Should NASA be merged with other space agencies? - Creating a Unified, Single framework.

srmeaney · 2005-04-22 03:50:04

Fundamentaly you oppose a single global space agency because it will never be something other than a thinktank of creativity run by the engineers and scientists who would produce research and development of space travel.

Basicly you oppose the Beuracracy.

Grypd · 2005-04-22 04:19:01

Fundamentaly you oppose a single global space agency because it will never be something other than a thinktank of creativity run by the engineers and scientists who would produce research and development of space travel.
Basicly you oppose the Beuracracy.

No I oppose a space orgnisation that is based on the red tape that is the UN. If you think that creating a world space organisation that is based on UN policies will increase space access then you are in for a surprise.

Both the USA and USSR during the first days of space launches used small units to design there space craft. These small design bureaus did not have the red tape and need to get everything signed off by 5 to 6 different organisations.

It is when we get large committees and a lot of pressure from various different groups to design spacecraft that we get major Snafus. (see ISS, Shuttle).

A world organisation would end up having inputs from many countries and organisations in those countries and it would also have to ensure work done is spread out equally across the world. This would be to show it was being "fair" and "equitable" and every country gets a share of the pie.

Fledi · 2005-04-22 05:16:16

I wasn't talking about downsizing NASA, just about letting private enterprizes try to build up their own space industry.
We'll see if they can make it profitable then.

The problem of consumer goods being produced abroad for a smaller price is there among most of the western world.
In the best case it might solve itself as wages in those countries increase.
But I guess it is more realistic to assume it will lead to a new phase of protectionism as everyone will try to keep the jobs in the country.
Ultimately there is a development going on that could be described as "the 3rd industrial revolution". We have new inventions like the rapid prototyping machine and circuit printers plus more and more autonomous machine tools becoming affordable.
This could completely change the way goods are produced. Not by large factories, but among a few individuals. This might lead to a decentralization of goods production, where you only need to have large industries for raw materials and energy production.
That would make it pretty much senseless to ship consumer goods around half the world.

Martian Republic · 2005-04-22 08:49:33

>>I wasn't talking about downsizing NASA, just about letting private enterprizes try to build up their own space industry.
We'll see if they can make it profitable then.<<

The problem is that there are no customers for private enterprise to serve on the moon and they don't have the technology or infrastructure to get to the moon in a cost efficient and timely fashion. As great as space ship one is. It still just a sub-orbital craft and does not even achieve orbit even. We have private rocket manufactures in the United States too. But the only place that there are any real contracts that they can count on to build a business around will have to come from NASA or possibly the military, because they are the only one that could possibly funnel enough contracts to them on a regular bases. Now there may be other companies that may be able to use there service from time to time and may use there services, but they won't be enough of those kinds of contracts that those private companies need so that they can make a profit at it and do anything significant in space. That one of the reason getting NASA out of the small rockets that cost 50 to 100 million dollars a piece and let private enterprise have that sector. This sector would include most of the communication satellites and the unmanned probes to the moon, mars and the outer planets, but the private sector would be just providing the booster section to get it out into orbit and rest of the rocket with the probes will be dealt with by NASA. I support sending 10 to 20 probes or contracts that would need small booster that those private companies will be competing for to get. Without this kind of a customer base, private enterprise is dead in water and can't do very much and any private enterprise that tries to go it alone will go bankrupt, because they will run out of money.

>>The problem of consumer goods being produced abroad for a smaller price is there among most of the western world.
In the best case it might solve itself as wages in those countries increase.
But I guess it is more realistic to assume it will lead to a new phase of protectionism as everyone will try to keep the jobs in the country.
Ultimately there is a development going on that could be described as "the 3rd industrial revolution". We have new inventions like the rapid prototyping machine and circuit printers plus more and more autonomous machine tools becoming affordable.
This could completely change the way goods are produced. Not by large factories, but among a few individuals. This might lead to a decentralization of goods production, where you only need to have large industries for raw materials and energy production.
That would make it pretty much senseless to ship consumer goods around half the world.<<

You advance two idea here. One of them is that the rest of the world is going to be industrialized down and as the United States is being de-industrialized. Although there may actually be some industrialization of some third world nation as the United States is being de-industrialized, they are not benefiting from any business that there getting from the United States. Let take outsourcing to other countries as an example. When the United State started outsourcing, we started in Mexico and the average wages were .50 cents an hour and after the outsourcing that dropped to .30 cents an hour or even .25 cents an hour. Well, then we started outsourcing to China which beat out Mexico, because the Chinese could pay there workers .10 cents an hour. Remember we started off with the manufacturing inside the United States and the minimum wage is about 5.50 or something like that and our factory worker was probably getting 7.00 or 8.00 dollars with healthcare. Now he or she is unemployed or under employed and can't buy the goods that are coming back at that cheaper price and much reduced quality of what they use produce. So this deal was a bad deal for the United States and it people and it was a bad deal for Mexico and it people and it even a bad deal for the Chinese who finally got the contract, because every body is being ripped off to produce those products at slave labor wages. Eventually it collapses the physical economy of all three countries and will collapse is they keep engaging in those policies.

You bring up the individual or the small company taking the lead. I agree with that, but open those doors to those private individuals, because they either don't have the resource or there interest will conflict with big business when new things come on line. So the government has to media between establish business and new potential business and upstarts. Also most of the new jobs will be created by these new business upstarts too. But, we also need those old established business too, because they build things like cars, planes, refine the oil, etc. But, we also need government business like air ports, etc. So we have to do a balancing act between the different sections of the economy and what the economy is going to be in the future and the best place to do that is at the Central Government and laws they make. We need to do this to create that business and promote future growth in both the physical economy down here, but also in space too.

