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NASA Wants Astronauts on Mars by 2010
FeloniousPunk writes "According to
this article
in the UK Guardian, NASA intends to send a manned mission to Mars by 2010, using nuclear propulsion. President Bush may announce this project, called Project Prometheus, at the State of the Union address." Here's
good background and context;
for technical background, I recommend
Zubrin
or
Stern.
The JPL will be involved in developing the nuclear propulsion tech, intended to cut the interplanetary trip from six months to two. Apparently the theory is that this proposal won't get shot down like the last Mars proposal because the shorter mission will save money. Here's hoping public response has progressed beyond "oh no! did he say nuclear?!"
In related news,
jkcity writes:
"according to this article by the BBC, the Chinese plan to have a man in space by October 2003."
We need to get the F off this planet and start spreading out.
Putting all your eggs in one basket, even if that basket is a planet, is a bad idea.
Hey, in 2015 we can start In Soviet Mars jokes instead. We'll be ascending to the next level.
Live life to the fullest. It's not that life is short, but that you are dead for so long.
Very cool they're finally going there! Hope they'll come up with some good stuff found on Mars!
Alan Perlis once said: "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing"
I wouldn't worry too much about that. It'll be more like:
"Oh no! Did he say nukuler?!"
whether or not we will send men to mars by 2010, it will be whether or not President Bush can pronounce Project Prometheus at the state of the union address.
:)
It would be an improvement if, of the president, people said, "Did he say nuclear?"
Mostly people have been saying, "Oh, no! Did he say nuc-u-lar?"
Is that is freakin awesome. I am glad we are finally moving beyond our own little blue ball again. Something I would like to know though... aren't there easier/faster ways of propulsion already in existance than even nuclear? I mean sure, they don't accelerate very quickly, but hey. Those NASA guys know more than me...
;-)
Although, I am pretty sure GW doesn't.
Actually, I think Bush pronouces it 'nook-ya-lar' (a la Homer Simpson).
When the prez says the Mars ship uses "nukular" power, nobody will know what he's talking about. Problem solved.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
That brings up an interesting point. Say NASA did fake the moon landing, and all the data about the moon is fake. If atleast some high level officials knew now, ie. those making the mars decision, wouldn't they want to go to the moon? Considering we have no real data about it, wouldn't they want to check out the moon for inhabitating it, capitalizing, etc. Seems weird that anyone would car to jump accross the street when they haven't even been to the crosswalk. WOw that was a horrible analogy
We can have bots go up there and get audio, visual, and geological samples, so why send up a person then? I say we set up moon colonies, then we'll talk about mars.
Live life to the fullest. It's not that life is short, but that you are dead for so long.
Did he say nuclear.
I think the dead giveaway will be when they select Ben Affleck to be on the landing team.
Karma this down if you must, but this is a serious question:
Why do we want to spend that much money on going to another planet? Is there that much more we can learn by sending people there? There is probably more useful information to be learned by studing physics and space here from earth, don't you think?
eventually we're going to have to leave this planet for one reason or another. it would be nice to be able to do it at our convenience, rather than being forced off.
Yeah, but I'd just be happy he wasn't on the earth anymore.
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
I'm confused on how the use of nuclear power will help us get to mars quicker. I understand the benefits of using nuclear power to generate electricity, or create steam to drive an engine, and such. But these type of engines only work on earth. Once you're in outer space, the only way to move is by conservation of momentum. That it to move forward, you have to throw something out the back (e.g. rocket engines). So to get to mars or anywhere else, you need to have enough fuel that can be thown out the back. I don't see nuclear power helping here. Does anyone know how nuclear power will help us get to mars faster. I can see how nuclear power will help generate electricity on the shuttle to help sustain human life, but I don't see how it helps propulsion?
Space exploration and colonization is the next logical step for any technology based society. Its like asking why someone decided to explore the north pole, because no one had been there before.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Wow, Mars by 2010?
:). Now we need to get some competition going against ESA and China. Or perhaps co-operation.
:).
This is what the US needs
Actually if Russia, ESA and Nasa through there collective mights together it could prove worthwhile and improve relations. Especially as it looks as though we're going to war against Iraq...Maybe they could test it by sending Saddam out first? Have it fly by Mars, then head back to the Sun. Last thing we'd need is for Saddam to land on some highly advanced planet that hasn't had war in thousands of years, where they bring him back to life...Ok I know this is Sci Fi
StarTux
"Right this way, Mr. Hussein, we've changed our attitude toward Iraq and have decided to trade nuclear arms. Yes sir, step on board to see the finest weapons grade plutonium."
"Software is like sex. It's better when it's free." -Linus Torvalds
I don't care how dumb Bush is. If I'd known he was going to announce this I'd have voted for him.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Fat Chance.
Not that i don't think we should be going there, I just don't think it will happen by then. America lost its interest in Space Travel long ago and they will have no interest in funding this. It's going to take another country doing it first to provoke America to get on the ball. Even then we'll only be doing it out of spite. Of course if this proposal is based on one of Bush's magical projected revenue formulas they won't have enough money to even buy spacesuits by then.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
I read a book in which a guy from NASA was being quizzed on the benefits of manned space exploration. He said you cannot make a rational case for sending people rather than robots on scientific or economic grounds. But that's not the point. As long as it is possible to go, people will want to go. There's no scientific or economic reason to climb Everest, travel to the poles, or circumnavigate the globe in a hot-air balloon either, but that's not stopping people.
You also can't beat the inspirational value of the Apollo program. There's something about spaceflight that galvanizes people like nothing else on Earth.
Within the next few decades, launch costs will decline by an order of magnitude. Within our lifetimes, I believe we will see the wealthiest tycoons finance (and possibly participate in) private space exploration, in much the same way that they financed earthly exploration in the past.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
You're missing out on the long term. Mars may one day be colonized by humanity, or useful for some other purpose. It has materials on it that could possibly be terraformed creating an earthlike state. Now while these projects are far off in comming, probably far out enough that i'll be dead once they happen, it doesn't mean it's all for nought.
And lastly, "because it's there". I would entertainment in man reaching mars, it's extremely exciting don't you think? (i wonder how many extremely practical people are going to shoot me down for that)
Photos.
"I don't think I'm alone when I say I'd like to see more and more planets fall under the ruthless domination of our solar system."
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Like most of NASA's projects, it'll go massively over budget, eat vast amounts of cash, take several times longer than anticipated and ultimately fail to deliver.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
We won't know what we will learn until we get there -- much as we didn't know what we'd learn on the moon until we got there.
Yes, we did learn *a whole bunch* by going to the moon, even if most of it wasn't evident until recently (technological gains).
By going to Mars, I'll be looking a few decades later for another kevlar, microchip, or similar coming out of it.
Really, what we learn from mars won't be so big. What we learn from the trip itself could be huge.
Rod Taylor
"We've been restricted to the same speed for 40 years," Mr O'Keefe said. "With the new technology, where we go next will be limited only by our imagination."
I think what he meant was, where we go will be limited only by our imagination, and the speed of light.
Why are we geting information about an American project from a British news source?
Weren't there several organizations looking to reach Mars without the support of a major government? As far as I know the difficulty was not the technology but the expense that was preventing such a trip from happening.
People have been talking about Mars landings for at least 30 years, and some proposals have included terraforming it and colonizing. As I understand it, that was considered easier than colonizing the moon because Mars has a significant atmosphere.
Best of luck to em all, though. If nothing else, it will mean lots of jobs for geeks.
This is a ploy on GW's part ... it's 3-fold:
... it increases their coffers AND their public relations. Plus, one of the 2 largest space centers is in Texas ... good for the local economy for years after he's out of office.
... it always reaps rewards in the private sector long after the completion of the trip and for much more than the cost of the program. It's just too bad I really can't see this as anything other than a political machination.
... while I believe that Kennedy -also- used it as a political device, at least Kennedy was trying to boost our national pride and point out to the world that we have the best defense technology. I don't see Bush as doing this for anything other than personal reasons and pork barrel politics.
1) The people who are most decisively against GW's politics are also those who are most for space exploration. It gives those folks something positive to see about the president. Think of it as a distraction from the pending war, which is a distraction from the fact that he has no idea how to run foreign policy.
2) Some of GW's closest friends and allies are going to reap billions from the program. Defense companies love space projects
3) There's no way that the program can be finished before 2010 (we'll be VERY lucky to get it by then). That means it gives the voters, if they are pro-space, incentive to re-elect him (this is corrollary to #1 I suppose) since anyone running against him is going to be likely to point out the budget pratfalls in such a program.
Unfortunately, I really like the idea of exploration
Worse
Here's hoping NASA at least finds a way to do it the right way, rather than turning this into a further mess like the ISS turned out to be.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
All your Space are belong to us ;)
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
As far as the US is concerned, if it doesn't pay for itself or get someone reelected, then it doesn't happen. A manned Mars flight does neither, therefore they are not going.
