There is no Space Race with China
U.S. Experts on China’s Space Program Agree There Is No Race, Space Policy Online
“China’s successful Shenzhou-9 mission seems to have stirred interest in what impact, if any, China’s space program should have on the U.S. space program. Several experts on Chinese space activities have spoken at public meetings or published op-ed pieces in the past two weeks weighing in on the topic. One issue on which they all agree is that there is no U.S.-China space race.”
And there shouldn’t be a race. USA should work on basic stuff needed for space: something to cut cost to Earth orbit by a factor of 100; finding some destination where a self-sustaining colony would work.
Any sort of self-sustaining effort is decades and decades away. We are still in the scientific exploration phase of space travel, no matter the motivation; the insistence of some that space pay for itself or be run as a business will yield only one thing: boots in permanent 1G.
Mr. Design
Like most government programs NASAs great exploration program has been gamed. Space flight in general has remained artificially expensive all these year since the moon race. I don’t disagree with your statement the big time commercial self supporting space is decades away.
But our current build expensive public Rockets program works to make the commercialization impossible ever!!!! Public programs like SLS are a disaster.
Years ago NASA was the NACA which supported air travel the time is now for our space program to stop exploring space in the old cost plus expensive way and partner with groups that are trying to build highways or railways into space for others to use. This will not happen over night. But once flight is cheap enough people will start to live and work in space.
I’m a Spacex fan because he seems to be the only one serious about making space cheap enough for you or me.
Don’t be fooled the NASA line commercial does LEO why we NASA waste money exploring BEO That is a load of give me your tax dollars for my little job crap.
Not very informative…why do you think I am wrong?
Business can pay for much of space in the near future.
Much has been said here about boot strapping. That is the idea that NASA leads doing the R and D and then creates pathways for future investment. This is a good idea but must be done in small steps other wise you get the public guys protecting their tax budget little jobs and there never is any growth.
ISS’s 3 billion dollar budget is a good example of this.
China’s going to the Moon to eventually exploit the lunar environment for their economic benefit. The US is not. So there is no race!
Ouyang Ziyuan (Ouyang), a senior consultant at China’s lunar exploration program said in 2010:
“If China doesn’t explore the moon, we will have no say in international lunar exploration and can’t safeguard our proper rights and interests.”
Its that simple!
Marcel F. Williams
Well, yes, there cannot be a race if one party has forfeited!
What’s the race plan again?
To beat china to the moon??
No
To cheaper access to space!!!!
Time for you to finally do your REAL job NASA!
Flyback boosters
Horizontal launch
Just flying higher to orbit
Shooting fuel to space
Rail guns
Whatever it takes
Folks:
If America has to fabricate a space race with China just to stir up the blood of it’s people, it’s already lost.
Stop looking for excuses and start promoting the real reason for investing in human spaceflight… survival.
If that doesn’t work…
tinker
Tinker
Doesn’t this look like a small version cross section of a vacuum dirigible???
http://m.popsci.com/announc…
Image if this was a quarter mile in diameter and a mile or two long with a rail gun down the center.
Shooting fuel tanks into space from 2 miles up at the equator.
If you’re going to run for president, don’t tell anyone that until after you become president. Lesson learned, just the way it is now I guess. Thank goodness someone like Elon can make his thoughts known on that subject. Our populace needs to watch/read more sci-fi and think what if a little bit.
OK, it seems like there is general agreement (or at least majority thinking) that there isn’/won’t be a space race between China and the US. Now, back to the important issue — will there be cooperation?
Steve
[from elsewhere in the thread]
“So, we need: 1) a master plan for space (an international plan) which lays out all of the agreed-to goals and milestones, in proper order, and is managed by the various space agencies. (I don’t care if an agency is basically civilian or military, as long as they comply with the mutually agreed master plan.)”
Eww. I can’t think of anything that would destroy any progress in space better than that. Personally, I think there’s already been too much contraction of the international effort and lack of diversity. One of the best parts of COTS/CCDev was that it allowed contractors to try different models, as distinct from “The Big Rocket” which is all or nothing. Independent efforts, multiple paths, multiple goals.
