Slashdot Mirror
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."
Space travel and starving kids are two completely separate things. Why again are these connected, and how does funding one detract from another? It's not like the U.S. government would or even could use those funds saved from no space travel to feed starving kids.
If I'm missing something, please, enlighten me.
Hargun
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
Ok, so kids are starving to death as you speak, and you want to spend time posting on Slashdot?
Shyeah.
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..."
Kids are starving to death as we speak, and you're sitting on your ass reading slashdot.
You fall into a trap when you engage in zero-sum games. Must it be "either or"? How come it can't be both?
If you save a buck from NASA's budget, do you believe this administration or this congress is going to fund UNESCO? Or do you kinda sorta suspect they are going to give that buck to a favorite corporate son?
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?
Kids are starving to death because they are not eating, not because there is extra-terrestrial scientific study being done.
It would take a small percentage of the NASA budget to get food to all these starving people. So the money being spent on "pointless" things isn't the problem.
What is the problem is the governments of these starving children that let grain rot on docks, use aid money for things other than food and medical supplies, or sell donated items that would aid their populace for weapons or luxuries.
Get of your High Horse and think for once before you spout any more of your liberal tripe.
Who run Barter Town?
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.
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.
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/
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.
I believe shuttle missions cost about 500 million, so the total cost was closer to 700 million.
{BAE395BF-444F-4669-A009-76D7BF449247} This post is not redundant.
7 091 was 2 minutes earlier
Yes it is, http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=29240&cid=313
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?
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."
Just send the starving kids to Mars. That way, they technically wouldn't be a problem on OUR planet. :)
(waiting for appropriate mod-down)
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.
So kids are starving on this planet and their stupid parents keep popping out more? Most the countries in africa have a 3% growth rate. This is insane! I had a friend over there with a program that tried to pass out condoms. The locals laughed at him.
No wonder africa also has the highest AIDS rate. Sending food, money or birth control is not going to help. This is a cultural issue. Until these people stop CHOSING to overbreed the problem will NOT end.
It is not up to the US to try and be BIG DADDY. These people chose their lifestyle, they need to choose to end it. I would rather have money spent on expanding on the great things man can do, than supporting the worst that man can do.
nothing to do with America's pig headed refusal to give up on imperial units then? Can you spell I S O L A T I O N I S M ?
That was classic intercourse!
It would take a small percentage of the NASA budget to get food to all these starving people. So the money being spent on "pointless" things isn't the problem.
Isn't the real problem here Sally Struthers eating all the twinkies that are destined for Northern Africa or (insert starving nation here)? I never trust a fat person who claims to represent starving people. We all know who's getting the food in THIS case.
The potential benefits of such a mission should not be measured merely in the scientific knowledge we would gain (although that would be profoundly valauble moreso, than the lives of the kids IMO, and yes I'm a cold pragmatic bastard about such things, I would be perfectly willing to support my opinion that 99.99% of those children would never have accomplished anything anyway.) The true value is the sum of that knowledge plus the technology and science we would develop for the trip, which would doubtless be of incalculable financial wealth.
The way I see it, in a our economy/society/country, greater demand generates much more wealth than a few politicians who pocket the money that would have gone to this. I think we have a government that put us between a rock and a hard place. We can either increase spending on things, or decrease spending and have the benefit got to the few. Sounds like time for a new political party.
I've been trying to say this for a while, but who votes for this?
1. pro-choice policy on abortion. (bad idea to put it first, eh?)
2. much smaller, more reasonable spending on millitary overhead, divert it to millitary R&D to get the MOST for each dollar we invest into security.
3. Simplify laws and rewrite for common-man language. Get rid of irrational bug-fix laws.
4. Cut back on federal laws, let states individualize. You want to be able to kill yourself, go to Nevada or whatever.
5. Make all laws have lifetimes of max 50 years, that way we can't have a bazillion laws, if it's not important enough to review after 50 years, let it dissapear.
6. laws written in a new heirarchical method, with hypertext (that's an XML project!) to prevent more important laws from being easily disarmed by unimportant or frivilous ones.
