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NASA Cancels Missions After All
jd writes "Barely a day after NASA chief Dr. Griffen swore blind that projects might be frozen but not cancelled due to the new priorities and budget constraints, news comes of a new asteroid mission that has been cancelled due to the new priorities and budget constraints - something Dr. Griffin did not mention in his earlier comments. The visit to two asteroids, short about $90 million, was completely abandoned according to NASA, with no possibility of revival. In consequence, smaller missions are reportedly feeling at much greater risk."
Just kidding, they're actually not cancelled.
No, that was a lie, they are.
Probably not, because history has soon that whenever a president is in some form of political trouble, they will often trot out "visions" of American returning to space with such regularity you would think they were smoking Peyeote, but they are shelved once the crisis passes or a new president takes over.
and that increased funding for the Military (killing) machine
this regime is currently spending 5 billion a month on just Iraq, that has to be paid for somewhere and there is no way that anybody is cutting the half a trillion dollars from the pentagons budget
i thought it was pretty obvious by now, killing people or developing new ways to to do it is more important than anything else, judge a nation and its people by what they do
I constantly hear people saying one or both of two things.
1. NASA shouldn't be shooting for the Moon and Mars because it takes away from the smaller missions.
2. NASA should take a lesson from the private industry on how to get to space cheap.
But isn't this exactly what government is great at. Shouldering HUGE projects that no private industry in its right mind would spend money on... Ultimatly to progress science or humanity in general. No private industry is going to beat NASA to Mars. So let them have the small missions, hell once they really get their feet under them we can even contract out the smaller missions to them. But the really big stuff like getting people to Mars is only going to get done my NASA. And sure maybe we could hold back and wait for technology to progress a bit more, but we would still be stuck in Europe if that was the case.
You mean the Government should take risks in the name of progress, when private industry won't?
Are you crazy?
Close your eyes and repeat this mantra after me... "What would Wall Street doooo? What would Wall Street doooo?"
Technology should move at the speed of profitability, not humanity's best interest.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Merely sending people up in to space isn't exploration. We've sent probes to many of the planets (Mars in paticular), and there are plans to a new space observatory. Considering the costs associated with space, I think the U.S. is doing just fine. Hell, I like to wonder, where is everyone else?
Oh, and for you anti-NASA freaks, I'd like to provide you with a link to a history of NASA's budget. It calculates to about $3 per taxpayer per year. Compare that to the military budget, which is about 500 times higher.
Linux is STILL for fags.
This is a difficult situation because the mission has a lot of merit. But it was over budget and had technical problems. Something had to go in a climate of budget tightening. Most people on this forum will rail at this decision. They should blame the aimlessness of NASA's manned space program since Apollo, and credit NASA administrator Michael Griffin for doing something about it.
an ill wind that blows no good
The Federal Government of the United States of America has one main job: protecting the American people from threats,both foreign and domestic. Space research is all well and good, but in the post 9/11 world, spending on security and military operations must obviously be funded.
If you feel NASA shouldn't have to cancel missions, maybe you could start up a fund and send it to them. I would rather have my tax dollars spent on killing Islamo-terrorists and protecting America, and sending space probes.
welcome our horned-rimmed-glasses-wearing, lazy, no good geezer overlords.
I guess that means no Space Jackets for us :(
It would be nice if there were a clear vision with set objectives for the space program. It would be nice to have some set time tables for a lunar colony or a mission to Mars. Right now there doesn't seem to be a plan for NASA other than satellite maintainence and some miscellaneous probes/rovers.
I guess our economy is beginning to look like that of a third world country! I'd like a slashdotter to tell me what this president has done right for our country. Just one thing.
The one reason that government's can sometimes do things better or first is because they don't have to make a profit
The government doesn't have to make a profit; somebody else does. Doing things "first" comes at the expense of the entire country, and "better" is always debatable.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Anyway, he had Peggy Noonan on his show a few weeks ago, who was a speechwriter for Bush and Reagan, amonst other republicans. She was mentioning how during Bush's 2004 campaign she took a leave from her job at Wall St. Journal to work for Bush's re-election. Colbert immediately responds with "Which of Bush's many achievements made that worthwhile?" And she couldn't say anything but just smirk. She didn't even attempt any talking point of one thing Bush did, it was pretty awesome seeing her pretty uncomfortable she was in even trying to list something positive Bush achieved.
make world, not war
Anyone else agree that if any section of NASA should be getting more money it's the JPL. Much of the increased interest in space and the last few really excellent displays of space technology (Rovers, Cassini, Deep Space 1) while the shuttle division languished in time. JIMO, one of the most fascnating and ambitious missions has had its budget sliced as well. I say we go with the most science for the buck and unmanned is the best way to get that outside of our own orbit at this point.
