CEV to be made commercially available

Paul F. Dietz wrote:
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.
That's a logical gem. I'll take 'your argument proves too much to be
valid' as a criticism every time.

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.
So YOUR argument basically comes down to just ****ing in the soup,
then?. Anything in the future should be assumed to be unworthy until
proven otherwise? That's 'zero sum game' bull****. You can't calculate
the future benefits vs. costs of ESAS any more than I can calculate the
future costs of NOT doing ESAS.

Zero sum ecomomics is a theory particularly loved by liberal economists
because it buttresses the Marxist notion that all profit comes at the
expense of someone else. But it's baloney, because it's flatly
contradicted by reality. The biggest hole in that perspective is that,
while it is easy to calulate the average future worth of material
assets, it is literally impossible to compute the exact nonmaterial
benefits from an action. It also completely discounts the future
economic value of human knowledge and experience.

The only solution to this problem is to act from a consistent set of
principles, and to remain flexible as the market develops. One of my
personal principles is that an exploration program that consumes .07%
of the federal yearly budget is WORTH doing. The efficacy of ESAS as a
whole should be judged, however, on the basis of its accomplishment of
short term goals, not its putative physical goal.

I do not see the main benefits of ESAS as a set of empty descent stages
at Aitken basin and a few empty orbital modules in low lunar orbit. The
main benefit is to the larger experience and knowledge base on manned
off-planet operations, and the societal knowledge base and interest
base on continued manned exploration.


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

What part of 'the point being not that the first CEV returning from
Aitken basin is going to bear a cargo of expensive spices but..' did
you ignore? Columbus was an analogy about the ability to forcast the
future, not a template for space exploration.

Tom

wrote:

It's even easier to deny clear benefits that have resulted from
government expenditures in space.

So list them. *Manned* space we're talking about, mind you.


Yes, and I have. The universe is packed with resources. You don;t get
to profit from them if you don't attempt to go get 'em. And you don't
get to go get them if you don't know *how* to go get them. ESAS, if
allowed to survive, will further develop the technologies required...
life support systems, space suits, in situ propellant systems, related
propulsion systems, etc.

The universe is packed with resources that are, in almost all cases,
grossly noncompetitive with terrestrial alternatives. They might as
well not exist, from an economic point of view. ESAS, and the
technologies that will purportedly be developed for ESAS, won't
change this.

Paul

Eric Chomko wrote:

The only blather here is in your brain! You can't grasp that the leaders
of your party are exactly who to blame based upon keeping the status quo
WRT funding of an inefficient manned space program. IOW, a blue state NASA
would never get away with running a manned space program like red state
NASA is currently doing. Where is Congress on this?

'My party'? Are you laboring under the misapprehension that I voted
for W? (Not that this has any relevance to whether NASA manned space
efforts are wasteful.)


: You clearly have serious neurotic ticks involving war and W. Do try
: to distinguish between your hallucinations and what I am actually saying.

You're never clear on what you're saying. You choose to be vague.

I'm crystal clear in my statements. You just have serious problems
reading and understanding.

: The military has space applications that are cost-justified. Recon
: sats, weather sats, communications, early warning, navigation, to name
: a few. Why should I consider space 'off-limits' to the military?

Perhaps because NASA was set up to be non-military by its very nature. Or
did you miss that part?

Um... what? Bizarre non sequitur there, Chomko.

: I can't think of anything in *manned* spaceflight that would be
: very useful to the military, and the military apparently can't see
: anything either.

At least not yet. So because there is no manned military application of
space, you're against manned spaceflight?

No.

Wait, before you start
questioning my logic, answer this: If in fact, you support civilian manned
spaceflight, are you simply against using public funds?

I consider use of private funds to be a matter for those who
own those funds. Personally, I am not inclined to invest
in this area. Those who consider this mistaken are welcome
to prove me wrong and become wealthy in the process.

As for public funds, I'm not against support of manned spaceflight
in principle, but in practice there doesn't seem to have been
a situation where it has made sense.

: Typical logic and integrity-free net slime...

Yes, Paul, you are close mineded, as well you should be, because you
simply have all the answers.

And the answers say you're full of ****, Chomko.

Paul

Seriously bEric Chomko wrote:

: So effing what, fool? I'm not critiquing NASA's manned space program
: because of state colors. I'm critiquing it because it's a waste of money.

Yet, you have no wherewithall to drop the blame on the proper doorstep.
Why? Too affraid, too timid or too clueless?

Too sane to share your bizarre fixation.

: The point is not that the environment is prototypical, the point is
: that it doesn't connect at all with real external goals. We're going
: to the moon because we're going to the moon, apparently.

No, we are going because it is time to go back.

This is vacuous and circular.

New technology with the
same Apollo goals is still more than Apollo.

And still less than rational.

And the third time might be
in 30+ years with THAT new technology. But eventually the goal is to make
the moon self-sustaining as a colony. Do you not agree?

I do not agree that that is an end in itself. It may be a means to
an end, but colonies need an economic base. ESAS will do little to
bring lunar colonization closer, because it doesn't address the economic
barriers.

And to make a colony requires next steps, be they baby or otherwise...

But the idea that ESAS is that next step is a fallacy of linear
thinking. Kind of like the idea that the first step to reaching
the moon is climbing trees.

