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Bill Ingalls / NASA file
NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, seen here during a February news conference with Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Dream Chaser spaceship, says providing funds for U.S. spaceship developers now will reduce payments to the Russians later.
If NASA can't provide as much support for U.S. spaceship-builders as it's hoping for, it'll have to keep paying the Russians $450 million for every year of delay, the space agency's No. 2 official said today.
NASA's deputy administrator, Lori Garver, laid out that "pay now or pay later" message at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight in Las Cruces, N.M.
With the retirement of the space shuttle fleet, NASA has to rely on the Russians to get U.S. astronauts to and from the International Space Station, at a cost due to escalate to $63 million per seat in 2015. By around that time, NASA is hoping that U.S.-made commercial spaceships will take on that role. The would-be providers — including Blue Origin, the Boeing Co., SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp. — say that they can match the Russians' price tag, but that they need assistance for developing the new craft.
Toward that end, NASA has paid out or set aside a total of $388 million to support the development of those private-sector spaceships. The agency is providing another $800 million for unmanned, cargo-carrying spacecraft, to be provided by
SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. All these figures pale in comparison with the estimated $35 billion expected to be spent over the next decade on a heavy-lift rocket and crew capsule designed for trips beyond Earth orbit.
How much for the next phase?
Now NASA is getting ready for the next phase of the commercial crew vehicle development effort, and asking for $850 million to fund it. Congress is setting aside significantly less: $312 million in the House version, $500 million in the Senate version. During today's talk, Garver used an insurance salesman's strategy to argue for a higher figure.
If the full $850 million is provided, Garver said, "by 2016, certainly we will be able to end outsourcing of this capability from the Russians. If we don’t get full funding in 2012, this is at risk."
Each year of delay means that NASA will have to pay another $450 million to the Russians, she said. The implication was that paying U.S. companies an extra $350 million now (over the Senate's allotment) would be better than paying the Russians an extra $450 million in 2016. NASA would probably still be spending that $450 million per year in 2016 and beyond, but it would be going to U.S. companies rather than the Russian space effort.
Even if NASA gets the $850 million in 2012, that wouldn't be the end of the story. NASA projects that the cost of crew vehicle development will go up, going forward. "We have an analysis that says we believe we would require $6 billion over five years," Garver said. In the past, members of Congress have been resistant to approving that much money for commercial spaceship-builders.
After her talk, Garver told me that the negotiations over funding the next phase of its commercialization initiative would continue. The House Science, Space and Technology Committee has scheduled a hearing on the subject next Wednesday.
NASA has already issued a draft request for proposals for this phase, known as CCDev 3 (that is, the third phase of the Commercial Crew Development program). However, the final request — and the pot of money that will be available — would have to be specified in legislation that has yet to be passed. If there's no resolution, NASA spending would most likely be frozen at current levels, and CCDev 3 could languish in legislative limbo.
During this week's conference, there were repeated calls for Congress to provide full funding for CCDev 3 — from Bigelow Aerospace's billionaire founder, Robert Bigelow; from former shuttle program director Wayne Hale; and from George Nield, the Federal Aviation Administration's associate administrator for commercial spaceflight.
Nield said he worried that reduced funding levels for CCDev would send the message that the United States was not serious about developing near-term replacements for the space shuttle. "I'd love to see them get what they're asking for," he told me.
'Mammals' vs. 'dinosaurs'
During her talk, Garver played to the home crowd by touting entrepreneurs as "small mammals" pitted against the "dinosaurs" and "vested interests" of the space industry. But during our conversation afterward, she refrained from saying specifically which vested interests she had in mind.
I asked her whether some of the long-established dinosaurs of the space program were turning into entrepreneurial mammals. "Lots of 'em, yes," she replied, "and we welcome it."
Garver's talk at the annual ISPCS conference also featured a "top-ten list of ways we'll know we've succeeded." To wit:
10. Instead of "occupying Wall Street," people will be occupying multiple space stations.
9. U.S. astronauts will be leading an international expedition to a near-Earth asteroid.
8. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope will detect an extrasolar planet with a blue ocean.
7. It'll take a half-day to get to the ISPCS conference from anywhere in the world, thanks to point-to-point suborbital space travel.
6. The conference will outgrow its current venue in Las Cruces, and be conducted instead at New Mexico's Spaceport America facility, near "the Whitesides, a new five-star hotel." (That's a reference to George Whitesides, who was once chief of staff for NASA's administrator and is currently Virgin Galactic's chief executive officer.)
5. Smartphone users will get real-time readings on space weather, thanks to mobile apps.
4. Ninety percent of hazardous near-Earth asteroids will be identified and tracked.
3. U.S. private ventures will be taking advantage of lunar resources.
2. NASA will be making further advances in technology, research and innovation.
1. The president of the United States will be taking Garver's place as keynote speaker, "and she will also be wearing fabulous boots."
