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Hubble Upgraded; NASA's Future Not So Bright
jokrswild writes: "After 5 space walks and 172 million dollars, Hubble has been successfully redeployed. Hopefully it will be able to amaze us yet again in its abilities to capture the unimaginable." And Captn Pepe writes: "Space.com has a couple of articles regarding what the Congressional Research Service and what NASA's new chief administrator have to say about the space agency's future plans and prospects. The short version is, don't hold your breath for a Mars mission."
first AC post in space
fucking lameness filter costing me fp
fp!
Oh yeah!
I demand a first post!
No thanks
NASA: "Man, I know humans are going to need somewhere else to live eventually, but that won't happen for a while, so I'll chill out and work on that later..."
I can see the headlines now.. "Shuttle crashes into sun"..
How will they explain that PR nightmare?
"Uhhh, we forgot to carry the 1."
"Adequacy.org: Where congenital stupidity is not an option, but a requirement."
They truly have the heart of explorers. But there are still unexplored parts of our world. Like, the oceans. Not all of the oceans have been fully explored, as in, their floors.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Is there going to be a much better replacement, for example? I would have thought it economic to keep Hubble in space, even if it was superseded. Guess that shows what I know.
Okay so the hubble upgrade is a big win for atheists everywhere. But it looks like if the budget proposals hold out then NASA will have even less money for its anti-scripture agenda. It is good to have Bush in the white house.
don't hold your breath for a Mars mission.
Unless it's from China.
Ok, let's say you're an elected member of congress. How would your constituents like you to prioritize the following:
A. Fight Terrorists
B. Fix Economy
C. Teach Our Children
D. Fight Crime
E. Cut Taxes
F. Reduce deficit/Debt Reduction
G. Explore Mars
Assuming you don't have enough money for everything, what do you leave out?
If you want NASA to go to Mars, I'd suggest you help the Chinese do it: The only thing that might sway congressional self-interest is competition. Nothing took the wind out of NASA's sails like the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
They must really be cutting back if they're recommending people holding their breath on the Mars mission.
If exploration of Mars or any other part of space is particularly important to you, go for it. Posting about it here probably wouldn't hurt anything, but you won't be any closer, either. There are people who have been to space, and they got there by taking those "small steps". They may have whined about lack of progress, who knows. Whether they did or not, it was their actual actions that got them (and viacariously, us) up there.
I value Space Exploration, but not enough to commit any resources to it. You're not going to convince me otherwise, but if you study, campain, raise money, found companies or support agencies, maybe you can make a difference and see your goals realized.
Thank you, NASA, for all you've done for us, and keep up the good work.
Bunny here, I just want to say I Love You sweetie!!! You are just too wonderful for words, and especially too wonderful for /., this shithole site, I'd just thought I'd show my appreciation for your luscious existance. A big *smoochies* for you. Love, Bunny Vomit.
You know those stupid "would you like to give $5 to the so-and-so party?" lines at the bottom of the 1040? Well, why not have a "would you like to give $5 to the send-a-man-to-mars fund?" I'll pretty much die before I give a dollar to a politician so he can put my name on a "sucker to call when I need more money" telemarketing list but I'll gladly give money to a cause that means something on a historical scale like this.
What did you eat today? http://www.atetoday.com/
The space above the earth is currently littered with parts from old rockets and satellites. If Hubble will be retired, then we must definitely find some way to bring it back to earth. Otherwise, it will be another piece of trash.
I value Space Exploration, but not enough to commit any resources to it.
You have some other definition of "value"?
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
Many technological innovations have been taken from the space program. Will the scientist work elsewhere? Since now they won't be needed that much at NASA, unless the chinese need them. Will we still be able to get these to help such as more food and better ways to help those that need help?
I believe shuttle missions cost about 500 million, so the total cost was closer to 700 million.
Just such a horrible thought! Making NASA accountable for what it spends!
After all look at the blazing fiscal successes of the International Space Station and it being able to come in under budget!!!
Or the success of the X-33...
Or X-34...
Or the X-30...
Or how about how the shuttle and how much it brought down launch costs just like they said it would...
Maybe there is a theme here, huh?