For example, while I understand why it was done, the “International” in International Space Station is one of worst aspects of it. Now that Russia is politically and economically stable, the future plan for the ISS should be to “de-internationalise it”, to split it into fully independent Russian and US stations. (With other partners “picking sides” of where to attach their modules, with a longer term aim of eventually splitting off their own stations too.)
This is also (bringing it back to the comment I’m replying to and the article,) why I’m glad that the US won’t cooperate with China, and that China is apparently wary of partnering with Russia. Not because I’m “afraid of China”, or because I want a specific “race” (Apollo was a waste), but because I want as many independent paths taken as possible. I want China to develop their own space station, and eventually moon mission, even moon base. So that they aren’t limited by other nations’ mistakes, nor are we limited by theirs.
Shouldn’t the different paths be between companies not countries????
Paul,
I would agree with you if we were talking about a single specific task or goal, but that’s not the case. There are many, many things that need to be achieved, which won’t happen if you have everybody working on the same things. That helps us get lower costs when companies compete, but does nothing, that I can see, to help us when countries compete. Encouraging that simply makes it tougher on each country’s companies.
I can’t see a free for all at this time getting us any progress. There’s too much to do and not enough money and other resources to get it all done, especially if everybody is working on the same subset of the total list of requirements. And if we persist in our nationalism attitude in everything, at best, we’re only going to take that poison into space with us, if any of us get there at all. It honestly troubles me that so many people can find excuses for not cooperating in space.
Steve
Steve, I understand why you want cooperation, I see the same list of things we haven’t developed.
What I’m saying is that having a single international “master plan” is a terrible way to fill out that list. Due to the way such a top-down bureaucratic system would inevitably work.
[It’s like the reason I argue against a moon program, to Dennis, Marcel, and others. It’s not that NASA can’t do useful, necessary things on the moon, it’s that they won’t. Historically, whenever NASA has gotten a sniff of a moon program, those useful things get drowned by a narrowing focus on the core goal of “humans on the moon”.]
In the same way that the US having a single civilian space program fails to fill in the list. Europe having a single collective space program fails to fill in that list. Converging further won’t help.
I mean if NASA, the largest funded civilian space program in the world, doesn’t have any real overarching master-plan, and if the ISS – which includes nearly ever space program in the world – was built with no long term plan for its actual use, why do you think a global meta-program will achieve what you want?
Better to create as many independent players as possible, blindly rushing, stumbling, tripping in as many directions as possible, and hope that in their drunkard’s walk, they gradually fill out the whole “idea-space” of HSF. Hell, I’d like to see NASA broken into smaller independent pieces.
“And if we persist in our nationalism attitude in everything,”
Like you I’m not from the US. My desire for NASA not to share programs with China (or Russia) is not out of USA!USA!USA! red-neck nationalism, it’s to increase the number of independent players following independent paths. I want China to stay independent, and Russia to convert its ISS parts to a new Russian stations, because I want them to succeed whenever NASA fails! I’d be much happier if China independently gets to the moon before the US returns, than I would be if there was a joint China-US program for an ISS-like moon base.
Similarly, I have no qualms with buying services from commercial players in other countries. If they are cheaper/better/only-one. For example, right now the US would still need to buy Soyuz flights for its separated independent space station. And buying resupply flights from ESA’s ATV is fine, since they have more capacity than COTS players, and more players is better anyway. I’m not talking about siloing the suppliers. That’s not the separation that I want. By having companies supply multiple programs, it increases the diversity within nations, as well as between them. Something that wouldn’t happen if they were supplying a single global program.
tl;dr – moar!
Paul
The other night I heard on the Charley rose show. A writer talking about his book about Microsoft’s dead past decade. All the problems he talked about with Microsoft are the same problems with NASA. He suggested that Microsoft break themselves up into mini companies to function faster and better. Same with NASA maybe a good idea?
I still think about your idea of getting humans on the moon for the fiftieth sent by the private sector some how?????
I have learned lots from your comments. Lol Pluto before mars.
Keep thinking about Tinkers survival comment lol and wondering how to get us off our asses lol.
