Farewell, Constellation, We Hardly Knew Ye
posted by Jen | 10:35 PM
So, yeah the world is pretty much turning upside down here in Space Town. For those that aren't part of the NASA crowd, the 2011 budget published by the Obama administration this week cancels the Constellation program, which was the new human spaceflight program intended to follow the Shuttle retirement late this year. And it has been replaced by - nothing.
I can't even really process all this right now, especially since I haven't been to work in months. I have just two coherent thoughts right now.
First, I like the idea of outsourcing access to low Earth orbit and the ISS to private companies. I really do. However, I am terribly afraid that technical, financial, or legal concerns will get in the way of those private companies realizing their designs and ultimately producing that access. And then the USA will be stuck with no way to get people into space. Without a NASA vehicle as a backup plan, that would be a very bad situation and could last a decade or more.
Second, in my (admittedly limited) experience hobby shop innovation projects that are not connected with concrete programmatic goals rarely ever produce anything useful. This budget removed the programmatic goal and replaced it with a nebulous call for innovation. I see that being a money sink that will ultimately result in the budget being taken away because nothing is being produced.
I could maybe get on board with this if I believed that the NASA budget would be used to fund a series of flight test development projects with very well-defined and concrete technologies that are needed to further human exploration of our solar system. I don't think that's what's going to happen, though.
The administration and the NASA DC crowd is insisting that this is a "bold new vision" for human spaceflight. That we will be exploring to solar system on some yet to be defined timeline. They are going to have a hard time convincing the line troops that's the case. From down here, it looks like the politically expedient way of starting to shut down NASA's human spaceflight program without actually admitting that's what you're doing.
I can't even really process all this right now, especially since I haven't been to work in months. I have just two coherent thoughts right now.
First, I like the idea of outsourcing access to low Earth orbit and the ISS to private companies. I really do. However, I am terribly afraid that technical, financial, or legal concerns will get in the way of those private companies realizing their designs and ultimately producing that access. And then the USA will be stuck with no way to get people into space. Without a NASA vehicle as a backup plan, that would be a very bad situation and could last a decade or more.
Second, in my (admittedly limited) experience hobby shop innovation projects that are not connected with concrete programmatic goals rarely ever produce anything useful. This budget removed the programmatic goal and replaced it with a nebulous call for innovation. I see that being a money sink that will ultimately result in the budget being taken away because nothing is being produced.
I could maybe get on board with this if I believed that the NASA budget would be used to fund a series of flight test development projects with very well-defined and concrete technologies that are needed to further human exploration of our solar system. I don't think that's what's going to happen, though.
The administration and the NASA DC crowd is insisting that this is a "bold new vision" for human spaceflight. That we will be exploring to solar system on some yet to be defined timeline. They are going to have a hard time convincing the line troops that's the case. From down here, it looks like the politically expedient way of starting to shut down NASA's human spaceflight program without actually admitting that's what you're doing.
Labels: rocket science
1 Comments:
Completely agree, couldn't have said it better myself.
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