NASA vs ESA

[kk434]

ESA has just built the largest space telescope(Herschel), Rosetta mission is very ambitious, Arianne 5 and the ATV are being upgraded and may some day carry astronauts. While NASA is just shutting stuff down, Constellation,the shuttle. Soon ESA may be the leader in space exploration. Since I'm from Europe and have visited thier facilities I may be biased but NASA seems to have lost thier way.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Does not belong in Missions and Launches, moved to Space Business and Technology.

 

[dryson]

It's not Nasa that has lost it's way it's the little kiddies and their politics. One president set's up a good program then comes along the next one and tears it down just to gain a few million votes from the crazed conspiracy theorists and nutter right wingers.

 

[SteveCNC]

^^ sad but true , however

Does Europe have any private space ventures ? I would have to say the US definately leads the world in commercial space companies which makes up for the BS political game the Government plays once in a while . To me this country is on hold for the next 1.5 years while we wait out our foolish presidents term but hey it could be worse . I'm just thankful we have companies like Bigelow , SpaceX , Virgin , among others .

 

[Valcan]

It's not Nasa that has lost it's way it's the little kiddies and their politics. One president set's up a good program then comes along the next one and tears it down just to gain a few million votes from the crazed conspiracy theorists and nutter right wingers.

Or appease the left wingers by taking money from Nasa and putting it into welfare (which is kinda like expecting to fill up the grand canyon with a dumptruck but never said they were logical).

Both sides tend to mess up Nasa. Its easy we dont picket and freak out much and we dont have 4 million+ member unions to pay off politicans.

I'd say we almost need a law that restricts presidents from cutting or messing with Nasa without a full magority vote of congress and senate but....

 

[alpha_centauri]

^^ sad but true , however

Does Europe have any private space ventures ? I would have to say the US definately leads the world in commercial space companies which makes up for the BS political game the Government plays once in a while . To me this country is on hold for the next 1.5 years while we wait out our foolish presidents term but hey it could be worse . I'm just thankful we have companies like Bigelow , SpaceX , Virgin , among others .

You do realise Virgin is the company of a British billionaire don't you?

Secondly this talk of commercial space a bit of a red herring anyway, since even SpaceX for example is developing via NASA contracts. In reality it is certainly possible for any company currently involved in government projects (off which there are many in Europe too) to branch off to other activities.

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology ... 61307.html

 

[neilsox]

Healthy competition is good. ESA may pass NASA in some respects soon, NASA like the Russian space efforts will likely persist long term. Neil