Those in charge of China have a different agenda and a different set of values. They have the basic makeup to succeed in this.
Yes, Mars will be red.
... as if anything had happened. NASA's reflex will probably be "great, we'll do it, triple our budget", and Congress' knee-jerk reaction will be "forget it". No?
Just get some country x (preferable not on the best of terms with the United States) to declare similar intensions for Mars. Then we'll see the ball start rolling.
Mars by 2010?? Why not go to the moon first, considering we've "never been there?" Or maybe they'll fake the Mars landing too, you know, just to beat the...umm...*mumble*...
"NASA intends to send a manned mission to Mars by 2010, using nuclear propulsion"
Glow in the dark astronaughts
Isn't knowing the soil composition of Mars worth 20 billion?
Nothing new here, but we all know that life on this planet needs to reach a new level. A new way of life has to be discovered to drive our system of living. Discovery of the new world, the industrial revolution, invention of computers, the internet.. all these are things that drove economies around the globe. What's the next thing that changes our lives and keeps the ever growing population of humans going? When will the earth run out of oil to fuel our tech jobs? When is our ratio of arable land to food needs going to turn deeply against us? When does a nuclear plant in North Korea meltdown, thus causing a billion to die? Populating Mars, or any other planet will not prevent us from repeating our same mistakes, but it will prolong the human virus.
Can't the just cycle there like the rest of us? It will help theyre dropping calcium levels too.
What about that wax-based propulsion system that is supposedly very cheap? /. posted the story a few days back here.
Could this announcement also be in response to this statement by the Space Frontier Foundation to ensure public support?
I don't think it's possible to overestimate the inspirational value this would have on young minds. All the ability in the world is worthless without motivation.
Seeing dreams come true is highly motivational, and as such, well worth the expense.
Talisman
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
Given that Prometheus was punished by the gods with having an eagle eat his liver for all eternity, don't you think NASA could come up with a better name for the project?
"I think you guys with quotes in your signatures should go have an original thought." -- Dan Miller
In related news, jkcity writes: "according to this article by the BBC, the Chinese plan to have a man in space by October 2003."
Ya know... given that they invented black powder and have some pretty small people living there you'd have thought this would have happened already. Either by design or by accident.
So maybe we should hold off on going to Mars for awhile?
I watched a Discovery Channel special on this.
They proposed that a nuke could be detonated in front of the craft, and a giant sail would capture the energy from the blast and rapidly accelerate the craft. Do that a few times, using nukes with small enough yields to not break the astronauts necks, and it should accelerate them nicely without having to lug around shitloads of fuel.
Talisman
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
a small blurb says NASA is preparing two robots for a mission to mars.
George Bush = Hardcore
"We choose to go to the moon and do the other things, not only because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win."
Before worrying about space, the old NACA was a decent research based organization. Along came NASA and Mercury / Gemini / Apollo, they had a mission and did it in grand style. Ever since, they've been more interested in protecting their turf and knocking down private ventures into space, even going so far as nasty back stage tricks to keep Tito from getting into space as a tourist, as if being a tourist was somehow dirty and ... commercial!
I'm all for getting into space, but one shot missions to Mars or even the moon aren't the answer. They need to get back to research basics, let space tourism take off (ha), and in general get out of the way. They can't even handle the space station, their budget is blown to heck and back, how are they supposed to handle a mission to mars on top of it?
Infuriate left and right
Wasn't that abandoned after the X-303 was hijacked, re-captured and helped by some funny little grey men to save their civilisation by fixing a time machine?
I want a firsst post by then too, but monkeys will probably fly out my butt before then.
Here's hoping public response has progressed beyond "oh no! did he say nuclear?!"
Don't you mean, "oh no! did he say nucular?!"
President Bush may announce this project, called Project Prometheus, at the State of the Union address.
Does Babelfish support the Bush language yet? If he's going to speak about this, we commoners may need some help in understanding what he's saying.
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
By 2010 we should have launched a second manned mission to Jupiter! It's supposed to be a combined US/Russian endeavor...
Where's my Pan Am flight to the moon!?
It seems to me 2010 is a fairly unrealistic goal. First, the technology proposed has not been properly tested to put people to ride on it. To do that you need _at least_ 10 years.
Second, in order to send people, the whole 'going there and coming back' routine needs to be run a few times without a hiccup. I mean, this was done for the Moon, and a Mars mission would be far more risky.
Finally, I have no doubt that if the engineers are given sufficient resources, all of this can be done by, say, 2015. I do not think that this will simply happen, however, especially given the political situation and current fiscal policy that implies huge deficits well into the future. In fact, 2020 seems far more reasonable given the current situation.
NASA spokesman Glenn Mahone acknowledged that O'Keefe did talk generally about the upcoming State of the Union but did not make a prediction that Bush would use it to make any NASA-related announcements."
So don't start packing your bags, yet. There is also the question of how to keep the people making the journey alive and healthy. Even on relatively short space missions, there is a significant (~20%) muscle loss, and measurable bone loss.
I hope it works.
Man Gets 70mpg in Homemade Car-Made from a Mainframe Computer
NASA should use Asymetric Capacitors instead of nuclear pulsed power. It would be cheaper, provide nice constant acceleration, and of course hush those anti-nuclear foe who are afraid of what they don't understand. NASA patented a version of this propulsion system about one year ago this January. Here are the links:
http://jnaudin.free.fr/html/lifters.htm
http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0211001 [PDF file attempting to explain how it works]
Tom Bearden has these energy sources.
Not sure if you're referring to the ignorance of the public, or Bush. Funny either way, really. And sad. Very sad. Heh.
My deviantArt site
Well the question is about what is the speed of matter thrown away from the ships engines. With typical rocket engines (chemically powered), the speed of the propellant shot out of the engine is something less than 10km/sec. But when you use nuclear power to generate heat and pressure to matter, the speed of propellant coming out of the jets can be nearly 100km/h. That means that you can get better thrust with less fuel. (The biggest problem with interplanetary travelling now is the huge amount of fuel needed to make the trip in reasonable time, i guess.)
And sorry about my bad english.
I am for space exploration and have really started hating Bush recently? How did you know this correlation?
.
/.?
Wait a minute . .
1. He wants to abolish taxes on dividends
2. He wants to start a preemptive attack on a another nation
3. He wants cut income taxes disproportionately in the favor of the rich
4. He wants to stop even the most mild forms of affirmative action
I see . . . you were just playing the odds here. I mean, how many dumb rednecks read
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
until you see him at the local 7-11 after the filming is complete.
Am I alone in thinking that a moonbase would be a much cooler thing to have. I mean it would be permanent, so we would be able to learn so much more about whatever it is going to other planets/satellites helps us to learn about.
I can't imagine the cost being more than a trip to Mars, considering we were almost capable of setting up a moonbase 40 years ago.
The moonbase would be a much easier project than even the ISS, certainly much more expandable, and it would then be much easier to (for instance) build another station in Moon orbit from the moon base later on.
I think a moon base would be much more useful, and a much greater sign of our acievement in space than a 'day-trip' to mars.
-Nex
This sig has been deprecated.
Ummm... SUPPOSING that the moon landing WAS fake, couldn't they just fake the Mars landing too? Think about it, the Bush regime would have get alot of funding that they could siphon into their own pockets secretively. Just get George Lucas to do the FX for the landing. But for god's sake, keep him from putting cutesy little aliens everywhere!!! That would be an insult to our intelligence at best, and an insult to martian lifeforms at worst.
-- If you like this post, add me to your friend's list. If you don't then read this!
Un-news
How do you expect to fund such a project when you keep pushing more tax cuts for the rich, George?
If this new dividend tax cut goes through, how much revenue will the government not get from the tax on Gates' $99M and Ballmer's $37M dividends, among others? How does cutting taxes for the rich stimulate the economy? Most rich people HOARD their money, they practically live in mortal fear of spending it.
Oh well, it doesn't matter, anyway. The fucking Republicans are fully in charge and led by a man who lost the election but had the Presidency handed to him by his brother, so in a few more years there will just be a cloud of rubble floating where the Earth used to be: The economy's in the shitter. Corporations who don't pay any taxes (via loopholes) are raping the Constitution and the citizens who DO pay taxes. Our rights are being stripped away from us a little more every day. Bush is totally fixated on preparing for a trumped-up war in Iraq, for no other reasons than oil and his daddy's bruised ego. Meanwhile, he's barely acknowedging the growing North Korean threat, which IS something we should be concerned about. I don't know about any of you other Slashdotters, but I've lost sleep over North Korea lately.
Enjoy the time you have left, people. As long as the fucking Republicans are running things, it's getting shorter every day.
Here's hoping public response has progressed beyond "oh no! did he say nuclear?!"
