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Excalibur Almaz
An artist's conception shows Excalibur Almaz's orbital vehicle in flight.
At least eight companies have been invited to chat with NASA about their plans to build spaceships for sending astronauts to the International Space Station after the space shuttles are retired. Among the big questions yet to be answered: How much money will actually be set aside for supporting the development of those spaceships, and how many companies will get that money?
The list of eight was reported last week by the weekly Space News. Here's the rundown, with links to more information about each venture's proposal:
- Alliant Techsystems, or ATK, which is partnering with Astrium on a launch vehicle that's based on Ares and Ariane technology.
- Blue Origin, the relatively secretive rocket venture that's backed by Amazon.com billionaire founder Jeff Bezos.
- The Boeing Co., which is offering its CST-100 space capsule as a crew transport craft for NASA and private operators.
- Excalibur Almaz, which plans to update Soviet-era hardware to create a low-cost next-generation launch system.
- Orbital Sciences Corp., which is partnering with Virgin Galactic and other companies on its Prometheus space plane.
- Sierra Nevada Corp., which is working on a lifting-body concept based on the decades-old HL-20 design.
- SpaceX, which has already successfully tested its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule and would adapt that system for crew transport.
- United Launch Alliance, which is working to get its Atlas and Delta rockets ready to launch humans into space.
All these companies are looking for money from NASA for the second phase of the agency's Commercial Crew Development program, or CCDev 2. Four of these companies — Blue Origin, Boeing, Sierra Nevada and ULA — have already received shares of the $50 million awarded during CCDev's first phase. (A fifth company, Paragon Space Development, received CCDev 1 funding as well.)
The current plan calls for NASA to award another $200 million for CCDev 2. There's some uncertainty over that figure, however, because Congress is still deliberating over the budget for the current fiscal year. It's not clear how much money NASA will get overall, but it could well come in below the $18.7 billion that the agency received during the previous fiscal year.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk has estimated that it would cost $1 billion over three years for his company to develop a crew-capable version of the Dragon spacecraft — which suggests that even $200 million won't go very far, particularly if it's split several ways. Not all of the eight companies will receive NASA funding. And there are other companies in the CCDev 2 competition that don't appear on Space News' list, including United Space Alliance, which has suggested retooling two of the space shuttles; and t/Space, a venture that's proposing the development of a new crew transfer vehicle.
NASA aims to announce its lineup for CCDev 2 funding this month, which means it's getting down to crunch time for many of these concepts. Theoretically, the companies' spaceship-building plans aren't supposed to depend on NASA backing. But realistically, it will be much more difficult for a company to attract investments or private business if the space agency doesn't smile upon them.
More rumblings about the companies' prospects may filter out next week, after the discussions with NASA. The CCDev 2 discussion board at NASASpaceflight.com is a good place to look for inside information. How would you handicap this space race? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.
Join the Cosmic Log community by clicking the "like" button on our Facebook page or by following msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle as b0yle on Twitter. To learn more about Alan Boyle's book on Pluto and the search for planets, check out the website for "The Case for Pluto."
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Looks like a rather feeble attempt at creating a new privatized space program to me. Where is the innovation, the new technology that we need to make space flight practical. Modern physics needs to come up with a better solution than chemical rocketry. We all know that that mode of transportation into space is inefficient costly and out dated. I my self am working on a new technology that if it works out could give us close to light speed transport in 10 to 20 years.
Yes, I agree. I do not think rocketry will ever make trips to space economical. May I ask what kind of technology you are working on?
Perhaps you should develop better grammar, spelling, and punctuation skills. It might make your feeble claim almost believable.
The funding level is critical to the effort, but not in the way that most people think. When you are trying to foster innovation, too much money is as bad as too little money. If the "clients" get too much money, they are forces into "safe", "traditional" incremental science that is almost devoid of innovation. If they get too little money then the task becomes physically impossible to do for the money available.
The "sweet spot" is somewhere near the lean side of the middle. It is only when these efforts are kept very lean does innovation arise. This is because innovation only happens out of necessity. Lean funding is a way of fostering innovation (as would be short deadlines in wartime.)
