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Big Changes In Proposed U.S. Space Budget
Guppy06 writes: "CNN has this article on some of the effects of Bush's budget proposal would have on the space program. To make a long story short, funding for the manned space program is being trimmed (there's talk about outsourcing the shuttle program) and some high-profile missions to the outer solar system have been cut (say good-bye to the Pluto-Kuiper Express). On the flip side, nuclear propulsion research is getting a boost. Love it, hate it, some big things seem to be in store." The Planetary Society has their reaction to the budget proposal. And because it's been submitted several times: the ISS suffered a computer outage but all is well now.
I'm sorry, there aren't any trimmings left. They're seriously digging into the budget. I wish the politicians would wake up and maybe put some money into our future instead of the military.
Unless, of course, they feel the military is their future.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
I don't know why presidents proposed budgets get so much press. Presidents don't really make the budget congress does.
Until our children are no longer molded into castrated sheep democracy remains a fake and a danger. -A. S. Neill
President Bush seems to forget that pure scientific research has been the most productive driver of American prosperity in the last 200 years. So many of the technologies we enjoy today are a result of research that, at the time of funding, could not be directly justified. Hopefully, universities and research institutions will be able to get through this budget crunch time intact, but the blow to students and scientists seeing their field attacked may be much more severe, I'm afraid.
I think that the most astronomy that's going to get done in these next few years is astronomy by the Air Force, with satellites that are pointing down at the Earth, instead of up at the skies. There never seems to be a shortage of funding for those projects, even though diverting 1% of that money would probably save NASA and the US space research program.
as privatizing airport security.
Here is a space.com news article which details exactly that. The US military does believe that space is their future, and they want to control it. There's talk about creating a new space force division, though for now it looks like the air force will control space missions for the near future. Given this one may ask, why are they killing off manned flight? I think it's because they realize that automated systems, not manned flight, is where both terrestrial and space flight is going. Humans have far too many physical limitations which automated systems don't share. Everything from very limited acceleration to supporting basic biological needs go against the requirements for "controlling space". To further this policy NASA (along with whatever scientific projects are ongoing and/or planned will be eviscerated.
Cheers,
--Maynard
I didn't think it was as bad as could be, really. Losing the Pluto-Kuiper probe is a bummer, but there's still pretty strong (in relative terms for today's financial climate) support for basic science.
More to the point - Nuclear Propulsion - Hooray!. This is an utterly fabulous development, and I'm probably going to get flamed for saying so. It's still the truth, all the same. Decent nuclear propulsion is the only way to reduce the current long flight times around the solar system.
The missions to the outer planets, I think, are very important and should receive full funding. They may not be very efficient, but travel to the outer planets takes so long and is subject to so many constraints that we really need to get these projects going now. It's a shame that they are being cut.
Nuclear propulsion in space is a hot potato because it's potentially dual-use. If this research is conducted completely openly and in an international framework, then it may be acceptable. Otherwise, it will be perceived as simply a way for the US to militarize space and put nuclear technology into space, and, domestically, it would be little more than a ploy for transferring NASA funds to military research.
Makes sense to me. If you're not going to allow anyone with a history of drinking, lying, or cheating [Slashdot] to fly you don't need a big budget for manned spaceflight.
"Good things don't end with eum, they end with mania or teria." - H. Simpson
Evacuate the ISS, let it burn up on re-entry, and use the money we save to fund real science.
- Have a picture
The planet needs new propulsion for space missions, with it we go forward, without it we stagnate. Manned missions are getting trimmed because the Space Shuttle is a huge white elephant and noone is willing to admit it (the russians put the same size payloads into orbit for FAR cheaper than the Shuttle). If we go back to the basics (researching new propulsion), then everyone wins, including (ultimately) manned missions elsewhere.
Go Lakers!
Don't tell me Bush is thinking of bringing back Project Orion. It's almost a good idea, except for the bad PR and the possible nuclear contamination. Not that I'd object to Bush getting some bad PR, of course.
Apparently, there were plans to build a high-atmosphere sky base above the USSR during the cold war using this technology. Makes you wonder just what our government is capable of.
We won't get into space in any meaningful way as long as a government employment program is sucking up and destroying the engineers who could make it happen. Gut NASA like the beached whale it is before the corpse explodes from the pressure of its own decomposition.
