Slashdot Mirror
Preview of Moon-To-Mars Report
schnarff writes "Space.com has obtained a sneak preview of the Moon-To-Mars commission report, which will be officially released June 16. The report calls for spinning off NASA centers as FFRDCs, establishing an independent cost estimation bureau, and otherwise streamlining NASA's bureaucracy."
Why not run it like Venture capital? Where each project is like a "business" that has to develop and sell a plan, with intended payoffs (exactly what kind of information they will be looking for), potential bonus performance beyond the life expectancy, etc.
meh
I was hoping for something more along the lines of a mission plan but I guess that's really up to NASA or whatever they will call themselves to do.
At least they didn't make the mistake that the first Bush's commission did by putting a crazy (and rather arbitrary) $400 billion price tag on it.
I just hope that NASA and JPL will be able to get some actual work done on getting to Mars while they move people around and change their workflow. I can see a few years wasted on that easily.
Blaze a trail to the New World
While I don't have any love for the Bush administration I would really like to see a Mars mission happen. It doesn't necessarily need to be a national budget buster, as Robert Zubrin has pointed out in his detailed plans in the books 'The Case For Mars' and 'Entering Space'...
Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
"The Commission believes that commercialization of space should become the primary focus of the vision, and that the creation of a space-based industry will be one of the principal benefits of this journey," the report states.
If I could, I would mod this "+1 Insightful". When government research is done only in-house, the trickle-down effect of new technology is slower. I think that by harvesting the efforts of private industry you can drive down the costs of space exploration while opening up that technology for use in the private sector. And given that one of the main ways people justify space exploration is through the use of space tech for other applications, I see this as a good move.
(Disclaimer: Being an astrophysics student, I'm all for the exploration of space for it's own sake, but I'm not the one funding it...)
The problem with space exploration is that even if you go out to space with the most greedy intentions, the payoff is decades (asteroid mining) or centuries (terraforming) off. I'm all for it but getting capitalists to buy into it will be tough. Of course there is Microsoft with it's $40 billion nest egg.
Space exploration is really a public works project. This is a pretty interesting paper on the subject. The thing is that it ends up being a benefit to the entire human race but some the up front costs are so much, the payoff so distant and the effort so demanding, it's basically relegated to government bodies (or perhaps Bill Gates).
Blaze a trail to the New World
The FFRDCs can be good and bad. I work for one. I have worked for another. I'm lucky that I work for one run by a university with a rather good track record. However, ones run by private companies as contracts often get uber paranoid about the almighty dollar. The oversight of the contractor gets to be insane. The research in the end suffers.
I worked at a DOD equivalent of the DOE lab. Not so fun. At all. Defense contractors are evil to work for and the blood sucking that I saw to get as much money out of the contract made me sick.
If NASA can get past the problems associated with the privately run labs, then kewl, go for it.
However, wasn't there a problem with this legally? Something to do with the NASA employees being unable to do the same job when transitioning straight from being a government employee to a contractor (which technically they'd be if they worked for a FFRDC). IIRC, it had to do with this bill waaaay back: hence why teh bill died. I might be just misremembering though.
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
the scientists who will lose funding from other projects to fund this pork barrel Bush PR stunt or the people that actually believe this project is gonna happen
still Iraq's going well (if you are haliburton/hired mercanaries) so why should this be any different ?
Slightly off-topic, but when the USA and the USSR were planning to dock two space-craft for the first time, neither power would agree to their craft being "penetrated" by the other - if I remember correctly a "female-to-female" adaptor was the eventual diplomatic solution.
Ironically, the Soviet Union was reasonably progressive in terms of putting women in space.
This is where the serious fun begins.
We can't learn anything about living on Mars by living on the moon, except maybe how people respond to being so far away from Earth.
Going to Mars AND going to the moon makes more sense, since the only related operations are leaving Earth orbit. Of course, since the moon is close enough for unmanned craft to do really good, long-term science, maybe we should set up unmanned craft on the moon, and send people to Mars where they can do the most good.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
... the same I have had for a few years now. I think the government is trying to gradually remove the civilian space program, turn that over to private sources at an almost "hobby" level, and concentrate on pure classified military useages of space. They can claim "streamlined government" and "grand opportunities for the private sector" and so on, then go back to space being the military's job, which has always been the real #1 reason to even have a "space" program, ie, it's the high ground, who rules there wins.. It also can have a blacker budget even beyond what they have now. In adition, we've gotten to the point that international "cooperation" has gotten seriously into the giving away the family jewels level, it is no longer prudent to do so.
IMO anyway
Private space launches will continue,like now, and the normal commercial satellites etc, but that is old hat tech now. I am guessing even the best of them will be at the grade B level of technology, grade A will be held closer by the mil complex guys, and that will be the stealthing of "man in space" to the public. they might blather on about some mars mission in 10-20 years, in the meantime I bet they will be doing a lot more manned missions using more exotic craft than what they let on to.
There are a few well placed comments about NASA in the recent book by Dan Brown: Deception Point. Yes it's fiction, but intriguing as well, considering NASAs track record (good and bad).
Let's hope we can really focus on a space future that makes sense, is reasonable expectation-wise, over-estimate on cost, and pursue long-term.
I work for an FFRDC.
--- Das einzige, das wir zu fürchten haben, ist die Furcht selbst.
I didn't see that much publicity. Something like one speech. I've seen no mention of it campain wise.
I would be interested to know Kerry's stance on the whole issue.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley