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> That would push the costs down by a factor of ten, at least. For man-rated space flight! I don't think so. Those 7 people need all the "junk" up there too. i

> That would push the costs down by a factor of ten, at least. For man-rated space flight! I don't think so. Those 7 people need all the "junk" up there too. it's their living quarters, their food, their science experiments, etc. Maybe you launch it separately. But don't forget about the cost of that.

berntb 15y ago
You missed my point -- 100-1000$/lb is at least a factor of ten less than anything else. (NASA is not noted for going factors of ten less than normal costs.)
- onemoreact 15y ago
  I expect they would still blow a lot on R&D. However, rocket fuel for a small craft is not that expencive so it's really a question of how much inspection / repare the vehicle needs. A light craft could reinter the atmosphere with minimal heating, and you can build reasonably efficent but vary simple rocket engines so there is plenty of room to simplyfy matence. So, in theory we chould build a fairly cheap and reusable shutte to LEO. The real question is could NASA build such a ship? IMO, that's really just a question of would congress fund such a ship? PS: The space shuttle's never left the R&D stage. Practicly every flight change some significant internal system. If they had simply said "these are good enough" then the program would have been far cheaper.
  - berntb 15y ago
    >>could NASA build such a ship? IMO, that's really just a question of would congress fund such a ship? Sigh. To repeat a trivial point for the third time... You have the opinion that NASA after 1970 could do any large project and push costs down by a factor of ten. If a serious argument could be made, then one of the NASA fan boys would have posted it...
    - onemoreact 15y ago
      It's a question of incentives. The costs of sending 100 people up instead of the normal crew of 7 and a lot of cargo on a shuttle mission would have been minimal. However, there was no real point to sending that many people into space at the same time and the risk from failure would have been insane. So if there was some need for thousands of people to be sent into space per year then NASA could design and operate a fairly low cost per launch system. However, once they started operating highly capable but delicate system added to the fact there was little value in sending more than a token number of people into space in a given year then costs are going to spiral out of control even if the desgin was reasonable. PS: I have even heard the argument that NASA benefited from the amount of spectacle involved in the shuttle program. If they had built something that looked and operated like a 747 nobody would have cared but build something that takes thousands of controlled explosions and then sit’s on a huge ball of fire into space and wow you must be doing something important.
      - berntb 15y ago
        >>if there was some need for thousands of people to be sent into space per year then NASA could design and operate a fairly low cost per launch system. For the second time to you (4th time overall) -- uh... no. That account is less than two weeks old. I am probably being trolled.
        onemoreact 15y ago
        That's a strong dismissal with little evidence to back it up. I am not saying that I expect NASA to become a lean organization tomorrow, just that there incentives are all messed up. Anyway, you might think that government organizations are always full of bloat but compare the SSA with your 401k and you will find they are vary low overhead. The problem with government organizations is they tend to make really big a stupid decisions for political reasons, aka if SSA had invested in a mix of stocks and bonds vs. US treasury bonds people would be talking about how over funded it was right now. Instead the SSA “surplus” was used to subsidize government borrowing and treated as yet another agency. PS: I have 64 Karma on a 2 week old act that may suggest something about my activities. If you actually have something meaningful to say feel free to support your argument, but right now I am feeling trolled.
- StrawberryFrog 15y ago
  Oops, my mistake.

berntb 15y ago

You missed my point -- 100-1000$/lb is at least a factor of ten less than anything else. (NASA is not noted for going factors of ten less than normal costs.)

onemoreact 15y ago
I expect they would still blow a lot on R&D. However, rocket fuel for a small craft is not that expencive so it's really a question of how much inspection / repare the vehicle needs. A light craft could reinter the atmosphere with minimal heating, and you can build reasonably efficent but vary simple rocket engines so there is plenty of room to simplyfy matence. So, in theory we chould build a fairly cheap and reusable shutte to LEO. The real question is could NASA build such a ship? IMO, that's really just a question of would congress fund such a ship? PS: The space shuttle's never left the R&D stage. Practicly every flight change some significant internal system. If they had simply said "these are good enough" then the program would have been far cheaper.
- berntb 15y ago
  >>could NASA build such a ship? IMO, that's really just a question of would congress fund such a ship? Sigh. To repeat a trivial point for the third time... You have the opinion that NASA after 1970 could do any large project and push costs down by a factor of ten. If a serious argument could be made, then one of the NASA fan boys would have posted it...
  - onemoreact 15y ago
    It's a question of incentives. The costs of sending 100 people up instead of the normal crew of 7 and a lot of cargo on a shuttle mission would have been minimal. However, there was no real point to sending that many people into space at the same time and the risk from failure would have been insane. So if there was some need for thousands of people to be sent into space per year then NASA could design and operate a fairly low cost per launch system. However, once they started operating highly capable but delicate system added to the fact there was little value in sending more than a token number of people into space in a given year then costs are going to spiral out of control even if the desgin was reasonable. PS: I have even heard the argument that NASA benefited from the amount of spectacle involved in the shuttle program. If they had built something that looked and operated like a 747 nobody would have cared but build something that takes thousands of controlled explosions and then sit’s on a huge ball of fire into space and wow you must be doing something important.
    - berntb 15y ago
      >>if there was some need for thousands of people to be sent into space per year then NASA could design and operate a fairly low cost per launch system. For the second time to you (4th time overall) -- uh... no. That account is less than two weeks old. I am probably being trolled.
      - onemoreact 15y ago
        That's a strong dismissal with little evidence to back it up. I am not saying that I expect NASA to become a lean organization tomorrow, just that there incentives are all messed up. Anyway, you might think that government organizations are always full of bloat but compare the SSA with your 401k and you will find they are vary low overhead. The problem with government organizations is they tend to make really big a stupid decisions for political reasons, aka if SSA had invested in a mix of stocks and bonds vs. US treasury bonds people would be talking about how over funded it was right now. Instead the SSA “surplus” was used to subsidize government borrowing and treated as yet another agency. PS: I have 64 Karma on a 2 week old act that may suggest something about my activities. If you actually have something meaningful to say feel free to support your argument, but right now I am feeling trolled.
StrawberryFrog 15y ago
Oops, my mistake.