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Space Exploration Act of 2002
orn writes "Rep. Lampson introduced a bill (pdf) (H.R. 4742) to the House on May 16th for a human space exploration initiative. I haven't heard a peep about it from the popular press, just a few articles on various space sites: SpaceRef's, the Planetary Society's, the Mars Society's. If you're interested in the sort of thing (and you live in the U.S.), contact your representative and let them know! While you're at it, figure out how to get the popular press aware of this..." On a related note is a story dicussing the controversy over whether the Moon should be developed, which seems a little premature to me.
...The time to declare the Moon a scientific preserve is BEFORE there are serious vested interests trying to develop it.
We already have some litter and junk up there... it took less than thirty years for junk orbiting Earth to become a serious problem.
I am sure there are corporations reading "The Man Who Sold The Moon" right now and wondering whether Heinlein's scheme for putting a visible corporate logon on the Moon is feasable.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
the bill is just a political move designed to funnel money into Johnson space center.
Sending humans to an asteroid is not a "logical step" before going to Mars. It's much harder to land on an asteroid than on Mars. It's just as hard or harder to get to an asteroid as Mars... plus, it's really hard to stop at an atseroid as you have little gravity to help you capture into orbit at an asteroid, at mars you have gravity and an atmosphere..
Other things in this bill are silly too...
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a manned mission to Mars... but this bill is just a political trick, it specifies too many details designed to funnel money to the right places.
Furthermore, to transport building materials roughly 250,000 miles has to be difficult.
Of course. That's why they wouldn't transport building materials, they would use lunar materials.
The Moon offers unique environmental characteristics (low gravity, extreme vacuum, abundant, reliable sunlight half the time, no seismic activity, no radio noise from Earth (on farside), and of course, tourism) that can be exploited in certain scientific and industrial applications. You wouldn't put a city there "just because", it would be done to take advantage of being on the moon.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
The bill is a really good idea, unfortunately, it HAS to be kept quiet to succeed. Contact your representatives, yes Get your friends to contact their representatives, yes. Shout it from the rooftops, put it in the paper, get it on the nightly news, unfortunately, no. If the screaming whining masses find out there is a bill being proposed that actually involves spending money on something OTHER than doubling their welfare check, or throw the cash down some other bottemless pit of no-returns for society, all hell will break loose. To ensure the bill passes, make sure that your congressmen and women and vile creatures only hear heaps of praise and support for this.
In most cases, unmanned exploration is cheaper, safer, and the better research tool.
However, human missions in space are a lot more exciting to the non-science community, and when it comes to getting funding, Congress doesn't care as much about good science as it does about good publicity.
So we underfund non-sexy stuff like supercolliders, oribiting telescopes, etc and yet we're always willing to dig deep to shoot John Glenn back up just for old times' sake.
Well, there's really nothing sexy about John Glenn, but hopefully you get the point.
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Long-term effects of Bush deficits
That is Bush Sr's Space Exploration Initiative? Bush Sr went to NASA and wanted to do something exciting in space. NASA came back with a hugely expensive proposal. Bush Sr *KNEW* it wouldn't get through Congress and only lukewarmly supported it. As predicted, Congress smacked NASA telling them 'uh uh no!'
We all love the idea of space exploration and colonization (or at least most of us here at slashdot do), but NASA really needs to have some fiscal and technical responsibility in order to do this.
re X-33: choosing the one with the niftiest tech and not one that had the best chances of success (MacDAC's proposal)
X-34: forcing the FastTrac engine into the program and killing it that way when the engine fell behind schedule. X-38: where NASA designed the thing and then told the contractor's 'build this now' instead of simply saying, 'We have a requirement for a vehicle to do this, that and the other. Build one and we'll buy it.'
ISS: NASA admits it doesn't have a handle on the costs here, not the least due to the fact that their accounting sucks rotten eggs.
While I would LOVE to see the NASA's logo on the Mars lander and the ole Stars and Stripes planted on Martian surface, the new administrator ahs his work cut out for him already cleaning up NASA. Throwing more money at NASA RIGHT NOW might be a bad mistake. After we see whether or not NASA has been cleaned up, oh yes indeed, go for it.
Before though might be a less than wise idea...
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
You forgot one of the most important ones:
You're right about a (relatively) big gravity well, just build your ship, get it started towards earth, an do a slingshot manuever to pick up some free speed.
- sig? who is this sig of which you speak?
If you're interested in the sort of thing (and you live in the U.S.), contact your representative and let them know!
Sure, reply & tell them NOT to consider the measure.
First of all, look at the sponsors - almost all Lampson and a bunch of other Texans looking for a pile of cash ($50 mil next year & $200 mil in 2004, if you care to read the bill) to pour into Houston, Huntsville, Canaveral et al. I can smell the pork from here.
Second, $250 mil is NOT sufficient to get us to the aims of the bill (orbit an asteroid, orbit mars, etc), so this is just the key opening the door to more expenditures. This also relies on the idea that, for whatever reason, we NEED bipeds making orbits around asteroids & Mars.
Why? If anyone can tell me what in hell a human is going to do while orbiting an asteroid or Mars, other than look out the window and say "Cool" they win a cupie doll. I believe in sending up good satellites. I believe in innovative instrumentation. What I don't believe in is risking human life and probably tens of billions of dollars in toto for a damned boondoggle while we've got terrorists bombing buildings and one in six of us without health care.
Between the stupidity in general of hurtling someone out to Mars to do things machines to do very well without him and the whif of ham drifting across the plains of Texas I'm completely against it. Looks like Houston wants to beef up the space program to make up for the loss of Enron.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
They don't seem interested in space or anything productive nowadays. Crime, terror, or sex is what the media likes.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
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From there it's just a matter of time.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I agree that alot of good science is underfunded, but I don't think that manned missions are benefitting from it. I mean look at the space station, Congress is trimming billions from the program, as well as forcing them to scale back the number of shuttle launches a year. Add to that the fact that had funding stayed at levels from the mid 80s, a Mars mission would likely be already well under way. It just always seems like the first manned mars mission is like 15 years away. In the 80s they said we'd do it around the turn of the century, then in the 90s it was somewhere between 2005 and 2010. Now it looks like 2020. Well thats enough of my ranting.
Why all the talk about colonizing planets when space colonies seem such a more elegant solution? (more info here and here)
Before modding this as troll, please read the argument.
Disagree. The lunar missions, regardless of the actual reason they were pushed for in the 60's started the tech revolution, put the US at the very forefront, and held us there for thirty years.
I've always thought the US should go back to the Moon for public relations, and go to Mars solely for the tech we'll have to develop to do it. That's what government spending is all about, don't forget.
LV
Woot w00t w007.
the worries about the mooon being totally overdeveloped are, in my opinion, unfounded. The moon is geologically dead, and there may be trace amounts of water located on the surface somewhere, but any development that will be done there will be with resources coming from other locations (i.e. Earth, Mars) and by the time that technology is around that converts geologically dead moon into viable construction material, we'll have little problems with garbage as well.
Robotic probes would still lead to the development of better launch and propulsion systems, so even going the robotic path, we would acquire the capabilities that make manned space travel affordable. In the long run, the use of robotic probes would not hold back manned exploration very much, but it would yield much more scientific data in the short run.