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NASA proved it was possible to spend money and gain practically nothing of scientific value (ISS & the entire Shuttle program). Of course, the main reasons it g

by iwwr 16y ago

NASA proved it was possible to spend money and gain practically nothing of scientific value (ISS & the entire Shuttle program). Of course, the main reasons it got those money was to spend it in favorable political endeavors.

rbanffy 16y ago
There is a lot of value in learning how not to do something. The shuttle is a valuable (albeit costly) lesson on why you should keep committees out of a design process, on focusing on doing one thing well instead of many things badly, on why graceful degradation is important and so on. Likewise, I don't think the ISS is a complete failure - it teaches us every day how you can (and can't) build huge structures in LEO. And it's not that the ISS is horridly expensive - it's shipping its parts to its final location that's expensive. I wonder how much would it cost if we had the Falcon-9 Heavy, a couple Saturn V's or a shuttle-derived expendable cargo pod available in 1980. Could the money be better spent? Could politics be less of a problem? Probably. It's a shame we still rely on chemical rockets and solar panels. It's a shame we never deployed a deep space probe with a large solar sail and that there is no Aldrin Cycler station in place yet. OTOH, we still don't have flying cars.
- DanI-S 16y ago
  Summary: The first time you do anything, it usually sucks. NASA do things first, so that we don't have to.
  - J3L2404 16y ago
    I don't like how your summary leads to 'NASA sucks'. It certainly generates a wealth of basic research.
    - DanI-S 16y ago
      That's most definitely not what I intended. NASA have done things that make me feel proud to be a human being. I was more aiming to highlight the value in having government organizations spearhead research into areas that may not be immediately, clearly profitable. Private industry wouldn't have had much to gain from Apollo...
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    That implies only the first attempts are bad and NASA would be able to do stuff at the same level of efficiency SpaceX does currently given both have access to the same previous attempts. The fact NASA is not as efficient may indicate either NASA produces more research data or it is indeed less efficient. I would bet the answer lies somewhere in the middle.
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    I think we could accomplish many more firsts with less money if we used the X-Prize model. (If we did this, we wouldn't have to abandon the NASA model either!)
    - DanI-S 16y ago
      I'm not sure, but I suspect that some things are expensive enough to be beyond private investment. Mega-projects like the Apollo missions, the Hubble telescope, the LHC and such seem likely to be too risky to embark on with a prize as the incentive. Edit: I know the LHC has nothing to do with NASA; it is just in a similar vein.
      - stcredzero 16y ago
        I think a $20 billion prize for a manned Mars landing could pay off handsomely for both the winning contestant and the government, particularly if the government received a license to the technology used to accomplish the prize. $2 billion for a fully reusable TSTO lofting 5000 pounds to LEO would also be money well spent.

by iwwr 16y ago

rbanffy 16y ago

There is a lot of value in learning how not to do something. The shuttle is a valuable (albeit costly) lesson on why you should keep committees out of a design process, on focusing on doing one thing well instead of many things badly, on why graceful degradation is important and so on. Likewise, I don't think the ISS is a complete failure - it teaches us every day how you can (and can't) build huge structures in LEO. And it's not that the ISS is horridly expensive - it's shipping its parts to its final location that's expensive. I wonder how much would it cost if we had the Falcon-9 Heavy, a couple Saturn V's or a shuttle-derived expendable cargo pod available in 1980. Could the money be better spent? Could politics be less of a problem? Probably. It's a shame we still rely on chemical rockets and solar panels. It's a shame we never deployed a deep space probe with a large solar sail and that there is no Aldrin Cycler station in place yet. OTOH, we still don't have flying cars.

DanI-S 16y ago
Summary: The first time you do anything, it usually sucks. NASA do things first, so that we don't have to.
- J3L2404 16y ago
  I don't like how your summary leads to 'NASA sucks'. It certainly generates a wealth of basic research.
  - DanI-S 16y ago
    That's most definitely not what I intended. NASA have done things that make me feel proud to be a human being. I was more aiming to highlight the value in having government organizations spearhead research into areas that may not be immediately, clearly profitable. Private industry wouldn't have had much to gain from Apollo...
- rbanffy 16y ago
  That implies only the first attempts are bad and NASA would be able to do stuff at the same level of efficiency SpaceX does currently given both have access to the same previous attempts. The fact NASA is not as efficient may indicate either NASA produces more research data or it is indeed less efficient. I would bet the answer lies somewhere in the middle.
- stcredzero 16y ago
  I think we could accomplish many more firsts with less money if we used the X-Prize model. (If we did this, we wouldn't have to abandon the NASA model either!)
  - DanI-S 16y ago
    I'm not sure, but I suspect that some things are expensive enough to be beyond private investment. Mega-projects like the Apollo missions, the Hubble telescope, the LHC and such seem likely to be too risky to embark on with a prize as the incentive. Edit: I know the LHC has nothing to do with NASA; it is just in a similar vein.
    - stcredzero 16y ago
      I think a $20 billion prize for a manned Mars landing could pay off handsomely for both the winning contestant and the government, particularly if the government received a license to the technology used to accomplish the prize. $2 billion for a fully reusable TSTO lofting 5000 pounds to LEO would also be money well spent.