Q+A: SpaceX Engineer Garrett Reisman on Building the World's Safest Spacecraft

For too long the old ways have prevailed. Companies and government organisations who are so risk averse petrified of change that they compound all problems. NASA being treated like a jobs program, cost plus contracts creating an inverse insensitive to reduce cost, bureaucratic personal egos dictating designs of rockets.

SpaceX designed built and launched its falcon 9 for less than NASA spent just to refit a launch pad.

@adaptation

while true, the SpaceX would never be able to do what its doing if NASA hadn't paved the way or subsidized a large portion of their business. If SpaceX continues to be successful, the scenario would be a perfect example of how government can lead science and exploration where it isn't cost effective for the private sector to do so, and then when it becomes profitable to allow the private sector to follow in their foot steps and drive new economic growth.

Science and technology have always been driven first by governments and in many ways without the government driving them in school systems they will fall without the government continuing to drive them. I begin to think more and more that the governments focus on technological research and development is the most important economic driver. Almost all of the economic fields of significant growth are technology based now. Apple became the most valuable company in the world selling technology.

My nephew makes that same happy smiling face when he takes a dump too in his diaper. I say, well done Mr. Astronaut for testing the spaceman depends! Good job! Now go clean up and wash your hands and hinny!

.............................
Science sees no further than what it can sense, i.e. facts.
Religion sees beyond the senses, i.e. faith.
Open your mind and see!

NASA astronauts are over-hyped 'spam in a can' joyriding human cannonballs.
The Mercury 'heros' did nothing that chimps had already done in the Mercury space capsules..
The 'right stuff' Apollo lunar landings were only doing what ten unmanned surveyor lunar landers had already done.

NASA is another incredibly inefficient, pork-driven, top-heavyFederal Agency...

NASA has spent 40 years and $500 billion on US manned space since Apollo without getting a single American beyond low earth orbit, and leaving us begging/buying rides from Russians...
STS, ISS, Constellation were all bankrupting, dead-end white-elephant boondoggles.

NASA promised a $7 million/launch cheap, safe, reliable Space Shuttle... then delivered a bankrupting $1.5 billion/launch most dangerous/murderous space vehicle in history which killed 2 crews, had several multi-year service outages...

Why is or should anyone listen to NASA, or 'spam in the can' NASA astronauts who joy-ride automated vehicles, while we can accomplish 100 times more for 10 times less with automated craft.

We need to let private enterprises like SpaceX proceed without being strangled/delayed/choked by big govt hand-wringing incompetence, sloth, waste, pork, red-tape.

"Ameriman's" comment demonstrates an amazingly fundamental lack of understanding on the history, contribution, funding and actual *purpose* of NASA...to an almost unbelievable degree.

More than that...it demonstrates an even greater lack of understanding of NASA's role in partnership with SpaceX...the scope and nature of the entirety of the Federal budget, how much of it actually goes to NASA (less than 1 penny or 1 tax dollar, BTW...which is shameful). Additionally, it shows an amazing lack of reading comprehension skill. This is on the assumption that the article was even read.

As for the "bankrupting" (I am not sure you know what that word...actually means)...here are some actual, real, confirmed, verifiable numbers for you, sir:

- On average, NASA spends in an entire year what the US Military spends in less than a month...*in peacetime*

- The total...TOTAL cost of the Shuttle program was ~$196 Billion dollars. The Federal Gov't currently spends that much about *every 3 weeks*!

- The budget for the State of California is almost 10x greater than the NASA budget.

- Nationally, American consumers spend MORE ON Toilet Paper and Bathroom sundry items than is spent on NASA. People spend more money on flowers, seeds and *potted plants* than is spent on NASA.

It goes on and on. Gain some perspective...or a little knowledge...certainly before you throw around words like "bankrupting" (repeatedly) when talking about NASA of all things. Honestly.

Well said MrKai,

What will be the United States' legacy to humanity, ameriman? If people were satisfied playing it safe, this country would not have been founded. Your ad hominem dismissal of our NASA Astronauts are insulting and belittling, had I a glove to throw down and a black powder pistol, we'd duel, sir.
The inspiration and innovation brought on by the race to the moon was a stepping stone into the computer revolution. This is our stamp on the 20th century, our legacy. As MrKai put it in very succinct understandable numbers, what would you have had us do these last 50 years with NASA's budget? Buy more potted plants?
Unfortunately today, NASA is incapable of running efficiently and with a single-minded focus while trying to weather the political storms and policy wonks changing their minds every presidential term. A microcosm, if you will, of our entire government's debilitating lack of cooperation among the parties.
So now we have SpaceX, and Elon Musk. Dare I say, he's a modern day Henry Ford, attempting to revolutionize space travel while simultaneously driving down costs and raising the safety margin. Great work, the future of this country and humanity rests in our ability to get off this planet, let's get this done!!

I've got 5 potted plants, I don't need anymore. Godspeed Mr. Musk.

@ameriman

Anyone with a complete aversion to NASA and what they do, to include the endeavor of human spaceflight, has obviously never dreamed of going into space, and if you haven't done that, you aren't nor have you ever been the cavalier, adventurous type that would long for a journey on the road or set sail to sea just to experience a new place. You wouldn't be the type of person who understands the joy and excite of flight (despite its dreadful nature). You wouldn't even understand the plight of a thrill seaker. Human spaceflight is the all-encompassing symbol embodying the human spirit. Of course, even Capt. Kirk said, "Space travel is an endeavor for the young," (I think that was Star Trek VI). On that note, Only the youthfully exuberant would say robotic spaceflight is enough to support us here on Earth. There'll come a time when we have to leave home (as with any youth coming of age). We have to test the water now so that when the time comes we can endure and thrive, so Government and private enterprise working together to eventually make spaceflight an unrestricted realm like aviation is a positive thing.

@adaptation

Political trends are what has hurt NASA since inception of its existence. We'd be colonizing the solar system now if that weren't the case. At some point people stopped dreaming big here and began to settle. Now the little problems are more important than the big ones that are too far off in the future to deal with right now (or it's always been that way, only under a different masquerade during Apollo). So NASA is funded a penny to the dollar and the entertainment industry, politics, and defense get the mega-millions. We may eventually get it right just in time, or we won't ever have the chance to get anything right ever again. Time will tell.

I wonder if they are also thinking about software safety items. I was a safety engineer for IBM on the hardware and software for the computers on the Space Station in the early nineties. We pioneered several areas of using computer programs to enhance the safety of the Space Station. Space is a big hazard and if exposed to this hazard for a split second unprotected one will die, so yes people have to be protected. i.e in a can or suit, etc. I was also safety on the Life Science Lab for one flight in the shuttle, where they not only experimented on the humans, but other animals and rats. These experiments gave valuable information for humans in space and how we can survive. We can send robots/unmanned probes out there but they only tell us what they have been programmed to tell us and cannot react to unexpected circumstances and compensate.