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The Future of NASA
fishbonez writes "According to this article, the President's new space exploration initiative parallels his military strategy for space. The article doesn't directly say that NASA will become an integral part of the military plan but clearly that conclusion could be drawn without the need for a tinfoil hat. We have already seen that Hubble will be allowed to expire prematurely as a result of this new initiative. Is the re-allocation of funds within NASA really for getting to the Moon and Mars? Or is it just a cover for shifting toward military space applications? If true, how badly will NASA's scientific mission be effected if it becomes a conduit for giving research and development money to defense contractors?" UPI has a lengthy piece covering the development of the new space plan.
So we must protect it from the Chinese. We'll also own Mars once we land some people there and plant a flag. Defending our territory is very important.
They're moving Out of Space and Into Spying
oh boo hoo. unless someone is utterly without reason they would already realize by now that space is the next battlefield.
anywhere that there are resources, there will be fighting. lets be the first to get out there ourselves, and stop whining about it. afterall, you think apollo was just about getting moon rocks??
Because people can use it for bad things. That's what this article is all about, isn't it?
Maybe when you tree huggers finally realize that there will never be peace and love the world over, only then will you finally come to terms with the world as it really is.
Technology will be used in evil ways. However, it will also be used in ways that are amazingly good.
Have some faith.
I have been pwned because my
Is it just me or does this stink? Though I can't say I didn't expect this. When the O'Neill shinanigans came to light, one of the things he saw was a military presence in space.
Need a
Another
Space
Army
Makes perfect sense. Bush loves spying.
I am very interested (and concerned!) about the USA's military use of outer space, but what about China?
They must surely have plans as well, but we never hear anything about them -- no news, no speculation -- nothing.
fuck space...i'd say the future is digging underground! Or sea exploration.... under the seaaaaa....under the seaaaa... /me hums the homer simpson version
If his space strategy parallels his military strategy, then we're all in trouble...
About the Hubble, IIRC, the "official" decision to abandon it is more because of the reduced shuttle fleet (not worth risking the few shuttles left) and the upcoming better space telescope. The latest Bush space plan has little to do with the Hubble... or that's what they say.
They will never be happy until they have a missile base and a McDonalds drive through on every chunk of rock in the solar system bigger than 2 square metres .
perhaps if there was actually a space threat from someone... reasonable people would feel differently. the Chinese are almost 50 years behind us... excuse my lack of alarm.
. SLASHDOT: Home of the vicious nerd.
NEW YORK:
At New York's Kennedy airport today, an individual later discovered to be a public school teacher was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a setsquare, a slide rule, and a calculator.
At a morning press conference, Attorney general John Ashcroft said he believes the man is a member of the notorious al-gebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.
"Al-gebra is a fearsome cult," Ashcroft said. "They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
Article II of the "Outer Space Treaty" states that
"Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means."
See it here.
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The fact remains that the militarization is space is virtually inevitable - if not by us, by someone else. One of the reasons for the Chinese Shenzhou manned-spaceflight program is to put electronic and optical intelligence platforms in orbit. The rear section of the Shenzhou orbiter is left in low Earth orbit where it can be used for photographic and electronic surveillance. Just as our space program lead to more advanced space-based intelligence platforms, the Chinese are doing much the same.
What's more worrying is the threat of satellite hunter-killer devices. Imagine if someone developed the technology to knock out the GPS grid - both our military and our economy would suffer greatly.
We can't naively assume that space will only be used for peaceful means, and if we don't take the initiative in ensuring that we have adaquate countermeasures we take on significant risk.
On the other hand, the process is going to be slow. Space exploration is very expensive, and only a major power can afford significant investments in space. We're not going to see al-Qaeda or even North Korea develop a sat-killer any time soon.
Chances are we'll see a new space race between the US and China, with the moon being the primary goal for both. The technological advancements from such a race will be as important as the advancements we got from Apollo. New materials, new energy source, new biotechnology are all potential spin-offs from space exploration.
Rather than fear increased space travel, we should be welcoming it. Yes, there will be a military presence in space, but the benefits of space exploration far outweigh the risks.
I noticed that the X-33 was canceled in W's early days. One of the issues with it was the composite cryo tanks for the h2. The interesting thing was that W's ppl (and the military) insisted that it was to be stopped, and dismantled. Yet, they allowed the tests of the engines at stennis and they continued the work on the cryo tanks. I suspect highly that W simply moved a near working system to being under the military.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
On the other hand, I'm generally in favour of space exploration - especially if we can send some of our polliticians out on non-return trips ;)
In fact, the sooner we open up this new frontier to the point where our chompin'-at-the-bit youngsters can get off planet before they ruin this one for the rest of us, the better.
Dear governments of the world - please let those who would sacrifice their lives on a less than 50/50 chance of success in this venture have a go at it. Our fore-fathers had about the same chance when opening up new territories here on Earth - and the energy accumulated in the recent generations is chafing enough that it is causing the rest of us grief.
Been there, done that, paid for the T-shirt
and didn't get it
Now compare that with launching missile pads up into space. It's just not the same. I mean if I wanted to do Military stuff, I'd want to fly a fighter jet, or something...not monitor space weapons we'll never use from the ground.
NASA's recruiting potential --;
At least he isn't Katz.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Well it turns out the bottles of wine and the jars of urine in the garage look exactly alike.
Boy that stays with you.
The shuttle blows. The ISS is barely in space. We need to break the gravitational bounds of earth again. What good is going 200 miles up? It's pointless? Been there done that. We need to grow a a pair and get going. I'm glad that NASA is getting a good kick in the pants. We can't waste another 30 years with crap like a 300 miles in space POS shuttle.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
about a few issues-
(1) Whoever goes to the moon next - should find the flag left behind the astronauts (right?)
(2) It is kinda early to worry about, but how will extra-planetary real estate be organized? First come first serve? (yah, a lota land rite now - but what about the next 50 yrs or more)
Assimov comes to mind, he painted this horrific image of colonies on other planets - looking down on earth and earthlings - and finally milliniums later - refuse to believe that life originated on a single planet.....
As we plan for the future, we don't look far enough into the future (nucleur weapons and global warming being immediate examples)
|/________
|\A|ALYS|
I hate that stadiums are now named after some corporation (Verison Wireless Stadium). I would be all about NASA putting advertising on the side of the Space Ship. I know it sound stupid but what the hell! Sorry I'm drunk and it WOULD be a good way to subsidize the cost of going back to the Moon and Mars.
Losers whine about doing their best
Winners go home and f*ck the prom queen!
it also does a good job of distracting us from the military presence in various places here on earth, or is that just old news now?
You guys make it sound like Hubble is the last telescope we will ever make, let alone put up in orbit.
Hubble is a Cracker Jack toy compared to whats on the books right now. Letting Hubble fall into obsolescence is a _blessing_ in a way, since it paves the way for newer, better (interferometer!) telescopes to go into the mix.
Besides, it's not like we're at a loss for data. Hubble generated enough data to keep researchers busy for decades. Let it burn up, as far as i'm concerned. Make way for the bigger and better.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
But wasn't this pretty obvious from the start?
What other reason would the figurehead for PNAC (earlier post on them here) have for announcing an enhanced space initiative when the biggest problem his administration is facing is budgetary concerns?
When this was first announced the first sentence out of my lips were "Oh fuck, here comes the militarization of space." Just so we can establish a Cringely-esque track record, when I saw the WTC collapse the first words out of my mouth were "Oh fuck, there go our civil liberties" (and Patriot II was just passed under our noses this last month).
This should come as a surprise for absolutely nobody save foreigners just chiming in. I suggest picking up Perle's new book for a roadmap of what we'll see this administration try and pull if they get elected next term (and they probably will).
--Ryvar
Thus, a moon base by 2020 would have absolutely no connection to this in my mind. Frankly, you aren't going to get any militaristic benefit from going to the moon, other than cowing other countries into submission. And we should already be able to do that through other means...
All this, of course, is not to say that I don't support going back to the moon - I do, for scientific reasons - but as a military objective, this whole helium 3 thing is silly right now.
Carlyle is a big BushCo business, and this space thing is exactly their kind of scam. They mostly look for defense-related companies that are relatively cheap. The "relatively" is the tricky part. It depends either on insider knowledge that is liable to soon change the value of a target company's products, or sometimes the use of overt influence to change defense spending priorities to make the company's products more valuable. In either case, what they bought cheap suddenly becomes much more valuable--and they sell it off and look for another.
Space technology has been on the fringes of their interests. However, if you want to figure out the real motivation behind this latest space deal, look to see what the Carlyle folks have been buying lately. These guys only think with the brains in their hip pockets.
By the way, Poppy Bush and his friends are major participants. Saudis like the royals and Bin Ladins used to be big players in the group, too, but they were persuaded to get out. Looked bad, you know.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Lately the most aggressive country in the world has been USA. Russia and China have been pretty nice and even improving in their relations and efforts towards democracy.
All at the same time the US is removing democracy and implementing kafkaland where you can be detained without knowing why and have no chance at defending yourself.
The US has pretty much gone out of their way to look like complete assholes and thats why most ppl think the current administration is shit because thats what comes out of assholes.
HTTP/1.1 400
It was a toss-up whether the hubble was going to be put on ice or not, and it looks like nasa made a decision.
But really, what's wrong with the militarization of space? Almost all the sci-fi tv shows dealing with space, yes, the ones you know and love, are populated by military folks: star trek, babylon 5, stargate sg-1, battlestar galatica come to mind. The only space show I can think of that didn't have the military as primary characters was firefly, which died an unfortunate (and probably premature) death.
Let's face it, the military are the only ones who are crazy enough to spend billions for a strategic position. No sane commercial enterprise is going to spend that much to build a space beachhead, because there's no ROI. If commerical enterprises can leverage off of the military infrastructure, well, that makes it a bit more acceptible from an ROI point of view.
It must be election time. Its time for "insightful" unbiased articles like this to start to appear.
That said I wouldn't argue that a build up of the manned space program could be a cover for taking the high ground in space. Control of the skies is what gives the US such a commanding advantage in wars these days. Certainly a reason the US is none too happy to see Europe launching Galileo its own GPS system.
I won't debate whether this makes the US evil or not, but it could be seen as prudent in maintaining a lead militarily. To expect China to remain to peaceful purposes only in space may be a bit naive. At this point I don't support nor condemn US space initiatives. I wait to see if this all turns out to be political rhetoric. We all rejoiced in the science and progress of the Apollo era, but without a cold war to drive it there would have been slower progress in space. Now that the world has become a more dangerous place again, we may see such programs again. A boon for science, but with a cloud inside the silver lining.
Letter To Iran
This is a rhetorical question, right?
Of course this is just a cover for shifting towards military space applications. Bush, like any modern elected federal politican, doesn't listen to the people -- he listens to the media corporations and the corporations that bankrolled his election (that would be most of the big ones, for anyone who cares to ask).
Because of this, Bush will do whatever is in the interests of those corporations. One of those interests is to make sure the U.S. remains on top militarily, because the U.S. can't sieze the assets of other countries (e.g., Iraq) or credibly control the actions of other, smaller countries without a strong and influential military.
As difficult to defend against as the U.S. military is right now, it will be completely unstoppable if it manages to gain and retain control of space. Space-borne gun platforms simply can't be touched by anything any third-world country can produce, and producing the required equipment would probably bankrupt many of them. That makes such platforms impossible to defend against.
Now that China and India have shown some initiative in their quest for space, Bush and the corporations that back him want to make sure they can never challenge U.S. military authority. That requires that the U.S. take over and control space in Earth orbit at the very least. Hence the rush.
It goes without saying that a number of the U.S. corporations that back Bush will also benefit from the lucrative contracts that will be given to them for all of this. Contracts paid for by everyone who pays U.S. income tax. Contracts paid for at gunpoint.
If the U.S. develops a manned presence on the moon and elsewhere, it will be a military presence only, at least until corporations figure out how to make it profitable in the short term to be there.
Frankly, I don't think we'll get to Mars prior to a U.S. economic collapse due to the long term consequences of the "jobless recovery" we're currently in. That means we won't get there at all.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
PowerPoint dumbs down another presentation
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Once that taboo is broken, much like nuclear proliferation, the genie cannot be put back into the bottle. More importantly, if America makes the first move, it will only reinforce the worldwide belief in the danger of American arrogance and unchecked power.
Tierce
Who sponsors your feelings?
