[9outof10mms]

I very cautiously submit this piece of startling good space news for the US: http://www.space.com/26015-nasa-space-launch-system-orion-capsule.html

I could be labeled as an outspoken critic of our current manned spaceflight capabilities (or severe lack thereof), but I will be the first to get behind and support a good direction--if presented with such an option. However, I'm skeptical of this piece of news, mainly because it seems like it came out of nowhere. I've not heard any solid direction from our president nor NASA in a long time; not since cancelling the original directive of returning to the moon and replacing it with a Muslim outreach (yes, I know there have likely been other space news bits since then, but that's just too ripe to not pick on for years to come).

A new era of space exploration - supported by a history-making new mega-rocket and a spacecraft designed to deliver humans into deep space - could be on the horizon for NASA.
The space agency is gearing up to build the largest and most powerful rocket in history. The huge launcher, called the Space Launch System (SLS), will move a new spacecraft dubbed Orion, designed to send up to four astronauts farther into the solar system than ever before. A short list of destinations includes the moon, nearby asteroids and, eventually, Mars...

Hi-res image here: http://i.space.com/images/i/000/012/137/original/space-launch-system-new-nasa-rocket-110914d-02.jpg

If this news lives up to its face value, then I'm excited. But I have a great deal of apprehension. Why is not officially announced with great enthusiasm? Why isn't the first lady pushing it as a science and math agenda for kids to get excited about (we could hashtag space travel, no?)? Instead, this news is coming via a space enthusiast website (Space.com) who has an agenda to push all things space. I love the topic, but just like guns, I have a sensitivity to propaganda from the "side" that I like just as much as the opposition. The official NASA website doesn't seem to mention anything about this, at least not readily available as a headline. Instead (as of today), there's a big front page article about how some American butt is being lifted to space via Rooskie horsepower (gag me with a spoon).

Here's to hoping that this article has some truth and that politicians can have the fortitude to fund it.

 

[Warning Shot]

I agree. I think it's money well spent. Anything to slow the trend in the dumbing down of America.

 

[hardluk1]

Huummm. Just makes me feel warm and fuzzy all over knowing we will foot the bill for the development and the not so developed manned space craft !! Like we need people farther into the solar system !! Lets try to get the bogs out of the trouble prone f-35 and f-22!! 18 and 28 years of waisted money .

 

[9outof10mms]

So focus entirely on war efforts and non on exploration? Makes the funding of defense pointless, to me. What is there to defend if we lose our drive and interest in expanding our horizon; both on earth and in space?

 

[ForumSurfer]

This money could be better spent arming syrians, sending our boys to some podunk craphole over oil, putting cameras on every street corner and expanding an underfunded NSA.

18 and 28 years of waisted money .

Whaaaaat? Where do you think the tech to create those cutting edge items came from? Plus the Improvements in weaponry? Let alone stuff like imaging, tracking, ceramics, chemical detection, infra-red tech, LED tech, communications....our miltary's rise to cutting edge battlefield tech is directly related to NASA's research and development.

We've been out of the space game for far too long. We've been involved in other countries' crap for far too long, also.

 

[Qball50]

I have very mixed feelings on the subject. I think the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Shuttle years were the greatest technological achievements of mankind. However, when you throw human beings into the recipe of deep space travel, the costs exponentially rise. I don't mean to sound like someone who doesn't support a manned space program. If they could figure out how to do it without the costs skyrocketing (no pun intended), then I could support a manned mission to Mars. But projects like the James Webb Space Telescope, the Mars Rovers of the past two decades, and several other robotic landers and probes, seem to me to be the most desirable and affordable way to get the fastest and best returns on our investment in space exploration. Building a moon base from which we can develop a way to get humans to Mars, I would definitely support, if we could fund it without our debt exploding even more. But I think there are better and less expensive ways to explore our solar system and beyond than sending humans into deep space out of earth's orbit. Of course, this is just my personal opinion.

 

[9outof10mms]

I have very mixed feelings on the subject. I think the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Shuttle years were the greatest technological achievements of mankind. However, when you throw human beings into the recipe of deep space travel, the costs exponentially rise. I don't mean to sound like someone who doesn't support a manned space program. If they could figure out how to do it without the costs skyrocketing (no pun intended), then I could support a manned mission to Mars. But projects like the James Webb Space Telescope, the Mars Rovers of the past two decades, and several other robotic landers and probes, seem to me to be the most desirable and affordable way to get the fastest and best returns on our investment in space exploration. Building a moon base from which we can develop a way to get humans to Mars, I would definitely support, if we could fund it without our debt exploding even more. But I think there are better and less expensive ways to explore our solar system and beyond than sending humans into deep space out of earth's orbit. Of course, this is just my personal opinion.

