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Bush's Space Panel Seeks Public Input
brandido writes "Space.com is reporting that Bush's space panel is seeking public input on the effort to return to the Moon and then reach Mars. From the article: "President Bush's new space advisory commission for getting humans to the Moon and Mars has launched a web site seeking public input with the promise of reading all comments." The article provides a link to the website for Bush's Space Panel, but it does not provide a direct link to the site for sending comments. I personally think we should use a Martian Space Elevator to further our exploration of Mars."
Sounds to me like bush is trying to bring back the pride we had back in the 60's during the race to the moon agains the USSR. We don't have a major competitor anymore, so now they're trying to get people on the bandwagon again.
My ghEtt0 webpage.
...they aren't really sure if it is worth doing and will only move ahead if they get permission.
I cheer Bush's decision to advance our space program. However, hasn't the current Mars program been pretty successful?
Let's use the money to build a shuttle replacement. Right now we are talking to Russia about transporting our guys up and down?
Pour the money into a more efficent, safer transport system... Considering the huge amount of debt we are in now, methinks that is a better use of our money.
We are kicking Mars's ass right now.
AC
The only way this is going to work is if Bush can demonstrate that Al Quaeda is building an Islamic rocket that will take the word of the Prophet to Mars. The space race of the 60's was about nationalistic pride, but these days, who are we trying to beat? The French? The Indians? The Martians?
The current enthusiasm for space is nice, and gratifying to us geeks, but it's based on not a lot more than thin air. One serious budget crisis, one change of president, and it'll be cancelled.
Just my 2c.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Marvellous.
A real attempt to try and include people in the decision making by allowing them a way to comment.
Then it gets posted to Slashdot.
Then the trolls flood the comments mailbox with irrelevant drivel.
Then they stop reading the comments because the signal to noise ratio is too poor.
This is a real opportunity. Don't screw it up.
Why not just cut military expenditure and fund the whole Bush 'Here, look at the left hand, ignore the right hand, yes, just the left hand.'?
Seriously, US military expenditure could be cut massively and while I don't agree with why Bush is doing the Mars program I do agree it should go ahead.
No clue why I had to Thndercat up the title, go figure.
I know someone from the space programme in the 1960s - a man named Gene Kranz, who was (maybe still is) a member of the flying club I was a member of when I lived in Houston. Gene Kranz, if you don't remember, is the "Failure is not an option" man from the Apollo 13 mission when it all went pear-shaped.
He did a talk for the whole club about the Apollo programme, and why what's happening in today's NASA is happening. The talk was in 2000, so this was before the Columbia break-up. His analysis was basically society as a whole and by consequence NASA was now too risk averse to do anything exciting in space. The irony is that the risk aversion in NASA is actually a risk in itself, and contributed to the Challenger accident (and now the Columbia one as we've seen in the reports).
Bush's speech is all well and good, but I'm highly skeptical that anything will come of it. Going to Mars will be a very dangerous mission. Going to the Moon was very dangerous, and it's surprising that there were so few casualties in the Apollo programme. I don't think NASA has the guts to stomach these risks without a very serious shake-up in culture.
I hope I'm proven wrong, but I'm not particularly confident.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
We are in the middle of a jobless recovery, nearly 50 million don't have health insurance, and people are starting to roll off of unemployemnt benefits. Not to mention, college grads are having a really tough time finding jobs.
Gee....... why don't we go to mars? Maybe someone on Mars has the answer to our economic problems. Are these people in the same reality?
but I think that someone is trying to block voter's brains with nice images of american flags on martian soil, so they can' think of other wonderfull things that the US made last years:
:P
- Boicot Kioto pact.
- Attack countries like it was done in the middle age.
- Pretend to be the protectors of the world, with power to do everything they want without being questioned.
- Disband space technology/health studies in favor of military studies.
When I was young, I though about America as presented by Hollywood: land of opportunity, freedom and "the good ones". Now, every day, week, month that passes I just realize that you're becoming a really strange country where words like privacy and liberty mean nothing, and I find really hard to figure out if the US are still on the "good" side.
I know it's a us centric site, and I'll be modded down, but someone had to say it
There's already a serious deficit blow-out, government spending is increasing at an unsustainable rate, the US is still officially at war with someone - we're not quite sure who, but there's quite a few suspicious looking goatherds in north-western Pakistan - and to top it all off, no one is really sure if the economy is picking up or relocating to a happier country.
Who's gonna foot the bill?
Dont get me wrong I am not anti-NASA, I am just anti-mars right now. We could use that money for more important things.
Like what? The ISS? Shuttle?
You`ve hit the common misperception with this plan-- it does not increase the NASA budget drastically. Rather, it reassigns funds within the current budget, adding around 10% to the total.
This plan is good if only for the fact that it gives some focus and a destination for NASA. The ISS will be built and then funding will end; the shuttle will be retired.
Personally, I like the broad outlines, as it forces the bureaucratic nightmare that NASA has become to get some shit done-- which will eventually push them to privatizing (or at least allowing privatization) of many parts in the chain if only to accomplish what they need to do to reach their big goals.
davejenkins.com |
Maybe something more modest, like a permanent moon base? Or more modest than that, wait a few years so we can fund this project with cash instead of Easy Credit Terms?
This is not my sandwich.
I'd love to have had NASA & the rest of the space programs working towards these ends since the moon landings. We might well be better off. The technology we use to discuss this today, along with the telemetry systems and materials science (to name a few) owe a debt to the Kennedy space program.
The support for the proposition that the current administration has ANY reason other than political gain for this proposal is lacking.
If we had 40 years of consistent manned spaceflight behind us, I'd expect that we would be able to assess the risks and costs of this "mandate". What we have is a group of really poor administrators at NASA who have killed two shuttle crews and the shuttle program through their gross errors in judgment.
We need an entirely new NASA-with an international mandate to cooperate and jointly budget new programs long before we start back to the moon.
It's not possible with the current NASA - all we will have will be bloated costs for proposals and a few happy contractors.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Space travel is monsterously expensive. At least with air travel there was something to see on the other side of the connection. Air was a logical extension to shipping and rail. Space travel isn't really taking you anywhere.
Until someone finds a pot of gold, space will only operate on the "Christopher Columbus" model. Crazy folks who have adventerous patrons.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I realize that NASA's mission has become heavily weighted in symbolism and emotion and that this is the reality of 21st century politics.
But, as a member of the public, as a taxpayer, I would much rather that they pay for 50 select astronomers, geologists, physicists, engineers, chemists and biologists to come to a conference and ask them what kinds of space missions would be valuable from their perspective. Put the ideas in a ranked order, with costs and risks, and then let the administrators decide what they'd like to do.
As it stands now, there are some interesting projects that have made it through the cracks, but all the big money goes towards various make-work manned missions meant to whip up patriotic fervor, demonstrate international cooperation, or keep the inertia going with some large project that everyone is afraid to let die because of its size.
There's nothing wrong with pride in one's country (except that the emotion is often used as a tool by less honourable men), or with international cooperation. But please let those things be incidental to defining NASA's mission and not central.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Put a series of telescopes on the moon.
Replace the Hubble and large quanities of the terristial radio telescopes with moon based ones. Get the benefits of the location for more science. When the Hubble goes it will be an extreme loss, replace it with something more grand as soon as possible.
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said: "I drank what?" - Chris Knight (Val Kilmer)- Real Genius
What facility remains, of course. From what I understand a good chunk of the space center hasn't seen repairs since Apollo.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
observation: humans have evolved in a atmospheric environment. they are not designed for vacuum environment. they are fragile and need extensive life support systems.
proposal: send ONLY beings designed for space travel.
Robots are cheaper, we could be doing 10 times as much science for the same cost. I know that some experiments can only be done by humans today. the right decision is to improve robotics. A.I. , visual object recognition, self-repair ability, robotic hand. this research would have a positive impact on civilian aplications, too (working in hazardous environment, like nuclear reactors and dumps).
The ISS is an expensive political project. It is hard to kill it, because of international involvment. but it should be killed, because it is using up resources, which could be spent much better.
Fight Frist Psoting!
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Listening to the public is the essence of democracy. They didn't say they would blindly follow the suggestions, just listen.
The best thing you can hope for in a government is a smart guy who will listen to advice and then make his own decision.
(I thought this was posted once already, but now I can't see it in the thread. Sorry if this is a dupe.)
Yeah, why ask for public input on a public project. It's crazy.
I love all the cynical twits around here who can't see the forest because there are republicans standing in front of it...
Not that any of you should care, but here's what I posted to their comment site:
Going to the moon only makes sense in the context of getting raw materials. Building ships or habitats or almost any other activity would be a lot easier off the moon, probably at one of the libration points.
People going to Mars doesn't make any sense unless they intend to stay for good. If getting people back is part of the plan, then send them to the asteroids instead. Much easier to get there, easier to get back from, and probably easier to exploit for raw materials than the moon, frankly.
In fact, if you're going to the moon for raw materials to build with in high Earth orbit, it might be easier to swipe a few asteroids and bring them back to a libration point manufacturing facility than to bring the equivalent material up from the moon.
