What if the Columbia foam strike had been a tad smaller… or larger? What if the SpaceShipOne pilot had bailed out as he pondered doing? What if the Falcon had succeeded? Unfortunately politicians watch the roller coaster ride and knee-jerk react for the quick vote.

We need more engineers to quantify the reliabilities and do the destructive tests like some of the automakers, up front, including small scale tests. The rush to beat the Soviets culture still prevails, but to no purpose, especially no long term continuous improvement purpose. Everyone is in an Apollo gold rush, but the space age gold rush is over.

The long term vision should be Mars at constant or slightly reduced budget, and probability of success defined and understood up front – only then should risk be quantified.

It should serve as a warning to those who think that a space revolution is just around the corner. That includes state politicians who want to toss pension and tax money at “space ports”.

But it isn’t impossible to imagine. People whose rockets don’t crash are more careful.

The lesson is that spaceflight is indeed harder than a lot of the CATS/RLV people think it is. Which is not to say that Musk shouldn’t try. More power to him, if he has enough humility.

— Donald

Maybe this business really is as hard as they say. This has to be at least a short-term setback to the spaceflight can be easy and cheap crowd. . . .

— Donald