The military has had its grasp in NASA since the early days. The fighter jock mentality ("right stuff" versus sound engineering and solid physics) has left us spending most of our money in near earth orbit on things that have "dual use" --- both civilian and military. Both the ISS and Space Shuttle were heavily lobbied for because of their potential for use as orbital weapons and reconnaissance platforms (as just two major examples.) But an awesomely small amount of science takes place in low earth orbit.
Privatization is a good way of bringing fresh innovation into the process, getting control of budgets, and weaning NASA away from military objectives. (Though there is some concern about Blue Origin as a possible military-controlled element.) So far it has been very successful, bringing the Falcon and Falcon 9 online in a shorter and cheaper timeframe than NASA could have done it.
Thank you :)
"Modern physics needs to come up with a better solution than chemical rocketry. We all know that that mode of transportation into space is inefficient costly and out dated."
'We' know no such thing. Rockets are perfectly adequate for reaching orbit (and are the only thing, under known physics, that works in a vacuum), just not the kind of rockets we've seen so far, that were designed for anything (including political motives) but robust, economical operations.
Even the Space Elevator argument:
A: Still uses Newton's third law, just as any kind of rocket does, and..
B: After a slow ride through the VanAllen belts to GEO, still doesn't take you to the rest of the solar system.
Some systems, like the Shuttle (and Constellation, derived largely from costly Shuttle technology and infrastructure, had we continued down that road) are expensive to operate, but it's not because they're rockets.
"I my self am working on a new technology that if it works out could give us close to light speed transport in 10 to 20 years."
I assume it's some kind of reactionless drive. Maybe, but it must first pass the Missouri Test. (Show me!)
Chemical rockets work just fine to get people and stuff into space. The problem is that you have to throw them away every time you use them. The cost of propellent is a few tenths of a percent of the cost of a launch. The technology exists right now to make a reusable rocket, we just need some smart people to put their heads down and build it, provided they have some funding either from the government or from other commercial ventures. Fortunately that's actually happening at a few companies as we speak. Sitting around and waiting for some magical new propulsion system to materialize is just wasting time that humans could be out exploring space and other planets.
The Shuttle was just what you want, a reusable rocket. It was touted as the way to bring launch costs down to $100 a pound back in '81. Funny thing though, the huge standing army required to refurbish it after every flight, and the much longer than expected turn around time, drove its operating costs to nearly $1 billion per flight. The cheapest cost to orbit is still the one shot throwaway. That's because it can be built cheaply since it only has to work one time. It doesn't require a standing army to stack it and shoot it either.
There are half a dozen expendables in the world capable of launching spam in a can. Every one of them is nearly an order of magnitude cheaper to fly than the one reusable we're in the process of retiring. Most of those expendables put payloads into geosync orbit too, something Shuttle could never do by itself. Nice reliable old workhorses like Proton, Atlas, Delta get the job done for far less money than a reusable rocket.
Now there is nothing wrong with a reusable payload. Even the Russians refurbish and re-fly Soyuz. That's where the avionics lives, and that's the largest cost factor. NASA was almost heading in the right direction with Constellation. A reusable capsule on top of an ARES I, well understood solid fuel rocket 1st stage and Apollo style liquid fueled second stage. Recovering and refurbing the SRB probably isn't worthwhile, and it could be cheaper if it was simplified and allowed to sink into the ocean after use. Making the second stage a solid as well would have really cut costs (those liquid fuel turbopumps are expensive). Still, not a bad plan. Operational costs would have been about a tenth the Shuttle's costs. That means we could afford to fly 10 times as often, or use that 9/10ths savings for other purposes.
@ Rusty: Cut him some slack. A lot of math and science types are not good at spelling and grammar. That alone does not discredit him.
During the mid 1950s there was A LOT of interest in antigravity technology, especially the Biefeld-Brown effect, by various big-name aeronatuics and aerospace companies. The literature was open and very optimistic. But by the 1960s the topic had all but disappeared from public view.