Yeah, more likely the public response will be "Oh no! Did he say noo-kyoo-lar?!"
Seriously though, we put a man on the Moon 8 years after Kennedy announced his plan, and since much of that technology is still in use, I don't see it being out of the question to make Mars by 2010.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
If nothing else, maybe this will make a few people realize nuclear's the best energy source mankind has at the moment. For spaceships, you save tons of weight since uranium contains so much energy plus you can use emerging technologies such as ion engines. Juice's not something you're short of.
We managed to can the singel stage to orbit programs. The shuttle never managed to achieve its goal of low cost to orbit. The space station may have to be mothballed.
Now we have a sideshow brought to you by the same people that brought you the TIA, the DMCA, The mickey mouse copyright extension, dissarray in the international community, and the BILL GATES DIVIDEND TAX CUT.
IT would be nice if our government would put some money where it would do a damn bit of good for the country. You want a space project that will be usefull MOON BASE and a LOW COST BOOST SYSTEM.
It would even be better if the money wasn't flushed down the toilet that nasa has become. Why did the space shuttle explode ? Because idiots had to build pieces of it in every one of the 50 states.
Ahh well enough venting. I should be old enough to no longer expect anything usefull from washington D.C.
Sending a man to the moon created one of the largest (comparativly) techonological booms to hit mankind. Not only did the economy benefit, but the pure sciences benefited as well. When we send a man/woman to Mars, the economy is going to benefit and the pure sciences are going to benefit. Our children will have a revitilzed interest in the sciences and this will lead in the long run to an even greater economic and scientific upturn. Additionaly, I think it would be wise of Bush Jr. to announce that the first person to set foot on Mars would be a Women. Not only would this be politicaly wise, but it would also be philosophicaly wise. Bush doing this would set forth a clear prouncement of the end of gender discrimination... of course, it would be even cooler to have a homosexual be the first person. Either way, my $0.02 on the socio-economic ramifications of this.
'Truth' is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it...
Ok, ok, cheap shot, I know...
Actually, the sooner we actually do this (land people on Mars), the sooner we get to hear people whining that "it was all a hoax, just like the moon landings!" I really can't wait to hear the conspiracy theories on this one.
He said noo-kyoo-ler.
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
I think space exploration is amazing. remarkable. From my days as a young boy when sending men into space on the tip of a rocket was an astounding feat, I have been enraptured by every new discovery, every photo sent back from a probe, every new push beyond our boundaries and limitations. I can't get enough of it. At the same time, there's the cost... well you know where I'm going with this.
I can never decide what is the greater injustice - having outrageous space exploration budgets while people starve and live in shacks (even within the US), or having outrageous military budgets while people starve and live in shacks (even within the US), or if it's both.
sorry to be a buzzkill, but these truths can't be overlooked.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
I thought it was Homer Simpson's, "Nuculer! It's pronounced Nuculer!" (I'm not sure about Homer's spelling though...)
- People seem much brighter after being set on fire.
:P
Don't forget the story about the primal animal sacrifice and Prometheus either-- how he divided the cow up into two parts and agreed to give the Gods their first pick-- One part was the meat and the other was the entrails and fat. And Prometheus set the fat on fire, and the Gods saw the light and were fooled into taking the fat, bones, and entrails because they thought it to be a flaming cow.
I agree though-- Prometheus as a trickster is probably NOT what you want to name your mission after... But at least he always sided with humanity against the gods. But this is inviting disaster
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Shouldn't this be from the i'll-believe-it-when-i-fucking-see-it dept.?
I want to believe.
blog |
So what has changed? Well, China will in the coming months join the spacefaring nations in a big way. Personally, I am convinced that from the start their goal with the manned space program has been to go to Mars. After all, what better way to upstage the West, and show strength?
IMHO, this possibility is just now dawning on the Bushes, who mired in good ol' Cold War thinking, will stop at nothing to beat them to it .
While their motives may be questionable (are they ever anything else for this administration?), the upside is that one way or the other, humans will finally get to go to the Red Planet, we will do some decent science, and maybe then move on to other (dare I say greater?) things.
--A Polar bear is a Rectangular bear after a coordinate transform.
Going to Mars is cheap. Giving lunch money to countries like N. Korea and Iraq so they can instead use it to build a military that will eventually be used to try and destroy us is expensive. Giving billions to failing countries like Argentina to keep them afloat so we don't have an even bigger mess to clean up later is expensive. Letting our own citizens defraud every government aid program (welfare, medicare, medicaid, etc...) is expensive.
We may actually gain some valuable return from a visit to Mars. That is something we don't get from barely anything out we spend money on now. Except for maybe National Defense, but most people want to cut that anyway.
Should they really name this project after a titan that was eternally punished for giving man fire? If NASA is trying to sell this to the public, what they name things is actually fairly important.
Let's give those poor and grouchy folks something to dream of! What's a few billion more?
* true! That's more than $1000/US citizen/year... You may not be paying that tax today, but your kids will pay for it somehow.
Wah!
There's no chance this would happen by 2010. I takes NASA 3-4 years to send a bot to mars using the same tech they always have, and now they're magicly going to send people there in 7 using a propusion system that hasn't been used before?
I smell bs.
The Guardian article is bunk.
1. There has been no indication of this project anywhere I've seen. It would stick out! The NERVA/Zeus project was thirty years ago. The engineers are long gone, and there are no new ones.
2. The U.S. has no nuclear (nook-you-ler, if you're a C-grade fratboy from Texas) rocket program.
3. Nook-you-ler rockets are illegal under current treaties -- I think. Not that that would stop Bush -- treaties are for the evil, not the good.
4. 8 years is not enough time. The U.S. doesn't have the infrastructure to mount a mission.
5. The U.S. is going into debt at the rate of 1.3 billion dollars a day. We're spending ourselves utterly broke while cutting taxes. I don't think even the current regime is stupid enough to go to Mars when schools are setting up two daily shifts to save money. Or are they?
6. Politically impossible -- tho I qualify this in saying that this is the first marketing-driven administration in U.S. history. They've sold us on the idea that Saddam mounted the 9-11 attacks. I may be underestimating their maniuplative abilities.
7. This story is based on the world of one, count 'em, ONE "NASA administrator". The threshold used to be at least two believeable sources. The collapse of standards in the '90's set us up for any clown to float a story now -- bubonic plague vials on the loose! News at 11!
8. As an old space junkie, I wish the story was true -- sort of. I'd have preferred an ion drive, which is easier to maintain, ulimately faster, and doesn't carry the nuke label for marketing reasons.
9. If the story is true, why do I sense that the speculative capitalists that are now in charge of the guvmint (as opposed to businessmen -- the difference between Enronomics and the local Chamber of Commerce) would be trying to wring even more tax money out of us all? That would be on top of the 100-200 billion that the current contracts to attack/rebuild Iraq are going to cost the U.S. We are getting robbed here. NASA did the moon landings on the cheap -- I don't think the prvate equity managers will be as motivated to keep costs down.
Don't know, I have a feeling NASA's time has come and gone. Their budget is continually being slashed and burned in favour of military spending. They also are pouring so much money into the ISS and shuttle missions. It all gives me a feeling that the ESA's time has come. Not that it really matters, whoever manages it, it will still be damn cool.
Bush could use such a program to develop even more and more terrible nuclear weapons. A cadre of tens of thousands of weapons inspectors must be dispatched to the US at once with full authority to access all facilities and materials to find illicit programs to develop such weapons. Noncompliance should result in an invasion of the US and removal of the Bush regime from power. (Hey, live by the sword,...)
Hasn't anyone learned from War of the Worlds? The musical version from 1978 actually had an epilogue where they talk about the future where NASA control Pasadena is going to Mars, but then all communication with the guys get cut off, and they see cylinders with a green mist behind them going towards Earth...
The comments made about the "irrationality" of the public fearing the dangers of nuclear materials are somewhat ironic.
The slashdot community is more likely the group that is brainwashed, not the public. The DOE has invested significant
effort in marketing nuclear power to the scientific community.
In her book, Dr. Helen Caldicott reports that between the Russians and American space programs, there has been a %15
accident rate. Even if that number is vastly overstated (personally I think it is), NASA's new shoestring budgets are
increasing the risk relative to the past, and one must consider the consequences of an explosion during launch
(remember the Space Shuttle?) Plutonium (one of the most carcinogenic substances known to man) gets distributed
widespread through the atmosphere.
According to Caldicott, Dr. John Gofman, professor emeritus of medical physics at UC Berkeley, has connected previous
plutonium-based space accidents to a world-wide increase in lung cancer.
What risk is acceptable? Is a 1% chance of giving 5,000 people lung cancer worth the convenience of using nuclear power in one launch?
In this light, NASA does not seem so benevolent after all; is it really risking lives
in order to pursue scientific and bureaucratic agendas?!!
