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Public Survey For NASA's Planetary Research Priorities
StephenMesser writes: "At the request of NASA, the National Research Council is conducting a planetary science community assessment of the priorities for the U.S. planetary research programs for the next 10 years. The Planetary Society has been asked to assist this "decadal survey" by seeking input from the general public about planetary exploration. Data must be input by January 31, 2002 to be counted on the survey.
CNN has a story
on the survey."
The survey is inherently flawed. It asks you to choose among a list of missions, but its still NASA's list.
When you have to choose between a rock and a hard place, I'd rather have a third choice.
Manned space travel just isn't feasible.
Isn't feasible NOW. That is exactly the point of researching it.
It's our money, shouldn't we have a say as to what it should be spent on?
No. Not unless you have a clue what you're deciding about. This is one of the major problems inherent in democracy: Nobody (apart from the Emperor himself) knows how long the Emperor of China's nose is, but everyone has an opinion. The one person who knows gets outvoted by the billion who don't.
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Make no mistake, it does read like a PR stunt, but its not NASA trying to spin to us. This "survey" is in large part an effort by The Planetary Society to justify their goals and priorities, in the near future to NASA and a highly volatile U.S. congress.
Notice, no manned missions? Do you think ordinary people care about them? In large part, having live people on the scene is something that most ordinary folk can relate to more than having robots crawling around or some deep space probe whizzing by. Its also, tremendously greater expense, and there's some debate within the scientific community over the relative value of manned vs unmanned flight, however, the Planetary Society has pretty much always come out dead-set against manned exploration- its just not their priority or interest.I find it curious that while many individual members/supporters of PS (like their founder, Sagan himself) acknowledge an interest in discovering habitats and environments suitable for future human settlement, they've been very loath to begin acting on that today. I suspect that results of the survey are likely to aid PS in representing their agendas to NASA as "what the people really want".
So... NASA wins, PS wins, Zubrin loses, everyone else goes home happy.
Note, I personally appreciate the agendas that both the rabid "humans in space!" and "robots in space!" camps further. Its important to keep them both in perspective, since they each have value.
First, nothing begins if not opening
We've got a space station that does nothing, a shuttle fleet that's an aging joke, some moon rocks, and a bunch of unmanned probes sending back some truly amazing data about the solar system which, incidentally, is useful only if we follow up with real people.
We have universities to do research in space, we have industries to build factories in space, we have millions of entrepreneurs with ideas on how to use space and make a buck in the process. But they can't do a thing as long as they're down here.
I think we're trying to argue the same point here. NASA has had 40 years to open up space to the general population; by any account, their performance towards that end has been abysmal. With the kind of money they threw at Apollo and are throwing now at the ISS, we should have seen some progress by now. No such luck.
Personally, I think they should take NASA's budget for the next 10 years and offer it as a reward to anyone who can build a LEO launch system that works for under $100/kg.
Dyolf Knip
Oh well said. All NASA seems to have done for the past few decades is Small Science, at Big Science prices.
We need more Freeman Dysons in NASA, and less accountants, bureacrats, and cogs-in-the-machine engineers.
It wouldn't be so bad if they don't plan everything so far in advance that they've even erased HOPE that they'll do something interesting.
Space should be opened up for everyone, not just those with advanced degrees in aeronautical engineering.