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NASA needs multiple winners so they will never be dependent on a single vehicle again. The multi-year standdowns after the shuttle accidents and being dependent
by adastra 14y ago
NASA needs multiple winners so they will never be dependent on a single vehicle again. The multi-year standdowns after the shuttle accidents and being dependent on Russia for astronaut transportation are both pretty highly undesirable, to say the least. They could have picked only two winners, but there's a risk one of them could drop out. Boeing has said they might shut down their program if NASA doesn't address their liability and indemnification concerns, for example. Having two leaders plus a back-up is a sound strategy.
The real waste of resources is Orion. NASA is spending more on Orion than all these other spacecraft combined, yet despite Lockheed first beginning development on Orion 6 years ago, it won't do an unmanned flight until 2015, three years after SpaceX. The total cost will be almost $10 billion. That's why the Obama Administration tried to cancel it... but Congress had other ideas.
- api 14y agoI'm gonna hazard a guess that SpaceX will have a reusable Falcon 9 test by the time Orion is ready for a real mission.
- drzaiusapelord 14y ago>The multi-year standdowns after the shuttle accidents and being dependent on Russia for astronaut transportation are both pretty highly undesirable, to say the least. Meh, the time from Apollo to shuttle was 7 years I think. We survived just fine. I just hate the idea that we're draining the budgets of good space missions because of our obsession with basic human transport to LEO, which we can buy from the Russians. The heavy rockets and their accompanying capsules are interesting because they can out of LEO, but I hate that we're blowing hundreds of millions on things that will never, ever fly thanks to congressional input and defense cronyism. The Dream Chaser should never, ever been part of this. I wonder how many good robotic missions or telescopes that boondoggle has cost us. Heck, the Dream Chaser is LEO only, which is a shortsighted waste of resources. Orion/SLS as a main with Dragon/Falcon as a commercial backup is more than enough. Elon Musk isn't going away anytime soon.