Mission unthinkable: Disbanding NASA

[MikeHarm]

Nasa is obsolete, its time for space travel to become business.

[lochinvar]

Let it die. I won't weep.

The bald fact is that we will never colonize space until it can be demonstrated to be economically advantageous for somebody to do so. All of the great colonization efforts in history have been due to somebody, somewhere thinking there was gold to be made.

Where's the gold in going to Mars? Or back to the moon, for that matter? We spend millions, not to say billions, to put a paltry handful of people in space and have seen no payback--monetary--from having gone there. This is progress?

(Yes, there have been technical and technology advances deriving primarily from the campaign, but virtually none from the actual acheivement.)

We will never colonize space because there isn't any profit to doing so. We already know how to put satelites in orbit, so what do we need NASA for anymore?

As for the Chinese, let them waste their money digging in this dry well for a while. They'll learn soon enough that its just pouring sand down a rathole.

[RITFencing]

NASA won't be disbanded; it deals with the DOE and its subdivision the NNSA on a regular basis, helping out on both strategic and scientific projects. While I personally think deep space and even intrasolar exploration should be put on the back burner, there are many applications for near space stuff that are very useful here on earth, such as global communications, atmospheric research, the GPS system, and other things.

[gojujay]

Got this out of the Winter 2005 issue of Cal Poly Magazine pg. 34:

Rutanizing Space Travel

During Fall Convocation, President Warren J. Baker awarded the President's Medal of Excellence to aerospace innovator Burt Rutan (AERO '65), CEO of Scaled Composites LLC in Mojave, CA.

Rutan has made history more than once, most recently in 2004 when he won the $10 million Ansari X Prize for building SaceShipOne, the first private manned spacecraft ti travel into space. His goal is to make space travel routine, fun and affordable.

Here are excerpts from his presentation, "Space, For thr Rest of Us."


-It's no longer insane to think of a private company doing manned space flight.
-In the early years, airplanes were invented by natural selection. The ones that kill the pilot survived.
-When you are between age three and fourteen, you decide what you're going to do with your life. Kids need exciting times and periods of extreme technological progress to inspire them to become scientists and engineers.
-Mars was a lot more interesting to go to in 1955 than it is now. NASA ruined it for me. They sent their little probes that landed in the desert instead of downtown.
-After 1973, [the space program] collapsed. We became risk aversive and lacked courage. We were chicken to fly.
-The Lunar Lander was the most impressive spacecraft ever built. But with the mentality at NASA nowadays, they would say building such a craft would be impossible to do.
-The innovation cycle doesn't occur in the government sector, only with private-sector dynamics.
-Space travel is still primitive... the difference between a bomb and a rocket is that the rocket has a hole in one end.
-The Russians are offering a flight around the moon in 2008 for $200 million. They're now more capitalistic than we are. I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to let them beat us.
-A lot of people in this audience will fly into space in the next 15 to 20 years. You will play golf in zero gravity at a resort hotel in orbit in about 25 years. It will be affordable and safe.

Interesting stuff.

[Amadeus]

this is probably a good thing. i never understood why we would try to go anywhere in space when our deficit is increasing by billions of dollars every year.

[Epee_Pox]

Yeah. We should get rid of all the bloated agencies that are completely unnecessary in modern America, which are contributing just as much as NASA, if not more, to the growing deficit.

Department of Agriculture -- you're kidding, why on earth do we need a federal agency for farms? Why not have a Department of Convenience Stores, or a Department of Plumbers, or for every other kind of occupation? Farms are either run by self-sufficient massive agribusinesses, or by savvy independent businessmen, or by fiercely independent family farmers. None of the above require any government assistance. And this is one of the largest bureaucracies of all! Just merge the few useful bits into Commerce and the EPA. That's $20 Billion per year saved right there.

Department of Education -- correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all schools operating under local governments? How many federal schools are there? Lose the whole department. Savings $58 Billion per year.

Department of Homeland Security -- yay, let's solve the problem of the myriad intel & law enforcement agencies failing to communicate with each other, by... creating yet another bureaucracy that nobody communicates with. Only created because Bush didn't have the cojones to stand up to the 9/11 commission's recommendations. Savings $40 Billion per year.

Department of Veterans Affairs -- why isn't this a sub-bureau of the DoD? Savings $51 Billion per year.

Commodity Futures Trading Commission -- why isn't this in Commerce?

U.S. Election Assistance Commission -- why isn't this part of the Federal Election Commission?

Federal Labor Relations Authority -- why isn't this part of the DoL?

Federal Trade Commission -- why isn't this part of Commerce?

Legal Services Corporation -- don't we already have a DoJ?

National Education Goals Panel -- lose it.

National Labor Relations Board -- redundant, see DoL.

National Mediation Board, or Office of Alternate Dispute Resolution and Mediation, or Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service -- you only need one. Lose the other two.

AMTRAK -- lose it!

NTSB -- redundant. See DoT.

Office of Special Counsel -- lose it.

Peace Corps -- this does what, exactly? See also: Americorps and its various permutations.

Railroad Retirement Board -- you're kidding, right?

Selective Service Commission -- we haven't had the draft for over a generation.

Tennessee Valley Authority -- correct me if I'm wrong, but the Great Depression's over.

And that's just the entire units of government we could safely get rid of. Don't get me started on individual programs!

So don't limit yourself by picking on NASA. Aim higher!

[Amadeus]

Yeah. We should get rid of all the bloated agencies that are completely unnecessary in modern America, which are contributing just as much as NASA, if not more, to the growing deficit.

well, yeah. why not?

although i think that most of the agencies you named do serve an actual purpose.


i don't think that nasa should be removed completely, without replacement. but i think it's good that the government is concentrating on slimming down the agency.

[Gav]

Well you be interested in reading this Ok, so it talks about UK gov' but the end conclusion is that bureaucracy wastes money.

[wrdbrn]

Tennessee Valley Authority -- correct me if I'm wrong, but the Great Depression's over.

http://www.tva.gov/greenpowerswitch/partners/index.htm

TVA is beseiged with the same problems every private and public entity has greed, ethics.. etc ad nauseum. To its credit you can sell your unused "green power" back to the grid. EVERYONE who can - should. Now... back to your conversation about the disbanding of flagship government/private programs which may or may not have or had international history making work product....

[secretly]

The world space program is dominated by the US. There are
viable national space programs at around eight countries
(US, Europe, Japan, Russia, India, Japan, China, Israel (...)

Europe, a country?

and what's up with counting Japan twice, are they THAT involved?