E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Eugene A. Cernan / NASA and Space Frontiers via Getty Images
Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt stands next to the U.S. flag on the lunar surface during a moonwalk at the Taurus-Littrow landing site in December 1972. Earth is visible in the far distance.
NASA's Apollo moonshots still have a powerful hold on the imagination, but is all that nostalgia actually holding us back on the final frontier?
Rand Simberg, a self-confessed "recovering aerospace engineer" who's now making his mark as an analyst and commentator on space policy, suspects that's the case. Simberg and I discussed the problems with the past and the challenges facing America's future space effort on "Virtually Speaking Science," a talk show you can listen to over the Web.
The power of the Apollo paradigm has been in full view over the past week — at movie theaters, where the horror flick "Apollo 18" pulled in $10.7 million over the Labor Day weekend; and on the Web, where the release of new pictures showing the Apollo landing sites created a sensation.
How long will it be before the next politician calls for an energy "Apollo project," as Barack Obama and Mitt Romney did during the 2008 presidential campaign? (John McCain, ever the maverick, called his proposed Apollo project the "Lexington Project.")
Even NASA has been taking pages from the Apollo playbook, at one time calling its plan to return to the moon "Apollo on steroids." But Simberg argues that Apollo's big-government approach provides exactly the wrong lessons for future space exploration. The way he sees it, spaceflight in the post-shuttle era has to become much less dependent on government funding.
CEI
Rand Simberg is an adjunct scholar at the Washington-based Competitive Enterprise Institute.
"That's going to start happening a lot more in the future, particularly now that we've moved out into this era where the government can't afford to do it anymore," he said during a recent interview for the MoonandBack website. "If the people who want to do things in space don't fund it, it's not going to happen, and that's a reality people need to accept. They're not going to do it with the taxpayer's money anymore, probably. Apollo's over."
Today, on the Competitive Enterprise Institute's OpenMarket weblog, Simberg referred to the brouhaha over whether NASA might abandon the International Space Station due to a Russian Soyuz glitch — and complained that the space agency's aversion to risk is a "symptom of our continuing to pretend that we understand why we are sending people into space at all with federal money."
"Until we have a grown-up national discussion about that, shed of nostalgia for Apollo and 'national greatness,' not to mention the white-collar welfare aspects and myths about technology spin-off, the vast majority of taxpayer funds spent on this endeavor will be wasted," he wrote.
It's not that Simberg, an adjunct scholar at CEI, is an Apollo-hater. Far from it: He's one of the folks behind the creation of "Evoloterra," a secular liturgy aimed at commemorating "the wondrous accomplishments achieved by the human beings of planet Earth" each year on July 20, the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Simberg still believes the Apollo moon landings were "a historic achievement" from a technological and even spiritual perspective. It's just not the way to run a sustainable space program.
"I tend to think of Apollo as not having much to do with space in terms of opening it up" as a frontier, he told me.
Is the space frontier even worth opening up? Simberg said policymakers see the space program as more of a jobs program. "The reason space policy is a mess is because it's really not 'important' ... to the people who make the decisions about it," he said.
Although Simberg shies away from being pigeonholed as a Republican or a conservative, he's in favor of free-market, small-government solutions. That means he often finds himself in the camp opposing Obama — except when it comes to space policy. He's strongly in favor of the Obama administration's push to commercialize spaceflight to low Earth orbit. His weblog, Transterrestrial Musings, keeps close track of the ups and downs of SpaceX, Blue Origin and other players in the commercial space race.
In Simberg's view, the worst thing about Obama's space policy is that Obama is behind it. "It's just very unfortunate that it's this administration that managed to come up with this one enlightened policy," Simberg said. "The biggest political challenge is trying to make sure that if/when the Republicans take over ... they don't have a kneejerk reaction to everything that came out of the White House."
Simberg is working on that challenge, through his writings for the Washington Examiner, Pajamas Media, The New Atlantis, Popular Mechanics and other outlets. Sometimes it's an uphill battle.
"People ought to think space is important, but the problem is that we've never had an intelligent discussion of why we send people into space," he told me.
Did we see that discussion during tonight's debate for GOP presidential hopefuls? Not really: They had other issues on their mind. But Rand and I had that discussion tonight on "Virtually Speaking Science."