OK, so maybe some of those points aren't serious (though I'm totally looking forward to those fabulous boots). What would you put on a top-ten list of future space achievements? Feel free to leave your suggestions as comments below.
Update for 3:45 p.m. ET: During her talk, Garver referred to a 1961 essay by GE Chairman Ralph Cordiner, titled "Competitive Private Enterprise in Space." Even though it was written 50 years ago, the essay is prescient is sketching out the challenges and benefits of a more entrepreneurial space effort. Garver referred specifically to this passage: "A certain percentage — perhaps as much as 5 percent — of the technical work of the space program is best done in government laboratories." It's recommended reading for anyone interested in the commercial space frontier.
More about the commercial space frontier:
- Gallery: Ten players in the commercial space race
- How tycoons will fuel future spaceflight
- Big questions about big rockets
- Cosmic Log archive on the new space race
Stay tuned for further reports about the space frontier from the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight. We'll also be featuring some of the leaders of the private-sector space effort, including Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Mark Sirangelo, SpaceX's Elon Musk and Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson, in an upcoming installment of our "Future of Technology" series.
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding me to your Google+ circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.
Leave a Comment:
The Lockheed and Boeing lobbyists in Washington WILL prevent other up and coming small companies from getting the funding they need to develop cheaper rockets. Big corporations OWN Washington. The only hope to stem America's rapid decline is to get money out of federal elections. That is what the Occupy movement should target by shutting down Washington next summer with massive civil disobedience. Without that change, we are doomed to financial collapse a lot faster than most people think.
Agreed but add ATK's name to the list. They are major culprits in the Cx/SLS debacle. IMHO
I doubt the 'Occupy' people have space access/development issues on their minds very much at all...
The only way to get private money and corruption out of our elections is by having all campaign financing come from the taxpayers. Then whoever wins is only beholden to the taxpayers instead of the private funders.
.
Um... Space X's falcon 9 has already made orbit with the Dragon capsule.... and it's a lot cheaper than anything NASA offers, just sayin. If certain senators were really serious about wanting to get us off of Russian dependency for space access, they should fork over more money to help fast track some of these private companies' crew-rated capsules. Seeing as Space X has already orbited the Dragon in cargo mode, I would think they could have it ready to carry crew within a year or two....
BrokinArrow
What SpaceX did actually was the easy part, they have years of work to do. There is a LOT more to developing a working capsule than just the heat shield.
As for this in general, it is basically the private industry saying, hey we can do this without the government, but oh by the way mr taxpayer, give us the money now. It is Garver saying that the taxpayer is at risk, regardless of who is doing it. Now I personally don't mind that to be honest, but it is basically a big turn about from the private industry.
Space X actually has a resupply mission to the ISS scheduled for November (last I heard) so the dragon itself is fully functional for cargo missions. The biggest thing slowing Space X down is that it is developing a new launch-abort system for the Dragon for added safety.
Oh, also just took a look at Space X's website - NASA just signed off on a design review for the launch abort system and Space X is now ready to start building it. Exciting!
Anyway, back on subject - I agree with Garver's arguments. Either we shell out a little extra and help the private industries get things rolling sooner, or we continue to pay the Russians $63 million per seat to reach the ISS (Space X is estimating it's price per seat will be around $20 million)
BrokinArrow:
Which is NOT the hard part. It is the life support/thermal management systems that will be the hard part.
They also need to build a launch pad that is manrated, which it doesn't look like they have started.
I think Lori's attempt to portray the issue as one of the "small mammals" vs. the "dinosaurs" is totally unfair and serves only to divide and to further deflect attention away from the egregious failure of politicians in BOTH political parties over the last 40 years to adequately fund a vigorous human space flight program. Yes, we do need increased funding for CCDev and we ALSO need vastly increased funding for a publicly funded heavy lift booster and deep space vehicles for operations beyond low earth orbit. More importantly, we need a firm national commitment to a short term specific goal, such as humans to Mars within a decade, to fully justify the expense of constructing that hardware. Talking about going to an asteroid in the 2020s or 2030s is just not adequate when this country was able to go from no humans in space to landing men on the moon in less than a decade. (And we did it using slide rules and on-board computers having less memory than a basic cell phone!) What does she think has changed? Lori Garver needs to learn from history what it really takes to build a great space exploration program.
With respect to someone who has been commenting on space for much longer than I have. What payloads do you envisage for the 70 tn/ 130 tn SLS?
Rather than a B'G'R I am of the opinion that the American taxpayer would be better off with a tech. dev. program to launch smarter rather than launch bigger.
spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1577
And a visit to an asteroid is much more of a "not because they are easy..." moment than Apollo redux. Apollo IMHO was an enormous gamble that nearly failed twice. Travelling to an asteroid is an enormous technological leap requiring improved propulsion, radiation protection, LSS, mission autonomy, a centrifugal habitat, and hundreds of other major advances that will pay dividends for the next step: Phobos and then the Martian surface. (If we must.)
Then on to the real prize: Ceres.
The watering hole of the inner solar system.