What happened?
I call B.S. on your light speed in 10-20 years!
Dunno how credible the website is but someone is (possibly) making an Ion Drive
http://www.theparacast.com/forum/threads/3254-Astronaut-invents-new-plasma-drive-to-take-us-to-Mars-and-beyond
Ion drives are actually in use. They're also called 'Hall Effect' thrusters. Deep Space 1, Deep Impact, and New Horizons all use Ion engines, as did the Japanese Hyabusa probe that returned an asteroid sample last year.
However, Ion engines are High ISP - Low thrust engines. Think high efficiency verses high performance. You will never launch a ship from Earth using an Ion Engine because it has a hard time pushing a piece of paper around against air pressure. In a vacuum though, that small thrust over a long time means that you eventually get moving very very very very fast.
I would think twice before I would risk my life in anything built by the lowest bidder by firms that hire by any standards but only the best and brightest are hired.
It's too bad the government can't re-direct the $60+ billion it gives to Big Oil and Archer-Daniels Midland and use it for science.
Science? Or technology development? This is about the latter.
Either way, it's better than giving free money to corporations that are already profitable beyond all comprehension.
More money for who, NASA? I don't think so...
This is the same bunch who lost two simple comminication $424-million satellites (each) in a row, the last one just this past week!!!
We need NASA for some things for sure, but, this is not a time to start budgeting stupidity, or excess spending that can be delayed for another 5 years or so.
Such a near sighted and ignorant comment Denny-boy. The future of our species depends on constant research and testing. Budgeting stupidity? NASA is comprised of some of the brightest and most intelligent minds humanity has to offer. To claim "this is the same bunch who lost two simple com sats" shows how your lack of understanding conveys your narrow view. These satellites are anything but simple. The work and complexity of the systems involved needed to launch these sats is tremendous. People dedicate every day of their lives for years on end to do their best to make these systems work nominally. Anytime chemical propellants are used mistakes CAN happen that are unforseen. Also, you say to put off funding for five years, then what? What happens if times are economically tough then? Do we put it off another five? Then another five? Research needs to be immediately if we are to progress as a species. It may seem that NASA receives a lot of money from the government, but if you took all the money spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and had dedicated it to NASA funding, we would have humans on Mars by now along with commercial spaceflight daily. Ponder that for a second.
"Do we put it off another five? Then another five? Research needs to be immediately if we are to progress as a species."
If we do put it off for 'another five' - or better yet, until we can really afford it, will that really impact our progress as a species in the long term? Probably not.
Of more immediate concern to the species is - how do we sustain ourselves? We need to make sure we don't over-extend the limited resources by making fewer people and clean up the cess-pool we are creating for ourselves.
NASA can't be held completely to blame in the two failures. The causes were in the design and construction of the payload farings built by Orbital Sciences and Vermont Composites.
NASA lead the failure investigation of the first failure and worked with orbital sciences on how to fix the problem (which we can speculate doesn't appear to have worked).
I think you are underestimating the failure rate of rockets. I guess you could compare NASA's failure rate with that of the ESA. On the other hand, the commercial satellite manufacturers who are paying NASA the full cost of launching their satellites and have insurance to pay for the losses are really the only losers here. Our government is not losing money on this at all. In fact there are people lined up to use NASA's services, so private industry must be behind NASA 100%... right? ;)
@Denny-boy,
The communications satellites were lost by Orbital Science, not NASA. And both the rockets and satellites were covered by insurance, so the taxpayer was protected. That's one of the reasons why using contractors is a good idea --- it protects the taxpayer. Orbital Science's insurance costs will go up incrementally and their launch success will do the same.
These two com sats that Orbital lost were the only two losses in
their 30 years. And the fairings that did not operate on the first
loss where totally redesigned and tested successfully with double
redundancy mechanisms to ensure deployment.
The only way the same exact mishap could occur using completely
different designs is if someone didn't want our atmosphere to be
monitored and purposely sabotaged the missions.
Hmmmm, what party hates science and anything environmentally
conscious?
