NASA's future?

African_Swallow

African_Swallow

Well-Known Member
This caught my attention in the following article, and made me wonder if NASA and Scaled, for instance, will be joining forces in the near future. Hmmm. Does anyone have any info or links to post on the topic...or has a thread already been started about this?

>>Instead, NASA would spend $6 billion over the next five years to help private companies develop space taxis.

Original article from Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6151JD20100208
 
Right now NASA doesn't have much of a future. It's as much their fault as anyone else's.
 
The moon thing kind of confused me. It's like saying, "Let's re-invent the vacuum tube (Moon)!" and pulling money from transistor research (Mars) to do it. So NASA can spend more of it's resources on exploration (Mars) than repetition (Moon).
 
Doug Taylor said:
The moon thing kind of confused me. It's like saying, "Let's re-invent the vacuum tube (Moon)!" and pulling money from transistor research (Mars) to do it. So NASA can spend more of it's resources on exploration (Mars) than repetition (Moon).
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Going back to the moon was intended to lead up to sending astronauts to mars. It's smarter to test the stuff out 1 rock away...
 
I am against cancellation of the moon program. Not because of any notions of the glory of the USA being expanded by going to the moon, mind you. I'm just afraid of what might happen when there are suddenly hundreds of bored, unemployed, probably drunk rocket scientists on the loose.
 
I'm pretty bummed about this whole ordeal. I watched the last NASA night launch this morning. I got 30 minutes of sleep because of it; totally worth it. There's only 5 more launches until the shuttles are retired.

Godspeed Endeavour.
 
Adler said:
I'm sorry, I didn't know we had anything that went to Mars in 1972.
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Apollo 17 was 1972, you pit bull you. I was agreeing with you. I was :ahem: "adding" the word "NEW" to your post. "New stuff..." Thanks for the sarcasm. :sarcasm:

I guess CAPS wasn't good enough. Next time I'll take the time to post and quote every relating post, and spell it out better. Please forgive my ignorance.:sarcasm:

This is why I often consider not even getting on the form at all...


On a lighter note: I was quite excited about the prospect of a new moon/mars project. Totally lame.
 
Sad to see the shuttle retired and NASA's future uncertain. The Orion spacecraft was one giant step backwards, 40 years backwards to be precise, IMO. I don't think it needed to be cancelled altogether but definitely second guessed.

Privatization is a good thing but NASA should be leading the way instead of handing over the reigns. It seems the average American doesn't appreciate the work they do anymore and is too shortsighted to see the bigger picture. I always wanted to make it out for a shuttle launch in person, don't think it's going to happen though. :(
 
Superfly7XAF said:
Sad to see the shuttle retired and NASA's future uncertain. The Orion spacecraft was one giant step backwards, 40 years backwards to be precise, IMO. I don't think it needed to be cancelled altogether but definitely second guessed.

Privatization is a good thing but NASA should be leading the way instead of handing over the reigns. It seems the average American doesn't appreciate the work they do anymore and is too shortsighted to see the bigger picture. I always wanted to make it out for a shuttle launch in person, don't think it's going to happen though. :(
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There are still 5 more...you should try to make it out to FL for one. I have been to 5 of them and seen countless from my house here in South Florida, it is awe inspiring. I still get goosebumps each time one goes up, and I have been seeing them for 24 yrs.

NASA shot itself in the foot by mismanaging millions of dollars on a destined for failure project like Constellation. The project was poorly designed, contracted out to cheap bidders (a lot of people don't know, the wiring was done in Mexico...GO AMERICA!), and the system itself as a whole exhibited no real finesse at all. In a lot of ways, it is good this project is cancelled before people got hurt (recall Apollo 1). NASA has been doing a lot of joint research with SpaceX, and of all the private space companies out there, they have shown the most promise of anyone. The organization and the American space program are at a real cross roads right now. The real tragedy is that this cancellation of Constellation is part of a bigger issue in America. Short sightedness, lack of imagination, and the "downsizing" of science/math/research positions will all leave our country hurt in the long term. Meanwhile, countries like India, Brazil and of course Russia have space programs that will be considered more advanced once the shuttle stops flying. Yes, the International Space Station has not accomplished anything, save a few science experiments, that could have not been well performed on Earth; however, it is a tangible and functional experiment in international astronautical cooperation. Notice my avatar....the recession has now hit the astronaut program. Sweet.
 
Superfly7XAF said:
Sad to see the shuttle retired and NASA's future uncertain. The Orion spacecraft was one giant step backwards, 40 years backwards to be precise, IMO. I don't think it needed to be cancelled altogether but definitely second guessed.
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Going to have to disagree. The shuttle never worked as it promised to. Each orbiter was designed to operate for 100 missions, and to be replaced. Originally, there was to be weekly launches of the system. The whole system was never given a chance.

Going back to booster/capsule designs is the way to get cost down. Sure, there may be fewer jobs in the program, but the cost goes down. Look at Russia. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. They've had the same basic core booster since Sputnik in 1957. Imagine the money we could have saved if we would have used a common booster core since the mid 1950's.

SpaceX has the solution, and its called Falcon 9. Hopefully, they get their launch date down solid, but it looks to be sometime in March as of now. They aren't getting a lot of favors in scheduling the eastern range, so they keep getting bumped around. The first flight of the Falcon 9 is carrying a boilerplate Dragon capsule (which is their manned capsule). Genius design to get to ISS, with room for up to 7 people. No complex docking system, just a simple SSRMS graple point. Fly up to ISS, get in close formation, and use the arm to attach to the station.
 
We need to totally scrap the idea of booster/capsule designs. Unless someone goes out there and picks up all the space garbage, it will only get worse making it a real headache just to find an open window for launch. It's VERY surprising at how much garbage and spent rocket stages there are floating out in space. NASA spends a lot of man power tracking the path of space trash orbitals.
 
Kestrel452 said:
We need to totally scrap the idea of booster/capsule designs. Unless someone goes out there and picks up all the space garbage, it will only get worse making it a real headache just to find an open window for launch. It's VERY surprising at how much garbage and spent rocket stages there are floating out in space. NASA spends a lot of man power tracking the path of space trash orbitals.
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So then, what's your plan? Its great to come out and say no to something, but help us out here, come up with something?
 
Kestrel452 said:
We need to totally scrap the idea of booster/capsule designs. Unless someone goes out there and picks up all the space garbage, it will only get worse making it a real headache just to find an open window for launch. It's VERY surprising at how much garbage and spent rocket stages there are floating out in space. NASA spends a lot of man power tracking the path of space trash orbitals.
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You should read the book "How Apollo Got to the Moon" and the biography of Werner Von Braun. You'll soon see that multi-stage rockets are the only alternative to a solid rocket booster scenario like the Orbiter. If you want to have a reasonable payload and go anywhere beyond a parabolic trajectory across the Ocean, you have to reduce the size of your rocket as you spend your fuel. The cost of tracking spent boosters will is MUCH smaller than launching "super sized" single stage rockets capable of reaching the orbits of the space station and most commercial/military satellites.
 
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