Sad, but probably accurate quote (without comment)
- Thread starter F-14D
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... I don't know what she was thinking, though, saying that to a kid. Yes, the shuttles are retiring and that must be particularly emotional for someone who has flown one, but still! Anyway, private spaceflight is literally taking off during the next couple of years. I don't see a reason why that would fizzle out. Nation states and previously unparallelled scientific organizations will mainly be hitching rides on those launches. So I really doubt this is a time for pessimism; it's just that space is about to become a bit more ... mundane and easily accessible than it used to be.
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UpForce said:
Private launches are a Good Thing. But, for most of them, the market they see is tourism, some limited operations in LEO or carrying stuff to or from the Station. A significant portion will disappear when the Station retires and there is no capability (in the US, at least) even on the horizon to build anything with the lift to replace it. In fact, an event that caused major damage to the Station will probably cause its abandonment, whereas five years ago we would most likely have fixed it.
There is also the concern within private rocketry that the gov't cargoes expected may not in fact materialize, given Washington's actions over the last few years towards space. The recent reneging of our commitment to Europe on the two joint Mars missions does not inspire confidence.
This latter is especially relevant to what she was saying. I am a firm believer that for most things, private enterprise will do it better. But for the "far out" long term and exploratory stuff they tend to follow where the gov't goes first. The exploratory missions, establishing the trail, so to speak, the search for knowledge for its own sake and for everyone's benefit are sadly not something that private industry tends to want to do on a large scale. If someone goes economically to the asteroids first, I would expect private enterprise to become interesting in mining prospects (assuming EPA, TSA, BLA, FAA and other name-your-letters agencies don't get in the way). With the cancellation of the Ares boosters (Constellation may have not been the best way to do it, but at least it was something), the whole thing has been kicked down the road for some other Administration to have to come up with substantially more funding that would have been needed had we continued. Will they?
I must tell you that there is a significant feeling in some quarters that depending on how the next election turns out, SLS will be quietly cancelled. Frankly, I don't think that would be a bad thing (looks like another "Battlestar Galactica " project), if there was something to take its place.. But frankly, beyond some work in LEO and some vague talk about flying by asteroids with a capsule that the Administration has already tried to cancel using a booster that doesn't exist, what plans and definite goals does the space program in the US actually have, right now? Bush the Younger's Constellation program may have been underfunded, but at least there was a plan and goals. Saying that something may happen more than 20 years from now with no specifics is simply political posturing.
What she was saying reflects current reality, and I admire her courage in going on the record with that opinion (it's good she's already a former astronaut because if she wasn't, the first time the powers in DC saw that clip, she would be). Look at it this way: 11-12 years from now Chinese or maybe Russian astronauts could be going to the moon under their own power (and more power to them). Ours may not even be able to make it to LEO without hitching a ride, hopefully on a vehicle from a US company.
Chekov may end up captaining the Enterprise after all.
She's entitled to her opinions, emotions and free speech. It was mainly her immediate context, something akin to a "there's no Santa" moment.
I see quite a variety of private spacecraft, operational or developed: Shuttles, powered landers, traditional light and heavy lifters, air launchers, imaging, modular habitats, XPrizes, asteroid mining whatchamacallits, etc. It's messy, but it always was. Hindsight is 20/20 and it's easy to overlook the long hard slogs; the Apollos and Shuttles are regarded as achievements unto themselves but in a way that takes them out of context. Those compressed narratives are not fair comparisons to ongoing projects.
New things by definition require working towards and with uncertainties. Different entities can take, manage, shield against and share risk in different ways. It's easy to be unnerved by Russia's and China's ambitions (big decades long plans) but the flipside is that they're recognizable for a reason: "Been there, done that" ... and many of the people who have the most reason(s) to feel all déjà vu about those plans are currently thinking very hard how to do this (and much more) in a way that actually makes sense.
Easy (well, relatively), practical and on the cheap. We may aspire towards a (de facto) vacuum, but spacefaring doesn't exist in one. There's just a lot that has happened in design tools, materials, NDT and so on since our Moon became humanity's latest frontier. Much of it literally exponential. It may very well be that all that has transpired since is much better suited to small, versatile, opportunistic teams - even crowdsourcing of enthusiasts - than huge organizations.
Diversity breeds completely unforeseen, unprestatable applicability. There needs to be a critical mass of thought and opportunity. I know I'm easily excitable and all, but I just don't think we're going backwards with these.
I see quite a variety of private spacecraft, operational or developed: Shuttles, powered landers, traditional light and heavy lifters, air launchers, imaging, modular habitats, XPrizes, asteroid mining whatchamacallits, etc. It's messy, but it always was. Hindsight is 20/20 and it's easy to overlook the long hard slogs; the Apollos and Shuttles are regarded as achievements unto themselves but in a way that takes them out of context. Those compressed narratives are not fair comparisons to ongoing projects.