I have already developed an FTL (faster than light) space vehicle. In fact, most members of the dominate species on my home world have been using it for years now. Prepare to be assimilated.
Billy, is that you??? It's Mike from the dark side of our world.
Remember that conference on FTL technology and its impacts on global economics and the keynote speaker was drunk and talking in Klingon? Good times....
Resistance is futile!
The problem is that other than a little bit of space tourisim, there is no real financial incentive for companies to develop spacecraft. Scientific exploration isn't really a good business model. Until something of real commercial value is discovered to drive the industry, government grants are the best game in town. Let someone discover something in space with potential for significant profit, and there will be dozens of companies raising private capital to exploit it.
To the people who are expecting this program to come up with some amazing new technology: you are missing the point. CCDev is about cheaper access to space. It's about efficiency, not novelty. We've been flying people into space for fifty years, and we know a lot about how to do it using existing technology. What we haven't been able to do (as long as it has been a government program) is get the price down. Sure, disruptive technologies will come some day, but today we need to take something we know how to do and wring some of the cost out of it. CCDev changes the way NASA engages its contractors in a way that allows them the flexibility (and the incentive) to optimize the cost structure. That's it.
Bill's right, its not about necessarily bringing a specific industry that occurs in space. Its about resetting how we do independent contracting at the federal government to bring costs down. After that, theres a possibility that the private companies themselves will one day find an actual niche to take advantage of in space. Otherwise for now... It's merely getting more responsibility and competition going on the private side to help NASA achieve its goals. Otherwise, NASA is still in charge of the more indepth space missions and research.
I agree (I think). It's time we consider getting to Earth orbit to be rocket engineering, not rocket science, and therefore--IMO--something that commercial companies can and should do. Getting beyond Earth orbit requires rocket science, for which NASA is probably the right developer (because there's no commercial market--yet). For that, we probably need new technology: ion drive, perhaps. (I'm not a rocket scientist, so if ion drive is not the right technology, my feelings won't be hurt.)
My guess is that they will want to pump most of the funds into the most conservative options:
(1) ULA Atlas V with a Boeing CST-100
(2) SpaceX Falcon9 + Dragon
It will become clear to NASA that Congress is not going to give them an increase in commercial funding and will hold their feet to the fire on the HLV, so they need to make the most of the limited funds.
The risks and development costs for lifting bodies (SpaceDev, Orbital) will rule them out for now.
ATK will get funding for the HLV SRBs, and they probably do not want to depend upon France.
They will also not want us to be flying an ex-Soviet expionage capsule for understandable political reasons.
And Blue Origin simply is too inexperienced, compared to the likes of Boeing or even SpaceX.
The Russians are already flying, and their equipment has a track record superior to anything else being proposed for ISS crew transport. It would seem a slam dunk to go with the proven performer. There are no development costs or risks, those are sunk costs the Russians have already recouped over the last 50 years.
Some of the newcomers are promising lower launch costs, but when has any spacecraft ever come in on or below budget? Historically, costs have escalated for every launch system as it advances through development, not to mention the mounting costs of development itself. If our aspirations are limited to spam in a can, the Russians have that down cold. There is no need to spend taxpayer funds to duplicate what they already offer.
What ever happened to the use of a reusable air-breathing first stage? The Air Force has shot down a satellite with a missile fired from a plane, for instance. A combination of conventional jet engines for take off and landing, along with ram jets for the high speed portion, should be feasible. It may be cheaper to make the ram jets recyclable/disposable, however.
Orbital Sciences uses an aircraft launched rocket called Pegasus. Others have used high altitude balloons to serve the purpose of first stage rockets. These have been called rockoons. Van Allen used a rockoon called Loki, and later one called Deacon, to do high altitude radiation measurements back in the early 1950s. These are tested configurations that make a sort of energetic sense for small vehicles. Attempts to scale them up to medium or heavy lift configurations run into serious problems, however. So even those who have flown this configuration abandon it when they need larger payloads to orbit.
