Re: Manned Space Programs

From: Henk Boonsma (hboonsma_at_teranet.news)
Date: 11/08/04 

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 12:32:38 +0100

"Henry Spencer" <henry@spsystems.net> wrote in message
news:I6uJ32.M62@spsystems.net...
> In article <25464-418EE6F2-428@storefull-3155.bay.webtv.net>,
> Richard Alger <daikaiju@webtv.net> wrote:
> >It seems to me rather curious, that so many nations have the ability to
> >launch equipment to space, but only three have manned space programs. I
> >wonder why Japan and the European Space Agency haven't developed manned
> >launch vehicles.
>
> Basically, because NASA talked them into participating in the space
> station instead of proceeding with separate manned-spaceflight programs.
> Both have perfectly adequate launch vehicles; what they lack are suitable
> spacecraft. Both are quite capable of building them.
>
> Indeed, despite the station, both have *had* programs to build them. But
> both efforts suffered from lack of a clear, agreed near-term mission, and
> the result was confusion between developing advanced technology and
> building operational vehicles. Efforts which had the budget and technical
> depth to build and fly manned capsules fairly quickly and easily, instead
> got bogged down in trying to build things with wings, and ended up wasting
> large amounts of money and never delivering anything.
>
> >Still, if Spaceship One taught us anything, it's that you can get people
> >into space without a NASA sized budget.
>
> Provided that you are not a government agency, and in particular, that
> your objective is to get people into space, not to provide jobs for
> aerospace dinosaurs. It also helps if you are allowed to accept some risk
> of failure; a national megaproject which is so crucial to its sponsoring
> agency's future that it *must not* fail will inevitably spend a lot of
> money (futilely) trying to absolutely guarantee success.
>
> Besides, the national agencies mostly think Rutan's success was either an
> accident or some kind of special case that isn't relevant to them. To
> believe otherwise would be to admit that they have been wasting billions
> of taxpayer dollars. They will resist such a confession to their dying
> breaths. "The Guard dies, but it never surrenders." Instead, they will
> assure you that if Rutan was doing *real* spaceflight (and the definition
> of "real" will change as necessary, so that successful low-cost private
> efforts are always excluded), he too would need to spend billions to get
> even marginal results.

Will they be surprised when Rutan buys a Vulcan V, puts a small capsule on
top of it and does a manned orbital flight for less than 50 mil. :)))

I wonder what kind of excuse they'll come up with then!

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Manned Space Programs
    ... >>launch equipment to space, but only three have manned space programs. ... > station instead of proceeding with separate manned-spaceflight programs. ... > Both have perfectly adequate launch vehicles; ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: Manned Space Programs
    ... >>It seems to me rather curious, that so many nations have the ability to ... >>launch equipment to space, but only three have manned space programs. ... And because /demonstrated/ manned-spaceflight has been darn expensive. ...
    (sci.space.policy)