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Miles O’Brian reports on the likely cancellation of the constellation program after the Prez’s state of the union address.

Space buffs might be disappointed because now we will not go to Moon and Mars, but to put it into perspective let’s watch what Burt Rutan, the designer of Space Ship One, the first privately funded vehicle to reach space, had to say at his TED talk…

So, with this in mind, here is my comment I just had to leave at the above referenced article/vblog by Mr. O’Brian…

I have been lucky enough to witness the making of the first non-governmental astronaut. I reported about it a few years back in the post ‘From Mohave to Aldebaran‘. With this experience I can not say that I am too sad about the probable cancellation of the constellation program.

Yes, it was cool to get to the moon and have that ISS up there right now, but let’s be a bit more realistic when we look at things only a government can do – looking – looking – hmm, nothing really! The only thing governments really do is extract money from the population (by force, I may add) and give it to the real people who actually do the job. Not to forget to first skim off a bigger portion to feed a bunch of in efficient bureaucrats.

I wonder why, on the one hand, we make fun of all these bureaucrats, and then suddenly turn around and believe that they are the only ones who can handle things – like building roads and keeping order after Catrina.

The only thing worth considering is really how to get them out of our lives altogether, not allowing them to regulate things they have no knowledge and competence in. I am nearly sure that we would have colonies at least on the moon if the government would have stayed out of the space business. Yes, we might have had some more accidents because private enterprises tend to take more risks than governments (as they don’t have to be re-elected,) but isn’t that the price we pay for fast progress?

I have to admit that I had been deeply disappointed by this constellation program which was a step back from a real space ship, and a design that one day might reach Aldebaran. Back to a capsule that splashes into the ocean after we had the orbiter that could land on a runway? Give me a break!

I am actually sure that Bush, with his vision of going to the moon and beyond, was just trying to get into the league of real visionaries like Kennedy with this “Before this decade is up.”

Related posts:

1. STS 129 Ascent with Sound Track
2. How the Martians see us
3. From Mohave to Aldebaran
4. Going to Space with Miles O’Brien
5. Slavery is still a good business and going strong

Posted by Merlin - January 30th, 2010

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