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Just adjusting for inflation is not charitable. A $400 commercially available camera today would be about $0.25 adjusting for NASA. If it were for military use

by adolph 4y ago

Just adjusting for inflation is not charitable. A $400 commercially available camera today would be about $0.25 adjusting for NASA. If it were for military use it would be the equivalent of $0.10.

Retric 4y ago
Hardly NASA has a long history of getting good value for money. Just look at their funding of SpaceX and how cheap many of their probes have been. The shuttle was something of a rare exception, but it was also infected by the DoD’s requirements. Cutting edge R&D is expensive, difficult, and prone to failure. Just look at all of say Google’s failed green energy etc initiatives.
- hungryforcodes 4y ago
  The shuttle was amazing. Never has there been such a versatile space vehicle. It could repair satellites, act as a small space station and bring satellites back to Earth. Hubble wouldn't be a thing with out it. All the other solutions currently are just kind of space buses (for equipment and people). There are different estimates for the shuttle launch costs -- between $500m - $1.5b. However for LEO there couldn't be anything more useful. The SLS launch costs run between $2b - $4b. It hasn't done anything useful so far...
  - t344344 4y ago
    Right, unless it breaks and Americans have to launch from Kazakhstan :) There were two spy satellites with the same mirror diameter as Hubble. Launched by normal rockets! Without spending money on shuttle, US could launch new Hubble every 5 years or so! > Both NRO space telescopes have a main mirror nearly 8 feet wide (2.4 meters), rivaling the Hubble Space Telescope, https://www.space.com/16000-spy-satellites-space-telescopes-nasa.html https://www.space.com/16000-spy-satellites-space-telescopes-...
  - outworlder 4y ago
    > The shuttle was amazing. Never has there been such a versatile space vehicle. It could repair satellites, act as a small space station and bring satellites back to Earth. Hubble wouldn't be a thing with out it. I'll concede that NASA did an excellent job, all things considered. The Shuttle itself was terrible(although gorgeous) but that's not NASA's fault. They had to get money from the Air Force so they were subject to Air Force requirements, like the incredible cross range capabilities and the oversized cargo hold. Then there were other requirements – like having to build solid rocket boosters from far away locations and transport by train, purely to get political support – that caused further problems. NASA didn't even want to use solid rockets in the first place. The Soviet Buran copied the project (without SRBs) even though it made zero sense to them – but the US obviously had a reason to develop such a vehicle, so they wanted to be ready. Their Energia rocket worked better without an orbiter attached. What NASA actually wanted to build would have been incredible. Sure, maybe the cargo hold would have been smaller, but if it could have a lower turnaround time and cost less to refurbish after every launch, maybe it would still be operational. The SLS is also bogged down by politicians. And still uses the accursed SRBs.
  - Retric 4y ago
    The shuttle worked, which was amazing considering everything it could do. But the program was a huge money pit because the shuttle had so much capability that went unused on most missions. You can quibble about the numbers, but a rough calculation puts the program at US$196 billion in 2011 or ~262B in 2023 dollars for 135 attempted flights. So 2B per flight in todays money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program SLS is aiming for 130t to LEO vs 27.5t to LEO for the Shuttle. 4B a launch would have less than half the shuttle’s cost per kg to LEO, if it’s roughly 2B that’s almost 5 times the cargo for the same budget. Granted the shuttle sent people up on every mission, but spending 60m/person to the ISS lets them stay in orbit for vastly less money / day. Essentially the shuttle launched and returned a large useful space into orbit, but then returned it at the end of every mission, which was extremely expensive. Both the SLS and shuttle have their advantages but the shuttle was only really useful for LEO as getting that much mass into higher orbits was untenable despite what various movies have suggested.
- smegsicle 4y ago
  > NASA has a long history of getting good value for money like how apollo made do without a luxury fourth gimbal as in gemini
- adolph 4y ago
  > Just look at their funding of SpaceX and . . . compare it to the funding of their actual priority: the series of Constellation: Ares, SLS: Orion. Just look at how despite their best efforts, they accidentally funded something successful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Orbital_Transportation_Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Orbital_Transportat...
- ChancyChance 4y ago
  > Cutting edge R&D is expensive, difficult, and prone to failure. Just look at all of say Google’s failed green energy etc initiatives. Exactly. I find it ignorant when people claim NASA is some kind of cash-cow that drags its feet to get more money. If NASA played fast and lose (move fast and break things), people would die and shit would explode, and they'd get crucified by congress. Private companies play the risk game because they don't have to meet the same extremely high bar of safety that a government org does. I'm not saying there's some waste, but it is a complex process for a reason. Does it go too far, perhaps: I've fallen into ISO hell before, and it can be mind numbing, but maybe I'm just not smart enough to be the person reading those docs.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > people claim NASA is some kind of cash-cow that drags its feet to get more money The Shuttle and SLS jaded people. Of course, NASA didn't cause those. The military and Congress, respectively, did.
  - Spooky23 4y ago
    One of the issues with NASA is that the centers are a source of alot of political capital for their congressional sponsors. So things get funded on that basis. The big deal made about it is because government is more transparent. Big companies are often far more wasteful of shareholder dollars, but they generally don’t have boards as insane as congress.
  - hgsgm 4y ago
    NASA destroyed a shuttle on more than 1% of all shuttle flights, each time killing everyone aboard.
    - ChancyChance 4y ago
      Or to put in another way, NASA only had two shuttle disasters. Two is such a small number, right? Funny now numbers can be used. However I can see the glaringly obvious omission in my post that NASA, in its near 70 years of existence has had numerous casualties and explosions. But that's literally my gist: massive checklists, standards, and regulations are a result of that.

by adolph 4y ago

Just adjusting for inflation is not charitable. A $400 commercially available camera today would be about $0.25 adjusting for NASA. If it were for military use it would be the equivalent of $0.10.

