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Welcome to the Real Space Age - 5/20/2013 7:23:12 PM

TheHeretic

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Here is a good read (longish) from The New Yorker on the US space program. Around the corner isn't all that far away.

Welcome to the Real Space Age
This is not a rendering. It is a launching pad in the New Mexico desert for rocket planes that will send you into space for $200,000. It opens later this year.

Dammit - picture not working

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< Message edited by TheHeretic -- 5/20/2013 7:24:47 PM >

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RE: Welcome to the Real Space Age - 5/20/2013 7:26:38 PM

TheHeretic

Posts: 19100
Joined: 3/25/2007
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Trying again - if you see the red X, the pic is at the top of the first page in the article.

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If you lose one sense, your other senses are enhanced.
That's why people with no sense of humor have such an inflated sense of self-importance.

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RE: Welcome to the Real Space Age - 5/20/2013 8:32:26 PM

njlauren

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This was bound to happen and I think it is a good thing. NASA has been trying to hold onto spaceflight and quite frankly, it has gotten past the point where governments should be doing this kind of thing. Whether it is a government/private industry hybrid, space flight should now be moving into the private sector. I think things like JPL and their probes are great, and as an R and D instigator NASA (and its predecessor, NACA) made huge leaps in technology and such. I think NASA's role is in R and D and in potentially regulation (safety, for one), but after that, let it develop on its own.

The Space Shuttle was kind of the nadir of NASA IMO, it was supposed to be a reusable vehicle that could be turned around quickly, and it ended up, despite doing some great work, a 1970's era dinosaur that was expensive to fly and finicky as all hell. NASA had been developing a vehicle that could take off and land on its tail and rather than develop that, they stayed with the shuttle. I have nothing against NASA, I admire what they did and how they did it (the pinnacle can be seen in Apollo 13, with the team of geeks coming up with amazing hacks), but between budget constraints and being hamstrung by politics of where to build things and such, it can't operate as a front line space agency that way I think.

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