You make good points. I think you speak of a solid foundation...one that we used to have laid out. Bush directed return trips to the moon, followed by establishing a moon base (to practice and launch from), then on to Mars. It was an excellent plan, second only to JFK's directive in the 60's--dare I say even more bold.

Use probes and robotics to gather data and learn about where we want to go, then go there!

 

[mckenziedrums]

Manned missions are crucial. If you don't think there are military aspects to being able to get men into space, you're kidding yourself. The unmanned stuff has come a long way but we need to be able to put men in space. Especially since we were able to do it with a fraction of the technology that we have today. It's a friggen crime that we can't get to the moon now with as far as we've come technology wise.

So many things spin out from the cutting edge research that its importance can't be stressed enough. If for no other reason, if we don't, someone else will.

 

[9outof10mms]

The benefits of a renewed space interest and exploration are immeasurable (in the greatly positive direction), if you ask me. The direct spinoffs of technology are easy to see. But the intangible benefits, namely an energized youth who are encouraged and motivated to pursue careers in both technology and flight, will ripple through generations of people. The Apollo program rippled through two, maybe three generations before hitting a brick wall and all but stopping when we started calling our space endeavors too costly and too risky.

I'll also point out that NASA can be its own worst enemy when it comes to invigorating youth. Nothing is more boring than watching a new idea get put through a decade or more of testing before anything real happens with it.

If I were made king of America, my directive would be to get our manned spaceflight back up and running, and do it quickly. Don't rush, but over-analyze every darn thing. There are some things that are just better learned by seat-of-the-pants experience...test pilot feedback. And dare I say, sacrifice. We would have learned the hard(er) way about combustible atmospheres and materials had it not been for the Apollo 1 accident during a dress rehearsal. No, Grissom, Chaffee, and White did not sign up to die, but they knew the risk. Their sacrifice prevented an even greater disaster of a cabin fire in space (which we may likely have never known the cause of). In hindsight, it's obvious what the problem was, but there was likely no way to know it without doing it back then. Fastforward to today and we try to model and prototype everything in a computer and perform micro tests of short flights or one maneuver, then analyze that data for a year.

So my sig line for an applicable quote:
"A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution applied ten minutes later." - Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.

 

[hardluk1]

How about paying down the trillions owed now.

Besides YOU missed the Point about the unproven billions of dollar sucking f-35 and f-22 never ending projects that are still problem prone. Where is the bottom line where the government lets a company pay for the own shortcomings and screw ups.

I'll a bit about Apollo 1 from an electrical engineer that was on the team that got the chore of finding what went wrong . Jame B Huff , worked at the redstone arsenal for 35 years. I had a desk model of the A-12 in 1963 given to me by grand dad years before it was admitted to. I know his feeling about how designs came a bout from the early days to the shuttle days. One reason he quit. Difference in design and engineering views. No more Clarence Johnson types. Spread out the projects parts to many states so they all get a piece of the pie and more problems came from that. Think what you will but today new toys take to much time , to much money with no limits to the waist. LImits ?? Some one has to pay. Guess we will continue to pay for other screw ups.

 

[mckenziedrums]

The comment above is why they over test every single thing at NASA... If something does blow up the public will say "See... it's too expensive with no gains... we shouldn't waste money on Space!"

 

[9outof10mms]

How about paying down the trillions owed now.

Besides YOU missed the Point about the unproven billions of dollar sucking f-35 and f-22 never ending projects that are still problem prone. Where is the bottom line where the government lets a company pay for the own shortcomings and screw ups.

My guess at why programs can tend to "overrun"...and that's ANY type of program: military, space, infrastructure, healthcare, etc...

It's because we go with lowest bidder (typically) and/or we play the game of the buddy network and companies have to get in by the skin of their teeth with no room/margin for error. There is absolutely no project or program in the history of mankind that does not come in exactly on budget or exactly on schedule. They can be above or below, but never precisely on. The sooner people embrace that fact, the better they will be at digesting "hiccups" when they occur in a program. Along with this, in order for a company to get a contract, they're likely fudging the numbers in the negative direction away from where the numbers should really be (which would include room for unknowns and contingencies). So, for example, they say something is going to be $100M and 5 years to develop. In actuality, it should be have been given $150M and 6 years.

Nothing is perfect, and if you want close to perfection, it's going to be costly. That goes for AR parts and upgrades, F-22's and space vehicles. You can buy crap, but it's going to have the radar return of a skyscraper and the fuel efficiency of a mountain. The real shame in the F-22 (and 35, too) program is that we developed the best fighter aircraft the world has ever seen and we crapped out on ordering enough to effect any real change in the world's game.