7. Focus on voting and civil service. Give voting citizens a tax break, or give them something to get them to vote!
8. Open government initiatives to keep our politicians honest. There should be real working people talking to senators and congressmen, a 'people's lobby' if you will
9. SIMPLE laws, we have 3000 gun-control laws now, and even more tax laws. why not have 20? Why not modularize and set lifespans on laws that shouldn't be permanent?
Alright, let me know what you think. I'll contact you.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
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.
Wouldn't work, rememember people are stupid.
Washington state residents have voted TWICE in a row now to cut taxs seriously.
Ah oh yes one of our major bridges is now about ready to fall down and people are scrambling trying to find funding for it, enviromental production is being cut to shreads, education is being to shreads, and all in all the state as a whole is assfucked.
All because the majority of Fucktards out there thoguht that voting themselves lower taxs would "force politicians to cut back on government waste".
Bullshit the politicians just took the easiest route and cut back on funding for critical needs rather then actualy do anything more efficently.
If you want to change ANYTHING you HAVE TOO, and I repeat, YOU HAVE TO MICRO-MANAGE EVERYTHING THAT THE ROTTEN LITTLE BASTARDS(the politicians) DO.
Tell them that NO they CANNOT buy their copier paper from that supplier because that supplier is WAAAAY overcharging them and has been doing so for the last 20 some odd years.
Tell them that NO they CANNOT buy all of their number two pencils from Office Depot because a Pencil does not have to be name brand to write.
Be specific.
Oh, and forget about pro-choice, how about "manditory sterilization after the first kid."
Sounds good to me. School class sizes are WAAAAY to high.
Oh, and be more EFFICENT with Military R&D spending, we already spend royal ASSLOADS of money on Military R&D, it is just that a lot of that money is spent on 'pet projects' that were proven undoable quite a few years ago.
Of course some aeronautical company is making buttloads of money off of the continued research (or parts used in the research at least) of whatever project is being researched so thus the resarch dothst continue.
Suckly really really sucky.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
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!
so... what you're saying is politicians should get their supplies from Staples, right?
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....
You know in the 1600's people over in Europe said that setting out in a sailboat to find a new world was pointless, because "the earth is flat!" Good thing ol' Cristobal didn't listen to them. Space travel and exploration is anything but pointless. In case you haven't heard there are quite a few "big rocks" out there that could hit the earth in about 30 years, I believe that is how dinosaurs became extinct, at least that's one theory. Where do you think they came up with the idea for Armageddon? It could happen. But there are plenty of reasons for exploring mars and other planets, they are untapped resources for ore, minerals, possibly even fuel, that we are running out of on this planet. Expand your mind, think "outside the box"!
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. ;-)
Anyone want to start an open-source initiative to put a man on Mars?
Suck figs.
Why is holding onto one set of units or another isolationist? Is it not just that others want to impress there systems onto others? No I'm not American, I just don't see why everybody should be forced to use metric measurements.
Games Workshop Petition
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!
give them something to get them to vote! Why? If people don't want to vote then forget them, they have no right to complain. It's not like you are doing the government a favor for voting...the incentive is a voice in politics...however small it may be.
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!
The only reason those children would 'never have accomplished anything' is that countries that can't afford to pay for food certainly can't afford to pay for education. Since the US government doesn't seem too interested in paying for educating Americans anymore, they're hardly likely to want to spend it on educating others.
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! ~~
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.
I hate race conditions. Nevertheless, the other post doesn't have my GUID.
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
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...
what the fuck are you talking about? Metric = Si units. What would you rather we use than Metres, fucking hand-spans? The Romans were great and all, but Metric makes sense EXACTLY because it ISN'T human-scale. The rest of the universe, mathematics, physics etc etc couldn't really give a shit about human-scale in case you hadn't noticed. Imperial might be great for cooking and carpentry, but they're a total liability for science and engineering.
That was classic intercourse!
Metrication led to the removal of base math from the curriculum, and therefore led to dumbing down. The problem is that once the kids stop thinking, they lose interest, so ability falls even further, which leads to the government lowering standards to try and make the results look better, which leads to even more kids losing interest.
