“If people think that there are no consequences to bad behavior, then they will never be afraid of the bad behavior.”

Until I see people being fired then their really isn’t any consequences, they just move on to the next piece of make work.

The ISS has no commercial application

LOL.

Spaceflight Now: Commercial experiments get underway aboard station (2001)
NASA Fact Sheet: Commercial Refrigerator Incubator Module – Modified (CRIM-M)
NASA: Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (CGBA) (CRIM-M)
ESA: ISS Business – What We Do
ESA: SkinCare experiment on board the ISS
JAXA: “Kagoshima Shochu (distilled beverage) in space mission” ‘Commercial utilization’ samples have returned from ISS.
NASA Fact Sheet: Robonaut

“General Motors plan to use technologies from Robonaut in future advanced vehicle safety systems and manufacturing plant applications. Robonaut validates manufacturing technologies that will improve the health and safety of GM team members at manufacturing plants throughout the world.”

And that’s with just a few minutes of research.

Give me a break.

“I have first-hand knowledge of how the astronomical community “let” us get into this situation on JWST.”

I liked the idea of the JWST, however what you talk about is the kind of stuff I suspected was going on, and it’s one of the reasons why I wouldn’t mind JWST being cancelled outright. If people think that there are no consequences to bad behavior, then they will never be afraid of the bad behavior.

Maybe being a cautionary tale, “to not end up like JWST“, is the best thing that could happen for future NASA science missions…

First, leaders in the astronomical community went along with the ridiculous cost estimates and the waste because they felt that any bad news for JWST would jeopardize the mission and there was no way that the budget could be used to fund other missions anyway (notice that they are still saying we should save the mission because of this same logic).

I heard this sentiment over and over and over during the past 10 years of the project. Also, one of the official astronomy “watchdogs” over the mission, AURA/STScI, repeatedly told their employees to look the other way as GSFC squandered project money by having everyone and their mother charge the JWST project code in a series of endless engineering meetings on designs that were going to have to be redone by the real builders down the road (the contractors). We were told, “this is the way great missions get built, if you can’t stand to see sausage get made, then go do something else. Oh, and by the way, GSFC are the ones who write us that $50M check every year, so best be quiet.” I wouldn’t be surprised if JWST were to be a total technical failure if it did get launched, as all the “oversight” has been bought with cold hard cash.

This reminds me of the bankers who were given their perp-walk in the financial meltdown, all the while explaining, “Well, everybody was doing this, so it must be ok.”

“Which may explain why desperate NewSpace proponents such as yourself…”

Provide a list of the companies or individuals that define your term “NewSpace”.

Do you mean Boeing? Orbital Sciences? Sierra Nevada Corp.? I advocate for all of these companies, as well as others, so who do you think I’m so “desperate” about? Heck, I’m not even in the space industry, I just follow it for fun.

And regarding “savvy investors”, who are you saying hasn’t been able to raise the capital that they’ve been looking for? Boeing had revenues of $64B last year, so I know you don’t mean them. Orbital and SNC haven’t said they need outside investors. And all of their current investors are far more “savvy” than you, so I’m sure you’re rather clueless on this part of the discussion anyways.

Or are you alluding to only one specific company, but using the term “NewSpace” to hide your jealousy? Wished it was your company that was in the Iron Man 2 movie? Wished you knew how to build and IPO successful companies? Wished you had the phone numbers of the rich and powerful investors that drop $Millions on request? Or that you had $3B in customer orders? Stop drooling and go back to your Apollo models…

“I know 2-year olds that provide more helpful information…”

Which may explain why desperate NewSpace proponents such as yourself fail to convince mature, savvy investors in private capital markets to dump billions into a high risk, low ROI venture. And, of course, blatantly erronous assertions don’t help your case either: “Coastal Ron wrote @ July 5th, 2011 at 4:34 pm SpaceX has flown a Dragon test flight that someone could have flown on, and the passenger(s) would have returned safely.” Tick-tock, tick-tock, fella.

“Soyuz was designed with lunar flight capability”

Well good for them. Then go tell Congress we don’t need the MPCV, that will save a couple of $Billion. Oh, that’s right, they are Russian, and that would make us TOTALLY dependent on Russia for any spaceflight. Is that what you’re suggesting?

And then there is the Danny Downer act where you don’t offer any solutions except from the 60’s. What’s up with that?

How do you propose that we create a redundant transportation system to LEO to service the ISS? Oh, and do it without your supposed “subsidies”. You say the “private capital investors” don’t want to step in, but you don’t say who will take the risk.

And what is the difference between risking 100% taxpayer funded money for NASA versus public-private relationships that require far less taxpayer money? You know, ten’s of $Billions in tax money for NASA vs 100’s of $Millions to pay commercial firms to do the same job (i.e. crew to ISS).

I know 2-year olds that provide more helpful information than you. Be part of the solution, not the problem.

=yawn= Again with the faux comparisons. NewSpace has yet to fly passengers a la ‘Boeing’… in ‘operation safety and comfort’… in fact, it has not even managed to get a piloted ‘Wright flyer’ off the ground. Tick-tock, tick-tock, there, fella. But by all means, reinvent the wheel if you choose to at your own expense, without government subsidies. no doubt Oler can give you an earful on Boeing and the private capital used to develop the 707.

Vladislaw wrote @ July 15th, 2011 at 4:22 pm
“The ISS has no commercial application “

“Tell the Russians that, they sent commercial tourists there.”

No, in a desperate bid for cash, they permitted qualified passengers woh had to rain for the trip and who paid for the ride and were kept out of the way of government employees at work there.

“The ISS has no commercial application…”

Is was not designed specifically to have commercial applications, although it could.

The ISS is an internationally-developed research facility, and the U.S. portion of the ISS is designated as a National Laboratory. If you don’t know what these terms mean, then I can’t help you, but people that pay the bills and do research think that the ISS is a necessary endeavor for us to pursue if we want to establish a presence beyond the Earth.

Tell the Russians that, they sent commercial tourists there.