As long as access to space technology is controlled by politicians, the risk involved in the bad optics of dead astronauts will always out weigh the benefit of space exploration/settlement. The “for the greater good” argument only works if you are dealing with people who can think beyond the next election cycle. So NASA will be kept just alive enough to provide high tech jobs, but not so alive that it actually accomplishes anything involving manned space flight.
The thing is, I’m not so sure the people (in charge) at NASA really mind that scenario. They get to spend years pretending to expand humanity’s presence in space, while not having the risk of failure over their heads. The people making the hardware probably don’t mind either, as they get to spend billions of tax payer dollars developing systems that may never have to prove themselves. So it looks to me like there isn’t much incentive to risk much of anything if the money is coming from (and being controlled by) the government.
It may be a little late to reply to this post, but it’s heartening to realize that on the 40th anniversary, there was very little to be excited about regarding space development.
As long as access to space technology is controlled by politicians, the risk involved in the bad optics of dead astronauts will always out weigh the benefit of space exploration/settlement. The “for the greater good” argument only works if you are dealing with people who can think beyond the next election cycle. So NASA will be kept just alive enough to provide high tech jobs, but not so alive that it actually accomplishes anything involving manned space flight.
The thing is, I’m not so sure the people (in charge) at NASA really mind that scenario. They get to spend years pretending to expand humanity’s presence in space, while not having the risk of failure over their heads. The people making the hardware probably don’t mind either, as they get to spend billions of tax payer dollars developing systems that may never have to prove themselves. So it looks to me like there isn’t much incentive to risk much of anything if the money is coming from (and being controlled by) the government.
It may be a little late to reply to this post, but it’s heartening to realize that on the 40th anniversary, there was very little to be excited about regarding space development.
Five years has changed the landscape.