it is possible for the Aerospace Industry of this Planet, to do the job, but only collectively, and with disregard to National sensitivities over Not Build by Us, so we won’t use it…

1) a fleet of Launch Vehicles to meet the challenges of LEO, LLO, NEO, and the infrastructure to support said LV’s and Space Vehicles

2) Space Vehicles that are capable of interplanetary flight, with 20+ persons, with no intention of landing on said planetary destinations; or ever returning through Earth Atmosphere, but live out their lives in space

3)with shuttle capabilities to move people and goods from orbit to planetary surfaces.

4) assembly & maintenance depots and fuel depots for interplanetary flight vehicles (human and robotic), and orbital space station destinations in LEO, LLO, and at L1/L2, by 2030, with potential for later Space Stations at the Martian Moons, around Venus and in Solar Orbit, by 2050…

5) robotic flights to the Outer Planets, with potential to land on their moons and return with samples… Exploration of the Astroid belt, with mapping and resource estimations… again post 2030…

6) and true commercial utilization of space, where space becomes commonplace: ie Sports, Tourisim, and Industrial Complexes ie Factories… where it costs no more than the present fares to cross the Atlantic to go to L1 or L2, maybe double to visit the Moon… and no requirement to become working Astronauts…

ok, is that clear enough… I am talking VISION here, not vision… lets get the Thumbs Out, give our kids the chance to dream BIG, and go places where once we had the promise of, but lost the way…

Didn’t NASA transfer the X-37 to DARPA?”

Yes, that’s right. I should have qualified my statement by saying that NASA has not transferred any recent or ESMD projects to DARPA.

Thanks for the correction.

Yes, NASA got punished for success after Apollo with shrinking budgets, and they’ve been getting rewarded for failure ever since.

Didn’t NASA transfer the X-37 to DARPA? I think Robonaut too.

If everything we put together in space has to be done with astronauts bearing wrenches and crowbars, we’re screwed.

Just to be clear, NASA hasn’t shifted any programs to DARPA. NASA is civilian and DARPA is military. The NRC recommendation is to create a DARPA-like organization within NASA for civilian space and aeronautics technology development.

“…congress had no stomach for failure. R&D especially Advance R&D includes failure but as soon as Congress sensed failure they cut funding at least for NASA.”

Evidence?

It’s true that NASA lives in a fishbowl, and its failures are more widely publicized than, say, DARPA.

That said, I don’t know of any high visible failure at NASA that has led to reduced funding. In fact, flight, mission, and program failures tend to lead to more funding. Off the top of my head, Challenger led to increased funding for the Shuttle program, Columbia led to the Vision for Space Exploration and an extra $1 billion, and Mars mission losses back in the faster-better-cheaper days led to a doubling down on the twin Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity). Heck, even the programmatic failure of the X-33 program led to the bigger Space Launch Initiative.

One might argue that the lack of negative feedback (at least in terms of budgets) for NASA failures is a factor contributing to their recurrence.

“The NASA DARPA goes back to an early idea (not new) in the Constellation program to use a spiral up technology approach. At first utilizing proven technology while new technology were development than spiraled into the current technology to add capability.”

Again, for clarity’s sake, spiral development and DARPA-like organizations are not really the same thing. Organizations like DARPA exist to mature high-risk/high-payoff technologies to the point that operational organizations (like the military services or most of NASA) can adopt them. Spiral development is the development of successive iterations of an operational system, and is generally incorporating lower-risk/lower-payoff and more mature technologies than what a DARPA-like organization goes after. A DARPA-like organization could feed one or more spiral development programs, but again, they’re not the same thing.

“Anyway it comes down to consistent and reliable funding by Congress.”

Not really. It may not grow as fast as some would like, but the White House and Congress provide a very consistent $18+ billion budget for NASA. The problem in recent years has been the costs of the Constellation Program. Just to get Ares I/Orion started, Griffin sacrificed most of the agency’s space technology development programs — things like Project Prometheus (nuclear fission power and propulsion) — as well as most life and microgravity sciences research. Successive Constellation cost increases have forced cancellations in the lunar robotic program, the advanced in-space propulsion technology development program, etc.

“It’s so depressing that Republicans, Democrats and Other Congressman can borrow 100s of billions of dollars for wars, banks and automakers and can’t find 5 billion for NASA, NASA/Commercial R&D and Commercial Technology Transfer and Commercial Services.”

It may be depressing, but these are things over which the civil space program has no control and which are much higher priorities for the nation. Rather than bemoan reality, it would be better if NASA took more control over its own fate, formulated programs that fit within their resources to start with, and proactively pursued alternatives when programs do go off the tracks — instead of wasting years and gazillions of taxpayer dollars limping along, hoping that the White House and Congress will bail out major program overruns only to have those overrunning programs reformulated into something that’s executable within the existing budget resources by blue-panel commissions like the ongoing Augustine review committee.

FWIW…