Perhaps when NASA learns some fiscal responsibility then we'll get our mission to Mars from them. And it's quite possible the wonderous big budgets of Apollo aren't EVER coming back.
In the mean time, it might actually be others who get there first. And, no, I don't mean other nations. John Carmack (yes, that John Carmack) is working on his one rocket company:here and Jeff Greasona nd crew are working on their own stuff here.
I might just wanna give them some competition myself...;)
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
oh god, that was definatly a beer out of nose moment!
Actually, considering the budget a mission to Mars would have to work under, "holding your breath for a mission to Mars" might be precisely what is necessary. Although with the amount of money spent on fixing the Hubble, why can't we just teach an astronaught to breathe carbon dioxide? I should think the best solution here is to get one guy breathing O2 and exhaling CO2, and another guy breathing CO2 and exhaling O2. Wouldn't that be a pretty big budget savings right there?
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
I've always liked this idea, taken to its logical conclusion. We could have a truly direct democracy if each taxpayer decided on his/her 1040 what percentage of his/her taxes would go to fund which program or agency.
As long as I'm being coerced to work 4 months per year as a slave of the Government( effectively, if not explicitly ), I should at least be given the choice as to how the extorted funds are to be allocated.
Seriously. Privatise it. A massive government monopoly on space is a waste of tax payers money and is stiffling private enterprise.
With shrinking budgets NASA is just an albatross round the neck of space travel.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Well what do you do - I personally feel that manned exploration of space is very important. There is so much about it that we do not know yet - theres a lot to explore!
But I also appreciate that the planet has a million other issues they need to resolve - its no good pretending that they dont exist, whilst pumping billions of dollars into space missions. People are starving, we are destroying the planet rapidly, and our resources are running out..
Perhaps we need to look at what we are doing.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Is not considering a Mars mission and certainly doesn't have the technology (or the money) for it. I don't know where you heard that from but it's just plain wrong.
---
I didn't want to leave this space blank.
This troll caught so many biters how?
Hahaha :-)
Now what the world needs is for China to get their asses (halfway) to mars. That's the only thing that'll scare the shit out the US congress enough to get the good guys there first.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
That's so funny, man!!!
...NASA has underdelivered for far too long. The media has been their puppet for keeping our hopes alive, but they have provided nothing but marketing hype for the last 25 years.
Stop believing that NASA is going to wow us again. It is just not going to happen.
The protocol required powering down and restarting Hubble for the first time since it was deployed from space shuttle Discovery on April 25, 1990.
Damn, damn almost 12year uptime
I was using definition 3 from m-w.com:
"relative worth, utility, or importance <a good value at the price> <the value of base stealing in baseball> <had nothing of value to say>"
I value Space Exploration enough to post a comment on Slashdot. I value it enough not to fight against it. If I had more resources, then I would be willing to commit some of them.
Do you have an objection to my use of the word "value"?
Human beings are the most intelligent species on the planet? Who says so? Why human beings do! That is a bit of a coincidence, isn't it. We say we are different to other animals, well in one way we are spectaculaly different, that is the degree to which we have evolved the ability to change our surroundings to suit ourselves, other mammals are the other way round, they are evolved to fit their environment. In evolving our ability to change our environment, we have coincidently evolved the ability to create an environment. Taking this to be a fact, leads me to the question, why if we evolved this fantastic ability, we are using it to steal an environment. All the raw materials are out there, all we lack is the imagination to put them together .... yet.
Peter.
It's called an elephant's trunk whereas it is in fact, an elephant's nose, a nose by any other name would smell as sweet
We need something to cheer for or at least a place other than Earth to escape to.
Let's Explore Mars.
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
Poor ISS.... I'm sorry, but you are wrong, wrong, wrong.
ISS has its financial problems, but these have NOT affected the exploration budget. Space Science has been increasing steadily during the ISS era. It is AGAINST THE LAW for the NASA Administrator to move money from the science programs into ISS.
The way the Congressional Appropriations system works, the odds are better that a cancelled ISS would help the Veterans Administration or the War on Terrorism than that they would stay within NASA. Congress just doesn't work that way.
