It would be nice to see NASA eventualy turned into some sort of Space-based coast guard...

I don't beg to do differ so much as I believe that there's more than one way to skin a cat. Everyone seems to think that there's only one "acceptable" way to get into space, and each person justs backs his own horse instead of considering whether there's multiple ways of doing the same thing.

The government can go to space all it wants, I don't care. But for other people to say that the government going into space wipes out every other endeavour is ridiculous. It seems to me that people don't oppose government money being wasted on space travel, so much as they're opposed to gov't money being used to fund a governmental organization whose mandate is aeronautics and space research/exploration. They want the gov't to fund their horse, instead of its own. If private companies want to do their own thing in space, then let them do it like every other business does things, instead of begging for a payout by the gov't. I'm sure they can scam some funding from the gov't, but so far, all the reasons I've heard for their failure to accomplish their own missions are just excuses-- excuses that wouldn't wash in my particular governmental organization. Either you're committed to mission accomplishment or you're not. So far, I don't think they're serious, or they would've done accomplished their mission.

Right now, I think Burt Rutan's the best hope for a civilian punching through into space, but his program looks to be better suited for cargo rather than pax. Maybe someone else will build upon Rutan's ideas and find a way to deliver passenger travel (of a kind) to space.

I am one for the government to get the hell out of the way. NASA does its best to hurt chances of private enterprise suceeding, one must only read Rand's excellent site to see this to be true. I hope that private enterprise makes this whole goverment boondoggle irrelevant. Privitise NASA now!

It'll cost so much because they have to finish what they started with the ISS. Once that is out of the way then its off to the moon.

In the 60's it took 8 years to get to the moon. There is no possible way NASA could just build a craft and send it directly to the moon. NASA must relearn everything.

They have to create a brand new vehicle and have it tested by 2008. In 2010 when the shuttle retires, they can focus on getting the new craft to the moon. With the focus of getting to the moon as soon as 2015. If they accomplish that, it will be three years sooner than in the 60's. How much faster do you want things?

All of this will happen, and still NASA is only using 1% of the total federal budget.

I guess you can say I'm a little more optimistic about this than some people. I wasn't alive in the 60's so I missed all the fun. I'd like to see something cool happen in my lifetime.

Stryker, one of the problems is that NASA has a nasty habit of eliminating the competition, something that G. Harry Stine wrote about in a couple of his books, especially Halfway to Anywhere.

Jerry: why finish the ISS? It's been a boondoggle since day one, and a crippled boondoggle for years. It's also an open secret that what little science that gets accomplished up there -and it's damned little- could be performed at a tenth of the cost with regular satellites.

Just as a side note, halfway to anywhere was a phrase coined by Heinlein, but has been borrowed by several other writers (including both Stine and Pournelle). It's a quick way to sum up why we should have serious orbital or lunar stations, rather than the LEO tinkertoy we have today.

NASA's problem is that bureaucrats are in charge, and bureaucrats are afraid to stick their necks out. Space exploration is inherently risky, so we are trying to do risky things with risk-averse people.

The result is the Space Shuttle, overengineered for practical use and unable to be updated because the risk of a new system is unknown. Rinse and repeat for the ISS.

When we went to the Moon in the 60's, the technical folks were in charge. The technical folks don't see technology as magic, so they are able to make reasonable decisions.

If we want a real space program, we have to get the bureaucrats out of NASA. This will require a fairly exciting project to draw some real nerds into management positions (no real tech freak would give up his work with gadgets to go into management without a good reason).

I agree that NASA should become privatised. To make space travel a competitive endeavor, I think we would get farther faster, leaving the rest of the world to eat our dust.

I'm not too worried about NASA. The real fire is at JPL, and they seem to know it. And they can't hold off privatization much longer.

Actually I think this will cause a big change in NASA. The problem with NASA has been a lack of a clearly defined missing, since essentially the end of the space race. What was left in the wake of the race was a large orginization that feared it would no longer be needed. So it has spent the past 25+ years attempting to justify it's size and existance(or perhaps more directly it's budget). NASA's attempt to eliminate competition has been directed for the same purpose. The space shuttle program was reworked and redesigned to prevent the military from getting involved in space(as NASA claimed they could make a sigle lauch vehicle that could meet all the commercial and mililtary needs with the shuttle). It was also changed many times to make it more politically aceptable(parts and components were shifted to be made in areas to please politicians and earn their support instead of being based on the merit of the facilities). All of these things were done because NASA feared being cut off and either greatly reduced or eliminated.

Refocusing NASA on a new mission could be exactly what the orginization needs. Outlining some long term goals that give it some sense of security in it's existance while making that security depediant on its ability to accomplish those objectives could come a long way in restoring NASA to be the orginization it was in the 60's.

Having such a NASA will be of great benefit to private operations. Not only from the technologies that will spin off from such a mission, bur from the support structure that is being outlined to facilitate space travel.

