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Re:Did anyone see the SpaceX launch overfly the NC coast?


From: Lead Slinger
Date: 11/18/2020
Time: 6:13:27 PM

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President George W. Bush announced the retirement of the Space Shuttle program on Jan 14, 2004 at NASA headquarters in his "New Vision for Space Exploration Program." Bush's directives scheduled mandatory retirement of the Shuttle program in 2010, but its service was extended, with the last flight of the Atlantis on 8 July 2011.

On 15 April 2010, Obama outlined a plan that relied on human launch vehicles designed, manufactured, and operated by private companies - with NASA paying for flights for government astronauts. His policies did cancel the over budget and behind schedule Constellation program, but lead directly to manned flights aboard SpaceX's Dragon2.

Note: to be fair, public-private cooperation in space flight was set in motion with NASA's announcement of "Commercial Orbital Transportation Services" program in Jan 2006 - but Obama's policies accelerated the move to private companies competing in space travel.

A seat on one of the shuttles cost $64 to $112 million (depending on size of crew - the cost was estimated at $450 million per launch). A seat on a Soyuz rocket cost the US government $81 million.

The Dragon2? Estimated at $55 million per seat.

All this is very interesting (to me), but what I can't figure out how a president who moves away from a publicly funded organization that "owns" a virtual monopoly on the means of production and operation of space travel, towards a market more open to private commercial interests, is branded a "Marxist ideology"?