The challenging thing here is that NASA does have deep, systemic problems and is in need of some overhaul. SLS is a breathtakingly expensive boondoggle, lunar gateway has no reason to exist, Orion is underpowered and overweight, Mars Sample Return’s entire mission is in question, JWST was a decade behind schedule and an order of magnitude over budget, and the list goes on. Extreme risk-aversion and congressional meddling have resulted in a bureaucratic quagmire of an organization. It’s hard to find nasa projects that are going well.
Of course I don’t think a gorilla with a sledgehammer as we’re sadly going to see from Trump will make things any better, we need a surgeon with a scalpel.
This is such a common theme.
There are huge systemic problems which the “establishment” will demonstratably not address and Trump appears to be the answer to many voters… but him effectively addressing them is a wild fantasy.
You’re absolutely right, which is why I don’t want the left get tricked into defending a status quo that doesn’t deserve it.
SLS should definitely be on the chopping block. It was a good idea to fund two possibilities for heavy lift rockets but SLS is clearly going nowhere. At this point, Bozo’s rocket seems like a better choice despite being so much farther behind in development.
But lunar gateway would be pretty useful if we really are going to establish a long term presence. It would allow:
- having the lander and the transportation be different vehicles
- keeping a backup lander convenient
- having a secure place to store extra supplies until a base can be built
- having a possible backup place for astronauts in case the lunar base has problems
Any sort of problem on lunar base would go bad real fast if the nearest help is two weeks away.
Having a place to park and transfer lets them not only use different vehicles for traveling and landing but also differently sized vehicles
…. But it’s only worthwhile if we’re establishing a long term presence
Honestly I think lunar gateway is a decent idea, Its the easiest thing to do thats new as far as space is concerned and thus potentially the cheapest way to gain international co-operation, public interest, and potentially ignite another space race. Looking forward it can can potentially act as a life raft for any future lunar colonies in the event of a mishap. And while a moon colony isn’t as impressive as a mars one its much safer to practice on given that emergency re-supply can actually get there before the crew are already skeletonized. A moon base itself can then act as support for moon based telescopes (which have significant advantages, and disadvantages of course) and if you can get some kind of manufacturing going its far easier to launch from the moon than it is from earth, even if the moon just ends up as a glorified space gas station.
Moon base on the surface is a great idea, I’m 1000% in favor.
Lunar gateway is in NRHO, which means rendezvous windows are a week apart. This makes it pretty useless for any kind of emergency. It’s in this crazy orbit because Orion is a pig that can’t transport a crew to low lunar orbit and back.
Most of the things you listed are directly related to Congressionally mandated specifics for funding those programs. The money is only there if NASA does it the way Congress dictates, not necessarily the way it should be done.
The entire SLS program is essentially a Congressional jobs and legacy aerospace grifting program post-Shuttle.
If Congress would. Keep their hands off, and just allocate budget, most of the issues would likely disappear since the people that actually know what’s going on could make the decisions instead of a Congress critter that is an imbecile.
You’re absolutely right, though the extreme risk aversion is harder to blame on congress.
You kill a half dozen people in a space ship explosion that could have been avoided and you will reasonably get a cautious culture.
The way I’ve heard it described is a lot of the NASA funding is intentionally spread out across many states, funding many jobs in those states, to get the support of many representatives to vote for the funding. This also means that trying to optimize costs would get a lot of push back, since it will cause jobs to be lost in many states. And these are states which voted for Trump: Alabama, Texas, Florida, etc.
It’s the whole reason SLS is the train wreck it is. Congress wouldn’t let them not keep shoveling money to the same people who made Space Shuttle parts. So instead of the best design possible, we got the best design using old parts.
It’s always depressing to me that there are pretty obvious ways to fix problems but absolutely no way to enact solutions.
Publicly funded elections (so corporations cannot buy their way in), and a ban on post-career employment for politicians fixes it immediately. But fat chance of that.
Remember when on Interstellar there’s this whole prologue about the collapse of the US, the dismantling of NASA and the family getting on an argument with the school because the official stance now is that the moon landing never happened and mankind never went to space (despite there being still people alive who went there)?
So, anyway, life imitates art …
I remember when that movie came out people argued with me that the Democrats were the party that was going to create the world of Interstellar and the Republicans were “standing up for science”.
It was obviously nonsense then so i have little illusions that those people have changed their view on it–or if they have, they’ve simply changed to believe the moon landing was faked.
I wanna try something…
Ahem. Investors! I have the concept of a plan to put gigantic billboards in space that can be seen by half the planet at any given time. Give me money.
In one of the Red Dwarf books, there’s a subplot about sending hundreds of stars supernova simultaneous in order to spell out Coke Adds Life in the sky.
Pepsi would be buried.
What if these so-called efficiency measures actually help pave the way for the first civil outpost on Mars? I think I want to give people some benefit of the doubt, we can do better than what we have currently. Ideally, it’s realizing that there’s no such thing as scarcity in a boundless universe.
Make no mistake though, the Trump admin is giving grounds to fascism, and that’s a problem. Apologies if I sound unreasonably optimistic, I know a lot is happening which will ruin lives for many. No one should be okay with that.
There are still people who think humans can live on Mars, with today’s technology even?
The continuous radiation bombardment alone makes it virtually impossible, but the insane cold won’t help. Spending the rest of your life in cramped pods isn’t quite the psychological experience you would appreciate, and the low gravity is going to mush your muscles up. And there’s no way back, ever. So seeing mum and dad at christmas … fat chance. You might zoom them, with 20 minutes delay per direction. But Gen X billionaires that read too much shoddy scifi in their youth never think of those things.
Oh, and Elon promised us that Mars colony in 2021. There’s not even a starter kit on the surface yet.
What benefit does a civilian outpost on Mars give to our current society? We have effectively handled scarcity already. All scarcity that exists today is entirely manufactured by the owner class. We have the means to safely and effectively have infinite electricity, food, and housing. We choose not to. How would that change if we have a base on Mars?
I don’t think any of the resources you’ve mentioned can be handled for unlimited population growth on Earth.
Besides that, land is a limited resource on Earth for continued human population increase, so instead of asking people to limit reproduction, we’re better off looking for different planets to inhabit.
That said, Earth is the only known habitable planet we have, and it makes sense to protect it for both practical and cultural reasons. But future gens will benefit from space exploration, it doesn’t have to be either/or regardless of what anyone says.
People poke fun of Musk as being a idiot. But he had us Kaiser Soze’d by pretending to be dumb so that he could implement his self-serving ideas.
Musk is not the smart person behind any of the companies he is part of today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwynne_Shotwell
… is why I would have invested in SpaceX pre-Russian aggression against NATO and their allies.
Now … no, thank you. They can keep their private equity to their little NAZI hands.
