Team SpaceX or team NASA?

[Bill Phil]

I have written this so many times now that my phone's keyboard correctly anticipates the words already: Rome wasn't built in a day... Lots over very talented people contributed to the endeavor over the course of centuries.

The day will almost certainly come when people will live in colonies and outposts throughout the solar system. That doesnt mean it will happen soon though. SpaceX may have a noble mission statement to improve access to space so that living in space becomes a possibility, but there are many many other pieces to the puzzle. To use another cliche, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Yes, but that step must be taken. At this rate only a few guys want to and even less can.

[AngelLestat]

The Burj is a wooden cart is the desert where the James Webb telescope is a Veryon in space.

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA ok you said it all.

You are comparing it to the wrong thing. The Burj is not a scientific device, it is incredibly crude compared to things that are. Did you check out what the LHC cost? It is almost exactly as expensive as the James Webb telescope. You know why it is that expensive? Partly because of its size, but mostly because it had to be build to incredibly demanding and exact standards.

Lol, you dont realize that your same argument is giving me the reason to me?

Our you really think that the JWST should cost the same than the LHC??? Yeah I dont wanna hear the answer...

Stop turning your own misunderstanding into arguments, please.

Is that your argument?

If you think the JWST is "just a few mirrors," there is no helping you. It's incredibly precise, as are all scientific telescopes. It's also sensors, power, monitoring, communications, reliability (you can't repair it, you can easily do repairs to a tower). Frankly, I think you have no clue what's involved in a scientific project.

Incredibly precise?? So they are very good doing calculations.. Why they estimate the total cost on 1.2b to 3billions when the design was finish? Why in the 2000 they did an estimation that it would be launch in the 2007 to 2010?

Incredibly precise? The same goes for telescopes in earth.. they are much much bigger, they need adaptive optics deforming mirrors in real time, they are all build in top of montains, many in earthquake zones, as all those in chile. The country with the hardest earthquakes on the world, they need to counter the earth rotation and temperature variations.

You can add the cost of the hardest things about JWST and still is impossible to reach that cost, at least you are dealing with the most inneficient way to do things.

There weren't that many engineers on the Burj Khalifa.

I only know this, just for the Exterior cladding of Burj Khalifa, 380 engineers was involve.

In the peak construction time, there was 12000 workers (all categories) in the site.

That's because almost no aspects of it are new in any way

???? There always was a world competition about who had the tallest building. It was always very tight, they always break records with few meters of difference until the Burj come. From 500 meters, they go to 880 meters. And you think that it does not require any new technology? ......

And the engineers that were there command a much lower salary than those in aerospace

You have not evidence.. Also you will not find all the people who work in the Burj or JWST with their respective salaries to compare, also is pointless, because we knew that all that money was spent due 18 years of time lost. What I want to said, that this could be done by 1/10 of the price if somebody as Elon Musk would be in charge, he knows how take care the money.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is something very wrong about how NASA is doing things.

The missions needs to be time-based, get back to 'acceptable risk' and allow NASA to shuck off the modern 'zero defects' mentality and the tentacles of bureaucracy and regulatory constraints that infect much of government-funded science.

Take a look to the SSC project, costelation program and all other programs who was canceled but this failed way to do things.

In nasa all scientist are delusional about that does not matter how much time or money they spent due its inefficiency, they think is all justified. Nasa keeps in secret all the missions who had to be skipped due the extra money spent by the JWST.

20 years to plain a mission is not acceptable! I am sure that with all the new tech discoveries done in that time, they can redesign the whole telescope to comply the mission with a much more cheap way to do it.

And many of you are defending that same inefficiency that would harm the same NASA and it will delay all new missions.

Edited May 9, 2015 by AngelLestat

[Bill Phil]

Because scientists, engineers and the like don't expect things like JWSTto get cut so easily.

Sometimes cutting funds ends up increasing the cost.

[Rakaydos]

Yes, but that step must be taken. At this rate only a few guys want to and even less can.

This is the answer to the fermi paradox, by the way.

[Clockwork13]

Mars One is the ultimate manned mission to Mars suicide trip.

[PakledHostage]

Yes, but that step must be taken. At this rate only a few guys want to and even less can.

What I find so difficult to understand is why people think "it" isn't happening right now in this day and age? Technological progress isn't linear. We ran steam locomotives for about 150 years. The last of them overlapped with transonic airliners. We've been operating transonic airliners for almost 60 years now. Rocket technology isn't too different in so far as how it has evolved over the past 50 - 75 years.

It may seem like some technologies have stagnated, but that doesn't mean refinements aren't being made that are laying the foundation for the next paradigm. Bit by bit we are developing the tools we'll need to live off the Earth for extended periods of time. It may be disappointing to some that it won't happen in the next decade or possibly even in the next century, but real life isn't KSP.

Real world space flight is much more complex than KSP may lead some to believe, real world progress isn't as quick, but that doesn't mean it isn't happening. And that doesn't mean nobody cares enough to keep pushing the limits, little bit by little bit.