Previous podcasts from 'Virtually Speaking Science':
- Marty Hoffert on the clean energy revolution
- George Djorgovski on doing virtual astronomy
- Alan Stern on suborbital science and NASA's mission to Pluto
- Col. 'Coyote' Smith on space solar power
- Tim Pickens on private-sector moon missions
This post was updated at 11 p.m. ET to include the archived podcast of tonight's installment of "Virtually Speaking Science."
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding me to your Google+ circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.
Leave a Comment:
You're kidding, right? This guy is a shill for a right-wing think tank. If he's a "recovering aerospace engineer", it's probably because he couldn't get a job at NASA. I'm all for space no matter what it takes, but you're giving a clown a platform.
I've had discussions with Rand since way back when they used to take place on Usenet. He's right-wing, for sure, but he's not a clown. He knows his stuff, and when it comes to space policy, is sometimes even able to see past his political ideology.
I'll even match his (quite correct) admission that Obama's space policy is a smart move, by admitting that GW Bush had one smart move too, when he lifted the Moon taboo. Between the two of them, we now have the Moon an acceptable topic of study again, and the beginnings of a true commercial space industry. No matter which wing you flap, that's real progress.
As a hard-core conservative, I have one major complaint with Obama's space policy: it should have been Bush's when he first came into office, or Clinton's during his second term. This should have been done in such a way that we'd have a working solution before we mothballed the Shuttles. As it stands now, we don't even know if we're capable of a working solution (though things are looking quite good so far). Nothing Obama could have done about that, it should have been done before his time.
"...we've moved out into this era where the government
can't afford to do it anymore[chooses to waste most of its money on military spending]."NASA's budget is <1% of the federal budget. So how is that too expensive?
Landing on the moon was the one time in the last 100 years that I know of that all people on the earth were united in celebration, saying, "We did it."
This guy is part of the problem, not the cure.
"NASA's budget is <1% of the federal budget. So how is that too expensive?"
Just because it's only .6% doesn't mean it's being spent well, and/or couldn't be spent better.
"Landing on the moon was the one time in the last 100 years that I know of that all people on the earth were united in celebration, saying, "We did it.""
And (if indeed it was that simple...not much celebration at the time from, say, China or North Vietnam) how long did that last?
We want to conduct space projects and missions for their long term value, not how well they generate parades or headlines. Those are not the same thing. Like commercial aviation, we want it to be so economical and common, that people don't have to think about it much. It's just another part of the background of life and civilization.
And trying to conduct things in a manner that's overly committed and optimized to one destination and timetable and budget-is-no-object again (instead of a broad range of capabilities that allow us to go to many destinations in the solar system at our own pace), won't get us to that time.
Why are we spending .6% of the GDP to celebrate? Do somehting useful with the money, rather than waste it walking on a worthless rock.
Aceman, saying that the moon is a worthless rock just shows your ignorance on the issue.
With an average of about 1% of the federal budget over the past several decades, NASA has literally revolutionized the way modern global society works. Hell, NASA allowed modern global society to work. Do you think money spent by NASA is a waste? How about giving up anything that's dependent on satellites? That means killing most of your modern TV, most of the internet, no cell phones, no GPS, power outages due to solar flares that we didn't know about, etc. And that's just satellites. One of the hundreds of things NASA has developed, contributed to, or driven the development for. Miniaturization of technology is another big thing. Prepare for portable phones that are the size of a lunch box again. Forget about a lap-top. Or your iPod/iPhone/iPad/iBook/iAnything.
In terms of final results, NASA is the BEST place to put our money in ANY part of the government.
C. Smith's reply above reveals a continuing addiction to the idea of "spinoffs".
Spinoffs *do*not* justify NASA's budget! Even if C. Smith's claims are true, and they are not!
Everything that is dependent on satellites is *not* the result of NASA. NASA did not pioneer satellites in the US. The US military pioneered the use of satellites in the US. The US Air Force program for the Minuteman ICBM pioneered the development of integrated circuits, and all 'miniaturization" that resulted from it, not NASA.
