I agree, it’s long overdue. Fundamentally, the space establishment cannot let go of the Apollo paradigm, but it will have to, or be completely left behind.
9 thoughts on “NASA Needs A Reset”
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I agree, it’s long overdue. Fundamentally, the space establishment cannot let go of the Apollo paradigm, but it will have to, or be completely left behind.
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Rand,
I hope our country can find a way to move beyond the Apollo paradigm for space development without requiring the whole Apollo generation to die off first. Because there are many of you who were around to see Apollo, but who didn’t fall for the cargo cult mentality, who deserve better.
~Jon
I think we’re going to finally be moving forward in space regardless of how much money incoming Budget Chair Dick Shelby wants to waste on NASA.
When the time comes that US congressional and presidential elections secure post-boomers in office, those who know the moon landings only from history books, and the SSTV videos, but who did not actually live it, crewed operations will be in serious jeopardy. Hopefully by then the private sector will have taken up some of the slack. The Apollo paradigm *is* dying off. Gen Xer’s actually probably remember NASA better for the Challenger accident than the moon landings. They saw THOSE newscasts firsthand. Even Challenger, for the millennials, is the stuff of history books, with their blue jumpsuit photos and the big hair videos of McAuliffe and Reznik. You know, the kind of heros you’d name your school after, but you never knew firsthand:
https://www.losal.org/domain/1209
The idea and days of big leaps in space for the sake of big leaps and winning to prove that we can win are over. It the Chinese beat us back to the moon the argument will NOT be that OMG we have to match the Chinese in space opera! But rather the SJW PC position that the Chinese can waste their surpluses on the moon because WE in the US prefer to rightfully spend our resources promoting free education and healthcare for all, social justice for minorities and immigrants, i.e. quality of life issues that matter for our citizens right here on Earth. Not people in Space (certainly not MEN in Space) sideshows. As you say Rand, over and over, “Space is not important”.
Yeah I know, Reznik is Resnik. But I can’t edit what I didn’t catch first, thank you WordPress. For all you millennials and post-millennials:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Resnik
Back when the US had a space program run by the government that put only selected people into Earth orbit and it was paid for by your taxes, not because you bought a ticket.
There’s no need for them to remember such things. The Millennials have seen SpaceX’s flights. The private sector has already picked up the slack for the most part. All that’s necessary to get commercial manned space going IMHO is for Dragon V2 and space habitats to come online and all of these can easily happen over the next 5 years.
Once the mission around the Moon for commercial customers becomes a reality that will provide enough boost for space hotels to come online. I think.
Civilian space is running laps inside NASA’s OODA loop.
I think the best we can hope for with NASA is a reset. And forget returning to the NACA days. I think it will become an equivalent of PBS, call it Public Launch Services with USA becoming the Corporation for Public Spaceflight. They will start having fundraisers claiming if we don’t do it, who will? And for a short time longer, it may be true for deep space unmanned exploration and national microgravity laboratory sciences.
But like PBS, most people will know the truth. Sure, nobody else can launch an SLS or send a probe to take pictures of Uranus. But that’s because only a few people really want any of the things SLS or such a probe offers. Instead, they’ll want space tourism trips and to operate drones on the surface of the Moon and Mars. And they can buy it cheaper from private commercial vendors. Decades later, when all there is left is PLS launching refurbished ICBMs to get rid of the stockpile; perhaps some commercial company like Blue Origin will take over the probe missions. And PLS will continue to get federal funding because the progs want it that way (how else would their nephew get a job with his transgender studies degree?).
Off topic, but what is this week’s approved non-gender term for “nephew” or “niece”? Or, for that matter, “aunt” and “uncle”? Or are all terms for family relationships no longer in the current Newspeak dictionary?
Why would you want to know what the crazys put in their dictionary?
It is s waste of brain power to keep track of such things.