[Shadowmuse Blown]

A real spaceship. 

Despite some of its fatal flaws, it's still one of my favorite spaceships.

Agreed.  If they had managed to install some sort of launch escape system I would’ve like it a lot more.  But because of the almighty dollar an entire crew is dead because there was no system to eject the crew to safety during the Challenger disaster.  But, this is water under the bridge.  Looking forward to new spaceships vying for my attention as favorite in the next years to come, including Starship and Dreamchaser.

[Shadowmuse Blown]

According to Reuters, SpaceX will stop building Crew Dragons & cap it’s fleet of reusable space capsules at 4.  The move shifts resources to Starship development.

Pictured, destacking Starship from its booster via the Chopsticks.

[TheZookie007]

According to Reuters, SpaceX will stop building Crew Dragons & cap it’s fleet of reusable space capsules at 4.  The move shifts resources to Starship development.

Pictured, destacking Starship from its booster via the Chopsticks.

That's a shame.

[solvegas]

Always an impressive sight. 

[Shadowmuse Blown]

According to Reuters, SpaceX will stop building Crew Dragons & cap it’s fleet of reusable space capsules at 4.  The move shifts resources to Starship development.

Pictured, destacking Starship from its booster via the Chopsticks.

That's a shame.

Why?  You need more than four?

[solvegas]

A couple of Falcon 9 rockets from SpaceX flawlessly landing back on Earth. The reason why the USA is at the moment leading the space race in spite of the ponderous, wasteful bureaucratic mess of NASA it's because Elon Musk doesn't have to go through an extensive chain of command, he just does it. Freedom works. 

[Shadowmuse Blown]

A couple of Falcon 9 rockets from SpaceX flawlessly landing back on Earth. The reason why the USA is at the moment leading the space race in spite of the ponderous, wasteful bureaucratic mess of NASA it's because Elon Musk doesn't have to go through an extensive chain of command, he just does it. Freedom works. 

And I would add to that: capitalism works.  But, private enterprise might not be enough to compete with the upcoming Chinese missions which are staggering.  If we don’t get very serious, I could see a scenario where the Chinese bar us from the Moon one day.

[TheZookie007]

A couple of Falcon 9 rockets from SpaceX flawlessly landing back on Earth. The reason why the USA is at the moment leading the space race in spite of the ponderous, wasteful bureaucratic mess of NASA it's because Elon Musk doesn't have to go through an extensive chain of command, he just does it. Freedom works.

Sorry to burst your 'MURICAN libertarian bubble, but that's bullshit.

For one thing, while I fully appreciate and even applaud what he's done, Elon Musk's SpaceX would not be where it is today without taxpayer funding and subsidization of his work:

"...over the years, Musk's companies — Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and SolarCity — have received billions of dollars from government loans, contracts, tax credits, and subsidies. According to a Los Angeles Times investigation, Musk's companies had received an estimated $4.9 billion in government support by 2015, and they've gotten more since."


And NASA's far from being a "ponderous, wasteful bureaucratic mess". If anything, NASA is among the most efficient users of taxpayer money of any federal government agency or department, and they give nearly the biggest bang for the buck - or, in this case, penny.

"A reasonable person might ask: Given all the problems on Earth — war, hunger, poverty, disease, unemployment, et cetera — why should the federal government spend billions of dollars in space?

As a public scientist, [director of the Hayden Planetarium and astrophysicist Prof. Neil deGrasse Tyson] hears the question a lot, and it tends to raise his atmospheric pressure.

'I would just ask you: How much do you think we’re spending up there? Here’s your tax dollar. How much? Ten cents on the dollar? Five cents? The answer is one half of one cent. That funds the space stations, the space shuttles, all the NASA centers, all the launches, the Hubble Space Telescope, the rovers on Mars. All of it. Half a penny. So the question isn’t, Why are we spending money up there and not down here? The question is, If we pumped that half a cent back into the 99.5 percent of the budget, would the country be fundamentally different in the ways you want? Do you believe that?'

'NASA should be counted as a force of nature. There is no greater stimulus of the public’s interest in science and technology than the ambitions that NASA places in front of the country.'”

Finally, as great as NASA is and as great as all of the scientists, engineers, and contractors who work there are (and with whom I have a great connection to over these past few years), this country is "leading" only by default. Other countries' space agencies have been able to also achieve remarkable things with even less. A good look at what the Indian Space Research Organisation has been able to do will astound you, not to mention what the Chinese space agency's been up to.

So the less "rah-rah USA's #1 in everything" we all do, the better for all of us.

[TheZookie007]

But I digress.

Returning to the topic:

"The Northern Lights Will Be Visible in New York City For the First Time in 42 Years"

[Shadowmuse Blown]

And NASA's far from being a "ponderous, wasteful bureaucratic mess". If anything, NASA is among the most efficient users of taxpayer money of any federal government agency or department, and they give nearly the biggest bang for the buck - or, in this case, penny.

So, allowing each launch of the SLS to come to over 4 BILLION dollars a launch is the biggest bang for the buck?  Someone’s getting banged alright and it’s Boeing banging NASA.  The SLS is the most incredible waste of resources I’ve seen in quite some time.  Woefully late and over budget, NASA keeps throwing money at them.  The damn thing uses old tech solid rocket boosters from the Shuttle as well as Shuttle engines and they’re STILL having difficulties.  The damn Orion capsule’s been ready for a long time waiting for this money-and-time-sucking beast to get lit and push it.  NONE of the damn thing is re-usable.  And don’t get me started with Boeing’s Starliner.  Where is it?  They’re still fixing the over EIGHTY bugs that were found from its first flight.  Boeing’s penalty?  To have more time and money thrown at it.  Had Starliner been the only vehicle to ferry astronauts to the ISS, we’d still be totally reliant on the Russians to ferry our people back and forth.  It’s totally inexcusable.  NASA needs to grow a spine and get out of bed with Boeing.

Why doesn’t NASA just burn the taxpayer’s money in a huge bond fire?  It would be nearly as efficient, it seems.

[solvegas]

No, this is not some furnace like area on planet Earth but an extremely cold surface on Mars. 

[TheZookie007]

Updates on the Artemis lander program:

Apogee: "Podcast Ep.3 | Second Human Lander for Artemis"
Episode 3 of the Apogee Podcast about NASA media briefing on HLS March 23, 2022
Watch the NASA media briefing here

[solvegas]

Apollo XV, July 21, 1971. 

[Shadowmuse Blown]

Had the Soviet’s N1 rocket not self destructed, taking out much of the Soviet Union’s launch facilities in the process, they may have been able to send a modified Soyuz to Moon orbit with two astronauts.  One of them would have then have had to have made a space walk to enter their lunar lander: the LK, where the lone cosmonaut would then have made the descent to the surface. 

[TheZookie007]

Had the Soviet’s N1 rocket not self destructed, taking out much of the Soviet Union’s launch facilities in the process, they may have been able to send a modified Soyuz to Moon orbit with two astronauts.  One of them would have then have had to have made a space walk to enter their lunar lander: the LK, where the lone cosmonaut would then have made the descent to the surface. 

I'm sure he got over it, but I still feel bad for Michael Collins.