Retric 4y ago

Hardly NASA has a long history of getting good value for money. Just look at their funding of SpaceX and how cheap many of their probes have been. The shuttle was something of a rare exception, but it was also infected by the DoD’s requirements. Cutting edge R&D is expensive, difficult, and prone to failure. Just look at all of say Google’s failed green energy etc initiatives.

hungryforcodes 4y ago
The shuttle was amazing. Never has there been such a versatile space vehicle. It could repair satellites, act as a small space station and bring satellites back to Earth. Hubble wouldn't be a thing with out it. All the other solutions currently are just kind of space buses (for equipment and people). There are different estimates for the shuttle launch costs -- between $500m - $1.5b. However for LEO there couldn't be anything more useful. The SLS launch costs run between $2b - $4b. It hasn't done anything useful so far...
- t344344 4y ago
  Right, unless it breaks and Americans have to launch from Kazakhstan :) There were two spy satellites with the same mirror diameter as Hubble. Launched by normal rockets! Without spending money on shuttle, US could launch new Hubble every 5 years or so! > Both NRO space telescopes have a main mirror nearly 8 feet wide (2.4 meters), rivaling the Hubble Space Telescope, https://www.space.com/16000-spy-satellites-space-telescopes-nasa.html https://www.space.com/16000-spy-satellites-space-telescopes-...
- outworlder 4y ago
  > The shuttle was amazing. Never has there been such a versatile space vehicle. It could repair satellites, act as a small space station and bring satellites back to Earth. Hubble wouldn't be a thing with out it. I'll concede that NASA did an excellent job, all things considered. The Shuttle itself was terrible(although gorgeous) but that's not NASA's fault. They had to get money from the Air Force so they were subject to Air Force requirements, like the incredible cross range capabilities and the oversized cargo hold. Then there were other requirements – like having to build solid rocket boosters from far away locations and transport by train, purely to get political support – that caused further problems. NASA didn't even want to use solid rockets in the first place. The Soviet Buran copied the project (without SRBs) even though it made zero sense to them – but the US obviously had a reason to develop such a vehicle, so they wanted to be ready. Their Energia rocket worked better without an orbiter attached. What NASA actually wanted to build would have been incredible. Sure, maybe the cargo hold would have been smaller, but if it could have a lower turnaround time and cost less to refurbish after every launch, maybe it would still be operational. The SLS is also bogged down by politicians. And still uses the accursed SRBs.
- Retric 4y ago
  The shuttle worked, which was amazing considering everything it could do. But the program was a huge money pit because the shuttle had so much capability that went unused on most missions. You can quibble about the numbers, but a rough calculation puts the program at US$196 billion in 2011 or ~262B in 2023 dollars for 135 attempted flights. So 2B per flight in todays money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program SLS is aiming for 130t to LEO vs 27.5t to LEO for the Shuttle. 4B a launch would have less than half the shuttle’s cost per kg to LEO, if it’s roughly 2B that’s almost 5 times the cargo for the same budget. Granted the shuttle sent people up on every mission, but spending 60m/person to the ISS lets them stay in orbit for vastly less money / day. Essentially the shuttle launched and returned a large useful space into orbit, but then returned it at the end of every mission, which was extremely expensive. Both the SLS and shuttle have their advantages but the shuttle was only really useful for LEO as getting that much mass into higher orbits was untenable despite what various movies have suggested.
smegsicle 4y ago
> NASA has a long history of getting good value for money like how apollo made do without a luxury fourth gimbal as in gemini
adolph 4y ago
> Just look at their funding of SpaceX and . . . compare it to the funding of their actual priority: the series of Constellation: Ares, SLS: Orion. Just look at how despite their best efforts, they accidentally funded something successful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Orbital_Transportation_Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Orbital_Transportat...
ChancyChance 4y ago
> Cutting edge R&D is expensive, difficult, and prone to failure. Just look at all of say Google’s failed green energy etc initiatives. Exactly. I find it ignorant when people claim NASA is some kind of cash-cow that drags its feet to get more money. If NASA played fast and lose (move fast and break things), people would die and shit would explode, and they'd get crucified by congress. Private companies play the risk game because they don't have to meet the same extremely high bar of safety that a government org does. I'm not saying there's some waste, but it is a complex process for a reason. Does it go too far, perhaps: I've fallen into ISO hell before, and it can be mind numbing, but maybe I'm just not smart enough to be the person reading those docs.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > people claim NASA is some kind of cash-cow that drags its feet to get more money The Shuttle and SLS jaded people. Of course, NASA didn't cause those. The military and Congress, respectively, did.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  One of the issues with NASA is that the centers are a source of alot of political capital for their congressional sponsors. So things get funded on that basis. The big deal made about it is because government is more transparent. Big companies are often far more wasteful of shareholder dollars, but they generally don’t have boards as insane as congress.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  NASA destroyed a shuttle on more than 1% of all shuttle flights, each time killing everyone aboard.
  - ChancyChance 4y ago
    Or to put in another way, NASA only had two shuttle disasters. Two is such a small number, right? Funny now numbers can be used. However I can see the glaringly obvious omission in my post that NASA, in its near 70 years of existence has had numerous casualties and explosions. But that's literally my gist: massive checklists, standards, and regulations are a result of that.