Tanks your entire space program

Skylab?

Is it possible in war for a space vehicle to take a sudden dive from orbit to release a payload on target?

This.
The only people to have ever been to space were the Apollo Astronauts everyone else was in LEO.

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Think hes referring to the low orbit lunar station NASA and Roscosmos are planning. I agree its a waste of time. Low orbit space stations are obsolete.

Thats not the point being discussed. Its more the fact that the shuttle program tanked further ambition for ACTUAL space programs.

>implying it isn’t a good thing that he US space program tanked
>implying the private market can’t do it better
>implying private-public partnerships are not the way of the future.

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Heh. Alot more navy guys than I expected. I thought they'd all be either air force or just average engineers.

THIS
SLS is reusing fucking 16 literal museum piece RS-25's that will cost a billion to the OldSpace to refurbish to flight condition, only to be on the SLS's disposable stage anyway. Completely and utterly useless. I could write for hours on why NASA is completely obsolete. Meanwhile SpaceX's (Methalox!) Raptor engine has been developed for a mere $90million so far, a third of that SpaceX's own money too

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That middle one is the SpaceX Mars shuttle right?

The lunar station is a destination to be created just so the SLS has somewhere to fly once a year.

If you think about it, maybe the endless wars with ridiculous rules of engagement are not to win, it is just to create a mechanism for the military industrial complex to profit. This is what NASA's manned program has become. Headline projects to bilk billions from public pockets.

I am all for aggressive space exploration and exploitation, but it would be close to the spacex model, with the expectation that people are going to die.

yes, previously called BFR, now it's 'Starship' adn the bottom booster 'Super Heavy'.
NASA boasts about SLS having a 130 ton lift capacity, well this should be almost the same but 100% resuable, including the heat shield design, using new 'Active Cooling'. The whole thing is going to be stainless steel, made using a new 'cold forming' technique at cryogenic temperatures, not carbon composites, and the bottom will have a section of the fuel pipes underneath pumping the cryogenic fuel with another steel layer over the top like a beautiful chestplate.

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It’s named starship. Previously named BFR.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BFR_(rocket)

Beat me to it

>with the expectation that people are going to die.
That's going to be a hard sell nowadays. Signing up to maybe die in the name of exploration will hurt too many people's feelings.

The gateway station is 1000% unnecessary for any lunar base building, sure it might be useful as an orbital antenna sometime after the colony is being made but it's actually worse wasting launches, of which the SLS will get like 1 or 2 a year, on having to build one than just going straight there. A reusable rocket makes it an even stupider idea

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>be first thing nasa did w/o Von Braun
>be the fucking shuttle
shuttle proved that a camel really is a horse designed by a committee
>t. never can vent irl because I live on FL's space coast

>Its more the fact that the shuttle program tanked further ambition for ACTUAL space programs.
nah, it's even more the fact that we chose feeding niggers over conquering space

That too

if he was here he would slap the shit out of them for fucking around in LEO for 50 years

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My dad hated these things. He called them “pickup truck in space”

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Being an astronaut is iirc the most dangerous job there is. 1% of rocket launches blow up. The recent one where the Russian safety system worked is super rare. Even with those odds, you don't have a problem finding astronauts, any more than you have a problem finding people to ride the isle of man, or people who want to be Marines or special forces. There are plenty of individuals that can handle and enjoy situations with extraordinary personal risk. The problem is politicians that justify space programs in terms of national prestige and think the public can't handle crispy corpses. I think treating astronauts as heros means everyone understands they are actually embracing a great deal of risk with eyes wide open.

>That's going to be a hard sell nowadays.

Dude. Literally every, and I mean EVERY pilot or engineer would NEVER reject a chance to go to space let alone a different fucking planet. Its one of those rare jobs where EVERYONE wants to be one regardless of the risks.

I meant to the general public. There will be too much red tape for spacex to man-rate its launch vehicles because nasa wants a monopoly on killing astronauts.

all of this said, the new(ish) shuttle exibit at kennedy space center is fucking breathtaking. seen in 3 times (free for residents, school field trip chaperoning), and the reveal never fails to fill the room with audible gasps. Also, the thing is fucking huge and no video could do it justice when you're close. it can fit a school bus in the cargo bay.

youtube.com/watch?v=B7ZCkgjcXis
ff to 5:36 or so. (it keeps thinking my timed link is spam)

>There will be too much red tape for spacex to man-rate its launch vehicles because nasa wants a monopoly on killing astronauts.

NASA's latest announcement was them possibly ditching the Orion sls for commercial rockets.

I still say they need an interactive Saturn V ride complete with the noise and violent vibrations and acceleration changes. That would be the shit.

a much better one:

you watch a 5 minute film about the shuttle program in a theater shaped like a globe, it ends with the shuttle flying at you and freezing, then the curtain lifts and the real fucking thing is in the exact position.

youtu.be/dH6zTlw9858?t=373

If true, that is a failure of leadership. You march astronauts in front of good morning america and you let them say that yes they might die, but they know the risks and this is the best job ever. Have them articulate the vision of our species crawling off this rock, to unlimited resources, to adventure and risk, and whatever else. People innately understand both risk and death. Public problem solved.

rekt

>The gateway station is 1000% unnecessary for any lunar base building
Disagree. Instead of going to the Moon, we've spent most of the last 50 years building stations in LEO, and we've gotten quite good at it. So instead of plunging head-first into building surface bases on another world, something which we've never done, building a station around the Moon is a more logical next step and test of our abilities.
And you can even do short excursions to the surface using landers docked there, which is much more efficient than launching a huge rocket from Earth just for that.

>Public problem

I dont get how this is suddenly a problem. If that were the case, the STS program wouldve been shut down directly after Challenger. From what Ive seen over the years, the public just doesnt give a shit. The only time they do is at "first time" events. So the only time they would give a shit now is whenever that moon base gets built.

>>we've spent most of the last 50 years building stations in LEO, and we've gotten quite good at it.

Dude, the most relevant quote I have heard from NASA about lessons learned from the international space station goes something like, 'don't build anything like that again, instead launch larger preassembled chunks from the ground'.

The political center of mass is very different now. Think of our media and how they will anoint themselves as the authority on space the next time any kind of disaster happens. If they're unhappy with it, the people will be unhappy.

That's still way more experience than we currently have at attempting to build and sustain a manned base on the Moon.

I don't actually think it is a problem either. People turn on the news every day and hear or read about people dying. The problem seems to be that politicians seem to think that people care, and push NASA for 100% reliability. I don't even think that most people really care at all about NASA, they just want to know somebody is working on space and shit. When the moon landings happened, interest rapidly waned after the first couple launches.

no