So do you believe Apollo was a waste? Shouldn't have happened, etc.?

Right. Going to burn me at the stake now?

Paul

Paul F. Dietz wrote:

wrote:

It's even easier to deny clear benefits that have resulted from
government expenditures in space.


So list them. *Manned* space we're talking about, mind you.


Technologies required for life support systems in space and on other
planetary bodies, for starters. While I understand that in your religion
mankind has no place off of the Earth, those of us who do not subscribe
to your particular superstition know that the universe is a big damn
place and that those who refuse to go will be forgotten and impoverished.

The universe is packed with resources that are, in almost all cases,
grossly noncompetitive with terrestrial alternatives.


Really? So... a hundred years from now, when two-thirds of humanity
lives *off* Earth, they'll be shiuppign their iron, water and corn up
from Iowa?



--
"The only thing that galls me about someone burning the American flag is how unoriginal it is. I mean if you're going to pull the Freedom-of-speech card, don't be a hack, come up with something interesting. Fashion Old Glory into a wisecracking puppet and blister the system with a scathing ventriloquism act, or better yet, drape the flag over your head and desecrate it with a large caliber bullet hole." Dennis Miller

"Paul F. Dietz" wrote:

Eric Chomko wrote:
You're never clear on what you're saying. You choose to be vague.

I'm crystal clear in my statements. You just have serious problems
reading and understanding.

Though I am not necessarily in full agreement with Paul's arguments,
I'll chime in here to affirm that his posting style is a model of
clarity. I suspect that Eric's problems with him are mostly from
assuming a context which does not apply. Apparently, paranoia is not
conducive to comprehension.

As for public funds, I'm not against support of manned spaceflight
in principle, but in practice there doesn't seem to have been
a situation where it has made sense.

As it happens, this is one of those "not in full agreement" bits. I
think flights of United States astronauts made plenty of sense in the
context of the Space Race, which itself was reasonable in the larger
context of the Cold War.

But those contexts are gone, and manned spaceflight as a government
project no longer has that justification. As in any race, once someone
has won, it makes little sense to keep running. It should have been
industry's turn to drive a long time ago.

wrote in message
oups.com...

Pete Lynn wrote:
We have to reasonably estimate a dollar value for
this intangible wealth return if we are to make
rational investment decisions.

Really? What's the dollar value of the return from,
say, the NEA, the DOEducation, the USAF, the US
Army, the State Department?

A reasonable estimate would require a detailed analysis by experts in he
field, there are many techniques, direct and indirect, for estimating
such values.

How do universities assign value to pure research? Do you think that the
value of pure research should not be quantified?

While difficult to estimate, to not attempt to quantify such intangible
wealth is to bet at random. Betting at random quickly results in a
directionless and unaccountable programs.

Do you think that NASA should not be judged, or held accountable for the
intangible wealth it generates?

Pete.

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

Pete Lynn wrote:

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

That's easy to sco

Apparently not.

$100 billion at $15 bil a year for NASA -- 7 years
to reach full funding based on slightly less than current
NASA funding. Odds are pretty good.

In not first addressing the problems of CATS the odds of ESAS
accomplishing the commercialisation of space are negligible.

1000x 100 million = $100 billion in private financing
required. At current SpaceX (~$80 mil a year in
investment from Musk's dwindling private stash--
generous) + all other FALCON expenditures
(AirLaunch, Microcosm) programs (~$30 mil a year,
again, generous) + Blue Origin (~ complete guess, but
let's say a really generous $100 mil a year).
==total $210 mil a year, 500 years to reach full
funding.

hmm. That's easy. Oh I know, that's no fair. I should
be funding SpaceX / AirLaunch / Origin at the same
rate as NASA. But that's completely unrealistic for
many reasons, one of which is that injecting that much
money into new private efforts would completely
distort their development.

Indeed, which is why one would for this hypothetical comparison assume a
similar time frame for both scenarios. A five billion annual budget
would infer $100 million each to fifty start ups per year. Methods of
holding such funding accountable have been discussed elsewhere.

Solving the CATS problem will require open competition, that probably
means five plus groups intensively competing to get costs down. After
that the best approaches for getting to the Moon and Mars might be
re-evaluated. Sure there will be one off exploration missions, but I
expect a degree of on going open competition will be an essential
element of such a program.

Pete.

Alan Anderson wrote:

As it happens, this is one of those "not in full agreement" bits. I
think flights of United States astronauts made plenty of sense in the
context of the Space Race, which itself was reasonable in the larger
context of the Cold War.

I think it's illuminating to ask 'how would the Cold War have gone
differently if the space race hadn't happened'? I doubt much would
have changed. It eventually became clear to all that communism was
seriously flawed, so it wasn't necessary to demonstrate first
world superiority by means of large government programs.

Paul

Pete Lynn wrote:

Do you think that NASA should not be judged, or held accountable for the
intangible wealth it generates?


Nope.

--
"The only thing that galls me about someone burning the American flag is how unoriginal it is. I mean if you're going to pull the Freedom-of-speech card, don't be a hack, come up with something interesting. Fashion Old Glory into a wisecracking puppet and blister the system with a scathing ventriloquism act, or better yet, drape the flag over your head and desecrate it with a large caliber bullet hole." Dennis Miller