The mission I envision for the 130-ton SLS is Dr. Robert Zubrin's "Mars Direct" mission architecture to place the first humans on Mars within a decade. Why Mars rather than an asteroid? Because Mars is the planet closest to the earth where life might have evolved during the first billion years of its existence and we need to go there in person to find out if that really happened. Also because Mars is a planet that contains all of the in situ resources necessary to support human colonists and has the potential for eventual terraforming. Because of this fact, Mars offers itself as new frontier for long-term settlement by the human species having a total surface area equivalent to all of the earth's dry land combined. It has vast amounts of water now frozen beneath its surface. It has a carbon dioxide atmosphere from which we can manufacture both oxygen to breathe and methane rocket fuel for routine return to earth. It possesses 1/3 earth's gravity to condition our muscles. It also can partially shield us against the worst of the cosmic radiation and solar flares to which we will be exposed in transit, and to which astronauts going to an asteroid will continue to be subject even after their arrival. Finally, Mars is the one destination that that has captured the imagination of generations of rocket pioneers from Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Robert Goddard in the early 20th century to Elon Musk and Robert Zubrin in the 21st. Why would be allow ourselves to be distracted by a mere floating piece of debris from the formation of the solar system. Would we hold Columbus in quite such regard today if he had merely visited some tiny barren rockj island in the Azores chain instead of landing in the New World?
Not to mention if we can develop the tech to get us to Mars, the same tech will easily get us to any asteroids we feel like visiting afterwards.
I see no purpose for an SLS - class vehicle at this time. It takes too many resources from missions that could be successful in order to develop an unneeded capability. Any significant space mission or one that requires sustaining functions will need multiple launches and on-orbit assembly. We should work the economics and reliability of launch operations, not pursue a make-work program.
If you were going to start an airline (for business travel, freight, and occasional military logistics support) to go between New York, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Atlanta; would your business plan focus on 737 / A32X class aircraft ... or would you insist that the A380 be redesigned to use 2 more engines, get worse fuel economy for marginal usable cargo capacity, design new custom seats that only work on this aircraft, and then only fly to each city once a month? .... probably not.
The SLS program is ridiculous and it's only a matter of time before it's canceled. I just hope we don't waste too much money on it. "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities.
The "Mars Direct" missions are fully sustainable using "direct throw" to the Red Planet using a heavy lift booster. No on-orbit assembly required. No fuel depots are required because fuel for each return leg of the mission is made from making methane and oxygen bi-propellant from the carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere. And yes, if we are going in less than 10 years, we need to be building the vehicles NOW.
As much as I admire and encourage the innovative thinking behind the concepts of Mars Direct (it's changed much over the years) and similar proposals, depending on programs like SLS will ultimately doom them.
A private US company (SpaceX) already has a design (under construction not in PowerPoint, with a significant amount of testing complete) that will launch in 2012 or 2013, 75% of the SLS paylod to LEO at a cost of 0.3% (not a misprint) of the SLS development costs to get a first trial of that design by 2017.
Note that the proponents of SLS don't dispute the SpaceX figures or performance, nor their own budget numbers; the only thing they dispute is that it's not exactly like the shuttle - which is true.
Also note two other things about the $35 billion program cost for SLS - (1) the people giving that estimate have never met a cost estimate, in fact, they have never designed a new rocket in their life .... only operated rockets that were primarily developed by their predecessors (2) the $35 billion figure is considered optimistic by Booz Allen Hamilton and figures as high as $65 billion are worst-case scenarios.
There is no defined purpose for SLS other than to satisfy Congress - no missions defined (Mars Direct or similar is not on the radar screens of the people writing the checks), no commercial customers lined up for it, no payloads in development (btw - where's the money going to come from to pay for those?). Also note, that NASA got their budget cut just recently.
As much as I love big rockets - don't we all? - they have to make sense and SLS simply does not using the technology mandated by Congress for it. Even if a functional SLS appeared by magic on the pad, it would still cost over $1B for every launch and a similar yearly budget to retain the tooling and skillset of the program infrastructure - same model that killed the shuttle program and prevented it from the having the resources to improve the STS. My point remains that eventually reality will hit and this will have been an unfortunate detour; let's hope we don't waste too much time on it.
Stan
Mars direct would be a fine mission for SLS, the problem is that the mission isn't being worked on. So SLS will just sit there for a decade unused, and by the time mars direct comes about, the rocket will no longer be a viable rocket. That is the problem with it. SLS is a political boondoggle, not because there is no use for the rocket (there is) but that there is no practical use for the rocket at this time.
It takes a LOT more to having a viable rocket than a design. You constantly have to pay people to be trained on how to operate the rocket, you need to have a supply chain constantly making the components, etc... That takes money, and if you have nothing to launch on the rocket, that is just money down the drain that could otherwise be used on other projects.
Node4 - Well said. Also, if Space X does manage to make it's rockets fully reusable the launch costs will drop even further - just have to pay for a little maintenance and fuel!