"Fifty million Americans can't be wrong," said Rep. Billy Tauzin. Gore - 50,999,897 Bush - 50,456,002
Maybe just to make it interesting for the rest of us, send up about 50 camera's as well and a limited supply of oxygen and they have to fight for the right to be the last person breathing up there... and possibly get a free ride home...
That way, everyone left back here gets the best of all worlds...
Mars gets a manned mission,
We stop the fight against terrorism,
AND *shudder* for the reality tv freaks out there, they get the ultimate reality show of all time...
Ohhh... and as a side benefit, we also get rid of all those useless politicians who are just screwing up everything for everyone else...
*** I had a
*** I had a
This is a 1040. US citizens fill one out every year and send it in to the Internal Revenue Service (our friendly government tax people) on April 15. Check here for the complete list of fun-to-fill-out IRS forms. US law says the IRS doesn't actually have to have your 1040 in their grubby little hands on April 15, just that when they DO get it, it had better be in an envelope postmarked April 15. This rule leads to all kinds of crazy stuff happening on April 15, with postal people dressing up in monkey suits and standing by specially designated drop points until midnight....
I agree with the first part, but I'm not sure what you mean by the second part. Do you mean that India had already been visited (what they thought was the other side of the world) or that the Americas had already been visited? I'm guessing you mean the former.
So to tell the truth, if Columbus had come to me for money in the 15th century, I would have turned him down, as his navigational calculations were completely off base, and the resources could be better spent on other things.
Heh, and you would have missed out on all the gold that subsequent expeditions returned. We thought riding our little dot com bubble was fun... Spain had a dot com bubble that lasted 100 years, of course, it too burst.
If the USSR still existed we would have been on Mars within 5 years.
Currently I can look into the sky and see Stars and such for free. This is crazy. The RIAA business model could definately help them. Sue me if I attempt to look to the stars. Sue Telescope makers for helping me do this. Sue us all and make massive amounts of money for all the things you have discovered. ;-)
just isn't intersting as WAR!!!
Krama: Bigdickinyoura
Anyone want to start an open-source initiative to put a man on Mars?
Suck figs.
The population will inevitably expand until the death rate reaches equilibrium with the birth rate. Therefore, aside from a plague or a war, unless people are forced to have two children or less, population will inevitably expand until the starvation rate balances out the excessive birth rate. Feeding the poor without stopping them from multiplying like rabbits is completely futile, and perhaps counterproductive, because it means MORE people will starve to death in the long run. The food supply cannot be expanded indefinitely. So don't throw money away on just giving them food. First give them vasectomies, then teach them how to be self-reliant and make their own food and money. Our money really is better spent on space exploration than exacerbating starvation by foolishly attempting to stop it by just giving away food.
Repeal the DMCA!
So what you're saying is that getting Mars exploration for the price of a Slashdot post is good value, but any more cost makes it not worthwhile?
nasa is just a waste of time right god boy george
everyone knows god made the universe right god boy jr so why waste precious tax payers money on space exploration? lets kill nasa and send all of the funding to chuches in texas.
I enjoy working for nasa even though their are
7 layers of management every where you turn nasa
needs to be cleaned up better yet competed aganst
another american non government space agency.
The Hubble telescope does none of these things. Of course, neither does an electron microscope or a hammer--because they are merely tools. But when wielded by a trained, creative and insightful scientist they can help produce startling new theories that make our life better.
But the Hubble telescope isn't in the hands of trained, creative and insightful scientists. It is in the hands of bureaucrats and politicians who dole out a minute here and a minute there on whatever pet projects they happen to favor. When Scientist A creates a theory based on an observation made with Hubble, these chairwarmers refuse to let Scientist B use the 'scope to attempt demolish that theory for fear it will make Hubble look bad.
We obviously can't afford to make enough for everyone, so the only solution is to let no one have it. Decommission the Hubble!
Columbus new that the risks in his mission were manageable, and the immediate payoff was high. (Of course, Spain went on to become a gold-based economy, importing pretty much all manufactured goods and got their clocks cleaned by British wool and things like that; quickly losing its world status, but that's another story). The risks of a manned Mars mission are unknown in some pretty important areas, all having to do with long-term exposure to space, for both humans and machines.
