Does the Space Race Matter?

Right now with the cancelation of all maned missions, Estes model rockets offers a significant challenge to NASA.

The real importance of these missions is the technology that they derive and subsequently inject into the private sector.

That isn't going to happen unless there is a significant stretch goal for NASA to cause new technology to be developed.

If other nations pick up the ball that we have dropped, then they will reap the economic and technical rewards for that investment.

My point was that nobody other than a government is going to invest the billions required to go to Mars unless there is money to be made. And there is no money to be made unless they can lay claim to a piece of the planet and begin a mining operation. And they can't lay claim because of some international treaty that says "space is for all mankind and no individual or nation can claim it. I think that even extends to capturing asteroids.

Comercial exploitation exploration will not begin until that is changed.

Looking at history, I do not think we would have put a man on the moon by 1969, If the Russians wouldn't have beaten us on first satellite in space, and first man to orbit.

Now they need more definate reasons, other then because its there and potential technical advancements as a derivative.

p911

I don't know how important "superiority" is but I do think it is important for humans as a race to get out there. Without a goal I feel we tend to fall upon each other and eat our young. If it takes a "race" or a slight to national pride to light a fire under the west then so be it. It has been a long time since the late sixties but I still think that July day way back then was the most exciting day in the history of our race.

The technological fall out is great, the jobs created (and not McJobs either) a huge plus, all those things are good but most important is the human race needs a higher bar to strive for.

Long term we are either going to render this planet unlivable, get whacked by an asteroid, or face some natural disaster that will over whelm us on a planatary scale. It would be nice to have a plan B in place.

I really don't really care if it is Sulu, Checkov or Kirk who captains the first starship, as long as I, or my grand kids can get a berth on it.

Getting humans and equipment into low earth orbit is not cutting edge technology - we've been at it for fifty years now. Boosters are commodities. Most developed nations and several developing nations have the technology to get the job done. As I see it NASA's job is to take on the untried technologies that will kick space exploration up a notch - long haul craft, habitats, and equipment for finding and extracting resources. If we really want to visit Mars we will need to make huge advances in robotic missions to lay the ground work. NASA is the right organizational 'tool' for that job.

NASA has a tendency to gold plate everything, which makes sense when we are going where no man (or robot) has gone before, but is wasteful when the project is more run of the mill. If history is any guide it would appear that the first voyages of exploration (Magellan, Columbus, Drake, etc.) were state sponsored efforts, but once the routes were mapped it was the 'private' sector that did the bulk of the back and forth traffic. If the US commercial space industry is not up to the task right now, then hire the Russian's taxi service for a few years until it can get things up and running.

I agree with Johnfotl, its time to let commercial interests into the game. I think that if the great explorers of the past like those mentioned above were subject to the same type of rigourous safety standards and regulations that the American space program tries to live by, we would still be sailing in sight of the Spanish shore line.

Space exploration is a dangerous game, people are going to die, commercial interests will put profit ahead of safety at times, but they will get the job done. Time to loosen the reins and get moving. Haven't I read somewhere that plans exist already to mine iron oxide on Mars, seperate the O2 and Fe there, keep the O2 and send the iron back to earth, all at costs that would turn a profit in less than 20 years. The bug in the plan is that according to international space treaty nobody is allowed to stake a claim on any piece of "space". So no commercial interest will make the original investment required if they don't OWN the mine.

NASA isn't imposing its safety standards on anyone - except for the companies that actually supply it with launch services (which right now is one, Energia), or wish to use its launch facilities. Anyone else can do as they please. Rutan and Branson are free to kill as many tourists as they think the market will bear.

SpaceX has a vehicle on the pad now, BTW.

There's no such thing as a "run of the mill" space voyage. The environments are deadly, both to crew and equipment. "Gold plating" is what you need to survive.

I don't think the space shuttle has been either a safe or cost effective way to get people and stuff into space. We have lost quite a few astronauts in our shuttles and the Russians have lost cosmonauts on their rockets. Considering the secrecy of the Russian governments during the space age I don't claim to have the 'knowledge' required to cite a ratio between our losses and theirs. I would just say that both programs are sometimes fatal, and theirs seems to be much cheaper. If you can show me real figures that demonstrate that each dollar saved by the Russians (by using 'old' conventional boosters) cost x amount of human lives, then I would probably change my tune.

