Why do people act like there's some kind of "NASA vs. SpaceX" conflict? NASA has had private contracts for launches for years with ULA, and a pretty good chunk of SpaceX's launches have been under NASA contracts.
Even if SpaceX lands people on Mars, NASA will probably always be a thing for earth science, JPL, aeronautical research, etc.
Not even trying to bash SpaceX or anything, I like a lot of what they've been doing, it just seems like people are making them out to be something they aren't.
nasa should stick to what its good at, and it aint good at building launch vehicles
They and JPL build some of the best probes, rovers, telescopes, you name it, but when they try to build a rocket its either a deathtrap or a financial black hole. Drop the SLS program and get the fuck on with building JWST, nasa
This desu. When most people think of NASA, they think of rockets. Unfortunately, their rockets suck compared to what is out there. So it is a matter of prode since that is what people associate with them. They should really focus on science and probes, things which they are great at and don't waste money on.
Politics. Ideologues want to use SpaceX vs NASA as a proxy war between corporatism and socialism.
SpaceX is a scam.
Do you want science ? do you want real space ? Go NASA.
Do you want Big Mac and Coca Cola in space ? Do you want a billionaire becoming a double billionaire ? Go SpaceX.
>Typical divisional social propaganda. You try to make a side to be on so you can hate others that are not on your side as well as bring others to your side to prevent your own cognitive dissonance. The truth of the matter is that you are using "divide and conquer" tactics you learned from entertainment propaganda meant to keep the masses off balance and disorganized.
>There are no "sides" to be on. Stop making up problems where none exist.
This is the type of thing other countries or groups try to instigate within their perceived enemies.
SpaceX is a transportation company. Cars and rockets are what Elon is having made. He even sent a car into space so he could transport while he transported. It is all about engineering. I'm not sure how that is a, "scam."
SpaceX is just company that launches your shit to space for money, they don't do any science, and wont do any science on mars.
NASA and others will be buying their cheaper rockets to do their science.
SpaceX vs NASA doesn't make sense. SpaceX depends on NASA for money, and NASA contracts SpaceX to get shit launched.
Common now, don't be this stupid.
>Do you want science ?
No, I want a Mars colony. Science in space is kind of a waste of time when a mediocre telescope costs $10 billion and is years delayed. First we have to vastly reduce the costs of spaceflight, and then there will be plenty of real science done in space. So fuck NASA and their grossly overpriced "science". They just want to suck that sweet government tit dry.
Yes but that's not how the SpaceX vs NASA folks are framing the discussion. For them it's proof that anything government does, it can be done better by private industry. Science beyond a huge stick shooting fire out of the back doesn't enter the equation for them.
>For them it's proof that anything government does, it can be done better by private industry.
Only if you are hardcore republicans
>Science in space is kind of a waste of time
Clearly you're an expert.
The funding for these expensive science projects are highly debated within and between each field. If you want your million dollar project launched into space, then you better have a fucking good reason for it, otherwise there is no way you will get it done. If its cheaper and possible to do on earth, then you can bet your ass it will be brought up a long time before anything is even on the table for discussion.
Jesus.
>Mars colony
lol
Agreed, a Venus colony (both surface and atmospheric) is a spot where only the white man can breed and prosper. Mars is for the mongrels
>Why do people act like there's some kind of "NASA vs. SpaceX" conflict?
People have been conditioned to expect all effort to be toward a zero-sum game. They've also be conditioned to think that only NASA can do space, so anyone else doing space must be competing against them.
>Why do people act like there's some kind of "NASA vs. SpaceX" conflict?
It's not "all of NASA" vs. SpaceX. NASA's a huge government agency. There are different departments and factions.
SpaceX is very much in conflict with MSFC, the part of NASA that does its in-house manned vehicles and spacecraft programs. They do things like the shuttle, the NASA ISS modules, and the current SLS/Orion program.
SpaceX is embarassing MSFC, while MSFC is gobbling up billions of dollars per year in NASA funding that could be spent on SpaceX launch services and development of capabilities like transport to the moon and Mars.
Giant Stanford tori or bust.
>ideal gravity
>idyllic environment if so desired
>vast, easily accessed resources from asteroids
Only downside is the slightly soul eroding effect of living on a purely artificial world where the sky is only a few hundred meters above your head.
or libertarian.
That would take some incredible engineering when compared to blimps or a mars base. Could be a candidate as a ship that can travel between planets
Venus blimps are the biggest meme. Ok so now you're floating in your glittering cloud city. You're surrounded by fifty miles of acidic miasma above and below you, there's not a drop of water in any of these clouds, and there are no mineral resources except at the bottom of this monstrous ocean of gas. You are in hell.
>Do you want science ? do you want real space ? Go NASA.
Every little thing is done by sub contractors.
NASA is just the administration building.
Tankers of mars-synthesized water with their own retractable blimps will be gravity assisted by Earth to Venus. The tanks will be used for drinking, and when empty, serve as new blimps.
Surely there is a way to acquire water from the atmosphere, no?
With the science, that's only kinda true. There are a lot of publishing researchers who work in house at NASA as employees of NASA centers.
A lot of it is also done at universities with grants funded by NASA.