Consider the moon landing. 10 Apollo spacecraft came before the one that made it. One of those (Apollo 3) burned horribly on the launch pad. And thanks to Hollywood we all know that Apollo 13 also failed to reach the moon. That's 2 failures in 13 missions; a 15% failure rate, and only considering technical failures, since the risks in the human biology area for that kind of mission were understood reasonably well by then, thanks to a succession of manned orbital flights.
Now consider a Mars mission. We don't know what effects on human bodies (and minds!) will result from prolonged exposure to radiation and zero gravity for a mission that lasts that long, except they all look pretty bad. And while unmanned space probes have continued functioning for decades in space, they don't have life-support systems so we don't know what the risks are in that area either.
So it seems to me that advocating a manned Mars mission now is not very rational. We would simply be praying we get lucky, but the odds right now don't look very good.
We (the world, not just the US) need to know a whole lot more about what's involved before making any kind of vaguely rational decision to go to Mars. Use the Space Station to the max. Also put another one in orbit around the Moon for a few years. Learn what the glitches are likely to be and then decide.
I think it's great that Hubble is all fixed up. I also agree w/one poster about keeping it going till there is a better replacement. Look at the other probes and stuff we've launched that are still working today. Pioneer 10, Galileo, etc. I think it's only natural that we should keep Hubble flying as long as we can safely.
Regular service missions should extend it's life a little longer, especially since it's already had a heart transplant.
As far as NASA goes I think cleaning up wasted spending is important but not at the cost of exploration. Lord knows there might be a microbe or something on Mars that could cure cancer, aids, or some other nasty Earthly disease and it's just sitting up there waiting for us to get it. Or something could wipe out the entire population of Earth. We don't know though till we go there.
I also saw another comment that said the Chinese could go for Mars. Imagine that, reminds me of the day when the USSR was making a shot for the moon but America beat them to it. Perhaps it will take another challenging country to get America going again and we may ask ourselves afterward why we didn't take the initiative to begin with after finding something amazing.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
I'm willing to bet if we told George W there was oil on Mars. He'd be the first one to slap an Ion drive on an oil rig and launch it up.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
You must have not have taken any grammer classes.
We'll do it ourselves then. Click here.
I remember once, for no real scientific reason, NASA went to the moon. And like, we went multiple times and like we played golf and drove cars and stuff.
But then like, we stopped going you know. And like all that money was wasted and the manned space program like ceased to basically exist..
Meanwhile, the Russians has a more or less permanent outpost in orbit for the last 15-20 years for a fraction of the money we spent getting to the moon.
Nasa needs to slow down and take baby steps. Orbit, Moon then Mars. See Ben Bova's book 'Moon Base'. Being that NASA is the construct of a profit driven society each step needs to have a mid-term commerical value. This 'In 300 years people could live here if we radically develop new technologies that are as of yet unknown' speech is ridiculous. Lets make orbit and the moon profitable and jump from there.
It was heard about here in a conference announcement from Marc Garneau and discussed on Slashdot.
And recently, it was pointed out that Canada does have critical exploration technology for drilling for samples.
Would it dramatically decrease the complexity and cost of the mission if it were a one way trip? I.e. if one or more people volunteered, perhaps on the basis of a long term degenerative illness that did not incapacitate them in the next 18 months or so, to go and not return?
More to the point, would this be poliically acceptable?
People, it's been almost 35 years since we've been to the moon. 35 years! And now we don't want to even think about it? Now honestly, couple the ISS with something on the moon, and you've got a couple of waypoints to hit along the way to Mars.
It's a no brainer. Our destination right now MUST be the moon. And the goal should be colonizing the moon, pure and simple. Screw Mars. At least untill we go back to la luna.
If the technology of the 60s let us go for a visit, and relatively speaking our personal computers have more power in them than the Apollo units, isn't it LOGICAL to do what Stacey Keach did in Cheech And Chong's "Up In Smoke" and "Shoot The Moon?"
Call me crazy, but the moon seems like a better idea. Or maybe I am just a luna tic...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
Some might make that arguement. They're possibly not wrong.
I am sorry, you've watched way too many Star Trek episodes, and you're just furious that you can't go there.
Perhaps the key is to recognize that those were imaginary television programs. They were made up!