Steve some of Pauls points are why I typed my porky pie theory ‘to you.
Hummmm master plan
Controlled completive chaos Lols
Paul,
Thanks for your well-considered reply. We seem, to me, to be of a more or less similar mind as far as the major problems go, but we seem to have very different views on probable future events and on proposed solutions for the problems. I’m going to try to address your post point by point, but if you don’t mind, I’ll do it somewhat out of order.
First off: “tl;dr – moar!” — One interpretation: my posts are too long and therefore people won’t read the entire thing. Absolutely guilty; no excuses. I’ve just never figured out a way around it when trying to make sure I’ve clearly communicated a point. Second interpretation: political groups make honest-to-goodness, cross-my-heart promises about an issue, typically pertaining to taxation and spending, and then keep their promise only for as long as they find it convenient. In other words, talk is cheap; and history shows that even legislating such “promises” into law is no guarantee that they will be upheld for the duration. They simply make new laws to overrule the old, inconvenient laws. This says to me that leaving that system unchanged, by continuing to have all “commitments” made solely at the national political level, will never correct this problem; it actually guarantees that programs will be descoped, reduced in funding, screwed with by know-nots, and then canceled, exactly what has been happening, with few exceptions, since 1970 in the US, and to a lesser, but growing, extent in the rest of the world. If, however, space activities were to be planned, financed, and implemented by a world consortium, the decision to renege on a commitment becomes , I believe, much harder, for two simple reasons: one is the loss of face involved, which news would circle the entire globe in less than 24 hours; the second is the inevitable reluctance that other countries will have to engage in future economic and financial agreements with the offending country. It also has the advantage of making countries responsible for the actions (or failures) of their own companies, which makes conflicts and contract breaches a world court matter, instead of biased, extended local court matters. (BTW, this says to me that DTARS’s breaking up Microsoft analogy is exactly the wrong solution to the space question; different problems; different solutions.)
“Due to the way such a top-down bureaucratic system would inevitably work.” — So, the basic difference in our viewpoints seems to me to be that you accept the status quo with respect to how things have worked in D.C. in the past, and I’m saying kill that status quo; let’s try to put into place a situation which will, if not make the status quo impossible in future, at least make it much more difficult and as internationally embarrassing as possible to do again. “They” who are guilty of perpetuating the ineffective, damaging and devolutionary status quo are certainly not going to change it, therefore we must force their hand to do our collective will — which is exactly how democracy is supposed to work. It’s as simple as Keith says: “It’s ours. Get involved. Take it back. Make it work for US.” If we want to be honest, we have no right to complain if we’re not willing to individually and collectively take steps to take it back and make it work. The current SOP will never do that. I’m proposing an alternative that I think gives us a much better chance. I had sincerely hoped that people with your knowledge would help refine and improve that alternative, rather than dismiss it because that ’s not how things work in NASA/the US.
“It’s not that NASA can’t do useful, necessary things on the moon, it’s that they won’t. Historically, whenever NASA has gotten a sniff of a moon program, those useful things get drowned by a narrowing focus on the core goal of “humans on the moon”” — I agree, 500%. The worst case, to me, was actually that $450 billion Mars Reference Design Mission. It grew and grew because everybody included everything they could think of, especially each person declaring that his/her own pet project was essential to program (which they weren’t). Why does this happen? Easy, because 1) there was no overall coordinating, authoritative plan or planners, so it was, and always ends up being, either a minor war or a useless free-for-all; and 2) there were FAR TWO MANY completely independent programs that NASA then tries to roll into one single mega-program, and what you end up with is nonsense. ESA is better at this, in my opinion, but not anywhere near better enough, basically for all of the same reasons. Any graduate engineer can quote you the mantra “top-down design; bottom-up testing” (whether he actually practices it or not; too many don’t). But when it comes to proposing space plans, this proven concept seem to go right out the window. Instead, someone starts with their pet goal and then everybody else starts hanging their own favorites on it, like 5-years-olds hanging ornaments on an unsteady Christmas tree. Before long, you’ve got a house of cards just waiting for the slightest breeze to completely collapse it. The answer is not adding more 5-year-olds; it’s having a competent master tree decorator dealing with the 5-year-olds, one at a time or in small groups, and reconciling their ideas/wishes with the purpose and capabilities of the Christmas tree, and excluding those which simply don’t belong.
“In the same way that the US having a single civilian space program fails to fill in the list. Europe having a single collective space program fails to fill in that list. Converging further won’t help.” — NASA has how many competing centers? The US has how many Congress people competing for pork? The ESA has how many separate countries, each wanting a bigger pieces of the economic pie? The ESA has how many countries, each with it’s own problems, goals, and financial situations? It’s exactly the same thing again in my mind — two many players, each playing for his own reasons and goals instead of a common cause. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about a 50-cent toy or a multi-billion dollar space program, as soon as you start trying to make any item all things to all people, that item is doomed to failure, followed swiftly by death.
“I mean if NASA, the largest funded civilian space program in the world, doesn’t have any real overarching master-plan, and if the ISS – which includes nearly ever space program in the world – was built with no long term plan for its actual use, why do you think a global meta-program will achieve what you want?” — Paul, you have very nicely and precisely described two major problems in today’s space efforts. That’s a start. Now, how about looking ways to correct these problems instead of just accepting them as laws of nature that can’t be changed? They can be changed, but nobody is seriously trying. Even the self-styled space advocacy societies and the many op ed writers aren’t accomplishing anything in terms proposing HOW to change the unacceptable situation. Like everybody else, they point out a problem, they whine about it, they point a finger at whoever they blame, then they sign their name; end of effort. Anybody can point out an obvious problem. It takes time, some brains, and a sincere willingness to try to develop realistic solutions to those problems. Are we willing to simply continue to accept this situation which we so strongly dislike? Or are we perhaps serious and sincere enough to try to find ways to change things for the better?
“Better to create as many independent players as possible, blindly rushing, stumbling, tripping in as many directions as possible, and hope that in their drunkard’s walk, they gradually fill out the whole “idea-space” of HSF. Hell, I’d like to see NASA broken into smaller independent pieces.” — I see two separate issues here. Break NASA into smaller pieces? Yes, sir! But only if they’re going to be managed properly at a higher level. Right now, all of the Centers compete with one another, to everybody’s detriment. If you’re going to have many smaller entities also all competing with each other, for anything, then I think the situation will be much worse, not better. There are situations were you get two design groups both working towards the same thing — a friendly competition between coworkers — and if either group “wins,” both groups win, because “the goal” was achieved, and “the team” acquires everything that both groups combined have learned. But, if the competition is not friendly, or if you have more than two groups, no one wins because you’ve created a negative working environment (I’m not going to try to rationalize this; it just always works out that way in my experience and in the literature). Like I said earlier, if we were talking about companies trying to develop a single new product or process, the situation is very different, and then the more the merrier definitely works to the customer’s/user’s advantage. But in a situation like space activities, where a very large number of highly complex devices, processes and concepts have to be developed and integrated, and the order in which these things happen is crucial to both efficiency and effectiveness, a free-flowing collection of activities, not organized at a higher level, is going to take approximately forever to make useful progress past a certain very basic level (unless the odds of blind chance should do something unthinkable).
“And if we persist in our nationalism attitude in everything” — I think we are of a similar mind here, from a social standpoint. All I can add is that our difference in opinion on international cooperation seems to stem directly from the things we’ve discussed above. As for your scenario wherein if X fails, I can only point back to my “friendly competition” thoughts, whereby if anyone wins, everyone wins.
“ Similarly, I have no qualms with buying services from commercial players in other countries” — Your whole last paragraph is obvious common sense to me. Only the “buy American” crowd would dispute it, and their days are numbered anyhow. My only other comment on this paragraph is on the ATV. Like I’ve said elsewhere, I was really disappointed in how little good press it got, especially in the States. To my mind, it is one of the most sophisticated, well-thought-out, useful, and all-round practical spacecraft to have ever been created, bar none. Even the Gemini capsule, my personal favorite and even the Shuttle can’t match it for perfectly doing valuable things that had never been done before. To be honest, for a while, I was afraid that ATV (supported by HTV) may have killed off the COTS Cargo program. I almost suspect that the only reason it wasn’t was because nobody connected Congress saw the possibility.
