Reactions to NASA's Fiscal Year 2011 proposed budget
This video was created by Benjamin Higginbotham on February 2, 2010
This was an action packed press conference with programs getting slashed left and right. We show my reaction to some key points in the speech as well as the general reaction of Spacevidcasters around the world.
What do you think of this new proposed path for NASA? Good? Bad? Something else completely? Join us live this Friday at 0200 UTC to chat in person right here on Spacevidcast.com!
Related Posts
Spacevidcast epic
Cool Spacevidcast Stuff
Letters from the CommunityZazzle StoreWallpapers, Ringtones and DownloadsDesktop Video ApplicationViewership Statistics
Join our e-mail newsletter
For Email Marketing you can trust
Next Live Show 4.23
Our Shows
Join the conversation
Subscribe to us
Spacevidcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
Here’s my reaction. I recorded it last night just after the announcement.
Yes, I am wearing my ARES Polo.
we need a one world government ..nuff said.
And countrys that dont listen need to get nuked..
Looking at all those polls & comments on ABC(Wrong move),L.A. Times(No 60%),Space . c o m(61% NO)..Twitter:WRONG
wake up space nerds.the us is in deep shit. going into to space is not cheap.only a global team will go back to the moon and then onto mars.private company’s could sponsor project.like on Defying Gravity’
Lets see…. no money for space, but apparently lots of money for the military, not to mention a little money for an arms deal with Taiwan.
The US is too fond of illegal wars and crime to be a part of any space program. Burt Rutan will kill another bunch of people with his plastic toys but no one will mind too much because it’s just a slightly more advanced version of ballooning and nothing really to do with space.
Space stations are old tech, the Russians know how to build them so they work (the US camping in the airlock is a prime example of incredibly shoddy design and awful decision making). The next step is a Moon Base, there is nothing on Mars worth looking at and it’s too far away for our tech level. The Chinese will put a base on the moon just for the propaganda value but the scientific and industrial yields should be massive too. A lunar shipyard making bases and ships out of lunar regolith is where a Mars program will eventually originate.
Maybe the Chinese will allow a video feed, maybe not.
NASA’s budget in 2009 was $17 billion. The entire US federal budget was $2.7 trillion ($2700 billion). NASA’s budget accounts for 0.6% of our annual spending. Anyone who thinks cutting NASA is going to help anything at all needs to learn math.
LMAO!!!
Scrapping the constellation program
How damn sad
they couldnt have got rid of the ISS as other countries that were involved wanted it to continue especially russia,
the second two points about going around the solar system and new technology just seem like political speech with no clear direction , so NASA is not going to be able to get anything done.
cancelling a design that you have already tested ares 1, and the other designs that will have been in the pipeline is stupid , now THAT is wasted tax payers money!
They said the same thing back in the 60s. They then realized they needed a central focusing point for this ideal. Why else do you think the Redstone, Atlas, and titan rockets were built? (hint lockheed martin and boeing)
We’ve had commercial space vehicles for years. What we lack now is national direction.
Also, I do recall an entire environment of socio-political troubles that existed back then. I think it was called…. Oh yeah civil rights, vietnam.Our economy grew from space program.
Not to mention that lovely thing called…the microprocessor. Oh and you know there’s this thing they call the internet. Oh and how about satellite technology? All because of a centralized system for space exploration.
I’m just sayin.
I was hoping for a jupiter direct heavy lift variant but if we’re being realistic, this is a good proposal.
ISS is facilitating a lot of important research as well as technology development and enabling unprecedented international cooperation- it deservs (on its own merits) to be kept.
Constelation was never feesable and a jupiter alternative would not solve the problem, just reduce it.
Bolden’s right, the technology we have today just isn’t up to the job of meaningful human soace exploration
Actually I agree. Just have a look at the programs they have. They are doingPersonal flying cars… or something. And instead work, where is the biggest problem (low orbit transport) They waste money for some technology from 60s.
This budget will be a total disaster for NASA, I’m all for private space flight but none of them are anywhere near to putting humans in low Earth orbit let alone on or around the Moon. I don’t see how NASA can move forward when they have had their wings cliped.