Then you have the ridiculous case of the english greengrocer who was fined for selling bananas by the pound. OK, fair enough, the Europeans who visit England might not want to have to learn Imperial units for when they holiday in the UK, but what about the aging population IN BRITAIN who have used Imperial uinits all their life and end up buying too much/too little of something because they aren't used to the system? Yes they can learn metric units, but why the hell should they have to?
Then you gave the companies who are making money by making their pound tins of food weigh 400g for the same price, cheating everyone out of 2oz of produce. Might not sound like much, but every 8 cans that are sold at 400 grams makes another can to be sold. You have to buy 8 cans to get what you used to get in 7.
Games Workshop Petition
Yeah, stupid stupid human nature...
Stupid, stupid africans who try to get enough kids surviving to adult age to care for them when they are to old to work.
Stupid, stupid people that choose to be poor, black africans when they could have choosen to be born by rich white parents in the US/EU.
And how utterly stupid of them not to be completly independent of their culture, I am sure that you would do much better than them in the same situation.
They are like us, no better, no worse.
Just different context.
Get it!
I shouldn't get so agitated, I guess you were just trolling anyway, fool.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
But, and here's the good part, you also want us to take our money and force them to lead better lives. Even ignoring the hypocracy of that suggestion, if you honestly think that is a good idea, I have this bridge I'd like to sell you.
Let me ask you this. Parents are over there having too many kids and then not being able to feed them. If we come over there and do nothing but give them food, without making it clear to them why they were in this predicament in the first place, what are they going to end up with? Another generation doing the exact same thing. They either have to stop having so many kids or start growing more food. We cannot support their entire population ourselves and it is insane of you to suggest otherwise.
Dyolf Knip
(* 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.
Washington state residents have voted TWICE in a row now to cut taxs seriously.
Yeah, I live in Yakima, WA. Those idiots!
Initiative 695 made all license tab fees go to $35 per year.
Quite a few shortsighted idiots in Washington thought this: "Hey, I pay 200 dollars for my tab! This is going to take it to $35. Wowee!! I don't know where the money for roads, local governments, and subsidies for my job will come from, but who cares, $35!!!"
People seem not to understand that if taxes are cut, the gov't won't be able to provide all the services their used to.
But anyway, no matter how much food we give to africa, a many will still be starving. Just think of what happened in Somalia. Corrupt gov'ts and militias take the food and the people still insist on having a lot of kids. Do you know that there is an average of 6.5 children per woman in Nigeria!! If you live in a famine and drought-stricken nation, you should know that there is not enough food for everyone to have 6 kids!!!!
NASA's budget is tiny compared to our oversized military. They spend a billion dollars on every friggin' stealth bomber! And bush wants to buy 45 more stealth bombers! A series of missions to mars (using the inexpensive Mars Direct plan) would only take 20 billion dollars. That's less than half the cost of Bushes' recent order of stealth bombers! We could easily cut military spending by 1% and that would give NASA plenty of money.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
(* You know in the 1600's people over in Europe said that setting out in a sailboat to find a new world was pointless, because "the earth is flat!" *)
Technically, that was not the primary reason for refusing Columbases earlier offers. Most scholars of the time agreed that the Earth was round. They just did not think the trip would be cost effective because of the distances and risk involved.
And, Columbas did *not* find India and gold trade. The economic benefits to Spain were more indirect (but real) than anticipated.
The point is that you don't know until you actually try something, and that it is hard to anticipate the actual benefits of pure exploration.
IOW, don't look for gold, just look period.
Table-ized A.I.
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
But that doesn't mean that I agree with you. Let me point out a few flaws in your reasoning. You mean like all of us living in the west, straining the worlds resources like, 20 times more per capita than the average african?
I am not saying that they are living a sustainable lifestyle, but think about this before you accuse me of hypocrasy. I agree with you that the solution is not just to give them food and money.
I would suggest a fair chance of competing with us in the "free market" for a start. If the US/EU changed our protectionist policies in the areas where 3:rd world countries could actually compete with us, maybe they could get their own economy to work.
