ lives every day. In the Navy, sailors are expected to risk, and even sacrifice, their lives if necessary to save a ship. But preserving the ISS, in which the nation has invested more than the cost of dozens of carrier battle groups, isn’t worth the risk of people, a key part of whose job description is exactly to take such risks? Are NASA astronauts national heroes, or national treasures, too valuable to hazard on actual spaceflight?
Well, some may have noticed that we’re in a new Cold War with the successor to our old adversary. Russia is sending assault helicopters and ships to help its ally in Syria remain in power and slaughter its people, not to mention its ongoing aid to Iran with its nuclear/missiles programs. There is a law called the Iran North Korea Syria Non-Proliferation Act (INSKNA) that dictates we not do business with nations that do such things, but it is toothless, at least with regard to Russia. Why?
Because every time we negotiate a new contract with the Russians to get our astronauts to and from the ISS, Congress is compelled to waive INSKNA. Given that Congress wants to continually underfund the commercial crew program which is the only hope of ending our dependence on them (now stretched out to 2017 according to NASA), the State Department is deprived of a means by which to pressure our adversary.
But there’s a solution. The 2017 date assumes business as usual, in which the crew providers meet NASA’s exacting safety standards, most importantly a launch abort system in case of a mishap during parts of the ascent. But SpaceX has now flown two flights with its Dragon capsule, one of which went to and from the ISS a couple weeks ago. On both of which, astronauts would have done just fine, with couches and a life-support system. Were they to accelerate development of the latter, they could probably get crew to and from ISS this year in an emergency. If Boeing were to skip some unmanned testing of their CST capsule (as NASA did with Apollo 8), they could probably be ready in a year or two themselves. There are doubtless astronauts who would be willing to fly such a mission and show that, like their predecessors in the sixties, they too have “the right stuff,” willing to risk their lives for their nation. Safety improvements could come along later, as they always do (there are never absolutes in such things).
The question is, is this an emergency? If the ISS isn’t important, why did we spend so much time and treasure on it? If it is important, why do we make ourselves hostage to a foreign and hostile power for access to it? If non-proliferation isn’t important, why did we pass a law about it?
It is time for the Congress, and perhaps the nation itself, to make up its mind whether or not it is serious about both our national security, and opening up a new frontier. Frontiers have never been opened without risk, and this one will be no different.
Yes, what we need is to have the government spend a bunch of money on innovation. Good thinking conservatives. I’m so excited to have people like you in power keepin government small.
Allen, I saw nothing in Mr. Simberg’s article that said anything about government giving a bunch of money for innovation. The way I read it, he was encouraging NASA to do its best to push forward with programs already in development, such as SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and Boeing’s CST capsule. These are private enterprises. There’s nothing about government funding.
Manned space flight is big government. The ISS is big government.
Non-manned space flight for basic science and exploration is smart, small government.
Except for the fact that those unmanned exploration space missions are conducted by the same government agency that does manned spaceflight. How can that same agency be small government in one situation and big government in another?
And SpaceX and the other commercial companies are working on manned spaceflight that doesn’t need the government as a customer, such as Bigelow.
Larry asked:
“Except for the fact that those unmanned exploration space missions are conducted by the same government agency that does manned spaceflight. How can that same agency be small government in one situation and big government in another?”
NASA is *not* a monolith, that’s how. NASA is far more a feudal construct of separate Centers than it is a centrally controlled entity, no matter how much the political community wants to pretend otherwise. Even within Centers, there are advocates of “the SLS is our only next logical step into Space” point of view, within shouting distance of people who are trying to learn how to plan and build and operate reusable lunar landers, using a lander from a small NewSpace company as a model.
The CCiCAP program exists in the same agency from which people regularly call forth to investors that all non-NASA Club builders of spacecraft are amateurs, to be shunned. Indeed, one of the best uses of both Commercial Crew Office and the CRUSR office is to provide a place for investors to do their proper due diligence without the bias against all private Space, that existed in so much of NASA between 1979 and 2004, and revived again in 2009.
It’s about time you pinheads drop the whole “small government” meme, something that has never existed in your lifetime, nor the lifetime of your forebears. How did the airline industry get started? US government investment into air mail. How about roads for cars? Do you think Henry Ford did that? You think the interstates bloomed into being overnight for no reason? Did private enterprise dream up the nuclear energy and power industry? No. All of these things were done by REPUBLICAN leadership, utilising the government in one of its legitimate functions, i.e. doing what can’t be done realistically by private enterprise.
Meanwhile clowns like you can’t seem to grasp that proper government investment is a time honoured and legitimate role and has been thus for well over a century. It might help your cause somewhat if you at least *pretended* to have a grasp on reality.
