NASA Willing To Team With China; Rumors of a Budget Cut 200
eldavojohn writes "2009 has been an interesting year for NASA — from a new strategy to even closer ties with an old enemy. So it's perhaps no surprise that NASA has publicly stated that they are ready to team up with China. NASA Chief Charles Bolden said, 'I am perfectly willing, if that's the direction that comes to me, to engage the Chinese in trying to make them a partner in any space endeavor. I think they're a very capable nation. They have demonstrated their capability to do something that only two other nations that have done — that is, to put humans in space. And I think that is an achievement you cannot ignore. They are a nation that is trying to really lead. If we could cooperate we would probably be better off than if we would not.' While the budget of the China National Space Administration is a fraction of NASA's, partnering with them has been considered since 2008. In possibly related news, rumors are circulating of the Obama administration cutting NASA's budget by ten percent for fiscal year 2011 despite the success of Monday's Atlantis launch. Considering the Augustine panel's recommendations, such a cut could halt US human space flight for a decade."
Re:You're doing it wrong (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Chinese requirements (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:You're doing it wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if Obama was made an offer he couldn't refuse.
Somehow I don't think the Chinese are crazy enough to try and blackmail a nuclear armed state. It would hurt them as much as it would hurt us anyway. In the long run it might even be worse for them, as it would bring their economic growth to a screeching halt.
What pisses me off is that we can spend hundreds of billions of dollars we don't have on health care "reform" that isn't and hundreds of billions more on invading countries that never attacked us but we can't find the money to fund NASA. The last round of serious investment into space exploration brought us cheap microchips, GPS, satellite photography, etc.
Fucking shortsighted stupidity.
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, there are. Not so much military type secrets, but trade secrets and proprietary processes. Rocketry is still very much an art, as everyone from Armadillo to SpaceX is discovering. We haven't had that many design generations, and total flight experience is pretty low overall.
That's what the urban legend would have you believe - but it's utterly false. The difference in reliability between American and Russian vehicles is statistically insignificant. (And the Soyuz capsule in particular has the questionable tendency to break just enough to ride the ragged edge between survival and loss of crew...)
Re:You're doing it wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
A political race is unsustainable. If we were to enter another 60s style space race, we would spend incredible amounts of money to do more flags and footprints and then sputter around for 40 or 50 years afterwards, again.
While Apollo was an impressive feat, I can't help but wonder where we would be now if we had stuck to an Eisenhower-esque slow and steady approach, and not gotten drawn into the space race. It certainly would have taken longer to get to the moon -- we might just be getting there now. However, we would be doing so in an affordable way, with an eye towards long-term missions, science and development. I think slow and consistent is better than massive rushes followed by 40 years of sputtering about.
The problem with Apollo is that it was run at a rate that history has shown is about 4 times higher than is politically sustainable without an external threat. Since this was the beginning of the Space Age, NASA assumed that the gravy train would go on forever, since there was no evidence otherwise. They never learned how to do things right within a small budget. This is why we're currently where we are. Vehicle design is always seeking an absolute perfection rather than a balance between cost and capability. The constant rallying cry is 'if only we had Apollo-level money again.' Perhaps most importantly, efforts to privatize the low-risk parts such as LEO transport is like pulling teeth, since the huge federal cost-plus contracts from the Apollo era are still massive employers.
Personally, I welcome the idea of cooperation. Sharing money, technology and development is the best way to make use of limited budgets and speed up frontier development. Competition is a great short-term motivator for politics, and can encourage efficiency in the long term. However, cooperative ventures are much more sustainable in the long-term, and competition in the free market sense only makes sense for developed technologies such as LEO transport, not the "Lewis and Clark" role that the government should excel at.
Re:Real Danger is avoiding rockets (Score:4, Interesting)
Apollo had one loss-of-crew accident in about 13 flights. That's about 7%.
Shuttle had two loss-of-crew accidents in about 125 flights. That's about 1.6%.
So, what's the basis for believing we'd probably have fewer dead astronauts if we'd stuck to Apollo?
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:3, Interesting)
More info on budget cut rumors (Score:3, Interesting)
FYI, it's not a directed budget cut towards NASA -- every single non-military agency has been told by the Obama administration that they may see cuts of 5-10% in order to reduce the deficit.
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/11/17/sharpening-the-budget-cleaver/ [spacepolitics.com]
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hBr0LFXMFF1HE6-n_ZTN1829QS1QD9BUTPVG0 [google.com]
On the plus side, if there is in fact a budget cut, it'd hopefully be the cover NASA needs to shut down/reduce its politically well-guarded Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), which uses up a huge part of NASA's budget, but due to its chronically incompetent management has spectacularly failed [selenianboondocks.com] in basically all of its large projects over the past 30 years.
Re:Chinese requirements (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually I think that is one of the main problems of today's space programs. Especially NASA's.
They are so hung op on the quadrupal redundant, 99.9999999999% safe and fail-proof flights that the costs to achieve such goals are way out of balance with the goal that needs to be achieved.
Fuck the almost 100% guarantee that nothing can go wrong
I'll settle for 90% if that means 10x more exploration.
Yes, rockets will explode, astronauts will die. So what? All in the day's job...
"there is a small chance you might die on your next mission, sign here please"
Not much difference compared to joining the army or something alike.
Re:By all means (Score:3, Interesting)
There is however a lot of tech that can't be weaponized, the shuttle for example isn't going to be used as a fighter plane any time soon (in fact most of it's design principles are the opposite of those used when designing fighter planes). Cooperation on non-military parts of the space mission wouldn't be hard, let them put a few scientists on the ISS, etc in exchange for funding and cooperation in other areas, try using the carrot instead of just the stick
Re:You're doing it wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, in terms of efficiency of CO2 per say $1000 GDP, China is at the absolute bottom. That is related to the fact that they are cutting corners on everything that they can. And if we look at the idea of just CO2 per-capita, then we are all screwed. Nations will cheat on the ppl count, and more importantly, you will find that if everybody on the planet emitted at the level that China CURRENTLY emits it, it will be MORE emissions than we currently do. Worse, China is working to NOT control their emissions. They keep saying that they will lower it, but they do not want to commit to it. Of course, many nations, including CHina, simply break their treaties.