Cancelled space programs

[Wndflr]

What happens to all these government funded space projects that get cancelled in midstream at the whim of each new administration and congress? I mean we spent billions of tax payer money to construct this hardware, software, what have you???? What happens to all these half constructed hardware. Do they sit in government warehouses, gathering dust, until the end of time. While we pay storage and maintain them. Do any of them become resurrected or refunded??? Are they recycled into the next project???? Are they destroyed??? Sent home as suveniers. Could any of these projects ever be dusted off and reused?

I am so mad. We have killed manned spaceflight. I watched us land on the moon, we should be on Mars and beyond by now. What happened to the dream?

 

[EarthlingX]

It met with reality.
5 percent of federal budget is history, reality is 0.5 percent.
The rest was in the news for about 10 years, in which 1.0 percent of budget, through flat NASA budget, forced through the Congress, became 0.5 percent, while promising things which were never meant to deliver, just to shut up us stupid dreamers.
International cooperation was also hurt, through closing markets, which fired back, as you can see this days in USA proportion of world commercial launches, and plans for dropping ISS in the drink didn't help either.
Good morning

 

[neutrino78x]

Dream is still alive with Bigelow et al., their vehicles have US Flags painted on them too.

--Brian

 

[PistolPete037]

Dream is still alive with Bigelow et al., their vehicles have US Flags painted on them too.

--Brian

Interesting that you should chose Bigelow as an example because it pertains directly to the OP. Bigelow is using technology developed by NASA for the TransHab module for the ISS. The module was canceled by Congress because they didn't want NASA to sneak in any projects that could potentially be used for a Mars mission. (If that logic doesn't make any sense to you, don't worry, it doesn't make any sense to me either.) So to answer the OP's question, this is what happens to old projects. Yes, they do end up in some sort of storage at least for a period of time before being disposed of. If they do see a second life, it is most likely in some other NASA project or private business venture.

Of course, NASA will have to develop some sort of manned spacecraft to replace the Space Shuttle. It will be interesting to see if NASA dusts off any of its old designs such as the X-38 or the HL-20, or will it develop a modified version of the Constellation Program.

 

[SpaceTas]

The left over rockets of the Apollo are scattered round the USA as exhibits as will the current Shuttles.

Some left over hardware is stored. e.g. "Gore-sat" was in storage and is being remodeled.
Most hardware degrades if not stored in a climate controlled environment so ends up being useless. The worst case I know of is the Soviet Buran shuttle where the roof collapsed on it.

Parts are sometimes cannibalized for other satellites.

The knowledge and plans mostly remain the property of the contractors (that was the answer I got from Ed Weiler when I asked about Mars Polar Lander). To me that is strange because NASA has paid the contractor.

 

[trevino2187]

:geek: I am curious to the subjective needs of our national governments to cosnistantly kill any program that has the potential to expand human knowledge, understanding, strength, and spirit beyond this over crowded and ever more depleted world of ours. Perhaps (not likely) I'll see by the end of my lifetime another moon landing though a moon base would be better. Little steps. We have the tech availible off the shelf to get back there and stay! New methods for growing our own food, repocessing waste water, producing and scrubbing clean breathable air can be and is being done already in micro-gravity on the ISS. While the cost is great we can assemble a new mission to Luna just as we have done for the ISS. Build it as a Wheel and Hub pattern station, add propultion, and voila you have a ship capable of making it's own gravity to help reduce the bone loss and other associated health concernes of longterm stays in Miro-G enviroments in addition to having the required space for envromental life support. The Ship/Station can be made as large as needed for the duration of the mission(s). Sure, I'm painfully aware it will likely run into the trillions over a decade but what are we truley, as a race, going to bennefit from? Thowing away those trillions to to the thieves on Wall ST. and Polticians isn't doing People any good. Invest in private exploration projects and space industry. Take it out of goverment control and domination. NASA was a good investment for it's time but now it is time for us to get off this rock and see for ourselves what is out there.

 

[Floridian]

If you want to get angry, check this out, "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29"
Project Orion, pre-dating NASA and the Apollo program.

The hippies, environmentalists, and bureaucrats/politicians set us back possibly 100-200 years in space travel.

 

[ZiraldoAerospace]

This might not be completely related, but somewhat interesting, I found out the other day that RKA (Russian space agency) has a yearly budget of 2.4 billion US dollars, yet they launch 50% of the cargo that goes into space every year. Does it bother anyone that NASA said that it would take until 2017 to build the Ares rocket and Orion capsule, yet all that it was doing was reusing space shuttle boosters and the J2 engines from the Saturn V second stage? And we all know that it would have been late too, because that is how NASA is, you have to add a couple of years onto any ETA that they give you. It just makes me so angry! :evil:

 

[SteveCNC]

You gotta remember , an ETA is based on how long it should take , but when you talking about anything government run that has nothing to do with how long it will actually take . Actual time is a bureaucratic thing based on who's district get's what and other unseemly things that take time to iron out (the distasteful part IMO) .