Corporate pork v. useful activity - ...and thoughts on what to do now

Alexander Sheppard · 2003-04-08 15:04:01

I think there is good evidence to suggest that the most pressing problem right now with how the space agency is organized is that Congress, and hence the NASA administration that it selects, is beholden to huge buisness interests which see little value in long term exploration and which are exploiting the space agency for their own private profit, in the form of huge pork barrel extravaganzas which do very little in the way of real science or exploration for their cost. So for example, why haven't we developed something to replace the ridiculously expensive space shuttle? Why are we developing an ISS which does almost nothing for, as conservative estimates put it, some $60 billion? Why aren't we spending more on projects which are really going to do something, like robotic planetary exploration and precursors to human missions? I think all of this is good evidence for the conclusion that right now the central purpose of NASA is not to explore or do science, but rather to funnel cash into the pockets of huge corporations, the front runners Boeing and Lockheed Martin. This idea is also backed up by the realities of election spending: buisness, as a bloc, funds almost three quarters of election money in the United States. I would expect big buisness to be a large proportion of that, with results which are not very suprising.

In any case, the "free market" is not something which has long term space exploration as a goal ; they're interested in profit, that's essentially the alpha and the omega for them, because the relevant guys are big corporations and if it wasn't they wouldn't be big, or mabye even exist. So these corporations have, basically, one goal: they're going to bilk the system for whatever they can get, and they're going to do it at a minimum cost to themselves. If you want to make them do space exploration, then you have to provide them some incentive to do it. They're not going to do it on their own, because the incentive just isn't there, there is no short term profitability, we know that. Let's be honest: there's no money in interplanetary space exploration right now. There might be decades down the line, but there isn't any right now. So Zubrin is right when he says that without some kind of government initiative, it isn't going to happen.

So what is our role? We just have to keep pushing them, I guess. Keep demanding they open a serious initiative, keep demanding more funds for useful projects like robotic interplanetary probes, a cheap new launch vehicle, etc. Scale down use of the space shuttle to an absolute minimum, cancelling it and replacing it with cheaper alternatives asap. As for the ISS, I suspect the only sensible way to deal with this is just to scrap it. At present it's a total waste, as I understand it. Expanding it will take years, and tens of billions, and even then, it's liable to be mostly a waste. So I think we should scrap it, and do it as soon as possible, and divert the excess funds into projects which are actually useful.

soph · 2003-04-08 15:48:16

I think all of this is good evidence for the conclusion that right now the central purpose of NASA is not to explore or do science, but rather to funnel cash into the pockets of huge corporations, the front runners Boeing and Lockheed Martin. This idea is also backed up by the realities of election spending: buisness, as a bloc, funds almost three quarters of election money in the United States. I would expect big buisness to be a large proportion of that, with results which are not very suprising.

I don't think this is fair at all. You and I are to blame for the Shuttle. The government approves NASA's funding, and they only approve what they like. They like the Shuttle, because people like the Shuttle. People will cry about it when it blows up, but a few weeks later, it's okay again.

People like the ISS. It's very nice, and will be a very useful science post. It is not a waste at all, in fact, it is really the only thing keeping the private sector alive--it is really the only demand for a manned/cargo vehicle right now (which companies like the X-Prize competitors will desperately need).

If you take the Shuttle and ISS money away, maybe 1/4 of it may find its way to the OSP, and the rest, will mostly vanish. Robotic missions are relatively cheap, from $60-$250 million each, probably between 10% and 25% of NASA's budget.

Boeing and Lockheed, really don't make that much off of NASA. Nothing is really built for the Shuttle, and the Deltas and Atlases...these are really pennies for Boeing and Lockheed. A single Boeing F-22 is tremendously expensive compared to a Delta IV (I believe 4x the cost), and the government has tentative plans to buy over 300 of them (which are in limbo right now).

The real need is private sector involvement. My real ideal is for NASA to stop building vehicles, and go back to their past R&D work. Develop the systems-let the private sector use them. Give grants to entrepreneurships (ala X Prize), and so on. Let the private sector build our fleets and vehicles, with a little help.

