I have been a space nut since I was a little boy. I think the Gemini missions were the first ones I remembered. My mom used to even let us stay home to watch the major milestones, such as the first walk in space or the rendezvous between Geminis 6 & 7. My mom figured it was far better to watch history being made than to learn about it after the fact in a book.
She was right. Like the rest of the world, I watched in awe as Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon in July 1969 and watched in horror as the Challenger exploded, killing all aboard.
I was working at Associated Grocers at the time, and true to form, I snuck away from work to find a TV in the conference room to watch the launch on. Everyone thought I was joking when I ran into the ad agency and said the shuttle had exploded.
Suffice it to say, I am a big fan of NASA. At least I was. Somewhere along the way, the agency became a bureaucratic mess that doesn’t seem to have the vision or know-how to explore space any longer.
It took just eight years to build a rocket that could go to the moon, land astronauts and return safely home. When the project was announced, no one had even conceived of any part of how to do this, from building the engines to figuring out how to navigate in space in a time when computers were extremely rudimentary and slide rules ruled the day.
Now, we can’t even seem to put a spacecraft into space without it being a plodding, bureaucratic nightmare. Now, I’m not talking about private companies trying to do this. SpaceX is about to launch its first Dragon/Falcon 9 mission to the space shuttle next month. They are doing what the government can’t seem to do and quite frankly, I think it’s about time for the government to step aside.
Case in point. Lockheed Martin has received a NASA contract to build the Orion capsule. It is supposed to take man to the moon and even mars, someday. The operative word is, someday.
The contract is for $6.4 billion and they just got another $375 million so they can buy a rocket to put it on. You read right. The $6.4 billion doesn’t include a rocket.
This is all fine and dandy, if the thing was ready to fly into space. It’s not. An unmanned Orion won’t launch until 2014 at the earliest. And, it won’t be a final, space ready capsule, but one that is still in the engineering phases so NASA can make changes to it, such as adding a cassette deck and power windows.
The spacecraft won’t be ready for the first astronauts until December 2017, five years from now.
What galls me is that the Orion isn’t a new idea. It’s basically a 1960s Apollo capsule with a thyroid problem. It is a bigger version of something we already know works. In fact, it should work better, since we now have all this computer horsepower now as well as lessons learned from some 50 years of space exploration.
Basically, Orion is Apollo. It goes up on a rocket and splashes down in the water. SpaceX’s Dragon does the same thing. In fact, they’ve already tested the capsule in the open ocean after it flew in space. Orion? It’s still playing in the bathtub, even though it had a year head start on SpaceX.
Don’t believe me? Here’s video of what I believe to be the eighth drop test into a tank of water to see what the spacecraft will do. If you can’t stand the suspense, go to about 1:50 on the video to see all the excitement.
Surprise! It hits the water, makes a big splash and either turns right side up or right side down, just like Apollo. Didn’t we learn all this 40 years ago?
What does Space X do? They rent a helicopter and drop theirs into the ocean under parachutes, just like it would land in the real world. Test done. It lands, it splashes, it doesn’t sink. Onto the next milestone.
This is the problem with NASA. Notice a bunch of engineers crowded around the tank with really nice NASA logo hard hats, all applauding the eighth test because – SURPRISE, it did what it did in the other seven tests and the entire Apollo program.
If NASA is really serious about space exploration, get with the game. Get rid of all the expensive tests of things we already know. Learn to improvise. Take a measured risk.
For example, Space X had a problem on their initial Dragon launch with the second stage engine bell. Did they scrub the mission? Did they roll it back into the hangar? No, a technician climbed up into the rocket and with a pair of tin snips, cut it off. They had built in a design margin of error.
Why is Space X so smart? Because they have to be. They don’t have a bottomless pit of money to play with. They are in the business to make money. So they have to be a little smarter about how they do it. Case in point. They are working to make every section of the rocket and capsule reusable. This will reduce operating costs. Eventually, they want the capsule and the rocket stages to come back to earth and land using retro rockets to save the cost of water recovery.
NASA is just a black hole of waste. They are spending millions testing things they should already know. Hell, China knows it, SpaceX knows it, how come NASA doesn’t?
As I said, I love space. I am a space junkie. But I’m not a fan of space junk. Orion isn’t slated to carry astronauts for another five years!!! By then, the technology used to build the spacecraft will be 10 years old, if not older. It’s another space shuttle, a boondoggle of inefficiency and unfulfilled dreams.
Orion will always be overshadowed by private enterprise who has something NASA never will: The need to make a profit and the DNA to think like a business.
Out on the Treasure Coast, looking to the heavens and asking WHY?
– Robb