“It’s time to remove US government from space operations”
Published: 28 October, 2009, 22:08
Edited: 26 December, 2009, 14:55
The US’s new Ares 1 rocket is a big technical achievement, but it’s unclear whether it’s worth spending billions of dollars for a government vehicle that won’t be ready until 2017, space expert Jeff Manber told RT.
Bianca, you are 100% correct. Private enterprise is only interested in short-to-medium term profit, and any activity that cannot be made to generate sufficient returns will simply not be pursued. They will not be interested in space exploration as such, just in the marketing of launch services where they can gouge the consumer. The US space program is already burdened by exhorbitant costs, driven entirely by the need for the corporate manufacturers to gain their mandatory profits. What is needed to drive down costs is the establishment of a state-owned manufacturing enterprise where the metrics used to track success are not financial gain, but efficiency, quality and cost effectiveness. This will of course never happen in the US for many reasons, not the least is that such an idea is deemed "socialism" and thereby is anathema to the ideological principles cherished by the US Ruling Class.
I read in a norwegian newspaper that the russian space administration is planning to develop a new rocket propelled by a nuclear reactor of some sort, but I cant find anything about it anywhere else. It would be cool if the russians are starting to develop new technologies with the purpose of exploring the cosmos. Even though no one will admit it exist, it is always good with some competition...:) And maybe some cooperation...
Epsilon, Nuclear reactors on rockets are dicey; if the rocket blows up during a launch with a nuclear reactor, the result is a massive amount of radioactive fallout. For this reason, it is very controversial when NASA, or Russia or anyone else, launches nuclear powered space probes into space. If I remember correctly, Russia's Soyuz craft, which are their manned low-orbit space vehicles, have a better safety record than NASA's space shuttles (kind of like Mac compared to Windows). But still, the fact of the matter is that nuclear craft have hurt people in the past. In fact, I just realized I have a pretty good story about this. Years ago, my father told me about a guy he knew who was hiking in the middle of nowhere in Canada, who was staying in a long abandoned log cabin next to a moderate sized lake. It had taken him, and other members of his small backpacking group, weeks of hiking through the wilderness to get there. While they were there an object crashed into the lake. The next thing they knew helicopters and government employees with lead suits arrived, and the hikers got treated for radiation poisoning and flown out of the area. I don't know if that object was Russian or American, but I think it manifests the point in a cool way. Apparently Greenpeace is already against this new Russian spaceship you speak of.
Bingo Bianca. Government does this best. The NASA Ares program should be funded and accelerated if possible.
To Bianca and others tounting the virtues of NASA as state enterprise in space exploration: from it's inception, NASA has heavily relied upon the commercial sector in developing ALL of its major space programs, be it Pioneer, Mercury, Apollo, Voyager, Space Shuttle, Hubble,...you name it. Without substantial participation of private companies none of these would have been successful, because of cost reasons. There is competition on specifications AND price whenever a request for tender has been is launched by NASA. The true problem lies with project risk management on both the commercial as well as the public side, and in this respect both have usually had successes and failures. It is just the nature of things when something new is created that nobody knows the eventual outcome beforehand. That the commercial sector is vastly superior, though clearly not perfect, in meeting deadlines, driving effieciency up and thus keeping costs down, has been proven time after time. This is why, e.g., the "capitalist" automobile indutry thrives despite the crises while the state-owned or state-controlled (in terms of being prevented from radical measures that are neccesary to make them competitive) Russian manufacturers are just ailing and "surviving" on public subsidies. The same holds for all other industry sectors, most notably those involved in high-tech, where the market and competition rules. Hence the question is not one of the general approach (public versus private), but of the instruments and methods how to achieve success, namely transparency, openness and pragmatism. In these respects the past and current model of NASA's space programs has certainly room for improvement, in terms of preventing it from ideologically based decisions ("do we really need man on Mars?"), moving targets (ever-changing program specifications that drive costs up) and corruption (lack of intransparency in the dealings between NASA and the privatze sector).
Is anyone still falling for this nonsense? And what is the private sector going to do about flying to outer space? Of course, develop fancy programs for US military, so that taxpayers' money will go in wast quantities to the new "succesfull" industries. And then, down the road, they will make sure we cannot get rid of them. There will be dangers from space, green people, or just may be Russians with the temerity of having their stuff in space too. Bottom line, every time "private sector" gets involved into uncompetitive sector, taxpayers end up paying for the actual cost, for the obscene profits to investors and speculators, and for the never ending lobbying of politicians to support "their" districts! Please, just let NASA do it. Otherwise, there will be a lots of smoke of different colors, and we will be paying for it. It will be just as "efficient" as privatizing jails. Now, not only are we paying for the industry that has no customers but the taxpayer, but we are at their mercy. They go around lobbying politicians to see who is "going to be tough on crime", and legistate MANDATORY jail sentences for many crimes, regardless of the circumstances, and regardless of what a judge may want to do. This is why we have an ever increasing popululation in prison, as every kind of stupid infraction can guarantee jail sentence. This is quite productive business that springs a net for the uneducated and those without means to hire a lawyer. Those are the ones that do not understand the "gotcha", and will be the fodder of the "jail industries". No more wellfare for the corporations! Enough is enough!