And our expenses on the ISS were nowhere near $60 billion. Most of our costs were incurred due to Russian defaults on their contracts, which American contractors and subcontractors were forced to take up, in a very short time. And Russia will never repay us for that (hard to blame them, their economy was extremely weak at the time).

dicktice · 2003-04-08 17:56:32

Soph: Regarding the International Space Station (ISS), I couldn't agree with you more. But, as for the Russians not repaying us...they're keeping the thing going, while we dither about...and I say that's "repayment" enough. After all, money ain't everything....

soph · 2003-04-08 18:06:06

And we will probably be footing a good part of that cost, too. The Soyuz and Progress are temporary, by the end of the year, or early next, the Shuttle should be flying again.

Without the Shuttle, the ISS wouldn't have been built--Soyuz and Progress could not have done it.

It is, after all, an international space station. It's becoming an increasingly American expense. It shouldn't be such a major issue that the Russians are supporting it now, after all, they are a partner! It was mostly produced by America, built by America, and until the Columbia disaster, serviced by America. This temporary aberration is being made out to be a bit too important that it really should be.

Edit: That's not to say I think this expectation of American funding and effort is unreasonable or unexpected, or that it makes the ISS any less worthwhile. What it means is that the world should be a little less ready to jump at America's temporary lapse in capacity.

Alexander Sheppard · 2003-04-08 19:16:32

NASA is not doing the ISS or the Space Shuttle because people like them, I think. Spending money on the space program right now is actually rather unpopular if you look at polls, and it would appear to me that it is because people understand, quite rightly, that right now it is largely a waste of money. Now there's a much larger source of corporate pork and waste, it's called the DoD, but spending money on that is a lot easier to motivate than spending on NASA, besides serving other useful functions.

Every Shuttle flight costs around half a million dollars, mabye more. Do you think this money just goes into thin air? No, it goes into somebody's pocket, somebody who probably donates a lot of money to PACs and similar causes, to make sure the money keeps flowing. So Newt Gingrich's, I think it was either his home town or his Congressional district, was the third most subsidized one in the country. Corporate welfare extravaganza.

The ISS isn't finished yet ; I'm talking about the total projected cost to build the full thing. If we don't do that, then it is almost totally useless scientifically ; it already did nothing to further exploration. If we do, then it will cost the full price, and may well be largely a waste anyway, at least compared with what we could have been doing otherwise.

I don't know if we need a change in methodology, that is, having the NASA bureaucracy design the vehicles or the Lockheed bureaucracy (they're very integrated with eachother anyway, according to Zubrin & others) or not, but what is absolutely essential in my view is just that we stop funding these huge pork barrel projects and shift to something which is useful.

As far as I can see, if we deleted ISS, and either scaled down or deleted the Shuttle, and even a quarter of the free money went to robotic exploration while the rest vanished, we'd still be doing a lot more useful stuff. But there's no reason for the rest to vanish. We can spend it on making new launch vehicles, ones which actually do something useful.

soph · 2003-04-08 19:55:55

No, no, no. It's not up to NASA-it's up to Congress! Congress approves the budget, and they slice and dice where they want. The Shuttle program lives because Congress sees it as a political boon, not because of NASA bureaucracy!

And the ISS is nearly complete. There are very few additions left-most work has been finished.

And if the funding to the Shuttle is cut, it's gone-it's been approved for a specific purpose by Congress, and can't be shifted to another purpose without the express approval of Congress, who are not likely to give most of the money back for a down-the-line "maybe" replacement.

The Shuttle is very useful. Without it, the Hubble would be seeing fog. And our manned program would nearly cease to exist.

Look, I hate corporate and political pork, but it's not NASA to blame, it's the Congresspeople who create the pork-not the Sean O'Keefes.

A fully staffed ISS will be very beneficial to our space program and space sciences. We just have to get there. America needs its own Soyuz, Russia is not dependable financially.

Like I said, and I have a background in the area (family), Lockheed and Boeing...don't make their money on space. Lockheed has the contract for the JSF, and Boeing has the F-22 and the unmanned Predator planes, a huge financial success, and possibly the future of the company. They don't need the Deltas and the Atlases. $60 million, $70 million apiece? That's nothing to them, they make more on commercial aircraft, and military aircraft.

