So obviously, it’s the only way that it can be done:
All planning must be timid and scoped to be within the limited capabilities of what was done by past over-priced government projects. If I bought a Ford Pinto, I cannot buy a new car next time. I have to plan on car trips with the assumption that I must always own a lemon.
Quoting Homer Simpson (and apparently Lawrence Krauss)
“You tried your best and failed miserably. The lesson is: never try.”
Trying to change this mindset is a never-ending battle.
“…a Dark Age is not just a period in which people no longer know how to do things. The real key is that people no longer remember that certain things can be done at all.” – Jerry Pournelle
There’s a line from an old religious song that seems to relate to that kind of thinking, “It was good enough for Grandpa, it’s good enough for me.”
If we want to go back to the moon, we have to do it like Project Apollo did it. It was good enough back then so that’s the way we have to do it forever more. We have to have a massive, over-priced Soviet-style government program with cost-plus contracts for everyone in order to do anything.
“You tried your best and failed miserably. The lesson is: never try.”
Very similar to the Precautionary Principle: “Never do anything for the first time.”
“The promised reusability and high launch rate of the space shuttle or increased safety were clearly wrong by 1986 and the program should have been cancelled at that point.”
We’ve tried RLVs, and they don’t work…
One reason I like Ron Paul is that if he follows through with his 1988 White Paper proposal to close NASA it will be a very visible demonstration that he really is downsizing government. Yes, its only a very small percent of the budget, as was Project Apollo, but its also very visible because it involves space. And Project Apollo has long been used as justification for large centralized government programs to “solve” problems, so closing NASA would also be very symbolic in terms of government role in “solving” problems.