So, Paul, on the overall issue of an International Master Plan, and the many lesser questions that it raises, at the simplest level either one of us is right, or we’re both partly right, or (let’s be honest) we’ve both got it wrong. At this point, I think that more important than the right answer is that fact that we can discuss it without getting bent out of shape. I have a great deal of respect for your ideas and the things that you post here at NW, and people who don’t agree with things I think but can discuss them politely and intelligently are why I keep coming back; it’s how I learn the most and best things that I didn’t know or had wrong. It’s for this reason that I mentioned your name when I was suggesting to George (DTARS) the kind of people he really needs to be talking to if he wants to put together a team to develop a space plan (I hope you don’t mind that I used you as an example). Of course, your last comments to him on this idea may have talked him out of it, so there may not be an issue.
So, sorry this was so painfully long (again), but I felt that the issue was important enough to invest the time. And thanks again for your well considered thoughts.
Steve
Sorry for the delay, I left the tab open… over there… and forgot to look at it.
So I won’t go into detail, just three points:
The “tl;dr – moar!” was not in any way aimed at you. It was meant to be a one word summary of my own post. Ie, that “more is better”.
You said:
“there were FAR TWO MANY completely independent programs that NASA then tries to roll into one single mega-program, and what you end up with is nonsense.”
…and…
“as soon as you start trying to make any item all things to all people, that item is doomed to failure,”
This is why I think a global version will be even worse. The one program that everyone will want to dominate/manipulate/latch-on-to, trying to be all things to all people. And it’s a single-point-of-failure, when it goes wrong, there’s nothing else, no one else.
Lastly, you’ve made a few references in this and recent posts that make me think that you believe I’m much more “inside” than I am. I’m not in the industry, I’m not an engineer. I’ve just been interested in the topic for a couple of decades. I’m not quite a teenager in his mom’s basement shouting to the interwebz that they’re all wrong, but I can claim no more authority.
Oh what the hell. Fourthly, the Mars Reference Design mission. IMO, it blew out because they didn’t know what they were doing. It was too much in one step. So by shovelling everything else into the program, they could delay the hard problems of Mars. Same thing that they did with Constellation and are doing with SLS, focus on the machines, ignore the mission.
In reply to Paul451, today 03:57 AM:
Paul,
There’s a difference, perhaps subtle, but important in what I think we’re each saying. I would never, ever, sanction a “mega-program,” which is something that NASA has proposed too often (and I have criticized very often). What I insist we need is a “Master Plan” (not a master program or master program plan). Any program above a certain size is doomed, as well as being more costly, more risky, and in greater chance of being canceled, either by overruns or by change in Administration/Congress.
What I want is a Master PLAN that includes many individual programs (programs might change over time, the PLAN should NEVER change). There would definitely be interdependencies between the various programs, just as there are between tasks in a single program (as a very stripped-down example: your need a mission plan before a payload and crew can be defined; you need a payload and crew definition before a spacecraft can be defined; you need the spacecraft specs before a launch vehicle can be specified, etc.). Each of these is a DIFFERENT PROGRAM, but there are obvious time- and information-based interdependencies. My goal is to: 1) not have a dozen companies/countries redundantly doing the same development/exploration work (that comes later in the competing-for-price phase of a technology/industry); and 2) treat it like a To Do List to ensure that NONE of the necessary tasks are being left out or being done later than needed. In both these areas we have been terribly unorganized to date and still are.
Let me repeat something I’ve posted here before. The late, great Robert Heinlein had a large chart on his office wall. It was a time line of events. John Campbell called it his “Future History.” The majority of Heinlein’s stories were written against this Future History. He could place a new story at the correct time (year) by seeing at which time the technologies and major events required for a story had already happened, and then add that story to the Future History at the appropriate date. This way, for example, he didn’t have people living lightyears from Earth in one story and interstellar travel being invented 400 years AFTER that in another story. It was also very powerful for character development, since he could refer to someone from an earlier well-known novel in a newer novel without having to create and describe him from scratch. We could treat hardware the same way with a Master Plan. If a given spacecraft is used in 20 different missions (programs), most of the documentation for the spacecraft is created once and then referenced (and perhaps appended to) only from then on (instead of the NASA method of endlessly redesigning the wheel, after 20 new powerpoint wheel studies).