If you were to see a real effort by Congress to revamp NASA into it's state of R&D, and incentivize the private sector, then we would see some real change.

dicktice · 2003-04-09 08:29:36

Soph: I agree with so much of what you say about the ISS, and the remaining Shuttle orbiters, and NASA concentrating on research ... that my few objections would seem trivial and definitely counterproductive. So....
I've been googling the internet (love that expression!) for (1) maglev launching schemes (2) H2/O2 engine development (3) flyback schemes ... as you know, from my Interplanetary Transportation posts. I'm amazed how far along NASA, Boeing/Rocketdyne, et al. have progressed in the interim--

Launching Rockets
Last October, negotiations were completed on a three-year contract with NASA to build a new Inductrack model at Lawrence Livermore to demonstrate the concept at speeds up to Mach 0.5 (170 meters per second). NASA is interested in maglev technology to help launch rockets at sharply reduced costs. As conceived, a track would use a reusable launcher to propel a rocket up a ramp to almost Mach 1 speeds before the rocket's main engines fire. According to Smith, the technology should be able to save about 30% of the weight of the launch vehicle. "Rocket engines are not fuel-efficient at low speed," he points out.
The Livermore team is designing a 150-meter-long track, to be built at the Laboratory site, on which a scaled launch cradle and rocket will be accelerated. Unlike the present track, the one for NASA will interleave powered drive coils with passive levitation coils to reach the required speeds. The team is partnered with computer scientists at Pennsylvania State University, who are developing an integrated design code that includes magnetics, aerodynamics, stresses, and control stability to assess full-scale systems.
Post believes Inductrack offers NASA the potential for a far less expensive technology for magnetic levitation launchers than approaches using superconducting coils. He and Smith note, however, that while the existing Inductrack model has demonstrated the principle of the concept, there are new issues to be addressed in launching rockets. Among these are high g forces, sustained speeds of Mach 0.5 or higher, the effects of fluctuating aerodynamic forces on the launching cradle and its payload, and aerodynamic and other issues associated with detachment and flight of rockets.
--Arnie Heller

Sideways Rockets: What if the shuttle took off more like
a jet on an aircraft carrier?
Consider a typical space shuttle launch. The orbiter is so huge that only enormous engines can break it free from Earth's gravity. Big engines, in turn, demand a lot of fuel. So technicians bolt an extra tank and two booster rockets to the orbiter, point the whole contrivance straight up, and fire the engines. Whoosh! A lot of noise, a lot of flame, enough smoke and steam to suffocate a small city, and the rocket just sort of sits there for a second or two, looking as if it might fall over instead of shoot into space. Of course, this usually works out fine. But once those engines ignite, there's no stopping the bullet if something goes wrong.
Now consider an alternative scenario. Suppose a force other than a rocket engine could accelerate the shuttle sideways along the ground until it reaches, say, 400 miles per hour before heading skyward--like a 747 gaining speed on a long runway as it develops lift. And suppose mission control could keep contact with the rocket longer, monitoring its innards as it gained speed so that it could safely be stopped, even at the last second. And instead of carrying hundreds of tons of highly flammable fuel along for the ride, suppose a lot of it could be left behind in exchange for a $75 jolt of electricity.
Scientists at NASA are beginning to think they can do just that by placing a rocket on a sledlike carrier, floating the carrier above a horizontal metal track with an electromagnetic force, shooting it down the track, and then lighting the engines at the last moment. The technology behind this frictionless sled that could accelerate a rocket to 400 mph in less than 10 seconds is called magnetic levitation, or maglev. Curiously, maglev is an idea first proposed in 1909 by Robert Goddard, the father of modern rocketry. In recent years engineers have been busy developing this concept for passenger trains.
At the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, NASA engineers like Bill Jacobs and engineers from PRT Advanced Maglev Systems Inc. have built a 50-foot maglev rocket-launcher test track. When Jacobs throws a switch, alternating current hums through electromagnetic coils in a stubby aluminum rail mounted on heavy concrete piers. The current creates a repulsive magnetic field between the track and the sled, which supports a five-foot-long, 30-pound model rocket. The carrier rises with a thunk, and the magnetic field holds it poised a half inch in the air. Jacobs hits another switch and the rocket shoots ahead sharply, powered by a linear induction motor. The motor works like an electric-drill motor split open and laid out in a straight line, so that the power surges from one end to the other instead of around in a circle, thus producing thrust. On the test track, the sled races to 60 mph in less than half a second over a distance of perhaps 30 feet.
NASA scientists think a full-blown 1.5-mile version of the track--perhaps sloped upward at the end--could help cut the cost of launching payloads into orbit from $10,000 per pound to as little as $100 a pound. "By not having to carry the fuel and power with us, we can design smaller and therefore cheaper vehicles," says Sherry Buschmann, launch technologies manager at Marshall Space Flight Center.
Using an off-board energy source could mean a 20 percent reduction in the weight of the vehicle--or a 20 percent increase in payload. It would also, Buschmann says, "enable a safe abort scenario." Keeping a rocket in contact with the ground during the crucial first seconds would allow onboard sensors to detect problems and report them to a computer that might even be able to repair them before liftoff.
The idea seems nothing short of ingenious if only because the shuttle, originally designed to economically fly about 30 times per year, has never lived up to those expectations. Last year's shuttle budget was $2.9 billion. The rocket flew three times. NASA says a typical flight costs $400 million. But maglev launch technology is still experimental, and problems abound. A typical maglev-launched rocket would weigh 120,000 pounds and the carrier sled half that much. To stand up to the 2g force of accelerating from zero to 400 mph in 9.3 seconds, both would have to be very strong. And managing so much concentrated power will not be easy, Buschmann says. How would you store and distribute it? Flywheels? Capacitors? Batteries? And the question of exactly how the space vehicle will connect to its carrier--and disconnect--is still up in the air.
But maglev technology is moving ahead. Experimental maglev trains are running in Japan and Germany, and Pittsburgh is considering construction of a maglev train. Soon NASA will move its maglev test apparatus to the Kennedy Space Center and develop a 200-foot-long dual track with more powerful magnets. Can a fast track to outer space be far behind?

