U.S. company Intuitive Machines will attempt today to become the first private company to land on the Moon. Landing target time is 5:30 PM EST. #Odysseus is carrying a number of NASA experiment packages. The NASA broadcast is scheduled to start at 4:00 PM EST.
@WordsmithFL
This is really exciting! My parents got me up to watch the moon landing in '69 when I was 1 year old, and I grew up in the era of John F. Kennedy's dream.
For too many years our space program was neglected. Although I chafe at privatization, I think it is the way forward, and I'm proud to see a U.S. company taking the lead!
@p3R1n01D To be technically accurate, #NASA is partnering with the private sector to provide delivery services, to grow our domestic space industry. It's no different from a hundred years ago, when the Post Office hired private airplane companies to deliver air mail; from that came passenger flights.
NASA has gone back to its original role, pioneering new technologies for transfer to the private sector so we can compete globally.
Today's landing is part of CLPS.
@WordsmithFL
I like that even better, thanks for the info!
@p3R1n01D #NASA has been working towards this since 2004, although it was the #Obama administration that really juiced it. Subsequent administrations tweaked it but it pretty much begins with Obama. I'm writing a book right now about that time.
"Airlines and Air Mail" is a great book about how the Post Office started commercial aviation a century ago. It's not cheap but maybe you can find it used. I referred to it all the time when I was lecturing about "NewSpace."
https://www.amazon.com/Airlines-Air-Mail-Commercial-Aviation/dp/0813122198
@p3R1n01D P.S. Used copies on eBay starting around $11-$12.
As a Poli Sci and space guy, I loved it. Everything that is happening now, happened before in the 1920s.
I emailed the author years ago, telling him what I did for a living, and how helpful his book was. He thanked me and replied dryly, "It is not a best-seller." 🤣
@WordsmithFL
LOL! 🤣 I bet he loved the feedback! At those prices I might pick one up, it's the sort of thing I'd read sooner or later.
@p3R1n01D Having spoken with the people driving the Obama-era space policy, I know they were inspired by what the Post Office did in the 1920s with commercial aviation. In the 1920s, they were inspired by how the federal government helped support the transcontinental railroads by acquiring the rights-of-way. There's plenty of historical precedent.
NASA's predecessor, the NACA, was founded in 1915 because Europe was way ahead of us in aviation. Their governments were investing, we were not.
@p3R1n01D The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) invested government dollars in developing aviation technology that could be passed on to the private sector.
After Sputnik, Congress decided that the U.S. needed a space version of the NACA, so they created NASA, which began October 1, 1958. NASA absorbed the NACA and various civilian space research programs from the Defense Department.
JFK turned NASA into a propaganda organ for national and global prestige, another story. 😊
@p3R1n01D One more point and I'll shut up ...
Columbus's 1492 voyage is a very early analogy for today's NewSpace. Isabella hired Columbus and three privately owned sailing ships to demonstrate that using westerly winds could reach China faster.
(North America was in the way, but they didn't know that.)
If Columbus succeeded, he could name himself governor of any lands he discovered and keep a percentage of any treasures.
If he failed, or didn't come back, he wasn't paid.
Same principle.
@WordsmithFL
I've never heard of the NACA, that's interesting! But that's the key at all stages, he have to invest.
And that path really makes sense, too. It's impractical, impossible in this case, to try to do everything in-house. Computer manufacturers don't make their own chips, for example.
If this is a taste of what's in your book, I can't wait!