Opinion: One reason that the Apollo program worked so well - strictly in the political sense - was the fact that it was a major, building from the ground up, project that had something for all of the necessary political constituencies. Just about every major aerospace, construction, electronics, and university science and engineering program in the country got enough of a piece of the pie to keep them happy. Unfortunately, the current commercial space program contracts that were awarded to Boeing and Space X did the opposite thing by culminating in the creation of an oligopoly that will control Low Earth Orbit access for our astronauts. NASA set about planning Apollo by identifying more than 10,000 individual separate tasks that were required to put a man on the moon. That list of tasks was as much a shopping list as it was a method for defining particular objectives, workforce requirements, schedules, and the coordination requirements. With more than 400,000 workers, including the Little Old Ladies who sewed EVA gloves and threaded hair-thin copper wire through the CMC memory modules, and a myriad of large and small contractors, Apollo actually was, Too big to fail. As it stands today, the US commercial crew program is too small to succeed- in the long run, anyway. Mr. Elon Musk, the founder and controller of Space X, dearly wanted a monopoly arrangement with the US government, but in the end the US administration was forced to give in to the Boeing/Space X oligopoly following that charade of a competition staged by NASA. The first rule of rocket science is to win friends and influence people. Apollo made tens of thousands of friends in the business and the all-important academic community. The current arrangement with Space X and Boeing is not politically robust and strong enough to last. In the first place, it is not a commercial arrangement. It is actually an exclusive arrangement for a couple of major contractors that operates to the detriment of the larger aerospace and tech industry. A truly commercial arrangement would rely on free market supply and demand to justify itself. The current arrangement relies on massive taxpayer subsidies and exclusive contracts paid for at taxpayer expense. Im certain that I just hurt some peoples feelings, so blast away at me if you must. We all entitled to have our opinions, but arguing the sad reality of what has happened to the US space program since the Columbia tragedy is not going to accomplish much at this point. You are free to disagree, but I am probably going to politely ignore the personal attacks that Musk fanboys always greet dissenters with. The dispora of space exploration advocates lacks strong leaders these days, and we tend to see eruptions of hostility from the rabble rousers who rally around this or that tinpot idea man.
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 11:44:56 +0000