So, is Elon no longer one of the cool kids of commercial space because of this bit of heresy or is doubling NASA’s budget now the cool thing?
You have obviously confused me with fans of Elon Musk’s desire for government funding.
So when did you turn on Commercial Crew?
Never.
I know that logic has never been your strong suit, but there is nothing inconsistent about supporting commercial crew and disagreeing with Elon’s call for a bigger NASA budget.
Really? Even though it is driven by government funding of Elon Musk? I sense some inconsistently here.
I’m not opposed to NASA giving Elon money, if it’s for something that NASA needs, and gets a good value. Which it does. That has nothing to do with NASA handing Elon money to go to Mars. But you will continue to be obtuse.
No, Mark, Commercial Crew is not driven by government funding of SpaceX. It is driven primarily by government funding of Boeing. SpaceX receives a substantially smaller share. Again, if you followed what’s happening in space, you would know this.
Of course, you’ve never objected to government funding of Boeing, Lockheed, OSC, etc. — in fact, you want more of it. It’s only when the NASA funds SpaceX that you pretend to be a free-marketeer and pitch a fit. The reason for this double standard is unclear. Did Elon’s Tesla run over your cat or something?
If the government is going to be paying to put astronauts in space, it might as well get the best deal for the taxpayer’s money. Which vastly favors commercial crew over orion.
Once upon on a time, a Transterrestrial Musings commenter (I think Ed Wright, but I could be mistaken) had a good comment about the “non-existent libertarian Elon”. I wish I could find it; it feels relevant.
Elon has been saying this for quite some time, Mark. You would know that, if you kept up with what’s happening in space.
Hi, Edward. I dug up your comment from earlier this summer about the false Elon “yearning to break free from the yoke of government oppression” as it seemed once again relevant.
Its actually pretty simple. There is a shitload of work to be done before we have means and technology to really comfortably make space a regular old place.
Work is done by people, and people expect to get paid. Because the amount of work is so huge, any extra money that goes into paying people to work on making progress in space is awesome.
And with government money you have some freedoms to work on stuff you cannot easily do with private investment, AND vice versa.
with government money you have some freedoms to work on stuff you cannot easily do with private investment, AND vice versa.
No, with government money, you can only work on whatever your political masters desire. It amazes me that some people still believe otherwise.
Much as I suspect Rand does, I support some of Musk’s opinions and practices, while opposing others. This one definitely falls into the latter category. I also suspect pandering to his biggest customer might be a factor.
Would you honestly be opposed to handing STMD and ARMD bigger budgets ? Like two times bigger ?
@reader,
I had to look up STMD and ARMD (One area where I totally agree with Musk is his war on acronyms – I can never remember the things).
We’re talking Space Technology Mission Directorate and Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, right?
To be honest, I’m unfamiliar with the details of what both do, so I don’t have a worthwhile opinion on their funding levels per se.
If, however, they are doing worthwhile work that would be improved with more funding, I’d be fine with increasing their budgets by decreasing other areas of NASA. (By taking the ax to, say, SLS/Orion, and other bloated workforce areas such as management.).
But, are the programs those two directorates are doing all worth the money? Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate has a budget about on par with commercial crew, and it squanders a big chunk of it on climate change. Just cut that and redirect it, instead of increasing its budget.
What is ‘worth the money’ and to whom, exactly ? STMD is supposed to be maturing a bunch of technologies like there is no tomorrow, space nuclear power sources, long duration deep space propulsion, autonomous guidance and navigation and a myriad of other things.
They aren’t accomplishing jack squat – partly because politics – but mostly because they aren’t funded at levels where they can actually reasonably build and fly stuff with a single purpose of advancing the state of the art in technology.
In short, engineers are not in charge.
It is rather fruitless to study space nuclear power when using such systems are verboten. Such systems have been around since the start of NASA and were flown fairly regularly from 1961 to 1977. 12 years would go by before NASA launched the next vehicle with a nuclear power system, and including that one, there has been 5 missions since 1989 using nuclear power.