I think that is a mighty big IF, especially for any type of traditional chemical fuel rocket. The Skylon concept might be able to achieve that using chemical propellants, but I personally think that only nuclear thermal propulsion would provide the kind of energy density required to really significantly drop those launch costs.
In no particular order
1 Chinese on board ISS. US on board Chinese space station.
2 Skylon docks with aging but still functional ISS.
3 Nautilus -X built by international consortium takes a grand tour of Cis-lunar Space
4 Robotic village/ Town/ City at Shackleton. Partly built by schoolchildren.
5 Crew Tended International "Gateway" LUNOX fuel depot/ station at L1.
6 It's life Jim but not as we know it discovered on Titan, Enceladus, Europa,... (But not on Mars :)
7 Nautilus XI visits 1999 AO10 in 2026
8 Robotic Village on Mars Teleoperated from Phobos (OK some Boots & Flags as well.)
9 Ship leaves Phobos Base to establish Ceres Base
10 Somebody British makes it into orbit before the year 10,000AD
lost me...
Very good choice to argue for investing in our space program, rather than funding the Russian space program. This is not meant to slight a space partner, but paying the Russians to taxi US astronauts up to the ISS does nothing to advance spaceflight technology. It's far better to invest that money into new vehicles, which certainly have the possibility of spawning additional technologies in non-space areas.
As for my "top ten way to know we've succeeded in space":
10. An increase in NASA budget to more appropriate levels to adequately fund all space research and exploration projects;
9. International cooperation on major spaceflight projects like stations and human exploration;
8. Private companies making profitable sub-orbital and orbital trips, including private space station/hotels for tourists;
7. Continued and improved use of space telescopes to bring the beauty of the universe to everyone;
6. A more efficient method and organization for detecting and analyzing near Earth asteroids and their potential for damage;
5. Detecting small exoplanets, including a true, Earth-like world with liquid water;
4. Reduce the "orbital debris" problem by at least 33%;
3. A probe in orbit and/or on the surface of all nine planets (including Pluto), and several of the large Kuiper objects and asteroids;
2. An orbiting space station capable of supporting deep space missions (both robotic and human);
1. Land humans on Mars (either permanent or temporary).
I wanted to include contact with a non-human civilization, but that could be more dependent on them finding us, or us listening the right way, so I left it off.
I don't like what she is doing. The sooner her replacement takes over the better for the U.S.A. explorations eforts.
What can you have against affordable, domestic, commercial access to LEO?
That's what she's doing.
Frank...
Not sure about anyone else but in my opinion This is what I have against the Amateurs and their toys.....
Because they are in it for profit not exploration and discovery. I agree with Phil I can't wait till we get a President who will say we are going to the moon and will replace That woman whoever she is, and who will get our space program going again.
Magnum - you clearly have not heard any of Elon Musk's speeches before. Space X has already orbited their own Dragon cargo capsule and has the audacity to declare they are attempting to make entire rocket booster reusable - a goal that if realized would drop launch costs to rates that probably even SMALL business could afford (not to mention some-what wealthy Americans). Private space companies also have the advantage of not having to change direction every time a new president gets elected, thus enabling them to achieve long term goals that NASA sadly hasn't been allowed to make/accomplish since the completion of the ISS.
Let's all just remember that this is pretty close to the exact same way the commercial Airliner business got started. At first it was only government planes flying, then eventually commercial companies took over and now we couldn't fathom life without them. The same thing will end up happening with space access.
I second what Brokinarrow said about both private company focus and similarities to the commercial airline industry. The basic problem NASA always has is every 2 years, depending on the election cycle, their mission and goals (and thus funding) could see a drastic change. This is one of the few areas where China might have a real competitive advantage. Even if we get a Congress and President who are "go for the Moon", in 2 years the power could shift and see that dream disappear.
There will undoubtedly be those in commercial space ventures only for the money, just as there are airlines in it only to squeeze passengers out of every dime they own. But there are those out there with the funds and the desire for true exploration (SpaceX and Elon Musk certainly sounding like one of them).
While I understand that Elon Musk can allegedly walk on water, you'll have to forgive me if I wait just a little longer before embracing him as the saviour of America's space program. At the moment he has only actually demonstrated about the same capability that NASA demonstrated in 1959. That still puts him 5 or 6 years behind where the Chinese space program is today.
Stan
Well Elon Musk is not a very sympathetic individual, he is basically the a$$hole that Steve Jobs was, without the charisma that Jobs had.
Tesla is also apparently fairly close to going broke, and that company has ALSO received TONS of government money, in addition to SpaceX receiving millions upon millions.
What actually angers me though isn't that his companies are receiving millions, but that he caters to the government out of our business propaganda, but on the other side, basically demands and uses EVERY single trick in the book to get government money.
As far as Dragon/Falcon, he says that he is expanding capacity, but so far, he hasn't shown it. There actually is a very big difference between building a rocket, and building a launch business. The logistics are quite different. Dragon isn't even close to being man rated, or even close to man capable. Launching it unmanned is akin to what Scott Carpenter did (akin to your demonstration of 1959) but without the life support.
