In Reply to: New head of NASA posted by russsmith on December 04, 2024 at 15:21:26
I'm not a fan of Trump's appointees but we've given up space voyage to the private domain a long time ago. The shuttles were retired around 2011 with no intention of building another publicly funded space vehicle.
We thought it would be cheaper to leave it to the private sector. The problem is that Boeing has become such a car crash, that Space X has a monopoly. That's why Elon can function with such impunity, having his own foreign policy.
Your fears have already happened, and they have happened over multiple administrations both Dem and GOP.
To our detriment, we did not expect a singular personality to have such dominance over something essential like space travel.
I used to go to Cal Tech's public space seminars and NASA's focus has been on mapping space using different frequencies of energy. They aren't in the space payload delivery arena anymore. Congress isn't going to give them money for it either.