/sci/ - Science & Math

Men please.

Can't we all agree that space is vast and full of potentially amazing things?

Isn't it enough to just ponder the what-ifs and could-bes without fighting about them?

>>4363135
There's clearly a role for both to play in space exploration.

While the public sector isn't as timely and cost effective when it comes to things like transporting crew and cargo into orbit - they're still unbeatable when it comes to scientific research and technological development. For all its flaws NASA is still the undisputed world leader in space science and R&D. No one comes close - they have more ongoing missions and tech projects right now than every other space agency in the world combined. The public program combines its relatively large budget (compared to corporate R&D) with the some of the best and brightest minds in the country, and the results of the last half a century have been spectacular.

On the other side of the coin you have the private sector. There is no question that the future of routine travel to orbit and beyond will be handled via commercial spaceflight companies. The private sector is proving that it can not only produce powerful vehicles in a short time frame, but for a substantially lower cost. Next generation launch vehicles like those being built by the COTS and CCDev participants are already expected to reduce the cost per kilo of orbital transport by as much as a factor of 5-10 over the next decade. Likewise, when we decide to finally start building serious infrastructure in space (stations, refueling depots, etc) it will absolutely be the private sector who we turn to.

That said, the private sector has neither the funding, nor the motivation to support the kind of long-term, high investment/low financial return research that most of space science falls under. Companies like SpaceX and Boeing aren't exactly going to be lining up to drop billions on space telescopes or Mars rovers.


Both sides have something to offer, and weaknesses which the other can make up for. A joint public-private program is the most sensible way forward.

Too much doom and gloom lately - let's get some fucking optimism in here.

>By the end of the decade the American space program will have access to at least two man-rated commercial launch vehicles, four crewable spacecraft, and modules for space stations - all of which will be cheaper than the Shuttle, Constellation, SLS, or Soyuz

Carl Sagan has a huge hard-on for the possibility of fusion power... but what was his position on fission?

>>2049417

*sob* Fuck *sob* You *sniffle* BLACK HOLE TUNNELING RADIO ALIENS WILL COME AND SAVE US ALL WITH THE HELP OF A STRONG INDEPENDENT FEMALE PROTAGONIST.

I just saw what I believe to be a UFO. It looked like (and I mistook it for) a bright star, stationary in the sky. Then it started fucking screaming across the sky. It moved sort of strangely; it wobbled slightly from side to side, like it was being blown. Then it disappeared beyond the horizon.

What the fuck was it?

I'm pretty sure it wasn't a helicopter or plane, satellite or balloon. Was it some sort of atmospheric shit?

bump

Helping with sagan bumps

>>1548921
All the more reason to make every effort to get this bill to be amended or voted down. If the House were to change the bill to be more like the first draft of the Senate's NASA bill (the one approved by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation), there'd still be something like $3 billion for commercial development, and we'd start working on a new HLV immediately instead of wasting the next decade working on the pointless Ares I.

Just got off the phone with Congressman Loebsack's office.

I'm doing my part, are you?

Problem: The space policies proposed by the previous administration, the current administration, the House, and the Senate all suck major balls.
The plans that would have us doing anything new and interesting wouldn't start working on shit for years, the plans that would start working on shit now just rehash old concepts and missions in an elaborate $100 billion dickwaving contest... and none of these plans has us doing much of anything worth mentioning for the next decade or two.

Proposal:
1. Outline more sensible, more ambitious, but still realistic alternatives.
2. Form a consensus on the best, realistic alternative.
3. Get as many people as possible to write representatives, senators, space lobbies, etc recommending that alternative.