CEV to be made commercially available

Eric Chomko wrote:

: The general populace's apathy is a rational response to the situation.

Human apathy is never rational. Emotional at best.

Nonsense, Eric. Each of us has limited time and mental energy.
We ignore the vast majority of the information that bombards us.
Human apathy is not only rational, it's essential.


: What, exactly, is the manned space program doing for them or their
: descendants?

Allowing technology to advance, which is the only argument for war these
days. Paul, you have one of two choices, war of space, which is it? W
wants both, but that is another story.

The advances in technology from ESAS don't appear to lead anywhere,
any more than the advances in technology in STS and ISS led anywhere.

War vs. space is a false dichotomy. If space were so valuable,
it would be funded, even with the current war (which is consuming
a small fraction of the federal budget).

Space is a luxury that we want to be able to aford.

'We can afford it' is the weakest justification for an action.
How about explaining why we'd *want* to spend money on it?


: More people were interested, until after the first landing or two.
: ISS on the moon is not going to be any more interesting than ISS
: in LEO, except perhaps if astronauts start dying there.

Will you actually cheer the latter? You know your smug satisfaction for
being right...

I've stated here before that a real space program would be killing
many more astronauts, simply because so many would be in space.

A real space program would survive public apathy, just like most
government programs that deliver value don't excite the public.

But without NASA paving the way, how do you think that will happen? Do you
think we'd have an internet without ARPAnet having paved the way?

But ESAS *isn't* paving the way, any more than Apollo, STS, or ISS have.
It's more expensive dead-end makework. As I've said, show me
a manned space program that makes sense, that really does have
a plausible path to the self-sustaining, self-funding expansion
into space, and I would support it. No one has done that. ESAS
is so very far from that it's ridiculous.

: Since ESAS won't do anything significant to advance that goal,
: killing NASA would be no worse, and would save money.

Says you, that has an emotional hatred for NASA. Is it tied to your
father? The hatred I mean?

I realize you react negatively to criticism of your love object,
but don't project your own irrationality onto me.

Paul

Paul F. Dietz wrote:
Tom Cuddihy wrote:

Actually, Scott, his ideology doesn't have any bearing on why he's
wrong. His pessimism about the worth of big, government funded
exploration is just as faith based as your own belief in how important
it is.

So tell me, Tom -- what do you expect ESAS to lead to? Make a case
here.

I don't know what percentage of man's future in space will in the
future be attributable to ESAS, and what will just develop as a natural
consequence of improving technology and the already improving space
market. ($20 mil a pop for orbital one-week trips. Not bad.)
Maybe historians will argue about it a hundred years from now. Because
I can't predict the future. Neither can anyone else.

It's often tough to tell just where technology and the marketplace is
going in the next 3 or 4 years. If I was good at this I would have
invested everything I owned into Amazon.com's IPO and then pulled it
all out in 2000. If you could predict the future so would have you.

But you have to start somewhere. ESAS is what you call a 'baseline.'
It's the fallback. If all the other budding space projects fall through
completely, if SpaceX stalls after launching one or two Falcon 1s, if
all of AirLaunch's test engines blow up and Blue Origin kills a family
of 5 on their first suborbital joy ride, at least the ESAS will still
be in progress, keeping the public interested in man's outward destiny,
keeping at least a cadre of personnel knowledgeable in the issues of
manned space launch, hopefully beyond LEO.

I take as proof #1 that NASA is not designing ESAS as a way to keep the
commercial market out of the business:

http://www.space.com/spacenews/busin...ay_051107.html

Don't forget Ferdinand and Isabella sent Columbus out to the Spice
Islands by sailing west in 1492. Magellan finally got there in 1522,
the point being not that the first CEV returning from Aitken basin will
be full of expensive spices but that you don't know which way the wind
blows when you get over the horizon--until you go check it out. I think
that's worth the risk of the whole thing 'leading nowhere'

It's up to those spending twelve figure budgets to do that,
not for critics to prove them wrong. It's particularly important
for the rah-rah crowd to make their case when the historical
record points to the opposite conclusion -- that manned space
programs don't return much, and don't fulfill the breathless
predictions of their advocates. Skepticism here is *evidence*
based, not faith based. We've been fooled enough, and this new
scheme has all the hallmarks of another con.

What 'hallmarks of a con' does ESAS contain? What is it selling itself
as that you think is grossly innacurate or inappropriate?

Tom



Paul

"Tom Cuddihy" wrote in message
ups.com...

But you have to start somewhere. ESAS is what you
call a 'baseline.' It's the fallback. If all the other
budding space projects fall through completely, if
SpaceX stalls after launching one or two Falcon 1s, if
all of AirLaunch's test engines blow up and Blue
Origin kills a family of 5 on their first suborbital joy
ride, at least the ESAS will still be in progress,
keeping the public interested in man's outward
destiny, keeping at least a cadre of personnel
knowledgeable in the issues of manned space launch,
hopefully beyond LEO.

Which do you think has the greater chance of success - one $100 billion
ESAS approach, or one thousand $100 million SpaceX/Airlaunch/Origin
efforts?

Which "baseline" would you prefer?

Pete.

Tom Cuddihy wrote:

But you have to start somewhere. ESAS is what you call a 'baseline.'
It's the fallback. If all the other budding space projects fall through
completely, if SpaceX stalls after launching one or two Falcon 1s, if
all of AirLaunch's test engines blow up and Blue Origin kills a family
of 5 on their first suborbital joy ride, at least the ESAS will still
be in progress, keeping the public interested in man's outward destiny,
keeping at least a cadre of personnel knowledgeable in the issues of
manned space launch, hopefully beyond LEO.

