On Fri, 7 Feb 2003, Sean Lynch wrote:
> > ...Hubble would have gone up on a Titan IV if it
> > couldn't go Shuttle...
>
> Except that the HST and the Station were both planned in concert with
> the Shuttle and were cited as evidence of what great things the Shuttle
> could do.
Don't confuse side issues with the main line. Yes, servicing Hubble was a
big deal for the shuttle, but that doesn't mean there was nothing
worthwhile about Hubble. Hubble was identified as the #1 priority for
astronomy *by the astronomers*, not just by NASA. (The astronomers
generally have their act together on setting priorities, and realize that
you need a mixture of big expensive projects and small cheap ones -- there
are questions that the big projects can address and the small ones will
never ever be able to -- and likewise for space and ground projects.)
Mind you, they identified Hubble as their #1 priority for the *1970s*.
Things got a bit behind schedule...
> Of course, at this point we're building ground-based
> telescopes that will outperform HST, and at a fraction of the cost.
Uh, no, we aren't. Beware of taking the press releases from the ground-
based people too literally. There are things Hubble has been doing for a
decade that those ground-based telescopes will *never* do. The best
ground telescopes now can exceed Hubble's performance in one or two
respects, but not in all.
> > Remember: we're not trying to defeat NASA. We're trying to obsolesce
> > them.
>
> So you think that the government's competing with commercial launchers
> and giving NASA a monopoly on military launches doesn't hurt the
> commercial space industry?
This is a bit confused. Military launches have nothing to do with NASA
any more, to the extent that they ever did; the USAF hates NASA more than
you do. :-) And the government has not been competing with commercial
launchers, much, since 1986.
> You think we can "obsolesce" NASA without
> doing anything about the hurdles thrown in the face of the industry by
> the very agency that's supposed to be supporting/encouraging it?
As Randall noted, supporting and encouraging industry is not really NASA's
job, except insofar as NASA is supposed to be developing technology for
all to use. Nor is NASA erecting many hurdles these days, aside from
issues of public mindset (which were established long ago and would not go
away if NASA were abolished).
> Remember, these people are using *our* money to compete against us. It
> seems to me that any comprehensive program intended to produce cheap
> private access to space must take this into account.
NASA is not, in any way, shape, or form, competing with someone aiming at
*cheap* private access to space. To quote Gary Hudson, who can claim some
knowledge of the matter, when he was asked about NASA competition for
Rotary at Space Access 97: "they have no relevance to my business". He
went on to say that if they flew exactly the concept he was pushing, it
would be 100% to his benefit: it would validate the concept, largely
eliminating technical due-diligence issues for investors, without having
the slightest chance of competing with him effectively.
NASA *cannot* compete with cheap private spaceflight. They don't know how.
They don't know who the customers are, they don't take the crucial markets
seriously, and above all, they cannot do anything cheap.
The single most effective way to put the shuttle out of business is to
demonstrate the ability to offer cargo and passenger shipments to ISS at
$100/kg, at which point Congress will start asking pointedly why NASA is
still spending a hundred times that.
Henry Spencer
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