Don't we already have one running?
I hope we will be converted to the metric system by then... or a crash could really hurt..
It's pronounced Nuke-ular...Nuke-ular.
How the heck did the parent get moded to a 5?
"Two words for those that say I am wrong. "Superconductor Supercollider".
One word from some who says you're wrong...
"Politics"
The real reason that the SCSC did not get funding is that it was going to be built in Texas. There was a MAJOR campaign by several states to get the SCSC. Texas won. The US House delegation from Illinois was VERY torqued off, as they felt the SCSC should have gone to Illinois. Specifically, they believed that Fermilab in Batavia should have been home to the SCSC. Indeed, they felt an entitlement existed for Fermilab to be the home of all major government funded research in high energy physics, and the only reason that Texas got selected as the final choice was "politics." The Illinois delegation were able to buttonhole members of the house with Luddite tendencies, and get their support to kill the SCSC along with other worthy research projects.
I'd point out that during the legislative session in which the SCSC, and other funding for important research was killed the usual partisan voting patterns in the US House were absent. The voting pattern was primarily alone 'pork barrel' lines. If a research project was in a members district, or nearby; the member voted for the project, otherwise the member voted opposition. Most members that voted for one project voted for most, if not all projects. The reason being that they would scratch the backs of other members with research projects in their backyards if they would in turn vote for a research project in your backyard.
It didn't help that the SCSC was going to be named for Ronald Regan, given that the House at that time was controlled by Democrats. The Bush (41st) administration blundered in trying to name it for Regan. If they had been smart they would have named it for some politically neutral individual, say a prominent physicist ala Fermi.
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
The JPL will be involved in developing the nuclear propulsion tech
Oh sh8t! I live near that place. I shudder the first "Ooooops!". These are the same guys who oversaw the mix-up between US and Metric units.
Table-ized A.I.
while hydrogen is fairly common throughout space (obviously), theres really not that much free hydrogen floating around. Most of the kind that would be accessible with such a method is found in gaseous clouds, of which are nowhere near earth.
-
Somebody tell GWB that Hussein has all his bio/chem/nuke WMDs hidden there.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
But we live in a society of diverse opinions (I am pretty agnostic, myself). I have no problem if Bush picked one of the four on the list. Maybe even 2 of the four. But doing all 4 at the same time really is ramming his personal values down the throats of all Americans . . . unless you agree with all 4 of his actions, in which case, you are in the minority.
To be honest, I really am only against the preemptive attack when the rest of the world thinks its stupid. I don't consider the other issues "life threatening," so who cares? However, I am very much against a president who thinks he is so popular that he can go on an agenda rampage, with a complete disregard of the other very different, but "valid" opinions in this country.
Believe me, my post was not about liberal verse conservative. It was about political moderation verse someone who is acting like a stupid redneck and giving Texans, like myself, a bad image.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
We throw 1-2 trillion dollars at the problem over the next 8years. We to goto mars and we get a replacement for the shuttle and a fully operational ISS. Cause we will need both in order to build a ship of the size required to goto mars. Then agian we all know this is simply to spite China. America is the space power and we won't let the china think it can match us. They goto the moon we goto Mars. They goto mars we goto Venus or Jupiters Moons... Its a power play for americas ego "Were the Best"
Does it make sense to hurt our relations with other countries just so we can play Mr. Policeman to Iraq?
Besides, that's fine, if that was the only thing Bush was pushing at the moment, but look at the list. To get ONE of these items on the list right, don't you think it would take 100% of his time? My complaint is that he is doing all these at once, which are all contraversal and the end result will be that they all get messed up because they were addressed in haste. It is like he has his own agenda and doesn't give an fsck what the rest of the nation or world think.
I know politicians usually have trouble listening, but this takes it to an extreme.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Hells bells we can't tolerate Arizona 9 months out of 12 and we want to go to Mars? Maybe .. as a prison colony for the 13 Debiolian and 23 Slackmolian earthlings. Oh yes !
Or risk another Sputnik. The European Space Agency Has it's sites on Mars for 2025. Some Russian scientists want to be there by 2015 - And good luck to them!
Here's some links:
The BBC
Space Daily
Deutsche Welle
Editorial Comment.
I've concluded the recent sabre rattling is a ploy to raise $675B to get the nation on course to Mars. After everyone realizes we don't need to war with Iraq or North Korea.
Divert that war chest! GO USA!
Rousseau once said, "Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains." Mars is the opportunity to break these chains, and regain what freedom we may.
:) free software. :) Than has ever existed before.
Mars is our destiny. That is, outward. The possibilities for new expressions of freedom and humanity, and economic systems, lie in building new civilizations. On earth there is a gigantic infrastructure of economic powers that RESIST change. The best ideas are not readily implemented, or are practically impossible to implement.
America became, in some sense, what it was BECAUSE we had a frontier early in its career. That frontier, and the spirit it developed among its settlers gave America its sense of independence, innovation and a GREAT sense of self-empowerment.
To the point, a paucity of western infrastructure westward of this expanding America better empowered the formation of a culture radically different than its predecessors. Not wholly, of course, as old money still existed.
But now, America has few or no frontiers within its borders. America's infrastructure has become stiff in every corner. The people at Slashdot.org know this. Microsoft's infrastructure is outstanding. Oil industries pull our strings. We cannot fundamentally change what America is, how it conducts its economics, without a fight. The root is dug in and will not give up its space as long as it lives.
Mars has no infrastructure and therefore new social, economic, and political ideas implemented by colonists there are more apt to emerge into their natural designs undistorted by the effects of competing institutions.
Like the original colonists of America, cultural artifacts, physical and ideational, brought over to the frontier will be freely reinterpreted without undue outside influence. However, the opportunity of social self-determination on Mars is unparalleled by any in history, for none has had at its disposal the vast library of knowledge and technology available today. The coupling of knowledge and self-reliance will allow the best ideas to flourish. The culture of the second and third Martian generations has the potential of being truer to the ideals of social justice, equality, and
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
it was Buzz Aldrin who punched out that goof reporter.
Because it's all about power. Didn't you see the post that says China plans to have a man on space by 2003? They don't want to have to rush again the way they did hads to rush againts the russians for the moon. They are trying to keep the leadership.
Why would they want to send a man there if there's no theat that other nation could do it first? In the sake of science? HAHAHAHHAHA
Every single high class ever existed wanted their people as stupid as possible and this one is no exception.
Aren't we suposed to be returning to Jupiter by then to recapture Discovery and discover the true nature of the monolith?
I was trying to make the point that he is doing 4 things that are contraversal, at the same time, which will only make him unpopular.
When the University of Texas (the unversity I graduated from with an Economics degree) stopped their system of quotas, most of the students referred to this as "stopping affirmative" action.
My point is not that each thing on the list is necessarily bad, but it is bad to try to do all at once in a society with so many different cultures and perspectives. What appeases people in Texas will not appease the majority of the people the U.S. and will certainly NOT appease the peoples of the world.
I just keep on remembering this interview with the UT football coach, where the coach said, "We are gonna' go with what a' brung us." He was referring to the strategy they were going to use for the final game of the season was going to be the same strategy that had brought them to that point. Okay, that's okay with football, but I thought politics was supposed to be a little more sophisticated than that.
Anyway, all I know is for the next decade or so I am going to have to lie about what state I am from because to say I am from the same state as Bush will paint me as both racist and stupid (regardless of his "good intentions").
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
If Bush announces it, anyway.
Syntax error: loose != lose, affect != effect, then!=than
go over and sign it and lets go to mars.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
Mars is a great place to go, but we ought to go to back to the Moon first. Not because it's closer, but because there's one primary benefit colonizing the Moon can give us that colonizing Mars won't -- free, nearly unlimited power.
From a long term perspective, lunar solar power is the only idea that makes sense. (It also has the virtue of being the only method we've yet discovered that would allow 1st world levels of energy consumption for everyone on Earth.)
Space exploration has languished without a raison d'etre for decades now. Lack of continued political will is the biggest threat to long term projects like Mars colonization. But what better motivation could there be than eliminating the largest source of pollution on Earth, providing for the energy needs of the entire planet in the process?
The price tag for such a project is estimated at $150 billion. Sound steep? It's not any steeper than the cost of war with Iraq. Add the cost of the Gulf War with the cost of our new upcoming sequel, and we could have bases on the Moon beaming clean power down to every nation on Earth instead of bombing them. (And then there are the billions of dollars we would save by reducing the need for mining and transporting fossil fuels, and lowering the energy cost of all products.)
There's more here, if you're interested.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
Cuanta gente más va a hacer el jodido chiste sobre la pronunciación de "nuclear"? No son suficientes 100000 comentarios diciendo _exactamente_ lo mismo?
In Soviet Spain we READ comments before publishing another one...
