• echo64@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    42
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    10 months ago

    Terrible headline.

    He (rightly) sees the commercial aspect of space technology to be a deadend, but nasa is spending a huge amount of time and effort working towards enabling it in favour of doing nasa things.

    Instead of saying we should go to the moon because it is there, we’re saying go to the moon to try to generate new revenue streams for the private space industry that really can’t survive without our contracts because of there being no real market or industry to build from.

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      18
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      He (rightly) sees the commercial aspect of space technology to be a deadend, but nasa is spending a huge amount of time and effort working towards enabling it in favour of doing nasa things.

      I take issue with commercial being a dead end in space. Not only has commercial spaceflight been VERY successful for NASA, it has saved huge amounts of money over what Griffin was proposing instead. Griffin was advocating for the Constellation program. Lets take just a piece of that where commercial spaceflight is there instead: flying crew to the ISS which we do two times per year.

      The Constellation program would have used the Ares I rocket and the Orion Crew capsule. The estimated flight cost of this configuration was about $1.1 billion together for two flights. source

      The commercial option used instead is the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon capsule. The actual flight cost is $176 for the same two flights per year. source

      For the cost of ONE year of NASA Constellation flights to the ISS, the commercial solution pays for 6 1/4 years of flights instead.

      • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        14
        ·
        10 months ago

        Commercial spaceflight for NASA reminds me of when the Postal Service contracted out airmail. From 1918 to 1926, all air mail service was flown by US government pilots, in US government planes. Then they contracted it out to a little airplane company named Boeing.

        I think NASA should absolutely be focused on deep space exploration, and LEO operations. But even if all they do is contract out their launches it would encourage people to reduce launch costs, which I think should be our number two goal after fighting climate change.

      • Alto@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        5
        ·
        10 months ago

        Because obviously that’s what we need, to be encouraging the expansion of capitalism into space.

        • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          14
          ·
          edit-2
          10 months ago

          Because obviously that’s what we need, to be encouraging the expansion of capitalism into space.

          If you feel that strongly about the negative consequences of spaceflight, you should dispose of the computer or mobile device you’re using to post this on. Those are products of the commercialization of miniaturization needed to be small and light enough for the Lunar Lander to take humans to the moon. source

          You wouldn’t want to be a hypocrite, now would you?

          EDIT: I made a bad assumption about the poster, and apologized in a follow up post. I’m not going to remove my mistaken post so the context is not lost

          • Alto@kbin.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            11
            ·
            10 months ago

            I love space exploration. It’s absolutely something we as a species should be doing. We just shouldn’t be doing it for the motives of profit.

            But sure, put things in my mouth asshat

            • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              10 months ago

              I love space exploration. It’s absolutely something we as a species should be doing. We just shouldn’t be doing it for the motives of profit.

              I’ll admit this is the first time I’ve seen someone be pro-spaceflight, but nuanced opposition with why we’re going to space.

              But sure, put things in my mouth asshat

              It was a wrong assumption on my part. I apologize.