New US Space Policy a Damp Squib
NASA’s economic madness continues
by Patrick Collins
By Dr. Patrick Collins
After extensive advance leaking, US President Bush announced his plan to focus government-funded civilian space activities on a return to the Moon as a starting-point for going to Mars. Funding is supposed to come from increasing NASA’s budget by 5%/year and savings from cutting other projects. However, reports that politicians from districts that are home to these ill-fated projects are already preparing their defence suggests that any movement to realise the plan may be slow.
The plan apparently accepts - realistically - that the nearly 50-year old “Soyuz” rocket is de facto the gateway for travel to space - that is, the safest and cheapest vehicle for getting to orbit. Unfortunately the media have never acknowledged how astounding this simple fact is, though it was demonstrated clearly by Dennis Tito’s historic flight in 2001. Since 1961, after
Yuri Gagarin beat the United States into space, the US government has spent US$1 TRILLION on space activities - but has not reduced the cost of getting into space by a single cent. Think about it. Surely that alone is a monstrous betrayal of American taxpayers.
But this madness doesn’t stop in the new proposal - quite the opposite. Many people were surprised to learn that the entire plan would continue to use expendable launch vehicles carrying re-developed Apollo-type capsules. Readers need to understand the truly mind-numbing implications of this: The US government’s new goal, by developing a new generation of Apollo capsules (at a cost estimated at $14 billion or more), would create a vehicle which, more than 50 years after Gagarin’s flight, would have costs to get to orbit fully 10 times higher than
Gagarin’s vehicle!!!!
This is government waste on the truly epic scale; economic madness so spectacular that its like is only seen every few generations. It would put most other government waste far into the shade. Indeed it’s scarcely believable. To waste $1 trillion, and over half a century, in achieving negative progress on such a spectacular scale would truly stretch the outer limits of folly - and fantasy, since it would deny the very existence of the accelerating technological revolution we’ve been living through since 1961. What could its advocates be thinking of?
Sadly, just money. The people who will get to spend all the money, and the politicians who preside over the budget, care not a single jot for whether it benefits taxpayers. The idea doesn’t even come into consideration. “Can they get it through Congress?” is the only thought in their heads. Vested interests dare to make such an insanely awful proposal, at a time when the US government’s spending of taxpayers’ money on unprofitable activities has already led to record levels of debt and unemployment. They are either geniuses at exploiting public ignorance for their own self-interest – or they may have finally overstepped the limits of what people will accept, and their proposal will be the straw that breaks the poor, over-burdened camel's back.
After extensive advance leaking, US President Bush announced his plan to focus government-funded civilian space activities on a return to the Moon as a starting-point for going to Mars. Funding is supposed to come from increasing NASA
’s budget by 5%/year and savings from cutting other projects. However, reports that politicians from districts that are home to these ill-fated projects are already preparing their defence suggests that any movement to realise the plan may be slow. The plan apparently accepts - realistically - that the nearly 50-year old “Soyuz” rocket is de facto the gateway for travel to space - that is, the safest and cheapest vehicle for getting to orbit. Unfortunately the media have never acknowledged how astounding this simple fact is, though it was demonstrated clearly by Dennis Tito
’s historic flight in 2001. Since 1961, after
Yuri Gagarin beat the United States into space, the US government has spent US$1 TRILLION on space activities - but has not reduced the cost of getting into space by a single cent. Think about it. Surely that alone is a monstrous betrayal of American taxpayers. But this madness doesn’t stop in the new proposal - quite the opposite. Many people were surprised to learn that the entire plan would continue to use expendable launch vehicles carrying re-developed Apollo-type capsules. Readers need to understand the truly mind-numbing implications of this: The US government’s new goal, by developing a new generation of Apollo capsules (at a cost estimated at $14 billion or more), would create a vehicle which, more than 50 years after Gagarin
’s flight, would have costs to get to orbit fully 10 times higher than
Gagarin’s vehicle!!!! This is government waste on the truly epic scale; economic madness so spectacular that its like is only seen every few generations. It would put most other government waste far into the shade. Indeed it’s scarcely believable. To waste $1 trillion, and over half a century, in achieving negative progress on such a spectacular scale would truly stretch the outer limits of folly - and fantasy, since it would deny the very existence of the accelerating technological revolution we’ve been living through since 1961. What could its advocates be thinking of?
Sadly, just money. The people who will get to spend all the money, and the politicians who preside over the budget, care not a single jot for whether it benefits taxpayers. The idea doesn’t even come into consideration. “Can they get it through Congress?” is the only thought in their heads. Vested interests dare to make such an insanely awful proposal, at a time when the US government’s spending of taxpayers’ money on unprofitable activities has already led to record levels of debt and unemployment. They are either geniuses at exploiting public ignorance for their own self-interest – or they may have finally overstepped the limits of what people will accept, and their proposal will be the straw that breaks the poor, over-burdened camel's back.
