Dr. Handberg has made some good observations but has confused many of the lessons and not been quite pointed enough on some.
commercial and military space components are now the United States' primary focus-not quite true
commercial gains support not so much from the US government but from commercial interests because it returns on the investment
military gets a lot of support from the US government because a lot of what comes out of military space is important because of the information and capabilities it provides
US human spaceflight cannot be much of a priority if there is no cohesive plan on where we are going or how we will get there.
Space activities of this nature were impossible to cancel completely - not true. Apollo was cancelled and was not continued. Skylab and ASTP used leftover and available hardware. Many inside and outside of the program felt that Apollo had met its goal, and Apollo was too dangerous a system to continue to fly to the moon.
Shuttle was under development as the doorway to a glorious future-Shuttle was in development because at the time some sort of a reusable Shuttle was required in order to continue to put Americans in orbit, and a Shuttle with a heavy lift, rendezvous, and orbital operations capability was required if there was going to be a modular space station. Without Saturn rockets, there were no other ways at the time.
The failure was in the continuing operation of the original Shuttle system without ever improving it reducing its costs.
International Space Station (ISS) was the next step, but that success led to program incoherence in terms of NASA moving outward from Earth orbit- not true at all. ISS might have been smaller, simpler, and required less assembly time in orbit. The mid-70s NASA analysis identified a smaller station would be more desirable. The NASA managers of the mid-80s went the other direction, originally trying to plan a considerably larger and more complex station. Fact is that in order to test out the systems and to do the human research required to send people beyond earth, a station is exactly what is needed. It simply needs to be seen as an element of developing enabling technologies. It is not and never was an end in and of itself.
NASA rode the merry-go-round of orbit and back-the mistake of Shuttle was never improving on it, never making serious changes, never reducing costs. The mistake was not trying to develop a reusable space vehicle with the capabilities Shuttle provided.
The Constellation program was an almost desperate Hail Mary pass to the future by recycling parts of the Apollo concept-if what was needed had been an Apollo 'capsule' approach as some readers like Ann Onymous say, then its too bad we didn't upgrade an Apollo capsule. It could have been a far more effective development effort. The idea we were going to stick with an Apollo shape but build it oversized was shear stupidity.
Two of Dr. Handberg's statements are crucial here: The future should be seen sequentially or as a cumulative activity. One builds on prior successful activities rather than doing space de novo each time. This ought to be true but is exactly what the Orion approach misses entirely.
NASA will then be able to leverage that cost reduction to build depots supporting exploration outward from Earth orbit rather than continually lifting the entire expedition to orbit and beyond on one vehicle-this is not Orion.
What changed was the economy-no I don't think the economy had much to do with any of it. NASA's budget has continued year in and year out with little change. If NASA has no plan for anything better or different, and it has proposed nothing beyond restarting Apollo, which was a non-starter 40 years ago and is still a non-starter today, then what is there to spend money on?
NASA needs a plan. NASA needs a strategy. Until NASA figures that out there is no sense throwing a lot more money at NASA because it does not know what to do next.
commercial and military space components are now the United States' primary focus-not quite true
commercial gains support not so much from the US government but from commercial interests because it returns on the investment
military gets a lot of support from the US government because a lot of what comes out of military space is important because of the information and capabilities it provides
US human spaceflight cannot be much of a priority if there is no cohesive plan on where we are going or how we will get there.
Space activities of this nature were impossible to cancel completely - not true. Apollo was cancelled and was not continued. Skylab and ASTP used leftover and available hardware. Many inside and outside of the program felt that Apollo had met its goal, and Apollo was too dangerous a system to continue to fly to the moon.
Shuttle was under development as the doorway to a glorious future-Shuttle was in development because at the time some sort of a reusable Shuttle was required in order to continue to put Americans in orbit, and a Shuttle with a heavy lift, rendezvous, and orbital operations capability was required if there was going to be a modular space station. Without Saturn rockets, there were no other ways at the time.
The failure was in the continuing operation of the original Shuttle system without ever improving it reducing its costs.
International Space Station (ISS) was the next step, but that success led to program incoherence in terms of NASA moving outward from Earth orbit- not true at all. ISS might have been smaller, simpler, and required less assembly time in orbit. The mid-70s NASA analysis identified a smaller station would be more desirable. The NASA managers of the mid-80s went the other direction, originally trying to plan a considerably larger and more complex station. Fact is that in order to test out the systems and to do the human research required to send people beyond earth, a station is exactly what is needed. It simply needs to be seen as an element of developing enabling technologies. It is not and never was an end in and of itself.
NASA rode the merry-go-round of orbit and back-the mistake of Shuttle was never improving on it, never making serious changes, never reducing costs. The mistake was not trying to develop a reusable space vehicle with the capabilities Shuttle provided.
The Constellation program was an almost desperate Hail Mary pass to the future by recycling parts of the Apollo concept-if what was needed had been an Apollo 'capsule' approach as some readers like Ann Onymous say, then its too bad we didn't upgrade an Apollo capsule. It could have been a far more effective development effort. The idea we were going to stick with an Apollo shape but build it oversized was shear stupidity.
Two of Dr. Handberg's statements are crucial here: The future should be seen sequentially or as a cumulative activity. One builds on prior successful activities rather than doing space de novo each time. This ought to be true but is exactly what the Orion approach misses entirely.
NASA will then be able to leverage that cost reduction to build depots supporting exploration outward from Earth orbit rather than continually lifting the entire expedition to orbit and beyond on one vehicle-this is not Orion.
What changed was the economy-no I don't think the economy had much to do with any of it. NASA's budget has continued year in and year out with little change. If NASA has no plan for anything better or different, and it has proposed nothing beyond restarting Apollo, which was a non-starter 40 years ago and is still a non-starter today, then what is there to spend money on?
NASA needs a plan. NASA needs a strategy. Until NASA figures that out there is no sense throwing a lot more money at NASA because it does not know what to do next.
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