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The space race was a one-time oddity. During it's peek NASA used nearly 4.5% of the federal budget[1]. The Soviets poured so much into it, it practically bankru

by TkTech 8y ago

The space race was a one-time oddity. During it's peek NASA used nearly 4.5% of the federal budget[1]. The Soviets poured so much into it, it practically bankrupt them. The military wanted better ICBMs, the government wanted to win the race. No one ever dreamed of making it profitable. SpaceX for comparison only relieved about 100m a year[2], or 0.0026% of the federal budget. Boeing and other groups have similar funding for their space programs. They also, as a commercial company, must be profitable (or try) which isn't as easy as it sounds. Rocket development is slower even with better modern tooling because we just don't put any money into it anymore. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA [2] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-annual-budget-of-SpaceX https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-annual-budget-of-SpaceX

maxxxxx 8y ago
That makes sense. I guess with enough money we could develop a rocket much faster.
bloopernova 8y ago
As someone who grew up in the 70s and 80s, I still yearn wistfully for the space race's unity and determination of purpose. It's hardly appropriate for HN, but I wonder how differently the world would look if NASA had received a much larger budget. Probably taken from the US Military's allocation, how much would the loss of half of the US Navy have affected world politics and conflicts? Or what would the USA look like without the Iraq war of 2003 onward? (I'm trying to be as neutral as possible in my language here, I don't want to start a flamewar about US and geopolitics!) I doubt we'd have gotten further into space as some of us would like, but I do think we'd have already proven that asteroid mining can work, and some people would be living multi-year tenures on the Moon. Whether we'd have bootstrapped our way to mining and using nuclear materials in space is doubtful, but certainly possible. (in other words, building nuclear rockets that have never been close to Earth's biosphere, which would open up large parts of the Solar System for human exploration)
- mdorazio 8y ago
  Check out this amazing plan from Rockwell produced in the 80s to see what that might have looked like [1]. I have a print out of it I like to look at once in a while to remind me what could have been possible if we had different priorities. [1] http://i.imgur.com/ntBHE.png http://i.imgur.com/ntBHE.png
  - bloopernova 8y ago
    WOW That's an astonishing presentation of data/intent. I will have to see if I can find that as a vector and/or get a large format print. That's beautiful! EDIT: Here's a vector! https://cdn.makezine.com/uploads/2013/07/integratedspaceplan2.pdf https://cdn.makezine.com/uploads/2013/07/integratedspaceplan... (Found via Google, searching using "The Rockwell International Integrated Space Plan")
    - chris_mc 8y ago
      I'm so depressed that humans won't ever achieve this. We'll fight and continue to hedonistically chase profit until we destroy ourselves.
      - adventured 8y ago
        You've got that exactly backwards. The pursuit of profit, which is the pursuit of greater productivity, is what makes it possible to pay ever increasing amounts of taxes, which provides for a radical improvement in the welfare of people on the planet. Just ask China. They went from being an anti-profit, anti-market country of near absolute poverty, to a heavily for-profit economy, lifting nearly a billion people out of poverty, and providing for an extraordinary base of increasing savings derived from profit (income beyond expenses). So much for destroying us, humanity has never been better off on average than it is today. Profit is a store of prior productive action that enables you to make future investments. To curse that is absurdity defined. It's the only reason we're all alive, it's a base requirement of all civilization (unless you like the odds of survival when you're living moment to moment, betting on never falling off the highwire).
Someguywhatever 8y ago
This is when the government had a vision and the nation had a collective aspiration. Now we can't even imagine such a thing. Politicians have no vision and there is no collective aspiration or national goal. Politicians get elected so that they can be the ones who benefit from influence peddling and not somebody else. I can only imagine what we could accomplish today if there was a vision for doing so given todays technology.
- Maybestring 8y ago
  >This is when the government had a vision and the nation had a collective aspiration. The moon program was always controversial and it came close to cancelation several times.
rakoo 8y ago
That's why as stupid as it is, this rivalry between the US and China might actually trigger something. It's sad that close-mindedness prevents meaningful collaboration, but if an Us vs Them mentality is what it takes to make leaps then it might be worth it.

by TkTech 8y ago

maxxxxx 8y ago

That makes sense. I guess with enough money we could develop a rocket much faster.

bloopernova 8y ago

As someone who grew up in the 70s and 80s, I still yearn wistfully for the space race's unity and determination of purpose. It's hardly appropriate for HN, but I wonder how differently the world would look if NASA had received a much larger budget. Probably taken from the US Military's allocation, how much would the loss of half of the US Navy have affected world politics and conflicts? Or what would the USA look like without the Iraq war of 2003 onward? (I'm trying to be as neutral as possible in my language here, I don't want to start a flamewar about US and geopolitics!) I doubt we'd have gotten further into space as some of us would like, but I do think we'd have already proven that asteroid mining can work, and some people would be living multi-year tenures on the Moon. Whether we'd have bootstrapped our way to mining and using nuclear materials in space is doubtful, but certainly possible. (in other words, building nuclear rockets that have never been close to Earth's biosphere, which would open up large parts of the Solar System for human exploration)

mdorazio 8y ago
Check out this amazing plan from Rockwell produced in the 80s to see what that might have looked like [1]. I have a print out of it I like to look at once in a while to remind me what could have been possible if we had different priorities. [1] http://i.imgur.com/ntBHE.png http://i.imgur.com/ntBHE.png
- bloopernova 8y ago
  WOW That's an astonishing presentation of data/intent. I will have to see if I can find that as a vector and/or get a large format print. That's beautiful! EDIT: Here's a vector! https://cdn.makezine.com/uploads/2013/07/integratedspaceplan2.pdf https://cdn.makezine.com/uploads/2013/07/integratedspaceplan... (Found via Google, searching using "The Rockwell International Integrated Space Plan")
  - chris_mc 8y ago
    I'm so depressed that humans won't ever achieve this. We'll fight and continue to hedonistically chase profit until we destroy ourselves.
    - adventured 8y ago
      You've got that exactly backwards. The pursuit of profit, which is the pursuit of greater productivity, is what makes it possible to pay ever increasing amounts of taxes, which provides for a radical improvement in the welfare of people on the planet. Just ask China. They went from being an anti-profit, anti-market country of near absolute poverty, to a heavily for-profit economy, lifting nearly a billion people out of poverty, and providing for an extraordinary base of increasing savings derived from profit (income beyond expenses). So much for destroying us, humanity has never been better off on average than it is today. Profit is a store of prior productive action that enables you to make future investments. To curse that is absurdity defined. It's the only reason we're all alive, it's a base requirement of all civilization (unless you like the odds of survival when you're living moment to moment, betting on never falling off the highwire).

Someguywhatever 8y ago

This is when the government had a vision and the nation had a collective aspiration. Now we can't even imagine such a thing. Politicians have no vision and there is no collective aspiration or national goal. Politicians get elected so that they can be the ones who benefit from influence peddling and not somebody else. I can only imagine what we could accomplish today if there was a vision for doing so given todays technology.

Maybestring 8y ago
>This is when the government had a vision and the nation had a collective aspiration. The moon program was always controversial and it came close to cancelation several times.

rakoo 8y ago

That's why as stupid as it is, this rivalry between the US and China might actually trigger something. It's sad that close-mindedness prevents meaningful collaboration, but if an Us vs Them mentality is what it takes to make leaps then it might be worth it.