"Not sure about anyone else but in my opinion This is what I have against the Amateurs and their toys.....
Because they are in it for profit not exploration and discovery."
First, how can you say 'they are in it for profit' and call them 'amateurs' at the same time? One is the definitional opposite of the other.
Second, why do you have a problem with people making money in space? Human spaceflight that's not dependent on the whims of government, is something to be devoutly wished for.
Third, even 'sacred' pure exploration needs lower launch costs as much as 'dirty' commercial, so you never answered my original question. A Falcon or EELV doesn't care what's on top of it...
And while some people will insist on having little respect for aerospace companies they didn't grow up knowing about, since when was Boeing (CST-100) an 'amateur...?'
Ahhh well boeing really just tinkers with things, after all, they own the company now that built the space shuttle (rockwell), and that is after all just a toy. Same thing with making the 777 & the 747, just toys.
My concern isn't that the private industry is doing things, it is the unrealistic promises that they are making. The reason why NASA spends so much is because they are EXTREMELY thorough. Does anyone think that they would have been able to save the lives of apollo 13 if it wasn't for their extreme in-depth knowledge of the system through the testing they have done.
By advertising the extremely low costs they are, what they are doing is pretty much saying, we are saving money because we just aren't doing the same level of testing.
Yes, but they've done so at a very small fraction of the costs that NASA did it for, and with a lot less staff. And the price differences don't come from a lack of safety/testing, they come from running a business efficiently with a significantly lesser amount of waste. Government agencies simply don't know how to stick to a budget these days.
brokinarrow,
only a fraction of the cost because he has taken what NASA spent the money to learn before him. If Musk was starting literally from scratch, then he would be spending money like it was going out of style.
As for your waste comment, I sometimes wonder if people understand exactly what NASA does. Elon Musk has a single plant and a cheaply acquired base that was cheap because the company that owned it before went out of business. NASA is required by law to operate many facilities, in part because of national interest. Some people may think that having Ames and Langley is wasteful (they both have overlap in function), but both of those facilities are in charge of protecting a national interest in the development of aerospace technology. When SpaceX must do the same thing, lets see what their costs are like.
To compare the two is comparing apples to oranges. SpaceX can be as cheap as they want because nothing they do is critical to the nation. A lot of what NASA does IS CRITICAL to the nation.
Another aspect to NASA is that most of what they do are actually one offs. The only way you can stick with a budget is either make the budget inordinately high, or have a track record with which to predict your costs. NASA cannot do either, as Congress ratchets down its budgets and because most of what NASA does are one offs, they can't predict properly either.
Here's an idea how about the CEOs for a year get paid $1 yes a whole $1. They already make millions through they're capital hedge funds. That allone would provide them with all the money they could ever hope to use to develope the rockets that they want to charge the government millions for. FYI people its not the little guy that needs 850mil to develope a rocket or the fact that 10,000 jobs will be created from this endevor, more like less then 1000 and most of that 1000 jobs will be getting paid around 50,000 a year while all that money goes towards the CEOs paycheck. Ever wonder why France no longer has a Monarch, or why the Soviet union Failed? The Rich never took care of the little guy they just shat on him and took all his money. Well FYI rich frakers we out number ya 100,000 to 1.....if this keeps up ya'll will have riots on your hands.
There should be a box on tax returns that people could write in an amount to go to ( ONLY ) NASA. Say I had $1000 coming to me in tax returns. I could write in $50 to NASA if I wanted to.
Sure, not everyone could afford to give up any money, but I bet there would be many, many who could and would.
JAmes, thats an interesting idea, lol. IF we could choose where to send our tax dollars. hahahha. oh man that would be great.
I bet if we had some form of representation who looked out for our interests and fought so that our money went where we wanted it to go...
ou know, there was a dream of a place where men were free...where government was ruled by the people. Not the other way around...Now that dream is dust in the wind...The living constitution has comitted suicide.
Except it's the corporations that rule the government that rules the people....
So then the answer is to...CUT GOVERNMENT!
The answer is cut the legalized bribing out of government. Corporations have shown and continue to show each and every day that they are not capable of behaving themselves. If corporations could do as they please we'd all be slaves to them and the environment would turn toxic in short order.
@Spadez It wouldn't be so much people choosing, even though they say people already choose when they vote, as much as people volenteering to tax themselves for a specific cause. We have something like that now. One can check a box to put money into the presidential campaigns. Only difference is the $3 comes out of money already being paid in tax.
On another note, corporate lobbyists need to be reined in tightly, or done away with entirely. They are big time influence peddlers who do not have the people's best interests at heart. In fact, they would lobby for something that they know is not in our best interests just to make a buck.