Care for a non-American space-enthusiast take? I watched the Apollos going to the Moon and, as a pre-teen and teen, I believed the whole bs about it all being for mankind’s sake (read Frank Borman’s interview to NASA’s “Oral History”). No more bs. Common-sensical space exploration will either be internationally paid or non-existent. Are NASA’s stated intentions worth the saliva secreted stating them? Then again, “NASA’s leadership” (no money, no command) is becoming an oxymoron. Bold? Hardly.
how bout a better launch system? how bout ion drive?
the chinese will go to the moon and make a moon base. soon
guess i have to rely on china or russia now space aint in the usa future anymore
I was expecting a lot more rage
lol. great reactions.
I hope somehow Orion makes it way back in the budget. Its the only spacecraft on the table that Earth has to go beyond LEO.
where can i download (or buy) this music track?
@ajcool240 it is, a hiderence to it just got eliminated
DUH, gee George, space are hard! So our technologically ignorant President is going to foist business with massive tax increases then tell us they’ll take over the space program! Good job buying that garbage.
@ironbob2008 Well said.
@mobius1234 It is called “Energetic pumping electronic club track” and you can buy it at AudioJungle . net/item/energetic-pumping-electronic-club-track/48872. However, it is designed for use in videos, so you can only buy it with a license for $12.00
He is right.
NASA would spend money for improving 50years old technology instead of finding new technologies. Maybe the truth is hard, but constellation program was NOT the way to go. Sending humans on lower orbit-expensive, flying to Mars wold take months, establishing base on a moon-expensive and frankly I am glad that finally somebody made this decision.
First, I love the soundtrack! Great trance mix.
As for my reaction, well, that’s why I have a blog. So ya gotta check that out.
http://thespaceadvocate.blogspot.com/
First, love the soundtrack! Great trance mix.
Second, love the genuine and non-staged or overacted reactions Ben. Quality stuff. lol.
As for my reaction, well, that’s why I have a blog.
True, it was not the way to go, poor poor Ares 1-x.
Don’t worry. India, China and Europe’s space programs are all doing well and will continue with mankinds greatest work!
why dont the usa reduce their insanly high military budget to keep constellation going?
imo its a very sad decision.
0:44 — “Imagine trips to Mars that take weeks instead of nearly a year”
In his presentation the following day at the NPC — watch?v=e9YvIESqDUk — 0:48:40 — he mentioned it again, but this time said “game changing technology enable us to go to Mars in days, not months”.
Is this pure imagination, or is he referring to some nascent technology? NASA has funded some anti-gravity research, but he wouldn’t be referring to that, would he? Could a nuclear electric rocket achieve this?
While your reaction video was funny, consider yourself lucky if you get 1% of what is being promised to you. My feeling is that the Congress had better act carefully and thoughtfully (and our letters to them had better pour in… mine already have and I’m nowhere near done with that) or else we can kiss our space program and much of our future in general goodbye. Space has been my dream since I was seven years old and I will not witness the thing that will bring on the death of the American space program. If you want to cancel Ares I and Ares V, that’s one thing. I’m all for the buildup of newspace, commercial space, etc., but we cannot have this all or nothing approach. To do so means that in ten years there will be no American manned space program. Put Orion on another booster. Save aspects of Constellation. It’s more wasteful to cancel projects that are half finished in the name of saving a buck than it is to start from scratch time and time again to make a cheaper system. We need a direction, we need a destination, and we need a schedule. The flexible path has none of that. We got to the Moon with Apollo because we had a strong clear destination and timeline. Commercial ferrying to ISS, which is extended until 2020? Wow, that’s great except the commercial ferry’s main purpose will be transport to ISS and they probably won’t be ready until 2018 anyway. Then what? Extend ISS again? And have a dangerous orbiting piece of crap like Mir was? No thanks. What about the massive infrastructure needed to support a robust space program? We’re going to abandon that and leave commercial enterprises to build up their own? No thanks. Modify Constellation to use different boosters and to include commercial space. Do not scrap Constellation. I hope the Congress will act accordingly or else I might as well lower my standards and aspire to a job at Taco Bell.
