Bill Nye on SpaceX

[Saru]

Bill Nye on SpaceX

Click here to watch video - 03:56s

The Science Guy takes a look at the pros and cons of NASA and SpaceX manufacturing.

[toast]

Well spoken. Logistic costs are not the only issue in decentralized manufacturing processes as there is also

the problem with additional administrative workload, additional cost again, resulting in decelerated processes.

On the other hand, it makes more sense to divide the big cake (NASA budget) over several states to make sure

that all get feed instead of one getting fat and the others stay hungry. To centralize NASA seems to be quite impossible

so new companies do have a big competitive in competition here as these companies can project their manufacturing

site including supplier manufacturing facilities in the near surroundings from zero on, resulting in lower costs for NASA

for the services provided by these companies.

[+Hammerclaw]

Devolving space exploration back to the private sector removes it from the capricious whim of fickle politicians. The American political elite that launched the country into the Space Age as a game of one upmanship over their Soviet rivals, lost interest once that goal was achieved. They proceed to rob a whole generation of much that heritage by stunting the growth of human space exploration. We could have had a real space station and colonies on the moon and mars, by now. At this moment we should be exploring the moons of Jupiter, in person. Instead, the moon has been taken away from us, again, and all our shortsighted president can think of is some vague, pointless stunt. With their prohibitively expensive shuttle program, NASA restricted human spaceflight to low earth orbit for forty years. That was a totally inconceivable future in the 70's

Edited August 27, 2014 by John Wesley Boyd