Why do so many otherwise smart people lose it when it comes to Bush's policies? For example, the Hubble telescope. How many manned space flights has NASA sent up in the past year? The observant among us may remember that the shuttle is GROUNDED. How can we service Hubble without the shuttle? Not to mention, a bigger and better Hubble replacement is due to be in orbit within 5 years. Besides this--it's not like hubble is going to come hurtling into the ocean tomorrow, it has probably years of functionality left. What's the problem?
These articles overlook the fact that no matter what Bush is planning, NASA already has a lot of overlap with the military:
1. Most of NASA's contractors are also defense contractors (Lockheed, etc.), so, it is obvious that _any_ increase in NASA's budget will lead to some defense contractors getting more money.
2. Many of the astronauts are air force officers, since the skills needed to pilot a space craft and a fighter plane are similar. (Chiefly, the ability to stay conscious at a high # of G's)
3. The _original_ space program and the Moon Mission were intended to show the Soviets US tech was better. If the new program competes with the Chinese, it will be the same situation with only the names of the countries changing.
I don't know about that -- Captain Midnight did a nice number on a satellite with little more than the right opportunity. My apologies for the comparison, as Captain Midnight was certainly not a force of evil like those two entities, but the point stands to say -- you don't have to put a bullet through a satellite to kill it.
Throughout human history, technological advancement has been driven primarily by military need. Considering that military force is the ultimate expression of religion, politics, and economics, that should be no surprise.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
There are treaties and agreements, to which the US is a signatory, about the placement of weapons and military technology in space.
If the US breaks those treaties unilaterally, what right does it have to castigate others if at some point in the future they too decide that legally binding agreements don't matter to them either?
Shouldn't the US lead by example? Shouldn't it honour its agreements and stick to its word? How can you expect other nations to respect and trust the US if it doesn't reciprocate that respect and if it betrays that trust?
Oh, and of the three nations you chose to name, one's a US ally now and the other's more concerned with protecting its borders from its neighbours than it is with finding new enemies half way around the world.
That leaves China, which as I pointed out just recently, exports more good to the US than anywhere else, so why you think they'd try to threaten their biggest trading partner (and military counterpart) is beyond me.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
The costs of both the space station and a moon base would not be that different from one another. Though the moon base would have allowed for much larger living quarter, plant life for primary oxygen supply. Further plant life could have been that of vegtables and other garden eatery. Exercise room, A real bedroom
Plus this would have allowed for daily sampling, atmospheric tests, and a wide variety of other scientific tests that the previous short lived manned mission to the moon could not have provided due to time constraints.
With the recent issue of the space station losing air pressure due to a leak (I beleive was in the living quarters), could have been potentially deadly. While a moon base could have a stock of oxygen and food that is never touch that would last as long as they needed until help could arrived. If the space station were to lose air at a high rate or have severe structural damage.. hwo long do you think it would take to get there? Answer... Too Long!
Never try to beat a professional at his own game!
I'd rather see the feds funding fusion energy research at the rate they are trying to fund adventures to the moon and Mars. Once we get fusion as a power source down I would think we might have a little cash left over to fund trasure hunts.
The Hubble is going to be allowed allowed to expire because it is obsolete.
I heard of plans to junk the Hubble sometime last year.
Russia and China bave been "nice" because they know
a) The US will blow them off the map if they're "bad"
b) They know their systems don't work without gloabl integration
Also, references to Kafka are so 1980's. I'm surprised you didn't throw in Orweil or Hitler as well.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
Yeah, and comon, what does everyone think the first space race was about ???
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
NASA technology and expertise will flow to the military. Applicable military technologies will flow to NASA. This will benefit both sides as long as both sides think clearly about what technologies and costs could beneficially be shared and what technologies and capabilities should not.
In the past, for example, shuttle development costs grew as a result of military requirements. Let's hope that this will not happen again.
The general approach should be modular. For example, much of the data architecture, flight software, crew protection, and engine technology could be designed as modular components that plug into an overall standard. The military and NASA would then assemble their own spacecraft while benefiting from shared development costs and manufacturing overhead.
Those who wish to keep the military out of space have their heads buried in the sand. Today, a vaccuum of power exists in space because no country as of yet has the capability to project its power there. It would be foolish for the US not to strive to project power into space while we have an advantage. Because wheter we do or we do not, nations that decry our military efforts today will themselves grab for power when it is within their reach tomorrow. Treaties and regulations do not pacify conflict. Historically, they have only served to codify and legitimize balance of power and pervasiveness of justice that prevents conflict. When no such balance exists, using treaties and accords to contain conflict is like trying to wrap up fire with paper. Witness, for example, the Mideaster peace process.
meanwhile, I get moderated as flamebait because i use the word "peacenik"?? who moderates these messages anyway
Oh, I'm sure it will be effected like a son of a gun!
I am feeling fat and sassy
So NASA, with their increased allowance, can now buy 1/2 of a steath bomber! . Wow, I never knew Bush really cared about space exploration. I get the feeling that this is one of those "Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain!!!" situations.
-- cloudnine --
It is such a shame that those who don't take these kinds of initiatives put themselves at risk because if NO ONE took the initiatives at all, there would be no risk. I often wish that was how the world worked. Instead we get the endless cycle:
Country 1: We have to build it first or we will be at risk.
Country 2: Look Country 1 is building them, so we have to build them also to keep up or we will be at risk.
Country 3: Well, if Countries 1 and 2 are building them then we can't be left behind.
Country 1: Uh-oh. Countries 2 and 3 are building them, so no we need to build more and better ones or we will be at risk.
Country 2: What's that? Country 1 is building more?? Well, fire up the factories. We need more too.
Country 3: Us too!!!
Country 4: Hey guys. I have an idea. How about none of us build any of them and there will be no risk.
Countries 1, 2, and 3: *Simultaneous Laughter*
Country 1: Now...where were we? Oh yes, BUILD MORE!!
Countries 2 and 3: US TOO!!!
ad infinitum
*sigh*
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
If US boosted enough material for military bases and for food production (remember -- McDonalds make their food out of local products!), they would have to build systems with low cost to orbit. Any university department could then send put instrument around any planet, which is the ideal situation.
But those cheap launch systems won't have anything to do with NASA... or maybe NASA will change now when they don't have to use their weight to kill any competition to the shuttle.
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
Why not make space, or at least the space around the earth, the same as the air: the space above a particular country belongs to that country, space above the international oceans is open to all. Thus it would be necessary to have other countries' permissions before orbiting anything over them, and issues like spying and weapons platforms would be somewhat marginalised. This would also allow each country to develop a space program as it saw fit in its own bit of space, or optionally to rent that space to others.
As it is now, space seems a bit like the wild west - noone cares who they fly over, or what's orbiting above them, or whatever.
Likewise we should develop a method for dividing up the moon, mars etc. that is not based on present capabilities but on the likelihood that one day any nation will be capable of utilising these resources. Or better yet put them all under the total control of the UN, as things too big for one nation to claim for itself.
I'm not a US basher, but just because the US is powerful right now doesn't mean it should have total rights to everything it finds in space. I mean, by that logic the US itself would still be part of France and Britain.
Personally I wish there were more collaborative space exploration. Instead of 3 countries/consortiums sending a probe each to Mars, we could have a probe to Mars, one to Europa, and one to Venus.
On a political note [not for moderation]: America, the rest of the world is praying that you wake up and dump Bush this year. It may be 50:50 in the polls in the States, but from outside your continuing refusal to realise that he is a dangerous, incompetent, scheming, money grabbing, corrupt fool is increasingly alarming. Mod -100000 for flamebait, but that's how it is. Please realise though: I love the US, I just wish someone would drive it in the right (or should that be centre-left) direction.
Read Pynchon.
...and control of facilities on a piece of property like this is as good as owning the property. The US does not own Antarctica but our presence at McMurron and other bases gives us de facto control of the area. There is a key piece of lunar territory on the south pole that gives great visualization of the Earth, and a military observation facility there would be difficult to root out since the building would be United States Territory. In addition, holding a large base in Copernicus crater would give us de facto control of the crater and the space beneath it. An underground facility using the crater as an airlock/entryway would be owned by the United States. Officially the control would be by default, but it would take military force to actually remove the personnel, again granting de facto control to the occupying force.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
Tell me, how do you think "the US will blow them [Russia and China] off the map if they're 'bad'", without getting blown off the map itself? And how do you think the US could force Russia or China to do what it wants, in space or elsewhere?
It's a bit hard pushing around a nuclear power. That's why the US is treating North Korea with kid gloves: they're shit scared that the madmen who run North Korea (leaders who let their own people starve are madmen) will nuke Seoul, thereby taking out South Korea's capital, a large chunk of its population and its economy and the 35-50,000 US troops permanently based there.
Perhaps you should pick up a history book sometime? Or take a geopolitics class? Who know, you might actually learn something about how the world works.
It's people like you that make people elsewhere look at Americans as arrogant assholes. Do yourself (and your countrymen) a favour: shut your mouth, educate yourself and try to look at other societies and cultures as something other than ICBM targets.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Russia was "bad" for 50 years and no-one blew them off the map.
Russia is "good" at the moment not because they fear US aggression but because economically they are in the toilet. They fear their own citizens revolting if they start spending billions (which they don't have) on armaments.
The US won the Cold War because the USSR imploded first, not because of superior weaponry. Bit of a Pyrrhic victory, though, economically speaking.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
"Is the re-allocation of funds within NASA really for getting to the Moon and Mars?
It's on the record as being re-allocated for those purposes, so that seems like a redundant question. I supose you're asking "is that their real purpose"? Perhaps a longer-term perspective would ask the question of, what is the purpose of getting to the Moon and Mars, besides "exploration"? Historically, exploration has had economic, security, and political motivators. This is just more of the same, it appears...
Or is it just a cover for shifting toward military space applications?
Same argument. When Columbus sailed the ocean blue, and the King and Queen of Spain underwrote his voyage, don't you think that people complained that the government was using that voyage as a cover for shifting towards military nautical applications? Of course they did... Ever heard of the Spanish Armada? Spain succeeded in developing it's military nautical applications... war galleons, collonies in the americas, gold, etc. etc. Of course, they later lost control of most of it, but at the time it was simply an investment which later paid of in terms of economic, political, and military applications...
If true, how badly will NASA's scientific mission be effected if it becomes a conduit for giving research and development money to defense contractors?
Maybe none at all. There is a "science of war" after all... Take the Atlantic Research Corporation, for example... They conducted scientific research into the area of solid-fuel rockets... Pretty serious scientific applications, all things considered. Also very serious defence, political, and economic research as well. All things considered, NASA's scientific mission could possibly be improved if they could develop a new line of shuttle replacements that could also serve defence applications... And the armed services have a repuation of having equipment which works pretty well, now-days... You never know when some extra terrestrial object or species is going to start landing on our chunk of rock... Better be ready...
Okay, so the US space program should become militarized because of China being a military threat.
Perhaps I am missing something. (Namely, ignorant of a huge modernized navy China has been hiding somewhere or something.)
I'm trying to imagine a war with China happening realistically. (Which seems unlikely unless one or both countries end up with idiots/nutcases in charge.)
I'm trying to imagine the US and China getting into a full balls-to-the-wall war, and the rest of the world just standing back and not getting involved. That's really hard.
I'm trying to imagine a scenario where China tries to invade the US, somehow transporting troops over the Pacific Ocean without getting picked off by US forces en masse. Where China doesn't have to worry about Japan sitting off its coast, India, Pakistan, Taiwan breaking away, internal rebellion happening while troops are diverted, Islamic rebels in the western provinces, even Russia and former Soviet states along its north border. Unless China has a magically unsinkable troop transport capable of carrying a few dozen million troops, I have problems seeing this happening.
I'm trying to imagine a scenario where the US invades China successfully. I keep imagining China just shrugging and saying, "We surrender -- make us part of the US!" and, a decade later when the US goes bankrupt from struggling with dealing with a population five times its size over seas, a multiplicity of languages and ethnic groups, etc., China quietly return to what it had been doing.
I can't see either side waging a war and succeeding (they might 'win', but that's different from being able to survive a victory.) The economic impacts, both local and globally, would be immense. Now, I can see a nuclear exchange, or a mutual destruction potentially happening (successfully, for certain definitions of success), but I can't see a conventional war working out.
This doesn't mean that military defenses aren't needed -- the scenarios above presupposes neither side has become easy pickings, but as is, the cost in waging a war seems far, far more than any unlikely gain.