But still, the astronauts are NASA employees. Flight controllers are NASA employees. The technicians are NASA employees. Lots of stuff is still effectively a government operation.
thank you for being a namefag, now I can filter you with ease
>there's not a drop of water in any of these clouds
The clouds are very thick (up to 0.1 g/m^3, and tens of kilometers thick) and made mostly of sulfuric acid hydrate. That's H2SO4+H2O. That's a practically inexhaustible water/hydrogen resource. Like Mars, if you terraformed it with local material alone, it wouldn't have deep oceans like Earth, but it could have plenty of shallow sea and lake area.
redditX autists think they're accomplishing anything significant but in reality they're blind retards that can't understand how impractical and useless is colonization of mars, which NASA realized 50 years ago
Cool. Now how about building materials? Why are we doing all this all the way down a gravity well without even ready access to local minerals? What are the cloud cities contributing to in-system trade?
The purpose?
Breeding Venusian aryans in space blimp facilities to ship to any ethnoplanets to be colonized. The clouds give the allusion of heaven, and it will be the religious center of the solar system. The purpose of such cloud colonies also proves as a monument to the white man's great ability to colonize all he looks to
>how about building materials?
Atmosphere + clouds + solar power = plastics and carbon fiber.
>without even ready access to local minerals?
The surface is readily accessible. The development of robots and vehicles to mine the surface of Venus barely makes the top ten problems of colonizing another planet.
>in-system trade
Jesus, don't be stupid. There's not going to be "in-system trade". There's just going to be places to live. Venus is a place to live. It's a place where people don't already own all the land and charge taxes on everything. People will go there to make a new country.
Venus has lots of carbon dioxide. Maybe they can send that to mars via mass driver in exchange for iron or something.
>Jesus, don't be stupid. There's not going to be "in-system trade".
I love how everyone takes unchecked technological progress just far enough to enable their chosen vision of the future, and absolutely no further.
What makes you think more technological progress will result in planets being colonized primarily for "in-system trade"? If anything, it will make people more adept at processing whatever they've got locally.
it costs time, money, and resources to make these colonies
What would the colony be able to export in quantities large enough to justify the expense of those resources, personnel, training, and perpetual maintenance?
if you have an answer that truly does pay off the ludicrous costs, we have a reason to build it, if not, we don't
>Why do people act like there's some kind of "NASA vs. SpaceX" conflict?
Who acts like that?
lolberts
This is why space habitats will be more economic than floating Venus cities. A space habitat, with enough technology, can be built entirely from in-situ resources of a handy asteroid and should not cost Earth very much at all. A Venus cloud-city requires all building materials to be shipped from Earth initially at least and will be a huge initial pain in the ass for Earth. It had better have something to offer in return.
This is completely fucking stupid. They don't have to export anything unless the people paying for it aren't going to live there.
Look at the USA, for instance. It wasn't colonized with funding from England, demanding exports to make profits back. It was colonized with self-funding by people moving there, looking for land to live on.
Once things got started, England then tried to suck profits out of it, but they got told to fuck off.
America wasn't founded on and didn't grow great on exports, but has run mainly on local self-sufficiency, until it dominated the world.
>A Venus cloud-city requires all building materials to be shipped from Earth initially at least
Because you can't make plastics and carbon fiber from CO2, nitrogen, and water?
>It wasn't colonized with funding from England, demanding exports to make profits back.
Do you have, like, zero facts at your disposal about how the 13 colonies were set up?
Gotta have infrastructure to do that, you can't drop down into acid super death hell with nothing and expect to not violently die to death
Americans rightly remember the Mayflower as the start of what would become their country: people coming with their own resources to live and grow. That sort kicked out the company men who were just there to extract resources for England.
>Gotta have infrastructure to do that
Jesus Christ, you think you need more infrastructure to manufacture plastics from a blimp than you do to build space stations from an asteroid?
>you think you need more infrastructure to manufacture plastics from a blimp than you do to build space stations from an asteroid?
Honestly yes, you do. Blimp cities suck balls, your personal daydreams of playing Lando Calrissian with a fabulous swishing cape non-withstanding.
>Honestly yes, you do.
You're completely fucking retarded.
no, it takes more infrastructure to manufacture plastics in a blimp amidst a fucking perpetual sulfuric acid hellstorm
this ain't regular plastic you need, you need special perfectly corrosion resistant brand plastic, that is also light weight and super strong
How is needing to constantly fight against gravity doing you any good at all? At least in space you can relax and figure out what your next move is.
>a fucking perpetual sulfuric acid hellstorm
>this ain't regular plastic you need
Learn some basics about a subject before pushing your opinions, idiot. Sulfuric acid is compatible with most plastics.
>that is also light weight and super strong
This is stupid, too. It doesn't need to be especially lightweight or strong to build blimps out of it, particularly since high buoyancy is easy to achieve in Venus's dense atmosphere. Anyway, carbon fiber for reinforcement is straightforward to make once you've got plastic. Some other things that are straightforward are carbon foam and graphite for high-temperature applications.
>finally got people to sit down and discuss how one could engineer a Venus colony and what materials one could use for the task
>did so by pretending to be retarded