But Mars is not a stepping stone to anywhere; it's a destination. Only, there's nothing to do on Mars that couldn't be better done in Arizona.
The same could be said for the moon, except it's easier to lift raw materials from the moon than from Mars or Earth. But that assumes you figure out what to do with raw materials in space.
If you aren't going to figure out how to process raw materials in bulk in space, then quit sending people. At a billion bucks a pop, Man in Space only makes makes sense if he's building something there.
In no case should you drop stuff down a gravity well (moon, Mars, or Earth for that matter) unless it's going to help you get materials back up.
Man's future in space is basically about moving materials; down is an expense, up is an investment, construction is accrued value. The net worth of the whole endeavor then becomes a pretty simple equation.
(ps: I had to promise my mother I wouldn't go to the moon as long as she was alive. She's doing okay at 72, so I can wait a little longer.)
You`ve hit the common misperception with this plan
No, I submit you have. It's not so much about the increase in cost, but about the misallocation of funds in the absolute sense - away from fundamental necessities such as medical care and better social securities.
It's no wonder the United Nations World Health Organisation ranks the US one of the three most impoverished nations in the western world in this respect.
Seriously, we could turn inward, we could spend every dime trying to cure every socital ailment, (which for the last fifty years hasn't worked)... or we could be bold and challenge the willpower and spirit of mankind by reaching further into the heavens.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
Personally, I don't think the government should be funding space exploration (or health care, for that matter), so I'm not arguing in defense of NASA, just in defense of actually considering the numbers.
Also, I have enormous pride in my country. I feel very lucky to have been born in the US.
This is all window dressing from a failed President eager for votes.
Your humor was enjoyed, but you've hit the nail on the head in at least two ways:
1. it's unlikely Bush will launch new movements into other countries before the November election (potential for public backlash, etc.) Talking about outer space is a "safe" subject. Humans on the moon is plausible short term; mars, longer term.
2. Bush is all for defense. Getting surveillance and armaments into space is the next major step ahead. Remember than Reagan, another republican, called for an orbital laser defense system. (I forgot the acronym at the mo').
3. Besides, this "public comment" request is a way to gauge what kind of mileage he is going to get. Depends in part on how much the media sways the sheeple.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
How can privatizing fix anything dealing with the space program? The folks with wads of cash don't invest in anything "new" until they can see a market for it.
Ever hear of Burt Rutan and his Spaceship One project? For that matter, there's a plethora of private companies all working towards the X-Prize. The prize itself is a pittance compared to what these private companies are spending to create a commercially viable SSTO (single stage to orbit) system. And unlike a government-funded project, these guys have to make sure their idea not only works, but works efficiently and economically.
Let's not forget other private ventures that have radically changed the human race. Wilbur and Orville Wright were private individuals working out of their own pockets and the pockets of private benefactors. Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight was funded by private industry. The list goes on and on.
So, perhaps you should check your history, because there's been plenty of times in the past when "folks with wads of cash" have invested in far-fetched ventures, all because they did see a pot of gold somewhere in there. Space may be monstrously expensive, but it contains the most monstrous pot of gold this planet has ever seen. Space travel "isn't really taking you anywhere?" You lack the foresight to see the destination, it appears.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I'm glad to see someone standing up for the public education system around here. If you made your judgement by Slashdot comments alone, you'd think the public education system was a complete and utter failure. It's not.
While my public education was not flawless (I was bored to tears in some classes.), by the end I had a good understanding of history; basic physics, chemistry, and biology; math through Calc I; and writing. I consider that a success. I also consider it to be the result of some very good teachers that I had in high school. They're not all great, but there are a lot that are and try very hard.
If it's not on fire, it's a software problem.
I'm pretty sure in cost studies that the Russian heavy lifters are cheaper to operate than our antiquated shuttles. I'm sure its a temporary solution to use Russian Technology, but like the book says, if it aint broke, why fix it?
The problem is choice..
Dear moderators - Interesting, but wrong.
We could build a telescope that could kick Hubble's ass on the lunar farside. Plus, with permanent human presence, someone could walk over with a wrench to fix it, as opposed to difficult and expensive on-orbit repair.
--riney
Absolutly. I am now a Junior in college (Math and Physics double major with a CS minor),(having graduated from a middle of the road rural public school), and although my eyes were opened listening to horror stories of some of the extremely poor districts in my state (Illinois), on average, everyone I know coming out of public schools (huge and tiny) recieved all the tools they needed to move on in life. Slashdoters too often concentrate on things like, "do they have a programming class and the latest version of GCC?", when in reality, this isn't and shouldn't be of any serious concern to a well rounded education. Things like word processing and spreadsheet skills are much more important, and they can easily be learned on any old powermac or 486 with free os's and free office packages. Anyway, I'm basically ranting.
