Will US government subsidize space shuttle replacement?
Jim Kingdon
stunning success (especially with respect to cost) in the first place,
so various people are looking for alternatives. For some kinds of
space launch, expendable launch vehicles (Atlas/Delta/&c) currently
own the market. And there are new launchers (Kistler/Rotary
Rocket/Beal) currently in active (funded) development.
So the question now in Washington is whether the US gummint should be
issuing loan guarantees or otherwise subsiding launcher development
(beyond their - relatively small - current role). There was a bill
introduced in the Senate, S. 2121, by Senator Breaux which would
provide for something like $400 million in loan guarantees. There is
a certain amount of sentiment that this would be a boondoggle and
(among other problems) benefit Big Aerospace against the startups.
On the other hand it isn't obvious how strong the market is for
launchers and whether the commercial launchers are likely to solve the
problems of the government (in particular NASA's need for space
station resupply).
So what do you think? I can supply URLs for most of this if someone
is curious enough to want to ask about specific aspects.
rif...@cybernothing.org
>So what do you think? I can supply URLs for most of this if someone
>is curious enough to want to ask about specific aspects.
I'm all for private industry taking a crack at building a shuttle replacement
but I definitely don't want to see everything underwritten by the goverment.
If the start-ups can't make it work on their own, then the market isn't ready
or they aren't doing it right. I feel that Federal backing will just encourage
them to do it the way Uncle Sam feels it should be done, rather than what the
real world economics say.
Of course, goverment research into fields that would benefit such a project
would be a good idea. Materials science seems to be the new revolutionary
scientific field and yet I suspect Joe Six-pack is totally unaware of how it's
affecting his life now.
(Would now be a good time for me and Peter to talk about nanotech? :) )
rif...@afn.org : "A step backward, once you've made a wrong turn, is a
Jeff The Riffer : step in the right direction."
Drifter... : --Kurt Vonnegut
Homo Postmortemus :
Jim Kingdon
> isn't ready or they aren't doing it right. I feel that Federal
> backing will just encourage them to do it the way Uncle Sam feels it
> should be done, rather than what the real world economics say.
Yup, I agree with this as do a fair number of space activists and
people in Congress (e.g. Rohrabacher, who is one of the
congresscritters who is active in space). In the short run, this
probably means that NASA keeps flying the shuttle (the "real world
economics" as I read them point to launching satellites rather than
sending people or conducting experiments or whatever), but that isn't
all _that_ bad, as nearly as I can tell. And who knows? Depending on
how successful the startups are, they could affect shuttle issues
sooner than we might think.
> Of course, goverment research into fields that would benefit such a
> project would be a good idea. Materials science seems to be the new
> revolutionary scientific field and yet I suspect Joe Six-pack is
> totally unaware of how it's affecting his life now.
Ah yes. There is fairly broad support for such government research,
as a concept, but the details get kind of hairy/interesting here too.
For example do you research graphite tanks or composites? (different
of the proposed launchers make different choices here). Do you
research metal or ceramic Thermal Protection Systems? And is the
government really ahead of people like Burt Rutan (who built the
Voyager aircraft which flew around the globe without refueling, and is
now with one of the space launch startups)? Especially when it comes
to something like cost-effectiveness?
As for whether Joe Six-pack is aware of materials science, I sort of
imagine that he may be more aware of it than people who hang out on
usenet. I mean, it is hard to try to say things about this without
making sweeping generalizations, but I know that futzing with cars,
for example, is a popular activity among the population at large, but
much less so among people that I know (who tend to be educated and on
the net and all that stuff). And one would get to know at least the
materials which are used in cars, I would think.
> (Would now be a good time for me and Peter to talk about nanotech? :) )
Not my own cup of tea. But isn't our motto "net.*, we're desperate
for any kind of more-or-less-on-topic traffic"? :-)