SPACE.com readers speak out about NASA's Dan Goldin, Iridium's satellites, and many other subjects.

Responding to an article by Andrew Bridges, a reader praises NASA Administrator Dan Goldin.

To the Editor:

I just finished reading the article "Goldin Accepts Blame for Lost Mars Missions," and it was refreshing to hear someone in government actually take responsibility for once! Kudos to Mr. Goldin for caring enough to apologize, and let's support him and hope he -- and his staff -- can turn around the fortunes of the NASA Mars exploration program.

A reader responds to Leonard David's article "Whiz Kids Choose Cyberspace Over Outer Space, NASA Chief Complains." (Also, see earlier letters about this article.)

To the Editor:

(Editor's note: The article reported that Goldin plans to attract talented young people by hiring them for terms of two to three years, rather than as long-term civil servants.)

OK...I'm confused. Haven't we recently seen a number of spacecraft and launch vehicle failures that various independent review committees have chalked up to, among other things, a lack of experienced engineering and technical personnel due to layoffs and cutbacks over the last decade?

I was hired three years ago straight out of college with an M.S. degree as an engineer for a major aerospace company, and only recently have I personally begun to feel like I'm developing my "experiential legs" and becoming an effective contributor in my job. And this is with a company with no organized engineering training or mentorship programs whatsoever.

It's always a good idea to bring in new blood and fresh ideas to add to the creativity and usefulness of the final product. But this is rocket science! Worker development in the aerospace industry, like many industries, has traditionally been based on an apprenticeship system in which it takes years of experience to build and refine a person's practical knowledge base to be considered a critical or valuable employee.

Does Dan Goldin really believe that he's going to get a better NASA by hiring temporary employees? I doubt it. And I'm not convinced that the "dot com" attraction is solely about money either. It wasn't for me. It's going to take giving the private sector the support, both financial and technological, to move forward on new, bold space exploration projects with a tangible human element. The whiz kids will see this and want to be a part of it...guaranteed.

Andy Roberts, Waco, Texas

Douglas Fingles' opinion piece "Fiddling While Iridium Burns" argued that the government should not allow the bankrupt company's satellites to fall to a fiery death. Among the reader responses:

To the Editor:

I have heard that Iridium's constellation maintenance operations alone cost around $500 million per year. This is due to a lack of automation and a poor design. Any other constellation would be much better and cheaper. If the government started covering these maintenance fees it would be a classic case of an inefficient and obsolete government money-sink, and not even because of any bureaucracy they might impose!

The satellites are orbital debris.

Aaron Jacobovits
 
 

To the Editor:

[Douglas Fingles'] observations are astute and timely. As a former Iridium worker I helped put these birds into orbit, helped work on the attitude and control system. I can't imagine all that effort being flushed down the drain. [Fingles is] correct that like other infrastructures, this system, albeit dated, is still functional as a phone system. This is especially true for countries that don't have any phone infrastructure or emergencies where phones are down.

The failing of marketing, which sought the "international business person" as a means of generating the anticipated revenue, and the overall souring of the public due to a lack of available phones at the beginning of the program were unfortunate miscalculations, but they should not have been the ultimate cause of its demise. This system is not just another "dot com" that is entirely hosted on some server that can easily be reprogrammed and restarted as another venture.

Real hardware is involved and as you stated, reused. A business consortium that could step in would be great, but with all the bad press, not many seem to be forthcoming. The trouble is, does the government have a stake in this and could they, or should they rescue the system and eventually privatize it when it is profitable to?

It may be possible that negotiations are still ongoing with the government, given that they've given themselves six months to do the task of deorbiting. What is being touted as a colossal business failure is really a pile-on phenomenon among the news media and, I believe, a gross misunderstanding and simplification of what has actually transpired and really ultimately should take place, which is to rescue this constellation.

James T. Kaidy

And here are some recent letters regarding other opinion pieces. (Also, see earlier letters.)

To the Editor:

[Paul Spudis' opinion piece "Next, Go Back to the Moon"] is one of the best reasoned, best written articles ever produced on the subject. As a long-term space geek, I've been treated to an almost never-ending comparison of NASA's budget to other government programs -- "For the cost of just one B 2 bomber we could..." or "If we just had the money being spent on the space station we could..." -- minus any discussion of why some programs are more politically viable than others. It's about time that someone with the voice to be heard pointed out that short of establishing a economically viable manned presence in space we will never get to Mars or anywhere else.

The only commercially viable business in space is satellite related. On the basis of this one niche market, launch costs for ELVs have fallen by 25 percent since 1986 and will fall another 25 to 50 percent by 2015. By virtue of this niche and its effect on launch prices, long dormant efforts to develop a reusable launch vehicle are reinvigorated. Based on success with the reusable vehicles, people are realistically talking about opening a second paying market in space -- tourism. Using the lunar resources to help further the existing commercial market is a brilliant ideal. Until support exists for Mars and other worthy projects, I say we should return to the moon by the grace of God and with common stock for all.

George Walsh
 
 

To the Editor:

Apollo 15 astronaut Dave Scott said on stepping onto the lunar surface at the magnificent Hadley-Appenine landing site "Man must explore and this is exploration at its greatest". Unfortunately, after the six successful Apollo landings the United States decided to abandon manned exploration of the solar system beyond near Earth orbit, although it has continued a successful exploration program with unmanned spacecraft despite the two recent failures at Mars. Paul Spudis presents a convincing case that further manned exploration will be possible only if wide support can be obtained from the public and this will be done only if short-term benefits can be demonstrated. Just as President Kennedy used a manned moon landing as a vehicle for demonstrating American determination to stop Soviet aggression on the world stage, supporters of manned space exploration must make a similar effort to generate support for further solar system exploration. The prohibitive cost and difficulties of a manned mission to Mars should turn our attention back to the moon for the time being. Beal Aerospace's development of a new, large liquid-propellant rocket motor can give us the means of going back without needing to require public financing of a new version of the Saturn 5 moon rocket. Private initiatives like this can be harnessed to demonstrate that it will not be a major burden on the taxpayer. Once we return to the moon, the renewed excitement for exploration can then be harnessed to push on to further targets like Mars in the future. Columbus's and Magellan's voyages were financed by people looking for business opportunities, and so Dave Scott's observation can only be ultimately fulfilled in the same way.

Jack Macales, Rehovot, Israel
 
 

To the Editor:

Joe Dean's op-ed piece about the reductions in the space budget missed the point. It has less to do with social programs than 40 years of policy mistakes.

First, the Apollo program was never designed to produce any permanent settlements on the moon. It was created to prove we could get there ahead of the Soviets. Once we accomplished that goal, the rationale for the program collapsed.

It was a bit of a hollow victory. The Soviets continued their arms buildup apace. Their clients in Southeast Asia, the Viet Cong, may have been very impressed with the moonshot, but they certainly didn't throw down their weapons at a demonstration of such awesome superiority.

Economically, the moon didn't provide many prospects for any real boom. There wasn't much there that we couldn't get here a lot cheaper. Making tourism viable would have been prohibitively expensive given the technologies of the day. And you couldn't really justify continuing the program on science grounds given its cost.

The post-Apollo program was the space shuttle, which was designed to make space cheap and easy to access. It never accomplished this goal. The follow-up to shuttle was the space station, which still awaits its first permanent crew some 16 years after it was proposed. If there's one thing that's keeping NASA from going back to the moon (or anywhere else), it's the agency's problems getting to low Earth orbit.

Douglas M. Messier, Arlington, Virginia