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shawnmmcc
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NASA has been running on a shoestring budget since Nixon. So you have big sky folks trying to run as much as they can on budgets much too small.
The Space Shuttle is a special case. It is an example of an elephant - a horse designed by committee. Nixon pulled the funding in the middle of the program, and a series of compromises were made. Unfortunately, when making compromises on something with more explosive potential that any non-nuclear weapon made by man (except maybe Tallboy, I'd have to do some calculating and it's my bedtime, I'm too tired) when you do have failures, they will tend to be catastrophic. Add in the fact that they will often occur in extremely hostile environments (i.e. reentry temperatures as one example) and even the non-explosive emergencies will tend to be fatal.
What made it worse, and this is where NASA gets blame, they used their budgetary power to threaten anyone who talked about develping private lift capability. That was the beauracratic part - protecting their turf and funding. The blame for a lack of alternatives to the Space Shuttle can to a large degree be put on NASA's lap, and the fact Congress and the President have let the program limp along with no funding.
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:37
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Space flight is also only about 45 years old, with a very limited number of actual flights.
A lot of the technology used in aviation was developed through decades of trial and error - learning from fatal crashes.
The shuttle has had one accident in 117 flights. That's actually pretty amazing for something created with less than 20 years of space experience, and incredibly good for something that never existed before.
Same goes for a lot of other NASA projects.
Instead of critizing NASA, Americans should be proud of what their country has accomplished. The things that NASA has done have been incredible and a tribute to the greatness that the US can be.
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DanS
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Kickball Capital of the World
Jan 1970
time: 00:37
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NASA is a broken institution, Japher. They would do well to scrap the organization and start over.
quote:
NASA has been running on a shoestring budget since Nixon. |
That's complete BS. NASA's spending a cool $16 billion per annum.
quote:
The shuttle has had one accident in 117 flights. That's actually pretty amazing for something created with less than 20 years of space experience, and incredibly good for something that never existed before. |
That's not incredibly good and by no means amazing for a program that has cost over a hundred billion dollars in today's money for the 117 flights. And for those hundred billion dollars, the shuttle is less safe than Soyuz, for instance.
Last edited by DanS on 28-07-2005 at 23:28
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:37
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quote:
Originally posted by DanS
NASA is a broken institution, Japher. They would do well to scrap the organization and start over.
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With what?
quote:
Originally posted by DanS
That's complete BS. NASA's spending a cool $16 billion per annum.
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That's not much given all that they do. NASA is more than just space shuttles, eh.
quote:
Originally posted by DanS
That's not incredibly good and by no means amazing for a program that has cost over a hundred billion dollars in today's money for the 117 flights. |
NASA did what no one else had done before. It involved incredible complex engineering.
The development cost of the Joint Strike Fighter is about $40 billion. That's to produce an aircraft based on decades of previous flight experience.
A hundred billion for the shuttle isn't much.
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shawnmmcc
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DanS - learn the history of the Space Shuttle program, before you throw out a number with no context. As other posters have made a point, these are not cheap easy missions. In the context of the Space Shuttle, it has been well documented that there was not enough money to fund all the functions and missions everyone wanted the Space Shuttle to be able to perform, including the military.
Do you want me to cite? Will you be willing to admit error if I can find you three independent anaylsis that the Space Shuttle program, during the critical design and production stages, was underfunded? This is like our Laffer curve argument, Dan - when you get deeper into the arguments that have been presented you find that many of the statements so cavalierly thrown around out there are false.
Now if you want to indict NASA managers for short-circuiting private development, I cannot argue with facts based on the record (and the truth). NASA has done wonders within it's limited budget given what they have both attempted to accomplish, and what they have been tasked to accomplish. But don't blame them for the short-sightedness of politicians, both liberal (how can we waste money on space when there are so many needs on earth) or conservative (taxes are bad - it's their fault they can achieve miracle with all that funding (inadequate by all professional estimates) we give them).
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mrmitchell
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quote:
That's complete BS. NASA's spending a cool $16 billion per annum |
From 1998 to 2004 NASA had the second smallest budgetary increase if I'm reading this right (next to the Department of Labor)...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2004/tables.html
Btw, don't you think $16 billion is a little small for, oh, exploring all of outer space? Spreading humanity to the furthest reaches of the universe? For its goals (which are grand and should be strived for), NASA has enough funding to maybe if they're lucky toss up a couple satellites every now and then.
Accounting for inflation how much were annual NASA expenditures in the 1960s?
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shawnmmcc
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Dan - a Titanium skinned light transport, designed for regular flights, with a second design a "Heavy Lift Body." That is what proper funding could have given us, plus a spaceport where any damage on liftoff could have been repaired.
If your $16 billion is such an amazing amount of money, would you care to fund the military with that. Ok, not the military, just any single branch. The Army, Navy, or Air Force. Wait, it's not enough. So maybe you can fund a simple occupation with that much, like Iraq? What it's not enough?
Strawman, Dan. I offered anaylsis, you offered a vague, globalized statement. I stated clearly that 16 billion is not enough to do the missions NASA is tasked with, let alone some of the projects there people try out of desperation for lack of funds, and to keep some kind of public relations prescence. To borrow from the younger set - pwned. Provide facts, show me that your $16 billion (prorated for the time period) could have produced a better shuttle. You know it couldn't have.
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28-07-2005 21:52
uke: 
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