NASA outsouces shuttle design with $500m bonus

It seems NASA has incentivised the private sector to develop space vehicles..

Link

It seems like this could be the beginning of the end for government monopilised Space travel. As soon as one private firm designs a successful prototype, others will be sure to follow..

This is the kind of stuff that i have dreamed about since i was a kid. I wonder how long it will be before General Motors or Ford design the inter-stellar sedan? a la the jetsons?

I wonder how long it will be untill commercial flights to the moon are available for purchase?

These are exciting times..

I heard about this too, I'm sure if they outsource it in a free market a Chinese Company could easily beat any half way descent American Company if the project is price competitive.

I hope the Chinese take over building all of our Space Equiptment, they can't do any worse than the job Nasa has done for the last 40 years.

Originally posted by Low Orbit
I heard about this too, I'm sure if they outsource it in a free market a Chinese Company could easily beat any half way descent American Company if the project is price competitive.

I hope the Chinese take over building all of our Space Equiptment, they can't do any worse than the job Nasa has done for the last 40 years.

I agree with Low Orbit here. We have three thousand rocket scientists working for NASA, yet ALL of them missed the insulating foam fatally damaging the Space Shuttle Columbia in '03 until it was far to late. I think there must be like a hundred cameras during launch recording every angle . How could they miss such a crucial event? I know some of them did notice it, but nobody cared.

Originally posted by Low Orbit
I hope the Chinese take over building all of our Space Equiptment, they can't do any worse than the job Nasa has done for the last 40 years.

Yeah the Chinese great idea they just managed to get a man into space a few years ago so they are about were Russia and the US were in about the 1960s in terms of accomplishments.

The accomplishments of NASA and the Soviet programs dwarf any other country on the planet including that of China. Knock NASA all you want but they still put the Chinese space program to shame.

Try to remember China does not advertise their failures in their space program infact they hide them, Much the same as the Soviets did in the cold war days.
.I know of at least one case where a failed rocket in china landed on a village and killed like 200 civilians, something that wasnt found out till years later.

NASA failures are front page news when they happen around the world.

[edit on 30-6-2006 by ShadowXIX]

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
Yeah the Chinese great idea

they just managed to get a man into space a few years ago so they are about were Russia and the US were in about the 1960s in terms of accomplishments.

On top of that, when China went into space it was on 100% Russian technology. Well, not 100%, as I'm sure some of it had labels in Chinese.

Try to remember China does not advertise their failures in their space program infact they hide them, Much the same as the Soviets did in the cold war days.

Well, because we don't hear about it means it doesn't exist, right?

In short, China could not make a better Space Shuttle. Not even the Russians could, so if China can, why haven't they?

Ancient Chinese Secret

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
In short, China could not make a better Space Shuttle. Not even the Russians could, so if China can, why haven't they?

Maybe they did, but have kept everyone else from finding out about it.

After all, if we did, then we might also find out about the moon base they've had for over a century, or that they've already colonized Venus and Mars -- and Alpha Centauri III.

It's good to see NASA opening up a bit on this.

It has always puzzled me why a nation that prides itself on capitalism and ingenuity has seen fit to relegate space to the domain of government red tape.

I would like to ask for a different link. Aljazeera?

Who advertises their failures. When Nasa proposed the shuttle over 30 years ago it was suppose to go up as much as 90 times every year! The best it has done since is something like 5 launches in a year.

What I was trying to point out is that a country like China, who still has a strong sense of Nationalism and a booming economy has a better chance at pursuing space than capitalists. Capitalists think with their wallets, China, which is in between a democracy and a communist country thinks with whatever makes for good propoganda.

Is anyone arguing the fact that a Chinese company could make a superior product to what the americans could if given the same amount of money to start with. This will always be true due to the great differences in value between our 2 currencies.

Finally, why don't we outsource this to China, haven't we already outsourced everything else?

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
In short, China could not make a better Space Shuttle. Not even the Russians could, so if China can, why haven't they?

I agree that China can't make a better Space Shuttle. They still got some catching up to do. They've only done two manned launches with there Soyuz based capsule. But the Russians did make a pretty good Space Shuttle. It was actually better than NASA's Shuttle in some ways. I don't know how much you already know about it, but more can read about it here: en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by Low Orbit
When Nasa proposed the shuttle over 30 years ago it was suppose to go up as much as 90 times every year! The best it has done since is something like 5 launches in a year.

90 launches per year? That's some extreme exaduration there. The expected rate was 12 per year and the max reached was 9 launches in 1985.

Originally posted by jra
But the Russians did make a pretty good Space Shuttle. It was actually better than NASA's Shuttle in some ways.

I've read about the Buran quite a bit, and while it can be better in some aspects, it's at the cost of others - for example having a bit more cargo space, but at the sacrafice of engines.

Now, if you want to talk about heavy launcher systems, the Energia would win... If it were ever completed.

Anyway, that's a whole other topic, so I'll end it there.

Originally posted by Low Orbit
Who advertises their failures.

In terms of the worst failures which concern human loss of life NASA does. Every death in the NASA program was national news for the whole world to see.

If NASA had caused civilian deaths like China in a accident like this

www.cnn.com...

video

There likely wouldnt be a NASA anymore

A large area of the town of Xichang was destroyed, death toll is estimated from hunderds to thousands of civilians deaths. This happened in 1996 and the event was covered up completely for two weeks and are still lying about the death toll years later.

Thats what happens when the state has complete control over the media.