The battlefield seems more likely to be in the economic arena at this point than the military. Yah, we need a strong arm to keep the cost of any military action high, but outside of stupidity or insanity, I'm not sure why fear is necessary.
Maybe someone can explain to me how China is a threat, militarily? (Outside of a nuclear exchange, which even then I am pretty sure the US holds a noticeable fire power edge. I've not heard a damned thing about any Chinese subs with nuclear missiles. I guess they have some(?)) Is there some battle plan by which they can just pop over on this side of the Pacific without worrying about Japan, India, Russia, Australia, the Pacific Fleet, and much of the rest of the world? I mean, I'd assume they would have to give the US some warning by taking out Japan, South Korea, etc. etc. first.
It just doesn't seem to make sense. Some amount of caution seems reasonable, but fearing China militarily seems to be overstating things. Regardless of the size, I just haven't heard anything about their ability to get their forces anywhere outside their borders.
I have always thought that NASA being the Air Force of space was not a matter of if, but when, as I am sure many other people do, as well. Making NASA the "space military" only makes sense. The only reason it hasn't happened yet, is that we haven't had a need/reason to make a space military. But pulling them under federal funding is only a matter of time.
If true, how badly will NASA's scientific mission be effected (wrong! should be "affected") if it becomes a conduit for giving research and development money to defense contractors?
This usage note for the reference manual for the word affect indicates the "effect" and "affect" have different meanings:
Usage Note: "Affect" and "effect" have no senses in common. As a verb "affect" is most commonly used in the sense of "to influence" (how smoking affects health). "Effect" means "to bring about or execute": layoffs designed to effect savings. Thus the sentence These measures may affect savings could imply that the measures may reduce savings that have already been realized, whereas These measures may effect savings implies that the measures will cause new savings to come about.
Actually, if the current administration was serious about making space more accessible, while not build a space elevator. According to one study the cost is $10 billion and it takes 15 years to build it. More economical than a traditional trip to the moon, which cost was estimated to be closer to $400 billion by the previous Bush'es administration.
A religious war is an adult version of a fight over who has the best imaginary friend
So, I'm not surprised that this would be another attempt to militarize space. However, it is not inevitable. Maybe the spy satellites are inevitable, maybe conventional weapons proliferation is inevitable, but there's nothing predetermined about putting offensive weaponry in space. An offensive satellite isn't something that happens without a huge amount of infrastructure. It's not something that happens in secret -- even if the US wants to do it, we still have to make up a story (this case in point).
I'm surprised there has been no mention of asteroid threat. It's pretty much a given that it's just a matter of time before we face possible annhilation from an asteroid. If the current Administration wants to spend big on a space program why not jump start technology presently suggested as a means to meet with the threat of a killer asteroid? Are asteroid/comet threats considered to be outside of NASA's bailiwick?
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Let's make no mistake about it. America is the preeminent power in the world and has increasingly shown the world that it is now afraid to flex its muscles. Russia and China know this all too well. A nuclear war is no their interest because they have too much to lose.
The North Koreans have nothing to lose, but like all madmen, they're inherently cowards. They know that using their nukes would render their nation a smoldering parking lot. They might be able to hurt America or South Korea, but they would cease to exist.
Perhaps you should pick up a history book sometime? Or take a geopolitics class? Who know, you might actually learn something about how the world works.
Oh? And I suppose you know how the world works, because you're a genius, right? Thousands of years of great men trying to figure out how the world works, and here unbeknowst to us, you have it all figured out.
It's people like you that make people elsewhere look at Americans as arrogant assholes.
Yeah, Mr-I-Know-How-The-World-Works surely isn't arrogant. Heavens no.
Do yourself (and your countrymen) a favour: shut your mouth, educate yourself and try to look at other societies and cultures as something other than ICBM targets.
How 'bout I do this instead? How 'bout I speak my mind and let geniuses like you stereotype Americans based on what I say. That way you don't have to read history books to learn about Americans. You can learn all about them by reading my posts.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
Let's face it: China's successful launch of a man into orbit and ambitions to go to the moon have caused a stir among the current Administration. In this administration, most budgetary increases are going towards military or security applications, thus it was inevitable that NASA be asked to perform dual-use or even exclusively military research and development projects. Between the threat of China potentially capitalizing lunar/martian resources before we do and the need to win the elction, NASA got a kick in the pants to show that America is still able to explore space. While I thoroughly disagree with how the funding is being handled (cutting homeland security's budget in half and giving it to NASA would be a start), it is clear that the future of NASA is a dual mission.
First, NASA is to become more of a publicity tool whose true merits are sidelined by the need for good press. We've already seen this in the failure of NASA management to save Columbia by having it dock with the ISS until another shuttle could launch and with the failure of NASA management to prevent the Challenger launch to gain reputability with then-president Reagan. Perhaps the whole show should be run by engineers and the head of NASA made a 20-year Congressional appointment as a way to solve the problem. If nothing else, the shuttle should be either overhauled or replaced outright over the next 20 years as it was never able to live up to its original promises anyway.
Second, NASA will be the place for the military to test new high-altitude and orbital equipment. Air Force personnel are already working on a shuttle capable of deploying teams of people anywhere in the world inside of 12 hours while the "Star Wars" project or an equivalent will be deployed against potential threats from nations possessing limited quantities of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Other exotic military technologies and observation/communication equipment will be deployed using NASA to get around the existing military treaties or just to replace outmoded technology.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
Russia wasn't as "bad" as they wanted to be. If the US didn't have nukes, Paris would be called Yeltsingrad today.
Make no mistake, Russia failed because it couldn't compete with the US on any level. If it didn't have the US to compete with, we'd still see the C.C.C.P on Olympic uniforms today.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
It's also there and it's working right now. Hubble has proven itself to be reliable for longer than a decade, which is one of the best possible guarantees that could be hoped for in space. Throwing it away to invest entirely in something not yet proven is a big gamble. The cost of keeping Hubble working for a few years longer is quite low compared with the overheads of designing, building and launching entirely new projects.
Of course it'd be great to have future projects in due course, but suggesting that Hubble has "generated enough data" is a very shallow viewpoint. There are never a shortage of applications for people to use it -- big telescope time is hard to get. There are also $200 million instruments that were designed and built for the next Hubble mission that will now never be used. The James Webb Space Telescope, for example, which is still in a relatively conceptual design phase, also doesn't obsolete Hubble. They're designed for quite different things.
In any case with George Bush's massive "reallocation" of funding within NASA, this is one of the shakiest times for this type of genuine scientific project. Don't be surprised if the JWST and other similar projects are also scuttled in the near future in favour of the politically popular but scientifically dubious goal of getting more human ballast into local space.
I can understand the Offtopic tag, but where else can someone speak about these facts that are, if not true, supposed to be debated ?
As a part-time journalist, I'd like someone to justify why he has not been punished by the profession for hijacking the censorware domain.
I know this is going to be modded down, but sometimes I wonder why /. readers lack this very basic courage.
Or maybe, ironically, this is something you can't say ?
jdif
Let's overcome our weakness.
for a visible-light space telescope. heh new scope planned for 2011 is an infrared scope. Losing Hubble means we will be without a visible-light space scope for as far forward as we can see. The Webb IR scope has many experiments planned in tandem with the visible light capabilites of the Hubble. Not to mention, we currently have 200 million in Hubble modules built and sitting ready to go up, and abandoning Hubble means throwing them (and the money) into the trash can. And the "enough data" argumentis absurd. Cancer researches ahve benerated enough dat to keep us busy for decades, but stopping resaerch woud be crazy. Losing the Hubble means that when the analysis of that data suggests a new experiment, we wont be able to do it, or will be limited to earth-bound scopes with a narrow wavelength window and atmospheric turbulence issues to deal with.
Dear people of the rest of the world,
Can't we all just get a long?
Canada
Ride recklessly only when safe to do so.
the Chinese are almost 50 years behind us... excuse my lack of alarm.
Yeah, but with the way things seem to be going, in about 15 years there will be approx 200 million Chinese wannabe yuppies driving around Hummers, and with absolutely NO EMISSION controls to boot. (Not to mention the 75 million Bangalore programmers driving their BMW SUV's...
Just think of the fucking SMOG problems, Buster!
The pollution from Beijing alone will be reaching past St. Louis on a regular basis.
And all you starving, out-of-work Americans will be prostituting your little sisters just so you can afford a ticket to the Mars colonies. (At least one of which will be named after Ronald Reagan: you can bet your worthless stock options and social security checks on that!)
Hey, just don't forget to thank Dubya-and-family for your f-ed-up sorry-assed life when you reach orbital speed, SUCKAS!
We don't hear much about China's space program because they're ~20 years behind us. :P
Not that that's an incredible hurdle to overcome, given the sorry state of NASA, but as far as aerospace tech in general goes the Chinese are way behind.
People won't notice unless they're quite obviously in danger of attaining parity, at which point it would likely be far too late to do anything about the situation.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Who needs hubble when we have a base on the MOON?!
Heck, it's probably far more cost effective. (once we're there)
If US boosted enough material for military bases and for food production (remember -- McDonalds make their food out of local products!), they would have to build systems with low cost to orbit.
Nah. Lowering costs doesn't happen when you're working with an unlimited government grant with no oversight or transparency, as is the case with defense procurement.
Either they'll spend 80% of GDP on it and impoverish everyone even further, or they'll start citing national security and use Orion-style launching systems.
Want to be a downwinder for *that* space base? Heh...
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Ok, I have 3, 4 and 7.
What I don't get is how the lever in 4 is supposed to fit in the gear; I think it's a 4".
Perhaps we should just use a 2.5" in 6, mch like in 7, only a slight bit longer.
No, they are not. They received a lot of help from russia and even from the USA. They have a young, motivated space corps without much politics (actually, I am assuming not much politics, but hard to say).
In contrast, NASA has become political, since the glory days. And in the last few years, it has gotten much worse.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Let's make no mistake about it. America is the preeminent power in the world and has increasingly shown the world that it is now afraid to flex its muscles. Russia and China know this all too well. A nuclear war is no their interest because they have too much to lose.
And the US doesn't? Sorry, I missed the bit where Americans and America became immune to the effects of nuclear weapons.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Bush administration is evil.
NASA always had a culture of exploration: to see what is out there and find out what it means. Exploration and discovery go hand in hand.
Turning NASA from an Exploring agency to an empire-building agency is evil, pure and simple.
This was supposed to be a nation dedicated to freedom and increasingly we're becoming the most frightening and dangerous regime on earth. Our civil liberties have been strip mined, and we're saddled with a government we can't trust and may not be able to get rid of.
We started as Athens, and now we're rapidly heading towards Rome. What a lousy, bloody, stupid waste of the potential of a great nation this Bush has wrought.
I'm tired of the Democrats, and I'm tired of the Republicans. The libertarians show promise, but the Libertarians suck. The greens are a good idea, bu the Greens are fascists, and Nader is a basket case.
We need fundamental fixes: to admit that the Limited Liability Corporation was a grave error, or at least that the Constitution has proved inadquate in it's current for to keep such beasts under control, for starters**. We need to find a way of representing out views outside the follow-the-herd thinking of conventional political parties, so that intelligent debate, healthy scepticism and scientific fact get a fair hearing in the political arena.
NASA really once was our crown jewel: an essentially peaceful effort put the first human being on the surface of another world. Yes, there were nationalistic reasons for doing it, but we did it in peace, and we did it for everybody.
To see it militarized when there is no credible space-related threat to the safety or liberty of Americans is anathema.
I don't know what we can do to reverse this corruption of our ideals, but I hope somebody else does. How's about using this thread to think about that.
(**) The Bill of Rights would have contained a clause banning the formation of corporations, had not the states of the time had adaquate anti-corporate legislation themselves. In hindsight, this may have been the most critical error the Framers made.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
u hav hit teh noodel!!!!
I'm very worried about the future of NASA. Consider this: A recent story on Slashdot described a program at NASA where they got personal data from an airline to try to discover if they could pin down terrorist. Now, this is an admirable study, but WHY IS NASA DOING THIS? Does it have anything to do with space? NASA needs to remember or re-evaluate their mission.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
They have a young, motivated space corps without much politics (actually, I am assuming not much politics, but hard to say)
You're rather naive, aren't you? And probably stupid as well.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
You're making as much sense as a japanese vcr instruction manual. How on earth (or moon, for that matter) is a base on the moon cheaper? The distance is bigger, so that shipments there for replacement parts etc. are much more expensive, and you can't as easily direct your telescope on something because that stupid rock keeps on rotating. It's not only less cost-effective, it's just stupid. And btw, I doubt they'll do it anyway (a telescope on the moon). They appear to have abandoned all scientifically interesting goals and go straight for the "look everyone we're going places so lets forget our domestic problems" approach.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
Have you seen the USA's record on that matter?
