Comments on: Shuttle Costs Per Month

By: Michael Antoniewicz II

Michael Antoniewicz II — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 22:09:58 +0000

Shut down and retirement of the STS Shuttle Fleet came out of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report in late 2003. President Bush made it Policy in January of 2004.

Long lead items procurement was programed with this guidance for the Shuttle to stop flying in 2010 after the ISS was assembled to the directed level by Congress and etc.

The ablity to restart the long lead procurement process for the Shuttle is long past. To do it now would cost Billions of $’s and years of time before NASA saw any hardware show up at the Cape for use.

But hey, if the Congress-critters want to paper over their negligence of keeping up with what’s going on in NASA and the Space Industries instead of building new ones that function….

By: Mike Lorrey

Mike Lorrey — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 17:43:14 +0000

The problem is that to get more funding, NASA has to spread money out to more congressional districts, but spreading things out makes them more expensive, so its a vicious cycle whose goal really is about jobs and spending taxpayer money and not about putting people and vehicles in orbit.
Worse, congress doesnt even let the administrator close redundant or unneeded facilities to save money.
Personally I’d rather see a trimmed down manned program purely funded by payload fees and a global Astro-Powerball lottery that could be played over the internet, prizes being tourist rides to orbit. Powerball serves 40 states and has annual revenues over $2 billion. A global lottery should be able to generate $3 billion easily.
Then NASA can tell congress to shove it, and close unneeded facilities, lay off unneeded staff as they wish.
I’d also put some money into improving the silica tile technology so they can double the size of the average tile without cracking. This will reduce maintenance costs on the Shuttle TPS by 3/4 (TPS maint itself is 3/4 of all maint man hours between flights) and allow a quadrupling of the sortie rate without compromising safety.

By: Trent Waddington

Trent Waddington — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:56:21 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSChW9HxAvI

By: Danny Farnsworth

Danny Farnsworth — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:30:08 +0000

Marcel,

What does survival of the species have to do with the recession? And what part of wasting resources (i.e. using more than you produce) will help real economic activity increase? It’s hard to follow an argument that jumps from make-work for some people in three or four states (Shuttle, Ares) to surviving what would otherwise kill us all.

Yes, the amount of money spent on military is too much. Also, Americans spend a lot of money on video games. Both of these facts are red herrings, distractions from the question of how best to use the fixed resources allotted to NASA, and whether the new allotment achieves better results compared to the old allotment.

By: Marcel F. Williams

Marcel F. Williams — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:56:27 +0000

Although we only spend less than a third of a cent per tax dollar on manned space flight, our investment in human spaceflight has the largest long term benefits to humanity. Despite the fact that the US spends about a trillion dollars a year protecting us from enemies abroad, the human species could still be completely wiped out by the radiation and nuclear winter caused by a thermonuclear war. A large extraterrestrial impact could also wipe us out. And some disease released from a military lab could also wipe out humanity.

So investing in human spaceflight in order to expand human civilization beyond the Earth greatly enhances the survival of our species. And if we can also exploit the natural resources of the solar system in order to enhance our survival in the rest of the solar system then this too will have a tremendous impact on our economic growth.

Its estimated that if the total mineral wealth of the asteroids between Mars and Jupiter were equally distributed amongst every human on Earth, each individual’s share would come out to be more than 100 billion dollars. Of course if we greedy Americans and our advanced space technology had a monopoly on those resources then every US citizen’s share would come out to be over two trillion dollars each. But to be honest, I’d be satisfied with just 0.1% of my share:-)

By: Jonathan Goff

Jonathan Goff — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:46:35 +0000

Marcel,
Maryland, Virginia, and California do better under the new plan than the current plan. Ohio is probably a wash. Texas and Florida *might* do a little worse under Obama’s proposal, but not significantly worse than under the PoR. It’s only Alabama and Utah that really hurt, and they’re both very safe Red states, so I wonder how much pull they actually have with Obama.

Also, I wasn’t talking Space as a whole, but NASA HSF. Current NASA HSF has very little to do with the space products most Americans use. And he isn’t getting rid of NASA HSF, but focusing it on development work that’s more likely to result in benefits to the average American than building SD HLVs.

~Jon

By: Marcel F. Williams

Marcel F. Williams — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:09:42 +0000

@Jonathan Goff

The four largest recipients of NASA funds (Texas, California, Florida, and Maryland) are some pretty darn important states. And if those states, which represent about 30% of the US economy, don’t recover from this recession then the United States won’t recover from this recession. But if you think our investment in space has only benefited three or four states then you need to turn off the television broadcast that you’re receiving from– space– and really think about what you’re saying.

By: Danny Farnsworth

Danny Farnsworth — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:14:09 +0000

“$2.4 billion wouldn’t pay for a week occupying Iraq.”

Are you going to complain about the cost of Vietnam, as well? War is expensive. We went to war. Whether it was ill-advised or we have faulty memories about our reasons for going there, Iraq has already happened. It is a sunk cost.

Likewise, the money spent on NASA programs, previously, is sunk costs. The only question is what is prudent and economical going forward (balanced between long-term and short-term concerns, with more emphasis on the short-term because of deficits). Is it cheaper, compared to derived benefits, from here, to continue Constellation, or continue servicing the shuttle, or to move in the new direction the Administration has proposed?

This new budget is designed to allow NASA to get more bang for its buck. State and municipal governments around the country are going bankrupt, and the federal government is running enormous deficits. Whatever your political flavor, it is clear that our current path is not sustainable, and moves toward sustainability among even “small” departments like NASA are welcome.

By: Jonathan Goff

Jonathan Goff — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:48:56 +0000

Marcel,
There’s strong bipartisan support for a bigger NASA budget–among the 3 or 4 states that would get most of the benefit from such a move. For the rest of Congress there’s strong bipartisan neglect. They generally go along with the status quo funding-wise, but in spite of all this “Bipartisan support”, almost every effort in the past 10 years to get a big topline increase for NASA (the Mikulski Miracles and such) have failed badly. I think you’re imagining Congress the way you wish it was, not the way it is.

~Jon

By: Trent Waddington

Trent Waddington — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:04:06 +0000

Marcel,

1. The budget has never been raised $3B/year to support a single program.. except Apollo.
2. Your “by the end of the decade” comment suggests to me that you’re a member of the Apollo Cargo Cult.

This isn’t the 1960s anymore.. GET OVER IT.