Re:NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on...
by maxxxxx on Thursday July 13, 2017 @11:17AM
(#14761992)
It may work if during one administration they planned a program that is coherent and actually funded. All the initiatives over the last decade(s?) didn't make sense and were not even funded. In short, they didn't even try.
For some reason the unmanned missions are managed much better. I do a lot of reading about them and all the decisions, trade offs and plans seem to be the result of careful and realistic planning.
Re:NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on...
by nfriedly on Thursday July 13, 2017 @03:10PM
(#14764231)
> For some reason the unmanned missions are managed much better.
I think it's largely because they don't have so much safety-related red tape. Loosing a robot is not nearly as big of a deal as loosing a human.
I think this is pretty well hopeless at the moment. Major NASA projects have a timeline and cost operating on a 10+ year scale, but their budget changes annually and their priorities change with presidential election.
Really the only way I can see things improving is if a president managed to stake out a task that couldn't be taken away from them by the next one. I'm not sure how you'd achieve that, either - budget it all up front and tell them to buy gold bars with the money they'll need later?