The Wright Brothers (or pick your own early aviation pioneers)did not require a 15,000 man ground support crew to fly.
Lindbergh made a solo flight from the US to Paris so he could win a $25,000 prize.
If Bush really wants to get into space (and yes, the military does - they are not really stupid) he should get Congress to set up a series of prizes. Five billion tax free for the first resuseable spacecraft to make three round trips to the vicinity of the ISS in a thirty day period carrying say three people and two tons of cargo on each trip.
Rather than controlling the development of spacecraft, the government should just promise to buy a bunch of them that meet a certain price performance criteria. And, if Bush with his noted tendencies towards such things can not make it happen, it will probably happen somewhere else (India, China, Japan - hell maybe even France - (those arrogant little snots still miss Napoleon))
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
If I could trust the Bush administration to have a legitimate interest in science and nuclear-based propulsion, I would be happier about this budget-shuffling. The ISS has been a slapped-together fiasco, a victim of politics and bureucracy - a perfect example of what NASA and space exploration shouldn't be.
Nuclear-powered probes have been used for, literally, decades. It's actually something of a misnomer to call the Voyager, Cassini, et al probes "nuclear-powered". "Decay-powered" might be a better term, since their energy source is radioactive decay generating heat. Putting nuclear-powered rovers on other planets might be a good idea, allowing rovers to run longer. I wonder how much longer Sojourner and Sagan Memorial Station could have run with a decay-based backup. Of course, there is always a concern about radioactive materials being exposed to the environment; not much of a problem in interplanetary space, something of a problem if the probe is on a planet suspected of having life.
The point of decay-powered power generation is to run electricity-based devices for long periods of time at distances from the Sun too great to make solar generation effective. If the Bush report refers to nuclear reaction-based power generation and propulsion, I'm a bit lost. The best reason to use nuclear-powered engines and generators would be to support manned flights that require much energy for life support, emergency power, pushing along its own bulk, et al. There's also the issue of fission- vs. fusion-based generators and engines.
Perhaps I should find a copy of the report, but that one little bit rubs me wrong. The Bush administration seems hell-bent on reviving Cold War-era defense programs that were never actually proven, and dropping or evading weapons treaties, some of which dealt with the development of nuclear technology for space use. I just can't shake the feeling this is a wedge to finally move the nuclear race into Earth orbit; one proposal mentioned by Sagan in 'Cosmos' was Project Orion, a propulsion system based on the detonation of fusion bombs.
I'm pretty sure it's paranoia... but it's a nagging feeling, and it creeps me out.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Now he wants to give those same friends a huge tax cut with the idea that the will all run out and build factories to employ us all. Hah!
During the whole anthrax episode, five people died, and an additional ten got sick and recovered. Ten people got sick at a post office when a ream of copier paper was irradiated to kill anthrax.
Now Bush wants to spend an additional $11bn on anthrax.
How much do you suppose is in his budget for AIDS research (or cancer, or the slew of other diseases which kill many more people than anthrax has)? Certainly no $11bn.
Why can't these politicians ever have cronies in worthwhile industries? Because worthwhile industries don't have the money to bribe the politicians blue. Why not? Because worthwhile industries don't get kickbacks and deals from the gov't. Why don't they? Because they don't have buddies in the gov't. Lather, rinse, repeat...
Ultimately, there is no incentive for the companies that actually get funded to do anything except whore for more funding and pretend to spend what they already got while pocketing it.
Sigh!
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
The shuttles and the ISS are rotten programs.
It's blazingly obvious to anyone who's taken a good look at the shuttle program that they should never have made a second one. They were supposed to learn from their mistakes making the first one, and make better shuttles, but instead they basically copied their first attempt at a reusable vehicle to make a small fleet and kept it in service even after it was obvious that it offered no benefit over single-use rockets.
People wondered what the point of the ISS was from day one. It's just a huge money-sink in the sky.
The best justification for these manned missions is that they are paving the way for future manned spaceflight, but they are somehow both bloated and unambitious: so costly that their failure could not be tolerated, so only "established" technologies are used for the functions they are supposed to be developing, merely spending resources on accomplishing these non-accomplishments rather than taking chances on potentially revolutionary technologies.
NASA is increasingly an organization of frightened bureaucrats, desperately avoiding failure, rather than bold explorers, risking much to gain much.