NASA, and particularly NASA Human Space Flight, *could* be a far better use of government money than most agencies of the government. Congress has not allowed that to happen, because it would make fewer jobs dependent on their power.
Sending people into space IS important! I wish the American people would learn that there are more important things in the world than keeping people from having rights, and keeping their pocketbooks full so they can get the latest big screen tv and ipod
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has stated that he wants to see humanity become a "multi-planetary species" to ensure its survival in the event of a global catastrophe:
Perhaps Elon Musk's incentive should become the overarching goal of space exploration?
"pockets full...big screen tvs...ipods..."
Try keeping people from being homeless when their homes are foreclosed, food on the table, off the unemployment line and welfare! Mandy, welcome to reality; your Neverland dream is just that - a dream! The economy is in the hole with no sign of recovery and people are in desperate need; but, hey, who cares as long as some unknown sets his foot on the moon and it changes...nothing.
Funny, people still seem more concerned with their iPods than feeding the hungry.
And besides, the next step in space exploration is going to come from companies like Virgin, who will start sending tourists into space within the decade.
And what Neverland dream? Science is a dream?
Mandy,
I wouldn't bother engaging Ru on this. Based on a past discussion on this site, she lacks an understanding of how the space program creates the very American jobs she wants while advancing our society's scientific knowledge. Her focus is more on insults and one-upmanship as opposed to debate. 100 years now, no one will remember her inane comments, but the world will recall our country's scientific achievements.
BTW, I agree with your iPod comment. We seem to be moving toward a world where entertainment is our only objective. It's quite depressing.
The USA Government is the freedom and democracy world leader. Leadership comes from the people who are free liberated and well grounded in morality. This is what drives the governments exploration programs. We need a Leader so togeather we can achieve great strides for humanity.
I'm not sure I really agree with him on a few things.
First, Apollo was never meant to be a efficient project. It was at the very least a propaganda project JFK instituted in response to Sputnik and it probably was the most of it too. I believe any rational discussion regarding comparisons to Apollo needs to keep this in mind. I'm not diminishing the accomplishment any, make no mistake I honestly believe it is one of our greatest achievements, but the stated goal was to be the first on the moon. There was a lot of reckless spending on that program because of the time constraint.
Should be ever institute another program like that? No, we shouldn't, because we can take the time now. So though I agree with him that it isn't a sustainable way to run a space program, I don't agree that we ship most of it to the private sector and hope for the best so to speak.
I think he's under the impression that the likes of SpaceX, BlueOrigin and other commercial ventures can survive on their own. They can't. They survive because of government spending and it will be like that for the near future. Even when they truly become operational, they will be where the money is at since they have to make money to stay in business. Where does that leave them? Earth orbit.
Which is fine, I have no problem with them providing their services. But that still means that national governments will still be the only entities willing to spend the kind of money to go beyond the Earth within the next century or longer. They can parcel out work to private companies yes, but it's still the government running the program.
To think that any corporation or coalition of companies would spend 50-100 billion to put up a moonbase, 150-250bil for Mars, etc without any reasonable chance of a ROI greater than zero is fallacy. Manned exploration beyond orbit will still require the funding by governments because they don't need to have an immediate return. Since unmanned exploration is pretty much only research, you would never see a private company ante up 1-3bil to send out a probe.
Perhaps Alan left a bit out of this article, or perhaps more detail will come out during the discussion, but I believe his analysis isn't exactly correct, which leads to some faulty conclusions. Governments still need to be a large part of the equation.
Mitchell
I'm hoping folks will join in the discussion (as you are, Mitchell) ... Rand is a provocative kind of guy, and I'm not saying I endorse everything he says, but he does get people thinking.
"...they will be where the money is at since they have to make money to stay in business. Where does that leave them? Earth orbit."
And yet the Russians (and Space Adventures) are willing to fly civilian tourists around the Moon (and it would be the first time a Russian goes beyond LEO, as well) for enough...here it comes...money.
I'm hoping that happens. If so, a few US companies will ask themselves; 'Could we undercut the Russians for the same kind of flight?' And the beyond LEO competition will be on....