After 2 months in space will thier muscle still be strong enough to support them?
rofl @ this post, silly mods
I had the impression that VASIMR engines were the next big thing in rocket engines and that these were close to being ready. Perhaps these will use nuclear fuel for energy and will be used in this mission to Mars? Anyone know the scoop on this?
To infinity and beyooooooooooooooooond!
I suppose it would be a good thing if the public didn't automatically go into knee-jerk mode on the mention of the word nuclear, however....
I'm all for scientific advancement. I would LOVE to send a manned mission to Mars. I think it would bring about many revelations about our history and our future, and perhaps even help humanity coalesce into a functional whole rather than factions at war. But you know what? More than anything else, this terrifies me. Not because of the nuclear propulsion. not because China wants to get there first ? because deep down, in my heart of hearts, I don't think humanity is ready. I don't think we should set foot on another planet until we learn how to treat our own with respect and dignity.
This will turn into another Wild West full of profiteering, mob-style gangs of 'suppliers', and more wasted potential than you could shake a stick at.
Sorry to say it, but humans don't DESERVE to go to Mars yet. We haven't evolved enough. And the worst part is, we're not going to wait until the time is right, we're going to charge right on in in our usual swashbuckling style.
We should plan missions to the asteroids. Everything we will need is in the asteroids, and the asteroids are the place to colonize someday. (How much energy would it take to move Cruithne into Earth orbit?)
Planets, pfft. Traps. They'll all still be there if somebody ever figures out a good use for them. They don't even make very good nuke-waste dumps. (Earth excepted, of course.)
The only danger in space is if we land on that terrible Planet of the Apes... wait a minute... Statue of Liberty... THAT WAS OUR PLANET! YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP! DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Definitely. I've seen caps explode and shoot stuff across the room. Just attach a bunch to the backside of a rocket and away you go!
How many old power supplies do you think it would take to reach escape velocity?
Mars is our destiny. That is, outward. The possibilities for new expressions of freedom and humanity, and economic systems, lie in building new civilizations. On earth there is a gigantic infrastructure of economic powers that RESIST change. The best ideas are not readily implemented, or are practically impossible to implement.
America became, in some sense, what it was BECAUSE we had a frontier early in its career. That frontier, and the spirit it developed among its settlers gave America its sense of independence, innovation and a GREAT sense of self-empowerment.
To the point, a paucity of western infrastructure westward of this expanding America better empowered the formation of a culture radically different than its predecessors. Not wholly, of course, as old money still existed.
But now, America has few or no frontiers within its borders. America's infrastructure has become stiff in every corner. The people at Slashdot.org know this. Microsoft's infrastructure is outstanding. Oil industries pull our strings. We cannot fundamentally change what America is, how it conducts its economics, without a fight. The root is dug in and will not give up its space as long as it lives.
Mars has no infrastructure and therefore new social, economic, and political ideas implemented by colonists there are more apt to emerge into their natural designs undistorted by the effects of competing institutions.
Like the original colonists of America, cultural artifacts, physical and ideational, brought over to the frontier will be freely reinterpreted without undue outside influence. However, the opportunity of social self-determination on Mars is unparalleled by any in history, for none has had at its disposal the vast library of knowledge and technology available today. The coupling of knowledge and self-reliance will allow the best ideas to flourish. The culture of the second and third Martian generations has the potential of being truer to the ideals of social justice, equality, and :) free software. :) Than has ever existed before.
www.marssociety.com sign the petition!
Logic, macros, and more
Your post is a fucking joke, Valgar. You have no idea what your talking about.
But, it seemed to fool the fat ass balding moderators, so, enjoy the fake-o karma : it's almost as fake as your post.
You know that's why he's going. I am sure one of his advisors told him that "no, there wasn't any oil on the moon"..."how about mars?"..."well, we don't no for sure, sir."
:)
Isn't 2010 when we're supposed to get hydrogen vehicles? Not if GW's Texas based company finds OIL on mars first
Where do I sign up?
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
two months
Jeez. That would call for one HELL of a decel burn on intercept with Mars. I guess that's one way to solve the deep space exploration problem - haul ass.
Seriously, though, I smell bullshit here. At best, look for a cover to divert billions in secret funding to the police state.
Here's hoping public response has progressed beyond "oh no! did he say nuclear?!"
They won't be asking "Did he say nuclear?," they'll be saying "Did he say nucular?
Yeah, but people are doomed to have stereotypes. For instance, no matter how hard I try to be like a black person, I will never have the right to use the "N-word." Black people get to use it all the time, but our society is scarred in such a way that white people will always be forbidden that right, regardless of their "good intentions". There are limitations to our species.
Bush's actions have an affect on the unspoken assumptions that roam the minds of Americans. Of course race quotas are a stupid attempt to create a time-machine to undo past wrongs. But what if, just like the "n-word," only a black politician has the political leverage to say so and be listened, and as long as Bush, being white, is "speaking" the truth, the only black politician that can actual get people to "act" on the truth, is being drowned out.
My point is not that Bush is wrong but that he is too ambitious. If I knew him in person, just as a person, he probably would be a great and inspirational person to know. However, it is for this reason that I don't think he makes a good president. It seems that the best presidents are inviduals too weak to have their own agendas, at least in the important areas, and, therefore, are forced to find a compromise for the views of the public.
As far as being shocked about unconstitutional programs . . . I am really too numb to be shocked. I would more shocked by the existence of a constitutional program (yeah, I know a lot DO exist, but noone ever goes "hey, you know suchasuch program? It is REALLY constitutional")
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
If they had not stopped after the appolo missions and built on that techology it was fesable that they could have made it to Mars in the mid 80s. The book 'Voyage' by steven baxter (here) is a fictional account of what could have happed. Based on some plans that NASA acutaly drew up. Strangely enough it also goes into a lot of detail about nuclear rockets.
The big problem now is that we have lost most of the knowlege and experiance gaind from the appolo missions. I doubt that they would even be able to get somone to the moon again under the curent climit.
It is a shame that NASA gets used as a plotical scape goat. They are trying to do some truly amazing stuff but have so many cuts and projects canned that they are ineffective. The shuttls aren't going to last foever (AFAIK they are about 10 years past their use by date). With China and India having goverments very keen on space and with NASA having increased pressure from ESA and commercial launch operations, I can't see nasa ever doing anything amazing again unless there is some serious long term political milage from it (and hence commitment to it).
I would love to see people go to Mars but I have kind of put it in the not in my lifetime file for now. Any other SF readers keen on mars should try the above book and Kim Stanley Robinsons Mars Trilogy. [red|green|blue] Mars.
There's two kinds of foreign criticism of Bush's policies: intelligent and stupid. People over here use YOUR kind as evidence that the other kind isn't worth paying attention to.
If you're serious and not trolling, do everyone on Earth a favor and shut up. Trust me, it works better that way.
Sixty workers can dig a post-hole in one second.
The U.S. has no nuclear (nook-you-ler, if you're a C-grade fratboy from Texas) rocket program.
You misspelled "peanut-farmer from Georgia."
Mr. Carter has a degree in nuclear engineering from the Naval Academy; he had less excuse (perhaps more reason, politics are funny) for consistently and notoriously mispronouncing "nuclear" than Mr. Bush.
foog
My god, it's almost enough to make me vote Republican. Almost.
If this is true, kudos to GWB. I suppose it took Nixon to go to China, and maybe it will take George W. to take us to Mars.
One proposed method to save fuel/space costs will be to send FAT astronauts! They'll live off their own body mass supplemented by onboard supplies. A pound of human fat contains approx 3500 calories which will supply the caloric requirements of an astronaut for about 1.5 days. A 6 month round trip caloric req's on a starvation diet will shed the astronauts approx 130 lbs (based on 2500 cal/day requirements)
This is essentially what stomach stapled obese people do so the medical consequences are fairly well characterized.
Obviously there will be some food, but the space/weight savings from this will be enormous.
This will be a sure bet - just wait.
..........FULL STOP.
"He tricked the gods into eating bare bones instead of good meat. He stole the sacred fire from Zeus and the gods. Prometheus did not tell Zeus the prophecy that one of Zeus's sons will overthrow him. In punishment, Zeus commanded that Prometheus be chained for eternity in the Caucasus. There, an eagle (or, according to other sources, a vulture) would eat his liver, and each day the liver would be renewed. So the punishment was endless, until Heracles finally killed the bird." from here The part about being chained eternally in caucasus and having its innards picked out may be more prophetic than NASA intended...
Coming from W., the best we can expect is "nucular" propulsion.
NASA managers found a way to convince the goverment to fund this mission: they told Bush that the martians are developing weapons of mass destruction. They have reliable intelligence: a complete report from secret agent Herbert G. Wells.
RMN
~~~
"eeeek! earthlings..."