Inductrack Passive Magnetic Levitation
PERMANENT MAGNETS under an Inductrack train car are arranged in a Halbach array (above) so that the magnetic-field lines reinforce one another below the array but cancel one another out above it. When moving, the magnets induce currents in the track's circuits, which produce an electromagnetic field that repels the array, thus levitating the train car. Halbach arrays can also provide lateral stability if they are deployed alongside the track's circuits (below).
Called the Inductrack, the new system is passive in that it uses no superconducting magnets or powered electromagnets. Instead it uses permanent room-temperature magnets, similar to the familiar bar magnet, only more powerful. On the underside of each train car is a flat, rectangular array of magnetic bars called a Halbach array. (It is named after its inventor, Klaus Halbach, a retired Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory physicist.) The bars are arranged in a special pattern, so that the magnetic orientation of each bar is at right angles to the orientations of the adjacent bars [see top illustration on this page]. When the bars are placed in this configuration, the magnetic-field lines combine to produce a very strong field below the array. Above the array, the field lines cancel one another out.
The second critical element is the track, which is embedded with closely packed coils of insulated wire. Each coil is a closed circuit, resembling a rectangular window frame. The Inductrack, as its name suggests, produces levitating force by inducing electric currents in the track. Moving a permanent magnet near a loop of wire will cause a current to flow in the wire, as English physicist Michael Faraday discovered in 1831. When the Inductrack's train cars move forward, the magnets in the Halbach arrays induce currents in the track's coils, which in turn generate an electromagnetic field that repels the arrays. As long as the train is moving above a low critical speed of a few kilometers per hour-a bit faster than walking speed-the Halbach arrays will be levitated a few centimeters above the track's surface.
The magnetic field acts much like a compressed spring: the levitating force increases exponentially as the separation between the track and the train car decreases. This property makes the Inductrack inherently stable-it can easily adjust to an increasing load or to acceleration forces from rounding a bend in the track. Thus, the system would not require control circuits to maintain the levitation of the train cars. All the train would need is some source of drive power to accelerate it.
In the past, engineers believed permanent magnets could not be used in maglev systems, because they would yield too little levitating force relative to their weight. The Inductrack's combination of Halbach arrays and closely packed track coils, however, results in levitation forces approaching the theoretical maximum force per unit area that can be exerted by permanent magnets. Calculations show that by using high-field alloys-neodymium-iron-boron, for example-it is possible to achieve levitating forces on the order of 40 metric tons per square meter with magnet arrays that weigh as little as 800 kilograms per square meter, or one fiftieth of the weight levitated.
In a full-scale Inductrack system, the track would consist of two rows of tightly packed rectangular coils, each corresponding to one of the steel rails in a conventional track. The main levitating Halbach arrays would be placed on the underside of the train car so that they would run just above the rows of coils [see the second illustration on this page]. Smaller Halbach arrays could be deployed alongside the rows of coils to provide lateral stability for the train car. Such a configuration would somewhat resemble its counterpart in an ordinary train-namely, a flanged wheel rolling on a steel rail. In the Inductrack the role of the "flanges" is played by the small side-mounted Halbach arrays, whereas the role of the "wheel" is fulfilled by the main levitating arrays.
--Jack McClintock

Any comments, before I adapt this material to fit the Mountain launching track scheme...?

