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I think NASA is usually a politically safe place to be. Airplane crashes are unpopular and media-friendly. Rocket explosions or shuttle crashes (esp. with peopl

I think NASA is usually a politically safe place to be. Airplane crashes are unpopular and media-friendly. Rocket explosions or shuttle crashes (esp. with people on them) often result in an Oval Office address. Nobody wants to be on the short end of that stick. Funding is spread out across the U.S. esp. Texas and Florida to ensure broad political support (or at least apathy), and scientists and engineers don't make too much fuss. It's like the military's baby brother. For a long time, I was cynical about even the principle of going to space before we solved problems down here, but now I'm more stoic and appreciative. It's a tangible, tractable hope that gets people out of bed in the morning, and consciously keeping that candle lit is the very best of being human.

jedberg 7y ago
> Funding is spread out across the U.S. esp. Texas and Florida to ensure broad political support Heh, maybe now. But when NASA was created, the reason Texas was involved at all was because Senator Johnson (future President Johnson) was the head of the committee that pushed the bill to create NASA. Technically it made no sense for mission control and training to be in Texas. It would be far more efficient in Florida. Florida was chosen because it is the best spot to launch rockets in the US from a physics perspective (closer to the equator is better) that still had easy access from the rest of the US (which is why Hawaii was ruled out even though it would be technically better). But yes, as a side effect of the political posturing to get NASA funded, it ended up spreading the money around the country nicely.
- nickik 7y ago
  SpaceX ironically is building its launch site for the future in Texas. Probably because the cap is already taken.
  - jedberg 7y ago
    And because all the talent they need is there now because mission control was there. It's still closer to the equator than where Russia or China launch from, so it's still an advantageous site in that regard.
- dntbnmpls 7y ago
  > (which is why Hawaii was ruled out even though it would be technically better) Hawaii wasn't even a state when NASA was created. So there was never any serious consideration for using hawaii as NASA headquarters or launching site. The same goes for puerto rico which is much closer to the equator ( and the lower 48 ) than hawaii. It's not a state, so you can't put something as important as NASA or a launch site on puerto rico. It's strange, but NASA is older than the state of hawaii.
  - jedberg 7y ago
    > Hawaii wasn't even a state when NASA was created. Technically yes, NASA predates Hawaii by 13 months, but it was well on it's way to statehood by then. The statehood act passed congress in the early 1950s, before the discussions about NASA began.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > Technically yes, NASA predates Hawaii by 13 months, but it was well on it's way to statehood by then. The statehood act passed congress in the early 1950s, before the discussions about NASA began. Cape Canaveral was chosen as a launch site before the discussions about NASA began, too; the first planned launch was planned before those discussions (it was postponed) under the auspices of the early space program coordinated by NACA Special Committee on Space Technology prior to the proposal to build NASA to incorporate and replace NACA.
      - ckastner 7y ago
        Remarkably, a spot in the close vicinity of Cape Canaveral was chosen by Jules Verne as the launch site for the moon travelers in his 1867 book From the Earth to the Moon.
    - dntbnmpls 7y ago
      > The statehood act passed congress in the early 1950s, before the discussions about NASA began. The statehood act was passed in March 1959. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Admission_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Admission_Act And I wouldn't say it was well on its way to statehood. There were lots of racial, political, historical, etc issues at play. Were it not for the desire to grant alaska statehood, it's likely that hawaii would still not be a state given their demographic.

jedberg 7y ago

> Funding is spread out across the U.S. esp. Texas and Florida to ensure broad political support Heh, maybe now. But when NASA was created, the reason Texas was involved at all was because Senator Johnson (future President Johnson) was the head of the committee that pushed the bill to create NASA. Technically it made no sense for mission control and training to be in Texas. It would be far more efficient in Florida. Florida was chosen because it is the best spot to launch rockets in the US from a physics perspective (closer to the equator is better) that still had easy access from the rest of the US (which is why Hawaii was ruled out even though it would be technically better). But yes, as a side effect of the political posturing to get NASA funded, it ended up spreading the money around the country nicely.

nickik 7y ago
SpaceX ironically is building its launch site for the future in Texas. Probably because the cap is already taken.
- jedberg 7y ago
  And because all the talent they need is there now because mission control was there. It's still closer to the equator than where Russia or China launch from, so it's still an advantageous site in that regard.
dntbnmpls 7y ago
> (which is why Hawaii was ruled out even though it would be technically better) Hawaii wasn't even a state when NASA was created. So there was never any serious consideration for using hawaii as NASA headquarters or launching site. The same goes for puerto rico which is much closer to the equator ( and the lower 48 ) than hawaii. It's not a state, so you can't put something as important as NASA or a launch site on puerto rico. It's strange, but NASA is older than the state of hawaii.
- jedberg 7y ago
  > Hawaii wasn't even a state when NASA was created. Technically yes, NASA predates Hawaii by 13 months, but it was well on it's way to statehood by then. The statehood act passed congress in the early 1950s, before the discussions about NASA began.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > Technically yes, NASA predates Hawaii by 13 months, but it was well on it's way to statehood by then. The statehood act passed congress in the early 1950s, before the discussions about NASA began. Cape Canaveral was chosen as a launch site before the discussions about NASA began, too; the first planned launch was planned before those discussions (it was postponed) under the auspices of the early space program coordinated by NACA Special Committee on Space Technology prior to the proposal to build NASA to incorporate and replace NACA.
    - ckastner 7y ago
      Remarkably, a spot in the close vicinity of Cape Canaveral was chosen by Jules Verne as the launch site for the moon travelers in his 1867 book From the Earth to the Moon.
  - dntbnmpls 7y ago
    > The statehood act passed congress in the early 1950s, before the discussions about NASA began. The statehood act was passed in March 1959. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Admission_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Admission_Act And I wouldn't say it was well on its way to statehood. There were lots of racial, political, historical, etc issues at play. Were it not for the desire to grant alaska statehood, it's likely that hawaii would still not be a state given their demographic.