;-)
I wouldn't advise a communist revolution to solve the issue though
As somebody who has worked with NASA and a kernel hacker, probably no to both.
On the other hand, you leave a bit to be desired.
Its probably modded because he posts the same exact text every time he can get away with a first post. Whether it should be debated or not? Its debated every time... but it gets annoying. It is no doubt a troll.
This is a rip-off of a comment of some time ago.
this sig has intentionally been left blank
I've seen a few articles mention plans to build solar-cell production factories on the moon, lay out a few square miles and beam the power back to Earth orbit via microwave, then relay down to the surface...
Seems this is about new energy sources.
The WOT was about wresting control of dwindling oil reserves (check 'Peak Oil' on google)
First Afghanistan to get access to central Asia reserves, then Iraq to start things off in the MidEast (Syria looks like a follow-up)
There is an energy crisis coming, and we can't avoid it with biodiesel, solar/wind/hydro or reducing usage. The population density & rate of increase of our species is only sustainable because we've tapped stored bio-energy in the form of oil. Super-concentrated plant energy...
What happens when it runs out?
Yes, I know about switching to shale oil, coal, etc etc etc. Won't last 5 years at our current rate of consumption.
And China? They want to industrialize too.
Once that country picks up the pace, we'll see a face-off just like you'd see at a drying-up watering hole in Africa, two packs of lions fighting to the death over a 2-foot puddle of mud.
The US is clueing into the fact that if we get off this rock in the next 10-15, there's a chance to sustain our rate-of-growth. Simple as that.
for at least including that article here (i submitted that earlier)
-You may license this sig for only $6.99.
Hey
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Well, that would depend how many nukes we gave Israel before they started making their own. ...although I suppose that since we and the French also gave them the tech to start making their own, we're effectively responsible for all of it.
Great plan, I'm sure they're far more able to keep those nukes safe and un-used than we would be!
And if we're going to go with chemical/biological weapons... a more dubious interpretation of WMD in my mind... well, we hooked Iraq up in the '80s. That's why Bush knew he'd find WMD there, so it must have been quite a surprise when he discovered that they got rid of it all...
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Hey, it looks like those napkins are pretty useful for basic feasibility testing! Perhaps we should order a cargo container full and have them shipped to the White House!
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
None of those things make a lick of difference to the current military situation, which is, essentially, the US can destroy any nation on Earth with ICBM's if it feels the need - with the proviso that a few of them could strike crippling blows on the US. Moon bases, Mars bases, ASAT weapons - none of those changes that essential fact. The only thing that could potentially do so is a working anti-missile system on one side or the other.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
It isn't possible for the Chinese government to break the treaty; they never signed it.
My guess is a bunch of said peaceniks :-)
--Kevin
hmm those wiley WMD's. People like to hide those don't they? If they "got rid of it all", did Saddam Hussein himself send you the memo on this issue? I'm sure you're completely informed, please tell more...
Its debated every time... Oh really ? I guess that if it would have been debated a bit more than what you describe as every time, Seth Finkelstein wouldn't have been so bitter about his work, and then wouldn't have resigned (yes, I think that the /. effect, and the untouchable situation of whom needs to be labelled as a crook, at least, has to do with Seth demise as a censorware tracker).
I've been reading /. for some time now, and I couldn't find a place where it was debated in a constructive way. Please post some link.
jdif
Let's overcome our weakness.
have those kids back in the schools back then is just what the liberals wanted and to this still day want. Everyone comes here for education and then use that knowledge against us. Great border Visa if you ask me. Ok Isreal is one example.
also Isreal is one example, how many countries are their out there. How many times has Isreal use a Nuke against anyone. Regretably we are the only country to do it. But they view is 20/20 afterwards.
Plus we are in the process of making a bigger empire than Alexander so I am sure we will start launching them anyday now.
What else is our fault the WMD from the Soviot Union, Starvation in India, and its over population.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
Why dosen't NASA sell the Hubble telescope to some other country? Since they don't paln to service it anymore. If they find a buyer they might get some much needed money and the other country might be able to squeeze a few more years out of it before its dead.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the US never signed that UN treaty...
"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, now would it?' -Albert Einstein-
To read all the details...
s um .pdf
http://www.au.af.mil/Spacecast/monographs/exec-
scary stuff.
When the Columbia went down, I made it my goal to find out what went wrong. Ultimately I decided that the Space Shuttle was a dated piece of equipment that needed to be replaced. Endeavor should have never been built, instead a new 2nd-gen shuttle should have. (The program existed, but was later canceled) The lack of funding by the Clinton administration is what led to its ultimate demise. The Venturestar Program was the 3rd generation space shuttle (called the Space Launch Initiative), and the X-33 was the prototype. Actually, it wasn't even that, it was a "technology validator". So it makes sense to test the components that had been built already (like the linear aerospike engine, which is revolutionary due to its efficiency and the composite fuel tanks would be a boon to any launching system, shuttle or otherwise) The program was cancelled because too many things had gone wrong and NASA under Clinton appointee Daniel Goldin had shifted focus to small, unmanned probes (faster, better, cheaper) so they were unwilling to tough it out. You can find out all about the X-33 at ALLSTAR or NASA itself.
> but like all madmen, they're inherently cowards.
This sounds to me like unconvincing propaganda--do you have any serious evidence for such an assertion?
Of course this won't happen, which to me boggles the mind, as the boon to the economy and the world would be tremendous.
www.enthea.org
Huh? NASA has been federally funded ever since they were created by the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958.
And you could even argue that it's been much, much longer than that . The 1958 act didn't create them out of whole cloth; instead, it transformed the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NACA seems to have been charted in 1915 and operated from 1917 to 1958. So the agency (which has National in its name -- should be a clue) has had federal funding for around 89 years. And it's not as if they're the same agency in name only. I believe you can still see the name NACA in stone work on one of the buildings at NASA Ames Research Center. (I forget which building, maybe one of the old wind tunnels.)
If this leaves you confused about what Bush has done, what he did is to change the size of NASA's budget back to something a little larger, closer to what it used to be before budget cuts, but not (I don't think) anywhere near the levels it at was when they sent men to the moon.
oh, him or Fritz Hollings? This sure is a dilemma. All this talk of undersirables might give me nightmares tonite!
Solar radiation in the tropics is something like 1000 watts per square metre. Say you need 30% of that (we'll be generous), and because you'd only need to illuminate for half the time we'll halve it again. So we could work on a constant 150 watts per square metre. Over one year, that works out to 1314 kW/h. We have to add in an allowance for the less-than-perfect efficiency of the lights, but I have no idea what that factor might be. But, ignoring that, at 10c per kW/h, which is a ballpark figure for power generation on Earth (rather than the moon, where it's likely to be much more expensive), we're up to $131.40 to illuminate our crop for a year.
Now, how much are you going to produce out of that one square metre of land? According to this article, efficient rice farmers get about 8 (presumably metric) tons per hectare. Maybe you could double this in a moon farming situation - no pests, optimal watering, custom-built soil, etc. etc. etc., so we'll say 16 tons per hectare. That works out to 1.6 kilograms per square meter.
So our rice costs at least 80 USD per kilogram, just for the power to keep it lit!
That's just the beginnings of our problems, however. We need water and soil for our plants. Water doesn't seem to be exactly abundant on the moon - at best, there's water on the poles but it's going to be a PITA to get at it (if it's there, it'll be in a crater that never sees the sun and is consequently under about -200 Celsius). We could potentially cheat and make water by bringing hydrogen from somewhere else and mixing it with the much heavier oxygen we could get by melting lunar rocks. What else do we need? Carbon, for one. Even the Artemis Project, a bunch of people trying advocating lunar colonization, doubt that there's much carbon available. Carbon will have to be either a) imported from Earth, or possibly b) obtained from the asteroid belt (which, longer term, is actually likely to be easier than from Earth).
All in all, therefore, lunar agriculture is looking dodgy until the cost of energy drops dramatically.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
The 90% completed X-33 is at Edward's AFB, in a hanger, by a launchpad. The hanger, the launchpad, and the prototype are jointly owned by Lockheed Martin and NASA, President Bush could not take it without buying Lockheed Martin out ($356 million), and transferring NASA's share to the Air Force. Thing is, everyone that follows space exploration closely would know about it, no matter how much they tried to cover it up. (It would have to go through Congress). It's useless anyway, it can't haul cargo or anything remotely like that. The X-33 was cancelled in March, BEFORE that idiot Dan Goldin was replaced by the much better O'Keefe. Just something I forgot to mention.
At the moment, however, because they are safe, investors encourage profitable risk taking.
That's fine, up to a point. But as we've seen with Enron, and WorldCom, and many other corporate disasters, and companies like Exxon who just keep breaking the law and paying the fines, shareholders still appoint board members who are willing to break the law to make a buck.
We've created a perverse incentive to shareholders to hire people who'll bend and break the rules, make a buck, and if they get caught, go to jail.
Why? Because the shareholders themselves are immune to prosecution for the actions they hire people to take.
Think about that: if I'm a shareholder, I can hire somebody as a director who then breaks the law - but they can't touch me. If that crime makes me a lot of money, that money is inviolate: share price rises, I cash out, the crime is discovered, and the director involved goes to jail.
But the agent behind the action, the individual investor, gets away scot free.
It's a broken system. It may have been necessary at an early stage of capitalism, but at this point it's like running a coal-fired steel mill in the heart of downtown.
Corporations are a relic of the industrial age. We should drop them.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
"We don't hear much about China's space program because they're ~20 years behind us"
This maybe the case, but,
1. Can you remember the moment when Japan stopped building nasty horrible automobiles and started producing some of the worlds finest?
2. It's been 30 years since any of you boys went to the moon, so, by your calculation, they're already well capable of getting there on their own
I've never shoed a horse, but I once told a donkey to piss off!
Without the tinfoil hat? Are you kidding? There's no way you'll get me to take it off that easily.
We need some military protection to seed this project. Imagine if we start to terraform mars for future generations and use, we should establish some control now.
1888 Franklin St.
with all this hot air, someone would think that an election was on its way.
*sigh*
What non-defense contractors of NASA are there?
I would fear for us all if we ever attempted "world government". As a race, we're not even qualified to run a government, never mind a national one, never mind a global one.
I mean, statistically speaking, a world government would be approximately 2000 times more screwwed up than the US one, just based on the number of people it deals with. 2000 times! The US is already run by a monkey, whats 2000 times worse than a monkey!?
That is what missile defense is all about.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Things in space exploration have been so slow, or at least so unspectacular, during last 20 years, that we're often forgetting that it took only about 10 years from the first American in orbit to the first American on the Moon... And that was with nobody having done it before, with 1960's technology and with much less general data on the moon than today. I'd imagine it'd be quite possibe for China to get a man to the moon in 5 years. Technically possible at least, financially might be a different matter...
Is the re-allocation of funds within NASA really for getting to the Moon and Mars?
YES! FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, YES! Manned space exploration was a top priority for NASA since its inception and creation. The point was "putting a man on the moon". That is why NASA was founded! Then we had run-ins with Carter and Clinton, where that vision was fogged by poor administration and judgement. It took a great president, Ronald Reagan, to see the Space Shuttle project to completion and to put NASA on track for the future (SS Freedom, 2nd gen shuttle, Space Launch Initiative, Moon Bases, Man on Mars) He knew we didn't have the time nor the technology to go to Mars yet, but that was still the unltimate goal, a "when we're ready" kind of thing. Then George H.W. Bush happened. He rolled back the programs, but he did not completely destroy them, he cut things down to a bear minimum. Clinton destroyed them. I remember hearing that Dan Goldin thought exploration through robots was just as good as human exploration. Growing up in Langley AFB (the NASA facility is intgrated with the base), I got to hear directly what the NASA engineers thought of Clinton back in '94-95, and it wasn't pretty. Clinton killed the programs created during the 80's. He didn't do it directly, he (through his direct control and the appointment of Goldin) just cut their funding to below minumum levels, so he could write it off as "NASA's fault, not the administration's". We need another Reagan to get us back on track. We've found him- He's George W. Bush. NASA's mission is once again manned exploration.
Or is it just a cover for shifting toward military space applications?