[Bill Phil]

What I find so difficult to understand is why people think "it" isn't happening right now in this day and age? Technological progress isn't linear. We ran steam locomotives for about 150 years. The last of them overlapped with transonic airliners. We've been operating transonic airliners for almost 60 years now. Rocket technology isn't too different in so far as how it has evolved over the past 50 - 75 years.

It may seem like some technologies have stagnated, but that doesn't mean refinements aren't being made that are laying the foundation for the next paradigm. Bit by bit we are developing the tools we'll need to live off the Earth for extended periods of time. It may be disappointing to some that it won't happen in the next decade or possibly even in the next century, but real life isn't KSP.

Real world space flight is much more complex than KSP may lead some to believe, real world progress isn't as quick, but that doesn't mean it isn't happening. And that doesn't mean nobody cares enough to keep pushing the limits, little bit by little bit.

I am referring to the lack of will and money. The tech is fine, we had the tech to go to Mars in the 80s. Just not the will.

The first step to colonizing space is to make it easy to get there. The Romans built roads. But roads take time to build and space doesn't have any solid ground to build them on. So, rockets are the answer. But they're expensive by nature.

Yeah, people are working toward making space easier. But it's a slow process.

[PakledHostage]

I am referring to the lack of will and money. The tech is fine, we had the tech to go to Mars in the 80s. Just not the will.

...

Yeah, people are working toward making space easier. But it's a slow process.

I am afraid I don't understand your point? We may or may not have had the technology to go to Mars since the '80s but we haven't gone because it was too expensive to justify the effort, given the relatively limited benefits relative to the magnitude of the cost.

SpaceX is working to decrease the cost of reaching orbit, and if they are successful, it will be a great incremental improvement to rocket technology. It may ultimately make it economically viable to send people to Mars, but there are many many other pieces to the puzzle that must also be solved before we can do it.

Any such effort has to make financial and technological sense. Bankrupting a nation and/or unnecessarily risking the lives of astronauts just so we can look up in the sky and say "tick" is short sighted. It will happen eventually, but it isn't some collosal failure of human ambition if it doesnt happen in our lifetimes. Real life is not a sci-fi book or a space simulator game.

Edited May 9, 2015 by PakledHostage

[hugix]

Well, if that's the only problem...

It''s the only problem we can't solve with engineering.

[cpast]

Thor was USAF, as was Atlas. An IRBM and an ICBM respectively.

Atlas V and Delta IV are EELVs. Made for a USAF contract.

Nope. Atlas was developed by Convair (then General Dynamics, then Lockheed) under contract. It was neither designed nor built by US government employees. Its chief designer, Karel Bossart, was a Convair employee. Thor had more USAF involvement, but the components were still all contracted out, and overall airframe and integration was done by Douglas, not by the Air Force. The fact that "USAF" was painted on the missiles means the USAF *bought* them, not that they *built* them.

Seriously. Particularly for Atlas, the only sense in which it was a USAF project is that it was developed under a USAF contract. Which was my initial point -- the government does give money to private companies to do stuff like building rockets, and doesn't do it itself.

NASA has not tried landing a first stage for reuse. Even though spaceX has not recovered a stage they have proved they can control one in flight.

Shuttle SRBs. Successful (if uneconomical) landing of a first stage for reuse.

http://www.spacex.com/about

I said they haven't *done* anything. Mission statements are nice and all, but they don't count as doing anything. Talk is cheap.

[FishInferno]

I have written this so many times now that my phone's keyboard correctly anticipates the words already: Rome wasn't built in a day... Lots over very talented people contributed to the endeavor over the course of centuries.

The day will almost certainly come when people will live in colonies and outposts throughout the solar system. That doesnt mean it will happen soon though. SpaceX may have a noble mission statement to improve access to space so that living in space becomes a possibility, but there are many many other pieces to the puzzle. To use another cliche, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

I am not saying that SpaceX will go to Mars tomorrow, they will just get there before NASA. Also, they have already preformed the "first step" by being successful with the Dragon

[Kibble]

I am not saying that SpaceX will go to Mars tomorrow, they will just get there before NASA. Also, they have already preformed the "first step" by being successful with the Dragon

NASA has also completed that "first step", being successful with Orion. (And Orion is even actually rated for BLEO!) NASA has also completed several additional "steps" that SpaceX has not: assembling and operating heavy lift launch vehicles, designing and operating deep spacecraft, completing (numerous) robotic interplanetary expeditions, sending human beings BLEO, and soft-landing on Mars.

[tater]

NASA has also completed that "first step", being successful with Orion. (And Orion is even actually rated for BLEO!) NASA has also completed several additional "steps" that SpaceX has not: assembling and operating heavy lift launch vehicles, designing and operating deep spacecraft, completing (numerous) robotic interplanetary expeditions, sending human beings BLEO, and soft-landing on Mars.

Orion is a capsule, it's not a craft anyone would live in for 3 years, you need a transfer vehicle/cabin (which could work with either capsule). Dragon 2 can likely handle the same kind of reentry criteria (11-12 km/s (lunar-Mars)), and current Orion is only specced out for a lunar return (Avcoat vs PICA). On the plus side, Orion must smell like Bacon.

