Insufficient, I’m afraid. I think it would require waiting long enough for almost everyone responsible for or complicit with the current debacle to have retired, died, or moved to another career. And even then I think NASA’s successor would quickly recreate the current dysfunction.

Of course the point I was making did not require that I have any such technology in my possession. Your counterpoint appears to be that if something is technologically or economically impossible, then the reason we don’t have it is… political? Bizarre.

I think that even a lot of the cynics in this site would agree that chemical rocket propulsion could *theoretically* become 100x cheaper than it currently is. But that’s on the far end of a lot of engineering work, technology development, and several generations of vehicles. Right now we’re in a low-flight-rate, high-cost corner of the tradespace, and the trip from there to a higher-flight-rate, lower-cost corner of the tradespace is very challenging, not just due to the engineering challenges, but the financial/business challenges of closing a business or political case for doing the work we need to get there.

But Paul’s point was that if for some reason we had moved to that easier access side of the trade space already, it would be a lot easier for the US to justify a manned space program, even if it didn’t have a point. When you combine the a) high costs of a manned spaceflight program in the absence of actually doing anything useful to reduce costs, and b) a lack of much useful activity by our current manned spaceflight program, you get into the situation where continuing to justify spending at current levels is going to be challenging in an economic downturn.

Personally I think a budget hit for NASA that wiped out a good chunk of their manned spaceflight program might actually be the best thing that could happen for public and private manned spaceflight. It’s a slim chance, but right now the vast majority of NASA’s manned spaceflight money is going to jobs programs like Shuttle and Constellation that value keeping jobs in certain political districts over everything else. Until that changes, most of the money NASA spends on manned spaceflight will be wasted. Killing the bulk of the manned spaceflight program, and holding it that way for a few election cycles might be the only thing capable of breaking the back of those special interests sufficiently to allow NASA to even have a minor chance at doing something relevant and useful.

How’s that for cynical?

~Jon

Paul, are you holding out on us? If, in your possession, you have some magical fairy dust that can reduce launch costs by an unbelievably unrealistic amount of 1/100th the current cost, then please share with the rest of us.

All depends on your definition of “because.” It’s not that human spaceflight’s fraction of NASA’s .7% of federal spending will become literally unaffordable. It’s that in the absence (a glaring absence since Jan. 2004) of either much public/legislative enthusiasm or much presidential “shoulder to the wheel,” VSE will be delayed, stretched out, and downscoped to nonexistence — along with a great many other things — during the austere period(s) ahead. There simply won’t be enough political cover.

One scenario, 2009: The new US President replaces the current NASA Administrator. The VSE (HORRIBLE name, where’s that new NASA PR?) gets canx and replaced with the Prez’s “visionary” space initiative/policy.

Anyone want to comment on the possibility of this happening?

Eric – I’m just being cynical!

Really. So, your position is that if, say, the cost of launching people into space were 1% of the current cost, the US government would still not fund manned space efforts?

If that is not your position then, yes, the tenuous engineering and economic position of the enterprise is very relevant.

The short answer is yes, at least for the United States. The U.S. is not going to launch any manned space flights after the Space Shuttle retires in 2010. Z E R O. And it’s all political.

The successor to the Shuttle isn’t slated to fly until 2015, which you and I know will NEVER happen.

Furthermore, the U.S. is going to buy tickets to space from the Russians! Yes, those same Russians that are run by highly corrupt and powerful mafia type Oligarchs!

The U.S. may go the entire decade from 2010-2020 without launching one single manned spaceflight.

If that’s not the very definition of irrelevant, I don’t know what is.