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NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

cnn.com

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Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#431

Post by peterfirefly »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #86
bombcar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really care, give Carmack ten billion dollars and at least it'll run DooM.

Armadillo Aerospace did a mediocre job at best with its funding.

I think it did amazingly well with its shoestring funding.

They didn't handle the scale up in vehicle size well. They didn't have a guy who really understood electronics. I'd say those were the biggest problems. They did have an amazing metal worker (and I don't think they ever understood how important that was) and an amazing programmer.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#432

Post by robotresearcher »

jotux wrote: post #309
teekert wrote: post #266

Why does this sounds so... Entitled? NASA regresses so far that they are now unable to do anything by themselves... Now suddenly there is a new moon race and they start pointing to a public company that is not sticking to a schedule. A company that does some impressive things, and has helped them out (probably not out of the goodness of their hearts, but hey), and is doing things they could not. I would be an adult a…

>NASA regresses so far that they are now unable to do anything by themselves... I keep running across this perception and I don't understand where it comes from. Overwhelmingly, like since the 1970s, NASA has not built anything per it's appropriations from congress. Their job is to 1) Define mission requirements and objectives, 2) Oversee contracts to execute those missions, 3) Test and verify elements of those syste…

> since the 1970s, NASA has not built anything

NASA JPL built all the Mars rovers, and Mars Helicopter. JPL is operated by Caltech, but it is a NASA-branded laboratory that builds and operates planetary exploration robots itself.

This pedantry just to honor the amazing work these people have done.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#433

Post by nitwit005 »

testing22321 wrote: post #214
ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can imagine That probably does require some imagination. Starting with any incentive to do so.

Elon just said starship will do the entire moon mission: “Starship will end up doing the whole Moon mission. Mark my words.” To address your question, what is the incentive for going to Mars

Look into the history of Elon's promises around Mars. While I wish his promises meant something, they do not.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#434

Post by dfee »

jmyeet wrote: post #420
allenrb wrote: post #373

There is just so much wrong with this from start to finish. Here are a few things, by no means inclusive: 1. We’ve already beaten China to the moon by 56 years, 3 months, and some change. And counting. 2. Nothing based around SLS is remotely serious. The cost and timeline of doing anything with it are unreasonable. It is an absolute dead-end. The SpaceX Super Heavy has been more capable arguably as early as the secon…

I expect China to be the other major player in global space industries for the simpel reason that they're the only ones with the means and resolve to undergo such an endeavour. China is a command economy and they engage in long-term projects all the time. You can see with with all the intercity rail and metro systems they've built in the last 2 decades. It's crazy. As is all their power generation (hydro, solar). the…

> I'm not at all convinced the US can build anything anymore.

But it has! Look at all of our private industry! That's the point!

> We don't have titans of industry anymore.

What?!

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#435

Post by peterfirefly »

dtj1123 wrote: post #32

Remind me why we need to get to the moon again?

Foreign policy and security policy, mostly. That mattered a lot the first time and it will matter a lot this time. Apart from that, there's absolutely no need.

It would be really nice to do much more biology research under no and low gravity conditions, of course, but not at those prices.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#436

Post by Braxton1980 »

tinfoilhatter wrote: post #323
oytis wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is becoming a silly place. Lumberjack appointed as a head of NASA for his loyalty.

[flagged]

You're comparing their side beliefs and oddities to others main careers and expertise

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#437

Post by testing22321 »

allenrb wrote: post #373

There is just so much wrong with this from start to finish. Here are a few things, by no means inclusive: 1. We’ve already beaten China to the moon by 56 years, 3 months, and some change. And counting. 2. Nothing based around SLS is remotely serious. The cost and timeline of doing anything with it are unreasonable. It is an absolute dead-end. The SpaceX Super Heavy has been more capable arguably as early as the secon…

> We’ve already beaten China to the moon by 56 years, 3 months, and some change. And counting

Of course, but there a few things to consider.

1. This is a new race. The olympics happen every four years to see which nation is the current best. It seems it’s time to find out again.

2. The last time the US was dominant was 56 years ago. That’s three generations. Based on SLS and the comments here, it seems extremely unlikely the US is still dominant. Let’s find out.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#438

Post by jjk166 »

sobellian wrote: post #397
vlovich123 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the 1970s as in Raegan when the space program stalled and became irrelevant and became mostly a way to funnel money to districts for certain congresspeople?

The space program stalled because pouring national wealth into gigantic single-use rockets was unsustainable. They tried with Shuttle but the material science wasn't there yet (heck it might not be even now, it doesn't seem that they've really nailed down the heat shield on Starship yet).

The issue with the shuttle wasn't the material science. It was designed around a mission profile of servicing spy satellites, which at the time had film which needed to be developed. The defense department gave NASA requirements which could only be satisfied by moving the orbiter to the side of the rocket, dramatically increasing potential damage to the thermal tiles and making crew escape basically impossible. This was all justified by the incredibly large number of flights that the shuttle would fly to service these satellites, and the money the defense department would pay for these missions. The shuttle was screwed late in production when digital camera technology allowed for spy satellites that didn't need regular servicing, eliminating most of the demand for the shuttle and rendering the infrastructure designed for it unsustainable.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#439

Post by nitwit005 »

Treegarden wrote: post #330
coldpie wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't the entire point of SpaceX to go to Mars? What? No, it is to concentrate public wealth into the hands of one man.

The tone of voice suggests you dislike Musk, but I will still answer in good faith. From what I can see from the outside, he has consistently for many years stated the same goals and worked on them. Any or most financial gains he made, he invested into his companies which work on accomplishing those goals (for example, going to Mars). The most notable example was investing his PayPal money into Tesla and SpaceX when…

It's truly, very difficult, to believe the man cares more about the mission of his companies than extracting wealth from them: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-...

Most CEOs presumably do want their companies to succeed and do good things in the abstract, but a lot of them would happily have them fail if it made them a huge pile of cash.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#440

Post by testing22321 »

dfee wrote: post #434
jmyeet wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect China to be the other major player in global space industries for the simpel reason that they're the only ones with the means and resolve to undergo such an endeavour. China is a command economy and they engage in long-term projects all the time. You can see with with all the intercity rail and metro systems they've built in the last 2 decades. It's crazy. As is all their power generation (hydro, solar). the…

> I'm not at all convinced the US can build anything anymore. But it has! Look at all of our private industry! That's the point! > We don't have titans of industry anymore. What?!

SpaceX and to a much lesser extent Tesla are good examples. Excluding those for a minute, what else does the US have world-leading manufacturing of?

Semiconductors? Nope.

High speed rail? Nope.

Auto industry? Nope.

Major infrastructure projects like bridges, tunnels, airports, etc? Nope.

Electronics (phones/laptops/etc)? Nope.

?????

The US is not exactly a manufacturing powerhouse.

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