You hit the nail right on the head there man. The current situation in America is proof positive that the government can't solve social problems by throwing money at them. Look at education. The federal government spends more on education than it ever has at any time in our history and look what it has gotten us. Namely, nothing much. In fact, we are worse off today in many respects.
I'd rather see billions spent on getting us to Mars and accomplishing something great then throwing more money away on education or any other social program or entitlement. The bottom line is that we spend more than enough on social programs in this country. In fact, we spend too much money on social programs. Cutting back would force government agencies to do more with less which might eliminate the vast waste and fraud that is now inherent in almost all social programs financed by the government.
The moderators must be on crack ranking pie-in-the-sky informative.
Politically speaking, the government will do what they think will best benefit their supporters. Their supporters are the guys who pay to get them re-elected. This isn't about finding out what the public thinks, but it does help them in a few ways.
First, it builds public interest. When they come out and say "we've decided to do it this way," then the majority of people feel that they've had their say, and the government has listened to them, and what the government thinks is probably the best decision for some reason that completely escapes everyone's grasp, so they just go along with what the government decides. As if they had any say in it in the first place.
Second, it tells them how to spin what they're doing. What they're really doing is spending the public's money on something that isn't particularly accomplishable with our current technology. If they get our say-so, then they can hand billions over to our nation's "defense contractors" to try to figure it all out. Don't doubt for a minute that it'll be a long and expensive process.
Looking for public comment? Mr. Bush, I am unimpressed. How's that comment for you?
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
Like parenthood, there's never a good time to do it - there'll always be pressing needs elsewhere. My take is if we can't build a colony on the moon, we may as well forget about manned space flight. If we do elect to abandon manned space flight, we'll be like old ladies in retirement homes waiting to die. Except our death will be delivered by our own hand or possibly a Permian level event. Either way, we're dead if we elect to stay here.
If we elect to build the colony, it has to be designed from the outset to be self-sustaining. By self-sustaining, I mean the whole shebang - kids (or at least the means for making them), farms, lots of people, machine tools, everything. The colony has to be able to weather failures on earth, be they political and/or economic failures, cutting them off.
I'm old enough to remember the first Star Trek broadcast and have that meme deeply imprinted - we need to explore and go out beyond earth. The moon's but the first step.
Throwing money at social problems doesn't work. This is the nature of social problems. You can always find something wrong with society. You could ensure that everyone gets enough to eat. The problem is that then you get a bunch of people who are too fat. Saying "we should solve all our problems here first" is absurd. We will never live in a utopian society. Never. No ammount of money can change that fact. But, we can explore space.
So what should we do? Spend hundreds of trillions of dollars trying to solve an unsolveable problem, or speend a couple billion on space exploration and maybe solve some of those social problems as a result.
Putting living bags of mostly water (humans) into space is extremely costly.
Compare this to the incredible successes of the Galileo, Eros and Mars missions (for example). The money to discover the wonders of the universe can be so much better spent.
On the other hand, having humans explore the moon and Mars is incredibly exciting. Maybe the focus is not so much on putting humans in space, but that it should be use far less costly propulsion systems and safer modes of transportation.
If exploring space is to go forward, the goal should be on reducing the net cost of getting mass into space at a preset 2004 dollar level and then determining if that goal is achievable.
Lastly, I see the moon as an incredible location for observatories: The far side is protected from earth-based radio transmissions. It is also a stable platform requiring virtually no fuel to orient the telescope(s). There is no atmosphere to affect image quality.
Maybe manned missions to the moon are warranted in order to set up the telescopes.
As for Mars, unless there is a plan for a permanent colony, I don't think a trip to and fro is warranted.
Please consider the sheer volume of information that has been learned about the universe: we have learned more about where we live in the last ten years than in all time prior to that.
If monies which were directed towards the science get hijacked in order to put people in space with minimal return on investment, then I would take a pass.
Sorry, but individual to individual, an affluent resident of a first world country owes no more to a poor countryman than to a poor person from another country. Why should such a person, even a charitable one, wish to pay to provide very high quality cancer treatment costing $50000.00 to a homeless countryman when that same $50000.00 could save 500 lives in a third world counrty?
The answer is that choice has nothing to do with it. The aid is taken with force by a government that is elected by rich and poor alike, where the poor are more numerous though less likely to vote. If money is power then power is also money.
Eat at Joe's.