Thanks President Bush-for-Brains, you just saved the american taxpayer 0.001% of the the budget, what are you going to do now?
I'm going to disneyland!
What an idiot.
so, how do we plan to get people into space without the shuttle? begin a whole new launch program, and on less money? Not yet.
What NASA needs is a budget increase so it can go on doing what it currently plans on doing, and activly fund research into cheaper ways to get into space.
This is so short sited for so many reasons. Nothing would bring this country together more then putting a US citizen on Mars.
Spin off development is huge. If this is privatized, all spin off technology will be patented.
If you think the shuttle has no payoff, why would large corporation be pushing for its privitization? Has a corporation, ever, pushed for something they can't benefit from?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
We gotta start making some MONEY up there damnit.
It is not like it cannot be done, the main issue (and granted a huuuge one) would be to build the initial stations in space for handling of various extracted resources.
Hell there are 8 other planets in this solar system, why do we have to tear apart ours? There are some darn valuable resources up there, *taps lycos on the head* go get'em!
Seriously though, hhhuuuge startup costs, but scaled, not likely too much more then the initial startup costs of getting resources from the "New World" way back when.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
The GOP has hated the space program since Kennedy; it's a proven winner for the Democrats.
Sounds like they can finally kill it (in the name of fiscal responsibility); outsource everything and absorb what remains of NASA into the military.
The emphasis on nuclear propulsion... hmm... There are a lot of very hot, very promising technologies out there just dying for research money. The one they single out sounds suspiciously like a barely disguised weapon's program. Be prepared for double-talk like: "defensive weapon" or "humanitarian bombing".
=brian
>> I firmly believe that the military has to be the future of where all the power is centralized.
A quote, forget from whom, but seems poignantly relevant: The easiest way to get shot is to carry a gun.
Bush seems the stereotypical spaghetti western cowpoke, speaking softly and carrying a big gun, and, in the spirit of late Hollywood arrivals, lusting after a bigger gun. I wonder who (in the figurative and collective sense) among us will get shot as a result of this.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The problem is that he's toting the party line... Reganomics all over again.... Sigh...
The regan and bush years made our space program as bland and worthless ever. Now we have little bush showing that he is as short sighted as daddy.
I have always said that the only way to get the space program properly funded we need to declare war against another planet better yet another solar system.. (Alpha Centauri, you're going down....)
politicians will spend on research only if that research is important to security or getting them re-elected.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Do ANY of you people manage your own money? The budget is NOT CUT. What they've done is reduced the rate of increase. Yes, from the first paragraph, NASA is getting what it got last year, plus $500 million MORE.
What NASA, and the rest of our federal government, needs to do is eliminate the sheer waste of money that is going on... Focus on products that produce science, not kickbacks (*cough* ISS)
Write to the President and your Congressional delegates and tell them about it!!!
. html
f m
Their staff is there to listen to your comments and respond to them. They do take your voice into account.
They like email more than letters since the anthrax scare.
Here's a like to this years budget in HTML and PDF: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2003/index
Send your comments to the President at this address: president@whitehouse.gov
Find your Senator at this page: http://www.senate.gov/senators/senator_by_state.c
And find their email address here: http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm
You can find, then write to your Representative here (this is very slick): http://www.house.gov/writerep/
Please, please, please take a more active role in the direction our national technology policies take. Keep an eye on http://www.eff.org/alerts/ for issues of which you should be aware. If we don't do it as technology professionals and enthusiasts, no one will.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
At about $20 million a head, it would take about 500 visitors a year to meet NASAs budget.
Congress specifically added the Pluto mission in response to public interest - and we believe that public interest is important to the program."
Of course they did. That mission was never presented as an 'either-or' scenario, where funding would be drawn from some other budget to pay for the mission-- because no congressman wanted to appear as 'anti-science'. A true campaign would be to ask us plebes 'which of the following missions do you want see funded? a) Mars b) ISS c) Europa d) . . .
I applaud the fiscal responsibility in this new budget. The reality of the situation is that we are at war, and money is tight. Nothing is stopping these scientists from going to Tokyo, London, Paris, or Moscow to plead their case for the mission.
davejenkins.com |
Of course I don't know jack about these kind of operations, but you would think constantly reorganizing the Nasa budget would result in untold amounts of wasted cash. Many projects take a long time to go from development to realization. When you are constantly cutting back and reorganizing resources, you are wasting the moeny and effort already invested. Nasa needs smarter, better, cheaper, but they also need to have guarantees that projects they start will be funded throughout their proposed duration.