Your argument makes no mention of the benefits of ESAS, or the costs.
Your argument would apply no matter how high the costs, and no matter
how meager the benefits. This is obviously nonsensical. Your argument
proves too much to be valid.

I take as proof #1 that NASA is not designing ESAS as a way to keep the
commercial market out of the business:

http://www.space.com/spacenews/busin...ay_051107.html

I'm not claiming they are. What I am doubting is the worthiness of
ESAS even in the absence of putative future alt.space capabilities.

Don't forget Ferdinand and Isabella sent Columbus out to the Spice
Islands by sailing west in 1492.

Don't forget Columbus is an utterly bogus analogy for space exploration.

Paul

wrote in message
oups.com...

Jeff Findley wrote:
"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
...
Alan Anderson wrote:
If the goal is more affordable spaceflight for people, there is a
compelling argument to be made for returning NASA to its NACA roots
and
getting it out of the spaceflight operations business.

You go right ahead and propose that to your Congresscritter. If there
was an *actual* space industry, it'd make sense. The NACA didn't form
before peopel needed it to improve airplanes... it formed *after*
there
were already airplanes buzzing around. A NACA-fied NASA would have no
customers and no reason to be.

No customers? What about all the startup companies looking to create
low
cost reusable (and semi-reusable) launch vehicles?

None of whom have flown to orbit.

Agreed. So, do you think that the startups could use the help of NASA in
much the same way as the early aviation industry used the help of NACA?

It's not too early for NASA to get out of the launch vehicle business.

When they can buy a flight that matches their needs (read: heavy lifter
applicable for moon missions), I'll agree.

That's not a need, that's a desire. The desire is to go back to the moon in
much the same way that Apollo did. You launch everything you can on a
single HLV. If you go back far enough, LOR wasn't the only option being
considered. It was seen as the fastest way to get to the moon, but EOR
might have been a more sustainable approach in the long term.

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
...
Jeff Findley wrote:
Because the American public, in general, doesn't care about manned
spaceflight. More people are likely aware about how high the oil
industries
profits were last quarter than are aware of how many people are on ISS at
this moment.

You confuse ISS with manned spaceflight. It's manned
going-around-in-a-circle.

At the moment, shuttle/ISS *is* US manned spaceflight, and the US public
isn't interested.

If you look back at Apollo, public interest was dropping like a stone once
Apollo 11 made it home safely. Only the chance of astronauts dying in space
made the public wake up during Apollo 13. The same thing will happen with
Apollo 2.0. After a couple of missions, the public will quickly lose
interest.

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
news
Jeff Findley wrote:
Sending a few NASA astronauts to the moon won't make us any more of a
spacefaring nation than Apollo did


And you base this on...

The fact that only a few NASA astronauts (and perhaps astronauts from other
government sponsored organizations) will be allowed to go to the moon. Also
my belief that the stick and the SDHLV will be used by no one but NASA.
That makes NASA an organization that engages in manned spaceflight, but it
doesn't make the US anymore of a spacefaring nation than we are today or
have been in the past.

In order for the US to truly become a spacefaring nation, there has to be
more than a few NASA astronauts who go into space. The US needs to work on
sending citizens into space on their own dime. You do that by helping the
startups as NACA helped the US aircraft industry.

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

Jeff Findley wrote:
"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
news
Jeff Findley wrote:
Sending a few NASA astronauts to the moon won't make us any more of a
spacefaring nation than Apollo did


And you base this on...

The fact that only a few NASA astronauts (and perhaps astronauts from other
government sponsored organizations) will be allowed to go to the moon.

"Allowed?"

Also
my belief that the stick and the SDHLV will be used by no one but NASA.

And the B-47 was used by no one but the USAF. Yet it led the way to
successful commercial jet travel.

In order for the US to truly become a spacefaring nation, there has to be
more than a few NASA astronauts who go into space.

Yes... but you don't start by shooting busloads of tourists into the
wilderness.

The US needs to work on
sending citizens into space on their own dime. You do that by helping the
startups as NACA helped the US aircraft industry.

Exactly what help do these startups need?

Jeff Findley wrote:

Agreed. So, do you think that the startups could use the help of NASA in
much the same way as the early aviation industry used the help of NACA?

Actually, no. The early aviators benefitting from NACA were gainign the
benefit of great improvements in engine and aerodynamic efficiency. But
rocket engiens are *already* effectively at the peak of their
efficiency. What's need now is not an improvement in performance -
which comes from giant research programs - but improvements in cost,
reliability and maintainability... which comes from *experience.*



It's not too early for NASA to get out of the launch vehicle business.

When they can buy a flight that matches their needs (read: heavy lifter
applicable for moon missions), I'll agree.

That's not a need, that's a desire.

No, it's a need. As in "mandated by Congress/President."

If you go back far enough, LOR wasn't the only option being
considered. It was seen as the fastest way to get to the moon, but EOR
might have been a more sustainable approach in the long term.

No good reason to assume that. EOR would have cost as much or more to
develop than LOR, and would have potentially cost more to operate.

Jeff Findley wrote:

If you look back at Apollo, public interest was dropping like a stone once
Apollo 11 made it home safely. Only the chance of astronauts dying in space
made the public wake up during Apollo 13. The same thing will happen with
Apollo 2.0. After a couple of missions, the public will quickly lose
interest.

Then you should get on the phone *right* *now* to Virgin Galactic,
XCOR, Bigelow, etc. and tell them that the public won't be interested
in spaceflight.