Putting turbojets, ramjets, and rockets on a single vehicle would be an absurd and disastrous thing to do. It would require carrying way too much dead weight to space, and 3 different kinds of fuel. It makes no sense in terms of mass ratio, and certainly no sense in terms of cost to combine all of these propulsion methods in one vehicle.
I thought it was an interesting article. You are a bunch of very smart people commenting here. Whatever happens, whoever builds the next one and all of that; I hope that it's safe. For me the Space Travel is like Religion, You just trust that it works... :)
Good Luck and God Bless
Hey BillyD1953 if you see Borneo, tell him he still owes me money for those gershargs he bought from me 3 cieons ago. I will be looking for him at the usual place. If he doesn't show in the next 2 cieons tell him we will take his dreckerts as payment.
Ummm, yeah. Some serious stuff and some goofy stuff here aside...
Seems like Alan took my comments from his last post and used this to show what industries will be taking over for commercial space flight into orbit. The only problem with this is that's all this is...orbital flight to the space station. Nothing too much grand, just the status quo.
My thing is this...we need to be gearing up for space flight to go back to the moon and to Mars. If I were running things, well, I'd be relying on a lot of smart people, because I'm not that smart, but still, if I were, I'd be preparing the ISS to serve as a jumping off point to develop a place to where a larger space craft could be assembled or designed for solar system travel...say like a large ship that could house a lot of scientists to explore the solar system. Also we should be establishing bases and cities on both the moon and Mars. And the way to first get there is to establish rocket craft that is reusable, not toss-away craft that produces space junk. We already have too much space junk in orbit now which causes enough trouble. I think chemical rocketry for now is a good option because it's been tested and it works to start us off to get us to orbit and establish a foothold first. From there, larger craft with say Ion-drive engines or other technology with capable engine technology could be built from there. But NOW is the time to start working on this technology, as the longer we wait and discuss the farther behind we will be.
Hey, first you've got to get inexpensive and reliable transportation to the ISS - or its successor, or a Bigelow station - before you can use any of them as a "jumping-off point." You need inexpensive Earth-to-LEO transport for people and materials so you can build the Orbital Transfer Station, or whatever you call it, where people and other science packages can be launched out into the solar system.
It's like building a skyscraper. Everyone wants to see the world from the 86th story viewing platform, but until you pour a solid foundation and build each of floors 1-85 as strong and reliable as you can, you're not going to get that 86th floor built in any long-term usable way. Cheaper access to LEO will, in the long run, get us to the stars.
Maybe if we took the $20 billion we'd need from either unnecessary tax breaks to oil companies, overpayments to military contractors overseas, or from lining the pockets of Wall St. executives, we might make some progress on long-term propulsion and survival technologies. Don't take the money from the commercial-to-LEO providers. That's a losing proposition.
Frank has a point, physics is physics, but the engineering is far from over. The concept of rockets lifted by balloons alone has much more to be explored and just assuming that one could never build a rocket engine that performed as all three types listed above is the EXACT type of assumption that has been prevalent in throught the eighties to present. Others before us could no do it so why could we?...don't sell the american spirit short. Perhaps we just are not hungry enough yet. The big dog is still sleeping off the easy life, don't wake him cause the chinese and russians are wide awake, hungry and just a bit spitful of the big dog sleeping on the couch with the xbox 360 still beeping away.
Well, not all of us our pessimistic, or political manipulative or beguiled by the small minds that have accepted the myth of what cannot be done as taught to them by people that have never done it. F all that john we gotta get on with this. I hope nasa will keep some funds available for my small firm when it is time, yet wisdom tells me not to count on large organizations for my survival. I am in complete agreement with John1618phi. We are still in the kitty hawk stage of space travel. New materials are on the horizon that, if properly applied, may well solve many of our more persistant problems. Gravity is not yet understood by our physicists, Ligo has yet to detect a single gravity wave yet you can see gravity wave any day you wish by observing an open body of water...and, even measuere it's speed by the position of the moon overhead during the event, sadly, most wish not to accept the observable fact that gravity propagates faster than the speed of light. In fact, most physicits, when confronted by the normal experiments involving a pulse of light exiting a rubidum cloud before the pulse has entered the cloud simply reply that information can not be encoded and decoded withing the two seperate pulses, thus upholding their precise speed limit....why? who knows, matter of ego pride and pay perhaps. Personally, when I mentioned to one of my professional astromer friends that the title of his article mentions superluminal ejecta photographed by observatory as proof that matter is >c in V at times, his response was to oversimp the edward scissorhands allegory....hmmm...ok, for some of you, I will use e=mcc with out the special square root condition called "special relativity"...but those that are interested, where ever you find a constant in an equation, you have what is know as a fudge factor....treat it as the scientists way of saying "we don't know, so we put this duct tape here". G is one of them.
