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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."
"It's not going to happen. This whole deal is just election-year BS from your friends at the Bush Administration who are still trying to distract you from the gigantic fucking mess they've created in the middle east by waving around some cool-sounding ideas that they have no intention of following up on. Oh sure, we'll spend a whole lot of tax dollars coming up with reports (like this one!) and let some worthwhile science projects fall by the wayside, but in the end absolutely jack will come of it. Hey! Look at that shiney thing! And have a nice day."
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I heard a rumor that R. Daneel Olivaw will be helping out here and there, especially with a new technology that can capture approaching comets and mine them for minerals. Can anyone confirm this?
I also reply below your current threshold.
"Y'all need to stop worrying about the middle east and the economy. I got that under control! And we aint stoppin' at the moon. Write this down. M-A-R-S, Mars bitches. We're going to Mars. Red Rocks!"
/very ad-libbed
"Yeai yeaaaaii!"
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
NASA announced today that with the privatization effort in full gear, Halliburton had been awarded a no bid contract to adminster the entire US Space Program...
Basically, the report concludes that moving the Moon to Mars is both impossible and pointless.
Unknown host pong.
"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 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...."
This one point seems so obvious. It has been said many, many times. Yet it's so hard for "The Powers That Be" to implement.
When the history of the airplane is considered, one has to be thankful that the Wrights did not work for the National Aeronautic Administration in 1904.
I am grateful for all that NASA has given us. But if we are to truly make the next step, the financial incentives for space must be given a chance to exercise their power.
It's hard to allow a child to move out on it's own, but for the good of both the child and the parent, it must be done. Yes, there will be mistakes and risk and danger. But the alternative is a stunted, deformed life that is nothing but tragedy.
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
Now the enemy is Islamic fundamentalists, and none of them are going to compete in a race to Mars.
China announced they were going to put a man in space and on the moon. Suddenly the US announced they were going to the moon and to Mars. It's not hard to connect the dots when there are only two.
The report calls for spinning off NASA centers as FFRDCs, establishing an independent cost estimation bureau, and otherwise streamlining NASA's bureaucracy.
Only in the federal government would "streamlining bureaucracy" involve "FFRDCs" and a "cost estimation bureau."
[the commission] is recommending streamlining the NASA bureaucracy, relying more heavily on the private sector, and maintaining more oversight of the nation's space program at the White House.
My leap to a conclusion leads me to believe that this is just another chapter in killing NASA completely. This means that more funding previously routed to NASA/JPL will go to the private sector. Whitehouse oversight further implies that the administration does not trust NASA with what little self-governance it has remaining to it, particularly after the most recent shuttle disaster.
Which all just points to the private sector being the future of spaceflight for all practical applications. Hopefully companies will do a better job than our government has been doing.
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
As an added bonus, people who complain about their tax dollars being "wasted on space" will have much less to bitch about.
While I agree that the Moon To Mars mission is just a PR stunt, and that they haven't even approached a reasonable budget for it, I have some real problems with the report. Namely, the "NASA As A Punching Bag" style.
I'm probably going to get jumped on for this, but *every* national space agency has had huge problems of every type. NASA being the biggest, it's no shock that we seem to have more than our share. But seriously - look at the ESA. Ariane has been a disaster. How many more bailouts are they going to need? How many more times is Ariane 5 going to explode? The Soviets, in their hayday, were even more unsuccessful than us; look at their appalling mars record, for example. We've got some newcomers on the scene - China, Japan, and India - for whom it is too soon to judge. However, don't hold your breath for a miracle.
Private industry? What a laugh. First off, much of NASA's work *IS* done by private industry. The company I used to work for, Rockwell-Collins, had a major shuttle contract when it was being developed. They abused the hell out of it. Whenever any project ran out of hours, they charged it to the shuttle, even if it was unrelated. Private industry is supposed to *save* us money?
Small startups? Not even the slightest bit of success. Hundreds of millions of dollars were poured into private space startups during the dotcom boom, and all they have to show for it is a bunch of loping along companies and half-completed projects of bankrupt companies.
Is everyone just doing a bad job? Of course not. The problem is that the engineering challenges are *massive*, and there are so many variables that it is almost impossible to see what realistically could go wrong. On the really big projects, it gets even worse: not only do you have so many more things that could get wrong, but you have so many more people who have their ideas of what could pose a problem, most of which are not real threats. And now, if you don't investigate each of them, you're accused of suppressing whistleblowers.
This probably isn't going to be a popular post. I'm OK with that. But I don't like the typical Bash-NASA threads that these usually turn into, so I thought I'd add my two cents. Mod me as you will.
Carbon, made, only wants to be unmade.
"oh-my-God-it's-a-conspiracy"
No, not a conspiracy. A plot. It's just Bush's attempt to make himself appear "Kennedyesque," ingnorant of the fact that Kennedy launched the space program because he was already Kennedyesque. It doesn't work the other way around.
Not that it matters, because a project of this magnitude is going to take the continued support of multiple administrations, these aren't Kennedy's times either, and that continued support will not be forthcoming. This project is essentially doomed. It's a shame, but that's the reality on the ground. We'll get to Mars when a canditate runs on the "We're going to Mars" platform and wins, and not before.
But that's ok. The point of the project is exactly where you say it is, and where the real conspiracy lies. Spinning off tax dollars into the private sector, into the hands of cronies.
Make hay while the sun shines, as it were.
KFG