First of all, you morons that say this is technology from the 60s, you’re idiots–plain and simple. There’s so much more to Orion then there ever was with Apollo. Go learn about the program before you blather on because you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
Apollo’s capsules never had sustainability in space built in, Orion would, as it sports it’s own solar arrays for starters.
DING DING DING! And Dan gets it right! Basically he wants to cancel a vital program so he can squeeze out more money for the union thugs. Plus, it was something Bush did so he has to do away with it. What a crass and pathetic idealogue.
You’re frightened and stupid, please don’t bore us with your childish rubbish. Glen beck is on some other channel, go fetch.
He is talking about the experimental Ion drive which is supposed to allow for ridiculous acceleration.
However, he neglects to tell anyone that kind of acceleration potential is still decades off.
No, he’s not talking about a nuclear/electric drive. He’s talking about a REAL nuclear rocket motor. Pump Hydrogen through highly-enriched uranium fuel rods and pump out a gigawatt of power. No it’s not fantasy, it was built and tested on the ground in – are you ready for this – 1967. 43 years ago!! This is real and can be re-started in months. But we better do it soon, the people who worked on this are leaving us quickly!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_thermal_rocket
Actually, he’s talking about neither a traditional ion engine or a nuclear rocket, but instead about VASIMR (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket). There have been significant breakthroughs in this technology within the past year at Ad Astra Rocket Company with some NASA seed funding.
. . . which is supposed to allow for ridiculous acceleration.”
As an astrophysicist, I can tell you that no “ridiculous acceleration” is required to drastically cut the trip, because instead of doing a very large acceleration over a few minutes and then continuing from just momentum, there were would be a small acceleration (but still much greater than the tiny acceleration of current ion drives) for an extended duration. This smaller acceleration over a much longer time would result in speeds much greater than a traditional chemical rocket can achieve. Acceleration is applied over the entire first half of the trip with a continuous equal deceleration for the second half.
@lokuzzz attack the military bc that sounds like a simple solution, but at the same time, realize that the main user of space really is military. first practical rockets (v2) were military. the first rockets to go to space were all developed from icbms. space shuttle looks like it does partly because the usaf insisted on it being that size to be able to transport satellites for them. and the space lift industry would’ve collapsed practically from inception if it weren’t for military customers.
@Ironbob2006 there is a lot more to it than an apollo makeover. but at the same time, it is partly apollo all over again and quite frankly, nasa hasn’t done a good job on selling to the public on exactly how the constellation program/orion differs from apollo. add to that the dismal timeline (jfk said we’re going to put a man on the moon in THIS decade and it was done. gwb said we’ll put a man on the moon…at the end of next decade.) and the lack of public interest makes more sense.
we have no future
I guess we go back to being like Cave men, Its so sad that our Man Kind or Human Specie will never evolve off this rock when time comes either by Super Nova of our Sun or Astreroid may be Black Hole. Its Nature of Universe it Blows up and start over. To bad that other evolved specie will never know we were here. Sorry guys, I guess I’m taking news little to hard.
It’s just america that will never make it. It was your own fault for letting criminals asset strip your country for 8 years. Maybe the Chinese will name one of their moonbases after some US landmark celebrating it’s history, the Alamo perhaps or Bay of Pigs.
It’s amusing that you can’t even see past your own borders, how could you possibly have gone to space?
Can someone please point me to a list of accomplishments on the ISS which will benefit mankind, either in his understanding of the universe, fundamental research done on the ISS or as serving as a hub for manned interplanetary travel. I cant think of any, but yet a manned mission to the Moon Mars is deemed unnecessary. Bad decision if you ask me.
Thanke you for killing my space enthusiasm. De-orbit that ISS shit, it is way way to much, for that money we could have done atleast 2 trips to mars.
WHERE IS MY PINWHEEL SPACE STATION?
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Spacevidcast, Cariann, James Moore, A Geek Mom (Shannon), GeekLoop and others. GeekLoop said: Spacevidcast: Reactions to NASA’s Fiscal Year 2011 proposed budget http://bit.ly/cc9Hgm #tech #science #news [...]
