Lawmakers try to cut NASA off at the knees

[Sea Skimmer]

Can we say "blast furnaces" on the asteroid? melt and manfuacture steel
and other stuff on site in zero gravity

Feel free to develop a working zero G zero oxygen blast furnace thats cheeper then simply digging more iron out of the ground or melting down everything thats in our landfills.

[Darth Wong]

Wow....not to rip on mike, but what a shining example of the government doing what private industry won't!

Yes, we're all envious of the way private industry has accomplished ... wait a minute, private industry hasn't done shit in space except for duplicating what the Russians did with Sputnik: throwing up satellites. You picked a bad example to demonstrate the superiority of private industry, Shep.

We need to recreate the 1860s railroad boom, by offering significant economic incenitives; like say sole rights to a area of the moon larger than Texas, and of course, offering to pay for the insurance on these flights.

Ah, massive government subsidies. What were you saying about private industry?

[Crayz9000]

Yes, we're all envious of the way private industry has accomplished ... wait a minute, private industry hasn't done shit in space except for duplicating what the Russians did with Sputnik: throwing up satellites. You picked a bad example to demonstrate the superiority of private industry, Shep.

I seem to recall an entry by General Electric into the Apollo design program. In almost all areas it was superior to NASA's homebrew design: cost, efficiency, and safety. Yet it was turned down only because NASA's director had made up his mind already.

[Darth Wong]

I seem to recall an entry by General Electric into the Apollo design program. In almost all areas it was superior to NASA's homebrew design: cost, efficiency, and safety. Yet it was turned down only because NASA's director had made up his mind already.

Even if NASA had gone with GE's design, it still would have been a government-funded project, and the only real incentive for private industry to get involved was fed money. This is hardly an example of the private industry getting the job done in space.

[SirNitram]

As for the challenges on this post, I think the numbers I referred to included refining the materials up in orbit out of the asteroid. I can't find any solid enough to say for sure, though. Maxima mea culpa.

Needless, the biggest advantage of space exploration remains getting our eggs out of one basket, but no one seems terribly comfortable with drawing a little dot at TODAY, drawing a little dot at VIABLE COLONIZATION, and working along the line between them.

[Darth Wong]

As for the challenges on this post, I think the numbers I referred to included refining the materials up in orbit out of the asteroid. I can't find any solid enough to say for sure, though. Maxima mea culpa.

If there were any estimates on the cost of such a venture, they're wrong. More to the point, I'd bet money that any such estimates are made by scientists rather than engineers; the number of unexpected problems that are going to crop up when transplanting terrestrial materials processing and manufacturing technologies to outer space are huge, and they would cause the budget to balloon out of control, to the point that it bears pretty much no resemblance at all to the original estimate.

Needless, the biggest advantage of space exploration remains getting our eggs out of one basket, but no one seems terribly comfortable with drawing a little dot at TODAY, drawing a little dot at VIABLE COLONIZATION, and working along the line between them.

There is no short-term incentive. Corporations look to the next quarter, and governments look to the next election. Given that cycle, perhaps we should be looking to dictatorships to lead the way in space exploration

[SirNitram]

As for the challenges on this post, I think the numbers I referred to included refining the materials up in orbit out of the asteroid. I can't find any solid enough to say for sure, though. Maxima mea culpa.

If there were any estimates on the cost of such a venture, they're wrong. More to the point, I'd bet money that any such estimates are made by scientists rather than engineers; the number of unexpected problems that are going to crop up when transplanting terrestrial materials processing and manufacturing technologies to outer space are huge, and they would cause the budget to balloon out of control, to the point that it bears pretty much no resemblance at all to the original estimate.

Quite likely. Conceeded.

Needless, the biggest advantage of space exploration remains getting our eggs out of one basket, but no one seems terribly comfortable with drawing a little dot at TODAY, drawing a little dot at VIABLE COLONIZATION, and working along the line between them.

There is no short-term incentive. Corporations look to the next quarter, and governments look to the next election. Given that cycle, perhaps we should be looking to dictatorships to lead the way in space exploration

Hey, whatever works. Given that I doubt humanity could do it in my lifetime if they buckled down now, waiting for a giant rock to be coming at us is literal suicide.

[Crayz9000]

There is no short-term incentive. Corporations look to the next quarter, and governments look to the next election. Given that cycle, perhaps we should be looking to dictatorships to lead the way in space exploration

Are you suggesting that we should be funding Kim Jong-Il's manned space program?