[Kosh]

So the US Air Force has tested a new spaceplane orbiter, the x-37. While it is just a testbed, I do find it quite annoying. Why? First of all while it's all well and good that they develop their own spaceplanes, the problem is they haven't really been doing that. Instead what the USAF has done was meddle with NASA's projects to develop reusable launch vehicles, namely the shuttle and the national aerospace plane, causing greatly added complexity and design headaches. On the shuttle, even though it was built to the military's specifications, was not actually used by the military, leading to great waste. Because of its overall bad design and overengineeredness the shuttle never lived up to its promise and is finally about to be retired. The national aerospace plane, while the project was never intended to actually carry people it would have been useful to further develop the technologies used in it to be employed in the next generation of spacecraft (which likely would have been developed by now). That didn't happen as the project was cancelled.

So now the shuttle is going to be retired and we have nothing to replace it. Instead of developing a new one for peaceful purposes, it seems the USAF is once again trying to horde the technology for its own purposes. At least that's how it looks from the outside.

[Liberator]

NASA, despite it's wondrous achievements in the past, has become an ossified, unimaginative agency.  The USAF is simply trying to reclaim the mantle that Eisenhower took from them back in the 50's when he created NASA.  I don't think there's some kind of "agenda" here.  I think some general somewhere got sick and tired of NASA acting like an arthritic, lung cancer patient about developing new replacement craft for the rusty space truck(which never left prototype stage in any case).

[General Battuta]

Any evidence to back up the claim that NASA has become ossified or arthritic?

Or are you just going to ignore the fact that its budget is a fraction of what it was during the Apollo era?

[bobbtmann]

My impression was that NASA was doing pretty good work for such a small budget.

[Flipside]

To me, it seems to be a useless duplication and divergance of work and funds, to quote William Hurt in Contact, "Why build one, when you can build two at twice the price?"

Edit: It just saddens me that two organisations, in the same country, in the middle of a recession, should have the same goal and yet work seperately to achieve it, that's not good fiscal policy even during a boom, during a time where funding is being cut in every quarter, it's little more than a waste.

[headdie]

apparantly ppl in my region cant see the web site

[Liberator]

Flip, it's the Federal Government.  The right hand not only doesn't know or care about what the left hand is doing, it rarely even acknowledges it's existence and wants to spend the budget(which BTW, what good is a budget if you don't pay strict attention to it?) from both.  

I'm working for the Census right now, and I can tell you from first hand experience, the right hand rarely knows what the right hand is doing.

[StarSlayer]

A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.

[watsisname]

Re:  Liberator

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NASA_missions

Oh boy, yeah, NASA sure hasn't accomplished anything exciting or imaginative since Apollo, am I right?

[General Battuta]

Flip, it's the Federal Government.  The right hand not only doesn't know or care about what the left hand is doing, it rarely even acknowledges it's existence and wants to spend the budget(which BTW, what good is a budget if you don't pay strict attention to it?) from both.  

I'm working for the Census right now, and I can tell you from first hand experience, the right hand rarely knows what the right hand is doing.

Are you going to respond to my question about NASA?

[Nuclear1]

The USAF is simply trying to reclaim the mantle that Eisenhower took from them back in the 50's when he created NASA. 

The USAF has more issues right now then to try to retake whatever space ventures they had going on back in the 50s.  The US government needs NASA to focus on space, and the Air Force to focus on fighting wars.  They can cooperate on the space mission as much as they want--the Air Force obviously has plenty of aeronautical expertise--but space exploration needs to remain the responsibility of NASA.

The only use the USAF would have for advancing space travel technology is to find a better way to fight wars.  And last I checked, we were against militarizing space as much as possible.

Also, what Battuta said...the Air Force budget for 2011 is $116 billion.  NASA's budget over the next five years is $100 billion. 

[General Battuta]

And that's after a fairly recent massive increase.

[LordMelvin]

I'm working for the Census right now, and I can tell you from first hand experience, the right hand rarely knows what the right hand is doing.

Rarely? Speaking as a CL, try 'never.'

[Kosh]

Any evidence to back up the claim that NASA has become ossified or arthritic?

Or are you just going to ignore the fact that its budget is a fraction of what it was during the Apollo era?

How about that we can't come up with a coherent plan to go to the moon, despite having the know how to do so for 40 years?

It isn't totally NASA's fault, their directives are determined by the president and their budget is held hostage to congress and the president. Effictively, they are chained to an electorate that just doesn't care.

To me, it seems to be a useless duplication and divergance of work and  funds, to quote William Hurt in Contact, "Why build one, when you can build two at twice the price?"

Edit: It just saddens me that two organisations, in the same country, in the middle of a recession, should have the same goal and yet work seperately to achieve it, that's not good fiscal policy even during a boom, during a time where funding is being cut in every quarter, it's little more than a waste.

The problem is they often have significantly different objectives and building just one craft to do everything is a little out of our reach, the shuttle certainly proved that. See here for the history of the space shuttle, including how the USAF requirements weighed it down. What they should be sharing is technology.

The only use the USAF would have for advancing space travel technology is to find a better way to fight wars.  And last I checked, we were against militarizing space as much as possible.

So why the interference with the shuttle and the national aerospace plane? Why are they developing a space plane?

[General Battuta]

Any evidence to back up the claim that NASA has become ossified or arthritic?

Or are you just going to ignore the fact that its budget is a fraction of what it was during the Apollo era?

How about that we can't come up with a coherent plan to go to the moon, despite having the know how to do so for 40 years?

There was a very coherent plan that was cancelled just recently due to lack of funding. It was called Constellation.

They may have the know-how but they never reached the budget they had during the Apollo era.

[Kosh]

There was a very coherent plan that was cancelled just recently due to lack of funding. It was called Constellation.

Isn't providing adequate funding part of a plan to go anywhere? Constellation was hardly anything to get inspired or excited about, it was just a remade apollo with all the inherent disadvantages.   

They may have the know-how but they never reached the budget they had during the Apollo era.

One thing NASA failed to do after Apollo was develop an inexpensive launch platform (the shuttle was a botched attempt), which would have made that much funding unnecessary.

[General Battuta]

There was a very coherent plan that was cancelled just recently due to lack of funding. It was called Constellation.

Isn't providing adequate funding part of a plan to go anywhere?

NASA does not control its own funding.

Constellation was hardly anything to get inspired or excited about, it was just a remade apollo with all the inherent disadvantages.

No.

One thing NASA failed to do after Apollo was develop an inexpensive launch platform (the shuttle was a botched attempt), which would have made that much funding unnecessary.

What you said here contradicts what you said in the last quote.

Also, wrong.

[The E]

The entire point of Constellation was to provide a cheap vehicle that could do all the heavy lifting the Shuttle could, and more.

Under Constellation, Nasa would basically begin stockpiling a large amount of parts that could be assembled into whatever configuration they needed, without having to purpose-build every single part.

Was it as "inspired" as the Shuttle? No. It was a basic application of all the engineering work done in the 60s, with added flourishes due to new materials and better design software.
As such, it promised to be very, very solid.

[Bobboau]

No.

Yes.

[General Battuta]

No.

Yes.

See The_E's post.