And if by nuclear power, you didn’t mean power generation but propulsion; let’s fully discredit that nuance. Propulsion would require far more nuclear fuel than generation, and thus would have a higher likelihood of cancellation by policy than just generation.
If NASA doesn’t intend to utilize nuclear power, then they shouldn’t be wasting money on developing it.
Yes, as a matter of fact, I would oppose it. Pouring more money into a government rathole means that more contractors waste more, more government ‘crats feather their nests, more politicians funnel said funding to politically favored cronies, etc. The overall market distortions (or for that matter, outright destruction of what market exists) far outweigh any transitory advantage of what little extra funding trickles through the morass to reach truly useful programs.
Musk is himself proof that such funding is not necessary, and in fact might be counterproductive.
Not if you made much of the NASA budget like the old NACA, which was actually quite efficient at promoting basic R&D. On to the next point: how would you select colonists for a Mars colony? One, no religious tootie fruities and two, no socialists. As much a possible only raving libertarians.
I am a Libertarian – so far to the right I make Ayn Rand look like a commie – and a Christian. Square that circle.
I’m not talking about you in particular, but squaring that circle for many “Christians” (also Muslims and even more so, but very seldom Hindus or Buddhists) seems to involve freedom in financial matters and draconian repression in matters of non-business morality. “Keep out of my boardroom but I’m free to interfere in your bedroom.”
I prefer proper libertarianism – telling Mrs. Grundy to shove her blue laws where the sun don’t shine. And also in light-touch regulation of business; cities with poison-gas atmospheres and rivers in which nothing lives and which occasionally catch fire benefit nobody except the 1%.
No one here has gotten the real reason Musk would like to see NASA’s budget more than double. I shall give a one word hint. Mars.
Mark, we know that. We aren’t stupid, but you seem to be. Mars has nothing to do with Commercial Crew.
Back when NASA received 4% of the federal budget, their unofficial motto was “Waste anything but time.” Simply giving NASA more money will just reestablish that mindset. If you look at NASA’s track record for managing large projects, you’ll find a consistent history of overruns, delays, and often cancellations due in very large part to poor management.
Reestablishing NASA’s mission to be more in line with their predecessor, the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA), would be more appropriate than simply throwing more money at them. NACA did a lot of great research that significantly advanced aviation technology. They also owned and operated expensive facilities such as wind tunnels and test stands that help US companies improve their designs. While NACA did a lot of test flying back in the day, they never tried to operate their own airline or to dominate air travel like NASA did with space.
“Simply giving NASA more money will just reestablish that mindset. ”
Only if we are lucky, they could continue to waste time as well.
As Wayne Hale pointed out the other day, SLS/Orion is a total sinkhole for doing everything “perfectly,” aka with ever-expanding levels of unneeded engineering and bureaucracy.
I would note that that program “pioneers” beyond the “4%” era quote you cite, since it’s really based upon “Waste anything AND time.”
In fact, to the porkers on the Hill, the perfect program is one that takes forever to do so your constituents never have to change jobs over their working lifetime. Or as we used to say here in Boston during the “Big Dig,” the motto of the local unions was “Never lose the job.”
NACA did a lot of test flying back in the day,
Not really. The X-1 was the first, last, and only NACA test aircraft. Even that was a joint USAF/NACA project, driven primarily by USAF advocacy, and was opposes by some NACA staffers who didn’t think the NACA should be building aircraft. Mostly what the NACA did was ground-based fundamental research, leaving flight demonstrations to industry.
Space cadets like to focus on their realm of interest but I hope people do realize that Obama asked for more money in every area of the budget. Our debt is out of control. Simply spending more money, is not a method to gauge an administration’s or congress’ support for an agency like this.
Would it be nice if NASA had more money? It depends entirely on how that money is spent. More money in and of itself wont fix NASA’s problems or get us to Mars or anywhere else.
Elon Musk -more tax farmer than entrepreneur- accomplishes his shitty sleight of hand by delivering goods and services to NASA.