(Note that commercial circumlunar/Lunar orbital doesn't have to rest solely on private tourists. Non-spacefaring nations may be just as willing to pay that price to send one of their people and a few instruments on such a flight, just as a number on non-US government entities are negotiating with Bigelow aerospace for stations [note the plural] for their own commercial and research purposes. 'Space hotels' are not the only commercial market for LEO, even though it's the one you may hear the most.)
If you look back to the discovery of the Americas, initial voyages were state sponsored (Spain, Portugal Italy et al) however once the concept was proven, i.e. there was land over the horizon, then private enterprise took over.
If you look at the relative costs of discovering America and getting into space I would guess they would, in real terms be similar.
I am just surprised it has taken so long for the entrepreneurs to get it together.
I am also surprised, with the price of Gold as it is and the amount of the stuff used in space vehicle construction, nobody is going up there to vacuum the wrecks up.
I agree with you in any ways. I think it is unfair to say that we "can't" afford government-funded space exploration and more accurate to say that we "won't" afford government-funded space exploration. Given the heated rhetoric and school-yard fighting between the two major parties in the United States over lunch money, I find it unlikely that without some sort of major culture change in Washington, that the Federal government will be willing to contribute the kinds of funds necessary for NASA to function as it has in the past.
I guess I just really worry about what private enterprise will do once it gets into space. Will we have to pay taxes to private firms in order to get any kind of public space expedition completed? Will lobbyist astronauts attempt to control space policy through political donations?
Don't get me wrong, I definitely want private enterprise to be able to reach space but having no or extremely limited public presence? That is kind of scary.
The people of Europe during the dark ages and middle ages must have felt the same way looking at the relics of the Roman Empire as we do now at the pictures of the Apollo moon landing, that somehow our best has come and gone. I doubt NASA has the engineering know how to ever get us to back to moon, much less Mars.
I will be perfectly blunt, I worked in the space program for a number of years. The brilliant people of that time made it happen. I do not believe for one moment with our fractured educational system the younger generations have the necessary tools to repeat what those geniuses accomplished. And that blame - the breakdown of the education system in this country fall on complacent parents and crooked politicians.
After all we could and did go to the moon yet today we do not have a president that has the guts to tell the republicans in congress to F off when scheduling a speech about jobs - tells you a whole lot about the state of this union.
Boomer,
I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. Granted this is only my personal experience, but I currently work in the space industry and part of my responsibility along with engineering is to coordinate new college hires. We continually get more strong applicants that we have room for. That's not to say we don't get bad ones, too, but I'd arguably place more of the human exploration blame on lack of direction to "just go build it" (a la SpaceX) as opposed to endless, endless studies of what to do. If you look at what the robotic probes have done over the past decade, you can see there are some smart, well-educated people working on those.
I do agree with the President telling people to F off with more frequency, though. :)
Brad,
The engineering know-how is there. It's the money that isn't there. Apollo was done for about 136 billion dollars in today's dollars over 13 years. By comparison, the Space Shuttle cost about 196 billion dollars in today's dollars over 40 years. There was just more money devoted to NASA then than there is now. Plus I believe there was much more ambition due to the competition from the Soviets. We lack vision, direction, and will to commit resources to space. Engineering is not what we lack.
There are two sides to every question. Space cannot pay for itself, at least not yet. Our best bet is to put up an orbiting resort hotel slash hospital for rich folks who can survive the lift and benefit from longer lives in microgravity. There's no basic science worth doing up there outside of astronomy, and astronomy isn't very popular.
When I was a kid, I saved my pennies to buy a Space Pen. Remember those? Now, with great luck, perhaps we will one day see a Disney Luna. I'm not a fan of the "privatize it and it will work" model, but it does seem clear that space exploration is a vanity project for terrestrial governments. India and China are now asserting their status as "real" powers by going into space, but there is no good economic reason for doing so.
If we manage to ruin the planet perhaps we will have to harvest hydrogen from Jupiter or fresh water from Europa. If so it will be in extremis and we won't be around to see it.
"India and China are now asserting their status as "real" powers by going into space, but there is no good economic reason for doing so."
Sorry, it only shows that you don't see one...
There is no good economic reason for putting humans into space. No problem with satellites and probes and telescopes, but the only reason for putting people into space would be if those people are willing to go into space. And not for a one-off tourist stunt like Branson does so well, but a sustainable business plan model.