The Russians launch payloads cheaper because their scientists work for pennies on the dollar compared to US scientists. One reason for that is because it's much cheaper to live in Russia/Kazakhistan. Another reason is, there aren't any other opportunities for brilliant scientists to earn more money, without going to work for organized crime.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
DARPA? Little Known? Yeah. If you say so. DARPA has been one of the most active DoD projects ever.
Sit down, keep your mouth shut, and for god's sakes; pass the pipe.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
The federal government's most important priority is to maintain the infrastructure which makes the US possible. Things like operational costs of the three branches, minting money, foreign relations and maintaining a military (what good is all the other stuff if anyone can take it from us at whim?). In the middle area, you see things like HUD, Dept of Education, SSI, etc (stuff which they don't have a constitutional mandate to create but which people have become reliant upon). Way down at the bottom of the list, you'll find things like most of NASA, fluff research grants( did we REALLY need to spend $45k to find out how many people rinse their dishes before putting them in the dishwasher? ), etc. Things which are nice to have but aren't critical.
Now that you have your priorities, you only have a fixed amount of money to spend. An outside force has made it necessary to increase spending on one or several of your highest priority items. Nobody is going to die if NASA's budget gets reduced for a year or three to shore up our more important needs. If pure space research means that much to you, donate from your own pocket to one of the non-profit groups out there promoting research.
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
The only alternative to war would be to turn the whole world into a one-government surveillance police state. And we all know that would not work, nor would we want it
And you're either with us, or against us.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
For some time it's been apparent to me that NASA's space agendas have become driven by PR (hence the obsession with Mars) while those of the ESA have been driven more by science.
It would seem to me that, particularly with the heavy-lift capability of the Ariane 5, that ESA should grasp the nettle and send its own probe out to Pluto, thus gaining a march on NASA. It is, after all, the only planet not to have been visited by a probe and considerable positive PR for ESA could be made out of that. It would also be a symbol of Europe's growing technological strength vis a vis the US.
How about it, ESA? All the other firsts for visiting planets have been done by the US or the USSR; here's your big opportunity!!!
Look, I used to love NASA. I grew up in Florida, it's hard not to have NASA-worship. When I graduated from MIT, our speaker was NASA's bigwig. I love the ideal of the agency.
:]). Some form of NASA will continue to do pure research into the cosmos, but it will be smaller.
They blew it, big time, with the space tourist issue, and it will cost them.
Look, dating back to the Civil War the United States has a fascinating history of the military industrial complex. The military traditionally funds research until it meets their needs then turns it over to the private sector to exploit.
Recently (past 20 years) this process had some very vocal whining about giving the research to business, but in general it has produced significant benefits to the nation.
NASA, however, has really got problems.
Look, their PR blows. They don't do a good job of convincing people that they matter. They haven't provided much of a connection. Since the Challenger, they've been scared to do much. When an American paid the Russians to take him into space, it wasn't NASA's place to throw a temper tantrum.
They are government employees. They forgot that. The second they decide that they are better than the American people they lose their defenders. Nobody in America likes elitists. As a nation, we are comfortable with people buying their way to the top, its the American way. When a bunch of scientists decide that they know best because of their intelligence and education, the American people get fed up.
The religion of America is capitalism. Good or bad, it forms the cornerstone of modern America. Americans worship wealth. It makes sense to a degree... If the market decided that you were successful, that works.
Academic and intellectual elitists are universally scorned in this country.
NASA has shown themselves over the past two decades to have no interest in serving Americans. Their believe that their work will continue because they are smart and important was the downfall.
The military has a strong ability to play the system. A bunch of scientists don't.
Congress will open up space as NASA found it to commercial interests. The space forces will grow naturally from the air force (like the Army Air Force became the Air Force, the Air Force Space Division will become the Space Force, or Star Fleet
NASA hasn't openned space up to the people. They've become more and more ivory towerish because of their one failure at putting a civilian in space.
People would like to go into space.
People don't like to bust ass paying taxes to support a group of people that tell them they are too stupid (or drink to much) to go into space.