One aspect of properly organized international cooperation is that it becomes almost impossible for any one player to rule the game (I won’t write pages explaining that; you can figure it out). What WILL happen, is that certain countries/companies become the “experts” or “bosses” of certain functions, which is actually good, even though it doesn’t seem so at first glance (the NASA Mercury astronauts did this; it worked very well and became SOP). Once the “division of responsibilities,” as I think of it, is established, then no one can go it alone — everybody will need everybody else’s contributions, and anyone stupid enough to think about any form of “going on strike” will quickly find themselves facing economic and trade sanctions in other areas, and knowing this, won’t attempt it. If we go back in time, what we’re looking at is subsistence-level peasants becoming the various village craftsmen, for everyone’s benefit and wealth, just scaled up.
As for being “inside,” I’m not sure what word I really wanted here. I don’t mean people that actually work at NASA, or wherever, day to day, but people who have spent time, one way or another, finding out what the facts are, how things are really organized, what really happened at a certain PDR, or what’s the max thrust of a given LV. (I hate it when someone blogs, “does anybody know…” something that he could have Googled for himself in 30 seconds.) I think it comes down to attitude and perception. When you don’t know something, it appears that you, Paul, take the time to find out, one way or another. And you apparently do your research BEFORE expressing an opinion or giving information in a public blog. To me, that’s a commendable trait. Many people are too lazy to even Google for information. In short, you “think” before you speak, which is something that too many of us don’t do well. I’ve edited 50+ books and published a couple dozen space books of my own, most based on NASA mission documents, so I know well how time-consuming, and sometimes frustrating, research can be (I’ve never worked for NASA, so I’m not an “insider” either). From what you’ve written over time, I’d say you also have a knack for seeing relationships. You look at one thing and understand it because of its similarity to something else altogether (what I call “just changing the nouns”). For example, in any 3-variable relationship, such as ohms law, you can’t change only one variable value; at least one other must also change (if A=B/C you can’t change the value of only one of them). This same relation/restriction exists all through physics, chemistry and mechanics, and social issues. When NASA came out with its Faster/Better/Cheaper mantra in the 90s under Dummy Dan, it should have taken everyone exactly 2 seconds to say, “impossible — you can’t increase any one of those three things without DECREASING at least one of the other two.” It was as obvious as ohms law, but an awful lot of people took a couple of years (and two missions plowing into Mars) to understand the impossibility. That’s what I mean by “relationships.” So, don’t sell yourself short; I respect your comments (and we “outsiders” have got to stick together).
The Mars Reference Design was something that a lot of us watched or heard about happening with open mouths and boiling tempers, even from a distance. The basic flaw was that everybody and his dog got to add his “requirements,” most of which weren’t required at all. At $450 Billion, I believe it was, they finally pulled the plug on that circus. Cpx and SLS are tiny by comparison. It was just silly, and it illustrates our point about mega-programs.
With all due respect for your modesty (and honesty), I don’t revise my statement to George (DTARS); I think you’d make a good contributor to his project if he went ahead with it.
Steve
(If I get many more of these skinny posts, I can build a fence!)
Not only that, there is still no evidence that we have even found a way to land large payloads onto the Martian surface and still maintain unit integrity. August 5-6, we shall find out if we can do a one ton payload. What business is going to do the research for that activity? They’re not going to do it. It will take the US government to find a way that is reliable to land large multi ton payloads on Mars. What’s coming up next month is going to be spectacular or else one of the dumber ideas our culture and government has ever come up with.
Ralphy
Whether or not MSL works or not I think it’s great that they are trying to create capablity to land heavier stuff on mars. So it’s not a failure whether it works or not. I do wish it had been built cheaper and it was designed to be easily done again. Not a one shoot deal.