How could a government program be anything other than a government program. There is no one blocking the way for private industry to develop their own profit based space programs. In fact, the Federal government and the tax payers are actually trying to help private industry achieve that goal.
The problem with NASA's space program is that they spent the last 40 years on a LEO on steroids program (Shuttle and ISS) at the cost of more than $210 billion in today's dollars. The Apollo program which gave us lunar missions plus a space station (Skylab) cost about $130 billion in today's dollars.
NASA needs to return its focus to the Moon to establish a permanent base at one of the polls so that America can begin to exploit the Moon's water resources in order to reduce the cost of space travel within cis-lunar space.
Private spaceflight programs need to focus on commercial satellite launches and space tourism. Once NASA has a base on the Moon it probably won't take private companies long to join NASA on the lunar surface. Let NASA be the pioneer and business the privateers.
Small government is not the answer when it comes to space exploration. Small government is the right wing fallacy that brings with it no progress in areas that truly change the human experience. Apollo changed all of our lives with just the spin off goods that we now use everyday.
We need to think big in this country again. Many on the right want to think small and for projects in space that just won't work. We will all miss out of a future filled with technological marvels if we let the right take over.
This is one of the dumbest articles ever. Nostalgia indeed. It's zero leadership coupled with the desire to spend our national wealth on social programs. NASA for its part has done nothing to stop the decline. Look at NASAs Administrator Charles Bolton's new mission to: "make Muslims feel good about themselves." (Don't believe me listen to the Al Jezeera interview yourself). What does that mission have to do with aeronautics or space? Imagine how James Webb (NASA Administrator during Apollo) would articulate the mission of NASA. Hint: It would have nothing to do with Muslims.
Just as the Obamanation is no Kennedy, Bolton isn't even close to the leader that James Webb was and it all translates into the mess we are in with no ability to put Americans in space without giving our tax dollars ($50M per launch) for a ride on Russian spacecraft that is a contemporary to the Apollo craft. Gee, how nostalgic.
In 1492 Spain commisioned a group of ships to find the far east going west and found America. It was nearly 200 years till the first colony was set up at James Town. When Columbus came over it was on a Government funded trip. When the pilgrims came over it was on their own dime. The US government sent Apollo to the moon. Until people decide to live on the moon and pay their own way a colony won't be set up. Just as in 1492 Spain, France and England were all trying to rule the world and the new world was not in the plans, so now we are fighting with other countries that want to rule the world and the moon isn't in the plans.
Actually the Spaniards had colonies all over what is now Latin America long before the first pilgrim showed up.
Also, I disagree that the Moon is not in the plans. The Chinese are very interested in exploiting its resources.
Unless China makes a huge breakthrough in reducing the costs of going to the Moon, they will find there is no way to make any money from lunar resources - and sending manned missions up there just makes it more expensive.
I suspect that China will find what the US did - they'll get a big ego boost by sending a man to the moon, then they'll find it is horrendously expensive and there is no economic return possible, at which point they will quietly close it down and limit their space launches to satellites, which are the only way to make money off of space.
CM6969, Here is where the narrow mentality about space exploration comes from,
you think that the next wave of space explorers will be another country, such as china.
Actually the next wave of space exploration is more likely to come from rich people starting tourist companies. Go to YouTube and search "Virgin Space Flight Demo" This is just a computer simulation, but a smaller version of the craft has already been tested in space.
The problem is that Rand is wide of the mark when he suggests that Obama's space policy is somehow "enlightened." Between a crony capitalist approach to commercial space that relies of massive government subsidies and the abandonment of any kind of meaningful space exploration, the OBama space program has been an unmitigated disaster. Rand may not like the Apollo model, but it had the virtue of having worked and no one has seriously suggested any concrete alternatives.
I hardly think concrete will work, it's too heavy
Doug, not very droll.
"Rand may not like the Apollo model, but it had the virtue of having worked..."
It worked at 'beating the Soviets to the Moon.' But the cold War is over. This isn't what we need to do now, and the Apollo model doesn't work for what we should be doing.
"...and no one has seriously suggested any concrete alternatives."