Sorry, if you want to feel that you are better than the American people, do it without their money.
Alex
For a good example, check out the MIT Radiation Lab series of books for the work that was done during WW2 and eventually spawned a huge amount of the technology we use today. Used your microwave oven lately? e.g. Another example, Gallium Arsenide integrated circuits used to be the bread and butter of military applications, now they are used in most cellphone handsets, WLAN cards, etc.
What better way to protect earth's environment then to find ways of using the resources of other planets and satellites instead? And on top of that, once the transportation obstacle has been figured out, I think it'd be cheaper to build a dirty factory on the moon than a clean one on earth.
Znnn..... Znnnn.... Znnug! OK. I'm awake now. .
Now, I'm not saying this couldn't be done, and in fact many facets of NASA do run on Windows. However, I'm not gonna buy a ticket for the moon tour if I'm riding on a shuttle using Windows as the OS for flight control. Not even Unix. Nope. I want something crafted just for the task. After all, once you hit the ground at 35,000 Mph, pressing reset doesn't do you any good.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Yes, nuclear propulsion CAN get you into space. Do a Google search on liquid-fueld nuclear rockets. Even if the reactor and shielding weigh as much as a loaded O2 tank on the shuttle, the nuke rocket will still put out more power.
A fission reactor can put out more heat than any form of chemical combustion. More heat = more vapor expansion = more pressure = more thrust. If a reactor can push an aircraft carrier the size of a small city over the ocean at 27+ knots through steam expansion, it can use a similar process to throw a much smaller rocket into orbit.
And while both ion drives and anti-matter are interesting technologies, they're relatively new and will take a while (decades) to pan out. On the other hand, the US has been using nuclear propulsion since the 1950's.
"It won't help the US's current worry about technology transfer into their enemies hands when one of these puppies drops into Sadam's backyard."
Putting nuclear reactors in orbit would be a waste. We're talking about nuclear PROPULSION here: something to either put stuff into orbit or to go beyond orbit.
"It will be built to withstand a launch failure in tact therefore it will most definitely survive re-entry."
A launch failure with a nuclear rocket and a chemical rocket are two different things. There's nothing explosive aboard a nuclear rocket. Just a reactor to heat up some liquid helium.
If you're looking for dividends from research, military research is without a doubt far more productive than general scientific research. Take for example...the internet. Or GPS. Or half a dozen other things you use every day. If its "spin offs" you want, you should be jumping for joy over this budget.
...for the human race to enter the solar system. (As gwb said himself)
Reagan wanted the X-30 and a much larger, 100% American space station ("Space Station Freedom") than the one we currently share with other countries. George H. W. Bush actually talked about a manned mission to Mars. In both instances they got smacked down by a Democrat Congress.
Next question.
The PKE was cancelled more than a year ago. It's New Horizons, now. Unfortunately, I've deleted the emails I've recieved with details of the NASA budget (from NASA, my research institute, and the Division for Planetary Science), but I'm pretty sure the New Horizons is on, not off. When I read the first email, I turned to an officemate and commented that they'd cut Europa for Pluto. Given the budget cap they already expected and the fact that Europa was going to be over that cap anyway, it was an expected and logical move to make.
Okay...how many wrecks have we made on the Martian surface?
/. has it been posted about some probe around this or that moon/outer planet being coaxed into doing more than it was ever designed to do, beyond life expectancy?
Yet, how many times on
Still, I suppose they need to scrap the Europa mission - imagine if they did find proof of life there...and I don't mean the Russell Crowe flick.
There seems to be a lot of fear about the new budget killing off science and killing off the manned program. Think about what is being done here for a moment:
In the unmanned space programs, missions are being put on hold so that nuclear propulsion technologies can be dusted off and put to practical use. This would cut down on mission time, and in doing so allow us to get probes to their destinations faster, and possibly with more power when they get there. That would have the net result of 1) cutting down on the money spent monitoring the probes during their cruise phase and 2) potentially extending their time at their destination spent gathering science. If you look at it from a business perspective, this makes sense-you want to invest money in the project for a gain (in this case, knowledge).
Aside: would be nice to see them develop a general purpose class of probes that they could basically shotgun to the outer planets (and unlike the Voyager probes, orbit their destinations). That may be more practical with this propulsion and power system. Any thoughts? Probably not going to happen until NASA has enough cash and confidence from the White House. No time soon.