I will beak this into a seperate post so I can move forward.
There are many avenues still worthy of exploring. And there will be many crackpots tyring to get there hands on free money. It will be difficult to know which are the hutchinsons and which are the edisons but one thing is for sure, you cannot stop the edisons and teslas of today. That being said, it is clear that society really does not want the edisons etc. They upset the status quo. Good. Such is the battle at hand. Individuals and small groups that feel left out of the space industry should not just quit and assume the role of the average joe. Keep in mind that this is not about wealth and fame, this is not even about the good of mankind. It is about reaching for something beyound your current abilty to reach. It is about growth. The growth of your personal knowledge, the triumph of your quest pitted against all the vile and vehement egotists that too often show their true colors on these blogs. No, it is not about them. It is about you. And as such, as an American, It can, with luck, be about America. A very proud america. The country is now opening up it's space program even further, and allowing us all a chance to help. Perhaps it is a matter of economics, or, As I Believe and BF said, A NEED THAT BREEDS INVENTION, but for whatever the reason, the privatization is an inevitable consequece of a free and open society...unlike china AND RUSSIA (yes I read every single post on the other author's blog, let alone that I read as much of the filtered by default media from other countries, like russia) and, yes even brittian and the rest of euro...all those space programs are 100 percent government. Notice how private companies OWN sattelites here in the USA?....ok, rockets are what we got right now....I with ya on that page of current events....and this article does not mention all the programs that seek non rocket tech for space, but don't pretrend it is not in the cards. It is. Show me a good fusion reactor and I think we got a winner, I have been trying to figure out what to do with all the excess nuetrons for a while now.....cept tossing em out into space like the sun does where they go so far, slow down and aggregate then sleepy and dopy call the result dark matter, Naw, has to be a better use than that. Electrogravitiacs brings to minds the quacks like hutchinson, but this is no time to say it can't or won't work...after all the darn quagmire surrounding the jean naudine lifters, we end up with a vasimer rocket on the space station...so rather than accepting and incubating an idea from the little guys, we wait till a big dog steals it and forces it down our throats....if the president wants real innovation, protect us little guys from the big dogs because in the overall sceme of things, it all comes full circle. Help the little guys by giving us answers to our questions, not trying to squash and regulate us off the map, we just spring back up again anyways, give us liasons to the industry, I used to go to the nasa technology transfer symposiums, they liked it and found great ideas in small companies, that were able to grow into big companies through thier guidance, now, you no gotta million in clams, they no gotta da time.......hey all I want to know right now is do nuetrons conduct heat or not, simple question, almost obvious...but nothing in the lit for the little guy....so give us back access to technology, the hell with wikipedia, I got a full set of britanica in front of me anyways, and access to the patte lib system, but not real accesss, and take the govt liquadators out of the picture and go back to local dod auctions in person, run by dod personel, and also let us bid on all those parts and services those new space companies need...yea, there is more, but for now, remember, this is the greates american opourtunity since the lousiana purchase. I wish the russians and chinese well, of course, but I demand we do better. WE HAVE THE SPIRIT. Naysayers be damned.
The global recession is the cover for building the device from the movie "contact"
hee hee hee
How about a magnetically energized linear accelerator to "slingshot" rockets that then the rocket would fire its engine to boost its speed to reach space. Might save fuels. I'm not a scientist but i think that would be workable.
