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In many ways it's really rather a shame that the Apollo program was successful. On the one hand it was unquestionably a civilization defining historic achieveme

In many ways it's really rather a shame that the Apollo program was successful. On the one hand it was unquestionably a civilization defining historic achievement for all mankind. On the other hand, the way it was achieved was not something we should want to emulate: the political horse trading, the management and development style, and the expense. LBJ used every political trick in the book to get Apollo running, and they worked. But we've been left with the political legacy of those tricks for the 4+ decades since then which have been massively distorting manned spaceflight policy and efforts without further Apollo scale achievements. Unfortunately, the public generally only sees the good from Apollo and so tends to imagine that the methods of Apollo were also good, and should be emulated. They should not. There are better ways to run big, ambitious projects and better ways to get back to exploring worlds beyond Earth as well.

BrandonMarc 12y ago
This. It's why I just can't get excited about NASA's manned spaceflight plans anymore. In 2004 there was a vision set out to go places, but Congress didn't really fund it, and then the new administration took the lackluster progress (due in no small part to lackluster funding, mind you) along with "not invented here" and gave it the kibosh. So long as manned exploration is subject to the whims of whatever Congresscritter happens to come into power, as well as their feelings toward their counterparts, their predecessors, the Executive branch, etc ... well, I don't expect consistent achievements. Ugh. Too many politicians simply view NASA as another way of getting pork, boondoggles, etc and "delivering money" back to their own district. Instead, I'm hopeful for imaginative uber-rich people (Musk, Allen, Bezos, Bigelow, etc). Not all of their ideas will work, and that's fine ... so long as there's a critical mass of them at least trying something. NASA used to be a reason I didn't mind paying high taxes. Now, I feel different.
- roberte3 12y ago
  Well if the Ares I hadn't been a massive cluster*... There were a lot of reasons, that Nasa didn't object to the new plan.

BrandonMarc 12y ago

This. It's why I just can't get excited about NASA's manned spaceflight plans anymore. In 2004 there was a vision set out to go places, but Congress didn't really fund it, and then the new administration took the lackluster progress (due in no small part to lackluster funding, mind you) along with "not invented here" and gave it the kibosh. So long as manned exploration is subject to the whims of whatever Congresscritter happens to come into power, as well as their feelings toward their counterparts, their predecessors, the Executive branch, etc ... well, I don't expect consistent achievements. Ugh. Too many politicians simply view NASA as another way of getting pork, boondoggles, etc and "delivering money" back to their own district. Instead, I'm hopeful for imaginative uber-rich people (Musk, Allen, Bezos, Bigelow, etc). Not all of their ideas will work, and that's fine ... so long as there's a critical mass of them at least trying something. NASA used to be a reason I didn't mind paying high taxes. Now, I feel different.

roberte3 12y ago
Well if the Ares I hadn't been a massive cluster*... There were a lot of reasons, that Nasa didn't object to the new plan.