To Infinity and Beyond!
Rockets are not apples.
Producing and selling the latter means: planting a seed, watering it, tending it, harvesting the fruits when ripe, transporting the harvest to market, setting a price, and...Ka-CHING!
Modern rockets, however, are fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen cryogenic propellants, which are hard to spell, much less produce on one's lonesome.
–The materials used in the construction of rockets and the processes undertaken to make its parts ensure that such things can only be produced by an immense organization.
–The larger the endeavor*, the more organizations are needed to complete it. In the case of the Space Shuttle Program, that meant the additional construction of (4) Mate-Demate Devices:
These cranes were designed by one organization and built by another, at a cost of $1.7 million each. The cranes could hoist the shuttles, as shown in the video, onto (2) specially designed Boeing airplanes–Shuttle Carrier Aircrafts (SCAs)–which were also designed by one org. & built by another. The hangar built by another org. to service the shuttle/s cost $3.7 million bones**. The shuttle was thus towed (by another org.) from factory to Air Force Base in CA, then flown by SCA to Florida,
with stoppages to refuel–at specially constructed filling stations built and managed by other orgs., natch–as its payload caused less-than-optimal mileage. These are merely several examples of many such organizations involved, including all those that worked to make the ISIS ( 😃) space station a reality.
–Institutions created to produce such "monuments" are organized in a hierarchical pyramid. Each level has their own concerns, but higher-ups have other priorities than those below them, which means: when someone at the top (named Linda Ham) gets the message from something called a "Debris Assessment Team" that the Columbia has been damaged on takeoff, this person, concerned about costly delays to the upcoming mission, can dismiss the problem because it did not come "through official channels."
–The damage that caused the Columbia disaster was not a one-off: of 79 missions with available imagery, debris (insulating foam) was created on 65. This includes the launch immediately following the Columbia disaster, which produced 16 individual instances of dislodged foam. Apparently we had learned nothing.
Since the management philosophy of the Space Shuttle program was success-oriented, priorities centered around deadlines, speed, good PR, shortcuts, great launch images (see above), etc etc and not on the health and welfare of anyone, least of all the astronauts.
–Like the pyramids of old, vast resources must be expended in such endeavors. In 2010, the cost of one space shuttle flight was $409 million dollars. Support of the infrastructure, education, the care of the sick and elderly, the support of the family, the control and punishment of rogue corps., etc etc etc, are neglected.
–In the case of rockets, launches scorch the Earth the same way that volcanoes, with their exhaust pointed upwards, damage the sky. Flight, incidentally, allows our spaceships to also affect the atmosphere, as has been shown in studies.
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A pyramid, an institution, a corporation, a hierarchy, a prison, an armed force, a government, like blind and deaf volcanoes, exists only for itself–not for individuals. Worse, the pursuit of their alien priorities ends in widespread poverty, drained or destroyed resources, a less-than-optimal present and a bleaker outlook on the future. Which should make us all wonder why we never fail to support such things.
This bodes ill for those of us living on, like, Planet Earth, with bills and taxes to pay, with people to have relationships with, with love to spread, and, sometimes, with needs and desires for help. We end up under the exhaust of these glorious adventurers' ships.
So it has been since before western civilization was founded, and so it will continue to be, until we finally summon the strength to say NO!
Remember, a monarchy is also such a top-down institution, and it was a monarchy that sent Columbus, for whom the spaceship above–the first one built for the program, in fact–was named***. Ask any of the estimated 65 million dead Native Americans killed after Columbus' first voyage by disease or by war, how that endeavor worked out.
*–The Endeavour (sp.) was the 5th & final shuttle built by the program and cost $196 billion.
**–Data from NASA:
***–Indirectly.
Pics of mine/s in western Australia by Edward Burtynsky
#Ilaru #ToSetTheWorldAfire #Power #Hierarchies #Pyramids #Volcanoes
Agreed, agreed and AGREED Jack Everly C.S. 😉
Gr8 Read Brother. Most of us have been concerned about how unproductive & costly such space programs are. You have provided us with facts and figures to raise the concern yet again. I think it's the programs that the schools and colleges offer that should be faded out if you want to get to the root cause. I love Astronomy myself and follow many groups for space. Even own an amateur telescope so I can relate to the curiosity for what's out there but at the expense of tax payers money is not fair as you have explained so well. Great job.
Imho, governments mainly care about numbers, especially financial ones going in their (hungry) pockets. Building rockets is mainly for power shows & marketing purposes. Very expensive marketing tools, then...
My take is quite simples. Rockets can be use for exploration, monetised for space tourist and most importantly take weapons research orbital. Hence the money. The magic money tree gives freely for the right project, a project that grows magic money trees...