Next Gen Shuttle Replacement-Maximum Budget Buster

Technocrat

Next Gen Shuttle Replacement-Maximum Budget Buster

zogger

Thu Jul 27 17:25:13 -0700 2006

Space+Flight.

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Two different studies leading to reports about the next generation Space Shuttle replacement, the Crew Exploration Vehicle,(GAO abstract) have come to the same conclusion. It hasn't even started yet and it is so far over budget in theory that perhaps the whole idea should be scrapped, re-thought about, and a different approach taken. And NASA is so strapped for cash now they are considering just dropping an entire year of scientific experiments on the ISS. The second report on the replacement vehicle, from the private Space Frontier Foundation, says it is "Unaffordable and Unsustainable"

"The Space Frontier Foundation issued a whitepaper today stating that NASA's multi-billion dollar post-space shuttle transportation plans are in the initial stages of complete failure. As the first step in a long-term campaign, the Foundation shows the agency's current effort is a dead-end that is both "unaffordable" and "unsustainable.""..more "yep, Space is pretty darn expensive" news there

Next Gen Shuttle Replacement-Maximum Budget Buster

AB3A

Fri Jul 28 06:18:16 -0700 2006
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The problem with the original shuttle is that it was meant to do too many things at once. Government Committees tend to design all-purpose vehicles like that instead of recognizing that some missions are better done with other vehicles. Naturally the cost goes up. We have lots of different boats in the water. Some are canoes, some are sailboats, some are cargo container ships, some are tugboats...

The point is that we do this in many arenas of transportation where we optimize transportation designs for specific purposes. Why are space vehicles somehow immune to this sort of specialization?

Next Gen Shuttle Replacement-Maximum Budget Buster

Gartogg

Fri Jul 28 06:52:14 -0700 2006
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The difference is that we don't build boats quite as infrequently. I know people who have a sports car, a small car that's fuel efficient, and a minivan, and each is used for a different purpose. That works well if you can afford the three cars. Or even if you can get your parents to buy them for you.

But this is a problem, because NASA is not run by a teenager who asks Uncle Sam for stuff. If NASA were to ask to switch projects now, they will look bad. They look less bad going ahead with a bad plan than they do backing out.

NASA functions as a classic example of why government should not be involved in industry - not because it steals the public's money and wastes it, or because it politicizes things that should involve looking for the best solution, or even because they look for stuff that catches the eye of those who fund it instead of focusing on pursuing goals, but because they simply are not good at doing most of this stuff. (They got us to the moon first. But not on a budget. And there was no real competition from industry for the people they needed.)

I just hope that the private space ship industry takes off (pun intended) before us back here on earth manage to ruin all chance of technological advance. If you remember your Heinlein well, we're only 6 years from religious dictatorship in the USA, and 14 from the declaration of Venusian independance. Item one seems to be on track, but we seem to be 40 years overdue for a moon colony, not to mention the other planets.