NO! NASA and the military (primarily the US Air Force) work together because they research the same things. The applications of that research differ, one is a civilian organization, and the other is a military one. The AF had an interest in the Venturestar program, a single-stage to orbit (SSTO) craft would be wonderful. It would be mobile, easily, safely, and cheaply launched. They could build a good number of them, give them different jobs (like mounting a laser on one). NASA is actively engaged in the Airborne LASER project. The AF loans aircraft to NASA all the time. Heck, the only reason I got to see an SR-71 and F-117 regularly in flight in the early 90s was because of the NASA research facility attached to the Air Force Base. NASA explores aerodynamics and aerospace. The Airforce is an aerodynamics and aerospace power, see the connection? When NASA develops an aircraft (e.g. the forward-swept wing, X-29), the AF would like to know the results of it for use militarily. Any way you look at it, NASA and the military both have the same research goals.
If true, how badly will NASA's scientific mission be effected if it becomes a conduit for giving research and development money to defense contractors?
It's not true, and NASA's money goes directly to NASA. If the military and NASA work together, it is good for NASA becase NASA gets the boost of military funds, not the other way around. Every joint development project is funded by NASA AND the military until NASA can't use it as research anymore, at which point a NEW military project based on the results of the NASA/military one would be created. (NASA is a civilian agency, and is more or less transparent in where its money goes, unlike the military)
NASA is not an agency of 'progress for the sake of progress'. It is an agency dedicated to improving mankind. The safe voyage to the moon and back was more important than exploring the moon. A Moonbase could produce fuel. The ultimate result is not "the moon is composed of this % of that and this % of this" It's, "we can use this to make that which helps us in the end." The important thing is not the science itself, it's how it's used. President Bush sees that. Clinton did not.
check it out
i on .html
http://www.asi.org/adb/02/08/solar-cell-product
I think NASA should take a cue from "Cowboy Bebop" and work out the finer points of building systemwide hyperspace portals. Halliburton can build them, they can obliterate the moon on completion (eliminating any worries about military conquest by "rogue nations," and then make even more money terraforming other planets in the solar system.
Yeah, losing Earth would be a bummer, but I can't wait to catch bounties on Ganymede!
There was a meta-discussion that now appears to be closed that you can find if you read the kuro5hin link. Does anyone have a listing on this secret discussion? Additionally sllort has a journal where this is discussed. If you want to see where this has been discussed before perform this search and read the articles. Many I believe are not moderated to -1. This AC author has posted to alot of discussions though, and he is being ignored by most people (i.e. he is trolling).
The US military did not have a vested interest in the Venturestar project. Had it made it to production, it would have, but until then, the military was an "interested observer". A LOT had gone wrong. You really need to read the history. For example, the Clipper Graham test vehicle was destroyed on July 31, 1996 when it slammed into the ground. It's composite outer-shell failed in a crash-landing. The fuel tanks then blew. The only recoverable items were the RL-10 engines and the auxiliary propulsion system. Also, the military did not make the announcement, Arthur Stephenson, director of Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama did. The money was an issue. 1.25 billion is not enough for a Single-Stage to Orbit Program. Heck, the development program cost over 2.5 billion dollars, and ONE Space Shuttle cost over 2 billion dollars a piece (and we built 6 of them)
Bush DID NOT CANCEL IT. It was an administrative decision through Goldin and the other NASA heads. (now mostly replaced). Moreover, Lockheed even decided that a SSTO program was too difficult right now, and that we need at least 2 stages to launch a manned shuttle-type craft into space. We learned a lot. Expect the next shuttle (Bush said that there will be a next one) to reflect the lessons of the X-33/Venturestar project.
Take it easy man when I say : fuck off.
You are exactly the kind of people who prevent the men of good-will to discuss that point. /. reader is too fucking lazy to go through a -1 threshold, it is widely assumed that yes, /. editors are right.
I guess you don't realize how the editors are taking advantage of what you are doing. "Look at all these suckers there, if this is supposed to be criticism, then we feel ok about it". And just because the average
Don't get me wrong. I personnally think that some editors are worth it. But michael really is a problem, and you fucking morons are not the solution.
What really upsets me here is that I find some bright people, who are posting some leftist rants, thirsty of justice, and that can't realize they are using a system at least as fucked up as every government in this world.
Of course some lame poster will answer, "this is a news site, chill out and get a life". Fuck you too. I'm sure the best layer of /. posters can be brought away of a system they wouldn't accept if they knew it a bit more. Whatever.
But you are what really pisses me off. Some fucking assholes spitting your frustration. Make your move, build a news site, fucker.
jdif
Let's overcome our weakness.
Only in Slashdot-world is it wrong to propagandize against madmen.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
The parent has no information in it, and is merely flamebait.
Spectacular events like putting a man on the moon don't do a good job of defining the abilities of our aerospace industry. Strong and continuing US spending on R&D has advanced our technical abilities way beyond any other countries in a broad range of useful space tech and research, from composites to computing and electronics to imaging devices, propulsion systems, and all manner of odds and ends.
Anyone can put a man on the moon given a couple billion dollars and a few years, but development of space infrastructure is on an entirely different roadmap.
Where it counts, America still has massive technological superiority in the aerospace field, and will likely maintain it during the next 10-20 years, even if NASA as we know it disappears.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Do we really mind if the space program gets shifted to the military? Think about it, its going to happen anyway, so why not consider the positives. At the moment NASAs budget is what, 5%, 1%? of our military budget. More money for space is a good thing. And remember, our favorite fictional space organization, starfleet, is a military organization.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
FUD
whats 2000 times worse than a monkey!?
a human
Math is hard?
US pop = 300m
World pop = 6 billion
So its about 20 times, not 2000.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Then there's the nuclear capability of Israel.... can't imagine where that came from.
Maybe you need to work your imagination a little harder.
Israel's capabilities are the result of both its having a high-skilled personnel fleeing Europe and its cooperation with France (first) and South-Africa (later).
In fact, the US tried to deter the Israelly efforts from the start.
Israel gained nuclear capabilities inspite of the US efforts.
Working for necessity's mother.
As opposed to De Jure (legal).
Some of the problems with NASA was that it allowed the space shuttle to be desinged to be used to launch military satellites (and nobody helped nasa to pay for this requirment, not the air force which orginally specified that requirment), hence a very expensive launch system prone to problems. Other problems, like bumping the original HUBBLE telescope launch by many years so that lots of military spy-sat launches could go ahead, are also signs of a space program that looks civillian, but does a lot of pure military work too. The other problem with NASA having to pay for all these military programs is that programs like SETI and the HUBBLE telescope (and other space research programs) are left to flounder. If Bush and company want all these military space applications, they should simply start a pure military space agency (MASA?), and keep NASA's real funding intact (however small that amount is). Then we would have a real democracy where the tax payer knows where all the funding really goes and not a sham civillian agency doing the military's work and not what it should be doing (basic science, real space exploration)
I think its far too early to be saying that Hubble is a piece of History ... the program is barely 20 years old already.
...
What is this with Americans thinking that every piece of space machinery they've ever made is 'a piece of history'? This ability to propel everything a culture does into history is sure a good one
I guess its true. History is made by those who write it.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I remember a non-fiction book on this subject when I was a young adult back in the cold war. Reagan's SDI stuff was in the news and Gorbachev was the new saviour. The book explained what the possibilities of future combat in space would be, including things as space based lasers, anti-satellite missiles, communication systems and electronic counter measures.
Everybody knew that, in a traditional conventional war, controlling space would be one of the keys to controlling the battlefield down on earth. Of course everybody thought about putting nuclear missiles into orbit, even as early as kruschev's days, because orbital missiles would be almost impossible to provide early warning against. But, apart from many science fiction stories based on that premise, no one ever did it. The danger of said missiles falling out of orbit by accident was very real, apart from which such missiles would be be very vulnerable to first strike counter measures from the other side.
However, the Bush administration has seen the obvious direction of China's space effort, and to a certain extent India's as well. China's space agency is fully integrated with the military, much the same as NASA is (although neither nation advertises this fact). China has stated that they plan to put a man on the moon in the 2015 to 2020 time period and China's military has expressed interest in developing methods of destroying satellites in order to deny the enemy the advantage of communications and navigation in time of war.
In terms of national prestige it would be an obviously huge boost to China's image to be able to land on the moon, and I cannot a nationalistic US President such as Bush allowing such a feat to take place without the US getting there first. However the the budget allocated for this endevour is almost certainly too small, and will stretch the US economy if a permanent manned moon base is implemented. Apart from the national prestige there is no real benefit to the national economy and given that a future US government might just see this as a waste of money and resources.
But I can see the US and China getting involved in a ridiculous race in space in both arms and to the moon that will benefit neither in the long run as the modern Chinese government is obviously not given to costly foreign military adventures and will simply go at a pace that it can afford as opposed to the US tendency to want it all and now.
Not only this but presumably, given that Russia unexpectedly recently renewed the lease on its Baikonur launch base in Kazakhstan, it could very well be that a nationalistic Russia under Putin might want to get in on the act. And what about a future nationalistic India?
I find it both sad and a testimony to nationalistic stupidity that only the military and nationalistic pipe dreams get such priority in an area which could finally break down the barriers of space.
Don't forget that bit.
I would have been very sorry to see America turn its back on preeminence in space. It accomplished great things and probably will again.
But here's the thing. Apollo may have begun as a techno-military tour de force, and sure it was intertwined with nuclear delivery systems, and phalloidal to boot. But it changed. As the project neared the goal it dawned on people everywhere, as well as the ones actually doing it, that this was really happening, and it was a step up, and the human condition had changed.
By the time Armstrong stuttered out the historic words and set the plaque down, it was too great a matter to be only America's possession: it was America's gift. There was just no other way it could be.
I've been saying to friends lately, Look, for some time to come, space is going to be owned by the USAF. But that doesn't mean I've forgotten the gift. And you shouldn't either, because it's your inheritance and one day you'll be proud to pass it on.
Not my quote, but can't remember the source. While your comment no doubt illustrate the world as it is, here's to hoping more will see the world as it could be.
It's massive *potential* superiority, and maybe even not so massive at that. Until there's something concrete, such as actual ability to launch a man on the moon, not just technology to do it in X years with better technology than anybody else in even 2*X years, it doesn't mean much.
Of course with this announcement by GWB might mean that US is once again prepared to start doing something about it instaead of flying 20 year old shuttles that never did what was expected of them... However, if this doesn't happen, potential advantage remains potential, then better technology will be little consolidation if somewhat inferior Chinese (or Indian, or Russian, or whatever) technology actually gets the job, like a moon base(s) at strategic location(s) on the Moon, done first.
Customs officers just waved him through, saying "well, this flight is going out of the country. Why bother turning the metal detectors on properly?. Now let's try some cavity searches of the people coming into the country, after they've landed safely."
I knew all along that Bush was being sincere about wanting a new direction for the space program.
The reason for abandoning the Hubble, the most productive single scientific instrument EVER, was twofold. First and formost is safety. Second is that all the shuttles will be needed to fly to the ISS. ...however both of these come down really to the same issue, $$$. The reason no shuttles CAN fly to go get Hubble (the original idea was to do at least one more repair mission, then go get it for the smithsonian in 2010), is not strictly due to the fact that they can't make it from Hubble's orbit to the ISS. The problem would be that NASA would have to actually develop an on-orbit method of inspecting and repairing holes in the heat shield, which would cost quite a bit. Plus as an emergency backup they would have to have another shuttle on the launchpad to do an emergency rescue mission if necessary, which could be very dangerous and costly as well.
The other aspect is the fact that we're down to three orbiters, and have a lot of work to do on the ISS with very limited funds to launch with. A separate mission or two to the Hubble would mean that a) the ISS would be delayed again and b) the money would have to come from somewhere for the launch.
So what this means is that from the failure of Hubble to the launch of the JWST there will be nothing, unfortunately...naturally all the scientists are pretty let down. A guy at the hubble control center (can't remember the name...) was quoted the other day saying that eveyrone there is dusting off their resumes since good times are over.
The kick in the teeth is that both new instruments that were going to be installed into Hubble at the next servicing mission (a new, better camera and something else, i forget) are both BUILT already by the science teams here on the ground, and are now effectively waste. There's your tax dollars at work. I wonder how much money NASA burns annually in preparing for programs that eventually get axed altogether?
This is true, but it's actually a bit more complicated. People in the government of Country 1 might decide they need to have more of "it" and see this endless cycle as a good way to justify it, if they can just convince the people of their country that Country 2 has more of "it" than country 1 now.
