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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."
Talk to the public that's already shown animosity to the plan! Great idea, guys!
Goo goo g'joob.
I personally think we should use a Martian Space Elevator to further our exploration of Mars.
Or how about a direct cable elevator from earth to mars - yeh, that would work
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
The thing is the cost of atmospheric launches against the cost of pushing up in a vaccuum. Instead of costing $10k per kilo, it's $1k per kilo.
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I mean, we can barely keep the ISS running, and our current space program is hurting significantly. So when my back is against a wall like that, i think i too would come out with crazy plans like this.
Not to mention the costs that it would have, NASA budget doubled for like 5 years when the appolo missions were going on.
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.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
But what if the public tell them that science would be better served by robotic exploration, and that he should prioritise the economy and public services here on earth? Would that make a difference?
We know they have WMDs. (hello! all that Radiation doesn't just fall out of the sky! they are hiding something)
Soon all martians and moonmen will know what it is to live in a democracy (whether they like it or not!)
~note all in jest.
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
You'd almost think this was an election year
Kill the mars program and fix the Hubble.
We will go more places this way.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
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.
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
Majority Of Americans Thought We Already Had A Moon Base WASHINGTON, DC--A
NASA poll conducted to gauge support for President Bush's space-exploration initiative revealed that a depressing 57 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. already has a research base on the moon. "We put that international space-station thing up there in the '60s," phone-poll respondent Randy Snow said. "It might be on Mars, but I think it's the moon--wherever they have the golf course that President Kennedy played on. Remember, the Cubans tried to take it over?" NASA officials said they hope someday to make Americans' perception a reality.
Unfortunately, I am not Wil Wheaton
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
I wouldn't discount the "major competitor" side of things! The ESA is likely to mount some sort of manned mission series. Europe may be behind in terms of volume of missions mounted to date (they've by and large been quite successful though), but it's sure doing things a lot more cheaply than the U.S. What's more, we have a launch base nearer the Equator, in French Guiana. (As we are reminded each time we look at our banknotes). Hopefully the new Soyuz launcher facility will be up and running there soon - launching stuff from Kazachstan is surely far from ideal! The ESA of course has the benefit of Russian co-operation and the legacy of their space program.
It all looks like being quite some fun! (Not to mention pushing back the frontiers of knowledge, etc, etc)
Last one to land people on Mars is a rotten egg!
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
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?
We just have to get there before the Taliban does. I'll go ahead and call this an open schedule.
This is not my sandwich.
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.
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
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.
According to the Original speech announcing the plan, what you propose is already viewed as the first necessary step.
(Celui que tient la peur de devinir nuage)
Fist keep it simple and use existing technology.
I think the best approach is to assemble 2 ships in low earth orbit, or one large modular ship. These ships would be assembled by robotically docking "russian" style space station modules.
Pre build all the required modules before lanch.
Some of the modules required for each ship.
- habitation modules, either one can be used for planet habitation.
- power modules, "probably nuclear is required for enough power" either one can be used for planet
- sealed cargo modules, which can hold supplies and tools for crew, can be used for planet if mission requires
- cargo racks, and robot arms to assist module assembly,
- crew excape modules, aka chinese or russian style capsules,
- propulsion modules
- fuel modules
- numerious landers to attach modules for planet landing
This is just a draft
Here are some humble suggestions:
1. NASA should be required to make any purchase of over $50M in a competitive bidding process. This can be open auction if need be, or sealed bid, but bids must be published afterwards.
2. No Cost-Plus contracts should be awarded unless a congressional waiver is granted.
3. PRIZES: NASA should award at least $100M per year of all-or-nothing prizes for technology demonstration projects. Requirements should include disclosure of all technology used, so the experience curve (a.k.a. learning curve) of other companies benefits from this tech. Patents are always possible.
Prize 1: first private launch into space (100 km) using air-breathing engines for > 50% of time of flight.
Prize 2: First two-stage to orbit flight using wholly reusable components (>90% by mass re-used) for 2 subsequent flights. Similar to X-Prize, only going to orbit.
4. NASA should auction delivery of consumables (Air, Water, fuel) to within 200 meters the ISS (not necessary to dock). PAYMENT SHOULD BE C.O.D. FOR CONSUMABLES AT THE ISS. No payment should be made if nothing is delivered. Contractors should arrange for their own insurance, everything.
5. Likewise, NASA should offer payment of 0.1 cents per pixel (or something close to that) for delivery of all photographs of any planetary body taken from orbit around that body. Maximum award per body should be set by committee.
6. The space shuttle, conceived in 1968 and an albatross around the neck of NASA, should be RETIRED immediately and bids taken on its separate primary functions (delivery to ISS and higher orbits of personnel).