New things by definition require working towards and with uncertainties. Different entities can take, manage, shield against and share risk in different ways. It's easy to be unnerved by Russia's and China's ambitions (big decades long plans) but the flipside is that they're recognizable for a reason: "Been there, done that" ... and many of the people who have the most reason(s) to feel all déjà vu about those plans are currently thinking very hard how to do this (and much more) in a way that actually makes sense.
Easy (well, relatively), practical and on the cheap. We may aspire towards a (de facto) vacuum, but spacefaring doesn't exist in one. There's just a lot that has happened in design tools, materials, NDT and so on since our Moon became humanity's latest frontier. Much of it literally exponential. It may very well be that all that has transpired since is much better suited to small, versatile, opportunistic teams - even crowdsourcing of enthusiasts - than huge organizations.
Diversity breeds completely unforeseen, unprestatable applicability. There needs to be a critical mass of thought and opportunity. I know I'm easily excitable and all, but I just don't think we're going backwards with these.
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UpForce:
You and I share the same vision; I firmly believe that the most efficient and successful exploits of space, if governments allow it, will be from the private sector. My concern, and I think hers, is that we're falling into a "can't get there from here" situation. Because of the costs and long terms involved, the first explorations for the sheer inspirational value to kick-start motivation, the search for knowledge in and of itself and the development of basic technologies which can then be used and improved on by private industry needs to come from an organization that doesn't require a positive cash flow within two quarters. For now private industry is focused on hauling stuff to and from the ISS, and tourism, because that's where the market is for the short to medium term. If we lay the groundwork for the long term, once the first few have been done, private industry and multiple strategies will follow.
And therein lies the rub. We've canceled the groundwork. In the FY2013 budget (assuming Congress changes its course of the last four years and actually passes a budget) the Senate has reduced the amount of money for "seeding" commercial space development and payloads by over 36%. Except for the MAVEN program begun in 2008 (assuming it doesn't get canceled after the election) , there are no longer plans for any new Mars exploration (we recently backed out of our commitment to Europe for two joint missions). There's some vague talk about flying some mission sometime in the middle of the next decade to an asteroid using a capsule the Administration already tried to cancel and a new booster that doesn't exist and for which adequate development funds haven't been requested. But it's also been stated by the Powers That Be that the US will never again go beyond LEO on its own. The current priorities of the Administration (and they're the folks in power right now) on space don't include innovation or exploration or leadership. Rather the directions are: "...he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science...".
NOTE TO MODERATOR: The above quote is not intended to start a flame war or to champion Republicans vs. Democrats vs. Libertarians vs. Occupy Whatever. It is a direct quote from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden from an on the record interview given in 2010. I used it simply to illustrate the situation as it is today and why I think Dr. Anna Fisher was giving the straight scoop when she gave her answer, which was directed more to the reporter (who may have been her daughter) and the audience than to little Ethan.
I want the situation to change, but I'm not here advocating who would change it, just so long as it changes.
You and I share the same vision; I firmly believe that the most efficient and successful exploits of space, if governments allow it, will be from the private sector. My concern, and I think hers, is that we're falling into a "can't get there from here" situation. Because of the costs and long terms involved, the first explorations for the sheer inspirational value to kick-start motivation, the search for knowledge in and of itself and the development of basic technologies which can then be used and improved on by private industry needs to come from an organization that doesn't require a positive cash flow within two quarters. For now private industry is focused on hauling stuff to and from the ISS, and tourism, because that's where the market is for the short to medium term. If we lay the groundwork for the long term, once the first few have been done, private industry and multiple strategies will follow.
And therein lies the rub. We've canceled the groundwork. In the FY2013 budget (assuming Congress changes its course of the last four years and actually passes a budget) the Senate has reduced the amount of money for "seeding" commercial space development and payloads by over 36%. Except for the MAVEN program begun in 2008 (assuming it doesn't get canceled after the election) , there are no longer plans for any new Mars exploration (we recently backed out of our commitment to Europe for two joint missions). There's some vague talk about flying some mission sometime in the middle of the next decade to an asteroid using a capsule the Administration already tried to cancel and a new booster that doesn't exist and for which adequate development funds haven't been requested. But it's also been stated by the Powers That Be that the US will never again go beyond LEO on its own. The current priorities of the Administration (and they're the folks in power right now) on space don't include innovation or exploration or leadership. Rather the directions are: "...he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science...".
NOTE TO MODERATOR: The above quote is not intended to start a flame war or to champion Republicans vs. Democrats vs. Libertarians vs. Occupy Whatever. It is a direct quote from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden from an on the record interview given in 2010. I used it simply to illustrate the situation as it is today and why I think Dr. Anna Fisher was giving the straight scoop when she gave her answer, which was directed more to the reporter (who may have been her daughter) and the audience than to little Ethan.