So then you get creative reevaluation of intelligence data. Where professional intelligence experts say there is not that much of "it" in Country 2, these people go and look at the data. They claim it's to look at it again "without bias," but in fact they have the bias that they want to find that Country 2 has much more of "it" than the dedicated intelligence analysts found. Instead of evaluating all the data, they "cherry pick" the parts that support their thesis and conveniently leave out all the data that doesn't, even if what they leave out is crucial or even if what they leave out constitutes the great majority of the data.
I'll give four examples where the USA played the role of Country 1 and did this. Just so you don't have to "trust me," I'll cite a reasonably well-written article that talks about these issues that you can read by clicking here. A Google search on "missile gap" will get you some other good sources.
Additionally, when I talk about the most recent example, I cite articles I found on the White House web site.
The classic example is the Soviet "missile gap." Working from exactly the same raw intelligence data, USAF Intelligence reached the conclusion in the late 1950s that the Soviets would deploy 500 ICBMs by the early '60s. The intelligence branch of the Strategic Air Command reached the conclusion that the Soviets would deploy or might have already deployed 1000 or more. The recently much-maligned CIA figured there were about 50. The author of the article I cited states that the driving force in that case was the USAF, which was in a battle with the Army and Navy for military funding. A huge deployment of Soviet ICBMs would help justify a huge deployment of American ICBMs, fattening the Air Force budget, of which ICBMs represented a sizeable chunk. The SAC also had an interest in an inflated estimate, since the SAC would control and operate the missiles.
The SAC pointed to signs and clues in Soviet documents and in comments by Kruschev that could be interpreted in a way that supported their hypothesis. SAC showed Eisenhower (and later Kennedy) slide shows with pictures of grain elevators, a medieval tower, and some strange structure in the middle of nowhere and argued that such places might be used to hide missiles, even though there was no evidence that any such thing was going on. The punch line? By the time Kennedy became President in 1961, satellite surveillance revealed that the Soviets had 4 ICBMs. No, that's not a typo. Four ICBMs.
Example 2: In 1969, President Nixon and the Joint Chiefs wanted to try to justify huge spending on a missile defense system. Sound familiar? One of the best justifications was protecting American ICBMs from Soviet warheads, allowing the USA to respond to a hypothetical Soviet first strike. This would theoretically keep the Sovie
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
...is simple. The US fears a unified Eurasian continent and will do all it can to prevent it. The US's situation is analogous to Britain's in the 19th century: a relatively small island off the coast of a big continent. The main aim of British foreign policy for 200 years was to prevent the unification of Europe - such a Europe would have marked the end of the British Empire.
Similarly, the US fears (long term) a united-ish Eurasian continent, something like the EU. A unified China, India, Russia and the Asian Tigers would represent such economic and political power it would mark the end of US global control. Hence the military bases in central asia, the importance of Afghanistan, the deals with India and the wariness over China. Hence the worry when Russian and China signed an agreement to cooperate recently.
The US's Eurasian foreeign policy tactics are divide-and-rule.
Excellent comment. I wish I had mod points.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
"And if we could get a monopoly on that, we wouldn't have to worry about the Saudis and we could basically tell everybody what the price of energy was going to be," said Pike.
I think that pretty much sum's up all of America's political actions since Bush has been in power.
WTF does propagandize mean.
Incidently this kind of defeat your own argument, I mean you are admitting that your view is not a fact but biased opinion.
-- Who am I? How did I get here? My God, what have I done?!
Since George L. doesn't seem to be capable of making good Star Wars anymore, maybe it's time to let George W. have a try?
WTF does propagandize mean.
Just what you think it means, assuming you have the abilitity to discern meaning from context.
Incidently this kind of defeat your own argument, I mean you are admitting that your view is not a fact but biased opinion.
I am admitting nothing of the kind. Rather, I am merely poking fun at the absurdity of your post, made in earnest I suspect, which makes it all the more comical.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
mod parent up please grandparent was smoking crack can't believe it got modded up
"Likewise we should develop a method for dividing up the moon, mars etc. that is not based on present capabilities but on the likelihood that one day any nation will be capable of utilising these resources. Or better yet put them all under the total control of the UN, as things too big for one nation to claim for itself."
*visions of the line of demarcation*
How can we possibly anticipate the situation of future generations when they begin exploiting space resources? Will the UN even still exist?
The old saying goes...... He who has the most toys at the end WINS! We have the most toys, we win. Heck, anyone who has believed since the late 50's when nasa was formed, thinking the military doesn't have anything to do with it is nuts. Where in the heck do you think the hubble space telescope came from in the first place? All it is, is an old CIA KH11 spy telescope pointing OUT instead of IN.
THAT is what I think is sad.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Interestingly enough, I just checked what they actually are buying lately--and what came up was real estate. European real estate. Seems like the Carlyle Group knows what BushCo's policies are doing to the dollar.
I didn't mention that aspect in the earlier post, but not much chance the US government will be able to afford any kind of space program if the dollar continues to drop 20% a year.
Competition with China has been mentioned several times in this discussion. The amazing thing there is that the Chinese are able to come up with the money required. The not amusing aspect is that the Chinese currency does not float, but is fixed against that same American dollar, and they also lost 20% last year on any part of their space program that has to be purchased abroad....
Another very bad sign for America will be when the Chinese decide to switch their currency to the Euro. Quite possibly this year, if they decide they can't afford to lose another 20% (or more, the way things are going).
By the way, no flamebait intended. That some people may see it that way is mostly a reflection of how divided America is becoming. Yet another one of Dubya's lies was "uniter, not divider".
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Please, for the love of all things with a third-grade education, "affect" is a verb, (as in "how will this affect research"). "Effect" is a noun, (as in "the effects are as yet unknown").
You never know who will get one.
What is America's first Amendment "Freedom of Speach"!!!
Do yourself (and your countrymen) a favour: shut your mouth, educate yourself and try to look at other societies and cultures as something other than ICBM targets."
This is such a thing of America, Freedom of speach when they want it, But if anyone else says something against America it's taken away. I remember a Australian boxer called 'Mundean' spoke out soon-ish after 9/11 about America needing to understand Afganistans more, and America banned him from their country!. wTF was his freedom of speach. Your country is one big joke, you're polictians never abide by the Amendments and Treaties your country so dealing claims it's fighting for. And you as the people so easly turn a blide eye when it happens.
Look back at your history.... I don't see any fighting for justice and humanity.
mmm ...
Terawatt orbit to surface lasers!
Popcorn anyone?
The Hubble issue has NOTHING to do with Bush's plan. It was nothing more than a political scare tactic used as a headline on CNN.com
The reason for skipping the scheduled maintenance mission is the fact of safety.
Please note, none of the shuttles are currently blasting off for safety reasons!!!!!
Um, could be that there is no BLOODY way to do the mission?
Maybe you meant the O'Keefe who held NASA accountable for refusing to look through a telescope to see if Columbia was damaged? Or maybe the O'Keefe who urged NASA to go 24/7 to get a rescue shuttle in place? Did you mean that O'Keefe?
Given his miserable performance on choosing the worthless ISS over the priceless Hubble, it's clear he'll gut JPL at the first opportunity. I'm so pissed at Bush for killing Hubble, pushing ABM, running a half trillion $ deficit that I would consider voting for Hillary - something I would have laughed at 2 years ago.
12 new locations now available on Mars!
Fuck Bush.
Howdy All,
I've been giving this a lot of thought lately... now if y'all have been paying attention to the internationalization of business, the simple fact now is that American wealth is being reallocated to places in the near and far east. There's a growing trend to pump wealth out of the U.S. and make a profit from that monetary current. Of course as time goes on, jobs disappear, more and more people end up in service sector jobs that pay poorly and have no benefits. Ultimately the U.S. Economy collapses and the world achieves economic equilibrium.
The only way for the U.S. to remain a growing concern is to tear the lid off of the system... i.e. move our economy into a larger playing field (space.)
At the same time, our President has made it very clear that he intends to develop an entire generation of tactical nukes that he is perfectly willing to use (bunker busters, exotic miniature nukes, as well as a variety of tactical weapons for scaring the rest of the world half to death.) The bottom line here is that there are a number of people currently running our country, who would gladly turn a few third world countries into blue glass ashtrays just to make sure the world get's our meaning.
The moon is a wonderful stratedgic position. You can rain death down on earth from the moon with virtual impunity (Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.) The moon is rich in many important materials needed for a space based economy (aluminum, titanium, silicon, rare earth elements, and helium-3.) The jury is still out but leaning towards significant water at the Moon's poles. The moon is a great place to build spacecraft, and launching from the moon is far more economic that launching from Earth. The Chinese have their eye on the moon, so if we are going to keep our status at the top of the food chain, then we have to beat them there, and if need be, beat them back.
The problem is simple... if we millitarize space, it will have to come at the cost of creating a cooperative world government, and demand that we abandon social and environmental considerations as we build up for a new and more terrible cold war. This time we will almost certainly be fending off China, Japan, India, The Phillipines, The European Market, and whatever new economies begin to evolve from South America and Africa.
The use of millitary force to achieve our political and economic ends (as can be seen at this very moment in Iraq), will create a dangerous and volatile world political environment. One that will certainly empower terrorism as a tools for striking back at what the world may perceive as a despotic superpower run amok. We are walking on remarkably thin ice.
Well, we're not going to the moon or Mars any time soon. With a pricetag around a trillion dollars, Dubya's 5% a year increase for the next three years won't even pay for the corporate executives at LockMart and Boeing who will oversee the planning and feasbility studies.
No, the real work will still go on. Most of the science coming out of NASA is a result of the smaller science-based centers, such as Lewis, Goddard, and Langley. Okay, Marshall does some too (but I don't count the elevator and sling shot launchers under "useful" science). Johnson (Houston) and Kennedy are all marketing fluff run by contractors and sucking up a disproportionate amount of resources.
The engineers and scientists may have to deal with tighter budgets, or fewer noe projects, but they will make do as they always have. The real heros at NASA don't wear suits (space or designer), don't have furniture built in the last 40 years, and they don't care that their offices are in former warehouses or machine shops. They work on their pet projects day in and day out because they believe in their work and are genuinely excited about it. Heck, some of these guys still manually edit machine code because the instruments they work with have very limited memory or require speed optimization that isn't available with commercial compilers. (try recording the wavefront return signal of a 200 femptosecond pulse retured by an array of over a hundred cornercubes on a sphere)
You'll probably never hear about them or their work. 3D pictures of Mars is not science. No, you won't hear about them on TV, or in the newspaper (not usually), but the basic science which no corporation could/would afford to fund is being done, and the results are used in every day life.
Ask Joe Sixpack what NASA is, and you'll probably get a rely that "They send up the Shuttle, right?" and are amazed that that's not all that happens.
I just hope they don't kill too much of the real work that goes on in the quest for the 2004 election^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H more manned spaceflight.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Dreams that outside Earth surface humans turn into a combination of angels and communists are just that - dreams, good for kids. Saying that there should be only peaceful science-gathering in space is wishful thinking - and a very stupid one. Politics are not for kiddies or wishful thinkers.
From the posts, it seems the my slashdot opinion doesn't like the old NASA going to explore or solar system switching gears to a colonization and defense program. I on the other hand think it is a great idea. Other than pretty pictures of completely unreachable space. What has NASA given us? They gave us the Space Shuttle to get "cheap" transportation to space, they gave us really over rated space stations. Did they give us a moon base, mars base or a full asteriod mining industry? Nope.
The only negatives to this are we won't know what they are working on. I don't want NASA switch to NSA observers mapping ever square millimeter of the Earth. I wouldn't mind if they developed a communcations network around the moon and some defense/offense bases. Space based missles make more sense than moon based. The major advantages of the moon is that you have materials to construct with, gravity, and short path to Earth.
NASA has always been a money black hole. What makes you think these defense contractors don't already get NASA money? To "defend space" you need material up there to defend with.
Honestly, the science that goes on today on pure science missions has been viewed by many as not much scientific bang for the buck. And really, observation and science in space would happen no matter what if we had regular commercial and military space missions. Therefore, the cheap way to get the science done without blowing too much money is to piggyback an expanded commercial or military space plan.
11*43+456^2
X-33 was cancelled because the project didn't have enough money to cover a ruptured fuel tank. X-33 was funded on the assumption that every piece would work the first time. When the fuel tank blistered, there were no funds to try to build another fuel tank and the project was shit-canned. X-33's failure didn't prove that we can't yet build an SSTO, It proved that Goldin's cheaper-faster-better mantra wasn't going to work without being prepared to suffer inevitable setbacks when new tech breaks.
