Comment Re:Oh noes!!1! (Score 1) 128
Well, you got the long-term part right.
The body of knowledge related to engineering manned space flight systems resides 50% in thousands of volumes of documents from Apollo forward, and 90% in the minds of a small group of very capable engineers. Any 1-year gap in productively employing those people, and they, being capable, will move on to something else for which they can be paid. When you finally assemble the $$$, you find that the expertise needed to provide the return has retired or otherwise moved on.
That's at the design level. At the execution level, a similar effect occurs, but in this case you can lose a lot even if you don't lose the personnel. In an effort as complicated as a manned launch, there are about 100,000 things that can go wrong. 99,900 of those things are documented, with preventatives and correctives-- somewhere. But if you haven't been through the process for five years, you're better off starting from scratch than trying to re-assemble an execution system.
I don't give a hoot about manned space flight. But if we can see ourselves doing it in 2020, we have two choices: either a) plan on spending 2015-2020 ramping back up, with attendant casualties; or b) don't stop.
The body of knowledge related to engineering manned space flight systems resides 50% in thousands of volumes of documents from Apollo forward, and 90% in the minds of a small group of very capable engineers. Any 1-year gap in productively employing those people, and they, being capable, will move on to something else for which they can be paid. When you finally assemble the $$$, you find that the expertise needed to provide the return has retired or otherwise moved on.
That's at the design level. At the execution level, a similar effect occurs, but in this case you can lose a lot even if you don't lose the personnel. In an effort as complicated as a manned launch, there are about 100,000 things that can go wrong. 99,900 of those things are documented, with preventatives and correctives-- somewhere. But if you haven't been through the process for five years, you're better off starting from scratch than trying to re-assemble an execution system.
I don't give a hoot about manned space flight. But if we can see ourselves doing it in 2020, we have two choices: either a) plan on spending 2015-2020 ramping back up, with attendant casualties; or b) don't stop.