Since you called me a “clown” and a “pinhead”, I believe everything you say. Saul Alinksky is proud of you.
Since when are “proper government” and “small government” mutually exclusive?
Not even the most avid Libertarian says that government has no role. So stop putting words in our mouths.
The problem is, big government, big idea people like you have no concept of restraint and limited means. Just print more money! That’ll solve all our problems!
If you are going to argue against libertarianism, at least grant us the courtesy of understanding our positions. It’ll take some courage on your part, something you Leftists have little of….
If you are going to argue against libertarianism, at least grant us the courtesy of understanding our positions. It’ll take some courage on your part, something you Leftists have little of….
What I understand is that something like nuclear power requires oversight by the federal government, which by definition requires more government. Almost all government growth etc is in response to the advances of technology, and this is the way things are. You don’t actually have a rational position unless you’re a complete luddite or have some fantasy belief that technology ought to be an anarchy-fed free for all. You hear that? It’s the clue phone. For you.
Prudent oversight to prevent loss to innocent 3rd parties, yes. A bunch of fanatical leftie burocrats doing their best to kill an industry because they think it harms mother gaia, no. Its all about honesty, moderation, perspective, and restraint, and the left has none. As others said, libertarians suport smaller gov, not no government.
I would also point out that most of those successful gov supported innovations you cited was because the gov needed the technology to support an already legit gov purpose, like delivering mail, moving troops across the country, exploring a new space frontier, or having nuke power plants for gov bases and ships. But when gov tries to support a technology, just because they want to advance the technology, without another legit gov purpose, they end up with gov trying to pick winners and losers, and normally picking politically connected losers, like with Obama green energy scams.
But when gov tries to support a technology, just because they want to advance the technology, without another legit gov purpose, they end up with gov trying to pick winners and losers, and normally picking politically connected losers, like with Obama green energy scams.
Legit military use of green (energy) tech would be the case of a base in hostile territory (e.g. Afghanistan) where a renewable and/or otherwise simple power source not needing fuel would be beneficial. It would also not cause harm if it fell into the wrong hands, unlike say a Toshiba portable nuke plant, and wouldn’t require constant fuel deliveries otherwise.
While I like you am vehemently opposed to Obama’s administration and their promotion of green scams, you can’t really put this under one tent. Legit government investment and research funding is acceptable; government forcing taxpayers to pay for “green” idiocy via forcing public utilities to adopt schemes that clearly aren’t working (windmills) is not.
Where it concerns NASA, I reckon that certainly the government ought to be charging the agency with development of cheap access to space, e.g. SSTO X project type of stuff. NASA ought not be the sole access to space for the lucky few. Rather, it ought to be in the business of providing baseline technology for US businesses. This like the military base example above is certainly legit government interest.
Actually,, as someone who’s dealt with people who espouse the “libertarianism” ideals, I have yet to see any of them truly argue from a reasoned standpoint. I have heard them complain about how high their taxes are…..and in the next breath, whine about how much trouble they had getting to a meeting because of bad condition of the roads. I have heard them brag about the need to ‘cut wasteful government spending’, then turn around and b*tch about the congestion that held up their landing at the (government-built) airport. Their mantra is to bring back the ‘Glory Days’ of “small” government, like the one we had in the 1800′s…..yet ignore the way that same government poured money into projects like the Trans-Continental railroad. They talk of space as the place to ‘get away’ from the “interference” of Big Government, like the ‘pioneers’ did during the westward expansion of the US….and ignore the fact that, as soon as they could, those same pioneers did everything legal (and occasionally not so) to get the territories they had settled made into states, subject to the same Big Government they had supposedly fled.
In short, when I run into a “libertarian” who argues from reason, I will answer in kind, Until that time, while all they do is spout slogans and general BS, I’ll laugh heartily at them and their ignorance.
The internet is result of Apranet, it is the core of Internet and result of research program managed by DARPA, the defense advanced research projects Agency. Darpa has managed and funded dozens of inventions and discoveries that ended up on your desktop, cellphone, automobile and countless other consumer products.
The Apollo program created another set of technologies including Advanced Kidney Dialysis, textiles that cool/heat, Blow molding that provided the method to mass produce tennis shoes and related consumer goods, the industry of reflective materials, advanced water filtration, freeze dried foods, hazardous monitoring, Dry Lubricants, Metal bonded insulation used on the Alaska Pipeline, Fire suits worn by today’s firemen and Hazmat workers and dozens more.
These are just two agencies, the Military has several times more than these. Govt is a terrible entity to manage many things, but is the perfect entity to create, discover and promote technology so private enterprise can exploit and develop them for commercial application.