They found high levels of radiation on the surface of most of the planet. They are going to have to deal with this unless they don't expect to come back.
OK, a couple years back (too far back for my user page to remember), I made a post about how great the past NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin was, how he had managed to keep NASA going and doing wonderful things while having to dig through miles of endless beurocracy. I got slammed from another poster as to how he had kept NASA back, how we could have been doing so much more.
:(
So now NASA has O'Keefe. The guy who can stand up for minutes to talk about the future of NASA and not mention the word "space" once. Now we're wondering if humans really need to go up to LEO.
Booyah.
You could claim Goldin got NASA into this mess with bugetary problems, but I think any multi-government project is bound to be over-time and over-budget. And I think some of the cooler stuff, missions to Mars, return to the Moon (also never landed on by people in my lifetime), or even more robotic exploration of our own solar system become questionable under the lens of proper fiscal management.
Oh well. Go China. I'm serious. I'm watching for their next Shenzauo launch with great anticipation. The Chinese should be proud...
(* They need more innovators and less cogs; more Freeman Dysons and Buckminster Fullers and less accountants, scientists, and engineers who are too scared to do anything revolutionary. *)
Revolution involves risk, and politicians don't like to deal with that. They often want to pay a fixed amount for a known risk rather than pay a little more to test something that may save much more money in the long run only if it works.
One thing I think NASA has done a poor job at is clarifying the tradeoffs of risk-taking.
If things like Aero-braking had failed, then NASA would have gotten a royal whipping and chewed out. They get slammed much more when something fails than if it works. There is no congressional investigation to praise them for Aero-braking.
BTW, what have Dyson and Fuller done to make space exploration itself cheaper-better-faster?
Table-ized A.I.
NASA goes nuclear
A new effort for NASA boosted by the White House is a nuclear power and propulsion initiative.
Both NASA and the DOD have each studied nuclear reactors for spacecraft power generation, the CRS report notes. Under the Bush White House, nuclear power and propulsion work is being rekindled.
"Although nuclear devices have advantages over other types of power and propulsion in terms of the amount of energy they produce versus their size and mass, some environmentalists oppose launching nuclear material into space. They worry that a launch accident, or an unintended spacecraft reentry, would spread radioactive material over Earth's population. Thus, the decision to reinvigorate NASA's program -- which would be conducted with the Department of Energy -- is expected to raise controversy," the CRS report states.
NASA work in the nuclear power arena is also being tied to outer planet exploration.
By using nuclear power and propulsion, NASA's O'Keefe has stated that spacecraft sent to such locales as Europa -- a moon of Jupiter -- and to distant Pluto, could get to those targets faster, and operate for longer periods of time.
YES! Before we can actually do a manned mission to Mars, we need a way to get there in a shorter amount of time. At least on this issue, NASA has its order-of-operations straight. When propulsion and other basic issues get nailed down (keeping the crews alive, etc), then we can make our grand plans for exploration.
I might be totally off the wall with this idea, so feel free to shoot me down if I'm wrong. Wouldn't it make sense to combine the functionality of a space station with moon exploration? That is to say, put the space station in an eliptical orbit where it would both come close enough to the earth to be accesable with the space shuttle, but also intercept the orbit of the moon. It then could be used as a "shuttle bus" to the moon. I can't see why it would be much of a problem the equip it with the equivilent of a space shuttle which would be suited for lunar take off and landing. It seems to me that over the long run, this would be a very cost effective way to facillitate moon exploration, since once the space station was in orbit, the only costs incured would be travel from earth to the space station, when it's close to the earth, and from the space station to the moon, when it's close to the moon. Unless there's something counter-intuitive at work here, it seems it would be simple enough. What would be necessary to move something like the ISS into such an orbit? Ideas?
I have worked at one of NASA's field centers for over a year and a half. I was amazed, when I first started workin there, how many managers there are. There are at least three managers for every employee, which are mostly reduant anyway.
If we ever want to anywhere with NASA, we need some type of Management reform. Hopefully, that's where O'Kefee will come in.
"Chance favors the prepared mind." ~Me
I predict that Fedex or UPS will be the first visitors to Mars. They can do almost anything! Seriously.