7. NASA administrators should be given real power to reform their agency, without irrelelevent Line-Item appropriations from congress. Facilities should be able to be closed. Existing power structures (political ones) should be phased out or replaced with different ones somehow. NASA KILLS TOO MANY PROJECTS DONE BY THE PRIVATE SECTOR, DON'T LET THAT HAPPEN!
Just some humble suggestions I like to call the K. Rice Plan.
Cordially yours,
-- Kevin Rice
-- Kevin J. Rice
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
You mean apart from China, India, Europe and Russia. Maybe you mean economically or militarily, but this is likely to change once someone develops the capability to exploit resources in space. Remember the story of the hare and the tortoise?
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
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
Grab yourselves a copy of Arthur C Clarke's "Fountains of Paradise". Most often reviewed as as novel about a "space elevator" from Earth to a geosynch orbit, it also includes passages about the development of the same concept on Mars. Clarke's address "The Space Elevator: 'Thought Experiment', or Key to the Universe? (Part 1)" (which also acknowledges that the concept isn't his, nor new) can be found here: http://www.spaceelevator.com/docs/acclarke.092079. se.1.html
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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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.)
Without the shuttle or a badly needed replacement system to orbit, is the US even in the manned-space game?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
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.
It's not quite a space elevator, but it looks like the next Mars rover planned is going to be lowered down to the surface by a tether attached to a "Skycrane" craft hovering 5 meters in the air. This is to prevent the potential problem of a rover getting stuck in a landing platform. After lowering the rover the Skycrane will fly off to another area.
OK, Mr Republican Propaganda Machine, I'll bite.
I lived in the UK up until 1997, and had the pleasure of experiencing UK National Health Service care in 1996, and the same treatment supplied by the USA's #1-rated HMO (Harvard Pilgrim) in 1997.
My medical needs included diagnosis and treatment of a kidney stone (i.e. typical non-surgical stuff) plus treatment for common chronic conditions like allergies.
Guess what? In my personal informed experience, the best US HMO healthcare is about as good as the UK's state-funded National Health Service. Wait times are about the same, quality of care is about the same. Yes, I had to wait weeks or even months for treatment in the US.
And remember, that was the #1 rated HMO in the country that year. I hate to think what kind of medical care you get if you live in rural Alabama.
Of course, the medical industry loves the fat profits it soaks out of the US consumer, and has lots of money to pay for the dissemination of propaganda to try and convince US consumers that those poor European countries with their universal healthcare systems are much worse off than the lucky USA. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they paid people to post propaganda to the Internet.
Here's your free clue for the day: Try talking to people who actually have experience of both US healthcare and state-funded European healthcare. Don't just believe what you read in the corporate media or hear on FOX News.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I really cannot understand your attitude, which unfortunately seems to be quite prevalent among the affluent in the US. Many people are unable to "take care of themselves", due to their financial circumstances or the cost of the ridiculously overpriced drugs & treatments that they require. Would you rather have those people who cannot meet these costs die quietly in their own homes, so that your Medicare bills are slightly reduced?
Health care, just like education, should be a right for all citizens, NOT just a luxury for the rich.
The Moon seems like a very dead and uninteresting place unless it can be confirmed that there are ice deposits in some of the deeper craters. There seems little point in going back there - other than to explore the geology - and we know how to do that with robots like the ones that are doing such great work on Mars right now.
The Mars mission would probably be better served by assembling the craft at a Legrange point - but to do so, we need a better lift capability.
However, I concede the President's desire to get the public excited about space again - and setting up an assembly facility at L5 isn't going to do that...it sounds like just another space station like the hideously expensive waste of vacuum that we are probably about to abandon.
I'd have preferred to see the President putting his weight behind the construction of a space elevator to earth orbit. That is a worthy goal, it's certainly at least as do-able as a manned Mars mission and would have immense benefits for mankind beyond the Mars mission. The likely need for novel materials to build it would also have great spin-off potential for American business - and hence go a long way toward justifying the expense.
Setting up a facility at a Legrange point would also fit nicely with the plans for the Hubble replacement - so there would be synergy in that effort.
www.sjbaker.org
Care to provide any sources to back up your statements?
According to an interview Germany has practically no waiting-lines. I assume the Scandinavian countries are known to have an even better health-care system.
In the WHO World Health Report 2000 France is ranked first, the US 37th.
> You want cheaper healthcare? Get the government OUT of it.
I did not see the parent saying anything of cheaper healthcare. Not everyone is an egoist.
Oh, BTW:
> The U.S. spends more total dollars and more dollars per capita on health care than any other nation and New Zealand is in approximately the top 10% in spending.
Source
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
Funny you should ask. Just yesterday I ran into this little story:
/ ar ticles/2004/02/10/why_canadians_are_healthier/
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science
My favorite quote: "There isn't a single measure in which the US excels in the health arena," said Dr. Stephen Bezruchka, a senior lecturer in the School of Public Health at the University of Washington in Seattle. "We spend half of the world's health care bill and we are less healthy than all the other rich countries.