The Chinese will have a Moonbase by 2025. If America loses the high ground in outer space, there is no recovering. Helium 3 is the next great energy source, and the only viable source is the Surface of Moon. This is the next level of energy production and will provide cheap nearly unlimited source of energy.
So yes, we can surrender innovation and discovery to the rest of the world, but it would be a tragedy if we did.
ARPANet was conceived by governmental and academia research, ’tis true.
But it wasn’t until the evil capitalist world took over and figured out a way to make money on it that it really took off. Had government kept all tags and title to it and didn’t allow innovation and changes (and DNS servers, faster routers, fiber optics, HTML and a lot of other stuff that was was developed by nasty capitalists) we wouldn’t be talking about it now.
We probably wouldn’t even know it exists, aside from obscure articles in tech journals.
Once the initial conception’s done, the best thing for government to do is get pretty much out of the way.
Oh my god: every lame cliche ever mounted in pursuit of this folly, here for your viewing pleasure. Space is a black hole, into which we have poured billions and billions of dollars. But, lest we lose this “investment”, we need to spend billions more.
What we have learned from human space flight is chiefly the effect of space flight on humans. But don’t get me wrong: if you think you (Space X, whatever) can make it work, be my guest. Just do it on your own nickel. You think asteroid mining futures are a good bet? Shoot the moon.
(Psst–Hey, fanboys: Star. Trek. Is. Not. Real.)
You don’t seem to grasp the role of fiction as gedankenexperiment.
Star trek was *the* inspiration for a generation of engineers. The first shuttle? Enterprise, after the trek ship name. Got a cell phone? The speed and intensity of development was inspired by star trek. Look around and you’ll see all manner of serious discussion regarding space and physics, much of this trek inspired. Upshot? Trek *is* real enough to influence the daily life of most western humans despite the show being fiction/art, just as comm satellites are now ubiquitous decades after Arthur C Clarke dreamed them up in a work of fiction.
If you cranky tightwads think opening up space and mining asteroids aren’t worth the expense and effort, then you had better shut up the relentless caterwauling about how we’re using up the planet’s resources and we don’t have enough room to put all the people.
Apparently you fail to read what anyone has said. Since when was government responsible for “mining”, other than in regulating the industry? Government stands athwart profit makers with his hand out, asking those profit makers to give their earnings back because of the apparently great contributions that he has made. Not even one person here has mentioned overuse of planetary resources or overpopulation. Why is it that when “Conservatives” are confronted with their own hypocrisy regarding small government do they react by throwing out non sequitors and red herrings? You can’t pretend to want small government but then decide that there are some kinds of big government that are a-ok. Either big government is a good idea or it’s a bad idea. Either big government is in line with your principles or it’s not in line with your principles.
And the generation before Star Trek was inspired by Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. Most people manage to figure out that newspaper comics and TV shows aren’t real.
Isn’t it true that most Star Trek episodes were a rehash of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. You know, weird dude is stranded on some island for mysterious misdeeds, swashbuckling ship’s captain and companions seek shelter from storm on dude’s island, weird dude is ward to hot babe with naive view of world outside island (“Oh brave new world that has such creatures in it!”), love triangle between weird dude, hot babe, and swashbuckling ship’s captain, need I go on?
Is James Hansen still on the NASA payroll? Maybe time to fold NASA as unfit for purpose, except as a possible mechanism for allocating funding — perhaps a lousy idea given the track record.
I read this article as a plea for America to be what America once was, worthy of respect. Space is but a vehicle for our return to greatness. Unfortunately we as a nation no longer value traits that define men and women, we embrace traits that define adolescence.
In 1492 Columbus discovers a new land mass unknown to Western Europe. Spain goes on to settle half of that land mass, but in 1588 the great Spanish Armada is defeated by the English who then continue on to become the dominate empire builder.
So will that pattern repeat? In 1968 the US ‘discovers’ the moon, and for a few decades dominates the new frontier until the great US naval armada is defeated in the South Pacific by the Chinese who then go on to become the dominate empire builder expanding human colonies on the moon and mars? All of which made possible by a political movement [environmentalism] which the Chinese use to hobble US technical advancement.
It’s impossible to know before the fact, but I sure wish I could live long enough to see how it turns out.
The silver lining to NASA’s departure from the manned space flight business and increased reliance on private sector, is that companies like SpaceX, Virgin Atlantic, Boeing et al now have some oxygen and elbow room in which to operate.
But the FAA has already shown far too much interest in regulating these new areas of flight too. And I can tell you as a pilot and flight instructor myself, that if the FAA is allowed to get their regulatory hooks into private/commercialized space flight, it is over before it starts. The FAA’s ability to immobilize progress with enormous amounts of red tape is legendary and is krypontite to the advancement of cutting edge space flight technology.