@QuasiRandomViewer He was talking about a concept known as VASIMR, which is a high power electric propulsion system. What he did not mention was that the idea was pure fantasy. The power conversion technology and heat rejection technology as well as the required specific powers are likely centuries away to make VASIMR work. I just hope he gets realistic and invests in nuclear thermal propulsion which works now, but does not give 45 day trips to mars
I’ll happily join the minority and say: way to go!
Damn you Obama… Damn you
@NAMLegolas It’s time the nation call for an impeachment procedings against President Obama! Or as I like to call him by his accronym! O.B.A.M.A One Big Ass Mistake America!
@mrcrazydudeful LOL!!!, That just gave me a good laugh! Nice one!
agreed there obamas first horrible mistake
You’re Welcome! I guess you agree with me!! Thanks for commenting!!
How did a Muslim born in Kenya even become the President of the greatest country in the world?! IMPEACH OBAMA AND HIS COMMUNIST WAYS
Most of you guys don’t get it. Yes, Constellation was canceled, but NASA’s budget for manned spaceflight was increased by 1.2 billion dollars per year. The commercial companies are only taking over the taxi service for crew to ISS and that will free up NASA to develop what we need to go back to the Moon and beyond. This is the rejuvenation of NASA and manned spaceflight NOT the end.
it will not happen to manny people oppose obamas idiotic idea .nasa is safe
It’s not Obama’s idea. It came out of the Augustine Commission report. People need to quit trying to represent this as either a left or right wing issue. There are George W. Bush Republicans who support this idea as well as Obama supporters.
This is how a typical Obama voter looks like.
I wish that both people on BOTH the far left and the far right would quit playing political football with this country’s future in space. And for the record, I am not a big Obama fan. I’m just someone who wants to see the U.S be the number one spacefaring nation.
Sorry, a typo in my last post. Here it is corrected.
I wish that people on BOTH the far left and the far right would quit playing political football with this country’s future in space. And for the record, I am not a big Obama fan. I’m just someone who wants to see the U.S be the number one spacefaring nation.
This plan put forward by Obama makes Bush actually look good
Any “good” conservative will go for this plan. Either you believe that the competition of free enterprise that made the country the envy of the world will produce a better, safer rocket than a program run by big government or you don’t. There are people who are against this plan that believe Russian commercial rockets produced by Energia Corporation are of good enough quality to launch American astronauts to ISS and American commercial launchers such as Atlas V, Delta IV and Falcon 9 are not. I don’t accept that.
WTH!!!!! commercializing space???!!!! thats just bull! going back to the moon has scientific reasons. commercializing space has none!
The idea of commercializing manned spaceflight to ISS is for it to cost less so that there will be more money for missions beyond low earth orbit. Remember that Bolden said the idea was to allow a return to the moon, a trip to an asteroid, Mars, and other destinations in the solar system.
One more thing I forgot, if you will remember Bolden also mentioned development of new technologies for going beyond low Earth orbit, such as fuel depots.
It’s funny how the Constellation program is too expensive, when: a) Obama is proposing tax increases, and, b) he’s proposing spending increases. He has acesss to 500 billion dollars in “stimulus money”, and the cuts that he is proposing in NASA’s wil put MORE people out of work. How’s that hope and change coming along?
What else do you expect from an administration that is more interested in lying to the people than investing for the future?
Obama’s administration is not interested in making America strong. All they care about is to get more votes for Democrats in the coming election. And in order to do that, they lied to the people that the so-called “health care reform” will only cost 900 Billion while a truer figure puts it much more than 2 Trillion dollars !
And on the other hand, the budget proposal for NASA has been cut.
Nobody says that going to space is going to be cheap, and it ain’t going to be cheap for anyone.
Cutting the NASA budget is one thing, LYING TO THE PEOPLE while making this budget cut is another !
What Bolden has told us, the idea of ” return to the moon”, “trip to an asteroid, Mars, and other destinations in the solar system”, “development of new technologies for going beyond low Earth orbit, such as fuel depots” are nothing but empty promises.