You've clearly not been paying attention. Google "CCDev"
For the record, lightweight concrete is sometimes used as dummy fuel (ballast) in the upper stages of test rockets. It's cheap, its density can be easily controlled, and it casts the same way as actual solid fuel.
Aha, an actual concrete alternative!
Rand and I disagree on many things, but on this point I have to agree. NASA has faltered because it really is mainly a jobs program for certain congressional districts. Look at all the major space program funding decisions — they're made based on maintaining employment. Space travel, as we've done it for decades now, is expensive because it's designed to spend large amounts of money in those districts. And that's very hard to change because the decision-makers all have a strong vested interest in maintaining it that way.
There are important reasons for sending people into space: namely, opening up the rest of the solar system to human habitation. Most people don't have any real idea how vast and rich the rest of the solar system is. We won't stay cooped up on one planet forever, and the sooner we get out there, the better off we'll be.
When NASA runs a government-funded launcher that undercuts (in cost to the customer, not in total cost) any commercial launcher, it's very hard for those commercial launchers to close the business plan. Fortunately, NASA is currently out of the launch business, and will probably stay that way. I certainly hope so! Earth-to-LEO transport is plenty mature enough for private industry to take over, and those launchers have an interest in reducing costs, not maintaining (or increasing!) them. We can already see things in that arena improving rapidly.
NASA can (and does) do a lot to help, such as issue contracts for service to ISS, award prizes for technological breakthroughs, etc. It could do even more, such as setting up an orbital fuel/water depot, with guaranteed purchase of X amount of material on orbit. But honestly, just getting out of the way will probably suffice at this point. We don't really need a national space program any more than we need a national airplane program. People do want to go to space, and we'll get there!
"When NASA runs a government-funded launcher that undercuts (in cost to the customer, not in total cost) any commercial launcher, it's very hard for those commercial launchers to close the business plan."
That makes no logical sense. If commercial launch companies can really provide these services cheaper than government space programs, then government-funded launchers cannot possibly compete with them so they are no threat to the nascent industry. (Further, it is government money that currently is propping up those very new commercial startups.) Right now, the commercial efforts are long on talk and pretty pictures but still mighty short on action. I hope that changes soon.
Nothing has ever prevented private commercial companies from launching vehicles into space and there is a good track record by Arianespace and ULA with regard to satellites launches. I applaud the other more recent johnny-come-lately efforts and passionately hope that they do succeed. I do not, however, understand these venomous attacks on the part of NewSpace groupies against all government-run space programs. It is, after all, only government-run programs that have so far placed any humans in orbit, in space stations, or on the surface of the moon. It is only government space programs that have landed robotic vehicles on the surface of Venus and Mars, and sent probes to asteroids and the outer solar system. If our goal is to open up the space frontier for everyone, is it really such a good idea to constantly attack and criticize what has been accomplished in the past? Instead, show us what you got, and let us at the same time continue to vigorously a vibrant government sector space program. May the best teams win.
It DOES make logical sense if you read more carefully. Government launches undercut commercial ones not in their true cost, but in the cost to customers, because they are massively subsidized. Most of the cost of a NASA launch is borne by taxpayers, and not by whatever agency is paying for the satellite or whatever. If you cut out the subsidy, NASA launches would die immediately, even when the customer is another agency (NOAA for example).
Fortunately, NASA launches have finally died anyway, and this is a good thing. Companies sell launches at their true cost, whether the customer is a government agency, a rich space tourist, a hotelier, or whatever. And that cost is far, far lower than anything NASA can do, because they're not required to employ armies of people in key congressional districts. Having government customers is fine - having government suppliers is not.
"And that cost is far, far lower than anything NASA can do, because they're not required to employ armies of people in key congressional districts. Having government customers is fine - having government suppliers is not."
That still doesn't make sense because there are no "government suppliers," there are only private sector contractors and subcontractors providing the hardware for the government-run program. Further, the private NewSpace startup firms are also being subsidized by taxpayer funds through the COTS contracts. All of these firms exist in somebody's congressional district (except those based in Russia). As far as taxpayer funding it is just a shell game that defines a different set of political winners and losers. The only question is whether or not the new firms can prove that they really can do it cheaper than those firms that were operating under traditional "cost plus" contracts.
dammit, if only we hadn't go to the moon in the first place we wouldn't have to live up to the challenge of doing better instead of doing NOTHING. even when the hard lessons are taught, people still get it wrong. big government funding is how we got to the moon. private funding has FAILED to do this. and now, they are whining about how Apllo's historical and tremedous success is causing them to fail to even go back to the moon. my god! how pathetic we have become - whining crying babies that won't take responsibility for their own failures. incredible.
