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posted by martyb on Saturday April 15 2017, @01:53PM   Printer-friendly
from the nothing-ventured... dept.

As it turns out, failure is an option:

During a panel discussion with other Apollo flight directors in Houston, Kranz was asked how NASA accomplished so much, so quickly, in the 1960s and early 1970s, but hasn't been back to deep space since then. By some accounts, in the decades following the Moon landings, NASA has succumbed to a "mind-numbing" bureaucracy and a "paralyzing" cultural requirement for perfection, especially after two space shuttle accidents. Kranz said NASA benefited from a different culture in the 1960s.

"It was an environment in which we were more capable of accepting risk as a nation," Kranz replied. "Space involves risk, and I think that's the one thing about Elon Musk and all the various space entrepreneurs: they're willing to risk their future in order to accomplish the objective that they have decided on. I think we as a nation have to learn that, as an important part of this, to step forward and accept risk."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:23PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:23PM (#494807)

    NASA and the traditional space industry can institutionally no longer do big steps.
    Musk seems only to know how to do leaps.

    NASA is trying to do it again through SpaceX by incrementally moving the goal post based on success.
    (Unmanned cargo to orbit, then crewed, then who knows.)

    That's a good plan for both.

    Cheap, no-big-deal access to space means addressing both cost and reliability.
    With NASA as a steady but somewhat pickey customer, SpaceX appears to be getting way better than what NASA was dreaming.
    But the success in the relationship should not go to their heads.
    Either X forgetting step by step or NASA going back to the we know best mode and getting too pickey.

    Before X sends tourists around the moon, they need to get good at two more hurdles.
    1) One is human operations to orbit.
    2) The other is heavy lift and unmanned lunar return.

    NASA said the nation really needs 1 so please focus on this like we are paying you to do.
    X says we are going to do both at once.

    Given that life is short, I can see why Musk would want to do this.
    It is a fact that NASA with VonBraun was able to do it without today's technology in a decade.
    NASA should remember that there were many many more balls in the balls in the air in the 60's than 2.

    It will be interesting to see if X as an organization is able to focus on 2 things well at once.
    (One with NASA as a picky customer and as an interesting organizational experiment one more independent.)
    Given the history of the 60's, I think the odds are fair.
    I just hope that they do sack of potatoes lunar missions without folks until they get it right.