So, is Elon no longer one of the cool kids of commercial space because of this bit of heresy or is doubling NASA’s budget now the cool thing?
You have obviously confused me with fans of Elon Musk’s desire for government funding.
So when did you turn on Commercial Crew?
Never.
I know that logic has never been your strong suit, but there is nothing inconsistent about supporting commercial crew and disagreeing with Elon’s call for a bigger NASA budget.
Really? Even though it is driven by government funding of Elon Musk? I sense some inconsistently here.
I’m not opposed to NASA giving Elon money, if it’s for something that NASA needs, and gets a good value. Which it does. That has nothing to do with NASA handing Elon money to go to Mars. But you will continue to be obtuse.
No, Mark, Commercial Crew is not driven by government funding of SpaceX. It is driven primarily by government funding of Boeing. SpaceX receives a substantially smaller share. Again, if you followed what’s happening in space, you would know this.
Of course, you’ve never objected to government funding of Boeing, Lockheed, OSC, etc. — in fact, you want more of it. It’s only when the NASA funds SpaceX that you pretend to be a free-marketeer and pitch a fit. The reason for this double standard is unclear. Did Elon’s Tesla run over your cat or something?
If the government is going to be paying to put astronauts in space, it might as well get the best deal for the taxpayer’s money. Which vastly favors commercial crew over orion.
Once upon on a time, a Transterrestrial Musings commenter (I think Ed Wright, but I could be mistaken) had a good comment about the “non-existent libertarian Elon”. I wish I could find it; it feels relevant.
Elon has been saying this for quite some time, Mark. You would know that, if you kept up with what’s happening in space.
Hi, Edward. I dug up your comment from earlier this summer about the false Elon “yearning to break free from the yoke of government oppression” as it seemed once again relevant.
Cheers,
p.s.
Here’s the post with Mr. Wright’s comment.
http://www.transterrestrial.com/?p=60901
Its actually pretty simple. There is a shitload of work to be done before we have means and technology to really comfortably make space a regular old place.
Work is done by people, and people expect to get paid. Because the amount of work is so huge, any extra money that goes into paying people to work on making progress in space is awesome.
And with government money you have some freedoms to work on stuff you cannot easily do with private investment, AND vice versa.
with government money you have some freedoms to work on stuff you cannot easily do with private investment, AND vice versa.
No, with government money, you can only work on whatever your political masters desire. It amazes me that some people still believe otherwise.
Much as I suspect Rand does, I support some of Musk’s opinions and practices, while opposing others. This one definitely falls into the latter category. I also suspect pandering to his biggest customer might be a factor.
Would you honestly be opposed to handing STMD and ARMD bigger budgets ? Like two times bigger ?
@reader,
I had to look up STMD and ARMD (One area where I totally agree with Musk is his war on acronyms – I can never remember the things).
We’re talking Space Technology Mission Directorate and Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, right?
To be honest, I’m unfamiliar with the details of what both do, so I don’t have a worthwhile opinion on their funding levels per se.
If, however, they are doing worthwhile work that would be improved with more funding, I’d be fine with increasing their budgets by decreasing other areas of NASA. (By taking the ax to, say, SLS/Orion, and other bloated workforce areas such as management.).
But, are the programs those two directorates are doing all worth the money? Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate has a budget about on par with commercial crew, and it squanders a big chunk of it on climate change. Just cut that and redirect it, instead of increasing its budget.
What is ‘worth the money’ and to whom, exactly ? STMD is supposed to be maturing a bunch of technologies like there is no tomorrow, space nuclear power sources, long duration deep space propulsion, autonomous guidance and navigation and a myriad of other things.
They aren’t accomplishing jack squat – partly because politics – but mostly because they aren’t funded at levels where they can actually reasonably build and fly stuff with a single purpose of advancing the state of the art in technology.
In short, engineers are not in charge.
It is rather fruitless to study space nuclear power when using such systems are verboten. Such systems have been around since the start of NASA and were flown fairly regularly from 1961 to 1977. 12 years would go by before NASA launched the next vehicle with a nuclear power system, and including that one, there has been 5 missions since 1989 using nuclear power.