Just out of curiosity, what model of Luscombe do you fly. Those are some nice planes. I fly a ’67 Cherokee 140.
“If the ISS isn’t important, why did we spend so much time and treasure on it?”
Clinton authorized the ISS as a welfare program for Russian scientists.
The U.S. was afraid that with the Cold War over, all those unemployed Russian scientists might be hired by Saddam or by the Iranian mullahs or by Venezuela or by North Korea.
Check your dates.
I joined the Space Station Program in 1984. We had completed CDR when Clinton and Goldin threw away most of the design and analysis and directed that the components be reassembled into a new configuration which met none of the payload or safety requirements, and which put Russia in the critical path. They claimed that this would prevent Russian engineers from supporting WMD work in unstable countries. The Russians pocketed the money, continued proliferating and kept NASA over a barrel while delaying the program for several years. We ended up paying the Russians for the hardware that they were supposed to contribute, with the Station in an orbit that makes resupply a logistical nightmare.
The article brought up many old thoughts this morning. There is no way I can describe the fascination, especially from my father, of watching every Apollo mission in the journey to the moon. We were all in, in support of what was taking place. Going to the moon was an objective that captured the imagination and support of many Americans.
From that tradition, astronauts in my generation were the best and brightest in our eyes. You knew them in a public relations sort of way and were to some extent invested. You don’t know someone in a carrier battle group in that same way and don’t have the same investment (as a member of the public). It isn’t that astronauts are more important when you lose one, the comparison is not apples to apples though in how people think and feel.
Yes, I’m interested in space. I think it is built into to us to want to push the frontiers and dream. Those who want to dream, look head on into the risks, and make the choice to go–should be able to give it a go.
Can we do something like this in a public way at this time? Much as I would like to I think first in a real way that makes sense to average people we do not have a national objective that makes sense and inspires the imagination. Secondly, in just a practical way, we are so far in debt I think we simply can’t afford big national efforts. Private efforts, sure, go for it.
There were two unmanned test flights of the Saturn V before Apollo 8. They were Apollo 4 & 6. Both missions had significant problems, so it was very gutsy to fly Apollo 8 without another unmanned test flight and with no Lunar Module lifeboat. Had an Apollo 13 type accident occurred, the crew would’ve died.
In the late 1970s, NASA did 5 glide test of the Space Shuttle Enterprise. On the last test, the pilots encountered a Pilot Induced Oscillation problem in the fly-by-wire software. In 1981, NASA flew the first Shuttle mission without a confirmation glide test. It was also the first time they flew a manned mission on a vehicl without prior unmanned test flights.
Since then, NASA lost two Shuttle crews. I think they’ve become excessively risk adverse as a result. I agree that in an emergency, they could quickly fit seats to a Dragon capsule to fly unmanned to the ISS, dock and then return astronauts to the Earth. They could do that this year if necessary. Upgrading the life support system to keep the crew alive for a round trip mission could likely be accomplished by sometime next year. Developing their launch escape system will take a bit longer but it could likely achive pad abort certification by 2014.
It should be noted the two Shuttles that were lost were management failures. In both cases engineers warnings were ignored. NASA has become a gravy train for Bureaucratic Politicos. NASA has outlived its usefulness. It’s time for those who know how to do it Better, Faster and Cheaper, capitalists!
Yes. I’ve always believed the phrase “Take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat” deserves to go down in history alongside “God Himself could not sink this ship.”
Until Senator Mushmouth can garner more votes by attending a funeral rather than banging his fist on a table demanding to know “why these people died” (as if he cares) the United States will continue to lead from behind.
And it really matters not if it is a US or private effort.
I have never understood navel gazing and the unwillingness to look beyond the doorstep of where you are. Someone chose to leave his cave to go into the world and I’m sure there were naysayers telling him he was wasting his time and energy.
Humans as a species explore and stretch their boundaries; and great nations do great things. Americans spend more on porn each year than the amount of the NASA budget. Yes, NASA has evolved into another bureaucracy. But as Mr. Simberg points out, there are many other avenues to move forward.
ISS currently supports a crew of six, briefly expanded to nine with every Soyuz flight, then three return in the oldest of the capsules docked to the station thus keeping an assured return capability at all times. There are always enough 3 seat Soyuz capsules docked on ISS to get everyone home. A commercial replacement not only must ascend and return safely, but has to endure at least six months of exposure to the rigors of space without suffering damage.
