Yuri_Armstrong":129klgnp said:
First off I'd like to say that it's not really "private" spaceflight as NASA is providing them with plenty of government assistance especially in the way of funding. Now I hope these private companies can make good on what they intend to do, I would be very happy to see it. But at the same time you must respect NASA's incredible accomplishments over the past 50 years. I haven't seen any private company man a space station, bring men to the moon and save an almost certainly doomed spaceship from certain destruction and the deaths of three astronauts.
If we defined a "private company" as a company that has never received any financial assistance from the government at any point in time than practically every company in the world would not fulfill that definition. Private simply means that the organization is privately owned as in not owned by the government.
What I do not understand is why part of NASA's budget is being scooped away and given to these companies instead of giving NASA more money in its budget and setting aside a seperate budget for assisting those companies. I would also like to know whose bright idea it was to cancel the shuttle program 6 years before any clear replacement is actually ready. And finally, while I am sure these companies have a lot to bring to the table, why should we have to wait for them to develop their vehicles before we have a manned spaceflight program relying on its own vehicles instead of letting NASA do what it has been doing for the past 5 decades? While there have been some major errors almost all of these have been political and have nothing to do with the engineering and astronautical abilities of the space program, and they should not be penalized for the short sightedness of greedy politicians.
First of all lets face it. We would not be in this situation is NASA was doing such a great job. If they were able to accomplish their goals on time and on budget, and deliver all the promises it has made than we would not be relying on the Russians for transport to our space station right now. Instead for the past 30-40 years every project in human spaceflight NASA has been involved in has taken far more money and time than was initially promised causing many projects most recently Constellation to be dropped all together. For those projects that have been completed while they were technological marvels they failed to deliver on the promises that got them approved in the first place.
Second of all the major errors were not political. If it was the case that the Space Shuttle achieved its original performance specification with regards to cost and reliability, then there would be no doubt that it would of served as the US's principle launch vehicle, and we would probably have a newer and improved version right now. Instead the Shuttle had comparable reliability to the best of the expendables, but cost several times as much. The ISS was the space programs greatest enduring achievement, but even that came at a cost many times greater than its original allocation and almost a decade late.
Had NASA been a company they would of gone bankrupt decades ago.
I agree that NASA is not 100% efficient, but what agency or company for that matter do you think can be? As far as I'm concerned, NASA should be given a clear goal- how about something along the lines of "we will land a man on the moon and bring him home safely before this decade is out!"- give them whatever kind of money they need and leave them the heck alone. How can we expect to get anywhere with a goal that changes with each new administration? And finally skyskimmer, what makes you think that these private companies can do more than suborbital and orbital flights better than NASA can?
No, while NASA has taken some bad hits this past year we must protect and support our space program so we can get out there and start exploring.
The exploration directive is also another huge problem.
Any good initiative starts out with a goal or purpose with clear measurable benefits for completion then all efforts are directed to accomplishing that goal. When NASA send a probe to another planet first they start out with an objective that the scientific community believes would further their research and answer an important question, then they design the spacecraft and plan the mission to achieve this objective, then they build the spacecraft in conjunction with a commercial satellite company, and then they launch it on a commercial rocket.
Human spaceflight on the other hand tries to work it the other way around. It is devoid of any real objective and lacks any measurable benefits, which is why it is failing to achieve anything and why it is endanger of being canceled. When given an objective engineers and mission planners can figure out what they need to achieve that objective. Without one you have the situation we are in right now with Congress just directing NASA to build a heavy lift without anything to put on it.
At the same time the exploration directive that many people are pushing is the ultimate waste of human spaceflights resources. Fact of the matter is that of all the things that humans can do in space from building space stations, to repairing and upgrading satellites, exploration is the most expensive and risky activity that humans can engage in.
Sure you can direct NASA to put a man on the moon just like JFK, however without clear benefits to justify such an expensive endeavor such an enterprise will not be sustained as we saw with Apollo. It is unfortunate, but true that politicians are not elected by saying that they put a man on the Moon or Mars. Right now they are elected to create jobs and boost the economy. NASA goes a great job at doing that by building giant rockets to nowhere.
Private commercial spaceflight is the answer to many of these problems. If private companies can turn human spaceflight from the financial black hole it is right now under NASA to profitable enterprise than human spaceflight will have a bright future.