Alexander Sheppard · 2003-04-09 21:38:33

If they are actually going to finish the ISS with only a three man crew, then they may as well just deorbit it now and save us the expense, because such an arrangement is almost completely useless scientifically, with some two and a half persons being used simply for upkeep.

The Hubble would have seen fog without the Shuttle, that is true, but the fact is that fixing it with the Shuttle took somewhere around half as much--this is one flight--as it took to put it up there in the first place. So, if we had cancelled that flight and another one, we would have had almost enough money, just from that, to launch a new Hubble. And most Shuttle missions do nothing as compelling as this. Most of the things with much scientific value done on the Shuttle could be done much cheaper with unmanned probes.

Having a manned space program is not the point of space exploration. It has to do something. At present our manned program is not going anywhere and is, to a large extent, a waste. Given the choice between cancelling our existing manned space program and diverting a substantial fraction of the leftover money to robotic exploration, and keeping things going the way they are going, the scientific value is unquestionably favoring the former choice. But I think we can do better than both, however.

Congress hires the administrators, so it is logical to expect that they won't disagree much with Congress.

I agree with you very much that Lockheed and Boeing don't make so much money on space. Space is a side program. The DoD is the main pork provider in our country (ever hear of something called the military industrial complex? Bingo). Nevertheless, they make some money.

Shaun Barrett · 2003-04-10 02:12:07

Hi Dicktice!
A very interesting post.
Especially the bit about reducing launch costs to orbit from $10,000 to $100 per pound ... music to my ears!

I just wish they'd stop talking about these things and GET ON WITH IT !!

soph · 2003-04-10 04:43:01

So, if we had cancelled that flight and another one, we would have had almost enough money, just from that, to launch a new Hubble.

Actually, the Hubble cost, all in all, somewhere around $2.5 billion.

And I am pretty sure that they are going to finish the ISS for a 7 man crew.

Congress hires the administrators, so it is logical to expect that they won't disagree much with Congress.

The president hires them, Congress simply says ok. They don't know enough to really say no anyway. Congress has made it a mission to keep NASA's budget down.

Nevertheless, they make some money.

What, 10% a booster? $6-$7 million per Delta IV? Pennies.

dicktice · 2003-04-10 09:16:02

Given two (2) Soyuz TM "lifeboats" capable of carrying three (3) cosmonauts/astronauts each--planned for, but not funded--the ISS can be occupied by up to six (6) assorted specialist crewmembers indefinitely, allowing work to proceed on the three (3) remaining Shuttle orbiters without undo urgency. All it needs now, is for Congress to eliminate the nonproliferation treaty that prevents funding the increased spacecraft production necessary to support this plan...!

Alexander Sheppard · 2003-04-10 10:57:06

The Hubble has cost, probably more than $2.5 billion all in all. However, I was talking about the initial cost, which somewhere around $1.5 billion. Actually my numbers were, I think, a bit off--instead of "two and little bit" Shuttle flights being equal to a Hubble, we can say "three minus a little bit". That would be more accurate. But this is all irrelevant anyway because the Shuttle is a huge program which has cost tens of billions of dollars over some two decades whereas the Hubble is a one shot expense. This doesn't come close to a justification.

True, the President hires them. All the more the alliance with the establishment, then.

Again, they make some money. It is not much compared with what they get from the DoD but it is something. Pennies from a variety of sources add up to nickels, dimes and quaters.

RobertDyck · 2003-04-10 11:21:11

Alexander is correct; Lockheed and Boeing are there to make money. They will never develop space infrastructure until it is proven that a profit can be earned. NASA will have to lead the way with space exploration. There is profit to be made: many people are willing to pay big bucks to tourism in low Earth orbit. Once space tourism is established, more exotic destinations will become the expensive status symbols; places like the Moon or Mars. Space tourism is a profitable industry, but inexpensive and safe access to LEO has to be developed first. That means NASA must develop it.