 

[9outof10mms]

The comment above is why they over test every single thing at NASA... If something does blow up the public will say "See... it's too expensive with no gains... we shouldn't waste money on Space!"

Yep.

And if you ask the astronauts and test pilots that sign up for it, they'd tell you that they're more than willing to accept the risk in exchange for being the tip of the advancing spear.

The pansies like Story Musgrave (while an extremely accomplished astronaut, was/is an outspoken opponent of manned spaceflight) come along afterward and reap the benefits of the hard work done by the brass ball-endowed trailblazers.

There was a time, not too long ago, when every kid aspired to be that adventure-seeking astronaut or explorer (or inventor, or day-saving soldier, or race winning driver, etc), not a bean-counting tax accountant worried about how much it's going to cost the country. There is a need for those folks, but we've got the proportion totally bass-ackwards with too many accountants and not enough explorers.

 

[9outof10mms]

Dang it...who started this thread to get me all riled up about space stuff?!?!


Oh...

 

[hardluk1]

Its not the deaths that come from testing its the cost over runs. We the people keep footing the bill for the never ending cost over runs . The millions upon billions that have to be controlled with the contract holder.

Let me build you a home to your specs for a contract price of 400,000 that I bid. I get the contract and then hit you for cost over runs that I covered in the bid and have you end up paying 1.4 million. That's ok then?? That's were we always end up now when government is connected with building anything.

Let at least try get our own butts out of the pour house before "we" go into any more never ending spending endeavors . Or let the Space X build the space craft out of there own pockets and operate it. Works now for nasa.. All they need to do is monitor and pay the bill.

http://www.spacex.com/

 

[9outof10mms]

Its not the deaths that come from testing its the cost over runs. We the people keep footing the bill for the never ending cost over runs . The millions upon billions that have to be controlled with the contract holder.

Let me build you a home to your specs for a contract price of 400,000 that I bid. I get the contract and then hit you for cost over runs that I covered in the bid and have you end up paying 1.4 million. That's ok then?? That's were we always end up now when government is connected with building anything...

While I did advocate for the acceptance/tolerance of overruns in my previous post, I should have clarified that realistic boundaries should be set to trigger serious examinations of the program is excessive overruns are hit. While it is normal for a project to overrun a budget (or come in under, for that matter), it's a sign of something being drastically wring when a project overruns by a significant amount (to define "significant" depends on many variables, including original budget, complexity of the project, newness of the technology--or the lack thereof, etc.) and is well worth examining what is going wrong and why. Monitoring this and reacting appropriately to it on the fly is crucial to a project's success. In my opinion, if a project was worth enough to embark upon, it is rarely acceptable to not finish.

...Let at least try get our own butts out of the pour house before "we" go into any more never ending spending endeavors . Or let the Space X build the space craft out of there own pockets and operate it. Works now for nasa.. All they need to do is monitor and pay the bill.

http://www.spacex.com/

I stand by previous assertions that private industry will never be able to produce such programs as Apollo or a government-run/sponsored manned Mars mission. It's far too costly and complex, and I'll admit, it's not sustainable. Those words scare the crap out of investors. Exploration and advancing ourselves is not about sustainability. If we kept launching Apollo missions up through today, the country would be bankrupt. But the technology and advancement we harvested from the handful of expensive missions we did pull off make the sunk investment well worth it. We've reaped those benefits for decades now and now reinvested them into exponentially multiplying them by pushing ourselves further (i.e. the moon, Mars, beyond...)

 

[9outof10mms]

...Let me build you a home to your specs for a contract price of 400,000 that I bid. I get the contract and then hit you for cost over runs that I covered in the bid and have you end up paying 1.4 million. That's ok then?? That's were we always end up now when government is connected with building anything...

This is the nature of the construction industry beast. You either make a lucrative living or lose your shirt. They have a contract that says "it's not going to go over this price _____, nor will it cost less than that price." So there's incentive to bust their butt to get it done. If they go over, they lose...or try to get more from you in extreme cases. Government contracts are not typically lump sum (not that that reason alone is why they overrun, but it would help if there was incentive to get done early).

 

[RedneckFur]

Compared to all the other big spending our government does, space exploration is dirt cheap. If the money we've spent on policing foreign countries was spent on space exploration, we'd probably have placed astronauts on Mars by now.

 

[ForumSurfer]

Compared to all the other big spending our government does, space exploration is dirt cheap. If the money we've spent on policing foreign countries was spent on space exploration, we'd probably have placed astronauts on Mars by now.

Yep.

 

[fieldgrade]

If we don't get on with some space exploration how are we ever gonna get the hell outta here?

If it weren't for some brave souls venturing across the big pond 500 years ago from western Europe all my family would be dead, or stuck in France, but mostly dead.

Let's GO!