In comments over at Space Politics, “Ray” responds to the Ares boosters over there (who are hilarious in their blind adulation of the program, or would be were it not so sad — as I say over there, they haven’t just drunk the kool aid, but are snorkeling around in an Olympic-sized pool of it):
Kaylyn63: “…fasten your seatbelt and hang on for the ride Ares is going to give the United States”
Ares has already taken the United States on quite a ride, so I can only imagine what’s next:
– ISS science and engineering cut beyond the bone
– ISS dumped in the ocean in 2015
– Ares 1 delivered in 2017 – 2019 to service the long-gone ISS
– huge commercial space opportunities lost for U.S. industry
– NASA Aeronautics vanished
– Planetary science robotics, including missions to scout human spaceflight destinations, fading to a shadow
– NASA research, development, and technology demonstration work cut and limited to Ares investigations
– NASA Earth science missions few and far between
– Ares V delivered in 2030, but no budget to put anything on it
– EELVs, Falcons, and Taurus II greatly underutilized (and thus more expensive per launch than necessary) by the loss of commercial crew transport to LEO, fuel launches, early destruction of the ISS, and lack of budget to launch robotic missions – resulting in U.S. launch industry not being competitive in the global marketplaceThanks, Ares!
So speaketh the ghost of Christmas future. If the goal was to destroy most of the useful things that NASA is, and could be doing, then perhaps it is the “Invention of the Year” after all. It has managed to accomplish much along those lines already, even though it won’t fly for years…
The frightening thing is that Chairwoman Giffords has bought into the hype as well. Of course, she has sort of a conflict of interest, in that she’s married into NASA.
Francisco d’Anconia would be proud.
So speaketh the ghost of Christmas future.
‘Answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?’
Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.
‘Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,’ said Scrooge. ‘But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!’
The Spirit was immovable as ever.
This comment kind of has a point: The Time Magazine’s award just illustrates the huge gap between the way the blogsphere experts view NASA’s program and how the real world views them. Maybe instead of posting hair splitting here blogsphere experts should be spending their time educating the real world.
If the common media can not be held honest and accountable, then what hope is there for getting accountability from NASA? Is it time to just give up and start anew?
What chance is there of starting a new agency, one purely focused on number of people in space. Presumably NASA would vehemently resist the birth of such an independent agency, though there is precedent.
Dumping the ISS into the ocean in 2015…there’s a downside here but I’m not seeing it.
The Ares advocates overlook the difference in efficiency between the government-run rocket programs, and the privately-run rocket programs.
If Ares 1 costs $1000M; and Falcon 9 Heavy costs $100M (let’s be generous to those who say F9H is a paper rocket, and give it a pricetag of $200M, higher even than the Delta 4 Heavy); there’s $800M that could be retained by the taxpayers and used to put food in their bellies and gas in their cars.
Just because government does something; and always has done something, does not make it the correct thing to do. The consequences of what is done are seen; but the things that could have been done otherwise are unseen and so ignored.