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As wasteful as the proposed Constellation program was at least it would have gotten humans out Low Earth Orbit again. Is Obama's plan for increased commerciali

by avar 17y ago

As wasteful as the proposed Constellation program was at least it would have gotten humans out Low Earth Orbit again. Is Obama's plan for increased commercialization anything more than moving around the pieces that are already there? Most of the parts for the space vehicles are already made by subcontractors, aren't they just changing how the oversight is done? Even with those rules changed NASA is still going to be responsible for the astronauts. It'll take years and billions of dollars to man-rate vehicles that we wouldn't have thought twice about using back in the 70s as long as they didn't explode on the first couple of test flights. Maybe money flowing out of the Space Shuttle program will get us there sooner, but with the US rebooting its space program every time time a new president takes office I'm starting to think the Chinese are our best hope for getting to the stars.

jordanb 17y ago
Nearly 50% of the money NASA sends to contractors goes to three organizations: Lockheed Martin, The JPL at Caltech, and Boeing. The rest goes to other Military-Industrial "Usual Suspects," like Grumman and Raytheon.[1] These organizations are principally interested in maintaining their cushy position and soaking up tax money. They are not particularly driven to push the envelope. Obama's plan is a "shifting" around of the contracts, yes, but it's shifting away from organizations like Lockheed Martin to organizations like Scaled Composites. Away from fat lazy organizations to ones with some hunger and drive. That's also the reason why it's probably DOA in Congress. [1] http://www.govexec.com/features/0808-15/0808-15s13s1.htm http://www.govexec.com/features/0808-15/0808-15s13s1.htm
- mturmon 17y ago
  Lumping JPL/Caltech in with LockMart and Boeing does not make sense. The first is a research lab mainly concerned with conceiving and building robotic (unmanned) missions. The second two are mainly involved with operating manned flight systems. No comparison.

by avar 17y ago

jordanb 17y ago

Nearly 50% of the money NASA sends to contractors goes to three organizations: Lockheed Martin, The JPL at Caltech, and Boeing. The rest goes to other Military-Industrial "Usual Suspects," like Grumman and Raytheon.[1] These organizations are principally interested in maintaining their cushy position and soaking up tax money. They are not particularly driven to push the envelope. Obama's plan is a "shifting" around of the contracts, yes, but it's shifting away from organizations like Lockheed Martin to organizations like Scaled Composites. Away from fat lazy organizations to ones with some hunger and drive. That's also the reason why it's probably DOA in Congress. [1] http://www.govexec.com/features/0808-15/0808-15s13s1.htm http://www.govexec.com/features/0808-15/0808-15s13s1.htm

mturmon 17y ago
Lumping JPL/Caltech in with LockMart and Boeing does not make sense. The first is a research lab mainly concerned with conceiving and building robotic (unmanned) missions. The second two are mainly involved with operating manned flight systems. No comparison.