ESA and Space-X have now flown successful unmanned cargo flights to ISS breaking the Russian lock on supply delivery. The bulk of those supplies is liquid water which is not only used for drinking but much of it is broken down into its component elements using solar powered electrolysis. The hydrogen is vented to space while the oxygen is used to replace what the crew consumes to maintain a breathable atmosphere on board.
ISS currently supports a crew of six, briefly expanded to nine with every Soyuz flight
Actually, crew rotations now are done by returning a crew of three, leaving three on board. Then a month later a new flight brings the population back up to six. So about 15% of capacity isn’t even being used, and the passing of “institutional knowlege” is being done on the ground in Russia instead of orbit where it should be done.
Indeed, indeed, why throw money into the black hole of space, when we could be sending it to Obama, instead? Yes, and send him your wedding presents, birthday presents and Christmas presents, too! Obama needs that cash! Who are you, you greedy, mean, meany face to deny him this? You’re just heartless members of the 1%, that’s what’s you are!
/Sarc. off.
Way back in the day, the argument was that all the money we were spending on the space program should be given to programs for the poor, instead. Well, we cut off the space program, welfare exploded—and we still have the poor very much with us; not to mention all our “Friends”, like Pakistan and the PLO, we’ve supported over the decades! Talk about your black holes. . .
“You cannot solve poverty by giving poor people money.” P J O’Rourke
Since the dawn of civilization, there are those who understand that to get anything you have to put forth the effort to get it as well as those who figured if they sat on their asses long enough, someone would take pity and give them something. And all variations in-between.
Different stages of societal evolution dealt with the problem in different ways but it has always been there and always will be.
The odd thing is that there are some who truly are in need of assistance who refuse it simply on the basis of personal pride.
ORBITER ONE
My brain mass circles the Earth mass.
The bloodshot light of autumn makes
Rust stains on half the sphere;
The mold of spring grows on the other.
Mathematics, ancient measure of chaos,
Made possible my looping here
At the end of invisible chains
Not you, not we, understand.
The chains are sunk in the great Earth’s core.
(Out here where I should soar
I learn the mind too is chained
For I so miss the twinklings in your umbra
And feel you at your dog ecstasies.)
In this outer dark the brilliant fact is forced
The moon’s no wafer pasted on the wall of night.
And now with me you have begun
To shower the shrapnel of your technics
Over the immense black volumes of space.
(To a point it all seems clear as a star,
The impetus of this purchase of space with time;
Yet I still taste the meringued lips of the sea
And feel the valor of my classmates belly-up in the jungle.)
I tell you I can hear the detonation
of your saluting flowers out here.
Don’t your trees point to me?
Look at me rocking soft in the cradle you made.
Trade in your blue bunting for this eternity.
(Ah the feather fall snow, the lick Earth rain,
The thousand pardons autumn, the mint bitter spring,
Days rushed by wind, the mad pain
Of dancing on the sun’s string
The music’s rush to end too soon
Dancing merely to the mad sun’s tune.)
Understand that you and all your ages
Are crowned by this feat.
I am the first flung fragment of your true explosion.
(It is the ordinary way of man
To see in sky and trees the flush
Of exertions in wild but familiar dance;
Yet think past blue to where trees aim
And landscape is bled of all romance.
The eyes in frightened face must turn
Inward to dark rooms where small candles burn,
Turn from the skeletal Earth to find
The dark, dark chambers of the mind
Inward to dark tables where small candles burn.)
Leave your dog runs;
They are dirtied past redemption.
Come out and hunt again,
Great and desperate enterprise.
Whites be Vikings, Blacks be Moors,
Yellows and Reds range wide again.
Come out, all you mankind,
The firmament is your fate.
(In the block house they watch the green dials,
Dials of my heart, dials of my blood.)
What is good belongs not to the Earth.
What justice there is galvanizes in the brains of man,
What mercy hums in the nerves.
Follow me out here,
As you left your first valleys,
As you laid your prows
upon the first waters.
Not from the stars,
But among them is your destiny.
Copyright J. R. Mingey, 1997, all rights reserved.
Submitted to Pajama’s Media by permission of the author. The author? I have no better friend.
I want to make clear that “Orbiter One” was submitted by me with the permission of the author.
Dude, we’re broke. Being space cadets is for countries that don’t have a national debt greater than the GDP. You want to see your space program, truck on down to this place called Solyandra in California. Unless we are going to open up the moon or some asteroids for mining or other profitable economic venture, then the space program is a luxury a debtor country cannot afford.
“Dude”??? Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya?
There have always been those like you who have opposed people sticking their noses out of their own woods, ask Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain; they’ll tell you. As far as the cost, you may have missed it but there is a move for private enterprise to enter space exploration as well as a movement to completely reorder federal spending.