>I value Space Exploration, but not enough to commit any resources to it. You're not going to convince me otherwise, but if you study, campain, raise money, found companies or support agencies, maybe you can make a difference and see your goals realized.
That's the damn problem, we're *not* committing any resources to it. The money spent on NASA doesn't even register on a pie graph of the federal budget. The US spends roughly twenty times as much money on welfare than we do on NASA. (NASA's budget is about $14 billion.) And the manned spaceflight budget is only a little over a third of that. (About $5 billion.)
Military and entitlements are over a trillion.
Mix the failings of Usenet with the shortcomings of the World Wide Web and the result is slashdot.
You must be kiddin'.
Under the current work place safety regulations,
even a Moon mission would be out the question.
Toon Moene.
Since the parent was referring to manned missions I assumed that's what you were talking about. Still, I do stand corrected.
---
I didn't want to leave this space blank.
Like figure out out to mine the shit out of the asteroid belt. Don't you know why they (the governement / corporations) keep putting money into space living it's not to go to mars it's to create a new industry mining the shit out of space. As soon as nasa told somebody that with new telescopes they could diffuse enough light from telescopes they could tell the compisition of asteriods and that one of them may be made of pure gold thats when astronomy and space exploration started to get more money. Keep doing stuff like that and you'll get the right people to care ie(the ones with money). going to mars as no atraction to econimists.
I like things that are sweet and not things that are lame. --
In response to all the economic geniuses who believe that running a government is simply a matter of making a profit...
1) I rate research that results in new industry VERY HIGHLY on the economic scale. So what if it is expensive in the short run? So what if doing things for the first time is expensive and ineficient. NASA is not a business! They are a research group. Like DARPA. Yet, no one dares say that we should close DARPA although it spoends money out the wazoo. IMHO we need to spend more money on research, less on corporate welfare for the Airlines, Car Companies, and Enron's
2) Privatize NASA? We need more public funding of Basic Research, not less. Just because I cannot tell you now all the benefits of a specific piece of research does not mean that research should stop. Thinking like that killed the Super Conducting Super Collider. Thinking like that has killed Stem Cell Research. But it has only killed that research in the US, maybe in North America. Continue to pull funding from research and researchers will go to Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America. Kill NASA? Then the Russians, ESA, and the Japanese will have national space programs and not us. Like that idea? Privitize research? Why? So Boeing and Mcdonnell Douglas are forced to waste time and resources replicating the same discoveries?
Government has a few basic responsibilites. It ensures the security of it's citizens. It collects funds to maintain itself. It is responsible for the economy the citizens select. A major part of that economy is research. Check your history. Research leads to strong economies and happier peolpe. Otherwise you end up like Spain or France.
Thousands of programmers willing to work for free... getting us to mars and beyond.
Ok now since a a dollar earned by me results in me spending MPC*$1 someone will get that MPC*$1, that person will spend MPC*MPC*$1 which someone else will get and spend MPC*MPC*MPC*$1. After a little Math you can see that this is a geometric series and that the total income earned after 1 new dollar is 1/(1-MPC) . This is called the multiplier.
The alternative is to increase govt spending. This can work too, the only problem is that if the government has to run a deficit to pay for it they will have to borrow. The goverment is borrowing from the same pool of money that every one else is, meaning the Demand for money increases meaning interest rates go up. This can lead to crowding out of public borrowing, meaning it is harder for companied to get the money they need to expand their operations.
However sometimes running a deficit is a good thing. It was a stupid idea for the government to think that the budget should remain balanced during the Depression. If there was ever a time for the government to spend like mad, that was it.
The reason towns and states are having such a difficult time is because the economy is so weak. Unemployed people pay 0 taxes, and people making less than they used to pay less taxes. The states got caught up in the late 90's bubble just like everyone else. The thought that the good times would go on forever, and that they could spend all sorts of money, instead of saving the money for a rainy day.
My problem with the people who want a Mars trip is that they are being dishonest. There is no great science to be discovered, it's really just an ego trip for Star Trek fans.
I compare it to the sky scraper craze of the 60's and 70's. Would it be cool to keep on building skyscrapers to 150 200 300 stories? Sure. But after the Sears Tower we asked: "What's the point of this again?" and we realized there wasn't one other than ego. $10 Billion dollars is alot to spend on an ego trip to mars. I'd rather the government bought 150,000 corvettes and we could all zoom around racetracks.
