US Leaves Space For Russia

Space Daily ^ | Apr 10, 2011 | Staff Writers

[Salman]

By the end of this year, NASA will no longer be able to send humans into space. According to Barack Obama's plan, responsibility will go to private companies, which are expected to come up with cheaper ways to ferry astronauts to low-Earth orbit.

"They know they have a big step to take if they are going to put humans into space... They have a lot of work to do," says NASA Astronaut Sunita Williams.

No one can say for sure when the private American companies will come up with a new spaceship.

For years to come, it will be the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which is going to be the only means for people to reach the International Space Station, which is perfectly fine with the leaders of Russia and the US, but does not sit well with many Americans.

[June2]

NASA is a government agency that has to abide by what politicians tell them and fund them to do. Many folks that work at NASA believe in the exploration and understanding of space. Unfortunately, politics And governments can “complicate” (to put it politely) things. If someone in the private sector wants to step up to the task, then great. As I stated earlier, it’s my belief the exploration is cost prohibitive until someone (usually govts) lay the groundwork.

I am guilty of generalizing about things without knowing all the facts at times. I do believe in limited government and understand the frustration that some of us feel about the out of control spending. I just hope that we don’t forfeit space to others. I think we will be sorry if we do.

[no-s]

They should never have cancelled the SSC.

I'm going to take exception with that. The Superconducting Super Collider was just another scheme to transfer wealth from the taxpayers to a select group, notably professional government scientists. There was an implied social contract since the Manhatten project - if you went into science or engineering you could always be assured of a government job. After SSC people with skills had to move into private industry. The world benefited more - all of that technical power went from building "pyramids" to advancing technology for profit. A vast majority of the research performed by gov't employed scientists ended up in dusty archives - mostly unusable because it was difficult to license.

Actually, Space-X just proves my point. A lot of the technology in Space-X was originally developed for NASA, some of it in the 60's and 70's. But they never used it because it was often too risky for government programs to use new things - a failure might lead to project cancellation or bad press for a sponsor, and nobody wanted that. Meanwhile every time someone spun up a viable alternative to NASA and it's established contracters, Nasa would use it's lobbying power or connections to help quash it...

I think one reason Space-X and other NewSpace enterprises are succeeding because Nasa has been effectively emasculated by the Obama administration.

[Hulka]

No kidding. . .the F-111. . .egads!

;-)

[Hulka]

Indeed, but a iittle more complicated than that.

Requires an investment that takes years and congress is loath to authorize multi-years contracts that would make contracting easier, less costly and enable a timeline with stable deliverable profile.

Piecemeal budgeting for long-term projects is a sure fire way to kill a program.

[tanknetter]

NASA lost its nerve after the 1986 Challenger explosion and has not done anything in the manned-spaceflight field except science fair experiments.

I disagree.

The shuttle was, always, a capability dead-end that could do no more than lift a somewhat respectable payload into LEO and bring a somewhat respectable payload back when necessary. For enormous cost.

The only thing that Challenger's loss did was make NASA abandon the commercial/military satellite launch line of business, and move to a slower and more safety conscious launch schedule. But the overall impact of that on what NASA could do WITH the shuttle was negligible given design/mission limitations and costs. Even at the time Columbia first flew, it was obvious that the Shuttle was never going to be the cost-effective space-truck that had been sold to the public.

[hopespringseternal]

The initial space travel was not feasible for any entity but governments as potential direct profits were decades in the future.

If you said space exploration, I would absolutely agree. Exploration, by its very nature, is rarely a profitable venture.

Some dreamers these days think they are going to set up mining operations on the moon, or have profitable space tourism in the near future, but few steps have been taken to actually bring any of it about.

Actually, people were trying to get into the game from the late sixties on. Invariably their investors talked to NASA who could have just had a recorded message for the last 40 years as to the viability of commercial space ventures: "It will never work."

While NASA was telling congress the shuttle would fly twice a month and be powered by magic beans, they were telling private investors the truth -- about the shuttle's viability. Problem is, they also told investors that "If we can't do it, no one can."

Look at current events. How many companies are working on tourism, launchers, and associated hardware? One has made it into orbit and with a man-ratable system no less. For far less than NASA and its cadre of cost plus contractor would have ever admitted was possible.

I want NASA to stick around and do real exploration. But to do that it would merely be a funding vehicle, not the federal engineering jobs program it currently exists as.

[Former Proud Canadian]

Good post, Jack. I agree.

Remember, the aircraft industry was invented by a couple of (talented) bicycle mechanics in Dayton, Ohio. They invented the wind tunnel, the aircraft engine, and all the flight controls needed for powered flight with NO GOVERNMENT SUBSIDY or interference.