More government incompetence

I feel the need to rant a bit.

The Shuttle fleet was grounded again today. I don't think that human cost is the real reason behind this. I think it's dollars. The Shuttles are very expensive and a very good source of income and jobs for several congressional districts that would be lost if the program shut down permanently. The human cost is there, but you can't honestly tell me that the astronauts themselves (most have at least one doctorate) don't know the odds and yet are willing to fly anyways. They should be allowed to make that decision.

This risk aversion won't help at all. Every new field of transportation has had casualties especially the aviation age. Now though, it is safer, statistically, to fly than to drive. If the government had been allowed to run aviation development we would still have the Wright Flyer.

We need a Shuttle replacement, yesterday. The worst part is that we could have had one years ago if NASA and the government weren't so entrenched in their bureaucracy. The Shuttle has never fulfilled its promise of a reliable, space truck. How could it? It is one of the most complicated machines ever devised by man and requires an immense, expensive, manpower intensive support base. Bad for reliablity, but good to grow a bureaucracy and more middle management empire building. It's also good for Congress--a lot of expensive, specialty parts to be farmed out to constituencies who do well supporting campaigns.

I will say it was a great first step, but was too expensive. If a cheaper, simpler design would have been chosen it would have been feasible to continue development and build improved replacement models that were simpler to use and more reliable. This would likely have been less capable to start with but would be farther ahead now than we are. There are computers on the Shuttle older than I am. They could barely play Pong.

In comparison, look at Spaceship One and the White Knight. While they are not true spacecraft, they are certainly on the way there. Spaceship One is a composite shell with a non-toxic engine and a simple flight computer derived from civil aviation use. The system is the first to take a man with room for a passenger to over 60 miles up twice in two weeks. The whole project came in under the cost of a single Shuttle launch including flight testing and construction all done with a small staff.

Sure SpaceShip One is not the Shuttle, but give it a few years of development and its progeny will take men into space regularly for a reasonable cost. Cargo doesn't need pilots to get there. Take a body based on the Shuttle design without the crew and it is a great, cheap heavy lifter. NASA studied this, but was never allowed to develop it.

A big issue is the perception that space is a government sphere of activity. The only reason that this is so is because the public has been trained to think that by the "epic" saga shown on TV and the numerous Flags and Footprints human missions and Voyager deep space missions. The science is worth it, but there are many good commercial endeavours that exist in space that can help us on Earth, namely resources. First, however, we have to get there cheaply.

A great novel that shows a feasible way to do so is the first part 0f Encounter with Tiber by Buzz Aldrin and John Barnes. A combination of proven technology is used with a good entrepreneur who sells private industry on going into space--starting with tourism. This is just one of many technologically feasible plans that can work to take us to space to stay.

Why should we go at all, we have enough problems here. People, especially Americans, need new frontiers to give hope. The problems we face here are not new and aren't the kind that money will solve alone. Space offers an outlet to allow imagination to fly and breed ideas that can very well help here and gives a perspective on just how fragile the world we live on it and why we should work together to protect it. Most of the potential in space will take time to develop, but if we don't start now we may not be able to later.

A great starting point is to engage private industry actively in space programs and allow entrepreneurs to lead the way. Use part of the budget as seed money for the programs without defining limits for them. Give people a goal to reach and a reason to do it and let the ideas come.

I have ranted a bit long. In short, the government needs to stop being itself and encourage the people and industry lead the way so that we can start spreading our eggs to other baskets.