Ralphy, you painted a bleak picture of fuel depots before. If you have any thoughts on my wings jets rocket booster ideas I would appreciate your thoughts.
To cheaper exploration and more of it lolol
George out!!!!!!!!!!
DTARS, I don’t think it was me that tried to debunk your idea of Martian landings. Really, I don’t have the in depth knowledge of what will work and what won’t work in order to land multi ton payloads on the Martian landscape. If I did claim that, then I was in error. I think I did assert that it was going to take practice and patience to land heavy payloads close to each other, accurately and consistently. Thanks, Ralphy
No Space Race with China,huh.Well you’ll never know what transpires down the road.Right now we’re taking a “been there,done that” attitude and just shrugging it off but as in the Chinese proverb,”those that fail to remember the past will be condemned to repeat it” something big will happen that will catch us off guard.A race will happen,maybe not now but it will happen more sooner than imagined.
Bob,
As far as I know, only one person is alleged to have publicly said, “been there, done that,” so I don’t think you can really say that “we’re” taking that attitude. Right or wrong, many Americans want to go back to the Moon, and a larger portion of the population unfortunately don’t appear to care one way or the other.
Steve
Steve
It seems that since NASA has made space flight look impossibly difficult and expensive all these years that people have just given up. Look at designs and Ralphies attitude. They have given up. I have yet to give up!!!
Spacex has given me hope since they blew up their first rocket lol
Soon they will recover that booster and things will start to change that will be a great day
Too hope and a brighter future
Mr. Whitfield 🙂
With all the people of the world. May we have the wisdom and the brains to work together and live in peace!
I’m a dreamer lol
Your friend
George
Never, ever give up!
You can look at both government and commercial and each one can be bad if abused. Which they both are.
I want us, government commercial whoever to be working to get us off this rock. Maybe you don’t care if we ever get to the point where we can move into space. I do! You are right that our government should be spending our money to build highways into space and they should be doing the basic research to create capability. They are not!
How should they do it!!!
The same cheap way they have worked with Spacex to fly dragon using the cots model and providing missions. The commercial comes in with leaving the companies working with NASA having the capability to use privite money as well.
Yup NASA designs the missions that creates the highways, NASA provides the R and D to bring down the cost of space flight.
The goal the PLAN should be to get us off this rock!!!
In return the cost of tranportion for your deep mission satellites gets cheaper. Plus the dropping of price creates more opportunity for future commercial so it no longer remains a pipe dream!!!!!
It’s about working for a goal as musk has said. To make us a multi planet species.
George,
Once again, you’ve hit on a key point — that there is a necessary place for NASA in the overall scheme of things, and if I may add, by the same logic there is a place for the other countries’ national space agencies. And it’s not just the NACA-type R&D activities. There are a lot of interesting things going on right now and many good ideas being pursued in space, but they are all being done independently of one another. There is no profit in wondering which of these things are better than others; they are all beneficial contributions to the big picture. What’s missing, in my mind, is the big picture.
There is no one thing, like cheaper launch costs or fly-back boosters, that’s going to put us over the hump and on our way to a spacefaring future. There are many problems yet to be solved, and many things yet to be learned; and we need them all. However, no one country or company is going to solve them all alone, or even come close; not within several centuries, at least. So, obviously the answer lies in splitting up the workload and sharing the results. And to do this with any efficiency and effectiveness, there has to be a master plan, an integrated game plan to which everybody involved is working. This is where NASA and ESA, and their counterparts in other countries, have to take the lead (and their respective governments have to allow this to happen, unimpeded). They have to work together to develop, manage and maintain a Master Plan for space (unless the UN suddenly grows a pair, in which case they would be an asset). Most importantly, we have to get away from government managed space programs.
The obvious force working against this is nationalism. Even in this day and age, educated, experienced professional people are still basically, on average, incapable of thinking in terms of a world program. They are always looking and working for advantages for their own company and/or country. We have to somehow change this entrenched mindset before there can be any progress on large, meaningful space programs.