Sorry, I am not interested in your bridge.
You really shouldn't buy things like that, it is usually a scam you know... =)
Note however that im an not calling you "insane". That is bad manners, and not very mature.
People can actually have opinions that differ from your own without being insane.
Ever thought about how the ones that used to put their "insane" opponents in an asylum were mostly communist dictators?
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
Here's what we do to get to Mars:
1. We need an inexpensive space plane. To get research dollars, stop the ISS and shuttle progranm. Right now, they arent' doing anything usefull, and the shuttle costs $500 million a flight.
2. Use the money we saved to fund the X-42 program. This is a spaceplane that uses a scramjet engine to reach about mach 15, then uses a rocket engine for the rest. It will reduce lauch costs to under $1000 dollars a pound. Which is a factor of 10 improvement over the shuttle.
3. Now that we got our spaceplane, research the mars mission. Research a good engine suitable for the mission. Like the VASIMR hydrogen plasma engine, which is under development. It will get a specific impulse of 30,000 seconds compared to 500 seconds for the shuttle's engines. That would allow cheap interplanetary voyages anywhere in the solar system, using very little fuel. Using these engines, you could get to Saturn in less than a year. It would also allow slow intersteller trips of around 1% the speed of light.
4. Anyway, now that we have the suitable tech to get to Mars, we can do it. You can have maybe three launches of 50 million dollars each to launch the parts for the spaceship. You could then assemble it in orbit. Then you go on your merry way to Mars, get there in 2 months, stay for a month, and come back.
A VASIMR-powered spacecraft can be reused. After the Mars mission, it would just have to be refueled and resupplied, and it could be sent out again on another mission to Mars or even Saturn or Jupiter, with the addition of extra fuel tanks.
Read about the VASIMR here
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
>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.
To be sure, we are using natural resources more than a 3rd world nation, but that's not really the issue here. The problem is that they are straining their own resources; ie how much food they can produce. Cheap space access in particular would help alleviate our impact on the environment, suggesting that we dedicate even more effort to that end.
I would suggest a fair chance of competing with us in the "free market" for a start.
It might work, it might not. In any event, it affects NASA's funding requirements not even a little bit, which was the topic of the parent.
Note however that im an not calling you "insane". That is bad manners, and not very mature.
I do apologize; I had thought your post was a response by the thread parent, the one who opined that as long as there is any suffering in the world we should do anything and everytyhing to correct it, regardless of whether it would be effective. Thinking that using all of NASA's funding to try and feed the Third World would definitely be insane. It'd be a striking example of the "Give a man to fish, teach a man to fish" maxim.
In any event, I stand by my previous post. So many people like to say "It's their culture not to practice any safe sex whatsoever" even though it is one of the things keeping them in a state of famine and general misery. They might not like to use condoms, but if they want to get anywhere they're gonna have to start, as well as consider implementing a number of other techniques relating to technology, government, and general way of life which we in the West have found to be far more successful.
For instance, imagine a society which considers anyone with blue eyes to be ineligible for any kind of employment. If they then find themselves having a manpower shortage, causing severe economic problems throughout the land, it is stupid for them to continue discriminating on the basis of eye color. It would be even more stupid for other, wealthier nations to start shipping in brown-eyed laborers. It doesn't solve the problem, it just staves it off for a little while so that in the future, even more people will be affected when it resurfaces.
Ever thought about how the ones that used to put their "insane" opponents in an asylum were mostly communist dictators?
Very true, but just because I think an idea is foolish doesn't mean that it is correct. And if ever there was a stupid idea, shutting down our own programs just to raise funds to bail out some other nation's perpetual foulups is one of them, especially when they will continue to do so.
Dyolf Knip
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.
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.
In addition, there's the value that the new technology can bring to the problem of starvation.
If we end up succeeding with nanotechnology in the timeframe it takes to go to Mars (which looks like a very real possibility; I estimate 5-20 years), then we can use nanofactories to produce enough food for everyone -- without the problem of food distribution. We still have the problem of distributing the factories, but that's a one-time problem, not a continual one like starvation is currently.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Ok, I guess I should have changed the title of my post. I might be slightly offtopic here... I am not against space travel, or the NASA.
