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<meta> I am beginning to feel that Vox is more of a time-sink than a useful addition to my regular feed. This article is an example of why. It's long format, g
by DanielBMarkham 12y ago
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I am beginning to feel that Vox is more of a time-sink than a useful addition to my regular feed. This article is an example of why. It's long format, goes over well-trod ground, adds in some items that are politically interpreted a bit heavily, and ends up kicking off partisan discussions that don't go anywhere.
They're like Op-Ed columns presented in Wikipedia format. If we had a thesis and supporting arguments you would at least know what you're dealing with and engage it on its own terms. But as it is, you're left either accepting this huge hunk of text or going through half a dozen items to nitpick it to death. Either choice is suboptimal.
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I'm a huge supporter of the space program. NASA lost its way a while back, like the 1970s, and is not the right tool for the job we have. It's no fault of NASA's -- every new administration and every new Congress feels free to whipsaw it into a new direction.
We have some clear foundational science goals that NASA could supervise other competent organizations doing, like reducing cost-to-orbit 100-fold (mass-drivers, anybody?), creating a cheap, mass-production radioactive battery that can be used everywhere, or rewarding the first team to optically-image an earth-sized habitable exoplanet.
Writing NASA a check won't help much of anything, because five years from now the money will all be re-allocated various political ways. Yes, I grok the multi-year planning thing. Not germane.
- blisterpeanuts 12y agoSo what kind of organization(s) do you see doing a better job than Nasa? I would agree that it's a political and rather inefficient organization, like any government-funded agency, but I'm curious how exactly we could improve. Bear in mind that many of Nasa's best projects were undermined by politics. A new Administration comes into power vowing to re-prioritize spending, and Nasa's champions within the White House and Congress are suddenly without jobs. A recession hits and Nasa is an easy target for budget cutters. A Congressman threatens to withhold spending unless Nasa locates a facility in his district. You can't fix this stuff; it's part of the landscape.
- jerf 12y agoThe ideal would be for someone to figure out how to make money in space. Once you harness the mighty power of greed, nothing short of all-out war would be able to keep humans out of space. But that's proved to be a bit of a tall bar, unfortunately, which in itself sort of raises questions about the actual utility of space anew after 50 years. But before quite making that call let's see what knocking another order of magnitude off launch costs does for us. But I find myself often thinking that space just isn't viable for very many uses without a still-higher level of technology than we have.
- DanielBMarkham 12y agoAgreed that we really need to knock a couple of more digits of cost-to-orbit before we can make any kind of informed decision one way or another. Also agreed that it's not looking good so far. Mass drivers could send cargo into orbit cheaply -- perhaps given the right cargo/human ratio, you'd end up with a drastic decrease in cost overall, especially with reusable rockets. Right now there's just no there there. Most of the great arguments for getting off the planet are 1) Science! and 2) We need to get the heck out of Dodge before we kill ourselves. These are very good reasons, but it's like pushing a rope -- you'll never make space exploration happen by lecturing people and taxing them for it. Instead put some greed into the mix. If you find a big enough pull, then you'll see the dynamics radically change. Space needs an 1849 Gold Rush.