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Off-Topic Space, the final frontier, these are the voyages of NASA

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90scane said:
You follow this more than me. Will he help move things along a little faster?
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I think everyone needs to go into this expecting NASAs budget to get reduced, regardless. That means we need someone who can do more with less. At least with Isaacman, it ensures the guy leading NASA is at least A) Competent leader B) Loves Space, and is proven personally invested C) Values the important things that NASA SHOULD be the leader in like Exploration, Science missions and R&D that have no immediate private investment. D) Someone who wants to drastically reduce the beuracracy and ELIMINATE Cost-Plus contracts, E) Someone who actually wants to get **** the **** done.

He's said repeatedly how he'd prefer to shift to the mindset of having 10+ $100M science missions yearly developed in conjuction with like universities with 1 or 2 failing, than spending $2B on one singular science mission that takes 5 years developing. When they are more expensive like that failure is not an option, and that increase the development time and increases the costs obviously. That's why it seems Like NASA is so ******* slow. It's like they do 2 big missions but have zero margin for error which just greatly balloons everything. The problem with this is if Isaacman is only head of NASA for 2.5-3 years or whatever it is, then how much can he REALLY get done positive. He's just gunna get all the blame for the budget cuts and reorg they have to undergo, and then he will just be starting to put his plan into motion before next election occurs, possibly before we really start to see the Science missions really launch. So from that aspect I think in the Science missions Isaacman is probably the best we could really hope for. He's got the gameplan to flatten the org shift priorities of certain centers so they aren't working on useless **** that private companies are already handling better, cheaper, and faster.

Anyways, MOSTLY he will be judged based on Artemis/Moon and the new "race" with China (that is mostly meaningless). I suspect this is what you're asking about in particular. But I'd just say that A) What the **** is REALLY the point in winning a meaningless race to do the same thing we already won 50 years ago - footprints and a flag mission? The REAL RACE is setting up a true Lunar Base. And to do that the current HLS selections are already best options and are imo on track to beat Chine to the same milestone, but B) How should we really expect any NEW lander selection to speed much up when the item most lagging is actually the spacesuits, and obviously any new lander would be starting from scratch (unless it's just a SpaceX design lmao), and be incredibly overpriced for FAR WORSE functionality than the current HLS selections bring. Like SpaceX is the ONLY provider that is currently Human rated for a launcher. They are the only ones with any modern experience that they can learn from and apply to their Current lander design (which is why HLS is just using a **** load of Crew Dragon learnings/hardware)...

Oh and then there is SLS and Orion....I believe if there was ZERO politics to it and it was purely about what is actually best investment, he'd immediately cancel SLS and Orion, which is what ANYONE with a brain and doesn't want to see **** near $4B/yr literally going to absolute waste would do. Unfortunately due to politics the Senate Launch System is unlikely to be cancelled for at least 2 more missions (at a nice little launch cost of like $4B/launch!). So we have a race to the Moon, there will likely be some bids for Quicker Moon landing missions, but I'd bet all my money on SpaceX getting there first regardless. And all that aside from Starship and Blue Origins HLS lander would be useless long-term anyway, if the plan is to have a base on the moon.... You know how you speed up our Moon landing goal? You cancel SLS+Orion tomorrow (already enough hardware for a couple launches). You tell SpaceX and Blue Origin that there is a $2B reward for proven demonstration of landing on the moon with X mass goal, followed by a crew mission. However they choose to reach that goal is up to them. They can use Crew Dragon or whatever else needed. You give them the incentive, and let them figure it out. It'll be done far faster than any BS Cost-Plus contract to Boeing+Lockheed.
 
Calinative said:
I think everyone needs to go into this expecting NASAs budget to get reduced, regardless. That means we need someone who can do more with less. At least with Isaacman, it ensures the guy leading NASA is at least A) Competent leader B) Loves Space, and is proven personally invested C) Values the important things that NASA SHOULD be the leader in like Exploration, Science missions and R&D that have no immediate private investment. D) Someone who wants to drastically reduce the beuracracy and ELIMINATE Cost-Plus contracts, E) Someone who actually wants to get **** the **** done.