What's necessary would be to move ISS from 17,000 MPH (it's current Earth orbital speed) to 25,000 MPH (Earth to moon escape speed). This sounds like only a 50% increase in current speed but energy goes as the square of the speed so we would have to DOUBLE the current kinectic energy of the space station to send it to the moon. This is probably do-able using ion drive thrusters if there was some REALLY REALLY COMPELLING reason to do so - it wouldn't be easy.
However, the PROBLEM comes in that if we did this, the station would be making once-per-week trips thru the Van Allen radiation belts and exposed to raw solar wind / flares during the moon-half of the voyage, none of which it was designed to withstand and which would fry the crew and electronics pretty damn quick. People don't realize just how much protection from space radiation the Earth's magnetic field gives at an orbit of 200 miles or so, and how bad things get above that altitude. In a hurry.
Another problem is the logistics of carting the fuel up to allow back-and-forth transitions from 17,000 MPH to 25,000 MPH to allow crew and supply transfers. If you do the math, it ain't pretty and we sure can't afford to do it routinely at the $10,000 per pound the Shuttle costs.
PLUS when we included the Russians in the ISS program we put it in this weird (57 degree inclined) orbit that the Russians can get to with their far-north launch sites and it is the worst possible orbit (just about, a polar orbit is the dead worst) to suddenly make a break for the moon....
Nice idea, tho. I think we should be doing lunar exploration too.
I quoted the dictionary entry literally. "a good value at the price" is one of three ways of using the third meaning listed on m-w.com. I was not using it that way.
In any case, for _me_, getting to Mars is only worth the "price" of a Slashdot post. The fact that I was talking about _my_ values was implied by the fact that I can't know what anyone else thinks, even if they tell me.
There is no absolute value. A hamburger is not worth $1. A Big Mac _is_ worth $1.99 to _me_, and therefore I choose to buy them sometimes. Value judgements are made by individuals for themselves, and when applied to others arguments ensue.
Many confused people have such a horrible problem with the concept of value and worth. They think everyone must "value" thinks equally: human life, individual liberty, "the greater good" (a nebulous concept at best), entertainment, privacy, safety, image, whatever. These confused people think that if someone doesn't place the same priorities on things as they do, then the person is "selfish" and the confused people think themselves "rightious". I'm over-generalizing for brevity.
In my original post I hoped to inspire those who place high value on Space Exploration to act on that valuation, rather than projecting it on those with different priorities.
I would prefer not to spend any of my money on either defense OR NASA. It's not that they aren't important to me, but that there are other things which are more important to me right now, like not getting kicked out of my appartment.
I don't want these decisions made for me, "for my own good."
Ah, good! I've got the attention of someone who knows what they're talking about. OK, the ISS itself wouldn't be suitable for such uses. Do you think it would be feasable to design a space station that could be used as such? (Proper radiation shielding, proper orbit, etc.) Other than the unsuitability of the ISS itself, what are the obsticals to accomplishing this? And, while you have pointed out that it would still be more expensive than a routine shuttle flight, would it be more economical than sending spaceships directly from the earth to the moon ala Apollo? It would seem to me, that over the long haul, you would gain some efficiancies by having such an infrastructure in place. Or am I all wet about that, too?
Well, that's a real interesting question. We know next to nothing about radiation and a Mars mission, in fact the one instrument that got knocked out on the latest Mars orbiter was the radiation meter that was supposed to give a baseline reality check for a manned mission. Better luck next time getting that data, I guess. Solving the radiation problem is the hidden agenda for manned 21st century spaceflight that people don't even realize is a problem. The Apollo capsule had enough "shielding" to make a single back-and-forth trip thru the Van Allen belts because it was designed with sturdy walls to be a re-entry capsule. Even so, during Apollo they had to keep the sun under continuous observation and they were prepared to abort a launch if there had been a big solar flare, which is what causes short-wave radio communications and bright auroras on Earth every so often and would KILL an Apollo crew deader than a doornail if they were running a mission at the time. There was actually a contingency plan - I kid you not - that if a solar flare started after a moon landing, the guys on the moon could cover the LEM with dirt for shielding and wait the flare out before coming home - too bad, the guy orbiting the moon had no chance at all. Check this out...it includes the following quote: "...as an example the August 1972 flare, which it says could have subjected an unshielded astronaut to 20,000 REM in 14 hours....The 1972 flare took place between the Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 lunar expeditions. Had it occurred during an Apollo expedition the astronauts would have been incapacitated immediately and dead within hours or days...."