Either we Americans are in this together or we are not. As of now it seems we are not. President Lincoln quoted Mark 3:25 in an address "A house divided against itself cannot stand.", and that is exactly what we have today. Back then we were divided between states that wanted to keep slaves, and them that did not. Now we are divided because of people who want to keep the status quo and them who are economic slaves that just want a fare shake.
I just hope all this doesn't lead to the same solution we used to rid our nation of slavery. Two percent of the population of the United States died in the civil war. If that were to happen today, over 62 million people would perish.
The people who are in government offices and the corporations who lobby them and the wall street money grubbers better keep history in mind. The people will not allow the dirty deals to go on forever. They can do the right thing now, or be forced to do the right thing later.
Correction;
Is: 62 million
Should be: 6.2 million
To SpoutingFire: awesome!!!!! what more needs to be said?
Spouting Fire, wrong forum, This ain't da politics section, this is the science section.
I'm 53 years old. When I was a child I watched live broadcasts of men walking on the Moon. With all that was going on then, I had thought that we would have men on Mars by now.
Given the afore mentioned, I would consider NASA successful if I am able to see broadcasts of people walking on Mars before I die. The way things are looking, I would say fat chance of that happening.
52, and the same. Wish that we could have a multi-presidential/congressional mandate to reach mars. If wishes were wings.....--S--
It really sucks too, Stephen. One of the biggest factors in canceling the Apollo program was the Vietnam war. Now look at what we have today. War, war and more war costing hundreds of billions of dollars. Dollars that could have been put to a better use. Like not canceling the Constellation program.
Remember all the spin offs from the Apollo program? A lot of the technology we take for granted today was a direct result of technological developments who's origins were in the Apollo program. Imagine what our nation could have accomplished during the last 40 years had we used all that money used on war and used it on space exploration instead. Heck fire! We may have had interstellar travel by now, but no. War, greed, avarice and hate rules the day, as usual.
It all makes me sick!
For those in the early 50's, I'm 60 just few days ago. We built little paper and balsa rockets, flew rockets, watched the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs with baited breath. We dreamed about being an astronaut or a rocket scientist. My family vacationed in Florida in '69 so we could watch the launch of Apollo 11.
Yeah, I agree, it would be great if we had continued on to Mars and maybe even beyond; but as proud as I was to see American achievements then, and as proud as I am to be an American today; we've got some pretty sticky problems to deal with here in Good Old USA, and space will still be there for a long time. There is no need to be in a burning hurry.
In retrospect, the total computational power of the Apollo program was less than an iPhone, and the Saturn V (and The Space Shuttle for that matter) at lift-off (even from several miles away) is one of the most awe inspiring things I have ever seen. Never-the-less, in was paractically speaking just strapping three guys to the top of a Roman Candle and lighting the fuse. It is a miracle we got them there and back (e.g. Apollo 13) with the technology that was available at the time.
I went on to become an electronics engineer and designed and built equipment that was later used in International Telecommunication via Geostationary Satellite like Intelsat, and I still build and launch rockets from the deserts of Nevada though they are bigger and more powerful than the paper and balsa rockets I built as a pre-teen in the 1960's.
Though I and many of my friends (whom are past or present employees at NASA or JPL) are strongly in support of space exploration, the brute force heavy lifting approach that we used in the years between 1969 and the retirement of the Space Shuttles is a thing of the past.
It is generally agreed amongst those of us whom have been in or on the periphery of the Space Program all these years (and who still play with rockets and propulsion and avionics as a hobby), that while NASA and The Like have a role to play, that the next generation of space exploration will be lead by private enterprise and many of us are migrating from the Tax Supported industries to the private sector.
To be sure, Virgin Galactic and Space-X are profit motivated, but there is nothing wrong with that in this context (I have rather different feelings about the CEOs of The Banking Sector and The Military Industrial Complex, GE, GM).
So, though it was a political, patriotic, and government sponsored thing in the first place, and though it required the might of the US Government (the perceived threat of The Soviets, and JFK) to get it going it is not necessarily true that the way forward is via NASA and The US Government.
I think it could be done with considerably more finesse and efficiency as a privately funded program by Innovative and Entrepreneurial Firms that expect to make a profit and a lasting business of it. Then it is disconnected from Politicians and The Military and need not wait for the next handout from Congress with stings attached, or a real or perceived military threat to motivate it.
And, while the private sector participants that are trying to make business out of space are profit motivated, make no mistake. Many of them are there because they are frustrated with the "institutional" approach to space exploration, have left NASA and joined private sector firms and are doing what they do because they want the challenge and thrill of making something magnificient happen, of achieving great things, and the challenge of innovating that has for the most part disappearred from the more "institutional" participants like NASA.
NASA's magnetism, so evident in the 60's and 70's, is gone, The US Government doesn't inspire anybody to do anything productive. There is no motivation for a high-school or college student to do the long hard slog thru mechanics, thermodynamics, chemistry, physics, calculus, and electronics to become an engineer or scientist today. What for? Everybody wants to be a lawyer or hedge fund manager, a leech making money from transactions that do not produce anything (and for which for every winner of 100k there is a corresponding loser of 100k).