And if by nuclear power, you didn’t mean power generation but propulsion; let’s fully discredit that nuance. Propulsion would require far more nuclear fuel than generation, and thus would have a higher likelihood of cancellation by policy than just generation.
If NASA doesn’t intend to utilize nuclear power, then they shouldn’t be wasting money on developing it.
Yes, as a matter of fact, I would oppose it. Pouring more money into a government rathole means that more contractors waste more, more government ‘crats feather their nests, more politicians funnel said funding to politically favored cronies, etc. The overall market distortions (or for that matter, outright destruction of what market exists) far outweigh any transitory advantage of what little extra funding trickles through the morass to reach truly useful programs.
Musk is himself proof that such funding is not necessary, and in fact might be counterproductive.
Not if you made much of the NASA budget like the old NACA, which was actually quite efficient at promoting basic R&D. On to the next point: how would you select colonists for a Mars colony? One, no religious tootie fruities and two, no socialists. As much a possible only raving libertarians.
I am a Libertarian – so far to the right I make Ayn Rand look like a commie – and a Christian. Square that circle.
I’m not talking about you in particular, but squaring that circle for many “Christians” (also Muslims and even more so, but very seldom Hindus or Buddhists) seems to involve freedom in financial matters and draconian repression in matters of non-business morality. “Keep out of my boardroom but I’m free to interfere in your bedroom.”
I prefer proper libertarianism – telling Mrs. Grundy to shove her blue laws where the sun don’t shine. And also in light-touch regulation of business; cities with poison-gas atmospheres and rivers in which nothing lives and which occasionally catch fire benefit nobody except the 1%.
No one here has gotten the real reason Musk would like to see NASA’s budget more than double. I shall give a one word hint. Mars.
Mark, we know that. We aren’t stupid, but you seem to be. Mars has nothing to do with Commercial Crew.
Back when NASA received 4% of the federal budget, their unofficial motto was “Waste anything but time.” Simply giving NASA more money will just reestablish that mindset. If you look at NASA’s track record for managing large projects, you’ll find a consistent history of overruns, delays, and often cancellations due in very large part to poor management.
Reestablishing NASA’s mission to be more in line with their predecessor, the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA), would be more appropriate than simply throwing more money at them. NACA did a lot of great research that significantly advanced aviation technology. They also owned and operated expensive facilities such as wind tunnels and test stands that help US companies improve their designs. While NACA did a lot of test flying back in the day, they never tried to operate their own airline or to dominate air travel like NASA did with space.
“Simply giving NASA more money will just reestablish that mindset. ”
Only if we are lucky, they could continue to waste time as well.
As Wayne Hale pointed out the other day, SLS/Orion is a total sinkhole for doing everything “perfectly,” aka with ever-expanding levels of unneeded engineering and bureaucracy.
I would note that that program “pioneers” beyond the “4%” era quote you cite, since it’s really based upon “Waste anything AND time.”
In fact, to the porkers on the Hill, the perfect program is one that takes forever to do so your constituents never have to change jobs over their working lifetime. Or as we used to say here in Boston during the “Big Dig,” the motto of the local unions was “Never lose the job.”
NACA did a lot of test flying back in the day,
Not really. The X-1 was the first, last, and only NACA test aircraft. Even that was a joint USAF/NACA project, driven primarily by USAF advocacy, and was opposes by some NACA staffers who didn’t think the NACA should be building aircraft. Mostly what the NACA did was ground-based fundamental research, leaving flight demonstrations to industry.
Space cadets like to focus on their realm of interest but I hope people do realize that Obama asked for more money in every area of the budget. Our debt is out of control. Simply spending more money, is not a method to gauge an administration’s or congress’ support for an agency like this.
Would it be nice if NASA had more money? It depends entirely on how that money is spent. More money in and of itself wont fix NASA’s problems or get us to Mars or anywhere else.
Elon Musk -more tax farmer than entrepreneur- accomplishes his shitty sleight of hand by delivering goods and services to NASA.