A community to discuss space & astronomy through a STEM lens
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Please keep politics to a minimum. When science is the focus, intersection with politics may be tolerated as long as the discussion is constructive and science remains the focus. As a general rule, political content posted directly to the instanceβs local communities is discouraged and may be removed. You can of course engage in political discussions in non-local communities.
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Before anyone brings these up:
The commercial replacements could each get multiple articles devoted to them. I feel good about Vast and Axiom beating the ISS deorbit deadline.
I feel good about Vast and Axiom beating the ISS deorbit deadline.
Vast yes, Axiom maybe. I'd give Voyager/Nanoracks a "maybe" as well.
I still think there's a decent chance that there will be a gap in continuous 30-year streak of crewed U.S. spaceflight. Not that it matters in the long-term, but I suspect it's a streak which China won't cede to any other country if they can help it.
Voyager and Blue are such unknowns to me. I haven't seen hardware, so I'm doubtful.
Fucking hell we're really just going to let the rich control our access to space now aren't we?
No more global cooperation of these communities, it's a really sad way to see this all pan out.
We might as well dissolve NASA and just give what's left of their puny budget to SpaceX that already has like 20x the funding. Then Elon Musk can personally control every future craft the US wants to launch! Yayyyyyy...
NASA should use their brainpower, effort, and money on hard problems, like planetary science and exploration. They've literally always contracted out hardware. At this point, industry is mature enough that it makes no sense for NASA to make, for example, a medium lift rocket or LEO satellite bus. It looks like they're now getting to that point with moon landers and space stations.
Also, for what it's worth, SpaceX didn't get a contract for space station studies or hardware, just an unfunded space act agreement.
Is NASA a single guy that their brainpower should focus on select problems? Why not raise their budget to expand and hire hardware specialists?
US had never had problems hiring literal Nazis to spearhead their space program, whats stopping them from hiring more now?
Why is outsourced good more important than collective good?
Are you guys gonna bitch about this in like a decade like how all your healthcare, infrastructer, manufacturing, agriculture and technology being controlled by some company that is pulling the strings in the government.
Of course you are. It's stupid of me to even ask.
But hey, you do you.
To be clear, I want way more NASA funding. The Space Force getting double the NASA budget makes my blood boil. The current gov is shafting NASA with a bad budget and an idiot for an interim admin.
Their budget sucks because of self-interested, entrenched congresspeople who don't care about science or progress and only care about the same old jobs in their district for reelection. And vindictive officials who cut jobs at Goddard and HQ because they're in blue districts. And a government trying to "starve the beast" and burn down anything they can.
In that environment, the limited NASA budget is stuck in a zero-sum game, so they should spin off whatever easy stuff they can to focus their limited resources on pushing the boundaries.
Thales Alenia built the ISS USOS. Boeing flies ISS. Axiom, Vast, Voyager, and more are building the next American space stations. What's the difference?
You literally don't even understand what you are arguing for or why -_-
Nobody is trying to pretend they didn't contract out work.
NASA has been underfunded for a very long time, and we have been trained by capitalists to think it's useless and always was.
NASA used to conduct missions, too, not just private companies. And instead of giving them even a billion dollars a year, we are throwing the most successful space organization in human history after giving HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS, to a private corporation that is now going to replace the public one.
Humanity is not going to have a good time in space if private industry is allowed to control its access.