He's said repeatedly how he'd prefer to shift to the mindset of having 10+ $100M science missions yearly developed in conjuction with like universities with 1 or 2 failing, than spending $2B on one singular science mission that takes 5 years developing. When they are more expensive like that failure is not an option, and that increase the development time and increases the costs obviously. That's why it seems Like NASA is so ******* slow. It's like they do 2 big missions but have zero margin for error which just greatly balloons everything. The problem with this is if Isaacman is only head of NASA for 2.5-3 years or whatever it is, then how much can he REALLY get done positive. He's just gunna get all the blame for the budget cuts and reorg they have to undergo, and then he will just be starting to put his plan into motion before next election occurs, possibly before we really start to see the Science missions really launch. So from that aspect I think in the Science missions Isaacman is probably the best we could really hope for. He's got the gameplan to flatten the org shift priorities of certain centers so they aren't working on useless **** that private companies are already handling better, cheaper, and faster.

Anyways, MOSTLY he will be judged based on Artemis/Moon and the new "race" with China (that is mostly meaningless). I suspect this is what you're asking about in particular. But I'd just say that A) What the **** is REALLY the point in winning a meaningless race to do the same thing we already won 50 years ago - footprints and a flag mission? The REAL RACE is setting up a true Lunar Base. And to do that the current HLS selections are already best options and are imo on track to beat Chine to the same milestone, but B) How should we really expect any NEW lander selection to speed much up when the item most lagging is actually the spacesuits, and obviously any new lander would be starting from scratch (unless it's just a SpaceX design lmao), and be incredibly overpriced for FAR WORSE functionality than the current HLS selections bring. Like SpaceX is the ONLY provider that is currently Human rated for a launcher. They are the only ones with any modern experience that they can learn from and apply to their Current lander design (which is why HLS is just using a **** load of Crew Dragon learnings/hardware)...

Oh and then there is SLS and Orion....I believe if there was ZERO politics to it and it was purely about what is actually best investment, he'd immediately cancel SLS and Orion, which is what ANYONE with a brain and doesn't want to see **** near $4B/yr literally going to absolute waste would do. Unfortunately due to politics the Senate Launch System is unlikely to be cancelled for at least 2 more missions (at a nice little launch cost of like $4B/launch!). So we have a race to the Moon, there will likely be some bids for Quicker Moon landing missions, but I'd bet all my money on SpaceX getting there first regardless. And all that aside from Starship and Blue Origins HLS lander would be useless long-term anyway, if the plan is to have a base on the moon.... You know how you speed up our Moon landing goal? You cancel SLS+Orion tomorrow (already enough hardware for a couple launches). You tell SpaceX and Blue Origin that there is a $2B reward for proven demonstration of landing on the moon with X mass goal, followed by a crew mission. However they choose to reach that goal is up to them. They can use Crew Dragon or whatever else needed. You give them the incentive, and let them figure it out. It'll be done far faster than any BS Cost-Plus contract to Boeing+Lockheed.
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I was more interested in just getting **** done faster. I’m also for the last paragraph. Cut the $4b launches that are worthless other than to line pockets of defense contractors. I’d take that 8b and offer $3b to each to build reusable systems & a $2b kicker for the first to do it.
 


Great day for Blue Origin!

Become second company ever to land an orbital rocket stage. Wonder how long till they reuse one.
 
Canedog said:
Cool. When will it be ready to deliver packages for Amazon?
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Kuiper has rebranded to Amazon Leo, and it is the primary delivery system for their Starlink competitor. I imagine the Kuiper/Amazon Leo sats will be the primary test payloads for the reused boosters, as they use new boosters for Government payloads…until reuse is proven

Amazon and Blue origin are entirely different companies though…
 
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90scane said:
I was more interested in just getting **** done faster. I’m also for the last paragraph. Cut the $4b launches that are worthless other than to line pockets of defense contractors. I’d take that 8b and offer $3b to each to build reusable systems & a $2b kicker for the first to do it.
Click to expand...
Btw this is a good summary of the situation regarding us getting back to the moon.

 
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