While China, India and Japan has joined the space race, American can’t afford to be left stranded in the bottom of the gravity well !
The only person lying is you. The new proposal calls for an INCREASE in the NASA budget of 1.2 billion dollars a year. Just because Constellation is being canceled does not mean a cut in the overall NASA budget.
I thought that LEO would be given over to commercial companies and deep space exploration would be handled by the government? I didn’t think that Obama would try to abandon the government funded program COMPLETELY! This is unprecedented. Even the 70s had the STS! And what’s with these innovative new technologies that are being talked about? Yeah, we had NERVA before, but they pulled the plug? What use is a hyperdrive if no one is willing to build the starship Enterprise?
I like how Charlie “Obama” can twist words… Enough said.
Quit trying to use our country’s future in space for the petty purpose of trying to score points against Obama. There are prominent Republicans who are for commercialization such as former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich who said this week in The Washington Times:
“The use of commercial launch companies to carry cargo and crews into low earth orbit will be controversial, but it should not be. The launch-vehicle portion of the Constellation program was so far behind schedule that the United States was not going to have independent access for humans into space for at least five years after the shutdown of the shuttle. We were going to rely upon the Russians to deliver our astronaut personnel to orbit. We have long had a cooperative arrangement with the Russians for space transportation but always have possessed our own capability. The use of commercial carriers in the years ahead will preserve that kind of independent American access.”
I thought that LEO would be given over to commercial companies and deep space exploration would be handled by the government?
And that is EXACTLY what is being proposed. Anyone who tells you different is lying
To BOTH of the last too posters. Yes, there will be jobs lost in some places, but MANY more will be created than lost because we will have a more vibrant space industries doing more things.
This is what liberals do, cut programs that advance our position in the world where it matters, like the F-22 Raptor, probably the F-35, missile defense, and now NASA’s moon mission. Then they piss it away on bullshit like ACORN, welfare, entitlements, trying to expand the dependant classes.
This asshole needs to be nothing more than a bad memory by 2013.
Lord I hope you’re right.
I have a better idea, get rid of welfare and section aide housing for the leeches.
It’s funny watching right-wingers claim he’s cutting this to give money to unions and welfare. Actually he’s cutting Constellation to escalate the wars and spend more money bailing out corporate America. His solution is to hand space travel over to the private sector. Even though private launchers have no plans for anything about LEO for the foreseeable future. Turning the US into a space taxi nation only.
What a dumb plan. I hope Congress votes his proposal down.
Again, for the sake of this country’s future in space, BOTH the left and right should quit taking petty pot shots at each other with this issue. The idea behind the commercialization approach is to lower the cost to orbit enough to allow execution of plans such as the one Bigelow has described here:
http://www.economist.com/science-technology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15543675
Woopdi do, Obama just go 9billion for health care, what a joke. As great as socialized medecine is, this is not a socialist country and will never be one. What a joke, what a thief, what and shame on me for voting for him.
This is a space related website. Please stay on topic. And if you are so against socialism, you should be against a big government space program and support the move to commercialization. I don’t know who sickens me worse, the far left with their obsessive Obamamania, or the equally fanatical far right who would have us believe Obama is a combination of the bogey-man, Vladimir Ilich Linen, and the Antichrist.
God save us from fanatics on both the far left and the far right. Both are so blinded by their dogmatic ideologies that they see only part of the truth and not its entirety. They each think they are so different from each other, but their rigid and inflexible core principles (that they never question) mean that they are really two sides of the same coin.
Glad this “Back to the 60′s” was killed! We need a sustainable Human Space Program and this “Apollo on Steroids” was not this!
News alert: 1. Bolden just blows smoke, he lies. 2. He is a stand in admin until Lori Garver can take over !! watch and see.
Obama hates excellence, that is for sure. Did you know they plan to layoff ( or transfer ) most of the astronauts ? The end, and a very sad and wrong one.
Steve, I would give anything to hear your design !! please,, please… what is it ??
Does anyone here realize that Obama actually increased the NASA budget?
The Augustine Panel found that there is no way that the Ares I would be ready on time to service the ISS and that Constellation would not get us to the moon for decades – and all we’d get is a repeat of something the US did half a decade before.