Yes, it is curious. Draft 18 year old male economic zeros and proceed to kill fifty thousand thousand of them during ten years of war is AOK in defense of the New Frontier. But invest a trillion dollars in a high technology ten year gamble to get a handful of men to the moon and it’s too risky to loose all that expensive value added human investment in a few individuals to keep the enterprise going–an enterprise the private sector would never have invested in to begin with without federal dollars. Well, I suppose one can automate the risky process, the drone solution as at it were, and take the expensive human out of the killing equation. Or, one can mass produce the risky technology to achieve economies of scale for colonizing the New Frontier and draft humans for the automated risky enterprise with, of course, exemptions (immunity) for favored classes. No sense getting the beautiful people killed developing the moon or mars.
I vividly remember being very upset after the Challenger disaster and the loss of those seven courageous individuals. Around that same time period though, there was a helicopter crash that killed 12 American servicemen (IIRC) and I wondered to myself, why I would elevate the Challenger Astronauts over the servicemen and women who lose their lives?
I’m reminded of the same thing every time they fly the state flags half mast for some politician – say the ex-mayor of Boston. Soldier vs Mayor. What a poor comparison.
On December 12, 1985 (about 7 weeks before the Challenger accident), Arrow Air Flight 1285 crashed in Gander, Newfoundland and killed all 256 passengers and crew on board. The passengers were members of the 101st Airborne Division returning from a 6 month deployment to the Sinai on a peacekeeping mission. Outside of their families, comrades and friends, there was no mass outpouring of grief over this accident. After all, they were just a bunch of soldiers.
When the Columbia reentry accident happened in 2003, I remember not feeling anything like the shock I felt after Challenger. But then, I remember watching the World Trade Center towers fall on a day when about 3000 people were killed. Compared to that, Columbia wasn’t nearly so shocking.
The key to the US’ return to space dominance is in launching a competitor to the ISS which will permit science done with less expense, on schedule, and with better customer service and with superior flexibility (ie the ability to make money easily if opportunities emerge). The role of NASA is to create a reasonable legal regime so that people clamor to launch under our legal regime instead of flying orbital flags of convenience. NASA is doing a better job at that than it used to do when it actively undermined private efforts but we’re nowhere near where we should be.
Russia is not our cold war competitor. We are, and should remain, the best of frenemies. We will compete and we will cooperate in accord with our own national interests. But we will avoid a hot war and attempt to increase opportunities to get ahead via friendly competition instead of competition as sublimated warfare.
Why are we broke? Because government interferes with the only way wealth is created, by people taking risks; trading their time and resources to produce something worth trading. Every dollar taken by the government reduces overall wealth and can only be justified by national security (when it actually does secure the nation.) Economics is self regulated by consumers. Competition (and an honest investigative media to provide transparency) takes care of the bad boys as long as govt. doesn’t interfere.
Are some risks so big that only government can take them? Never has that been the case, no matter what examples people use.
It does require rich people though. Class warfare is warfare against everybody.
A thought experiment: Which is the bigger economy… 1) earth alone. 2) A populated solar system.
If you answer that correctly you have an answer to those that don’t want to waste money on space. It shouldn’t be taxpayer money. The universe is filled with valuable property that doesn’t belong to any government (by historical accident signers of the OST are prohibited) but could belong to millions of average people financing any level of commercial activity (it’s a really huge amount of potentially profitable real estate so that even for dollars an acre it still provides all the funding required.)
The problem is, as a nation, we don’t have the right stuff anymore. We can’t ‘make up [our] mind’ because we’ve been filled with the juvenile thinking that ownership is an outdated value (even though it’s the only solution to the tragedy of the commons.) Fortunately, rich people aren’t buying it and are going for it using their own money. Watch how government (cronies in all parties) try to stand in the way.
Needs to be done at the national level, and I support a revitalization of NASA. I know Rand is a 100%, 24/7 “libertarian” sort of guy who doesn’t like nations, he’s “grown” beyond such primitive things. Yeah, right.
We’re a doomed country…….today, we’re preoccupied with race/ethnicity and homosexual “righs”.
Fergit about it space. We’re kaput.
America, in the last two generations, has lost the ability to assess risk, particularly technical risk. The reason that we are wearing out drones, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, is that our leaders will not risk the nightly drone on the evening news, “Obama killed the 6347th soldier today.” (This only occurred when a conservative is President, but Obama must contend with his anti-war constituency, and media.)
Every advance in human history, was associated with risk of loss, human life or property. In 1803, when President Jefferson dispatched Lewis and Clark to discover 2/3 of our continent, neither he, or they, knew that their .36 cal Kentucky rifles were inadequate to kill a big grizzly bear, elk or buffalo. They found out, the hard way. Ergo, 50, 60 cal, and bigger rifles became the norm. They were so heavy that rifle scabbards were invented so that horses could carry the weapons over the vast distances. Man learns, at some cost.