One proposed method to save fuel/space costs will be to send FAT astronauts! They'll live off their own body mass supplemented by onboard supplies. A pound of human fat contains approx 3500 calories which will supply the caloric requirements of an astronaut for about 1.5 days. A 6 month round trip caloric req's on a starvation diet will shed the astronauts approx 130 lbs (based on 2500 cal/day requirements)
This is essentially what stomach stapled obese people do so the medical consequences are fairly well characterized.
Obviously there will be some food, but the space/weight savings from this will be enormous.
This will be a sure bet - just wait.
..........FULL STOP.
I recently saw a documentary on the Science Channel (?) about how a small amount of radioactive material had evaporated over the Earth from a failed satellite. Because of that every person alive at the time had a little radioactive "souvenir." Is there any chance something like that at a much larger scale could happen?
It's a trap!
I want my big fat C0CK inside Katalina Verdin in 10 seconds.
Of course, the best way to satisfy this group is to offer to take them all along. And hey... if we have to leave them there, I'm sure the aliens would take good care of them.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Magic reactionless drives are going to run into problems with the conservation of momentum, you know.
Project Prometheus? Sure, name it after a guy that got chained to a rock and forced to have a bird eat his liver for all eternity. Might as well start off on the wrong foot.
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
What's really amazing is that somehow The Prez has discovered oil exists on Mars!
It's the only possible explanation for him wanting to send an expeditionary force. Unless possible that's where Osama's been hiding?
I'm still waiting for Sim Mars.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
Don't tell me you're one of those idiots who thinks the moon landing was faked.
"A NASA Mars mission won't work, and its funding is endangered, so they decide to fake it just this once. But then they have to keep the secret..."
Robots can do anything that needs to be done on Mars for the next 20-30 years. We need to get over this planetary fixation and start building solar powered mass drivers on the Moon and then O'Neil colonies at the Lx points in the Earth-Moon system. Microwave power from Earth orbit. Blow the wade to jump down another gravity well 30 to 180 million miles away is a waste.
This is like putting an M80 underneath a garbage can and watching it fly in the air when it goes boom.
Since we're talking about president bush, it's more likely the public response would be, "oh no! did he say 'nucular'?!"
I am so glad that finally we are making a push towards Mars. This is the biggest thing since going to the moon, and its a shame its taken us 30 years to get this far. Well, hopefully if it is announced, this will be a major thing that the American public will think about - Like the Apollo program was in the 60's. While then we were doing it to fight against the Soviets, now we are doing it by ourselves. I do think this will still have a great unifying power about America - something to believe in. And spending more money on NASA, for more space flights, better equipment, and even daring missions, will give the American public something to believe in and feel proud of.
PlatinumCursor - "Blinded by the bling..."
I think that there are some misconceptions about nuclear power for space propulsion. It seems that people are imagining nuclear warheads or nuclear reactors. Nuclear space propulsion ideas typically rely on power harnessed from the natural decay of radioactive isotopes. It's still very much of a conceptual technology, however.
The first second I read this, I thought why? But about two seconds latter "damn smart that man" is what was running through my head. It has very little to do with sending someone to mars, it has everything to do with pride. Its something we have sadly ran short of in this country, Pride in being Americans, pride in living, pride in doing something, anything. We are Americans, we are by definition different from the rest of the world, and we must have pride in being that, its that pride that drives us to do sometimes stupid things, and its that same pride, which drives us to do things other men never imagined possible, look back in history, when did the world most want to be America? When we had the most pride in who we were. That drove us to be a world super power, that drove us to be, and stay, a free nation, we gave a damn about ourselves, and we were proud of it. I see allot of people Bit**#$ about the use of tax money, and allot of people ask me if I think taxes should be lowered, and all I can say, is depends, it depends on what its used for, if its going to be dumped into social security, or for people-without-jobs funds, then baaa, cut taxes, but if I were to see billions being dumped into NASA with a presidential mandate to do something, then by all means, bravo, you know why? Because we would be doing something that is either damn hard, or nearly impossible to do, at one point in time, people looked at NASA and they had pride, and respect for it, not only because of what it did - put people on the moon, ect - but also because of what it represented, the brightest people in the country that we had a pride in and for doing something the rest of the world thought impossible, or were trying to do before us, one. and again, what is the big deal about single human lives, your damn right if you say that there will people that *gasp* die, on the road to getting to mars, look at every major war in history, why did hundreds of thousands of men line up to die? Why did there wife's let them go, why did there mothers shed tears, and yet at the same time, hang stars in there windows in pride... after all they were effectively wishing there son/husband/friend away to a early grave, its because they had faith in what they were doing, and they had pride in why they were doing it, to the point they realized there life would be spent for a greater good BOTH for US and THEM. For this reason, I would understand if America was bombed, or if we *let* Iraq, or some other country launch a nuke attack on another country, and then us go and get in one heck of a bloody battle, and assuming that my place was best served there, id be on the front lines. I am not a person who has this morbid desire to go and whack off a guy with an m16, but I do have a belief in our country, and it pisses me off to no end, to see people in our country let it go down the drains, to consider themselves all important, What this country needs is _pride_ and _purpose_ when people have pride and a purpose, they are the two most powerful combinations under faith in God. (If you don't believe in God, then it's still true) The desire to be the best, the desire to be the fastest, the desire to have the most freedom, coupled with a pride in our country, and a care in what happens *to the world* is what this is about, sure there are political reasons, but either way its a damn smart thing, if they take this seriously, and do it, the public *WILL* watch, and they *WILL* care, they will slowly start to look at NASA, and as a whole our entire country with a respect, and then a pride, and if we loose lives getting there, if we spend a ton of money getting there, so what, its life, live on. Sure there are a thousand private reasons why this is good for one individual person, there always will be, and you can choose to think I'm some ranting lunatic (yes, I do take a shower every morning and have a regular job :-p ) but I think there is more to this, and far greater good, than simply putting a man on mars.
Space travel is not possible by a living human being. The radiation of space is too intense, and there are too many physical problems to make it ever possible.
Why do ou people believe NASA's propaganda? Just because they released a tape of supposedly on the moon? Hah! What fools.
That would be "ON" Soviet Mars... not "in"... you silly boy.
The astronauts would be flying towards Mars in two years, if politicans could somehow link this to the "War on Terror"/"War on Saddam" projects. Sometimes I miss the Cold War.
^upupup
Common, Apollo for a MOON mission?! Gimme a break. Still, it could be worse - they could have called it Hermes or something...
Here's another explination of the god's origin.
Google!.
It doesn't cost $360B to kill. Big explosions are not expensive. That massive amount of money is technology used to
a) keep our Soldiers out of harms way as much as possible (fight from hundreds of miles away)
and b) allow us the precision to do the least amound of damage necessary to get the job done.
The american govt spends a massive amount of energy minimizing unnecessary casualties and damage, something you would be crazy to expect from our enemies.
... too bad they never do. Seriously though, NASA has had big ambitious plans for a while, however at the end of the day, nothing gets done. The last significant achievement of Nasa was walking on the moon. They've been coasting ever since.
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
While I am completely in favor of NASA attempting a manned mission to Mars, I believe a much more realistic goal for NASA would be to set up a moon base by the year 2010. This could then later be used as a launching point for a mission to mars. Isn't more of a rockets fuel used up in the process of escaping the Earth's gravity. Launching from a moon base would give us some more options when launching the ship.
Oh, and as for your Nuclear pronounciation flame, it's rather pendantic don't you think? I bet you are the type that likes to use "Micro$oft" and other crafty ways to disseminate emotion in arguments that would be best argued with simple facts.
-malakai
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
This is just wrong. Sending people to Mars when the country is having the a hard time economically. What are people thinking? Is this morally right? I question myself about that. Now the U.S. Goverment already ignors the American people and is thinking of a way to ignor them even more by moving the Pentagon to Mars. Just in case we have a Nuclear war a least the President will be safe. Oh! Of course you can go their too if you pay them a nice fee. What do you think?
I'm glad you did good things during your army service. Now explain to me how, say, a missile defence system (which will end up costing more than the Mars mission) would have helped in *anything* the army, navy, or air force need to do?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
The second property was the spark of the idea for magnetic sails.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
As I understand it, white men vote Republican by a considerable margin (2-1 or so), whilst women and ethnic minorities vote Democrat, in the case of (most) minorities by huge margins. Last I checked, white men were by far the biggest supporters of space exploration. Crude, I know, but I think illustrative. Looking at it another way, do you really think most Democrat supporters want money thrown at the space program rather than prescription drugs, welfare, the environment, et cetera?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Resurecting the NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Applications) might lead to reviewing its unsightly bastard brother Pluto (bottom of page), one of the most horrible weapons ever devised.
Pluto is a low altitude Mach 3 nuclear cruise missile. It's designed to hurt the enemy threefold
- By the shear force of its Mach 3 sonic boom.
