NASA is good only with lower cost, investigative research. Beyond that, NASA becomes recursive. They have success inventing a wheel, so they reinvent the wheel. Always with an eye *just* to discovery, not to application.
For example, they send a successful pair of rovers to Mars. So their next step is to send a larger rover to Mars, to do much the same thing.
The Russians, and private industry, are far more practical. They realize that to go far, most of what you do will not result in scientific discovery, but will just pave the way for scientific discovery.
In just going to the Moon for a while, NASA would build a surface habitat that could be used once, but would soon become degraded because of cosmic and enhanced radiation, extremes of heat and cold, vacuum and extra abrasive Lunar dust. Doing so would limit how long people could stay on the Moon, as well as limit the supplies and equipment they could bring with them. Thus, they would never grow beyond a single mission.
The obvious solution is to tunnel underground, to mine horizontal caves in a cliff face, with a nuclear powered tunneling robot. It would not have to be fast, just thorough, and could mine, reinforce, micro-fissure seal, and even test the tunnel for air tightness and radiation ahead of time.
Since it is on a one-way trip, its lander could be cannibalized for pressure doors, tunnel ceiling, walls and flooring, all pre-made with electrical wiring and fixtures. And its nuclear reactor would provide both power and heat for the astronauts. Once water ice was found and mined, reactor electricity could be used for electrolysis, to obtain both oxygen and hydrogen.
NASA would not ever imagine such a thing.
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Anyone remember when astronauts were the best of the best? Remember when everyone else came to the USA to get stuff into orbit? What happened?
Payoff to Pelosi? Or her husband?
They should never have cancelled the SSC. To do what we really want to do in a manned space program will require fundamental breakthroughs, especially in physics. NASA should stick with the highly productive unmanned programs it has been so successful with and funnel the money spent on manned programs into basic research. When we figure out how to build a warp drive, then we can venture back into the manned space travel and do something REALLY impressive.
bump