America has not built a new nuclear power plant in 36 years. When our shuttle sits in some museum for 36 years, you can be certain that our nation has lost information which is vital to survival. If you have studied carbon nanofibers, you can reasonably predict that, on that sorry day, some American will look up and see a 35,000 ton Chinese satellite, in synchronous orbit, manned with 2,000 military engineers, looking down at us. (Study tethered satellites.)
China is building and will soon operate four massive nuclear power plants, much faster than anything the US has ever accomplished. She will make mistakes, and possibly learn from them. It is the human condition.
Decisions carry risk. Deciding to do nothing, because it seems risky, carries risk. We have opted for wind mills for this reason, nukes and carbon combustion seem risky. But windmills do not work most of the time, when the wind does not blow just right, and they can not be located where we need juice, our cities.
Since we stopped building nukes, we have killed 3,500,000 people on our streets and highways, about a third due to drunks. Yet no American has died from a nuke’s radiation.
Our litigious society has lost the ability to assess risk, particularly technical risk. Nations which make strategic errors, cease to exist. No one can revoke this hard fact of life, from discovering a continent, to space, or to energy supply.
I applaud all those who understand what Mr. Simberg is getting at. And to those who bring up foolish or narrow minded objections to humanity taking the next logical step towards a new frontier I say “Go back to sleep, or to watching your television. You have decided to let the challenges of today be handled by those who are willing to get the job done, and so you are not needed for further discussion on this matter.”
If we are willing as a nation to let our soldiers die to hold territory in a foreign country, we betray their sacrifice by not risking other American lives in order to expand mankind out into the solar system to hold territory for future generations.
Some will die, that is certain. But by risking, we gain far more than can be guessed at. As Elon Musk has said “The window for mankind expanding out to other planets is open for the first time in all of human history. How long it will remain open is uncertain. We must grasp this opportunity before it is lost.”
Or we could leave it to the Chinese and read about their domination of the solar system.
BTW, where did this guy gets his budgetary ideas?????
Currently, the new Gerald Ford-class air craft carriers will cost the US taxpayers around $9 BILLION per copy. This is actually a savings, as the currently-serving Nimitz-class carriers cost roughly $14 BILLION per copy.
Now, how many folks here believe his claim that the ISS cost the same as “dozens of carrier battle groups”?????
100 gigabucks (station) over 14 gigabucks (CVN) yields 7 CVN-equivalent-price units. While hardly “dozens” and it doesn’t include the rest of the CVBG, it’s close enough for Congressional work. Then again, those are the dopes who think Social Security is solvent, and that Guam might tip over into the sea if a few thousand troops land on it.
a) I was discussing historical costs of battle groups in the context of historical cost of the ISS and
b) even if my numbers were off by an order of magnitude, does it usefully change my point?
No, I don’t think so, either.
Let private companies have space. NASA, or whoever, can act like the current FAA. We can do the same stuff but for 1/1,000th of the cost. The military can book passage on a private spacecraft same as anybody else. btw I wouldn’t worry about the Chinese beating us anytime soon in the space “race”. They’re too busy paving roads.
The Chinese are in the game regardless of their economy (now second largest in the world.) What they do will affect the future so it is prudent to consider the possibilities.
We probably should try to keep everybody in the OST to prohibit national sovereignty claims. We need to give private ownership a chance to establish itself free of sovereign controls. The solar system is a big place. It gives liberty a chance it never had here on earth.
NASA needs to get itself out of the launch business entirely and go exclusively into a “research and support” role, contracting third parties to put its stuff out there for them, and doing whatever it can to aid private development.
I agree. That sounds like a return to its predecessor NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), which did that for the aviation industry. By all accounts it was a small and useful government agency.
“But SpaceX has now flown two flights with its Dragon capsule, one of which went to and from the ISS a couple weeks ago. On both of which, astronauts would have done just fine, with couches and a life-support system.”
This is a commericial- a press pitch; there’s no independent data to verify such an assertion because Space X has flown nobody– and won’t unless the risk of failure is outweighed by the value of success, as is the mindset of a for profit business venture, or that risk of failure can be shifted from Space X to NASA- which is precisely what would happen if a commercial crew is killed servicing the ISS. History blames NASA, not North American, for the Apollo fire even though the contractor was clearly partly to blame. Today, NASA would say Space X is a private company, (as Bolden repeatedly said when questioned on the payload manifest the night of the Dragon launch) but the press and the public would say ‘but you, NASA, are charged w/overseeing HSF ops to your ISS.’ Perception is reality. Which dovetails with this even more disturbing statement:
“There are doubtless astronauts who would be willing to fly such a mission and show that, like their predecessors in the sixties, they too have “the right stuff,” willing to risk their lives for their nation. Safety improvements could come along later, as they always do (there are never absolutes in such things).”