Obama is following the advice of the Augustine Panel. Increase NASA’s budget, rely on the private sector more, and give it a realistic mission that matches the available funds.
No bucks, no Buck Rogers. It’s just that simple. During the height of the Apollo program, NASA was getting 4.5% of GDP, now it’s about one-tenth that much. Reinstate Constellation, but also work on a 100% re-usable, sustainable space access systems for the future. Congress, are you listening?!?!
Look .. I don’t care if we use a tin can for our Human Space Exploration program. My objection to ARES and Orion is that its based on “Use Once and throw away hardware”. And please don’t give me that nonsense that the solids were reusable! How about the rest of Ares? Even Orion went from being built for 10 uses to only one use! My vision would be cheap and reusable launch hardware that would provide fast and economic launches into space (Something that the shuttle was suppose to do and failed).
I would then like to see a vehicle built for space exploration that is used a number of times and remains in space. Humans would transfer from the launch vehicle (reusable)!
sure do hope you are right !!!
it’s a sad day right now.
you are right on. Constellation was built as an architecture that WOULD enable great missions for 50 years. ( big new projects are few and far between, hence the long term capability was the plan.)
the public would respond fine once flights started, please believe me. I lived through apollo and it was divine !!
Scott Horowitz says that reusability is really a pipe dream, it doesnt pencil out. And, alert alert… he is no dummy !!!
you still have to boost tonnage into LEO before you head out !! Nuclear or ION engines for Mars would indeed be fine ( in fact, the only way, is becoming apparent). Note that Bill Anders said as much 40 YEARS AGO. PHYSICS DOES NOT CHANGE.
ION drive is science fiction !! Maybe later, for deep space missions, fine.
the commercial guys can put 1,000 pounds into LEO. News flash: pounds into orbit is not easy, nor is reentry. you shall see, in about 8 to 10 years I suspect. ( I hope it is sooner, really).
younger americans ( which I am not, younger, that is ) seem to think that purple and silver winged rockets to orbit and back are real………… they are NOT !!! they arent real !!!
let’s hear your configuration: engine type and thrust, liftoff weight, payload weight to orbit, and your reentry technique for a 25,000 mph reentry ? go ahead .. waiting.
sounds great. days not months. when can we look forward to this ? ( I think a 3 month trip is likely the best that might be obtained.. someday. )
so you’d rather have them laying around on your lawn? or pay to imprison them?
ion propulsion is not just sci-fi, it’s already in use in smaller satellites for altitude keeping or to get a spacecraft to a higher orbit.
try a little more tonnage than that (that’s barely half a ton). ula, arianespace, spacex, sealaunch (landlaunch), and russia all put pretty hefty payloads up. (of course, russia and arianespace are govt-back programs but they do still sell launches as well in private sector and russians even sell rides to the iss.)
well i’m from a little past that era, but there appears to have been much more hype over the space mission in the 60s than there is now. i mean, the first satellite wasn’t even launched until 1957 and 12 years later they had people walking on the moon. and that was way before the age of computers made stuff like cfd and structures testing easy to analyze like they are now.
The “thoroughbred” horse (ARES) which Mike Griffin, Scott Horowitz, Jeff Hanley, Doug Cooke and Steve Cook sold at a discount price actually had two wooden legs and one of those is full of woodworm! The stress of trying to get this two legged horse to work was the reason that Horowitz resigned to “spend more time with his family”. He and his colleagues are what is killing NASA by turning it into a bloated, narrow minded, and slow Government agency.
what amuses me the most about this proposal is that here we have liberal proposing to scale back a government program and turn it over to the private sector. that’s the quintessential conservative wet dream right there….and they’re all crying about it! why is that? is there actually a belief that the government is doing a better job than the private sector would? or is it simply because a liberal is proposing it?
Loosing your job with the termination of the Shuttle and “Apollo on Steroids”? You seem angry! There’s medication that you can take for your depression!
I don’t find it amusing at all.
The left only cares about scaling back projects that are defense related. How ’bout axing the ATF, EPA, eliminating section aid housing, privaizing SS, and reducing far more expensive entitlement programs.
