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H.R. 3057: To the Asteroids, Moon and Mars
apsmith writes "Democrats have just introduced the Space Exploration Act of 2003 to the U.S. House of Representatives; the author is Nick Lampson of Texas, with 26 co-sponsors. The bill sets a vision and goals for the future of NASA, beyond the Low Earth Orbit of the Space Station and Shuttle, outlining a series of incremental steps for human spaceflight. These include development of reusable spacecraft for carrying people around in the Earth-Moon vicinity, including to the nearby Lagrange points; sending people to an Earth-crossing asteroid; establishing a lunar base, and sending people to Mars with a base on a Martian moon by 2024."
...unless it includes appropriations for NASA sufficient to actually fund said exploration. Mandatory appropriations congress can't later cut, which is highly unlikely with Baby Bush spending the country into bankrupcy with his family's little war in Iraq and his tax cuts for his wealthy buddies.
It is a nice vision, but without adequate funding it is only so much posturing from congress, and frankly, I'm quite sick of windbags who have no intention of following through on their flowery rhetoric with concrete action.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
You are aware, Congress, that you can't legislate the advace of technology right?
Sure you can. When President Kennedy was sworn into office in 1961, he set a goal for the end of the decade that we would "send a man to the moon and bring him safely back to Earth."
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
Yeah, silly President Kennedy; what was he thinking? He should've waited until the technology to get to the moon spontaneously became available, and only then requested funding from Congress for the actual mission.
other than the reusable vehicle, we can do the rest today if we just wanted to. But until someone evil trys to do it first like the Soviet Union did in the 50s, we're not goin no where.
That's what sucks the most in my opinion. We won't explore to explore, we'll just throw money at it to 'preserve our way of life' or something like that.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Right. We'll be funding all this manned space exploration then. No problem.
You know, all those goals that the NASA administrator has to set will probably go unfufilled if nothing is done to the deficit now.
The deficit is already 455 billion. At the current rate, this deficit will probably reach 8-900 billion even with a relatively decent recovery of the economy.
10-15 years later when the deficit is so big that it hangs like Damocles sword over Capitol hill, NASA's budget will be put on the chopping block.
Bush is on fire and its not good for my lungs.
You are aware, Congress, that you can't legislate the advace of technology right?
...both of which help a lot.
"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth."
-- Pres. Kennedy, May 25, 1961
You certainly can't legislate innovation, but you definitely give it a helping hand by:
a) encouraging it, and
b) funding it
Actually I believe it was 87 billion.
And the first things my coworkers and I did when we found this out was laugh our asses off.
Habitation on the moon in 15 years? Mars in 20?
Maybe if we devoted the sum output of the entire GDP to doing so! As of now, there's no hope of that happening. We need an infrastructure in orbit around Earth before we can start sending things to the moon. Larger space stations, orbital manufacturing, and perhaps craft designed solely for use in space, to ship people and material to the moon.
That costs money. More money than anyone involved is willing to spend, I bet, especially for the timetable they're legislating.
My bet is that this bunch of politicians has no idea what they're talking about, has discussed the feasability of this with no one, and is looking for some attention from the press in light of the Indian and Chinese space programs.
skye
"We go to the moon, and we do these other things ... not because they are easy, but because they are hard." --John F. Kennedy
It's only when people have visions of things bigger than themselves and their immediate needs that great things happen. The visionaries provide the drive, while the pragmatists make it happen. As cynical as many of you are about Congress and its motivations, having a compelling vision for exploration and research is welcome. I'd rather have excitement and drive than ennui and cynicism.
I see goals for vehicles for Earth orbit-Moon orbit-Lagrange point trips, vehicles for Earth orbit-NEO trips, vehicles for Earth orbit-Mars orbit trips, and vehicles for Lunar and Martian landings...
But you know, it's not like we've got a whole city of astronauts in Earth orbit waiting to go places yet. At the moment if we actually wanted passengers on any of those manned vehicles, we'd need to send them up on the space shuttle for around $100M a person. That's just not going to cut it.
Rather than having NASA aim at a half dozen targets and design a half dozen vehicles we could barely use, I'd like to see them (and private contractors) designing a half dozen vehicles for just one target: getting people to orbit and back cheaply. Let one company prototype a lifting body and let another one stick reusable capsules on top of "big dumb boosters"; let one laboratory try to make the DC-X scale up to orbit, and let another try a VTHL with a flyback booster. And this time, instead of picking the X-33 proposal with the most neat-sounding untested technology, let's let every serious proposal be funded to the prototype stage; that way we can also make it clear this time that the response to "It's not working yet, can we have more money sooner?" will be "No, but we can give those excess funds to those of your competitors who could put something in the air."
then Privatize the space industry. the government has squandered its monopoly.
allow more corporate partnership and sponsorship. share patents with cooperating corporations with shorter timelimits (say 5-10 years, no extensions). there'd be plenty of financial incentive, and a net gain for the public domain.
yes, nasa science is currently all patented and free to everyone - but there just isn't anything new coming through the pipe these days. what has nasa given the public domain in the last 10 years? more than 0 stuff 5-10 years down the line is a huge improvement.
don't we all feel the burning -need- to get off this rock? to ensure that civilization will survive the next giant asteroid? to get off this rock and swing on a star?
why did it take 30 years from the moon landing until the ISS -started-? why did we waste so much time and money (and lives) on the shuttle program? why was congress -lied- to about the goals of the shuttle program and the low-earth-orbit focus?
why do we continue to trust the beauracracy who have admitted to lies, collusion and deliberate mistruths in their plundering and misguiding of the space initiative over the last 4 decades?
doesn't it bother us all that our most primal function (exploring,adapting,surviving) has been hoodwinked into jogging in place for nearly half a century? that we haven't been back to the moon a single time?
and don't start that the moon is pointless, or mars is pointless.
of course it is.
but if you never aim for the stars - you'll never get off the ground. we picked the moon as our focus in the space race - a completely pointless exercise - but look at the technology that came of it. imagine what we'd learn on our way to mars-capability. imagine what we'd learn by actually -trying- to build an outpost on a rock with no atmosphere and low gravity.
our future is up there, i say we go get it.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"