NASA has been a large bloated orginization attempting to fight for its survival. For the past 15 years especially I would agree that it has been a hindrance to many private orginizations seeking to get into space. That, however, has been a survival tactic. If they have a clear objective and a reasonable expectation to recieve funding to accomplish that goal(as they did during the space race), I expect we will see NASA work quite differently.

as a physicist, i sort of feel it's my obligation to point out why privitizing NASA is in no one's best interest. while i agree that a manned mars mission and moon-base are absurd wastes of money (primarily political in motive, i would guess, as well), i don't see how NASA discourages competition. maybe you think NASA actually makes the things it puts in space? no. just as the army doesn't make its own guns and tanks, NASA *buys* its satellites, mirrors, lenses, rockets, etc. from private companies, all of whom compete for the contract. they are putting a lot of money back into the economy, and supporting a lot of companies with their contracts.

also, for those who want to privitize NASA, have you stopped to think about what it means to be private? in essence, without taxes, it means you must make a profit. what would NASA sell, do you think? they'd be a company not making anything, since most of what NASA does is purely research based, without profit motive. indeed, to support the sort of budget NASA currently enjoys, they'd have to sell a hell of a lot of *something*. But until space-travel and moon-bases become as commecial as airline flights and package vacations, you can bet that NASA has no business in the private sector. Once that happens, however, you can also bet that there will be a bevvy of companies sprouting up to take advantage of the business opportunity.

Casey:

I was just saying that that was part of the master plan. To finish what we started first. As much as I'd like them to scrap ISS, there are too many countries involved that stand to lose money if the US bails.

If I had my way, they quit the IIS and start working on the moon project tomorrow and land there by 2010.

Jerry

I'd like NASA's budget to be cut in such a way that the only way they get to build and fly anything into space is if the cost to LEO keeps going down.

I'd also like NASA to start doing real X-Projects like X-15, where the object is to build and fly, and fly and fly and fly, etc. Not like the current X-boondoggles.

That and I want government funded prizes, like the X-Prize.

In other words, put Pournelle in charge.

I love space, but for goodness sake CUT THE BUDGET! I want my kids to pay less taxes than I do.

Yours,
Wince

Ok, Jerry, I see where you're coming from. Yes, we probably dont' want to piss off the other space agencies, especially if we're going to ask for help later. :)

And definitely more focus on a permanent moon base first. That will facilitate most of what we need, such as cheaper, more effective boosters, space "taxis" such as a dedicated LEO-to-moon vehicle, and long-term life support.

Wince: forget X-prize, let's go for Pournelle's real idea: $8 billion, tax-free, to the first company to that establishes a moon base where people live for a year and a day.

All of this bickering obfuscates the real raison d'etre for space travel in the first place? Why is no one willing to state the real reason we must go into space? Why, it's nothing less than the survival of the human race! It is recognised that putting all of one's eggs in one basket is foolhardy, and in the long term there is no chance that Earth will not be destroyed, or at least the habitable status of Earth. We must learn to live other places, and we must start to develop the capability now.

Call me crazy, but the facts are the facts. Whether we learn to colonize other planets, or colonize humungous orbiting stations, or build generation ships for long term travel and colonization elsewhere, we must either learn to live other places, or we condemn our species to extinction. Forget waiting for Zephraim Cochrane to build a warp drive, C is the absolute speed limit, so Star Trek is a fantasy. The fact that we must learn to leave this planet or die is undeniable. We either move out, or die in this foxhole.

And, the cost is trivial. So many humans want to spend untold trillions of dollars to address the faint hope that we might be able to change planetary climate, and the president wants to spend some infinitesimal fraction of that to get us on the path to do this thing that is 1) eminently doable, and 2) absolutely necessary.

The longest journey begins with a single step. We have stopped stepping. Get with the program for human survival: Support space exploration now! If no private organization is willing to take the first steps, and the government is, why should we allow the perfect be the enemy of the good, and necessary?

I agree with that. I believe it is the Divine destiny of man and woman, or at least of Western man and woman, to ascend into and to conquer the furthest reaches of space. I want to see space become a frontier of freedom for private individuals, like the high seas of the 18th century, like the Wild West of the 19th century, like the Internet today. But it took an initial push by government to get us to that place (the Homestead Act, ARPANET), so it looks like there is some legitimate role for government there. Other than the military defense of our civilization, I can't think of a better place for my tax dollars than the exploration of space. Cut everything else.

steven, why is it only the divine right of western man and woman? call me crazy, but i don't think NASA would be quite the same without the brain power of all the asians and middle-easterners we employ.

and since when are we glorifying "privateers" of the high seas? would you really want to embark on a several hundred light-year cruise through space infested with pirates?

and, on further reflection, why is it the divine right of *anyone* to colonize space? imagine if some crazy group of aliens descended upon earth, declaring that it was theirs by "divine right"? i think we might have a thing or two to say about that. by the same token, we shouldn't assume dominion over flora and fauna of far-off worlds. though if, of course, you're talking about lifeless (but possibly life-sustaining) planets, then i guess its a matter of who gets their first, and divine right be damned.