Is the Vision for Space Exploration Ten Years Too Late?

The Space Review ^ | April 18, 2005 | Eric R. Hedman

[Spktyr]

No, NASA had plenty of money. They blew it all on the the NASP and the X-30.

[Spktyr]

Forgot to add -

NASA's motto, 1992-2003: If it doesn't have wings, it doesn't fly.

[Brett66]

NASA did a good job at sabotaging Beal Aerospace too. We could've had much cheaper access to space in the mid 90's if that had worked out.

[CasearianDaoist]

Well, I do not see the need for "partners," but if we must than I would go with these two, provided they pull their own weight. I would consider adding Australia too. As for cost. there is more money lost to Nedicare scams in a year than there is money budgeted for NASA in the next five years.

It is a wonderful vision, and, to be fair, it is is not really Bush's vision, but one that has been kick aroiund for years.

I hope it is realized though the socialist will find a way to detroy it if they can.

If it goes through even at the planned funding level I predict that in the end it will be for this that Bush is remembered rather than the WOT.

[Paul_Denton]

We should be on Mars by now. We absolutly cannot let China or the EU get ahead of us in space. Do you want to wake up to a communist or socialist moon?

[tet68]

Now, now, we have a treaty with the UN remember?

spit!

[anymouse]

We absolutly cannot let China or the EU get ahead of us in space. Do you want to wake up to a communist or socialist moon?

Do you have that much faith in the capabilities of centrally planned economies to think that China or even Europe will advance significantly in manned spaceflight?

Or do you think so lowly of American capitalism as to think we won't be able to do significant manned spaceflight without emulating socialism in a government "Space Program"? We see how well it has worked in the last 30 years. /sarcasm

[guitfiddlist]

We're not going anywhere in space, and anybody that's worked with NASA and/or the Air Force in any sort of relevant capacity knows it.

I graduated with a degree in Aero & Astro from MIT in the early 80's - and we all had high hopes back then. "Hah Hah", said the EE and Mech E majors "..where ya gonna get a job with THAT degree?" But we KNEW, space was gonna happen. We were designing lunar mining stations, a winged SSTO shuttle follow-on, mass driver systems for direct lunar orbit insertion, and geosynchronous factories for various things (although what those factories were to make was never quite clear), but we had all the infrastructure planned out with basically available technology. The professors would excitedly trundle down to Congress and brief them on what our Systems Engineering classes came up with, and we thought it all was gonna happen. Then we hit the real world.

For those of us in the Air Force, we found out what a Faustian bargain the Air Force made with Congress and NASA concerning the Shuttle. Scuttle the expendables and put all the eggs in the Shuttle in order to cajole Congress into fully funding it. The SOB behind this decision, unfortunately also an MIT Aero & Astro grad, turned right around after getting appointed head of SDIO - and bought expendables for HIS programs, after saddling the rest of us with the 5 fat albatrosses, now 3.

Now, stuck over a barrel, they have to continually fund the Space Pigs in order to maintain any sort of manned heavy delivery capability, sucking all the funds out of any true follow-on.

And as for the future, I guess if pigs can fly into space, I suppose we could reactivate our NASA employees from their ROAD trip (Retired On Active Duty), and galvanize the hip-hop generation to turn their hats around, pull up their pants from their ankles, and actually open up an engineering textbook right side up, but I don't see it happening.

[Paul_Denton]

Or do you think so lowly of American capitalism as to think we won't be able to do significant manned spaceflight without emulating socialism in a government "Space Program"? We see how well it has worked in the last 30 years.

My point was that we cannot let anyone else catch up. We do not have to worry too much about the EU, but our main competition is China and its economy.

[sonofatpatcher2]

The problem is the ISS!

Had we kept going back to the Moon at the same rate as Apollo, we'd have a colony there and probably one of Mars also.

Instead, we have a shuttle program that is about to be needlessly tossed away (That is another soapbox chant of mine!) and a space station that does little but soak up funds better spent on manned missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

BTW Where are the flying cars we were promised?