Now, on to the manned space program. The Shuttle and ISS costs are way, way out of line. Take a look at the findings from the commitee last year. They're expecting its going to cost many more billions of dollars to finish the ISS in the plan which was comitted to. This on a project that is already considerably over budget, and suffering from numerous technical, engineering, and managerial problems (eg incompatable water purification systems, maintenance panels with the procedure for replacing the panel on the inner side where it can't be read while you're reinstalling it, and so on). If those costs aren't brought under control, it could easily swallow up the more productive unmanned program. The shuttle program is very much in the same boat, since the shuttles cost a huge amount to launch, and are only just barely reusable (they have to rip out large parts of the propulstion system, and refurbish the shuttle between launches, at a huge cost). I would be much happier to see them put yet more funding into developing a next generation system, but first getting the current manned space program under control is important.
If the costs aren't brought under control, and new technology developed, it is very unlikely we will even have NASA in a decade. It is very hard pressed to keep the budget it has when there are other programs (such as fighting this little war thing we have right now) are getting the lions share of the money available. Like anything else, a little wise long term investment could reap huge benefits (such as a better unmanned program that allows us to have many more probes in operation, including the much needed additional communication equipment). It would be great to see some long term planning that results in a return to the Moon, or a solid plan to go to Mars. That will require that the NASA administration take the initiative and plan out a program that won't break the budget, and that NASA also earn the confidence of Congress that money invested won't become part of another horror story of misused funds. Its a hell of a challenge, particularly for a government program, and I would be interested to see NASA step up to it.
And you're either with us, or against us.
I assume that was meant as a sarcastic statement referring to some Bush quote about other nations' stance on terrorism. So, smart ass, what do you propose we should do? Let these people just walk around killing us while we look the other way? You realize these radicals (whatever their race or religion or cause) are swearing their lives on our destruction, don't you? They're not going to stop if we just sit around smoking pot while proclaiming peace to all. There is no passive stance in which everybody just magically gets along. Wake up or go start you own country if you think you can do a better job. But just remember, you'll have to defend yourself too.
Amen! In the last 10 years, NASA has done more to delay practical spaceflight then to move it forward. Like the way they drove Beal Aerospace out of business, by offering their competition government subsidies. Or like the way they took over the DC-X program, which had achieved impressive results on a relatively tiny budget while under DOD control, promptly crashed the test vehicle through their own error, and then dropped it for X-33, a fiasco-by-committee that spent two billion dollars and produced nothing but a hanger full of variegated parts.
I think an argument could be made that even the Shuttle program was a mistake that set NASA back two decades. Shuttle never made good on any of its promises, from lower launch costs (it's the most expensive thing that flies by a wide margin) to frequency of flights (it takes months to turn a shuttle around) to landing on existing airstrips. If they'd kept the Saturn V in production they might have been able to cut launch costs far more, and maybe they'd have been able to stick to their original timelines for exploration (in which case we'd have a permanent moonbase by now).
Good example: the Wrights were a model of sensible scientific experimentation, achieving success on a fraction of their competitors' budgets.
I'd prefer a slightly different approach.
We should just say: if anyone can get payload x to orbit y for z dollars, we'll buy 10 launches. That's enough guaranteed return on investment to let the market take over from there. Don't specify reusibility, number of stages, or anything else that you don't have to: let the market try out the variations and wild ideas, and see what shakes out. Even if you have to pay for 5 different working systems, it'll still be cheaper than the 2 billion that was spent on X-33, and you'll have five working launch systems.
Bingo.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
We had peace, now war.
I don't think Bush asked for that.
We had budget surpluses, now budget deficits.
Temporary, and Congress has the responsibility tightening things up to make it so.
We had a 'peace dividend,' now we have the largest military budget.
Larger than what? Than we have before? Than other countries? Specify.
We had a strong economy, now a recession.
ALAN GREENSPAN has more control over this than Bush. Bush can't take credit for any change in the economy, and neither can Clinton. Besides - the U.S. economy is HUGE, it's got lots of MOMENTUM - and so it's hard to turn. That means that the indications were visible years ago, and that the current economy is due to factors even before THEN.
We had a fair tax system, now a tax system favoring the rich.
