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."

Comments

Never give up, never surrender!

[bigwavejas]

This is the perfect opportunity for the United States to peak childrens interest in science and mathematics classes. NASA should go to local schools to hang posters inspiring kids to set their goal on becoming an astronaut.

I also think NASA ought to prepare the american people by making it clear human lives will be lost in this endeavor. With the last two disasters (Columbia and Challenger) each time it setback their mission years. In an industry such as this people must be made to understand it's not an accident, rather a probability.

Re:Never give up, never surrender!

[demachina]

"...and space-hotels,"

LOL there's the ticket. Hey, kids you should aspire to be astronauts so you can be a space janitor or a space maid in a space hotel. I wonder if illegal aliens will be able to make it in to space to fill these jobs.

I totally agree that having a space industry would be nice but NASA ain't going to get you to any of these. You are going to have to hope some of the private ventures can scrape together the funds to build an afforable launch vehicle to LEO. It is a lot harder to do than Rutan's suborbital shots and more expensive.

Not sure the solar power thing will fly anytime soon. Nuclear reactors on Earth are a lot better bet.

The absolute pinnacle I can see NASA aspiring to is a moonbase which will end up looking a lot like an ISS except on the moon. People living in tin cans trying to find things to do on a place totally hostile to life.

The only objective really worth doing in my book is flying people to Mars one way, and doing what it takes to keep them alive and to develop self sufficiency. At the point you have colonists on Mars and not Astronauts that is the point you have accomplished something, you have achieved a revolution and you will change the way humans think about the universe.

Due to the ravages of long duration in low G's I doubt anyone would want to endure coming back to Earth and 1 G from a long mission to Mars anyway. I'm sure NASA will never break out of the round trip mode of thought but it is totally the wrong mindset for a Mars policy. Get as many people as you can and can keep alive, help them find the resources they need to live without depending on expensive and iffy space shots, and let them start manufacturing future colonists on site. Its way cheaper than flyng them from Earth.

Re:Never give up, never surrender!

[demachina]

"To shield or not to shield... that is the question."

I think that question has already been answered, you have to shield.

"There is currently no solution"

Mike Griffin said in Congressional testimony before he became administrator:

"Overall, however, the most difficult physiological issue is likely to be that of cosmic heavyion radiation. The human effects of and countermeasures for heavy ion radiation, encountered in deep space but not in the LEO environment of the ISS, have received little attention thus far. These are the essential technical and physiological challenges as I see them. Exploration missions will not be accomplished without human risk. While certainly worthy of our attention, however, none of these is so daunting that we should stay home."

"There is currently no solution."

Don't think that is true. Its just a question of how much to shield, with what, how bad the mass penalty is, can you push it to Mars, and where the mass comes from.

The favorite sci fi based solution is you shield with a water tank around a safe room or maybe around the main habitat module in the ship. You need the water anyway. The other one is you manufacture shielding out of lunar regolith since its easier to get the mass off the moon, though it would take a lot of infrastructure to make there, or you have a heavy lift launch vehicle and launch shield from earth.

When you are talking about the habitats on the moon and mars its a given the habitats should be buried to the extent necessary to be safe. Then you are just facing the problem of how much radiation astronauts face on the surface in rovers or space suits. Again shield as much as you can and yes there will be a field for medical study for treating the effects.

When people set out to sail in to uncharted waters or cross the west in prairie schooners they encountered stuff that killed them too, scurvy on ships for example. It didn't stop them.