Um…People seem to forget that NASA management works for the White House and is beholding to laws by congress. NASA is not the problem.

Some say that NASA needs a mission. Some say it needs a specific mission. I do not agree.

IF congress passed an authorization act which simply stated that NASA’s mission was to explore the universe and expand human presence beyond terrestial limits and left the details to NASA for the last 30 years, we would be there. They have never been allowed to work it the way they want to given only a consistent budget constraint. They have always been used as a political football to get other pork projects funded.

NASA management gets it. They have been trying very hard to do as they are required and also push the industry in the right direction. I applaud every single NASA center director for their efforts to keep a positive attitude while trying to be good stewards of the taxpayers’ money.

“Then put up three prizes.

With this we would change the world.”

I think prizes and challenges can create healthy competition, and even some accomplishments. However if taxpayer money is involved, then it has to show some public ROI too.

For instance, the DARPA Grand Challenge moved along the state of the art for self-guided vehicles, which DARPA likely thought would help future war fighters. As a side effect they probably advanced the point in time where we’ll have self-guided cars too, but that wasn’t DARPA’s goal.

I think a lot of people were surprised when the outcome of the Ansari X Prize (a private competition) was the winner actually trying to commercialize their success beyond just the competition. We haven’t seen a similar outcome from the DARPA challenge, so I don’t think we can expect every challenge to create a market.

The other thing I think needs to be taken into account is the timeframe and risks. If the timeframe is set too far out, there is little sense of urgency. Set too close, and not enough people will feel it’s doable. If there is no date, then potential challengers will try to keep tabs on each other without having to commit too soon. Lots to consider.

The risk level is a big factor too. If you have to spend $1B before you know if you’ll have a competitive entry, then button-down public companies probably won’t try. This certainly encourages teaming, but still, $Billions is a lot of money, and they have to see payoffs beyond just the prize money.

I do like the idea of ever increasing levels of difficulty, and since we’re dealing with a challenge that only one country has been able to match, but at a level of spending it can’t even afford today, then the first challenge shouldn’t be landing and returning from the Moon. Maybe orbit a crew of four around the Moon for two days, then return? That ensures that it won’t be a Soyuz, and that it’s not just free return trip either. Then on to something incrementally more challenging.

But the outcome of each prize has to be something that is somehow important to the nation. Not that we feel it would be neat to mine water on the Moon, but to solve a specific problem that has specific payoffs. So far though, no one has identified anything on the Moon, besides scientific knowledge, that we need, so good luck getting money from Congress to fund any challenge.

My $0.02

Hmmm,…. I seem to remember people telling Elon that several years ago.

At the end of the day today, it is about money, technology is no longer the limiting factor in the economic development of space. It is the role of the space advocate today, whether through the development of their own private space enterprise, or through making money in other venues to apply it to space.

There is nothing unrealistic in the economic development of the space frontier today and if the government does not do it, then through a lot of blood sweat and tears we will.

I could just as well ask why you are here. Your own blog seemed to have left off soon after that thought was expressed.

Don’t flatter yourself on this one, I was working 90 hours a week on a new venture. I still don’t have time to do what I want to do with it so I am leaving it until the new year.

As for Robert’s question, dunno six months ago people would have said that Newt Gingrich could not have gotten his mother to vote for him and now look. I am a lot more hopeful about Gingrich than some as I really don’t give a crap about his baggage, it is what he can do as president. We have been living through a presidential administration that came to town with zero baggage, a faithful husband, and with no other stains and look at what it got us. You know it is bad when people are pining for the good old days of a president who knew how to govern and liked blow jobs from interns in his office.

I could just as well ask why you are here. Your own blog seemed to have left off soon after that thought was expressed.

I’m here because there is usually thoughtful discourse about space policy and, as per the title, space politics. We express opinions and we debate them, thanks to Jeff. The nature of discourse is that one has to muster compelling arguments sometimes, and sometimes you have to listen to arguments you don’t agree with. That’s the way it works. In fact, as per the topic of this thread, that’s how politics works.

If you can make it happen, that private concerns win your notional three prizes, then more power to you. To be honest, it is indeed incredibly easy to be a naysayer about things that just seem patently unrealistic. If believing it’s true would make it true, I’d be more positive, but that’s not a religion I subscribe to. I can’t imagine even a self-styled space nerd like Newt Gingrich subscribing to that religion.

do you really think that any of these are politically viable? I dont but curious RGO

“I think I can speak fairly authoritatively that Newt wasn’t talking about spending hundreds of billions of tax dollars on lunar colonies.”

Hmmm. Can speak matter of factly that Newt advocated disbanding NASA after Apollo. He is, in fact, what less informed folks think a smart person sounds like. Mining the moon is the babbling of a loon, particularly when veiled in the aura of Reaganomics-styled commercialism. Supply-side efforts at managing HSF has met with disasterous results as Challenger so tragicly showed and of late, has failed America and has failed to get HSF off the ground. Newt needs reminding that capital investment by the private sector in commercial HSF remains tepid at best and as of December, 2011, no commercial firm has yet to launch, orbit and recover a crewed spacecraft wheras the Soviets- and the U.S. government accomplished this half a century ago. VirginGalactic remains the most promising sub-orbital enterprise and Branson recently stated he expects to begin flight operatrions in a year. Gingrich’s comments simply dovetail with the discredited philosophy that advocates privatizing everything government. That’s worked well for the bankrupted post office, hasn’t it.

@Robert G. Oler wrote @ December 11th, 2011 at 10:32 pm

“I know bad leadership…”

Sure you do. No doubt you reflect on it daily, particularly as you pass a mirror. And now we can add labelling Buzz ‘a turd’ to your oft-posted disdain for human spaceflight. Strsnge. Sad.

Where are you getting these numbers from? 15 billion for a ride to the moon? That is beyond being silly.

The point of prizes is to deliver a product to the general marketplace and spur commercialization of that product.

Do you honestly believe that commercial interests would do it the NASA way? You know, spend 50-60 billion developing rockets then toss away 2-3 billion in hardware every flight? Do you HONESTLY believe that is how commercial space would do the moon? No fuel depots? No reusable habitats? No reusable EDS’s? No reusable lunar landers? No reusable return capsules? That commercial firms would not utilize existing rockets? Come on and at least be reasonable.

This being said. A debate between Gingrich and Obama would probably be the most fun. At this time I still believe Obama would win. I suspect that a lot of stories will surface about Gingrich that have been “forgotten”.

I also believe that it would not make any difference in the implementation of commercial space and I mean today. Of course if, when, SLS/MPCV gets the axe then things will be a lot easier. Especially if people like Shelby, Nelson and Hutchinson are no longer in Congress.

Would I base my vote on their space policies? Nope.
Would any one with any sense base their vote on their space policies? Nope.

Did any one of those guys provide any plan to rescue the economy? Nope.
Do they even mention that the economy is worldwide? Nope.

“That guy” still is a great debater and probably you, we, need to review his past performances just as I am sure the GOPers are doing.

We’ll see.

$10 billion dollars for the first 10 megawatt class thorium reactor on the Moon.

It is this kind of thinking that indicates that it will be the few of us that make this happen. It is so incredibly easy to be a naysayer, but it is those of us who understand what to do that will make it happen.

If this is what you think, then why in the hell are you even wasting your time with these forums?