Had the X-33's fuel tank held together we just might have pulled it off. There were so many good ideas in that project that it was a shame to see it die. What we learned is NASA doesn't have the fortitude to see something through when the going gets tough.
That UPI article is actually a 3-parter. Here are all three parts at spaceref.com:
Also, here's the LiftWatch.org story.
don't look now, but there's a moderator making you a serious karma whore! Talk about biased moderation. blah!
mark, your post is the "mother-of-insightfull-posts". It should be obligate literature in the entire USA :)
int main(void) {while(1) fork(); return 0;}
Added to Bush & co's crimes is plagerism. The Democrats ought to go after Bush for IP (that's intellectual property) violation...
I suggest y'all look up HR 3057, the Space Exploration Act of 2003,submitted in September by DEMOCRAT Rep. Lampson (D-TX), in September of 2003. It's been in committee.
Even the timetable's the same. Do the Dems get any credit? No. Pure theft: the Bush modus operandi.
And he'll treat it like his father did: Every Space Program Left Behind, and we won't be able to even *talk* about really getting back into space for another dozen years.
mark
Give me a break. The president's speech was ripped from the history books and was borrowed from JFK's famous "moon speech". GWB's Mars speech was nothing more than spin and diversion to take our attention off the war in Iraq, crappy economy, gay marriage, and war profiteering being done Haliburton, the company where Cheney was the ex-CEO.
If the Mars mission would have failed, there never would have been speech. However, check out the shocking pictures from the rover. Looks like the corporations have already taken over Mars too.
This is just another piece of moronic nonsense. At this point, it should be quite clear that NOTHING which comes out of Bush's head is valid or reliable. The man is a PSYCHOPATH. This means he lies compuslively. He likes to cause harm and pain. He likes to cause embarrassment. He was put on this earth in order to bankrupt, destroy and cause as much misery as possible.
The normal reaction by normal people to a psychopath is the believe that there must be a reasonable germ of thought behind everything the psychopath says and does, and we spend all our time giving extra slack and resources and trust while we try to find the meaning in his words and actions.
Psychopaths do not feel sympathy or real emotions. They are monsters and there is no testing done to prevent their rising to the tops of big companies, (Enron) or apparently, governments.
Bush is a psychopath. This crap about the moon and such is just that; crap. It means nothing and we are all running around trying to implement something which is based on an insane desire to harm and cause chaos.
-FL
The US has completed the Great Wall of Space, which completely surrounds the Earth, making it the ONLY visible object in space visible from Earth.
got sig?
"The moon, scientists have said, is a source of potentially unlimited energy in the form of the helium 3 isotope -- a near perfect fuel source: potent, nonpolluting and causing virtually no radioactive byproduct in a fusion reactor."
Yes, except for the minor detail, we haven't actually got fusion to work yet, and maybe with all the funds being diverted to this Moonbase turkey, they won't have much money to spend on that project.
Also, seems like there isn't any problem with the supply of fuel for fusion, considering that you can use sea water.
I suppose sea water won't look as good on Bush's resume in comparision to a big hightech moon base
"...scientific mission be effected if it..."
AFFECTED!
I have no interest in taking sides politically, but it's fascinating to see how people respond to Bush's policy statements. I think the general sentiment among us nerds is that more money for the Space program, and neater/bigger goals for NASA is "a good thing."
And yet, depending on what you previously thought of Bush, you're more than likely to ignore the meat of policy statement, and find within it a motivation that synchs up with your previous opinion of our President. IE if you dislike him, you're more than likely to find some insidious master plan behind it. Or if you like, Bush, you're more than likely to point out how this confirms that he's boldly leading the US into the next millenium.
It's a very weird psychological phenomonenon called confirmation bias... No matter how smart people are, we're all slaves to the way that our brains are hard-wired. Folks tend to focus on the facts that confirm their preconceptions, and ignore those that disconfirm them. If you think a peer is smart, and he/she does poorly on a test, you'll chalk it up to "the test was unfair." If you think the number 13 is unlucky, you'll see bad "13-related" accidents everywhere...
Maybe I'm just rambling, but it does seem that a lot of posters have found evil political motivations in a seemingly non-political objective less from the evidence being there, but more from a want of finding it...
And the Martians killed their planet 1000 years ago by doing the same thing. Building space based weapons systems for continential protectionism. Doah!
;/
BTW, this is Monday morning joke.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
why is nasa taking on all these projects when others who study these topics are looking for employment?
to me, giving nasa more tasking when they can't even get launch vehicles into space is throwing good money after bad. let'em work out how to get our collective butts into space. if nasa can do that, then the rest of us who study 'other' areas can do our job better. THEN, nasa can be part of a team, not be JUST the team.
Is it really surprising that space is militarized?
What else should we use space for? Science? Well and good, but who exactly pays the bill, and who gets the benefits? Who decides which science to perform? Do I build another telescope, a microgravity fabrication lab, or a Europa probe? How do I decide? Even if I'm the head of NASA, or the European or Chinese counterparts, how do I decide? The bottom line is that nobody is able to decide between these alternatives effectively, and so science in space will always get a short shrift.
Well what about the commercial aspects? These may develop, and projects like the X-Prize show promise, but while all of Slashdot except for a few trolls is clamoring for more involvement from NASA et al and not less, the barriers will continue to do a good job of keeping those evil, profit-seeking companies out of space.
So what's left for space? What's left that has a known cost, and an obvious, direct benefit to the people funding it? The military, of course. I put up a spy satellite, and less soldiers die in battle. It's as simple as that.
If the president cares a whit about our safety, he'll authorize the construction of a giant deep-space multi-element telescope that will allow us to spot habitable worlds at distances of up to fifty light years.
And just in case the aliens have cloaking devices, we'll need telescopes capable of scanning the infrared and X-Ray parts of the spectrum. We may even need deep space gravity wave detectors, just in case. Whatever it takes to detect a threat.
Of course, danger need not come solely from Earthlike worlds. Every star systems within reach must be thoroughly surveyed for possible threats. for this reason, the president must fund research into fusion drives that would make interstellar probes viable.
If this means thousands of scientists will spend the rest of thier lives combing through vast reams of data, writing research papers, and dancing like giddy school girls over non-military discoveries they make in the mean time . . . so be it!
Stefan
From a Congressional report:
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) conducts the most visible space activities. NASA's FY2004 budget request is $15.5 billion. NASA requested $15.0 billion for FY2003; Congress approved $15.3 billion (adjusted for the 0.65% across-the-board rescission, from which the shuttle program was exempted). The loss of the space shuttle Columbia on February 1, 2003, is dominating debate over NASA's future. The space shuttle's primary mission for the foreseeable future is taking crews and cargo to and from the International Space Station (ISS). The two programs are inextricably linked, and Congress and the Administration face many issues, both near-term and long-term, about the shuttle and ISS.
The Department of Defense (DOD) has a less visible but equally substantial space program. Tracking the DOD space budget is extremely difficult since space is not identified as a separate line item in the budget. DOD sometimes releases only partial information (omitting funding for classified programs) or will suddenly release without explanation new figures for prior years that are quite different from what was previously reported. The most recent figures from DOD show a total (classified and unclassified) space budget of $15.7 billion for FY2002, $18.4 billion for FY2003, and a FY2004 request of $20.4 billion. DOD space issues include management of programs to develop new early warning and missile tracking satellites, and management of military and intelligence space activities generally.
Save me Jeabus!
First of all, anything can be considered a strategic weapon. Didn't anyone ever read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress or Red Mars? OK, they were fiction, but there was a good point made in both. Rocks hurled at Earth from a position in space would be as devastating as nukes. So what's the point in restricting strategic weapons when basically, the act of establishing an extraterrestrial presence from which any complex operation can be launched is a "strategic weapon"?
This is not to mention the inherent conflict between blanket restrictions & weapons paranoia, and the promise of nuclear energy. In space we're eventually going to want to use nukes as propulsion. In fact, we would have long ago if it weren't for weapons paranoia. I see no need to carry petty Earth fears into space, especially when a redirected rock or bit of debris can be nearly as much of a threat as the dreaded nuke.
the problem with the greens is this: to "Do The Right Thing" for everybody means that the government winds up with an enormous amount of intrusive power into people's lives. If somebody discoveres that Doing X is Bad For The World, the green approach is simply to ban it, and that requires making sure nobody does it, and...
It requires a centralized government with arbitrary powers - a government which can do whatever it thinks is best, period.
In that respect it's much like communism, concentrating power. I know the party likes to talk local control, but at the end of the day that local control doesn't amount to much on core issues.
However, I will say that a middle-of-the-road green state is probably possible, in the same way that middle of the road socialist democracies apparently function fine.
But the Greens don't have the politican answers I'm looking for because of the centralization of power issues.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Weapons in low-earth orbit (lasers, kinetic weapons, etc.) are easy enough to neutralize... a nation would have to do no more than launch the equivalent of gravel into the orbital path of a space weapon.
If there is ever a war that involves lots of explosions/collisions in earth orbits, we will likely be trapped on the surface of Earth for centuries (until we figure out how to de-orbit a good deal of space junk). Whizzing debris will sheath our planet in a deadly cloud of dime-size debris at an average speed of 27,000 mph... through which it would be very hard to launch anything...
We used to be scared that we'd nuke the human race off of the surface of the Earth... when, in fact, we're much more likely to imprison ourselves on the surface via orbital warfare.
if you'd like to read more... check out:
Star Wars Forever? (Joel Primack and Nancy Abrams)
without military involvement, there would be no space program. And that's not just in the past. If the military backed their expertise and funds out of NASA today, NASA would quickly collapse. The military is still developing many technologies that are benefiting the research and development efforts at NASA. We just don't hear about it explicitly.
What's the problem if the military has lots of money to do research? I really can't understand the problem of "militarization" of space. The military has the means, the will, and the reason to be up there, something that the civillian world does not. Plus, the rewards always filter down in usable, stable, and battle tested forms. Boo-hoo, major corporations don't get a patent and the technology is in the public domain.
"If true, how badly will NASA's scientific mission be effected if it becomes a conduit for giving research and development money to defense contractors?"
Scientific mission? The VAST majority of NASA's budget is for nothing more than supporting the 25,000 people used to maintain the shuttle "fleet". Considering that and the $250 to $500 million dollar/launch costs I'd say the best thing that could happen is NASA fades as military projects bloom.
I'm sure there are some military readers here on slashdot. Hopefully they can back this.
From what I have personally seen at various Air Force Labs, the military does not need NASA whatsoever. They may occasionally work together but for the most part the military has done tons of stuff in space on their own without NASA's help. They have the capabilities to launch their own stuff and monitor their own stuff. We should all be well aware there are already plenty of satellites in space that even NASA doesn't know what they are.
To say Bush is going to militarize NASA and the space program is just naive. It goes to show how many paranoid people there are around here (especially slashdot) who will not go very far to try and find a conspiracy theory. People need to stop taking the ongoings of politics and spinning into anti Bush sentiments. Not that I'm a big fan of him but seriously.
Anyway, I'm sure I'll be marked as flame bait but I'm sick of the paranoid conspiracy crap slashdot throws out every day.
My view on the subject is, different groups will try to have a war in space. I don't know if it will be practical. We have already seen that the more modern two militaries are, the less willing they are to fight, because the hardware is just so expensive and the weapons so effective. Since WWII, there hasn't been a single war between two modern militaries with approximately equal capabilities. No two countries with nuclear weapons have fought, because again, there is no way to win when fighting with nuclear weapons.
Now, the cost of space hardware is high; stealth bombers are like peanuts compared to any imaginable space warship. And the physics are different -- since there is no drag in space, a very small projectile can do a whole lot of damage . And of course, if your entire ship weighs 10,000 pounds, you can't accelerate a 2,000 pound projectile, because you'll fly off in the opposite direction at a comparable speed.
And of course, how are you going to carry all that fuel in order to maneuver? Maybe when every spacecraft carries a fusion reactor onboard we can talk about space dogfights, but until then, it will be like the knight in Holy Grail trying to fight with no arms and no legs.
As for satellite weapons platforms, the solution is simple: bomb the mission control centers that are on the ground. That might happen. But that is not really war in space, that is a war over space.
