No, the flight of Orion is not going to inspire us in space:
Just how an empty Orion capsule designed to make work for displaced Shuttle employees doing two orbits before it splashes down into the Pacific Ocean is going to inspire taxpayers to spend hundreds of billions on Mars escapes me.
Stop. Just stop. Don’t be an Apollo cargo cultist.
Not surprising at all, given that it’s Rubio; he’s very consistent when it comes to expounding nonsense and drivel. Why should he be any different on Space issues than he is on so much else?
Hey, maybe he’ll join this to his signature issue and vote to give the Orion capsule amnesty, so it can enter and reenter with no consequences whatsoever (even if it does so upside down).
We don’t need inspiration, we need pragmatism. Even without inspiration or direction we’re able to throw away billions of dollars a year on likely dead end efforts in spaceflight (SLS and Orion). If even a fraction of that was spent smartly and pragmatically we would already have cities in orbit and on Mars. If we could dedicate even half a billion a year to Mars colonization consistenly and avoided wasting that money on boondoggles then we’d have no problem getting there.
We have spent more nearly $500 million a year on Mars for decades, and despite the fleet of spacecraft in orbit and on its surface are no nearer to sending a human to it than in 1970.
The Moon is and always has been the key to the economic development of the Solar System. Until you have a lunar industrial infrastructure, including LOX available at refueling depots, going to Mars will never be more than a flags and footsteps venture.
Too many Republican conservatives, including the new guys on the block, seem to have settled on the National Greatness justification for human spaceflight to the exclusion of all else. In this view, since we’re not aggressively pursuing more flags and footprints in the great tradition of Neil and Buzz, we’re doing nothing important. This idiocy is surprisingly widespread. Even Charles Krauthammer, on most matters quite incisive and discerning, buys into this line of crap.
Even so, I’ll take it over the normative progressive Democrat viewpoint which – with the notable exception of a few people who have large NASA centers in their states or districts – is pretty much the Fritz Mondale idea that space is a waste and we should shut it down and use the money for more Food Stamps and Head Start.
The transition to a self-sustaining commercial future for human spaceflight can’t come a minute too soon.