The
space program was a guiding light in the late 60's and early 70's. If we took
the money we spent and are spending on a country we had no right to be in
(Iraq), we could fund the research that is needed to advance the U.S. back into
technological leadership.
Rand's
"myths about technology spin-off" is pure bs. The simple fact is that
many advancements directly linked to
NASA in medical arts, everyday life, and knowledge from the space program have
paid for themselves over the last 50+ years.
I do agree that risk aversion is killing NASA and the agency's budget. Space
travel is dangerous and trying to make it "safe" is impossible. The
difference between a success rate of 90% and 95% is huge, I figure it to be
roughly 3 times as much for that minimal gain in safety. That is not cost
effective use of the budget. Astronauts know the risks when they sign up. We
could have had a successor to the shuttle by now without the tremendous
increase in costs.
By reusing the Atlas rocket system we could have had a moon base already. Heck, I
bet that we could have made it to Mars with a manned mission by now. Instead,
because Cheney had so much stock in Haliburton and Bush makes big money off the
Oil companies, Bush (pretending that bad intel was good) pushed us into a war
that had absolutely no right to be in. Cheney made a killing off that. His stock
and stock options made him hundreds of millions on paper. How is that for conflict of interest?
Bush called for a new program to get to the moon and then he let it die in congress
to spend the money in an area he and/or Cheney could profit. Bush's two front
war has caused a global recession that may turn into deflation (deflation is
the worst possible economic disaster.) This recession is causing an economic
disaster in NASA funding already. Don't be surprised if NASA funding gets cut
another third.
I don't agree with everything that Rand says, but then again, when was the last time we had total agreement about space policy in the US? Even during the Apollo program, although there was focus, there were still conflicts.
I think Rand said two important things: (1) "The reason space policy is a mess is because it's really not 'important' ... to the people who make the decisions about it," - this has never been more true than today, where politics, not physics has the most influence. When the rocket scientists in Congress are mandating launch architectures through legislation and the debate is about the number of existing jobs in voting districts, then you can see the emphasis is not on space exploration or growing new space industries.
The other key statement he made was (2): "It's just very unfortunate that it's this administration that managed to come up with this one enlightened policy," - Back to point 1; with Obama's unpopularity with Congress and their self-interests at home, a forward-thinking discussion is almost impossible to have. Everyone retreats to populist talking points and Congress fails to support a reasonable, affordable space policy that has the opportunity to foster a virtually unlimited industry (the universe is a pretty big place - it would be arrogant of us to think we have evaluated all it's potential already).
In the current environment, NASA is doing all they can do to advance the state of the art and fulfill their mission, but it seems like they have 536 bosses these days and as many strategies to follow, so I wouldn't expect any large Apollo-like initiative to (literally) ever get off the ground. We can commiserate about the state of manned space flight and debate the myriad of ways it should be fixed, but the interesting thing about it is the fact that it is not getting and very likely will not be "fixed" anytime soon, has created opportunities for private companies. They are challenging many of the ways things have been done - failing and succeeding, but always learning. And the only way that they can afford to participate is to be as cost-efficient as possible -- a key trait for a successful new industry.
A lot of people like to use the argument that these new players in the space industry wouldn't be able to exist without government funding; there are several posts in this thread already to that effect. I don't think the evidence to date bares that out; the people getting the bulk of support today are for deliverables that support a project or process. They didn't start with large government contracts and they will not make it very long if all they have are government contracts. But one of the biggest things NASA is doing by working with these companies is giving them credibility to attract investors and talent. They are also sharing their wisdom and expertise with them as well infusing their organization with new knowledge.
