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Two reasons and probably more: 1. The risk is different when there are human lives on the line. 2. NASA is publicly funded and if they want to keep receiving

Two reasons and probably more: 1. The risk is different when there are human lives on the line. 2. NASA is publicly funded and if they want to keep receiving funding, they can’t be blowing up the public’s money.

ClumsyPilot 7y ago
I feel NASA's approach is right for manned spaceflight, but is not sensible for robotic missions - metal is cheap, design time is expensive. I feel the public appearance is not a hard - nosed calculation, but Is instead a pr requirement
- greglindahl 7y ago
  NASA has different risk categories for manned spaceflight and robotic missions, depending on cost.
- sbuttgereit 7y ago
  I actually disagree with you. For one, consider that Starship is ultimately intended for manned spaceflight... yet SpaceX is still trying things and blowing stuff up (or imploding or...) From my armchair perspective I think the risk adversity criticism is justified. NASA should take much more risk even in human spaceflight... in the early stages of platform development. First see if you can build the damn thing and build it repeatedly. Later, after that period, reduce risk and prove out and refine things to the human spaceflight standard. If you jump immediately to, "my God people are suppose to fly on that thing!" well, you're probably going to pay the Russians a lot of money for a fairly long time. I do agree with you that the political management becomes a real issue. Politicians and bureaucrats are naturally disposed to a certain cravenness about such issues once they get to significant positions of power (senior execs of many companies do, too). But I think a charismatic leader that's out in front of the messaging could pull it off.
  - kiba 7y ago
    If they actually test and launch the damn thing, we would be further along with a safer rocket and don't have to pay the Russians.
  - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
    Well, ironically and counter to your point, Russians had the same basic design now for nearly 60 years!
- beamatronic 7y ago
  When a robot mission is wildly successful, they should build more of the design and launch another.
  - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
    I think this is a very good point that is frequently overlooked, it would only cost 2x to have 10 rovers instead of one! It is also absolutely embarrassing that we still haven't fully surveyed the moon for resources, dont know where all the ice is, etc. Lunar rovers should be numbering in the hundreds, maybe thousands.
- bumby 7y ago
  Many of NASAs robotic missions are done through JPL which doesn’t follow all the same rules, but you’re absolutely right about the PR
- nickik 7y ago
  Well because of that approach NASA lost the ability to do human space flight. They literally couldn't do it, and the admired that they basically can't develop it internally without it costing 10s of billions. So that's why the used the Commercial Crew program and that worked out for them. The SLS is a good example, 10+ years of building at a cost far above 20+ billion until the first launch.
kiba 7y ago
Prototype can and should be tested with the risk of blowing up if they want to improve rockets' reliability. Obviously, there's not much tolerance when human lives on the line. But you don't have to test with humans.
beamatronic 7y ago
They went too far and aren’t blowing anything up. There has to be an optimal amount of resource burn
Causality1 7y ago
Frankly I'd rather them blow up my money than spend twenty times the original budget and ten times the schedule filling the pockets of companies like Boeing.
bumby 7y ago
1. Keep in mind NASA has multiple Centers and only one (Houston) is dedicated to human-rated spaceflight 2. Dirty little secret: even when NASA uses “startups” like SpaceX to launch and things go awry, the taxpayers are still on the hook for the majority of the loss because the Agency is self-insured

ClumsyPilot 7y ago

I feel NASA's approach is right for manned spaceflight, but is not sensible for robotic missions - metal is cheap, design time is expensive. I feel the public appearance is not a hard - nosed calculation, but Is instead a pr requirement

greglindahl 7y ago
NASA has different risk categories for manned spaceflight and robotic missions, depending on cost.
sbuttgereit 7y ago
I actually disagree with you. For one, consider that Starship is ultimately intended for manned spaceflight... yet SpaceX is still trying things and blowing stuff up (or imploding or...) From my armchair perspective I think the risk adversity criticism is justified. NASA should take much more risk even in human spaceflight... in the early stages of platform development. First see if you can build the damn thing and build it repeatedly. Later, after that period, reduce risk and prove out and refine things to the human spaceflight standard. If you jump immediately to, "my God people are suppose to fly on that thing!" well, you're probably going to pay the Russians a lot of money for a fairly long time. I do agree with you that the political management becomes a real issue. Politicians and bureaucrats are naturally disposed to a certain cravenness about such issues once they get to significant positions of power (senior execs of many companies do, too). But I think a charismatic leader that's out in front of the messaging could pull it off.
- kiba 7y ago
  If they actually test and launch the damn thing, we would be further along with a safer rocket and don't have to pay the Russians.
- ClumsyPilot 7y ago
  Well, ironically and counter to your point, Russians had the same basic design now for nearly 60 years!
beamatronic 7y ago
When a robot mission is wildly successful, they should build more of the design and launch another.
- ClumsyPilot 7y ago
  I think this is a very good point that is frequently overlooked, it would only cost 2x to have 10 rovers instead of one! It is also absolutely embarrassing that we still haven't fully surveyed the moon for resources, dont know where all the ice is, etc. Lunar rovers should be numbering in the hundreds, maybe thousands.
bumby 7y ago
Many of NASAs robotic missions are done through JPL which doesn’t follow all the same rules, but you’re absolutely right about the PR
nickik 7y ago
Well because of that approach NASA lost the ability to do human space flight. They literally couldn't do it, and the admired that they basically can't develop it internally without it costing 10s of billions. So that's why the used the Commercial Crew program and that worked out for them. The SLS is a good example, 10+ years of building at a cost far above 20+ billion until the first launch.

kiba 7y ago

Prototype can and should be tested with the risk of blowing up if they want to improve rockets' reliability. Obviously, there's not much tolerance when human lives on the line. But you don't have to test with humans.

beamatronic 7y ago

They went too far and aren’t blowing anything up. There has to be an optimal amount of resource burn

Causality1 7y ago

Frankly I'd rather them blow up my money than spend twenty times the original budget and ten times the schedule filling the pockets of companies like Boeing.

bumby 7y ago

1. Keep in mind NASA has multiple Centers and only one (Houston) is dedicated to human-rated spaceflight 2. Dirty little secret: even when NASA uses “startups” like SpaceX to launch and things go awry, the taxpayers are still on the hook for the majority of the loss because the Agency is self-insured