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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."
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.
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
was "man" captured from the moon?
What does your Credit Report look like?
So NASA is supposed to do all that in two years? or will the expenditures carry on until the next president has another "vision"?
What NASA does (or perhaps is forced to do) is waste money, because everybody knows none of these grandiose plans will ever occur. The Mars mission will be international or won't be at all, because there's no cold war to justify n-times the cost of sending some bozo to Mars where robots do just as well for cheaper.
So, like Slashdot just told me very accurately, nothing for you to see here, please move along.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
We can't return man there - that'd mean we were there to begin with.
.. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
And, as we all know, the "Moon" is a ridiculous liberal myth.
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
Not programmes. If you pay for programmes, you get programmes, not results.
Seriously, this is basically how all successful exploration has proceeded in the past.
Deleted
Politics, indeed. Since this is only one of the hurdles in getting the budget NASA needs to fulfill the promises by this administration, I am still wary. Ill believe it when I see cold hard funding translated into actual projects.
There is truth in humor.
"The bill is seen as an endorsement of President Bush's Vision for Space Exploration, including returning man to the Moon and eventually Mars."
Returning man to the Moon is nothing but returning man to Mars is what I really look forward. You are a true visionary, Mr. President.
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
I have to ask, why do we need to go back to the moon? Is there any real, scientific reason for it, or is it just our dear president trying to keep people's minds off other things with another moon mission?
If you live in America, how can you justify that statement? The whole reason you're here is because someone thought it would be a good idea to traverse dangerous terrain at considerable risk and expense and evidently, liked it enough to stay. (and yes I count native americans in that group as well. Walking across a land bridge in the sub-arctic couldn't have been easy or cheap.)
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Neither Mars nor the Moon were available to comment.
You can't handle the truth.
> Yes of course we could do it otherwise, but not as
> efficiently or as often
This is not the case. At all.
We don't go up from a gravity well, then down into another gravity well 390,000 km away, to a surface even less hospitable than low Earth orbit, and gain anything except higher fuel costs, more danger, and theed for even MORE hardware.
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.
No gods, no demons, and no masters. Secular Humanism!
I must admit I am an angry American. Why don't we first fix our health-care, education and economic systems before we tackle the moon and Mars? As our infrastructure crumbles, and our schools decline, and we continue to export [manufacturing] jobs, not forgetting senseless wars we are fighting abroad with mounting casualties, it saddens me to see that our president and his administration do not see what needs to be fixed first. Do not forget that he once mentioned "...bring them on...they will soon hear from us...our only option is victory...we want him dead or alive...mission accomplished...! Mind you, this was more than 18 months ago! Some think we are bogged into a senseless war with no end! But we are spending US$ 1 billion per week on war while we have tax paying citizens without health-care coverage, and China is financing our spending by buying out bonds and T-bills.
I suggest the following: Let's explore the oceans looking for new life. Maybe that way, we might find sources for new drugs. I know my call is falling on deaf ears, but I am glad I said it.
It saddens me that our companies like Kodak, Ford, GMC and Boeing are becoming more irrelevant by the day, while Toyota, Nissan, Mazda and others are eating our cake. Our companies are already not as relevant in the electronics field. Where will our grandsons be?
Nasa is by it's very nature too afraid to move on anything this quickly. To date, they've been too concerned with the possible loss of human life. if you look through history, america has made great progress riding on the corpses of great men who gaves their lives to the progress of success. Nasa should follow in these footsteps and begin launching rockets more often, with more emphasis on getting to the moon and staying there. Yes, i know i'm ripping on them, and they have done a lot. But oh well.
for free wallpapers, visit Sargosis.com
Federal, legislative support of NASA is refreshing given the saddening decline over the past decade. What I, however, would most like to see, is a collaborative effort between NASA and the fledgeling private sector space initiatives. Scaled Composities of X-Prize fame has some wonderful, far-sighted ideas. A collaborative effort might truly be the impetus for progress.