Larry,

Martin_Tristar · 2005-04-22 22:32:01

First and foremost the red tape in the United States and Any other government in the world is vast, but that is government. !!!!!!

Fledi, the rules for private industry space program are there under the outer space treaty and have been formulated by the United States, Australia, and many other countries through space industry legislation. If you follow the process, meet and continue to meet requirements and paid the annual government fees for a license to launch into space and conduct a space facilities, then yes you can have a private space program.

Privatisation of Space is a major goal and very important one to expand humanity in space and create a solar system based economy to pay for the huge costs to maintain and provide a return on expenditure. Also the population of non-earth population must increase into space upwards of 100,000 to start to build a viable economy until then we need to create primary trade with earth or earth related activities and projects. This goal could be achieved within one century.

The major mining operations need development on an automated basis to take humans out of the process to extract ore from asteroids, and other extreme environment planets and moons. The centralized spac agency primary goal is co-ordination not development or launching that is country space agency, but the centralized agency aslo create the laws and control outside the world onbehalf of the whole world, not the country space agencies. Please won't accept the Russian laws in space or American laws in space or the chinese law in space then what about global human law in space.

Chazbro38 · 2005-04-22 23:14:14

NASA should be reduced to a multidisiplinary research agency like the National Institutes of Health and all of its research centers should have their management and operations farmed out to the private sector. NASA should just fund various research grants not conduct research itself. I think it has proven that it is a highly dysfuctional organization which is no longer capable of fulfilling its mandate.

srmeaney · 2005-04-23 00:52:40

So the possibility of NASA merging with the Canadian space Agency and Brazil Space to create an ESA-like entity for the Nations of North and South America is neither of benifit nor acceptable.

Martian Republic · 2005-04-23 07:06:30

NASA should be reduced to a multidisiplinary research agency like the National Institutes of Health and all of its research centers should have their management and operations farmed out to the private sector. NASA should just fund various research grants not conduct research itself. I think it has proven that it is a highly dysfuctional organization which is no longer capable of fulfilling its mandate.

The only reason that NASA is dysfunctional, is because of the US Government and US Government Policies and the people that control the US Government from outside the US Government like the financial powers in side the United States.

NASA can only do what there allowed to do by the US Government, after all NASA is only a government agency and the US Government is the one that determines NASA missions and ultimately goals too. An example of a NASA that almost could do nothing wrong was during the John F. Kennedy Moon Programs. So if we want to see NASA that is doing something like that, we need to give them a new mission and the financial resources to get the job done or otherwise we should not expect NASA to do too much, because they are not allowed to do it. Most of the people in NASA are just a frustrated as the rest of us are, by not being allowed to do things like this anymore.

Larry,

Fledi · 2005-04-23 09:05:37

I think we need organizations like NASA for space exploration, something that is very hard if not impossible to do profitable. Exploration also incudes sending the first people to a planet or moon, as well as all the unmanned probes.

Where private industry will be needed is for settlement, that one should do on a cost effective basis and not end up with hard to maintain projects like, you know what I mean

I haven't read about anything that would prohibit making profits by mining space resources in that space treaty for example. Of course as soon as people will be there in numbers you will have to allocate segments to everyone, so they won't come into conflict with each other for the best places.

It is sad to hear about outsourced industries actually causing a drop in wages, instead of improving things.
But there are positive developments, too. For example, I was doing an internship at an aircraft maintenance factory of General Electric in Hungary less than a year ago. They were counting with wages (before taxes) of 8$ to 10$ for engineers, while people were earning maybe 200$ to 300$ a month there in the early 90s following the fall of communism.

reddragon · 2005-04-23 13:00:29

Merging NASA with other agencies would be putting all our eggs in one basket. If someone didn't do their job it could be the end for an entire mission or program. Worse if the agency itself collapsed it would bring all of space exploration with it. I think we need various groups (governments, non-profits like the Mars Society, and for-profit companies) all working on space exploration. These groups can work together sometimes when their interests are the same (for example a joint NASA-ESA mission), but should not rely on each other to get a job done and should be able to do their own things without others approval. One area where I think that NASA and ESA might do well to work together somewhat is Mars exploration. Both agencies are developing plans which would involve sending various scientific and technology demonstration missions that eventually lead to human exploration. Many of the robotic missions don't need to be done twice. For example, if one agency demonstrates a technique for producing methane fuel from the Martian atmosphere, the other agency doesn't have to do the same thing. It can skip that one and move on to the next step. For each individual mission, however, it is probably best to have either NASA or ESA do it since a collaboration would only add more complecity.

SpaceNut · 2005-04-26 05:08:12

The developement of items that can be used by other is a good step but what happens when the nation that has the item can not sell it to you because of some law prohibiting it because that nation sells weapon to a nation that you feel should not have them. I am refering to the Russian Iran problem and why Nasa can not pay for soyuz seats directly. What then?

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#26 2005-04-22 03:50:04

Re: Should NASA be merged with other space agencies? - Creating a Unified, Single framework.

#27 2005-04-22 04:19:01

Re: Should NASA be merged with other space agencies? - Creating a Unified, Single framework.

#28 2005-04-22 05:16:16

Re: Should NASA be merged with other space agencies? - Creating a Unified, Single framework.

#29 2005-04-22 08:49:33

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#30 2005-04-22 22:32:01

Re: Should NASA be merged with other space agencies? - Creating a Unified, Single framework.

#31 2005-04-22 23:14:14

Re: Should NASA be merged with other space agencies? - Creating a Unified, Single framework.

#32 2005-04-23 00:52:40

Re: Should NASA be merged with other space agencies? - Creating a Unified, Single framework.

#33 2005-04-23 07:06:30

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#34 2005-04-23 09:05:37

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#35 2005-04-23 13:00:29

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