[anymouse]

Now, stuck over a barrel, they have to continually fund the Space Pigs in order to maintain any sort of manned heavy delivery capability, sucking all the funds out of any true follow-on.

And as for the future, I guess if pigs can fly into space, I suppose we could reactivate our NASA employees from their ROAD trip (Retired On Active Duty), and galvanize the hip-hop generation to turn their hats around, pull up their pants from their ankles, and actually open up an engineering textbook right side up, but I don't see it happening.

Funny you should mention flying pigs. ;)

Air Force "propeller heads" have made some bonehead choices in space development over the past 30 years too.

You missed the point of your MIT profs. The technology was pretty much in place back in the 80s. The mistake was expecting that the government was the only route to employ it to develop space.

Had the government empowered the private sector to develop space, or just stayed out of the way, much of what was known to be possible back then, would be in place today making money for investors. Instead we continue pouring Billions down the NASA rat hole.

As for the "Blue Suiters," the jury is still out on whether they should be trusted to do more with space, than fire missiles and control satellites. They seem to have difficulty doing that sometimes. :)

[KevinDavis]

Well I can tell you what happend in why NASA is in such a sorry state..

1. Democrats
2. Richard Nixon
3. Jimmy Carter
4. Welfare bums
5. Carl Sagan (He did not want humans to go into space)
6. Bill Clinton

Gerald Ford was not in too long for much of an effect on NASA
Ronald Reagan tried to revive it but did not have the votes
Bush I tried to revive it but it was mostly lip service
GW, he may have the votes. More than lip service needs to withdrawl from the UN Space Treaty...

[King Prout]

actually, I blame JFK and his moonshot idiocy for taking NASA from a diverse R&D agency with a rational 30 year timetable for incremental expansion of capabilities and long-term space-presence/exploitation and turning it into a bureaucratically top-heavy behemoth with narrow and unrelated single-project agendas and circumscribed by political pork.

[KevinDavis]

That too. While I applaud the Moon shot, I think it was done with haste.

[RightWhale]

It is too expensive and will go nowhere.

The author should reflect on Part Three of the President's Commission Report on Moon, Mars, and Beyond, [the Report is the source document for ALL NASA projects for the foreseeable future].

Private property rights is the key to space development. Gov't projects never did anything of lasting value.

[vannrox]

"...I remember the excitement and awe I felt as a ten-year-old watching Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon. It set me on the course to study engineering. I wanted to design space vehicles when I grew up. I was also extremely disappointed when I graduated from college at a time when there was no real vision for NASA, with cutbacks meaning few were being hired..."

Me Too. BS Aerospace/Mechanical Engineering 1981 Syracuse University.

[af_vet_rr]

I think if you take all of the money that's been wasted by NASA over the past ten years (not necessarily NASA's fault - NASA is hobbled in part because Congress members tries to spread the money around to their districts), we could have already been on Mars.

Regardless, the author did put the space program and its future into context (how it can be hurt by other distractions, etc.), but they lightly glossed over the national security implications of Lunar or Martian bases.

The next ten years will be crucial, and will determine whether we hold the high ground (or at least a chunk of it), or whether the Indians and Chinese do.

[anymouse]

Aerospace Engineer 1985.

The irony is that I almost didn't go into Aero Engineering because of the negative impression I had of the prospects in the Aerospace industry that had taken a huge downturn in the late 1970s.

I blame President Reagan for giving me false hope that we actually were going to accomplish things in space in the 1980s. </sarcasm> (not completely)

[Little_shoe]

Despite Nasa's achievements and failures, I think that we cannot rely exclusively to them to provide services for those in space. That would be like saying that the American West was won by the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

It will take indepent minded people and corperations to truely open up space. That is why the X prize was an important step. If we wouldnt be willing to innovate and risk what we have today wouldnt exist.

He who dares Wins.

[anymouse]

You are correct, sir.

BTW, NASA is an accronym despite the lamestream media's habit of not using all Caps.