Cafe of Broken Dreams by John scientific terrorist in action

Should NASA Stop Building Space Ship On the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11

Yesterday I was watching an interview with the CEO of SpaceX company and he was pretty clear about the NASA spaceship program, as for the first time in the history American astronauts will use the Russian Soyuz space rockets.

Flights surely won’t be cheap and that’s exactly what  the CEO doesn’t like. In his words: “why we should send money to Russians if we can keep them in our economy.” I disagree we can send them to Russians if they will be able to provide cheaper and safer flights. But this is most likely not going to happen.

So there is question, if SpaceX shuttles are successful and if they will be able to fulfill their missions properly do we need a new NASA shuttle anymore?

Dragon spacecraft which can be used for transport to the ISS

I think we would not because global prosperity can be achieved only by doing things more effectively, including spaceships.

By the way, do you remember that Wernher von Braun, disobeying orders, continued work on the design of new Jupiter rocket which in many ways over ran US military accepted projects. Braun with his Army Ballistic Missile Agency then could do much better work without direct government funds and even with the order to stop the works. By the way his rockets were later used for Apollo program.

So how do we actually know that NASA is right, can be SpaceX better. I say let the market choose.

However I wish guys from Apollo 11 have a good health and hope we’ll see you here in next 10 years and together celebrate 50th anniversary. You’ve made a great job up there.