First, those military test pilots assessed the odds, volunteered, and accepted a calculated risk in that Cold War battlefront, a geopolitical conflict BTW, as a career move in their milirary service, not a commercial business enterprise, with experimental hardware that included an acceptable safety envelope in a field which remains very unforgiving to human error. And when ‘go fever’ took hold and compromised safety for schedule, they got burned- literally, w/ Apollo 1.
What Mr. Simberg is advocating now is a return to a path of compromising safety to accelorate a for profit business venture, to secure contracts and make a buck, which is, in fact, a redundant system to service a doomed government facility no less, destined to splash into a Pacific grave by 2020 or so. The ISS is literally a Cold War relic and has more in common with the Berlin Wall than the geopolitical realities of today. It was initiated nearly 30 years ago by President Reagan in his ’84 SOTU speech, when checking Soviet communists was the motivator while today, getting checks from Chinese communists is the reality or our times. The late Deke Slayton rightly labeled the ISS an ‘aerospace WPA project’- now a $100-plus billion expense which has yet to justify the costs and produced no appreciable ROI for the U.S. other than as a multi-decade make work project for aerospace contractors and displaced Russian engineers from the Soviet collapse. Now NewSpace advocates try to sell it as a ‘faux market’- a destination to pitch and attempt to get government subsidies and contracts as well. But space exploitation is not space exploration. And LEO is a ticket to no place, going in circles, no where fast. It’s a waste in an era of massive deficits and the Age of Austerity, channelling dwindling resources away from BEO planning and ops- especially w/Russian Progress spacecraft routinely servicing LEO space platforms for over 34 years, including the ISS, and Soyuz spacecraft ferrying crews to LEO for over four decades, including the ISS as well. They’re safe. They’re reliable. And like a VW bug, they’re ugly, but they get you there. There being a place destined for a Pacific grave in a decade ot so.
This advocacy to compromise safety Mr. Simberg is pitching, which again only increases the unfavorable odds in calculating the risk- is a risk not taken by military test pilots in a geopolitical battlefront but civilians engaged in commerce– purely for financial gain. Advocating the value of hardware and securing market share or the contracts for same over the people who ride it is poor policy. And if a mishap occurs in such an accelorated program, it is not Space X which will catch heat, but NASA, for greenlighting such folly, calling into question the same management problems which fueled the Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia accidents. Musk himself has publicly stated he’d never compromise safety for profit which conflicts with what’s being broached by Mr. Simberg. Just as NASA management once said it never would compromise safety, too- until schedule and budget pressures did just that. People will die in human spaceflight ops. NASA has the scars to show for it. So do the Russians and inevitably, the Chinese will endure a mishap as well. Minimizing the danger to an acceptable flight risk is smart long term policy. Mr. Simberg’s is advocating a short term policy purely for profit and clearly not a wise path to follow for long term HSF planning and operations.
As usual, the troll that calls itself “DCSCA” (the origin of this nonsensical pseudonym remains a mystery) spouts a huge word salad.
Apparently you failed to peruse you own original post, a simplistic cornucopia of NewSpace babble, which is no mystery at all.
“This advocacy to compromise safety…” Advocacy to compromise safety? Did you hear that Orvile and Wilbur Wright? Go back to your bicycle shop and stop playing with fire. Heavier than air vehicles will never support the weight of a man…way too dangerous.
What Mr. Simberg is advocating now is a return to a path of compromising safety
That’s not what I get at all. What we’ve got is people that do not have their backside on the line deciding that nothing is safe to do. They also advocate safety features that may not be. We might all agree that a LAS is an essential safety feature for human spaceflight, but suppose that isn’t true because it’s just an assumption. Adding a LAS also adds failure modes. Who decides?
You can’t assume that every decision adds safety. How many lives are lost because we are too cautious? Those are a lot harder to evaluate. CYA while killing others is immoral. Informed consent is the only moral path. Protecting children makes sense. ‘Protecting’ adults is just elitism.
0714 ED 2152079 personal log:
been a long boring shift. sitting in the empty darkness now just off saturn, waiting to see if i can catch somebody approaching terra 1 too fast on my way into sp.7c as my shift ends. maybe my old lady will have some hot cocoa ready. that really warms me up after too many hours alone out here.
signing off – mercury feldman, space cop.
pl off
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