There is no magic capability. Space is hard and expensive. The old line contractors have taken that into account. The young turks think it can be easy and cheap, I don’t think they will ever fly sucessfully. Until they do NASA shouldn’t pay them one cent. After they do NASA should definatly purchase their services. Maybe purchase garuntees is the way to go, contracts promising to buy a certain number of launches at a set cost when sucessfull so that these companies can raise money.

The point I was trying to make up is that you can not use private space companies to justify slashing NASA’s budget when they are counting on NASA having that money to pay them for launch services. Cutting that money will shut down all the alt-space companies immediately and there will be no public or private space flight.

Try reading and understanding before you argue.

You didn’t think NASA will ever pay for alt-space missions, but it’s preposterous to slash the NASA budget because some companies are planning on NASA doing that?

How is it advantageous for companies to plan on NASA doing something it won’t do? Does that actually make sense to you?

> I don’t think these guys have the technological capability
> to do what they say they are going to do.

So, where does NASA keep the magic technology that isn’t available to private enterprise? Area 51?

There is your purpose for human space flight.

Automakers stepped forward, adding the airbag.

NASA stepped backwards, emitting the launch escape system.

NASA needs to go back to the space age, but the space age is over.

If the only purpose of humans in space is humans in space, and and long term survival, then what is the purpose of transporting humans to and from low Earth orbit, or for that matter a person to and from work in a car, other that survival, first and foremost?

Greg: Mir was not how not to do human spaceflight; it was exactly how to do human spaceflight (albeit an extreme example). They traded risk for money and made the program work at a budget that should make any American engineer blush. They accomplished their goals long after the resources of the Soviet Union evaporated. The International Space Station would not be possible, or a lot more difficult, without the lessons the Russians learned with Mir.

This is how exploration has been done throughout human history. I see no reason to do it differently today.

— Donald

Wars are won by those who have the best National System of Innovation and the means of production to back it up. By starting from behind and beating the Russians to the Moon we showed we head a better system and we would win any war.

That is why those 10 months mattered. Now it doesn’t unless we get so far behind again we find ourselves in another space race.

Gardner was evidently a prophet before his time (good read):
http://www.peterson.af.mil/hqafspc/history/gardner.htm

From http://www.dartmouth.edu/~arthurk/Caitlin.html

IMHO higher flight rate is badly needed, as is automated rendezvous and docking of components. The trouble with one heavy launch is it builds into this one high-expense all-or-nothing production; it’s always non-routine.

But Kennedy wanted to build a big launcher because part of the point was to show the US could build bigger and better than Russia, so Johnson classified the final report and kept every copy in his safe. When they were eventually declassified in the 1990s Kantrowitz says NASAs only excuse for not pursuing that path then was that “it would be embarrasing to us”.

… The Webb-Wiesner and Shea-Golovin discussions had, if anything, widened the gap between NASA and PSAC (President’s Sci. Advisory Comm., which favored direct ascent and direct lunar insterion.). Early in September, Wiesner again wrote Webb, reiterating his concerns about lunar-orbit rendezvous and this nation’s inferiority to Russia in the big booster field. ( Ours has to be bigger than the Commies’!) PSAC, he assured Webb, stood ready to assist NASA in gathering “the best talents nationally available” to study the mode question. Wiesner sent a copy of this letter to the President, perhaps hoping that Kennedy might step in to settle their differences.47

President Kennedy did, in fact, become involved while on a two-day visit to NASA’s space facilities on 11 and 12 September 1962. After viewing the Apollo spaceport being built in Florida, Kennedy flew on to Huntsville, Alabama. There, during a tour of Marshall and a briefing on the Saturn V and the lunar-rendezvous mission by von Braun, Wiesner interrupted the Marshall director in front of reporters, saying, “No, that’s no good.” Webb immediately defended von Braun and lunar-orbit rendezvous. The adversaries engaged in a heated exchange until Kennedy stopped them, stating that the matter was still subject to final review. But what had been a private disagreement had become public knowledge. Editorial criticism stemming from the confrontation-including the question, “Is our technology sound?” – forced NASA to justify its selection of lunar-orbit rendezvous to the public, as well as to PSAC.48

…

Another indictment of PSAC’s choice was that the panel members persisted in claiming that lunar rendezvous had no time advantage over the other modes. NASA was equally obdurate in its belief that adopting one of the other modes would mean a lag of ten months.

Once upon a time, NASA was obdurately opposed to ten month delays.

…

… After Webb’s letter of 24 October, Wiesner decided not to take his objections to Kennedy, since the President was occupied with the Cuban missile crisis. Subsequently, Wiesner took the position that had the situation been different, his actions might not have been the same. Webb then advised the White House that Apollo was committed to lunar rendezvous.57

… At the end of the first week in November 1962, NASA announced its selection of a manufacturer for the lunar module.58

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4205/ch4-4.html