“Too bad you do not see that business has very little to do with passion and everything to do with 1 penny of profit being the only ultimate goal.”

I guess you haven’t have a good experience in your work life, which is too bad. I have, as have the thousands of people that I’ve had the pleasure to work with.

“There is no profit to be made out there until there is an off world civilization in place to exploit.”

What you’re describing is the classic chicken & egg problem, in that we can’t get an off world civilization going with purely NASA money, and that’s not NASA’s charter.

So now you’re back to the same methods that were used to populate this world originally, which is exploration, exploitation and migration. Unless there is a government program to do that (ain’t gonna happen), then you’ll have to depend on economic forces to drive most of that. I think it will happen over a long period of time, but it wont’ be mainly NASA driven, that’s for sure.

“Right Ron. Goodbye.”

I noticed that even Paul is getting tired of your rants – that’s not a good sign…

Too bad you do not see that business has very little to do with passion and everything to do with 1 penny of profit being the only ultimate goal. The corporate entity would burn a rain forest to a cinder if it would generate a penny for share holders- if they could get away with it.

I did not invent this reality- you want to mix “passion” and “making a difference” with the profit motive and that is……asinine. It is the only word the moderator might let me get away with to describe your mindset.

The survival of the human race is the only reason we will go into deep space. There is no profit to be made out there until there is an off world civilization in place to exploit. Your joe the space plumber fantasy is all you can see. It is not real.

“I should have qualified it by saying that YOU don’t want to make a difference,-”

Right Ron. Goodbye.

“Unbelievable idiocy again.”

Well I guess I should have qualified it by saying that YOU don’t want to make a difference, but I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt.

“No, usually it means you are divorced because your work was more important than your family.”

It’s not a 365 day a year behavior I’m talking about, but maybe you’ve never had the chance to work for a company like that, which is too bad, but I’ve worked for a few, and I know about lots more.

It’s a phenomenon that is written about in business journals, and the practice is quite common in places like Silicon Valley.

It’s part of following your passions in life.

“NASA workers and most of the population are not willing to do that anymore.”

Organizations that lose their passion can be easily overtaken by other organizations that have passion. It’s the way of the business world, and it’s too bad you don’t see it. Also, I didn’t invent it, and it goes on the world over, so you’re yelling at the wind when you diss it. Not unusual for you, of course…

Unbelievable. What an idiotic statement.

“This is a silly statement. Everyone wants to make a difference,”

Unbelievable idiocy again.

“If you’re not staying late or working weekends while you’re on salary, you don’t have a passion for your job. ”

No, usually it means you are divorced because your work was more important than your family.

The reason Apollo flew was exactly what you are talking about- civil service workers who later commented on the sacrifices they made by working so many hours they really had no life at all.

NASA workers and most of the population are not willing to do that anymore. Everyone deserves a life. You want to go back to the good old days when there were really no good old days. Everyone deserves a life.

Except the people you hire, I guess.

“NASA engineers and contractors don’t just want a job. They want to make a difference.”

This is a silly statement. Everyone wants to make a difference, not just those that work for NASA or NASA contractors.

When I hire people, I only hire people that have a passion for their job, no matter what it may be. It’s no different whether it’s building toilets or building rockets, people want to do a great job and be proud of what they do.

In fact I would argue that startup companies have the most passion, since only those that are willing to risk their careers get involved, and they work far longer and harder than their peers in established companies. If you’re not staying late or working weekends while you’re on salary, you don’t have a passion for your job.

To think that NASA or space exploration in general is somehow “special” is really ignorant.

Most of the 5 segment development work has already been completed and paid for, including 2 ground tests, and a simulated 5 segment test flight…

But there are certainly many different ways to build an HLV, most of which can work, given a reasonable budget and timeline…

I think you have identified their strategy. Maximize development costs by dragging out the program an insanely long time. Minimize the number of flights. That way, they can claim that the cost per launch is astronomical.

This is a BEO manned exploration program. If we go the shuttle-derived route, then we need key people form the Shuttle workforce who are experts on the RS-25 engine, SRBs, ET, etc…

In any real engineering project, having even a few key experts can make a dramatic difference. I speak from experience.

Also, the “jobs” argument simply does not hold water. NASA engineers and contractors don’t just want a job. They want to make a difference. If job security was their primary concern, then they never would have entered the volatile aerospace marketplace.

“Actually, what the administration is– really saying– is that they want NASA to delay deciding on the final configuration for the SLS by nearly a decade so that they can decide whether or not to use 5-segment SRBs or or RP1/LOX booster for the HLV configuration.”

No, you are incorrect. In President Obama’s 2010 budget he called for a decision on heavy lift NO LATER than 2015. In that five year period a whole of tech tools were going to be developed. When some of those projects had raised their TRL’s NASA was going to have an open competition on a heavy lift.

They were not really wanting a LOX/LH2 core, they were going to develop a kerosine engine closer to a F1. It would be a lot cheaper and less leaking that was always plaguing the shuttle.

A better mission than a lunar flyby would be a trip to an asteroid. They just discovered the first Earth trojan:

Earth’s First Trojan Asteroid Discovered
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=34214

That would be close enough for repeat trips.