SpaceX is just another contractor. Had they existed long ago, and been showered with vast amounts of pork, they'd have built those things, too---whether anyone needed or wanted them or not (like Orion).

The idea of SpaceX on Mars before NASA seems pretty silly, however. There is no RoI.

[Bill Phil]

Nope. Atlas was developed by Convair (then General Dynamics, then Lockheed) under contract. It was neither designed nor built by US government employees. Its chief designer, Karel Bossart, was a Convair employee. Thor had more USAF involvement, but the components were still all contracted out, and overall airframe and integration was done by Douglas, not by the Air Force. The fact that "USAF" was painted on the missiles means the USAF *bought* them, not that they *built* them.

Seriously. Particularly for Atlas, the only sense in which it was a USAF project is that it was developed under a USAF contract. Which was my initial point -- the government does give money to private companies to do stuff like building rockets, and doesn't do it itself.

The USAF also bought the missiles' development. This means that they owned the development, but didn't carry it out. I never said they built them, I said it was the USAF's development, which means that they owned it. It doesn't mean they built it.

Not to mention the USAF oversaw the development...

- - - Updated - - -

I am afraid I don't understand your point? We may or may not have had the technology to go to Mars since the '80s but we haven't gone because it was too expensive to justify the effort, given the relatively limited benefits relative to the magnitude of the cost.

SpaceX is working to decrease the cost of reaching orbit, and if they are successful, it will be a great incremental improvement to rocket technology. It may ultimately make it economically viable to send people to Mars, but there are many many other pieces to the puzzle that must also be solved before we can do it.

Any such effort has to make financial and technological sense. Bankrupting a nation and/or unnecessarily risking the lives of astronauts just so we can look up in the sky and say "tick" is short sighted. It will happen eventually, but it isn't some collosal failure of human ambition if it doesnt happen in our lifetimes. Real life is not a sci-fi book or a space simulator game.

I think we both have similar arguments. I said that someone has to take the step, to start the journey of a thousand (insert long unit of measure here). People want to take the step, but very few actually can. And the few that can mostly don't want to.

My point is that the journey of a thousand (insert long unit of measure here) won't happen until someone takes the first very difficult step, which requires the people with the money to do it. But most people with the money don't want to, which means it will take either a good slap in the face or space becoming economical. Both of which aren't very likely in our lifetimes.

[cpast]

The USAF also bought the missiles' development. This means that they owned the development, but didn't carry it out. I never said they built them, I said it was the USAF's development, which means that they owned it. It doesn't mean they built it.

Not to mention the USAF oversaw the development...

My initial point that started this whole thing was that the US government already does its rocketry pretty much by giving the private sector money and having them come up with the hardware. AngelLestat was saying that the private sector seemed to be better at doing this stuff cheaply than the government is, so the government should give its budget to the private sector and have them do it; I was saying that this is basically what happens. In a broader context, yeah, Atlas and Thor were run by the USAF. I wasn't trying to say otherwise; I was just saying that the US government did the development by giving private companies money and having them do the technical details.

I think we're in violent agreement about how the projects were actually done, and are just using different terms.

[Rakaydos]

My initial point that started this whole thing was that the US government already does its rocketry pretty much by giving the private sector money and having them come up with the hardware. AngelLestat was saying that the private sector seemed to be better at doing this stuff cheaply than the government is, so the government should give its budget to the private sector and have them do it; I was saying that this is basically what happens. In a broader context, yeah, Atlas and Thor were run by the USAF. I wasn't trying to say otherwise; I was just saying that the US government did the development by giving private companies money and having them do the technical details.

I think we're in violent agreement about how the projects were actually done, and are just using different terms.

Having seen how requisitions work from the military side, there is a significant difference in approach between the govermental "we want someone to build us something that does X,Y and Z, who's the lowest bidder?" and the corporate "If we build it with A and B, C is pretty easy to add, and we can charge extra to cover the difference"

While corporations are doing all the work in both cases, in the first they are chained to the exact requirements listed- overqualify and you'll be outbid, underqualify and you wont get the contract.

With the second, the corporation is free to balance the numbers locally without worring about hitting an exact target- then once the product is complete they hand it to marketing to find people interested in whatever they ended up with.

Edit: lets have an example.

The original plan for the MCT was 9 raptor engines outputting X thrust.

However, Elon Musk has stated that his engineers have optimized the raptor's TWR at a surprisingly low thrust value, even allowing for the structure needed to hold extra engines.

If MCT was a goverment contract, SpaceX would be locked into that 9 engine core design, (because that's the contract they were bidding on) and the rocket would suffer because of it.

However, since SpaceX is doing it's own thing, they can change their mind and say "you know, let's spam the Rocketmax-30 probe engine because it's brokenly overpowered- ignore the old 9-engine design."

Edited May 11, 2015 by Rakaydos

[CelticCossack51]

Team Poland! But seriously, I would like an international mission to Mars.