Sure, just put your accelerator on top of Mount Everest. Any lower and air friction will rob you of any benefit. A linear accelerator on the Moon, now that makes a whole lot of sense. But Earth's pesky atmosphere means there's only one spot on Earth where you'd get any benefit, and politics aside, the civil engineering aspects of an Everest accelerator alone are just incredibly daunting.
Not to mention that it would spoil the view on Everest.
What would the benefit of putting on top of Mt Everest be? Lower air friction? (The problem of getting to low Earth orbit is not altitude, it's velocity, and Mt Everest is--the last time I looked--stationary wrt the rest of the Earth.)
Yes, reduced air friction. At the height of Everest, you are above 90% of the sensible atmosphere. Most of the energy expended by a rocket first stage is just to fight against air drag and get to an altitude where real speed can be built toward going to orbit.
The United States is bankrupt and can no longer afford a space program. We should just get use to outsourcing and let Russia, China and India launch what few orbiters we can afford.
we are not bankrupt. Our creditors have not even suggested it. We would be wise to be prudent. There are a lot of whiners in this country. A VERY VOCAL MINORITY as it were. We are spending more than we take in. That will stop one way or another. Stopping science and railing against education is exactly what the pol-pot regime did. We can lower educators pay and find economical solutions for scientific Inquirey. A lot rail against public insurance, me included, but who the heck rails against the abnormally high medical fees?....maybe we should outsource our medical care to thailand and keep our space program. (thats sarcasm). The greed runs high and as we the people become aware of the waste by government everyone rails to save thier own special butts.....allowing real competition in the space industry will help, but I do fear that, just in the med and energy sectors, the regulators will subvert the concept...it is our country, we must speak up about that, and we must make sure that we push forward on the manned space program, one way, of many, is to continue to explore non-chemical rockets. The naysayers be damned, as I said before, and you are one of them. It is you that is bankrupt, not the country. Bankrupt of courage faith and common damn sense. The red army probably does not want you either. And in case you are not aware, none of them want OUR space program, they want theirs. So buckle up cause we are not going to stop, rather we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and get on with, just like we americans always have...now get out of the way!!
The federal government owes more in direct debt than it owns in assets. If it liquidated all of its assets, it couldn't raise enough money to pay off its outstanding debt. Then there are the future unfunded obligations of the government, that's 75x more than the direct debt. We now owe more in direct debt and future obligations than the net worth of the nation public and private. So yes, we are bankrupt, because it is impossible to pay off what we owe. By 2025 the interest on the public debt will exceed all the revenue the government can raise by any means including robbery and piracy.
Actually Ron, I say lets get our fiscal act togther and stay in the game. Its just a matter of cutting the spending. We have the economy and the resources to do anything we want; its just finding the leadership with cojones to make things happen. But thats another topic.
It's totally irresponsible of NASA to retire the space shuttle fleet without have a reliable replacement waiting in the wings!
Not NASA's call. The budget is controlled by your elected officials, the President is it's primary champion or detractor.
I would have to say we have a great detractor in the office right now. I'm still pissed he canced our manned moon mission and he wants to focus on climate changes.
I live near Houston and there is a sense down here that the writing is on the wall as far as cutbacks a NASA.
They are letting the "Rocket Scientists" go. USA doesn't need to excel in science apparently.
Too bad that they don't have a Union up north, then they would be golden.
First, I want to say that I will piss some people off, but this is my opinion. Trekies, come down to earth. It was just a fricking show, not one real person was from all these other planets. Why the heck don't we take all the millions and billions of dollars and take care of the people in this great country. We will never have anyone live on another planet except scientist. We will never have colonies on other planets. Now, if they (NASA) wants replacements for the Space Shuttle, they (NASA) should have started many years ago. As far as giving these companies million of dollars for research of new space crafts, let them spend their own money. That is the way it used to be. We (American people) shouldn't have to make them rich. All I can say to that is - HELL TO THE NO!!!!!!! Our leadership has gone to hell in a handbasket.