There is also industry potential. Earth has been mined out of all the easy to access deposits. Historians tell me our ancestors in Europe during the copper age mined all the green copper ore until there was none left within access of copper tools. The ice age came and scraped the mountains. This uncovered new ore deposits but that was mined out. After depletion of these copper deposits, Europeans discovered a white ore that produced copper, and the resulting copper was stronger. This was actually copper/arsenic alloy (stay away from the smoke during smelting). But that was also depleted so we now need deep mining heavy equipment. In North America there were stories of people mining gold by "panning" streams. That is they found pure gold nuggets in the stream bed that could be separated by sloshing water over gravel in a pie pan. One story of a silver mine was of a vein on the surface a few feet wide by tens of feet long so rich that you could scoop out the silver with a spoon. Today commercial mines are extracting trace quantities from the ore. The Martha Mine is extracting extremely low grade ore, their cut-off point is 0.75 grams gold / tonne of ore before it is marked as waste rock. The asteroids have not been mined yet, so all the rich deposits are waiting for us to get them. Furthermore, Earth has separated elements so most of the heavy elements are trapped in the core. The asteroids are accessible: think of the asteroid belt as a small planet that is already ground-up for miners.

Asteroids are literally a gold mine waiting to be harvested; however Lockheed and Boeing are not going to invest in asteroid mining technology until after it has been proven to be profitable. The private organization P.E.R.M.A.N.E.N.T. is working to develop asteroid ore extraction technology, but affordable access to orbit and transportation from LEO to the asteroid is beyond their means. NASA will have to develop these. Furthermore, NASA will have to perform the initial prospecting to prove there are commercially viable deposits out there. Scientists may want to send probes to investigate the origin of the solar system, but NASA will have to send prospecting probes if space industry is to be started.

Bill White · 2003-04-10 12:10:08

NASA must develop [the ice-breakingtechnologies]. . .

Setting aside the Russians and Chinese and Indians for now, I agree, of course.

Okay, Robert, what is your best argument for "why" NASA should be funded to do this. Not arguments that preach to the choir of space advocates but arguments that might persuade the US Congress?

RobertDyck · 2003-04-10 13:17:51

Opening a new industry means more jobs. Jobs = votes. These are high-tech jobs to produce a new, advanced aerospace transportation system. High-tech jobs means skilled labour, and well paying jobs. Good salaries = votes. Importing precious metals makes the country that harvests them the world leader in industrial technologies that require those resources, as well as the economic leader for precious metals markets. High-tech + precious metals would definitely get the attention of Wall Street. Precious metals would provide a very rich export industry to increase the economy. More economy means more tax revenue. Economically speaking, space resources could be brought into the U.S. and would be considered a domestic resource. It would then be exported (possibly with export duty) to the rest of the world. As for space tourism, the country which develops access to LEO could control where the space port is built. The space port would have all that tourist traffic coming in, waiting at a hotel for their trip into space, taking tours of the space port facility and surrounding area. Doesn't that sound like a major industry?

New industry = jobs. Jobs = votes. High-tech jobs = good salary. Good salary = votes. Tourism means tourist dollars. Tourist dollars means jobs for tourist traps in the area. Jobs = votes.

The country that establishes the space industry can also control support industries such as mining, refining, and storing fuel. If ice from asteroids can be mined to produce LH2/LOX then that would be the key industry to support space industry. Wouldn't congress want the U.S. to be the energy producer for space? Congress seems to like control.

Bill White · 2003-04-10 13:23:42

Thanks! Is it fair to summarize your argument as follows:

Investing in space will bring more wealth (jobs, raw materials, profits) to the nation that invests in space?

soph · 2003-04-10 16:26:18

Well, Robert, unless they are there to lose money, it's pretty obvious that they are there to make money.

My point was that they aren't the big 3 of the auto industry, killing all competition. They have an interest, but they aren't really doing anything to keep anybody out, they simply are the only companies with the funds to maintain a solid presence in the market.

We aren't likely to see Boeing investing in anything new because it's going through rough times, and the likeliest innovation from Boeing will be in commercial and military aircraft, to beat airbus commercially, and Lockheed militarily. Lockheed is a military-based company, and that's where they'll stay, IMHO.

NASA has to shift from a contracting and launch agency to an R&D agency, developing new systems, that can be applied by private companies in vehicles. This would save vast amounts of money-one agency can do most of the R&D for all vehicle systems, including certification, which means that these resources are saved by each company that wants to use these systems.

Perhaps $500 million-$1 billion in grants to private businesses for developing systems, in addition to the R&D money can be allotted. So, my idea of NASA's budget is something like this (assuming Congress would approve, which is another story):

1) $10 billion for systems R&D (propulsion, life support, etc.)

2) $2 billion for unmanned probes, rovers, etc.