So, we need:
1) a master plan for space (an international plan) which lays out all of the agreed-to goals and milestones, in proper order, and is managed by the various space agencies. (I don’t care if an agency is basically civilian or military, as long as they comply with the mutually agreed master plan.)
2) a commitment by all involved countries and companies to work to the plan, not deviate to seek personal advantage. And they must commit to being in it for the long haul.
3) a sustainable method of international financing for the implementation of the master plan, once again without deviations for personal advantage. Any profits earned along the way are pumped back into the program as a bonus, but wouldn’t necessarily be required as a part of the plan.
I truly believe that any country which insists on solely “winning the high ground” is doomed to come out well behind the cooperative forces who will conquer space, and spend a lot more money getting there (or not getting there, as the case may be). I realize that this concept is simply going to be too hard for many people to swallow, but I can’t see any other road to success, so those who can think progressively are going to be the people who make it happen.
Steve
Steve
I agree!!!
So how do we get your message out???
Who sells the master plan to the world???
One would be Mr. Musk??
When he comes up with his mars hardware plan he could be selling your grand plan too!!!’
Got an outline yet???? Lol. I’m not joking.
You and others should outline a world master space policy and give Mr. Musk a call!!!
I’m sure there are others that should speak out too. Who?? I have no clue??
A world Master space plan 🙂 that could get us all in the same boat solving problems that need to be solved !!!
Write!!!
Mr. Whitfield !!’
The world needs to hear some common sense for a change!!!
Image if NASA were selling how to make space more affordable instead this SLS Exploration BEO crap!!!
Can you see bolden saying space settement?
George
Deleted
USA today headline
Less military spending slows growth lolol
Could it be we spend to much on non productive stuff???
George,
Re: making a master plan,
Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I’m not the person to undertake the job. I can contribute ideas, which puts me in the same class as a few hundred thousand other people, but I certainly don’t have the inside knowledge necessary to create a plan with all of the necessary elements to make it realistic and acceptable to all of the people involved. Such a plan is far too important to be done wrong. Unfortunately, I think all of the people who could create a proper plan are fully tied up doing other things, making a living. This is not a task that could be done quickly. I might, sometime, take a shot at it for my own enjoyment, but it’s not something that I would admit I was doing, because I don’t think I could produce anything that couldn’t be easily shot down in the first 10 minutes. My feeling is that it would have to be done by a team (as opposed to a committee) of NASA and ESA people, plus selected industry experts. And, realize that even a perfect plan has two strikes against it right from the start — the time and cost to create the plan, and the time and cost to implement the plan. I think that if you could magically produce the exactly correct values for those two costs and times, you’d scare away even the people who are already on our side. However, it must all be done at some point, so I guess we just muddle along as best we can, and what could be done in a few decades will instead take many centuries. Sorry, but that’s how I see things.
If you were interested in putting together an “amateur” team to produce such a plan, I would be willing to contribute time and effort. As an experienced editor and writer I can at least offer to do the clerical- and production-type work, and even offer a web site that we could use something like DISQUS on to collaborate. But you’d need people like Dennis, Mr. C, Paul, Geoff and Tinker, people who know better what they’re talking about, and know the inside workings of the aerospace contractors et al, to do the planning and debating. It’s something to think about, anyhow.
Steve
Steve,
Where do you think you might find people like Dennis, Mr. C, Paul, Geoff, and Tinker. That could help, Steve. ?????
I bet they know lots of other people that could input too, don’t you think???
George,
I’m thinking of the same place as you’re thinking. Perhaps, if policy allows, Keith or Marc would pass on a message to them from you, since their NASA Watch registrations have their email addresses. Just a suggestion, if you’re seriously interested in this. And be prepared; this would be a looooong project, time-wise, so be prepared for participants not being easy to convince.
Steve
The Chinese have openly expressed their intent to assert
their rights to the moon, Those who are saying “don’t worry, be happy” are
deluding themselves and trying to do the same to others. This is a danger that
must be addressed now. Do not be lured to sleep. Lets keep our eye on the ball.
We must act now to protect the long term interests and security of the United
States. No race, you say – those perceptions will definitely differ from
reality soon enough – to our lasting regret.