As public-led space programs miraculously land helicopters on Mars that repeatedly fly for years, deregulated, privately-led space programs blow-up rockets and are only able to accomplish what a publicly-led NASA did more than 60 years ago before they landed on the moon – orbital flight. In January 2024, a moon lander spaceship from a private company in Pittsburgh blew up in the atmosphere, and in February 2020 a Texas-based private company crash landed a spacecraft on the moon and the ship’s mission was scrubbed. The space ship would never had made it to the moon if left up to the private company, but NASA engineers stepped in to enable the ship to land. NASA knows what it’s doing, many of these companies don’t. And they’re wasting our tax dollars.
After WWII, the US brought about 1,800 German scientists and engineers to develop our space and rocket program. Dr. Werhner von Braun, Ph.D headed the program. He led the USA space program that put men on the moon in 1969, and he had a cadre of German scientists and engineers who had decades of state-supported experience in designing and building rockets in Germany. Their experience was translated to the USA space program. Now that experience has been stripped as the USA deregulates and privatizes NASA in a Reaganesque plan. The results – one disaster after another, and companies such as SpaceX only accomplish what NASA did back in the early 1960s before we went to and returned from the moon – orbital flight.
Dr. Werhner von Braun, Ph.D., head of the USA space program in the 1960s that sent men to the moon and returned them home safely.
Much taxpayer money is being wasted on billionaire’s follies of watching rockets blowup - as Musk says, “it’s cool.” Meanwhile, NASA’s programs with experienced public institutes and organizations, such as the Jet Propulsion Lab at Caltech are landing on Mars and flying helicopters on the Red Planet.
Dr. Wernher von Braun in 1961 with members of his management team. Pictured from left to right are, Werner Kuers, Director of the Manufacturing Engineering Division; Dr. Walter Häussermann, Director of the Astrionics Division; Dr. William Mrazek, Propulsion and Vehicle Engineering Division; Dr. von Braun; Dieter Grau, Director of the Quality Assurance Division; Dr. Oswald Lange, Director of the Saturn Systems Office; and Erich W. Neubert, Associate Deputy Director for Research and Development.
Experience counts for a lot, and JPL has it. Elon Musk spends half of his days tweeting stupid things on Twitter (yes, it’s still twitter.com). So far he’s wasted $5 billion on his Starship, a rocket that will never help colonize Mars. This is explained here, and here by doctors of science.
NASA-JPL flying helicopters on Mars
Billionaires, “most commonly, they fund wildly expensive vanity projects that gratify their egos while solidifying their position as masters of the universe who are socially, economically and physically insulated from the rest of us.”
Meanwhile, in China, using the old USA-NASA playbook of a publicly-led space program, in December 2013, China’s uncrewed Chang’e-3 made the world’s first lunar soft landing since 1976. And, in January 2019, the uncrewed Chang’e-4 landed on the far side of the moon, a first.
Jeff Bezos‘ Blue Origin rocket exploded during testing – and he didn’t tell anyone. The Blue Origin incident came just one month after securing $3.4 billion NASA contract. And so it goes in the privatized, deregulated USA – billionaires paying no taxes and landing contracts that taxpayers fund for the sake of inane billionaire vanity projects.
Stem Cells, Health, Technology 