Space Agencies Versus A Soft Scifi Setting

[Spacescifi]

For a setting not unlike Star Wars where SSTO spaceships are both privately and company owned and also common, would Space Agencies exist as we know them or would they have different function?

 

I think their function would be different. Less about launch support and a lot more about being essentially a 'coast guard' force that regulates traffic flow coming to and from a planet.

With the firepower to blow up rogue spaceships at long range.

 

Pure exploratory agencies could exist too, but I reckon if politics is not absolutely pleased with the status quo, then defense spending  would overwhelm exploration effotts just like IRL.

Edited January 8, 2022 by Spacescifi

[wumpus]

Presumably the "space agency" would be like NASA's current subsonic programs.  Certainly still there, but hardly noticed.  Similar to the Naval Research Center still working on [ocean] ship design.  The only reason to include them in a sci-fi story would be if a strange problem fell in their lap.

[DDE]

11 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

For a setting not unlike Star Wars where SSTO spaceships are both privately and company owned and also common, would Space Agencies exist as we know them or would they have different function?

The primary functions of a space agency are to conduct space technology development when/until the private space sector becomes sustainable, and to serve as a customer for unprofitable space research. That second function, yes, makes their soft sci-fi counterparts the various exploratory and survey agencies.

By contrast, in the US model space agencies tend to have little to no regulatory power. Airflight safety agencies have absorbed that into their mandate. And the military has crept into the coast guard role.

That said, it's not terribly unusual for the military (Navy, specifically) to settle into exploration. The Soviet space program was a bizarre dance between the Ministry of Defense, the quasi-independent KBs without a governing agencies, and the Academy of Sciences.

9 hours ago, wumpus said:

Presumably the "space agency" would be like NASA's current subsonic programs.  Certainly still there, but hardly noticed.  Similar to the Naval Research Center still working on [ocean] ship design.

Bad comparison. NRL seems to be a basket case of various theoretical science and prototyping projects. Actual naval architecture is handled elsewhere, without stable development agencies (again, a contrast with the Soviet model of standing naval architecture KBs).

[kerbiloid]

51 minutes ago, DDE said:

The Soviet space program was a bizarre dance between the Ministry of Defense, the quasi-independent KBs without a governing agencies, and the Academy of Sciences.

Because the militaries need researches, while the scientists like playing WoT.

***

Agency - to distribute governmental money and control the results.

Club / Society - to do something on somebody's own.

For example, the Society for Deep-Sea Aeronautics _{Общество Глубоководной Аэронавтики as I named it in some of my KSP sandbox careers} could follow the J. Piccard's way and make a crewed sphere 2.1 m in diameter to use this basic design for both high-altitude balloons and Mariana Trench bathyscaphe, just making it of different materials.
Then they could caover this with a layer of ablator and launch it by rocket into space, calling this Vostok and Voskhod.
Then they could reuse this design to make a habitat for a mini-spaceship, calling it Soyuz.

Wait... That was irl...

Edited January 8, 2022 by kerbiloid

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 1/7/2022 at 7:43 PM, Spacescifi said:

For a setting not unlike Star Wars

Chevy, Ford, Porsche, Oshkosh and General Dynamics Defense.  You get companies putting out cars, utility vehicles, sports cars, transports and military vehicles.  You don't have massive government oversight, because they are as common as cars.

Maybe (and I say MAYBE) NHTSA

 

(NSTSA?)

Edited January 9, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[DDE]

8 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

You don't have massive government oversight, because they are as common as cars.

And the cars usually also fly, so there's plenty of overlap in capabilities.