Here's an email from a 'stro (who's a regular reader, and who reports that others are as well, but has to remain anonymous for what I hope are obvious reasons), on my NRO piece:

...great article in the Nat'l Review online. Agreed with most of it, but it was almost too rational -- the public and especially the folks in this Agency have an emotional attachment to the Corps that defies, in my direct experience, all rationality. One of the big advantages the emergents have is that their test pilots will be seen as test pilots, not some sort of symbol for what is great about America. Hence, they are more comfortable taking appropriate risks than this agency can be.

This is actually a very interesting topic -- think some sociology student will get a Ph.D. dissertation out of it someday. It's interesting because it's also frustrating to us astronauts -- we're more comfortable with the risks & the results of the failures than people who don't even know the folks involved.

Yes.

Here's an example of the emotional attachment, from right after Columbia was lost (scroll down to the email from Houston).

I would also note (sadly) how many of my off-the-cuff predictions, including programmatic response, from the initial minutes after hearing about the loss of Columbia have held up.

[Update a little while later]

I'll note also that NASA hasn't learned the lesson from Columbia:

The lesson we must take from the most recent shuttle disaster is that we can no longer rely on a single vehicle for our access to the new frontier, and that we must start to build the needed orbital infrastructure in low earth orbit, and farther out, to the moon, so that, in the words of the late Congressman George Brown, "greater metropolitan earth" is no longer a wilderness in which a technical failure means death or destruction.

NASA's problem hasn't been too much vision, even for near-earth activities, but much too little. But it's a job not just for NASA--to create that infrastructure, we will have to set new policies in place that harness private enterprise, just as we did with the railroads in the 19th Century. That is the policy challenge that will come out of the latest setback--to begin to tame the harsh wilderness only two hundred miles above our heads.

I need to finish (errr.....start) my essay on false lessons learned from Shuttle and station.

[Update at 3 PM EDT]

It just occurs to me that, while I don't know if any sociology students have gotten theses out of it, Tom Wolfe managed to get a best-selling novel, as well as a movie.

[Update at 5 PM EDT]

Popular Mechanics has a blog post on probability of success of Shuttle and other space missions.

One nit (based on a quick read). They're comparing the probability of lunar mission success to Shuttle probability of crew loss. Apples and oranges. Apollo lost no crew in space (which excludes the pad fire).

We're called 'emergents'? Interesting....

Actually, if the idea that the "lesson of Columbia" means that we should not rely on just one vehicle to get to LEO, NASA has decidely learned that lesson. That's why there's a COTS program. Why can't you take yes for an answer?

Why can't you take yes for an answer?

Because the answer isn't "yes."

The answer is "we'll toss a trivial amount of money at a commercial backup, and hope it works, while throwing billions at a high-cost NASA solution that we'll defend until the bitter end."

Rand, I'm surprised that you are so confused. I've been hearing since I lacked gray hair that the commercial sector could fly inti space for far less money, given the chance. The fact that so many real entrepeneurial companies are competing for COTS contracts proves to my satisfaction that it is real and viable. Of course, I get the impression that the nay sayers among the Internet Rocketeer Club think it's just some kind of NASA conspiracy to fool people. It's very sad.

I've been hearing since I lacked gray hair that the commercial sector could fly inti [sic] space for far less money, given the chance.

Why am I not surprised that you confuse development costs with operational costs?

That's a rhetorical question.

False lessons learned from the Shuttle and the ISS? No, they learned all the right lessons! They learned that all you need to do is place your project in the critical path of everything else, and involve as many external constituencies as possible, and your project will become incapable of being cancelled or reduced. Additionally, the more groups you involve the more excuses you have for any given problem that crops up. If your goal is to soak the NASA centers in as much cash as possible with the lowest degree of expectations, then it's the perfect way to do things.

>> Why can't you take yes for an answer?

> Because the answer isn't "yes."

The question is, should private enterprise be limited to competing for less than 1% of the NASA budget?

Mark says we should take "yes" for an answer to that question. The rest of the NASA budget can then be used to develop the new National Space Transportation System that Mark so badly wants.

If you believe it is the role of the state to own and operate the means of production (such as space transportation systems), then spending most of the budget to build socialism makes sense.

From that perspective, spending

The question is, do want to merely "use capitalism to save socialism" through perestroika -- or do we want to create a true free market?