The End of the Shuttle - The Beginning Of the Same Damn Mistake
The Shuttle was a mistake. It was not that over-budget to develop, but it was wildly expensive to operate, costing roughly 20x the initial estimates. Because of this, NASA also never had the money (or there was never the political will) to build a new alternative. Instead, heavy launch went to the Delta and Atlas programs (Boeing and Lockheed Martin) and the Space Shuttle has been stuck sending up pieces of the ISS and running somewhat questionably cost effective science missions.
The reality is this: people are expensive to get into space. And they don't really 'need' to be there for science missions. The reason that people need to be in space is because we need people in space in order to expand as a civilization and ensure the long-term survival of the species. And finally, people need to be in space so that we can make $ off of space - which is the only way we are going to really move off-planet.
So the Space Shuttle has been a failure, though a cool failure. And now it is retiring - and for political reasons we are developing a new human rated heavy launch rocket to do.... something. We actually have no idea what it is for. We have given up going to Mars - so that is not the point. And there are much better and cheaper ways to get people or stuff into low earth orbit, so that is not the point either. What the hell are we building this new rocket for? We are building it because if we don't "jobs will be lost". Which could be said about a lot of things, like a bridge across the great lakes, a tunnel under Iowa or a recreation of the Gaza pyramid in New Mexico.
The mistake we made with the Space Shuttle is that we had no REASON to go to space all the time. Well, they thought they did when they built it - to launch large satellites - but that dried up as it turned out it is a lot cheaper to launch satellites without 3 pudgy humans along for the ride.
The reason for going to space is all important. And the reason that we should send the next generation out there needs to be a good one. It can be money, it can be exploration, but it sure as hell needs to be something, and right now, we got nothing.
The reality is this: people are expensive to get into space. And they don't really 'need' to be there for science missions. The reason that people need to be in space is because we need people in space in order to expand as a civilization and ensure the long-term survival of the species. And finally, people need to be in space so that we can make $ off of space - which is the only way we are going to really move off-planet.
So the Space Shuttle has been a failure, though a cool failure. And now it is retiring - and for political reasons we are developing a new human rated heavy launch rocket to do.... something. We actually have no idea what it is for. We have given up going to Mars - so that is not the point. And there are much better and cheaper ways to get people or stuff into low earth orbit, so that is not the point either. What the hell are we building this new rocket for? We are building it because if we don't "jobs will be lost". Which could be said about a lot of things, like a bridge across the great lakes, a tunnel under Iowa or a recreation of the Gaza pyramid in New Mexico.
The mistake we made with the Space Shuttle is that we had no REASON to go to space all the time. Well, they thought they did when they built it - to launch large satellites - but that dried up as it turned out it is a lot cheaper to launch satellites without 3 pudgy humans along for the ride.
The reason for going to space is all important. And the reason that we should send the next generation out there needs to be a good one. It can be money, it can be exploration, but it sure as hell needs to be something, and right now, we got nothing.
Comments
Post a Comment