- By the highly radioactive exhaust.
- By the (many) fusion warheads it can launch.
After expending its warheads, the Pluto would cruise back and forth over enemy territory for weeks, spewing radioactivity all the while, until running out of fuel or being shot down.Not the kind of weapon you would like to see in, well, any hands.
I choose to remain celibate, like my father and his father before him.
I'm fairly sure he's doing this for all the wrong reasons (if he's really doing this at all) but if Bush really pulls this off I may have to forgive him for all the freedoms/liberties/privacies I've been loosing lately as an American.
This will still leave space travel as an expensive circus run by NASA, one of the most tangled and red-tape happy beauracracies on Earth, but at least it will finally get nuclear propultion off the ground and make manned interplanetary travel a reality. Hell, if we manage to pull this off without blowing up any of the chemical rockets carrying the proposed ship's components up to orbit, maybe this project will even help rehabilitate the term "nuclear".
In the long run, the technology and the political situation a successful nuclear powered manned Mars mission will create will be orders of magnitude more important than the "war on terror".
MarsHydro
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
...Because it'd be a damn shame if they forget to convert between miles and kilometers
http://www.space.com/news/orbiter_error_990930.h tml
$125 million for a botched probe is bad enough. Lives are priceless.
I didn't think the house band in Hell would play this badly.
5. The U.S. is going into debt at the rate of 1.3 billion dollars a day. We're spending ourselves utterly broke while cutting taxes.
9. If the story is true, why do I sense that the speculative capitalists that are now in charge of the guvmint (as opposed to businessmen -- the difference between Enronomics and the local Chamber of Commerce) would be trying to wring even more tax money out of us all?
Which are you upset about - that taxes are being levied or that they are being cut?
8. As an old space junkie, I wish the story was true
3. Nook-you-ler rockets are illegal under current treaties -- I think. Not that that would stop Bush
So you wish that the US was developing nuclear-powered spacecraft, so long as President Bush had nothing to do with it.
Yay! Fashionable anti-Bush flames for no particular reason!
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
Because if I spend all that money on building a nuclear warhead, I'd be damn sure to launch it on a missle that may or may not work and give away my position for instant retalititory attacks from US ICBMs. I'd also make sure that I launched on this untested missle with the possibility of it not working (because I couldn't make a practice launch given US Early Warning satillites) and spreading radioactive material all over my land.
Think about it, man. If you built a nuclear weapon, you'd ship it on a 80ft yacht into {Insert US Harbor} and detonate it. Untraceable (mostly), and fewer points of failure. Even if we were to build a missle defense program, it would be much wiser to wait four to six years and develop it with newly advanced solid-state lasers. You only have x missles, but a laser is only limited in fire rate and energy available. And light travels a hell of a lot faster then a rocket, so it's much harder to miss. And it can be used for other purposes (have an aircraft on a collision course with a building...?)
Bush has apparently found out that the Uranium Pew-36 Explosive Space modulator is missing and he wants it back.... my, my, my... isn't Mars looking lovely tonight.
> Here's hoping public response has progressed
> beyond "Oh no! did he say nuclear?!"
It hasn't progressed that far. It's still "Oh no! did he say nuculer?!"
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
- You would have to develop a viable biosphere technology; think about the possible advances in biology and genetics, not to mention the understanding of complex systems that could come from something like that.
- You would have to develop a cheap, reliable moon transport to set up shop 300,000 km away from Earth. Lowering the cost of going to orbit with this kind of development rather than buildindg a one-time, big hunking Mars ship would eventually have a better effect.
- You could do much better science from a permanent outpost. Astronomy/cosmology and physics would benefit the most, but nearly every area of science would be able to find something of interest.
- It would be a permanent carrot dangled in front of the best and brightest to have a rotation on the Moon.
Of course, a Mars mission does have the advantage of being a bigger "adventure", for the lack of a better word. Not that I believe I would see either of these in the next twenty years..."The deluded are always filled with absolutes. The rest of us have to live with ambiguity." - Aristoi, Walter Jon Willia
hmm
The conquest of Mars can be compared to the discovery and conquest of America, I mean the times of C.Colombus that gave rise to killings, slavery, in other words, man at his worst. I truly believe that what cannot be changed here will remain unchanged in Mars or Alpha Centauri. Dunno if even Einstein made a general physical comment on that too.
There are more white women voters than white men voters... so to get the 49-49 result of the 2000 election, women must have preferred Gore less than men preferred Bush.
The only other reasonable thing you could do in space would be to mine asteroids and start building things in orbit and on the moon. But going to Mars at this point doesn't make sense. It's going to cost too much. I am all behind nuclear rockets but I think going to mars is premature. Let's put a city on the moon, and start sending politicians there.
I'll start voting republican if republicans start putting money into space research. I shit you not.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Will Zubrin have anything to do with this project? He came and spoke at my university a couple years ago, and I was really impressed with his knowledge and intelligence, not to mention his incredible charisma. (Gotta be like Wis17/Int17/Cha18, at least) Anyway, if he's related to this then I definitely have high hopes for it :)
Oh, wait . . . there is my rage . . .
.
/. post, not my thesis for political science.My agenda was to have some form of communication, but it appears to have become a p!ss-fest with you, due to your very high expectations of /. posts.
.
I remember reading this article about chaos and that you could measure the degree of chaos by measuring how unpredictable an output from a system was. This is what your post brings to mind . .
I just wanted to clear a few things up before I turn thing over for you to continue your rant, since it appears to be good therapy.
First, I think "lie" is a bit strong. It was like when the poster said I was lying when I said Bush was against "affirmative action." Dude, I am just making a freaking observation on the weekend that he is taking a lot of risks (I counted 4). Maybe I am not lying, but lazy and don't care if it was 57% instead of 50% that I heard on NPR. Or that some people don't consider "affirmative action" to have ANYTHING to do with race quotas (that is what it means in Austin, Texas, where I was born and raised and graduated from . . . I was there at UT when the 4 white students filed their complaints about the law school).
I am sorry that you consider this outright lying and falsifying of facts. It was a
Maybe I am not liberal or conservative, but some young snot nose kid, just out of school trying to get a grasp of what politics is about, and you, sir, have just done the equavalent of RTFM. Fine, whatever your views are, they were eclipsed today by a masquerading rant of what seems to be a cranky old white man that should stay in bed on the weekends instead of flaming as, pttff, an AC. Your views were sadly misrepresented today, sir, and you would do them better justice by focusing on the logic behind the arguments instead pulling down your trousers and . .
I will now attempt to set a good example by properly closing my rant tag in hopes that you will learn to do the same, in between your flames.
Okey, dokey . . . the stage is yours. Make your country proud . . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
No, Bush didn't say nuclear! He said nucuular!
This guy has something good to say.
Please mod him up.
Huh?
Did anyone see on space.com the pic of the guy with the sign which reads, "no nukes in space,"?
WHAT!!!!???? No nukes in space! It must be a joke right? Correct me if I'm wrong here, but alot of anything that matters in space is nuclear right? I mean, actually, everything you can see in the night sky is nuclear right? I mean, like all life is here, and some dark glasses, because of a rather important and bright nuclear reaction.
This capability, of course, implies the capability of Weapons of Mass Destruction (as opposed to the Weapons of Mass Peace which the USA currently holds).
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
- Ozzy Ozbourne is a responsible family man.
- Pete Townshend is labeled a pedophile.
- George Bush might do something intelligent.
Fuck this I'm never reading the news againstd::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
This will probally kill the on again, off again New Horizons Pluto-Kuiper Belt mission (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/).
Not only is Pluto the only "planet" we haven't sent a probe to, the atmosphere on Pluto is in the process of freezing out as it moves further from the sun. If we don't send a probe now, this generation will never get to study the atmosphere on Pluto at all.
Ok so:
1) War with iraq
2) Plan mission to mars
What comes next? I know then end result will be being defeated by a saxaphone playing smooth talking dirtball, but I can't remember the other steps.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
I really hope this is taken seriously. The US has the ability to lead the world towards a goal like this. It is a pity that they spend most of their energy trying to convince everyone to start wars.
:wq
I happen to live in Arizona for all 12 months of the year, thank you very much.
Yeah, it gets hot in the summer. Big deal, why the hell do you think just about every house has a pool?
because it's only a pipe dream...... we need men on mars like we need another hole in the head. i think that there are a few things that we need to concentrate on down here first before we go and throw money at a trip to gather rocks.
-Cnik
We could put a nuclear reactor on a bobsled and send it north with a crew....
Weeeel, technically if you end up at exactly the same place where you leave, you could still conserver momentum... easy, right?
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
While booster are rare, they do happen. New technology, and therefore untried designs, alway has/have risk.
Do you want to be in the fallout downwind footprint if one of those suckers ever blows up in the pad or anywhere before reachine excape velocity?
