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Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it. Every president since Bush said something to this effect. My eyebrows will raise when NASAs budget does.
by RikNieu 9y ago
Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it. Every president since Bush said something to this effect. My eyebrows will raise when NASAs budget does.
- jackmott 9y agoyup
- alehul 9y agoI wouldn't characterize America's space industry by NASA's budget anymore. What about support of the privatized space industry, instead? It seems to be progressing faster than NASA did.
- NegativeLatency 9y agoI don't understand what point you're trying to make? Right now we have much more advanced tech than was available during the space race, and a lot of the pioneering work has already been done. Comparing NASA from the 60's - 70's to current space companies is not useful.
- alehul 9y agoI'm merely pointing out that the government's support of the space industry shouldn't be characterized by NASA's budget. There are a lot of ways for the government to support an industry otherwise; an example being many countries' policy on renewable energy and clean transport, for instance.
- greglindahl 9y agoI don't think anyone responding to you can figure out what you mean. The US government already has a successful model of interacting with the commercial space industry. You're proposing abandoning that for... ?
- alehul 9y agoSorry I wasn't more clear. This article is about government support of the space industry, and the parent comment stated "I'll believe it when NASA's budget is raised." My point is that the government can support the space industry in many ways, some of which won't involve more funding for NASA. As an example, governments have 'supported' renewable energy through policy without needing to do so through a NASA-like equivalent in the renewable energy sector.
- greglindahl 9y agoThe US government already supports the space industry in many ways, including ways that have nothing to do with NASA's budget. You're proposing? ...
- alehul 9y agoExactly. I'm saying that NASA's budget is an outdated metric to determine the American government's support of the space industry. I'm not proposing anything else.
- notfromhere 9y agoWe're currently depending on Soviet rockets to get us into orbit, so the state of US space travel is a little shaky right now
- greglindahl 9y agoWe don't depend on the Russians for cargo, and 2 US systems for launching people to the ISS are getting close to the finish line.
- lutorm 9y agoNASA is supporting the privatized space industry, though. Remember that Dragon were/is developed because NASA gave SpaceX a contract for ISS support. Falcon 9 development also got NASA support.
- valuearb 9y ago"support" is not the same as a contract. ULA got a $1B a year just for "readiness", SpaceX gets contracts to do actually useful things, at a far lower cost than other contractors or NASA itself.
- alehul 9y agoThat's a good point, and you're right that NASA's budget will trickle down as support to privatized space companies. As progress in the industry moves forward, though, I expect we may find other forms of government support, such as what we see in many countries' policies towards renewable energy.
- greglindahl 9y agoThere is no "trickle down" for what NASA is doing with SpaceX and OrbitalATK: It's an outright contract to deliver stuff to the ISS.
- alehul 9y agoI meant that the government funding trickles down to SpaceX and OrbitalATK through NASA's contract.
- greglindahl 9y agoThat's not what those words usually mean when applied to money, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics
- valuearb 9y agoNASA wants to spend over $2B per launch on a super heavy lift system called the SLS, that can only lift about twice as much as a Falcon Heavy that costs around $120M a launch. Maybe it's not NASA's budget, but how it's spent?
- nsxwolf 9y agoI don't have a good idea about how this scales. What would something with twice the lift of the Falcon Heavy cost?
- jbattle 9y agoScale it up ... or just send a brace of falcon heavies
- greglindahl 9y agoIt costs 2 Falcon Heavy launches plus some work on on-orbit assembly.
- vanattab 9y agoWhat about the extra range/energy that could be delivered to a falcon heavy size payload?
- valuearb 9y agoMore is always better when we are talking interplanetary travel. But the Falcon Heavy is adequate, esp. if you can do in-orbit assembly. If NASA needs a bigger rocket, they can buy the SpaceX BFR, which has a substantially greater cargo capacity than the SLS, and if they offered SpaceX a fixed price contract at $200M a launch I'd bet Musk would jump at it.
- RikNieu 9y agoMy comment was more aimed at the political rather than technical side of the current state of the American space program. I was more thinking about politicians not just continuing exhaling hot air through their vocal cords in front of cameras, but having them actually make concrete commitments by actually putting their money where their mouth is. If they doubled NASAs budget and chucked that 50% increase to private contractors like SpaceX, great, that would probably have incredible results. But seriously, stop talking big and actually commit to these dreams, dammit!
- zghst 9y agoI think we can be keen in recognizing that the Trump admin maintains interest in science as much as the previous admins.