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NASA Policy Includes Mars, Moon Missions
TopSpin writes "The US House of Representatives passed a bill establishing NASA policy for the next two years. The bill is seen as an endorsement of President Bush's Vision for Space Exploration, including returning man to the Moon and eventually Mars. The House struggled with compromising other NASA initiatives against new manned exploration, eventually deciding to expand the budget enough to accommodate both prerogatives. The bill also endorses a servicing and repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope."
If you really want to know what it will be like on orbit and on the Moon, read Orbital Decay or Lunar Descent by Allen Steele.
His thoughts are that the comment about iron workers being the first to orbit isn't too far off. While his books are decidedly 80s-ish (pot smoking steel workers more interested in getting whiskey on a shuttle flight than working), I think he's on the right track.
Successfully condensing fact from the vapor of nuance since 1998.
"The problem, of course, becomes trying to establish the safety of childbearing in low Gs"
No, that's not the problem.
We can debate all of the "fufy" issues regarding space travel until the cows come home.
Radiation. That's the major issue on the table. For short missions (a few months) it's a non issue. But for missions that take a year or so, like a mars mission, the people will be exposed to the continuous Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR) and the solar cycle dependent solar energetic Particle (SEP) events... i.e. radiation. Our atmosphere shields us from the majority of these particles but when you put someone on the moon or mars you have to duplicate the shielding of the Earths atmosphere to achieve the same radiation protection we enjoy on Earth. Bottom line is that is a lot of mass and some of that mass has the nasty problem that it produces a lot of secondary particles (neutrons).
To shield or not to shield... that is the question.
There are a lot of people working on this problem. There is currently no solution. If we put someone in space for an extended period of time (years) there is a serious radiation problem. We will get there in the future but bringing issues up like childbearing, or the mental fatigue, or if masturbation in low G causes a tilted penis... etc... are orders of magnitude below the real current threats.
"Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations"
There's elements on the Moon that are in relative abundance compared to the Earth. Stuff that would be worthwhile to mine off of it.
The Helium-3 is worth it alone, let alone the Titanium and Rare Earth Elements present there...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Most well-respected mission designs came to the conclusion a long time ago that the Moon wasn't a "stepping stone" to Mars, it was an unnecessary detour.
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It's not supposed to be a stepping stone in the literal sense, but a stepping stone in the sense of gained experience. I thought NASA head Michael Griffin stated things quite well in his recent Congressional testimony:
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=1215
With regard to the moon, I believe the experience to be gained by living on and exploring another planetary surface only a few days away from home will be invaluable to the successful conduct of a future Mars expedition. Certainly such experience is not essential; one can readily envision a Mars expedition architecture which does not employ any further lunar experience as a stepping stone. But because it can be envisioned does not make it wise. I personally consider it an act of technological hubris to proceed directly to Mars, with no human experience beyond Earth orbit having been incurred since 1972. It can be done, and it will be cheaper, but the risk to both the mission goals and to human life will be significantly higher.
If the goal of the United States is solely to mount an expedition to Mars, then I can at least understand, if not credit, the concern that returning to the moon is a distraction. But if the goal of the United States is to be truly a spacefaring nation, then bypassing the moon is silly.
A Budgetary Analysis of NASA's New Vision for Space Exploration
The link for the next five years is the interesting one:
NASA's Current Five-Year Plan and Extended Budget Projection
About halfway down is a comparison of the 2004 and 2005 budgets. You can see that the increase is only $292 million, a small fraction of the overall budget. If you compare NASA's current funding with the funding from the Apollo Era (adjusting for inflation) you'll see that the funding levels are on a very similar footing. Of course in those days NASA's funding was about 4% of the federal budget, while today NASA is significantly less than 1%.
The point, however, is that this program is not increasing NASA's funding by much at all, which is its main selling point. That's why Bush Sr.'s plan failed miserably; it would have required about a 33% increase in NASA's funding. So yes, it's a very long range plan, but most analysts believe it has a very high chance of success.
fsh
Could this be the push that is needed to revive the Orion project?
I'm not a physicist, not even sure I can spell "physicist". But it seems to me that travelling in space is more than just exotic technology and dealing with social problems on long flights. It's about enough energy to get you out there and back again.
The ground work for that was done in the late 50's and early 60's. The theorists thought a trip to Saturn by 1970 was possible.
Check out --Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship by George Dyson. I'd offer my copy, but I lent it to another Slashdotter and it hasn't been returned.