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I'm blown away by this administration on spaceflight, in the best way possible. Space Force is a huge step forward for building capabilities in space, on the mi

I'm blown away by this administration on spaceflight, in the best way possible. Space Force is a huge step forward for building capabilities in space, on the military side. On the civilian side, Bridenstine is shaping up to be the greatest Administrator in NASA history. Under his watch we're getting multiple, re-usable, private launch architectures and human spaceflight capabilities. Plus, significant infrastructure in lunar orbit, forcing the ISS budget out of LEO. All under complete American control.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
Space Force is just shuffling the deck chairs and creating new management slots.
- colinplamondon 6y ago
  Space Force has far more visibility, and an institutional need to collect more budget, spend more on personnel, and build their fiefdom. As they do that, they'll consume more and more private services, and help spur more and more industry in space. For me, that's a huge, huge win.
CrazyStat 6y ago
> Space Force is a huge step forward for building capabilities in space, on the military side. Probably in violation of international treaties, but who cares about those. > Under his watch we're getting multiple, re-usable, private launch architectures and human spaceflight capabilities. The commercial crew program was begun in 2010 under the Obama administration. Probably the only reason it still exists is nobody has mentioned that to Trump. Giving credit for a 10-year-old program to Bridenstine, who's been at NASA for two years, is utter nonsense.
- teknopaul 6y ago
  Noo, Trumps big on Space. Dont try to baffle Trump supporters with facts. It does not work. Trump, big on Space, fact. And Space is really important this year, because whats going on on earth is fscked up beyond all recognition.
- colinplamondon 6y ago
  I don't mean to take anything at all away from Obama pushing COGS, as opposed to the old Constellation strategy. That was an incredible, bold move. Besides SLS, though, it didn't move meaningful industry outside of LEO. It was an important step, but didn't fundamentally move us past the post-Apollo Space Shuttle funk. The Asteroid program was potentially interesting for getting mining going, but small in scale, with long timelines. Artemis is the first time NASA has run on aggressive, tight timelines since Apollo. They're shooting for achievable, inspiring objectives -- quickly. And this time, we'll have THREE architectures that can get any American or American ally to the surface of the moon for a price. Gateway guarantees long-term government spend in Lunar orbit, just like the ISS guaranteed long-term government spend in Earth orbit. Artemis aligns government spend towards the industrialization and militarization of space, on terms beneficial to the US.
carapace 6y ago
> building capabilities in space, on the military side That's a total failure. Absolute, complete, across-the-board failure of the human race. Just a few decades ago the militarization of space was universally acknowledged as inappropriate and this was codified in international law.
- DuskStar 6y ago
  > Just a few decades ago the militarization of space was universally acknowledged as inappropriate and this was codified in international law. That's a hell of an interpretation... I'd instead say that the world powers recognized that nukes in space would be destabilizing, and banned that specific thing. Space has been militarized since the 60s.
  - carapace 6y ago
    There are satellites for watching and communicating, but no weapons. Of course, actually there are weapons on some of the satellites but everyone pretends that there aren't to maintain stability. Publicly putting weapons in space is destabilizing, stupid to the point of evil.
  - nickff 6y ago
    Just to back this up, the Soviets mounted at least one cannon to a space station (Salyut 3 in 1974), and tried to launch an orbital anti-satellite weapons platform (Polyus in 1987).
  - pyuser583 6y ago
    Since the 50s.
- Fauntleroy 6y ago
  I love your idealism, but you're living on a planet full of humans. I don't _like_ this very much, but it's obvious that other superpowers (China) aren't going to be hemmed in by idealism, so we need to make sure that we are in a position to (at the very least) defend ourselves in space. Heck, even in the most idealistic portrayal of the future (Star Trek TNG) there's plenty of war in space.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago

Space Force is just shuffling the deck chairs and creating new management slots.

colinplamondon 6y ago
Space Force has far more visibility, and an institutional need to collect more budget, spend more on personnel, and build their fiefdom. As they do that, they'll consume more and more private services, and help spur more and more industry in space. For me, that's a huge, huge win.

CrazyStat 6y ago

> Space Force is a huge step forward for building capabilities in space, on the military side. Probably in violation of international treaties, but who cares about those. > Under his watch we're getting multiple, re-usable, private launch architectures and human spaceflight capabilities. The commercial crew program was begun in 2010 under the Obama administration. Probably the only reason it still exists is nobody has mentioned that to Trump. Giving credit for a 10-year-old program to Bridenstine, who's been at NASA for two years, is utter nonsense.

teknopaul 6y ago
Noo, Trumps big on Space. Dont try to baffle Trump supporters with facts. It does not work. Trump, big on Space, fact. And Space is really important this year, because whats going on on earth is fscked up beyond all recognition.
colinplamondon 6y ago
I don't mean to take anything at all away from Obama pushing COGS, as opposed to the old Constellation strategy. That was an incredible, bold move. Besides SLS, though, it didn't move meaningful industry outside of LEO. It was an important step, but didn't fundamentally move us past the post-Apollo Space Shuttle funk. The Asteroid program was potentially interesting for getting mining going, but small in scale, with long timelines. Artemis is the first time NASA has run on aggressive, tight timelines since Apollo. They're shooting for achievable, inspiring objectives -- quickly. And this time, we'll have THREE architectures that can get any American or American ally to the surface of the moon for a price. Gateway guarantees long-term government spend in Lunar orbit, just like the ISS guaranteed long-term government spend in Earth orbit. Artemis aligns government spend towards the industrialization and militarization of space, on terms beneficial to the US.

carapace 6y ago

> building capabilities in space, on the military side That's a total failure. Absolute, complete, across-the-board failure of the human race. Just a few decades ago the militarization of space was universally acknowledged as inappropriate and this was codified in international law.

DuskStar 6y ago
> Just a few decades ago the militarization of space was universally acknowledged as inappropriate and this was codified in international law. That's a hell of an interpretation... I'd instead say that the world powers recognized that nukes in space would be destabilizing, and banned that specific thing. Space has been militarized since the 60s.
- carapace 6y ago
  There are satellites for watching and communicating, but no weapons. Of course, actually there are weapons on some of the satellites but everyone pretends that there aren't to maintain stability. Publicly putting weapons in space is destabilizing, stupid to the point of evil.
- nickff 6y ago
  Just to back this up, the Soviets mounted at least one cannon to a space station (Salyut 3 in 1974), and tried to launch an orbital anti-satellite weapons platform (Polyus in 1987).
- pyuser583 6y ago
  Since the 50s.
Fauntleroy 6y ago
I love your idealism, but you're living on a planet full of humans. I don't _like_ this very much, but it's obvious that other superpowers (China) aren't going to be hemmed in by idealism, so we need to make sure that we are in a position to (at the very least) defend ourselves in space. Heck, even in the most idealistic portrayal of the future (Star Trek TNG) there's plenty of war in space.