Is the space effort dying, or evolving?

The Viking wrote: Evolving by far and about to hit a golden age of Space exploration now that the government isn't involved. Take government out of things and they seem to work so much better!

Look up Spacex for one company.

I assume you noticed they did get funded with $75 million from NASA?

I think private companies will need some assistance to at least get going. It's so incredibly expensive to develop a launch device. As the video showed, they have to send up unmanned vehicles first before they can send up people, or even very expensive satellites.

I'm guessing they first need to prove they can reliably launch satellites, then start making big bucks launching them. With that money, they can hopefully finance future projects, including manned launches.

pineinthegrass wrote:

The Viking wrote: Evolving by far and about to hit a golden age of Space exploration now that the government isn't involved. Take government out of things and they seem to work so much better!

Look up Spacex for one company.

I assume you noticed they did get funded with $75 million from NASA?

I think private companies will need some assistance to at least get going. It's so incredibly expensive to develop a launch device. As the video showed, they have to send up unmanned vehicles first before they can send up people, or even very expensive satellites.

I'm guessing they first need to prove they can reliably launch satellites, then start making big bucks launching them. With that money, they can hopefully finance future projects, including manned launches.

Good points above.
What I find interesting is that NASA's contracting partners aren't looking into developing commercial space applications. Do they realize the expense?

In my opinion, we've made a grave mistake with what has happened to NASA. In my lifetime there will never be another shuttle launch like what we have seen in the past, at least not from the USA, and worse than that... we're forcing the people who do it best either into other industries, or from an ethnocentric point of view... worse..., to other countries.

We're about to lose the greatest minds that ever quite literally touched space, and thought up ideas that belonged out of this world. Whether they go into private industry, or across the world in search of their passion from other space programs, there is no center in the world that held so much information on space travel, techniques, and a record of both success, and failure. I believe that most of the private sector will find exactly what has doomed NASA... Space exploration is decades if not centuries away from being a profitable venture without government subsidies, and we will lose the knowledge through attrition. We're about to send some of the smartest scientists, mathmeticians, physicists, programmers, and chemists in the world straight to the unemployment line... and I guarantee you that they won't be there long.

I've always disagreed with the idea that the government can ever be sensible with money, but NASA was my one exception. There was so much investment into the private sector for research and development that the economic toll of cutting the NASA budget will be (IMHO) measured in quantifiable digits as it relates to GDP in the coming years. It may not be profitable, but it was always productive.

It's not only the end of an era, it's the end of an idea, the end of a dream for many kids, and the end of a legacy that we should have continued to leave to future generations... whether it's fiscally feasible or not.

As long as the money's there to employ them SC, I agree with you... but I think without a lot of goverment subsidies (probably the same amount NASA had, in the end) to the private sector for space exploration, we'll lose a great deal of them