Bringing our manufacturing base from China back to the US is a popular slogan these days, but that's mass-production of thousands and thousands (millions even) of little gadgets with a razor thin profit margin and the work for which is done by mindless drones that sit in front of a work station and perform the same physical operation over and over again every 20 seconds all day long everyday forever. We want to bring those jobs back to the US? For who? The average American is far too intellectually sophisticated for that kind of work these days.
A thriving private sector areo-space industry isolated from The US Government, from Tax Dollar funding, and The Military will come a lot closer to creating intellectually stimulating employment than the Automobile Industry or Bringing mass-produced Electronics Assy Operations back to the US.
Citizen's and Entreprenuers that are looking beyond the next quarter or half are the future of the US. And, the less the government is involved the better. No politicians involved, and no strings attached.
To what purpose, These programs Have never yielded a return on investment, The space program cost too much, scrap it and work on our own country!!!
Holles, it is untrue what you say about never yielding a return. As an example look at some spinoffs from our space programs:
Health and medicine
Transportation
Public safety
Consumer, home, and recreation
Environmental and agricultural resources
Computer technology
Industrial productivity
Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off
These spinoffs have not only improved our standard of living, they have also provided new jobs.
What is wrong with our congress? We need to fully fund space ventures! Space exploration is easily comparable to the exploration of the New World just on an even bigger scale!
By the end of this century, the domination of a country will be determined by its presence in space. Will it be the US, or China? Who will discover the extinct species from a once wet mars? who will build the lunar bases? who will build the infrastructure and develop the technologies to expand humanities presence across the solar system?
I would rather die exploring space than die sucking a tube being kept alive by a medicare-paid for life sustainment system while eating my childrens dollars on social security! I want to die with my head held high! I dont want to die the governments B*!
Grow some F*ing balls congress.
Congress can't see past the next election cycle, there's no way they can even fathom putting in a plan that would take multiple decades to accomplish (speaking of furthering research for interstellar travel here).
I hear ya and agree. So true that multidecade projects of any kind are not going to happen as long as the politicians can not see past the next election.
Multidecade space projects will not happen as long as each president, who gets elected, decides to change the mission too. Give NASA the funding let them get to work, then keep the politicians out of the science and engineering.
The politician isn't interested in furthering humanities conquest of space. They are only interested in themselves. That's why they like to change the mission. They do it in the name of one-ups-man-ship. If we get a republican as president next time round, I wouldn't be suprised if they change the mission yet again. Take that you Dems.
I believe she gave a nice "talk"...talk is cheap (not really, but what the heck)....us small mammals are not really pitted against the dino's...the dino's need only dump and were done with, we are pitted against the naysayers, the over regulators, and, our worst enemy, ourselves...we have the guantlet, no other country ('cept maybe russia) would dare say to their populance, go ahead, if you think you can do it bettter, launch......we got it good here but just don't know it, the clowns pulling the reigns of the dinos are so concerned about re-election, they have left the biggest void in the history of aviation, period....really dumb of them to retire the shuttles with no other capabiity than some one elses tech....once things start rolling again, in 5 or 10 or 15 years or so, the door will start to close again, and I don't mean for the branson's, or the musks or even the gates's...they will always be able to buy what they want, no right now the door has been edged open for those of us that want to reach beyond our grasp and earn something individuals (remember them frank? the ones mentioned in the constitution's preamble?) have not been able to get in on before, space, the final frontier, a hostile environment with hidden riches, secrets beyond belief and fame, oh, yea, and fortune....something that has driven individuals since before humans had language...fortune. Branson is not in this game for anything but money, same for musk, same for boeing et all, I grant a few academia in it purely for the knowledge, but most for the fame and fortune. Right now the call is for private space enterprise, later, the call will be a feeding frenzy on all us small mammals....dino fodder in other terms...but the one in a zillion chance is still there to make it to the big leagues, amatures or not, the charge at the gate is on, the prize is dangled well in front of us, the naysayers don't have to get out of the way, there going to get run over either way. Not a good time to be a dino and for mammals, it's still the same old game, survival of the luckiest.....
In your own, inimitable, ramblinng way, you've hit the nail on the head Ray !! Touche!!--S--
LOL I'll pay the Russians thank you. NASA needs to be shut down and restarted. Or we could just rename Virgin to NASA.
Having read the entire CCDEV3 Document, it is clear that the contractors have a sweetheart deal with NASA. This is Kleptocracy pure and simple. Taxpayers pay to develop the technology, and the contractors get to own it, and resell it, without paying a dime.
CCDEV3 must be a LOAN repayable with interest, if NASA is to grant ownership of the technology. Anything less is a fraud against taxpayers.
Actually that thing has been going on from the beginning of the space program. Jez, Teflon was developed by the space program at taxpayer expense, and then spun off for frying pans and all sorts of things. The companies that benefited certainly didn't pay me any royalties or tax dollar repayment for their use of "my technology", but sometimes the benefits do out-weight the tax dollar investment.