In the long run, space exploration is the only way to increase the long term chance of survival for mankind. It is stupid to be dependant on any one planet if we don't have to.
But other than that I suppose we just have to agree that we disagree.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
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."
In this, we are in perfect and total agreement.
Dyolf Knip
In addition, there's the value that the new technology can bring to the problem of starvation.
I see little reason to believe that there is any shortage of food right now. It's just that there is no will, and frankly no particular reason, to hand it out to all of the poor people in the world. Feeding them today pretty much guarantees that you'll need to feed them tomorrow. The only way forward for these people is economic integration with the rest of the world. But, of course, their bullshit-regime governments are too corrupt for that to happen, and the Western leaders don't see point in lining the pockets of corrupt third-world dictators. This merely funds wars which mean more suffering, not less.
Also, the looney left doesn't want to inflict the problems of corrupt corportations on people in the third world. They'd rather watch them starve to death while complaining that the western world in more interested in space exploration.
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
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.
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.
Feet and inches are certainly better suited to efficient everyday use.
See here for an Australian account of why imperial units are better for day-today use.
See here for a Dutch one.
The Imperial system is reproduceable.
The metric systems premise is to be based on the length of the arc from the north pole to the equator (1 metre = 10^-7 of the length of the arc) Only trouble is that the arc isn't uniform OR constant. And their measurements were off by 30 metres. Try and reproduce the metric system, and you might have some trouble.
How would you feel if I insisted that you speak English, under pain of a fine or a prison sentence for non-compliance?
Oh, and while you're thinking about that, try and measure out 1/3 of a metre.
security boar... - Is that like a guard dog? £100 fine.
evoluting - Now at least the last one was amusing, but this isn't even a word : £500 fine.
Referring back to the guy who was prosecuted for selling bananas by the pound, he was prosecuted on the idea that the 1972 European Communities act overrules the 1985 Weights and measures act. How can a law be overruled by one 13 years its predecessor? Surely then the 1972 EC act is countermanded by the 1963 weights and measures act?
Metrication has been forced on the UK population without any consent - the metric system has in this way set itself up as the enemy of democracy.
The only argument for exclusive metrication is a unified international system. When I go to a metric pub, I could ask for a half-litre/500ml of beer. Or I could ask for a pint, and get less than a pint. Or I could come up with a word which means "half-litre". But that wouldn't fit in with the standardized system, would it?
If efficiency is your goal, and you'll never reach it worshipping the metric system, then why not make language more efficient. Get rid of unnecessary verbs - you only ever need to say "more" or "less" "something". We'll use plus and minus, shall we? So "very stupid" becomes plusstupid, "extremely stupid" becomes double-plus-stupid etc. Now we can rid ourselves of the those nasty, inefficient antonyms, through negation. So double-plus-clever becomes double-plus-un-stupid. And we can get rid of synonyms too - how many different ways do you need to say the same thing? "Stupid" has in excess of a dozen (hehe) synonyms - out they go - we don't need them. Likewise "clever".
So the word-phrase "double-plus-un-stupid" covers what normal English could have an inefficient 144+ phrases for ("extremely" has ~12 synonyms, as does "clever") Remove the "un" and you've covered the same number of opposite phrases. We can take out unnecessary and inefficient qualifiers such as pronouns and conjunctions too. I'm going to go with my mate Orwell here and call this Double-talk. Why not take it further? "double" is such an inefficient way of saying "double" after all - why not replace it with a particular syllable - say "oo". We can leave "un" as it is - its quite efficient. "Stupid" has two syllables - we'll make that "stoo" to make it more efficient. So we've managed to get "extremely clever" to the syllables "oounstoo".
Thought apes stupid - plusunright. Apetalk doublepluseffective.
Games Workshop Petition
Funny .sig, in that context. ^_-
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.
Probably a corporate son that's been hungry for a bit, so they can claim it's a "starving child". ^_-
They don't call it the "Red Planet" for nothing.
"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're right." -