I thought not.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I expect this to be the title of a forthcoming Salon article by Hugo Award Winner David Brin(TM).
Seastead this.
George Bush would not Nuclear. We will instead be riding to Mars on Nu-ku-lar rockets.
In the wild there are no dumb lions tigers or bears. Only humanity subsidizes the continued existence of the stupid.
No, he didn't. G-dubya pronounces it Nuke-yu-lar.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
What ever happened with the moon?
Take Physicist Michio Kaku, for example: He built a particle accelerator in his high school football field when he was a kid. He's more than simply an ignorant naysayer when it comes to nuclear power. I've heard some of his talks on the issue, and I highly recommend that those who are interested in an expert's opinion on the dangers of nuclear power see if they can find a recording of such talks (which do exist, though I can't imagine where one would get them. Perhaps try contacting him if you're interested enough.)
But back to the specifics of the topic at hand: science is important. I'm all for it. I've also willingly worked in close proximity with some of the less nasty radioactive isotopes in the pursuit of science and so I'm at the least not as ignorant as I could be. One has to weigh the risks against the benefits, however, and strapping one of the world's most poisonous substances to what's essentially a fancy-assed canister of explosives (and let's not forget some of the rocket industry's spectacular failures), then shooting it up into the upper atmosphere where any debris from an explosion could be quickly disseminated across the globe, at least bears some SERIOUS thinking about before it's done. Dismissing the dangers as simply the fears of ignorant naysayers is a bit ignorant itself. There are still weekly articles dealing with the Chernobyl disaster in the Ukrainian press.
Is the Guardian the only newspaper reporting this tidbit?
On another note, it's disappointing to see the lack of imagination in the American mindset, nevermind the lack of moral assignment. I think that humanity needs an adventure like this, not one born out of war like the original moon missions but one to further humanity's reach into the universe. The universe is indifferent to us; it is our mission to reach out to it, to explore it. The first, most important step, at least within my own lifetime, would be to a human being in Mars. Where has our imagination gone?
It's interesting that the new propulsion system is being developed under the name of Project Prometheus which has been the name of the conspiracy theory relating to the government trading human abductions for alien technology. Makes you think.
shouldn't it be nucular
1. Send people to Mars
2. ???
3. Profit!
Fine, we'll never hear about him again
The one big issue I see for space travel is the bone and muscle loss in weightless environments. However, I see potential for that going away with the recent announcement of proof that gravity moves at the speed of light. This means it is measurable, and likely generatable and blockable.
I predict artificial gravity and anti-gravity will become practical realities before the century ends.
Also, in response to another post that sounds quite utopian - I have my doubts. I suspect the foibles of mankind will simply migrate, as they always have in the past. We need to look to ourselves for betterment - not to some "better place". Besides, there are the terraforming needs, and the expense of travel that did not exist previously.
The benefits of such a push to Mars come in motivating a society to a goal that requires pushing the limits. kennedy's moon mission goal drove us to make breakthroughs and exceed accepted (perceived) limits. A Mars mission will aid in economic, technological, and motivational/self-esteem areas. All worthy goals.
For the less "liberal", the motivations for them might be more power, more money, more patriotism, and a greater lead over "the other guys". Personally, I prefer to take the more global view.
Eugene Volokh, September 19 2002 9:53 AM
WHAT'S WRONG WITH "NUCULAR"? Today's Slate Explainer reminded me of this question, which I've thought about a bit in the past.
One common answer is that saying "nucular" is wrong because "nuclear" is spelled, well, "nuclear," and not "nucular." But the standard rebuttal (mentioned in the Slate piece) is: How do you pronounce "iron"? I actually remember pronouncing it "iron" as a kid (as in "irony" without the "y"), and being told that this is not the usual pronunciation -- "iern" is probably the best way of representing how you're really supposed to pronounce it. If this phenomenon (called "metathesis") is OK in "iern," why isn't it OK in "nucular"?
But this is just the tip of the objection -- the broader objection is that this is English we're talking about here. English, the language of "women," of "colonel," of "laughter" and "slaughter," of "get" and "gem." As reader Brian Dulisse points out, "forte" can be pronounced "fortay," "fort," or "fortee." "This pronunciation is wrong because it doesn't match the spelling" isn't much of an argument in English.
It seems to me that the only sensible answer to "What is wrong with 'nucular'?" is "This is not the standard way that high-class people say it," coupled with "This term is a shibboleth that high-class people, and those influenced by them, use to sort those they'll call 'high-class' from those they'll call 'low-class.'" That's all the "wrong" there is here. Yes, I know this sounds like a leftist cultural critic position; but sometimes, as here, the leftist cultural critics are right. One day, "nucular" might be treated the same as "ah" for "I" or "crick" for "creek" -- a regional accent that's not wrong, but just different. It might even become the "correct" pronunciation, with "nuclear" sounding archaic or affected. It won't flow from a change to logic or morality, only a change of attitude by enough people in the influential classes, or by a change of who counts as the influential class.
So what of it? Well, if you're teaching a child (or an adult) to speak, of course you should teach him to say "nuclear," simply as an instrumental matter -- sounding high-class is usually (not always, but usually) more profitable, especially where the shibboleths are concerned. If you're making a purely esthetic judgment, well of course you're free to say "'Nucular' sounds ugly to me," just like you can say "Picasso looks ugly to me" or "Broccoli tastes bad to me." And if you're trying to infer a person's educational level from very limited data, you might use his pronunciation as something of a clue, though be careful: As I understand it, quite a few educated Southerners use this term (consider Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, both to my knowledge quite well-educated).
But before one says that "nucular" is "wrong," one should keep in mind just what a narrow and not terribly appealing definition of "wrong" one is necessarily using.
UPDATE: Two readers e-mailed me to point out that few people pronounce "nucleus" as "nuculus," and that it's therefore wrong to say "nucleus" but "nucular."
But this too runs into the fact that, well, English isn't logical: We say "linear" but "line" -- nothing wrong with that, and I'm sure there are lots of other such examples. True, "linear" follows a common rule of English pronunciation -- but the important point is that there is no rule that in the "-ar" form the root must be pronounced the same as the root without the "-ar." Interestingly, quite a few "-ar" words actually undergo a nucleus/nucular change in the spelling rather than the pronunciation, probably under the influence of Latin, for instance "circle" to "circular" and "title" to "titular."
Eugene Volokh, September 20 2002. 12:19 PM
MORE ON NUCULAR: The "nucular" post obviously struck a chord -- I've gotten about as much e-mail on it as I have on pretty much anything else that I've blogged about. One suggestion was that
I can't say for sure that this is unsound, and of course people do often draw inferences about people's educational achievements from their speech. But a couple of responses may help remind us to be skeptical of such inferences. Here's one from Matt Bower:
And here's one from Louis Wainwright:
I surely wouldn't confuse this for a scientific study, but then again those who would use "nucular" as a proxy for ignorance don't have scientific evidence, either. (As I said, I wouldn't teach my child to say "nucular," but that's a separate question.)
A trip to Mars may be of scientific interest, but the asteroid belt is where the accesible resource are.
the funding for nuclear propulsion isn't about going to mars. it's about spacewar. think about which of those bush and his cronies are more likely to be interested in.
This has got to be a joke. I would believe the Raelians before I would believe this nosense, and that guy here who was quoting that fop Rousseou should read some Nietzsche instead of that clod.
Asymmetric capacitors don't work in a vacuum.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
If you want to send people to Mars and minimize the trip, you want to do your shot during a perihelic opposition, or when Mars is closest to Earth.
The next one will be on August 28th. We missed the boat on this one - this is when we should have been launching the rocket.
The next one will be in 2018.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Whoever named this project must have been a fan of stargate sg-1 as prometheus was the name of a secret project to build an interstellar spacecraft in that show. I have not seen any other science fiction shows or movies where a new, experimental spacecraft was called the prometheus.
Then all those Vietnamese people in the 60s and 70s, were also using your VR set.
The main purpose of having an army is not as a beneficency agency. Its main purpose is to strike the fear out of the perceived enemy and to kill them if ordered to do so.
If all the army is ordered to go and dress like Santa Claus while giving gifts to poor children that is all well and good, but that does not diminish in one iota the main purpose of any armed forces.
All around the world there are people that have experienced this first hand, one way or another, just because they use your services in a benign way does not mean that you are not part of a killing machinery.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Which are forbidden (not that is matters to Mr Bush and his gang).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Well if you took into account tax cuts, and the millitaries (at the least, I read it totalled more) excessive 360 billion ...
Nasa and the U.S. government will fake the manned mission to Mars just like they did with the manned Apollo missions. You know why 10 years sound unrealistic? Because it is, and Prometheus won't be real either, another conspiracy. At least I'll be alive for this one, (Check my bio, born in '85)
The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice
and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the
master calls a butterfly.
-- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul
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