You are right in what you say - the US invading China or vice versa is not likely. As can
be seen even though the red-and-white-stripe tinted spectacles of the Western media, the US cannot hold on to a country as impoverished as Iraq, let alone China. You can be sure the US has more limited plans for striking key targets in China but again, that's almost as
unlikely.
What you have missed is the possibility of limited warfare. China has the fastest growing
economy on Earth and will overtake the US sometime in the next twenty-thirty years (according to World Bank - I think sooner). Now one of the few ways that the US can slow China's
industrial revolution is by limiting their oil (which China must import if it is to have the quantity it requires). That's one incentive for the US to take over the Middle East. Now this it is trying to do, but imagine a scenario where China was able to say to the Iraqi's (or Saudi's or Norway or whichever oil exporting country you pick) that they will offer military support. Then China's military might becomes important.
The existence of another big kid in the playground affects who the US can bully.
That's why it matters to the people behind Bush. The fear is neccessary to make it matter
to the electorate who might otherwise question spending massive amounts of money on weapons at the cost of their healthcare, education, safety, environment, etc etc.
I wish you hadn't posted as an AC because I'd love you to get this reply.
Oh well.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
The answer to the question "How many nukes did the US sell/give to Israel?" is... zero.
Go read some history.
The real story is that the brilliant minds that figured Guantanamo would be outside the writ of the US Courts decided the moon would be even better. Beyond the UN too. No pesky reporters, lawyers or hooman rites ativists either. Go ahead and serve a habeus corpus, bring it on.
I.M.F. Says U.S. Debts Threaten World Economy
" The International Monetary Fund Wednesday urged the Bush administration to develop a plan to balance the federal budget, saying tax cuts had given the economy only a modest lift, and warning that widening fiscal deficits held dangers for domestic and global growth."
I always thought the IMF warned countries like Argentina for their spending behavior.
My 2 cents,
http://www.bushin30seconds.org/view/01_large.shtml l
http://www.bushin30seconds.org/view/06_large.shtm
NASA under Clinton appointee Daniel Goldin
Bill Clinton took office in 1993. Goldin was appointed in april 1992. He was a hold over from Poppa Bush.
I hate to break it to you, but Haliburton has been a common government contractor for years, way before any of the "special connections" they supposedly have now. There's no big Bush conspiracy to pay off Haliburton, in fact, they didn't get a whole lot of money (compared to what they usually deal with) in these special Iraq contracts.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
That standard really doesn't hold as well in a civil war where the line between combatants and military is much much less clear. I don't mean to excuse Grant's behavior, just to say that it is not necessarily a directly analogous to other situations.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
China would hate to have their currency appreciate versus the dollar. They've been publicly pressured to let their currency float, but haven't. The reason there is such an trade gap with China (which is a big reason for their stellar growth rates) is that they're sending out cheap exports. A move that would increase the cost of their exports, to the biggest market in the world, would be terrible for them. The Japanese are in the same situation (export driven economy), and they've spent quite a bit to keep the dollar from falling too far too fast. Of all the major economies the US has the least to lose from a falling dollar, at this point, as it keeps inflation low, helps stop the hemmoraging of manufacturing jobs, and allows the fed to keep interest rates low.
Normally I would say that naivete and paranoia are mutually exclusive, but this one proves me wrong.
- space was militarized the first time a camera went into orbit ( check into the history of WWI air warfare if you don't understand the connection )
- plans to put honest to god weapons in space are as old as flight. The Germans worked on plans for a space bomber at one point.
- The US isn't pushing the issue any harder than anyone else. The Chinese and Russians both have put considerable effort into anti-satellite technology
- The article actually says that the military is
- Bush isn't rushing to conquer space for some kind of political joy ride. He pushed the issue, even specified that it the program should be multi-national, over his political advisors advice. ( RTFA if you think I'm making that up. )
- I read about the decision to dump Hubble (RIP) some months ago. Given the haphazard directions NASA has taken the past decade, it came as no great shock. A number of great programs were axed in favor of whatever the middle manager of the day felt inclined to do. ( Look at the history of the space shuttle and it's many supposed replacement programs.)
NASA has been underfunded at least since Freedom was scrapped in favor of the ISS ( since Apollo if you ask me ). People at NASA have been trying to kill the ISS since before the first module went up, whick makes dumping Hubble a natural part of that fucked up bureacracy, certainly not likely to be a result of any new or sudden shifting of priorities. Besides, in NASA, given how often priorities change, the only way you could tell was by the timing of the announcements.
Just because you don't like or agree with Bush is no reason to ascribe /everything/ that he touches as some sort of military power play. The fact is, Bush is really upsetting his core base by suggesting the program, and it's not likely to garner him or any successor any usable recognition, so please don't throw partisan politics into the one thing you say you want peaceful: space.
If you really think it's a bad idea for the US to take the lead in space exploration, please explain how it would be so much better to let the CHinese establish an unchallenged presence. In a decade we might get to watch a reenactment of Tiennamen Square on the moon.
Thats my 2 Euros...
#-#
Ad Astra Per Aspera
A rough road leads to the stars
If that is your attitude then you are, unfortunately, stupid.
'Foreigners' are just humans who just happened to be born in another country - I mean, what are the chances, about 1 in 24 that a person won't be born in the US of A? The whole point I was trying to make, which is typified by your response, is that many people in the US seem to be totally clueless as to how you are perceived internationally. We *don't* see you as heroic bastions freedom struggling against swarms of insane moslem aggressors, terrible though the WTC attacks were. The opposition to your little war in Iraq was much, much bigger than a few troublemaking frogs and krauts trying to get one up over Uncle Sam - it was the vast, VAST bulk of public opinion worldwide. Even in the homelands of your heroic allies, Britain and Australia, public opposition to the war was up around 80% most of the time. Elsewhere it ran in the high 90%s most of the time.
Maybe you do realise. Maybe you just don't care. But if that is the case then you should be able to understand why America is the most feared nation on earth, even amongst its 'allies' (who I notice are now completely disposable). But as far as I can tell, you don't realise. You don't realise that even in white, western democracies we are more scared of you than we are of China, or Al Qaeda, or anyone. And that is why we care if you reelect Bush.
I don't presume to speak for 5.75 billion people, but I think you should take the time to seriously consider why people overseas hate Bush and fear America. Your 'cut of your nose to spite your face' attitude is a ridiculous response - it's like saying, "he may be a dangerous maniac who everyone else on earth thinks is an incompetent idiot, but he's OUR dangerous maniac."
PS
Before you complain, yes I can dig up figures to support my assertions about perceptions of the US if I must. On the other hand you could do some of your own research.
Read Pynchon.
No. Raw Capitalism is about taking those choices away from those least able to defend themselves economically. This is called "getting filthy rich".
Unregulated capitalism eventually devolves into feudalism. Capitalistic forces work in direct opposition to the principles of the free market. Capitalists seek to control and manipulate. Once they have control, they stop competing unless absoluetly necessary.
Any argument to the contrary should carefully study the following capital empires:
Wal-Mart, Microsoft, IBM, AT&T, Standard Oil, Carnegie Steel
Once they get big and fat and take over the market, competition stops. It simply becomes an exercise of stomping out any emerging threats with sheer marketing brute force.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Maybe a Hubble supporter can arrange for someone else to refurbish Hubble? Can robotics proponents make devices which manipulate the Hubble? Can spacewalkers from a Russian or Chinese capsule transfer replacements from a previously launched tug container?
But you forget...
Human stupidity doesn't scale linearly.
Sadly, getting to the moon the first time was more about funding large boosters for nuclear weapons than it was about science. NASA's purely 'civilian' science applications (Hubble, Mars, 'Mission to Planet Earth', even the space shuttle) have ALWAYS taken a back seat to the Military's applications and funding (spy satellites and ICBM's) What we need are launch systems that provide a low cost per pound to earth orbit. That was the promise of the Space Shuttle, a promise it was unable to fulfill by the time it was built. If it takes military dollars to fund development of those systems, or it takes a "Mission To The Moon" to get public backing for the needed funds, so be it. Even if the real use of those launch vehicles is to launch a useless and very expensive 'Star Wars' SDI (missle defense) system -- or 'beat the Chinese', or whatever -- having less-expensive access to space will enable many different civilian NASA applications in the future. Just because his current reasons are bogus, doesn't mean it's a bad idea.
Like all other levels of government, world government is unavoidable. Either one is organized, or a de facto arrangement of rule by the strongest prevails.
Imagine what would happen if your city or town was suddenly and magically cut off from the rest of the world, and all traces of existing government vanished. Would you remain without government? Heck no. Anarchy is unstable. Either you'd all get together and vote some person or group into authority, or the strongest, toughest, meanest SOB around would take charge, or some combination thereof (SOB in charge with an selected/elected body providing some moderation.)
Universal Enlightenment is a prerequisite to abolition of the State, after which the State will inevitably vanish. Or - that failing - nobody will give a damn. But until we're all enlightened, government is inevitable.
Same applies to world government. The strongest, toughest, meanest SOB around has taken charge. The world government exists, and it is the United States. The U.N. just provides a little moderation.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Cruise missiles are a pretty concrete example of our current overwhelming aerospace tech superiority.
You may argue that they're not relevant to space applications, but the military is looking to soup them up a bit. How about the sub-orbital intercontinental/hypersonic cruise missiles that the US military is developing to reduce dependency on foreign airfields when deliver explosives to various locations.
They're aiming for demonstrations of a mach-12 delivery system by 2012.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Well, President Vice President Cheney's response to Paul O'Neill's revelations about Bush Junior's one-track policy mind is that "regime change in Iraq was just a Clinton policy we inherited". It turns out that the PNAC crew, including Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al, sent Clinton a letter in 1998 demanding Hussein's head. Clinton replied that dealing with bin Laden was a higher priority. When the PNAC crew took over the White House, they ignored bin Laden, and have spread our military all over the Mideast to cover our takeover of Iraq. Now that we kicked out Hussein, we're handing the country over to the Shi'ites, Bush Senior's old pals from his 1980 VP campaign. Gore would have actually inherited the "get bin Laden" policy, undistracted by Hussein, and probably have got him, probably even avoiding his planebombings. But I guess if you really want war, you must be really happy right now.
--
make install -not war
Your stats analysis of the 2000 electoral tie vs. decisive popular contest is very insightful. Any models of the 2004 electoral scenarios?
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make install -not war
Canada negotiated their way out of Britain, and they're doing pretty well. Their big problem is dis/integrating Quebec, which is a legacy of WAR between Britain and France. And the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France was possible only in the wake of the Hatian Revolution, where a broke Napoleon cut his losses to finance his similar deadend against Britain. Seems like our best policy would be to tell Tony Blair about France's nuclear WMD arsenal, and buy up the pieces cheap and easy as their Eurofur flies.
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make install -not war
Most Americans have more in common - daily lives, interests, values, stakes - with foreigners, especially in Europe, than we do with the Bushes and his gang. Unless you've already gotten your neocon check, you should wake up and feel their hands in your pockets. The money's running out - better get paid, or get your head straight, ASAP.
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make install -not war
NASA is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This is to say, their domain is anything that flies, can be made to fly and anything that goes into outer space.
Were I a commercial pilot I would really want NASA to explore what might happen in an aircraft at altitude when and if a bullet tore through a window, the fuselage the deck between the passenger and cargo compartments, etc.
This has implications with respect to stopping a terrorist takeover of a plane for the purpose of using it as an incendiary bomb and I would not be at all surprised to see the US government request of NASA that they test these kinds of scenerios to better educate pilots who, under current US law, may now carry a firearm in their cockpit.
Furthermore, since NASA is seen by the airlines as not having a political agenda to push, any other work in this area of terror supression would be seen in a more favorable light by the airlines than any other US governmental agency.
I realize the originator of this thread may pray to a deity that he calls "Allah" and he may also be completely disinterested in religion. It's my opinion (as a NYC resident) that the main perpetrators of the attacks that occurred here and in Washington are completely disinterested in religion and their connection with a Supreme Being and are very interested in their own personal power over others. Most people who try to control others in the name of a religion, nationality or cult are much more interested in personal power than in anything else and my connection into the world of the continuing conflict in Northern Ireland bear that out.
Thus, I would say to the Son of Sahaf that NASA is seen in a much better light by many than the US Department of Immigration, the Department of Homeland Security and most of the other federal agencies because they, too have power agendas where NASA doesn't. It is due to NASA's clear mission -- To make flight safer -- that it may have been chosen as a better alternative than, say the FBI.
I am really sure that it will never be a NASA scientist who will detain someone for suspicion that they may be connected to terrorism.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.