Advancements in medicine, better understanding of the planets dynamics from the birds eye view, exotic materials used in everyday construction. Nah, some of it was worth it, and there has to be a "reasonable" profit motive or nobody will do it.
Having read the entire CCDEV3 Document, it is clear that the contractors have a sweetheart deal with NASA. This is Kleptocracy pure and simple. Taxpayers pay to develop the technology, and the contractors get to own it, and resell it, without paying a dime.
CCDEV3 must be a LOAN (not a fixed price contract) repayable with interest, if NASA is to grant ownership of the technology. Anything less is a fraud against taxpayers.
"5. Smartphone users will get real-time readings on space weather, thanks to mobile apps."
Already done: SpaceWx is available for the iPhone, iPad, and Android: $1.99
In his book, "The Eternal Darkness", Dr. Robert Ballard notes the very logical and cost driven evolution of deep sea exploration from dangerous, manned diving vehicles to the various unmanned vehicles that now map the ocean floor better, cheaper, faster and safer.
Why do we blindly follow NASA cheerleaders who lead us to believe that they are modern day Lewis and Clarks and space is merely another western frontier. Just imagine the incredible gains we would have made by now if we would have canned the manned shuttle debacle and International Space Resort before it sucked NASA dry for three decades.
We would now be the beneficiaries of data and new findings from hundreds of unmanned rovers, return missions, space based telescopes of all kinds, satellite upgrades and faster, sub-orbital transports. All these missions could be monitored by citizens, students and researchers on the Internet.
You may be tempted to use the worn out argument that astronauts can sense things machines cannot, but please be ready to tell us exactly what they can sense inside a protective suit or space vehicle in a hostile environment! Touch, smell, sound, or tastes? I don't think so!
That leaves sight - and cameras now "see" better than the human eye. Finally, if a camera or unmanned spacecraft fail, we don't have to stop the space program for two years to regroup - - - after holding obligatory state funerals for daredevils and test pilots who ran short on luck while in unearthly environments.
The problem with NASA is that they are wasteful beyond belief. They have been raping the American public for decades, and we have little to nothing to show for it. Early on great accomplishments were made, but we are still paying the price of that 'Mega-Buck evaporator' program.
Every time I see someone assisciated with NASA I see a rich person - one who would not have a job in real life. They represent big government at its worst, paying extremely high salaries to people who accomplish nothing and do no labor. Mostly I hear about the astronauts who have gone bannannas, wearing diapers driving hundreds of miles in a car with baggies full of BDSM toys. If the program were managed right and by good people this trash would not happen. Instead, a picture is painted of a culture of 'rich kids gone wild' whilst spending my heard earned money and accomplishing nothing. Two shuttles lost, costing how much money, time, rescources.... and for what? A culture of spending excessively, and no quality control? Everywhere I see incompetance and waste. What is the gain of all this money spent?
Far more can be accomplished via investment in the private sector. It is time to end the era of waste and fraud known as NASA.
Sounds like jealousy to me. How about getting a college degree, working in the field, and using your money wisely. See where that takes you. Oh, and being flexible enough to re-train whenever necessary.
What waste are you talking about? NASA survives on just 1/2 of 1% of the federal budget - a budget that has remained flat at roughly $18 billion annually since 1972! I know of no other agency that has consistently accomplished so much with so little for so long. If only the rest of the federal government were one tenth as efficient as NASA.
"Every time I see someone associated with NASA I see a rich person - one who would not have a job in real life"
You need to look closer, friend. I know someone who works at the Johnson Space Center, and she's as 'middle-class' as anybody here, and could be working in the commercial sector...
Yes, I don't think anyone has ever gotten rich working for a government agency. Most of us do it out of the belief that the sacrifices associated with public service our worth it to us personally. All of the really rich people I know got that way either by working in the private sector or by inheritance.
Why does NASA simply protect it's expensive, manned "turf" when the issue raised is whether the decades long mindset of NASA, namely expensive manned missions, is the way to go when deep seas exploration and other similar endeavors have so decidedly embraced unmanned, robotic probes and AI systems?
What scares me is that it appears most U.S. citizens believe what aceman is saying.
Every president is remembered for something. Nixon had Vietnam and Watergate. Carter was the Iran hostage crisis. Clinton was Monica Lewisnsky. Bush 1 was 'Read my lips, no new taxes.' Bush 2 was 9.11, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Obama's legacy will feature the final gutting of the US manned space program; the man who killed Buck Rogers.
Is it really deserved? That really doesn't matter. These things happen as a matter of perception and right now, that perception is being steered by America having to pay taxi-fare to our former enemies to fly in a spacecraft that failed to beat us to the moon.
Almost everyone's counting SpaceX delivering what they've promised, and the promise reads like what has been said about the Shuttle before it first flew. Has anyone considered, what if SpaceX could not deliver cheap, reliable and frequent access to space they've promised? Is there a plan B?