Stuck there until next year?

I'd love to see the contracts of NASA rocket meat bags. (I mean, they're wicked smart. But can they actually touch anything in the spacecraft or are they basically cargo?)

Loss of bone density. Exposure to solar radiation. Vision problems. Maybe they have actual normal, human relationships on earth that are being erroded by 6-8 months away?

All this to go "Wee! I'm weightless!"?

(Plus "The Science" You'll know how to grow a seedling in orbit if you're one of the .000000000000001% of humainty that gets there. Added bonus: Three Dolphin Club opportunities. For the pedants: yes, I know.)

Congress either needs to pull the funding for NASA's manned space exploration missions or fire some people in charge.

This whole org. has real problems.

IMHO the jig is up. Focus on unmanned probes. Even then, only if you really, REALLY want to know the atmospheric mix of "moon X".

Seems like a lot of money for the nerds.

 

NASA budget is a tiny fraction of the federal budget. A lot of people like what they do, it's not just "money for nerds". Humans tend to like to explore, it's in our nature, fundamentally that's what the manned program is all about.

Like everybody else, nerds pay taxes so they're just as entitled to their special interests.

 

Yeah, but even us nerds like competence for our money. I mean look at the shuttle. It never lived up to its original specs because the tiles (which cracked and fell off periodically) were heavier than they'd planned. It was sold as "Mass transit in space" and "reusable" but it cost a half billion to refurbish between launches. Of the five nominally space worthy ones that were built, two (40%) had catastrophic failures with loss of life of everyone on board. Of the 355 people that ever flew on the Shuttle over 135 missions 14 individuals died, a fatality rate of ~4%.

There are things that NASA does well, but manned space flight would not appear to be one of them. And yeah, some of the "missions" are just stupid and/or PR, like putting a schoolteacher in space - even worse when you kill her in the attempt.

 

The undocking software thing is pretty amazing (in a bad way). I'd be surprised if NASA knew about that little detail.

 

Nature of .gov. Good news is NASA is feeling competitive pressure from both private sector and other governments (space race 2.0?).

I do agree that privatization is appropriate for routine ops, and NASA is definitely shifting (or being forced) in that direction. Even for deep space/exploratory missions, they now have plausible private sector subcontractors / competition (Starship).

Also there's an alibi for Shuttle... there was major DoD involvement, and they set some *very* specific mission requirements which drove the program to the bleeding edge of the available technology. Wasn't just .gov ineptness, they went out on a limb due to the cold war.

 

NASA still does good work. Not the manned missions though.

I've been to Boca Chica TX and have been within 100 yards of a SpaceX "Starship". It feels like the future. The energy is off the charts. It's amazing. Reminds me of the scene of the Abrams Star Trek reboot where they're building NCC-1701.

I've also been to Cape Canaveral. Very Disney. Nice exibits. I crashed the kids shuttle simulator a couple of times. They were very exicted about their female administrator (coulple of years ago), and the diversity that will define the Artemis return mission to the moon is truly first rate. (I mean, "yay", right? Very important for a billion dollar one time use rocket to go a place we've been to repeatedly.)

They have a biologist who makes sure the turtles are safe during launches. Lots of solar panels on the facility. (This was covered in the bus tour)

It's a museum.

(Manned spaceflight may be stupid though. If I was launching into space today, I'd probably go SpaceX, NASA, Russian, then the also rans...including Boeing.)

 

I wonder if they get delay pay?

 

Bet Chris Ferguson, Nicole Mann, Eric Boe, and Michael Finke are all happy they didn't end up on this mission. All of them were assigned to this mission at one point in time, only to either be removed, or chosing to remove themselves from the flight.

 

Stuckliner

 

LOL. (filler)