He is doing this beacuse he is a manchurian candidate, his goal is to impede our progress militarily and economically so that foreign nations can catch up.
dks13827,
You are nothing but a panicked Constellation hugger. Wake up and smell the coffee. Constellation according to the Augustine Report (page 90, paragraph 2) would have recurring launch costs of nearly one billion dollars per launch. This figure was one of the the most publicized from the report and the Constellation people never denied it. If you add the amortized development costs to the per launch costs, then per launch costs are even greater.
Ares I would have launched at most two to four times per year. The much higher flight rates of commercial vehicles will insure MORE astronauts reaching orbit, not less.
The physics of payload mass fraction are only PART of the cost of a launch. Most of a rocket’s mass is fuel and fuel costs represent less than one percent of launch costs. In other words most of the fuel is burned lifting fuel (which is relatively cheap)! One of the greater contributors to recurring launch costs is the amount of human labor involved in constructing a vehicle and the number of vehicles produced per person per year. The latter point implies that the higher flight rates of commercial launch vehicles mean greater economies of scale, further reducing per launch costs.
The pro-Constellation people are getting scared as their beloved dinosaur is going down, as is evidenced by the near hysterical and exaggerated drivel that I am seeing on this blog. Apparently, desperation brings out the worst in people.
and the defense portion of the constellation program is…? our military is already the standard to meet, and with obama’s interest in bettering education, especially in STEM areas, your argument that he is trying to impede us looks a bit flimsy.
private ss would be a nightmare, because for one, which company would manage it? two, what happens when we have another 2008?
we might as well provide subsidized housing bc that’s cheaper than jailing the people.
epa tends to be more necessary than not.
private ss would be a nightmare, because for one, which company would manage it? two, what happens when we have another 2008?
The idea is too have NASA manage and oversee the application of commercial vehicles. My God, most of you HAVE KNOW IDEA what is in the new plan do you? Why don’t you all do some research without automatically assuming that your preconceived notions are true?
Sorry I had an HTML error in the last post. Here it is corrected.
—
“private ss would be a nightmare, because for one, which company would manage it? two, what happens when we have another 2008?”
The idea is too have NASA manage and oversee the application of commercial vehicles. My God, most of you HAVE KNOW IDEA what is in the new plan do you? Why don’t you all do some research without automatically assuming that your preconceived notions are true?
Just noticed spelling error. Should be “NO IDEA” instead of “KNOW IDEA”. Need to quit posting when I have other things I need to get to in a hurry.
I certainly didnt mean the gov. programs like Ariane. Space X, from what I can see, has done about 1,000 pounds and that is it !!!!! Lets talk reality.
Space X, from what I can see, has done about 1,000 pounds and that is it !!!!! Lets talk reality.
Yes, let’s talk reality. The above sentence would only even come close to being a valid argument if SpaceX was to be the only commercial rocket used! ULA has made it plain that they plan to vie for commercial launch with Atlas V and Delta IV. Both of those launchers have put a large number of huge satellites up. Also, don’t forget Orbital. We are facing the “gap” where we are having to use the Russians to get American astronauts to ISS because we relied on ONE vehicle, the shuttle. After the Columbia accident we also had to rely on the Russians for the same reason. The idea now is to have multiple vehicles so that if one is not usable for some reason, we will not be in the embarrassing situation of relying on another country to fly American astronauts. It’s especially embarrassing when that other country is one whose goals are often at cross purposes to our own.
Say what you will. The first full fledged Ares I AT BEST would not be finished for years. The first full fledged Falcon 9 is sitting on a launch pad in Florida right now and should be launched in the next couple of months.
they may have only done 1000# so far, but i’m all for talking reality. they will be launching their first falcon 9 soon for initial testing flight which has a payload of 23000# from cape canaveral. and seeing nasa selected them to do the resupply missions to the iss starting in 2011, i don’t think 1000# shots on a falcon 1e will quite cut it. so barring a catastrophic failure of falcon 9 and bankruptcy of spacex, you might as well count them in as being able to lift more than 1000#.