In all my life, the tax system has never favored the rich.
We had an 'Alaska,' now we have a 'Drilled Alaska.'
Oh, please. What would you have us do - keep buying from terrorist-supporting nations? That's where most of our trouble comes from: trying to keep them happy enough to not bomb us. No, it didn't work, so we need to become more independent. Besides, most Alaskans favor drilling in that pristine wilderness that nobody's seen a properly representative photo of - just lovely trees. It's not like that.
We had a blow job scandal, now we have a 'jobs' and billions of $ scandal.
The scandal is manufactured. It's weak. Politicians get contributions, and all of the sudden they can do no right. Help out? "They bought help from the government!" Not help? Gee, I actually can't think of a good representative quote. Maybe it's because you haven't a leg to stand on, and your only clear agenda is to manufacture a scandal.
Oh, I've got one: "Clinton had a scandal! Bush has to have one too!"
We had liberties, now we have virtually none.
So your home is a jail, everything you say is censored, and you can't even travel without some official-looking person ASKING YOU QUESTIONS. Time to post on Slashdot, the only remaining Fortress of Free Speech anywhere in the United States.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
Seriously guys, which would you want to live near, a coal fired plant that is mismanaged and pumps out a lot of nitrous oxide, or a nuclear power plant that is mismanaged and leaks radioactive material.
Why bother? Just keep sending him bags of pretzels. They're bound to get him eventually...
"Information wants to be paid"
I remember reading something about China's intent on going to the moon. Pity their space programme isn't up to it yet. If China went and landed on the moon that might get Bush to put more money into manned space flight.
"Information wants to be paid"
Seriously, break the organisation up into 5-6 independant and completely commercial organisations and encourage them to exploit space and space based resources fully.
It's the only way.
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Hmm, seems good enough for the automobile.
I take those odds just to drive to work. I'll gladly take those odds if it'll get me into space.
2002-02-05 00:03:43 Bush Jr. decides to cut tech research grants. (articles,money) (rejected)
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
Read some of the other comments in this thread for more info on that, but mostly rare earth minerals.
/too/ expensive up there as far as amount of fuel goes. Remember, minimal drag. :)
Platinum, titanium, and such. Hell just your basic ores alone, Iron is common as hell from what I have read (may be out of date).
How long do you think it would take for somebody to find some revolutionary new way of refining some ore or another up there in space?
And heck without government controls, not to mention being able to use that big old (near) vacuum to pull your wastes out, the amount of extra money that could be made just thanks to the removal of all environmental regulations would be enormous.
Jupiter MIGHT have some nice gases on it that we MAY be able to gather one day, but the fact is that using TODAYS technology we COULD go out there and grab tons of friggin asteroids, refine them on the spot (waste products would be plenty yah sure, a lot of valuable stuff would be destroyed, but for awhile quick and dirty would be the name of the game, you want to be able to reduce the asteroid to the most compact form of sellable ores that are worth as much money as possible.) and tow shoot or carry them back to earth.
The good thing is that if you are not going for speed, acceleration is not
It is carrying the fuel up there that will cost ya.
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The richest nation in the world is bombing the poorest nation in the world out of retaliation and fear. What's wrong with this picture?
The richest nation in the world is killing off a handful of asshole militants that are harassing it. These same asshole militants have turned a country that once had a vibrant culture and burgeoning intelligentsia into the poorest nation in the world. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this picture.
I'm all for self-defense, and even taking off the gloves in the process.
What I'm against - and TOTALLY against, is creating an atmosphere where even criticising the current regime and it's methods is considered an act of treason (or terrorism). Which is exactly what is wrong with the fascist ideology espoused by Bush. It's no better than the radical militant ideology the terrorists are using.
I love my country, but I fear my government.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
What I'm against - and TOTALLY against, is creating an atmosphere where even criticising the current regime and it's methods is considered an act of treason (or terrorism). Which is exactly what is wrong with the fascist ideology espoused by Bush
I'd be against that too.. except that it isn't happening. Lots of people are speaking their mind about US foreign policy these days. Nobody's bashing down doors and hauling them away. No, that script kiddie luser who was advocating people to overthrow the gov't and establish anarchy doesn't count.
As for the European countries that are playing cool and criticizing the US stance, that's not surprising. By officially taking sides, they would potentially become targets of terrorists as well.