Meanwhile the Tiangong space station began construction in 2021 and has been continuously crewed since June 2022. It currently has capacity for six people, and via UNOOSA-organized cooperation has plans to host experiments from 17 countries including Belgium, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Peru, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Spain. The first non-Chinese person to travel there will likely be from Pakistan. (The US would be welcome too but Congress currently prohibits NASA from participating.)
Yeah the US is basically just giving up on being the preeminent power and claiming we aren’t.
The commercial spacestations definitely won’t have any corners because they were all cut. Shit will also be named “The Stockton Rush©® TITAN™” or something
Corpo space is basically “The Expanse” and “Alien” series. Fantastic future ahead it seems lol
This is why I don’t know why people are excited about SpaceX launches. Did you know Jeff Bezos owns Blue Origin, and he bought The Expanse so they wouldn’t cancel it, and so he could continue watching it because he loved it so much. What do you think is going through his mind there? It’s scary. These people are so evil.
Yet it was cancelled after 6 seasons anyway
Fantastic future ahead it seems lol
Gifs you can hear.
Pass
At this point I wouldn’t trust our country’s leadership to run a bus route let alone a space agency. But I can’t imagine the private space sector advancing anything besides investor profits. It’s a lose lose.
How is it possible that no one in charge of NASA has ever read science fiction? This is exactly the wrong direction they should be going, and it should be common sense by now, to know that.
They’ve read all the books. The guys in charge right now identify more with the villains, not the heroes.
The world is in the hands of the antagonists.
They’re going to cross a line, I’m an accelerationist only up to that point. I want us to help them cross the line so we can get this shit in working order.
Accelerationism isn’t the dumbest shit imaginable.
The ISS is rickety, showing its age. It should be retired soon. Decades of structural flexing and delay has taken its toll and it’s going to be cheaper to replace than repair.
Unfortunately they will likely do neither. :/
After the disaster that was the SpaceX contract… welp, there goes the US space program.
Which SpaceX contact was a disaster ?
There is a lot to criticize about SpaceX but overall for NASA they’ve been pretty good partners, especially composted to ask the contracts NASA has with traditional aerospace companies.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but I see several contracts
- The commercial crew development: NASA awarded two contract to SpaceX and Boeing for sending astronauts to the ISS (with Boeing receiving almost twice the amount for the same missions).
- Result: the capsule Crew Dragon has been sending astronauts regularly and safely to the ISS. The only astronauts that used the Starliner capsule from Boeing had to use another capsule (sent by SpaceX) to return because it was too risky to use the Boeing one.
- All the satellites and probed launched for NASA. NASA chose SpaceX for multiple missions, I don’t think any of the missions failed because of SpaceX. It include Europa Clipper, a probe that was originally supposed to be sent on the SLS (the SLS program is a disaster).
- The human landing system: even though there is delays SpaceX is progressing well in the development of the system. Blue origin got a contract as well but so far they only launch their rocket once and didn’t managed to recover the first stage. I don’t know about their moon lander, I don’t think there is many info available about it. As a comparison SpaceX launched the Starship rocket, recovered the first stage AND reused it several times already. Although comparison between the two companies is hard since they have very different approaches.
Their original timeline claimed people on the moon by 2024- currently, it looks unlikely to have any landings before 2028.
Those delays are normal. I hate Elon, too, but I’ve worked with them, and their shit is fresh. SLS is also not a disaster. That first mission was almost perfect, and the SLS community is strong. The difference is that NASA can not tolerate failure, and SpaceX can. NASA must be right the first time. SpaceX just breaks shit quickly.
I have a picture of SpaceX Falcon on the launch pad. The picture is from 2008. Claims that they are faster are not accurate. We have built two launch vehicles and successfully completed testing since then. Starship just now had a decent test or two, IIRC. We didn’t start SLS until like 2012, and SpaceX had Falcon on pad in 2008. Had they not canceled Ares I right after a successful flight, NASA would be farther along. Both Falcon and SLS are good options. Vulcan is promising, but Boeing is too screwed up now for my comfort, so we’ll see.
NASA is different because its money is Congressionally controlled, so not only does that expect perfection in an area that will have mistakes, but has a small window to act in before political interest wanes, and has little flexibility as things are learned on the way. The only advantage of a national space program is deep pockets. Even the small percent that NASA gets is a lot more than most commercial organizations can swing. Imagine if they had a few percent of what the military gets and a bit of latitude to find ways for us to expand out.
Maybe the solution is a global space agency? Removing reliance on the USA is best for business.
Starfleet!
But first the Second Civil war, the eugenics wars and finally World War III.
Yes, well, we’re well on our way to those unfortunately 😕
I wouldn’t mind skipping those
Did all countries involved in building the ISS decide that or was it decided by NASA unilaterally?
Europe is similarly unwilling to invest in public endeavours. Every asshole and their beard wants “commercial solutions”.
Commercial solutions end up costing more for high stakes and high cost space programs. They basically just made NASA a corporate subsidy for giant corps and parasitic billionaires. This push for commercial partners to do everything has already bitten them in the ass, but since all their greedy corpo buddies get lots of money, they’ll just continue to run the agency in the ground until it does nothing. We’re almost there, too, with Trump cuts out in full force.
Just remember, NASA was amazing until politicians started fucking it up. Politicians caused Challenger to explode, too.
We’re on the same page here…