There were many shuttle missions launched from Vandenburg AFB that we’re not given a lot of media attention. They were not NASA missions but were under the control of the USAF. What they did had to do with spy stats ect…don’t have/can’t give all the details…but the point is, the sucess of NASA and our manned space program is vital to national defense. You realize GPS, SATNAV are vital to they way our forces operate…where do you think that capabiliy comes from?
the Shuttle never launched from Vandenberg, not once. where do folks get this info ?? it is not hard to find out.
the President does not care about ‘education’, he cares about teacher’s union buddies. if he cared, he would fire the bad teachers. sorry.
A magic reusable space ship !!! wonderful. sounds great.
the closest reality to the magic spaceship was a shuttle concept that had a gargantuan winged booster that returned to launch site after boosting the winged shuttle. I give them credit for trying, but it proved not realistic. It was bigger than you could ever imagine.
I really wonder about people who are completely in a dream world. Totally. They must wish that things were like magic. must be true.
still waiting on the specs for you spaceship. please. lay them out.
i agree that ineffective teachers should be encouraged to find another career path. but what exactly is a good metric for deciding how good a teacher is?
yea i’m well aware that gps is a usaf technology that they decided we can use. and yea, we really need these details on the vandenberg shuttle launches bc it was originally supposed to be a second launch site and was built and tested accordingly, but a launch never actually happened. and the shuttle isn’t even built for operation at the orbits spy sats are in, so launching them on the shuttle makes no sense at all.
“I really wonder about people who are completely in a dream world. Totally. They must wish that things were like magic. must be true.”
Yeah, I agree. There are apparently some people who think that there is some magical pixie dust that NASA has that they sprinkle over their launch vehicles that allows only them to do safe manned spaceflight.
BTW, dks, if I’m the one you think is talking about a “magical reusable spaceship” you understand even less than I thought. My point was lowering costs with larger economies of scale through higher flight rate NOT via reusability. Though SpaceX is attempting to gradually add reusability to F9 through a gradual fly and test development. If they succeed at that, then they will lower costs even further.
It needs one thing:
A big assed rocket, some nukes, and a portal.
The portal is created by using a quantum singularity produced in ways nobody can do and is in all likliehood a VERY bad Idea but who cares as long as we have stupid ideas floating around lets just consider an implausible space elevator while we are at it.
-shakes head- I liked constellation to be honest. I felt it was a good natural progression using proven shuttle technologies and computer arrays. Needed little comm overhaul
I have no vested interest in Constellation, as such. But it was a reasonable plan that
had gotten approval ( hard to get !! ). fyi in the Augustine meetings they stated that March 2015 was still a valid launch date, at that time. Lockheed Martin said Orion would be ready by that time without difficulty.
thought u were kool obama -.-
interest in space > obama
Somewhere over the rainbow I suppose
We still need a heavy lift launch vehicle Ben. I have nothing but respect for your news casts every thursday night but waiting another fifteen years before we reach Mars is crap. This is not a downward spiral for NASA but it puts the entire organization on hold until we get a president dedicated to space.
skate im with you
there are ideas out there that put us past the galaxy…………….we need to go for it
well that blows…
@A86 i hope congress takes ur citizenship
people still have the false impression that space travel / exploration are functions of the government. we dont need to go back to the moon or to mars. it was important during the ’60s to prove the possibility and to show the soviets our superior civilization. now there is just no point. down with nasa! (but not space)
@lostintheapplasauce – Well, they won’t. Too bad for you.
@FlightDirDan Internet was developed for defense purposes.
@SuperBlorg I am quite aware that the internet was developed for defence purposes. Hence the creation of the ungodly ICMP (lol jk)
Obama’s NASA budget perfectly captures the difference in spirit between Kennedy’s liberalism and Obama’s.
Kennedy’s was an expansive, bold, outward-looking summons. Obama’s is a constricted, inward-looking call to retreat.
Fifty years ago, Kennedy opened the New Frontier. Obama wants to shut it.
Canceling NASA’s moon-exploration program will put the U.S. behind other nations in terms of space exploration and technological development.