“In so far as the ‘immediate future’ goes (that is, with respect to American manned spaceflight operations over the next quarter century) you may be right.”

Oh better believe it. I am right. Even my crystal ball says so.

“Unless a ‘sputnik moment’ occurs from China, the chances of a strong U.S. manned space project as outlined by Kraft a few weeks ago taking off seem dim.”

Irrelevant.

“And given the lethargic mindset of today coupled with the Age of Austerity, watching China go to the moon will elicit a ‘so what’ response anyway.”

Lethargic? You seem to consume way to much popular newscast.

“Being ‘number one’ in space doesn’t appear to have the payoff today it once had.”

Never had any payoff. The Soviet Union was defeated but certainly not because of Apollo or the Shuttle.

“The goal for young rocketeers now seems clear: make commerical manned spaceflight a reality– and routine. Unfortunately, the profit elements of the free market calculus still adds up to the cost of failure outweighing the value of success.”

The goal of any young engineer is simple: Make cash. Commercial space is a promise to that. A risky yet very real promise. The cost of failure of commercial space is a tiny amount of the cost of failure of the POR or any government mandated and run program, whether you or I or anyone like it or not. There is no, let me repeat, no good reason for this or any government to invest large sums in space. China is our partner and the partnership will only grow stronger with time. It is called “economy”. Wars are expensive waste when you can defeat your “enemy” with the strike of a “stop sell” key. Only fools rush to idiotic wasteful wars. The others just take their time because they have the cash and the time.

A “Sputnik” moment already occurred with the financial melt down. So?

In so far as the ‘immediate future’ goes (that is, with respect to American manned spaceflight operations over the next quarter century) you may be right. Unless a ‘sputnik moment’ occurs from China, the chances of a strong U.S. manned space project as outlined by Kraft a few weeks ago taking off seem dim. And given the lethargic mindset of today coupled with the Age of Austerity, watching China go to the moon will elicit a ‘so what’ response anyway. Being ‘number one’ in space doesn’t appear to have the payoff today it once had. The goal for young rocketeers now seems clear: make commerical manned spaceflight a reality– and routine. Unfortunately, the profit elements of the free market calculus still adds up to the cost of failure outweighing the value of success.

“As succinct and accurate a summary of the world view of the astronaut fan as I’ve ever read.”

Well as I alreday told you in the past, some of us fans have tried to tell other fans that reality is important. But why would NASA say yes to an underfunded useless HLV? Very simple. NASA knows very well it is underfunded, but they also know that if they say “no” then this amount of the cash will go elsewhere, not necessarily even to NASA. So now what do we do?

I think we the fans who try to live inside reality know that commercial is the only chance left today for a decent HSF program. That HLV+HEFT is mostly headed for disaster, yet again. The problem lies with the other fans, some of those you can read saying that the only little tiny probelm with Constellation was funding and that if NASA had the cash then Constellatipn would roar back to life… Those fans are even worse than the robotfans because they kill the efforts of those who actually try to live within their means.

Then again don’t we all pay the mortgage of all the nice people who bought a house way beyond their means?

C’est la vie…

Then why hasn’t Mikey G. expressed any regrets or second thoughts about Constellation now that he’s experienced career stage separation from NASA? And why is giving in to short term politics a virtue?

Answer: that stuff was his personal obsession, and still is.

As succinct and accurate a summary of the world view of the astronaut fan as I’ve ever read.

The Space Shuttle isn’t a J-130. A multibillion dollar and multi-year development effort by an ill experienced entity must be undertaken to create it, during which considerable infrastructure must be sustained during that standdown, upon which the flight rate is dependant upon a class of payload larger than any such in existence that NASA must also produce itself in a funding environment unknown.

All this conspires to wreck the ability of a J-130(which only exists in an ideal form in the minds of its proponents apart from reality) to compete against simply purchasing available lift from the commercial launch market as the cost effective option, to say nothing of the monumental opportunity choice at hand I have outlined on previous occasion.

The theme of my remarks has always been that NASA can accomplish more when it utilizes the commercial launch industry than when it instead undertakes its own endeavors to build launch vehicles. Segmenting launch away from NASA’s own execution to a competitive model where a booster must earn and keep its place in the architecture, while also being open to competing for other payloads to share costs, will at least better allow NASA to accomplish things in whatever manner it does. It maximizes the productive output that NASA is capable of.

The alternative, SDHLV, inhibits that output.