3) $1 billion for spaceport development (i.e. new spaceports)

4) $3 billion for research grants

5) $1 billion for grants to private companies developing vehicles.

Josh Cryer · 2003-04-11 00:02:21

Wow, that's a lot of money for a society that doesn't care about space.

soph · 2003-04-11 04:34:19

It's roughly the same as the NASA budget now.

clark · 2003-04-11 11:00:58

Perhaps $500 million-$1 billion in grants to private businesses for developing systems, in addition to the R&D money can be allotted. So, my idea of NASA's budget is something like this (assuming Congress would approve, which is another story):

Do a google search for 'NASA' & 'SBIR'. Look at all the university partnerships- all R&D stuff.

Alexander Sheppard · 2003-04-16 10:34:50

As regards to corporations, it has to be understood that any large corporation is almost completely devoted to increasing profit, because if they were not, they would soon be out done by somebody who was. So these corporations are not going to fund science initiatives which are unprofitable for the next fifty years and mabye never ; for them it is only sustainable to do short term research which pays off quick. In our society, however, we do have a main organization which funds long term research: the Pentagon. NASA also fufills this role on a smaller scale, as do many other organizations.

So I do not think that it is acceptable from a practical standpoint to simply leave the decisions up to private corporations which may choose not even to use them, because they are simply not profitable. This is merely from a practical standpoint ; if you want to talk about the ethicality of using public money to fund eventual private profit, that's another thing, as are many other topics.

SpaceNut · 2017-06-10 18:45:25

Yes your take on the people and the skill align with what Nasa has in this document and where are we, still waiting on robotic missions at a snail pace.....With Space x still raising funds to build bigger....and Nasa hoping that funding grows to keep pace with inflation...
I think Nasa needs to be broken down into several agencies with no overlapping responsibilites to rocket building....

Oldfart1939 wrote:

SpaceNut-
Yes, NASA has succumbed to the bureaucratic disease of Empire Building within. NASA is really an outgrowth of NACA, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, and aeronautics responsibility remains as part of the charter. Some of the propulsion research should be broken out, as well as the aeronautics responsibility. Earth Sciences should go to NOAA. The NASA pie is $19.1 Billion this year, and the internal competition for funds is unreal.

SpaceNut · 2017-06-10 18:49:40

Even older than this topic was "NASA...You have a problem..."

Privatizing NASA - George Bush Privatizing President

NASA is screwed up. - I have no patience left :-(

Split Up NASA? - Separate Agency For Each Destination?

Ps just finished fixing the topics artifacts and shifting....now to fix the others I referenced as simular topics....

louis · 2017-06-11 03:51:30

I used to argue that the USA would do better if it broke up NASA into a (a) Mars and Lunar Exploration Agency and (b) a Scientific Space Agency with each taking about half the NASA budget. That would restore focus - on both sides I think. The ISS is really more of a political statement than anything else, wonderful though it is. Paying $60 billion so people can take nice photos up in orbit or speak to school children is not good value for money.

But probably too late for good sense to prevail. The pork barrels are well and truly spread around the country (isn't that why ground control in Houston is in Texas rather than Florida? ) and are difficult to budge.

SpaceNut wrote:

Yes your take on the people and the skill align with what Nasa has in this document and where are we, still waiting on robotic missions at a snail pace.....With Space x still raising funds to build bigger....and Nasa hoping that funding grows to keep pace with inflation...
I think Nasa needs to be broken down into several agencies with no overlapping responsibilites to rocket building....
Oldfart1939 wrote:
SpaceNut-
Yes, NASA has succumbed to the bureaucratic disease of Empire Building within. NASA is really an outgrowth of NACA, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, and aeronautics responsibility remains as part of the charter. Some of the propulsion research should be broken out, as well as the aeronautics responsibility. Earth Sciences should go to NOAA. The NASA pie is $19.1 Billion this year, and the internal competition for funds is unreal.

Oldfart1939 · 2017-06-11 06:50:15

It would seem to me that a better split would be a separate agency for manned space exploration beyond LEO, and another for robotic probes. The ISS is probably not going to get the ongoing funding that it's received to this point, and would best be privatized with rent-a-lab space for those corporate entities and such.

Lockheed Martin and Boeing vis-à-vis the ULA seems to be the big recipient of the government largesse.

This is why we have the SLS, with over a $1 Billion a launch projected as a throwaway spacecraft.

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