Well, the biggest plus is finding all of the dangerous pieces of s**t from space well before they hit us and kill large numbers of people. If the Chelyabinsk impactor had of come in over Denver, the current GM hearing would look like small beans.

(It looks to me like the “corporate veil” is going to be penetrated here with criminal charges coming down the pike.)

The other ARM plus is that it will develop and test the first true “spaceship”.

Forgetting about depots/falcon heavies/Unicorns that reflexively people interject with…… if they’re not building the SLS to actually do any mission its just not worth funding at all and they should just cancel the whole thing. Nothing of value will be lost. We’ll be no further away or closer to deep space travel by abandoning something that’s not going to be actually used. I find it pretty shameful that congress doesn’t want to fund the only plausible mission for the SLS. Its literally a fig leaf for the fact they won’t fund it do anything more ambitious. I mean it could look more naked what they are doing than by trying to stop it from having any plausible mission.

So can it evolve into a more efficient structure, can it be replaced, or are we doomed?

BTW we lost a lot of very experienced people when Shuttle was shut down. Towards the end of the program Orbiter maintenance costs were actually going down.

You said “You said ‘NASA should be charged with making space accessible.’”

That is correct. So I’m not sure what the argument is. NASA should be charged with making space accessible, but it is under no obligation to do everything possible to make space accessible. It may do it in some ways, and it may do it other ways, in meeting that charge. That’s not to say that others can’t work to make space accessible, but they have other things to worry about, like making money.

No, it’s not going to take much deeper pockets than we have now to prove that humans can live in space. They can clearly live in space for the better part of a year, thanks to our efforts on ISS. We’d like to know more about the effects of microgravity, and slightly deeper pockets would buy us the ISS centrifuge we thought we were going to get. Radiation is a hazard, but it’s one we at least roughly understand. As to boredom and loneliness, we’ll cross those bridges when we come to them.

“Read it, please. Slowly, if necessary. I said “it may do it by …”.”

“Yes, NASA has no special talent in building rockets, but it likes to think it does.”

I don’t know about that, at least from a NASA leadership standpoint (the current one), but certainly politicians want NASA to build a rocket. But I think we both know that the SLS is a special case, since it was borne out of the cancellation of the Constellation program, not some top-down or bottoms-up defined need. And no doubt Boeing and ATK played some part in “encouraging” certain influential Senators.

“I certainly hope NASA’s role isn’t about expanding humanity into space, unless it’s just about proving that humans can live in space.”

I’d be fine if it was only that, since that’s a BIG roadblock right now, and it’s going to take deep pockets to solve it.

“…and the near-term importance of expanding humanity into space is really not that strong.”

We’ve always been in agreement on that, which is yet another reason why SLS-supporters are delusional.

For the US, while the cost has been ridiculous; I believe the $140 billion; ISS is not that sophisticated, especially when you consider that many of the most complex equipment is 30 year old Russian hardware, such as the entire propulsion and refuelling system and many of the other life critical systems. Having worked ISS for a long time, I would say that while there is a lot of “stuff” the complexity is due mainly to a poorly organized organization in which there is tremendous overlap of people and functions.

In every previous program, the hardware (and software) was under the management of the center line organizations. The ISS was such a big (and inexperienced) organization they could not handle othes being in charge of “their” hardware. This rendered much of the line organization unneeded or at best redundant, being “led” by people usually with far less experience.

The complexity was unnecessary, dissolved the scheme used to develop and manage all prior US HSF programs, caused costs to skyrocket, and made it appear that the program is really complex, but its not. Mainly its the inefficient and inexperienced organization. They’ve now become more experienced but the complexity and cost of the organization stillprevails.

As long as we’re arguing about who said what, let me point out that I never said that “NASA is supposed to do all that”. Read it, please. Slowly, if necessary. I said “it may do it by …”.

Yes, NASA has no special talent in building rockets, but it likes to think it does. That effort *may* make space more accessible. Then again, it *may* not.

“And what role is the private sector supposed to take in this?”

The role of the private sector is to take economic advantage of space being accessible. Period.

“My position has been that NASA’s meager budget is too small to expand humanity out into space, and that it’s best possible role in the future can be in supporting the private sectors efforts to expand out into space. Sometimes that may mean a leading role for NASA, but certainly as time goes by it will end up being a supporting role – it doesn’t get enough money to do otherwise.”

So are we now talking now about “expanding humanity into space”? Well, NASA’s role wasn’t to cure cancer or rid the world of cockroaches either. I certainly hope NASA’s role isn’t about expanding humanity into space, unless it’s just about proving that humans can live in space. That’s a profound conclusion that NASA has proven, and that conclusion is precisely about making space accessible.

“Regardless we need to be prepared for a slow expansion, unless or until some “National Imperative” forces us to significantly raise the amount of money and attention space gets.”

Copy that. As far as I can tell, there will be no such imperative, and the near-term importance of expanding humanity into space is really not that strong.

But remember, in the past the government has closed large numbers of military bases that had even bigger economic impacts to local economies than rerouting of SLS/Orion funds would. Despite the local economic hardship from those multiple closings which were spread throughout the country at the time, those closings still took place.