/from the shelter of Earth's magnetic field to a shelter covered with moondirt. Guess wrong, get fried. All of these orbiting hotel concepts haven't done their homework. Space is a BRUTAL environment. It's worth going there anyway.
20,000 REM in 14 hours? 500 REM kills half the people exposed and leaves the survivors sick as dogs, 1000 REM kills everybody. How the hell do you shield against something like this? Very good question. You just about can't protect "the whole ship" because the shielding mass is just too great to lug around. Most concepts for Mars missions include something called a "storm shelter" concept which usually winds up being a coffin-sized hideaway in the middle of the mission water tanks. The closer you look the worse the problem becomes. THere's a lot of talk also about using superconducting magnets to set up a mini-magnetic field around the spacecraft (just like Earth's) but no hard engineering on just what it would take to get the job done....
The difference between StarTrek and reality is profound. Routine spaceflight to the moon is likely to always be a mad dash to
Honestly, how do you decide what to eat for
breakfast? You don't want to DISCRIMINATE between
frosted flakes and froot loops, do you?
Exploration is not usually done by "governments", espcially in the past. It's impractical in the short term. There will always be the arguments of "Why spend money on that when we need to fix all these other problems?" But, exploration gets done, none the less. How? Private enterprise. People spend their own money, or borrow it, to do the exploration in hopes to find riches. Treasure hunting. That is what it will take for us to get to the Moon again, and Mars for that matter. Someone will have to have a vision, an idea, on how to make a fortune by going to Mars or the Moon. Right now, there seems to be nothing there that will make the trip worth it. You would spend far more money than you would gain. However, that will not always be true. One day, it will be worth it, for one reason or another. We just have to have patience and wait for that day to come and have the courage to act when that day does come.
Yep.
...
:)
That's why you mongrels of UK Descent use old fashioned measurements, just because itt blocks imports, allow a local fabrication of tools, another layer of complication for international exchange.
That's always the problem, I mean when it doesn't come from you, when you US don't have the copyright for it, you don't use it.
You prefer to impose a less efficient tool, but that YOU control...
Let's say the Credit Card with embedded chip is in use for YEARS in EU. And your stupid "Please sign the ticket here" system is just a security boar...
Metrics. simple base 10 system. Very easy. I mean even you can do it
If base 16 or 8 is more efficient, prove it. If you cannot just shut up and switch.
Same for the rest. an upstart nation with it's history still smoking around it's back should see the advantage of evoluting fast, if possible with a little more respect.
And; to the Guy who made a statement about french revolution and new rules and mesurements, please remember that it's the French Revolution that is really the start of Republican thinking. Even Democrats come from that point
So ?
All in the subject.
Yes, let's do it. I won't even whine (much) about my taxes being spent for this purpose.
Yes, let's do it. Stop all industry subsidies. Lower tariffs and other trade barriers. Decrease tax rates and regulation. We can argue over the revenue impact of decreasing tax rates, but the other measures won't break the bank.
Not a government job, especially at the federal level. Eliminate the Department of Education and save money.
Let's do it. The first thing to do is to free up resources to fight real crime by stopping the War on Drugs (tm). Overall, use less taxpayer money.
Of course.
Let's do it. Let's save money by only funding those cabinet-level departments we really need. Let's see, Defense yes, State yes, Justice yes...um, surely there is another cabinet level department we need. When I'll think of it I'll post again.
Hmm. Cool program, but not something I would want to be a federal program, unless it was related to defense.
Dammit, that means I posted all this for nothing, doesn't it...
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
I did not compose the parent to be flaimbait. It's a simple request that people stand by their words. I hoped it would be inspirational. Bleah.
They don't call it the "Red Planet" for nothing.
"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're right." -