I want the situation to change, but I'm not here advocating who would change it, just so long as it changes.
Yeah, that's kinda what I was getting at too, but this also goes to my "not a fair comparison" comment: Costs getting to and from LEO (and especially beyond) remain, ahem, "astronomical". The Apollos and Shuttles are remembered for their inspirational value, but I understand that at their active times the underlying (if not un-der-stated) rationales were getting to a strategic high ground and making spacefaring routine and cheap, considering. In these regards at least, NASA failed (provisionally, in its own guise) and an argument can be made that throwing good money after bad isn't always rational. Maybe private enterprise (or even some social networks!) can do this better, maybe they (we!) need to find their own compelling reasons to go. Maybe the cost of groundwork isn't so prohibitive any more and NASA need not be so "hardware tangible" to be relevant and useful.
I do want to change the situation as well, but do see some of that happening on its own accord. A massive pooling of resources may even hinder certain developments, drown startups. To navigate the gravities of politics is another matter: A lean, small but capable outfit will probably find it hardest to blanket the Congress, e.g. spread operations over at least half the States and/or the most populous voting districts. Some States could probably run their own space programs and in many practical terms already do, it's just all wrapped under the NASA blanket as an "enabler". Perhaps only the military side of things needs to be national throughout, whereas orbit management or such must be international. On the immediate presidential side both parties are obviously on the lookout for winning arguments; voters seem to be (almost) uniformally cynical about political proclamations concerning space. That is not lost on campaigns nor administrations. This can also be healthy.
Exploration has been driven by various forces throughout history and seems to involve a certain level of discontentedness with prevailing circumstances. Maybe NASA's current sphere of influence partly reflects its origins of being "exceptional where we are"? What propels us beyond our Moon? If we knew we'd be there already, a notion that can both dis- and encourage. The simplest economic growth theory ironically stagnates without adding an innovation variable, and there are further interesting hypotheses on complexity metrics through the known inanimate and living Universe and their (our!) evolution speaking to the fundamental nature of change. NASA is an awesome and by now venerable institution, but I'd say one substantial way to measure its success could be whether private spaceflight outgrows NASA's own ops by at least an order of magnitude.
That doesn't mean NASA couldn't still "open source" it, apply strategic investment or see to security needs. Please understand that this is partly polemic, trying on different perspectives for size. I'm somewhat intentionally keeping my distance from the program and detailed policy levels of the challenges.
I do want to change the situation as well, but do see some of that happening on its own accord. A massive pooling of resources may even hinder certain developments, drown startups. To navigate the gravities of politics is another matter: A lean, small but capable outfit will probably find it hardest to blanket the Congress, e.g. spread operations over at least half the States and/or the most populous voting districts. Some States could probably run their own space programs and in many practical terms already do, it's just all wrapped under the NASA blanket as an "enabler". Perhaps only the military side of things needs to be national throughout, whereas orbit management or such must be international. On the immediate presidential side both parties are obviously on the lookout for winning arguments; voters seem to be (almost) uniformally cynical about political proclamations concerning space. That is not lost on campaigns nor administrations. This can also be healthy.
Exploration has been driven by various forces throughout history and seems to involve a certain level of discontentedness with prevailing circumstances. Maybe NASA's current sphere of influence partly reflects its origins of being "exceptional where we are"? What propels us beyond our Moon? If we knew we'd be there already, a notion that can both dis- and encourage. The simplest economic growth theory ironically stagnates without adding an innovation variable, and there are further interesting hypotheses on complexity metrics through the known inanimate and living Universe and their (our!) evolution speaking to the fundamental nature of change. NASA is an awesome and by now venerable institution, but I'd say one substantial way to measure its success could be whether private spaceflight outgrows NASA's own ops by at least an order of magnitude.
That doesn't mean NASA couldn't still "open source" it, apply strategic investment or see to security needs. Please understand that this is partly polemic, trying on different perspectives for size. I'm somewhat intentionally keeping my distance from the program and detailed policy levels of the challenges.
F-14D said:
Who is ours? Any American citizen qualifies, it doesn't have to be a gov't employee. And if it is gov't employee astronaut, it is better that they do hitch a ride on a vehicle operated by a US company vs a govt operated vehicle.
Also, there is no valid reason for the US govt to send people to Mars. It is not NASA's charter to do so, and it does nothing for the US as a country. Apollo was only to win the cold war, it had nothing to do with colonization. NASA best role is to support industry by technology research and perform its robotic missions.
F-14D said:
no, I think you got it wrong.
A. If you are going the ISS, you need to know some russian.
b. The russian program has no real plans past the ISS, it just has some powerpoint ideas.
c. The chinese comment was by the reporter and not Anna.
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