Bruce Lewis sends an email, which prompts me to put up a post on, of all things, space policy. Yes, I know, it's a shocker.

His email title is the same as the post title, except it's in French, a language I'm at least temporarily boycotting.

1963

Need: Reliable access to space via reusable spacecraft.

Proposal: Bell-Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar, a small reusable winged spacecraft launched by conventional booster.

***
Dyna-Soar cancelled on December 10, 1963, in favor of MOL/Gemini system (cancelled), Saturn/Apollo system (abandoned), and, later, Space Transportation
System/Shuttle (12 years service, 14 astronauts killed, deemed by many as too dangerous to continue in manned use.)

***

2003

Need: Reliable access to space via reusable spacecraft.

Proposal: Orbital Space Plane, a small reusable winged spacecraft launched by conventional booster.

***
Forty years, fourteen lives, and zillions spent, and what do we end up with? The vehicle we had in 1963--and still no reliable access to space via reusable
spacecraft.

We should have built Dyna-Soar in the first place.

Assuming that we're really going ahead with OSP, yes.

The problem is, of course, that our nation's space policy remains profoundly unserious, even (or especially) in the wake of the Columbia loss. Our options remain myopic, focused on NASA's "needs" with no consideration of what the American people might actually want from a space program.

Consider this recent depressing Congressional testimony from Marcia Smith. It repeats the same stale conventional wisdom about why we do human space flight, with nary a mention of making it possible for the masses to go.

She has five options for the future, none of which do anything to significantly change the status quo.

1. Terminate the U.S. human space flight program, including the space shuttle, U.S. participation in the International Space Station (ISS) program, and plans to develop an Orbital Space Plane.

2. Terminate the shuttle and Orbital Space Plane programs, but continue participation in the ISS program, relying on Russian vehicles for taking U.S. astronauts to and from space when possible.

3. Terminate the shuttle program, but continue participation in the ISS program and continue to develop the Orbital Space Plane or another replacement for the shuttle.

4. Continue the shuttle program, but with fewer missions-perhaps limiting it to space station visits-and as few crew as possible.

5. Resume shuttle flights as planned.

Without even specifying what it is, my preference is 6) None of the above. If I can't get that, I'm inclined to go with option 1. At least we'll be honest, and stop pretending that we're interested in space.

As I've said many times, space policy is always framed in an assumption set. Her assumption set is that NASA, and only NASA will continue to do manned space, human spaceflight will always be expensive and rare, and that there's nothing to be done with it except to "explore."

As long as only the usual suspects like Marcia keep getting thawed out and propped up before Congressional committees, don't expect to see anything resembling real progress.

I read a copy of a letter from congressman Rohrabacher, where he suggests that the OPS should be commercially operated, and presumably NASA would contract for launch services. If the OPS were commercially operated does that mean that other countries like Europe or Japan could also contract for launch services? If so could they use their own boosters or would they have to use a U.S. EELV or could they use an Arinane or the Japanese H2-A?
I hear Germany has been pushing for a piece of the OPS because it had invested so much in the X-38 and if China succeeds with its manned launch in Oct/Nov Japan might feel a little competitive.

How about:

7) NASA strips itself down to an R&D organization and develops the DynaSoar Mark II on a reasonable budget.

I realize that it's probably wishful thinking at best and there's no way NASA would ever voluntary downsize... but gosh dernit, 723 zillion dollars (and that's about 1/3rd of what it'll actually cost) for a 1960s space plane just seems wrong.

There are times I wish I had the talent to be a fiction writer-- I'd love to write an "alternate history" novel where Kennedy never made that speech, no project Apollo, the X-20 (and follow-on projects) were never canceled, and Project Mercury became an historical curiosity for being a "spam-in-a-can" dead end.

It's options like those listed that just reinforce the opinion that NASA is just another bureacracy driven by self-preservation at the expense of doing anything constructive. If they were a business, long ago they'd have been subjected to a hostile takeover and liquidated for grossly mismanaging their assets.

How about:

7) NASA strips itself down to an R&D organization and develops the DynaSoar Mark II on a reasonable budget.

Like that'll ever happen.

How about

8) Scrap NASA altogether, give DARPA some goals to shoot for re: getting into space, and increase the X-prize by the amount that canning the shuttle program would save the government?

That has an even less likely chance of happening...

How about investing in the chinese manned program? Nothing like a chinese astronaut on the moon to put a boot in NASA's butt. Now THAT would get some competitive juices flowing. And if it didn't well I guess we just ought to curl up and await "Lucifer's Hammer".

All those millions of dollars and they want to build something that look retarded. You'd think that since advancement of technology is so much of NASA's concern that they would at least build a space ship that looks somewhat futuristic and zippity zappity cool looking. They need to contract out some design work from one of the many excellent Japanimation studio's.

Why boycott French? I mean, people in France are hardly the only ones who speak it, and people in France are not themselves unanimously anti-war.

There seems to be a strong correlation between Francophones and anti-war sentiment (hint: eastern Canada, and their Prime Minister...)