On another note, who here feels that there is a place for community-based, (OSS??) space projects? Precedent shows that grassroots efforts can and do work.
I am truly interested: what do slashdotters think?
Think? Yes
"Greatly increase the standard of living for the world's poor"
So would throwing huge ammounts of money/resources at the poor fix the problem? Tell me how to translate resources into "encouraging education and intelectual development, and tollerance", and I would agree that government funds such as these should be routed towards it.
Blind statements of "let's save the world first" are pretty ironic. Save the world from what? The world is what it is. We cannot create a utopia, becasue not everyone can agree on what that is. Yes, we can clean up our backyard, and *some* resources should go to that, but not all.
Manned space exploration is not something you do instead of cleaning up the situation, it is something you do in addition to. Programs such as this create the demand for the educated, because it is something that people WANT, and like to see.
Is it really true?
They'll keep Hubble in service? The article doesn't sound positive on that.
Maybe it's because the space shuttle isn't as reliable as first envisioned, but this is where Nasa could score; by offering monetary assistance to competing outside engineering firms who would come up with design improvements.
Maybe scrapping the shuttle is not realistic, but a redesign is.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
It's still useful.
Mostly in terms of having lots of iron-rich rocks and soil under a much shallower gravity well than Earth with nobody to complain if a multi-km linear accelerator is built.
But that is kinda putting the cart before the horse.
Personally, I think we should mostly concentrate on building space industries, which makes the moon much more useful than Mars in the near-term. Of course, that may be part of the unspoken reasoning behind going to the moon......
Gentoo Sucks
If there is no extra money, and a long term cash commitment attached, then this is nothing but hot air. It is easy to SAY that we are going back into space, but it is only words untill they put the money where their words are.
The House struggled with compromising other NASA initiatives against new manned exploration, eventually deciding to expand the budget enough to accommodate both prerogatives.
S.R. Hadden: "First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?"
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
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.
1
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.
NASA should simply send an unmanned probe to Mars containing a well-sealed, well-protected capsule containing a check for $1,000,000,[insert your favorite number of zeroes here], payable to bearer.
The first person who manages to get there and collect it gets to keep it.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Pete Conrad, commander of Apollo 12, made a bet with a reporter who thought that Armstrong's words had been written by PR flacks. He told her exactly what he was going to say months before the launch:
"Whoopee! That may have been one small step for Neil, but it was a big one for me!"
He was also the shortest of all the Apollo Astronauts.
fsh
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
Of course, back in NASA's glory days, every manned mission was launched on a military missile (Redstone, Atlas, Titan II) or on a rocket initiated by the military (Saturn). Even the space shuttle project was designed mainly around the requirements of the Air Force.
NASA's current problem is that the shuttle turned out to be too expensive and risky even for the military to use.
NASA on a crap budget backed by Bushes rhetoric will never achieve it
NASA has never had the budget to develop major space systems independent of the military. If they want to do any more groundbreaking work, first they'll have to figure out how to align it with military goals, and then figure out how to market it to once again fool the public into thinking that it's all just being done for the science.
> But if the goal of the United States is to be
>truly a spacefaring nation, then bypassing the
> moon is silly.
Perhaps, perhaps not. The problem is that history shows that grand plans like "becoming a truly spacefaring nation" get funded for a little while -- long enough for the politicians to take credit for their daring vision -- and then cancelled. Witness the aftermath of the final Apollo missions: Saturn V assembly line shut down, a retreat to low earth orbit, and a boondoggle tincan in orbit that exists more or less so that we can continue to claim to have a manned space program.
I think the best shot we have of actually sending people to Mars is to just go. I think that if we stop at the Moon, people (i.e., Congress) will get tired of the costs and call it a day once we've built some tin can "base" on the Moon, which we can them promptly abandon...or sell to the Chinese.
No gods, no demons, and no masters. Secular Humanism!
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.