Finally, I think it is a national disgrace when various members of Congress rail against these companies because they see them as competition to the cozy relationships they have established in their home districts. It's hypocritical for these Congressmen to try to stack the deck against entrepreneurs with huge challenges in front of them already, and then give stump speeches about the loss of American competitiveness when they are contributing to it.
The entire space program in the '60s probably woudn't have happened if it had not been for the cold war. The U.S. government and most of the citizens were concerned that the Soviets would develop orbital space and possibly the moon for military purposes to be used against the U.S. There was also the national ego trip that we were obviouly destined to beat those godless commies at anything at all costs.
The Apollo program came at the end of the golden age of a series of programs which started with the Mercury program. While it is true that Kennedy ushered us on to the moon with a deadline it was IMHO the German rocket scientist Werner Von Braun who actually made this into a reality. Von Braun already had visions of space travel while he was working for the Third Reich building V-2's. When he surrendered to the Americans at the end of WWII along with a number of other scientists we inherited a scientific goldmine. The cold-war then escalated and we where in a race to outdo the Russians at any cost. That drive and those German scientist's brought us to the moon. Today I feel there is a lack of vision. NASA is left crippled with no way of putting astronauts into orbit at this moment. We are relying on our old adversaries to get us now to the space station. Where we once where leaders in space we have fallen behind (at least publicly) dramatically. There are secret Air Force programs that we don't know about except in rumor files....but NASA at this point has lost its touch. I think that what needs to happen for the future of space is that the US, Russians, Chinese, and the other nations need to combine their talents and money to fixate on a goal. That goal should be to go to Mars. The steps to get there require a lot of money and energy. It would create a large number of jobs in many countries. The bottom line is humanity needs to work together to accomplish this goal. The days of nationalistic pride in outdoing another nation are long past and obsolete. Space is humanities future whether we like it or not. This planet cannot sustain itself for that much longer. 8 billion people today and growing that is our new deadline.....it is time to invest in the future!
Apollo is holding us back? I guess in some ways. What should have happened was the X-20. But we lost a decade of development and wound up with the Space Shuttle. If anything the Space Shuttle held us back. No part of the Shuttle program (shuttle, main fuel tank or solid boosters) could be used for a system to go beyond Earth orbit. The X-20 used conventional rockets like Apollo. Conventional rockets got us to the moon.
Getting men on the moon was a Cold War move that the Americans saw as a check-mate.
It has no other purpose. There can be no larger waste of time, money, and rescources. NASA has been one of the biggest money evaporating machines in the last 4 decades.
Come on, guys, you are talking about achievements made in the '60's! While amazing, technical, and certainly awe-inspiring - they still amount to what? What did we discover on that ball of rock? Jack. Nothing. Nadda. While many technological achievements were made as part of that program, we could have done the same by investing in education and research projects - at a much greater return, mind you.
It's time to re-think the whole process, and stop wasting money on ventures that can offer no return for the payout.
"Come on, guys, you are talking about achievements made in the '60's! While amazing, technical, and certainly awe-inspiring - they still amount to what? What did we discover on that ball of rock?"
The program architecture we used to get there, and the politics that motivated us then, were not affordable enough to stay there to seriously learn more.
Six landings do not full understanding make. the fact that we continue to send unmanned probes there tends to prove that. Apollo did not answer all the questions.
Skip the drama, what we need is a base on the moon. With a full time presence on the moon, we can use its resources to go elsewhere. Solar energy at the poles is plentiful and the element most lacking would probably be hydrogen. We might even hijack a comet for its water ice. Think progress not bluster. There is no need to be first to get anywhere, just a need to be permanent.
No, all that nostalgia inspires people to know that wonderful things are possible.
When Apollo was first suggested decades ago, the country was in as much turmoil as it is today. Yet, we still found within ourselves the will to forge on. I know things look very bleek financially at the moment, but time has a way of changing circumstances. I find it difficult to accept that the only thing that can motivate our citizens to support space exploration is profit.
Apollo was a grown-up national discussion and gave us national pride. I don't see anything wrong with that. Implying one is not 'grown-up' if they don't support total privatization of space exploration is a bit much. There's room for both private and public endeavors. Would you elaborate on what you mean by 'white-collar welfare aspects & myths about technnology spin-off'?
I agree we could communicate better about our reasons for space exploration.