So does anyone know if Space X is even close to being able deliver to the ISS come June? The mainstream media is absent of any clue about the feasibility of such an ability.

I’d rather be anal than ignorant.

What part of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) don’t you understand?

“Why don’t you lead by example.”

Where havn’t I?

Specifically.

“venture capitalists, (historically averse to high risk projects,)”

You don’t have a clue as to what you’re talking about.

Venture capital is the highest risk form of fiduciary capital.

Buy a clue.

“Without any manned spacecraft in the pipeline, a mission and a destination, it can be rationally disbanded…”

First, NASA is going to pursue at least two crew transport providers — that two “manned spacecraft in the pipeline” on top of ISS. And the FY11 budget and the President’s KSC speech do articulate a mission and destinations. You may not like them, but they exist.

Second, NASA has gone most of its history since the end of the Apollo program without a human exploration mission or destination, and it’s never been “disbanded” or even considered for such.

Don’t make stuff up.

As far as I’ve seen, there is practically zero Congressional support for actually going to the Moon, much less anywhere else in the Solar System. Certainly the assertion that somehow killing Constellation is also killing manned spaceflight beyond low-Earth orbit is a fantasy as broad and rich as anything dreamed up by the Walt Disney Corporation.

Heck, it took Walt himself, working with Von Braun and some science fiction writers to drum up the initial public support for the Apollo program in the first place. I could imagine perhaps James Cameron, Jerry Pournelle, and Buzz Aldrin giving another go for a similar public relations blitz as Walt did elsewhen, but it would take a similar kind of major effort to really get things going. As it stands now, the general public doesn’t really care about NASA.

Oh, I’m not saying that there is support for the complete abolition of NASA… and it will continue for some time into the future. Most non-informed voters that I’ve met, when asked about public spending on space, thinks we are still spending money at the same rate that was done in the 1960’s. At least I’m referring to those of the “baby boom” generation that is currently the largest block of actual voters who go to the polls and make a difference politically. If they are that out of touch, cutting NASA to perhaps a billion or two per year wouldn’t be missed at all.

Certainly the general public discourse about human spaceflight is non-existent. Within the “aerospace community” and certainly among the spaceflight enthusiasts of various types the discussion is going on, but otherwise it is general apathy with a typical voter. Heck, if pressed to give a name for a Space Shuttle they would have problems, and certainly couldn’t name an astronaut who has flown in the past 20 years besides perhaps John Glenn. That one would be a lucky guess, too.

If disbanding NASA is what is at stake, fine! I’ll give it a heave-ho and not look back. It is hardly the only space agency in American anyway, and I’ll simply say “good riddance”. The FAA-AST is the future of manned spaceflight in America anyway.

@MajorTommy: “The other poster was making an emotional argument that the U.S. federal government is headed toward “bankruptcy” and that the “true goal of private rocketeers” is to see the “civilian agency [NASA] become a luxury” that the nation can no longer afford.”

Inaccurate, as usual. Best you begin to understand that there are other parameters besides engineering- the ‘Cernan intangibles’ – that fuel space operations. Commercial space exploitation is not space exploration. Actual post reads: “As current deficits balloon, budgets shrink and distressed economic trends continue, there will be very little of NASA worth funding by 2020. The civilian agency will become a ‘luxury’ a nation hurtling toward bankruptcy can do without— especially without an operational manned spacecraft in work. The public, who pay the freight, equates human spaceflight with the civilian space agency– from the days of the X-15 through shuttle. Without any manned spacecraft in the pipeline, a mission and a destination, it can be rationally disbanded (picture a giddy Gingrich); lauded for accomplishing what it was tasked to do in years past; its esoteric research and existing assets easily folded into existing agencies (FAA, DoD, NOAA, etc.,) doing similar research or leased/sold to commercial interests. There isn’t a politician alive who wouldn’t crow over closing down a Federal agency in this era. And a public craving more and more entitlements will agree.

This is what’s at stake. And, of course, that is the true goal of private rocketeers, weened and frustrated since the Reagan days, who believe venture capitalists, (historically averse to high risk projects,) will fuel (and fund) space exploration, veiled as space exploitation, and expand the human experience outward into the cosmos. To be sure, in this era, viable, private enterprised space operations are to welcomed by quite literally helping to ‘carry the load’ in tandem with a government funded and managed space program. But as a replacement for NASA’s HSF operation, no.

If NASA was/is disbanded, no doubt private enterprised space companies would be first in line to lease/purchase assets at bargain prices paid for by taxpayers. So too, would real estate developers. The Space Coast would make for some superb beachfront communities, with a return for investors faster than anything private rocketeers could deliver to shareholders.

Oh yes… think before you post and stop littering this forum, etc., etc. et al.