I don't mean to disparage the shuttle. It is an amazing piece of work. In retrospect it would appear that it was just too amazing. I think that NASA admitted much the same thing when it canceled the shuttle program, and chose to replace it not with a 'super shuttle', but with a giant conventional booster (which has also now been canceled).

I think right now the rest of the world is caught up in a 'me too' space race, and I think that's fine - it's their turn. But I see no point in 'competing' in a second wave space race just to show that we can still do it. I think we should be looking for new homes for real settlers on other worlds. I'd like to wake up some morning to the news that the first baby had been born on Mars. I think that is where the challenge now lies, and flying the eleventeen hundredth rocket into low earth orbit doesn't bring us much closer to that goal. Sending robots to Mars (like we are currently doing) to reconnoiter, check out the weather, and look for water, is where our efforts should be concentrated.

I try to never miss a shuttle launch or landing, because run-or-the-mill or not, it's still an adventure. As for Branson, I think this is mostly showbiz, but it's his money. What does he charge for a quick dip into space, and what to the Russians charge for a trip to the space station? There's enough real money at stake here that somebody serious is gonna go for it, and eventually succeed.

I felt in the 70's that the Shuttle was a mistake.

I would have rather seen a heavy lift vehicle derived from the Saturn V and a small reusable shuttle-like vehicle for crew.

Concepts for such a pair were on the drawing boards, but politics took precedence an we have what we are retiring today.

Well we at least got Skylab out of the canceled missions from Apollo 18,

Wonder what they did with Apollo 19 and 20, when they canceled Apollo they had everything made already. The only expense that was saved during the cancellation was the management to put the astronauts on the moon.

p911

They are probably at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors' Center.

I watched netflix documentary call, "When they Left Earth". There was alot of open area in Skylab, that was an overhauled Saturn V Booster.

Yes the space race matters.

Today, everyone in the developed world uses the services of satellites for communications, entertainment, navigation, defense and more. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

It is important to keep in the game as which ever country controls the satellites controls the world. For example, if a country decided that it would be cheaper to just rent satellite services from China rather than operate there own satellites, once China dominated the market, they could set whatever pricing they wanted. Or even worse, if persons unfriendly to a harmonious world community got into power, they could dominate the world by limiting or controlling who got the satellite services.

NASA should be disbanded and a support agency similar to that of the FAA should be installed. Below a certain altitude the FAA would have jurisdiction and above a certain altitude, the Federal Space Agency would have jurisdiction. After all, the FAA does not own and operate all the airplanes and there is no reason for NASA to own and operate all the spaceships. Private enterprises should be doing the flying and NASA should be providing the ground control and spaceport monitoring.

Woe is us

We are a post industrial society that specializes in leisure and **ing off.

The hole process coincides with the general dumbing down of the unwashed masses.

Engineering one of the pillars of true progress is under appreciated undervalued and under paid.

And I'm not even an engineer.

Look east and see how much value they place on engineering.

See China rising.

The space program captures the spirit and the imagination and if this can persuade one kid to choose engineering over say.. law or accounting or politics then I say lead on Mac Duff..

I don't want to quibble since I mostly agree with you, but the Chinese value engineers to the tune of about eight or nine thousand dollars a year. Sure their cost of living is much lower than ours, and that makes head to head comparisons pretty dicey, but it looks like they pay about 10 cents on the dollar.

It is our high cost of living (as distinct fromstandard of living) that is killing us. We have pretty much priced ourselves out of the world market, and until that changes we can't really compete in the manufacturing market. Putting astronauts in space is not cutting edge technology anymore. Rockets are commodities at this point, and countries with cheaper labor can get that job done for a whole lot less.

Fortunately for us they don't have it together to put robot rovers on other planets, while we do. That is our comparative advantage and we should stick with it for now. Plus of course we are totally broke, since what money we do have is in the hands of the non-productive parts of our economy (like banking and insurance). The current economic imbalances can't be sustained, so when eventually our unnecessarily high costs come back down we should be competitive again. If we spend these years doing reconnaissance, with a little luck we'll be ready to go beyond low earth orbit and do some real exploration.

but the Chinese value engineers to the tune of about eight or nine thousand dollars a year.

Are you comparing that to what an engineer or even a person that works in a fast food joint her in the U.S..

Like to know how that compares to other professions inside China