How come I'm not reading that they're cutting Star Wars "missile defense shield" budgets? Maybe it's because Bush is busy ensuring India, Pakistan, Iran, N. Korea and everyone else has all the nukes they want.
--
make install -not war
Fuck you Kansas, Alabama, and Mississippi. Hating does no good, but I don't care. Fuck you and your anti-intellectual Dark Ages bullshit.
I fully expect India, Pakistan, Iran, _and_ N. Korea to beat the US back to the Moon and on to Mars. Some countries can plan for the future better than others.
They're not going to the asteroids cause there's more important stuff to do? They need to go blow those things up. Good going NASA. We're all going to die now.
Hmmm.
No matter what happens, regardless of the merits of the situation, it's always "fuck Bush" etc etc etc.
You're whiney jackholes. You're the same shitheads that wanted the fucking ISS. Well here you go. You got the fucking thing now what the fuck? It's a fucking useless piece of shit. You wanted to include many other countries to build up their space programs. Congrat-u-fucking-lations! That shit only increased the costs by a factor of 2x - 3x because these fuckers didn't know how to do the job properly so there were massive cost overruns. And who paid for it? The American taxpayers.
Your fucking ISS cost over $200 billion fucking dollars and the only thing it's accomplished is to make the Russians about $60 million dollars in tourist fees.
One day you're screaming how NASA should "get out of the way" and then you're screaming how NASA "should do this shit now!"
I'm fucking sick and tired of you ratbag liberals. You've never had a good idea in 50 fucking years and all you've done is turn America to shit. Now the conservatives are having to fix your fucking problems and your fucking mistakes.
Grow the fuck up.
But it's the missions that DO have good crossover that seem to me like they should be prioritized. And the best example I can think of are the missions to put up huge space telescopes to find a second Earth. Finding another Earth would be hugley inspiring, and as far as I understand it these scopes would be fantastic scientific instruments as well.
Am I the only one who was particularly sad to see these missions delayed?
A-Bomb
The science missions were rapidly becoming useless anyway. Search for life my ass, they should have been exploring how exploitable the mineral resources were.
It's time to dump the stupid navel gazing telescopes and put some money into actually doing things in space instead of just looking at them.
If you always just claim people are too expensive to send, you aren't going to develop very good engineering and technologies to send people. I'm glad we've broken out of this loop and will actually being doing something worthwhile in space again.
MARS, BITCHES!
Newsflash! Contrary to popular rumors encouraged by government, NASA has always been a military "stealth" branch. It is, has been, and will always be, so might as well get over it.
For glaring example,the entire size,design and configuration of the shuttle was dictated by military projects. The dotmill spooks got a veto and last call on how big and how much to carry. Too small would have been cheaper and easier, but not as *useful*, them classified birds are really big.
Anything not related to a military mission-the potential, anyway-has alwas been at risk of being put on the back bench or tabled altogether. When we had the extra money,no problems, let the good academic times roll, lookit the shiny astronatus1 and etc; but this is 2006 now, time to "move on" to what is important to this government, which is complete total military dominance in space.
Space is the high ground. We all read sci-fi and can do simple sums, so this is a gimme in understanding one would think here.
We recognize this, the high level political and military leaders in china recognizes this, russia does, india does, etc, so the US general population should just admit this to themselves. Just stop thinking of all the public propoganda you've been fed for two generations now. Civilian uses are to keep the rabble *amused*. Other academic uses are for funzies and to let senators spread some pork around, that's it..
With other war costs so high, and other domestic spending, and the deficits, haliburton executive assistant expenses, etc-all the other high ticket items needed..well...you are going to see interesting but non militarily useful projects quietly abandoned in the next few years.
Jesus Christ you're fucking stupid.
Of course, Mars is a lot farther away. If we adopt the principle that distance equals progress, going to Mars would yield approximately 675 times as much progress as a visit to the Moon. But I have a counter-proposal. I realize that humanity has already made a round-the-world trip in a balloon. Now I think we should reorganize NASA around the next great challenge: flying a balloon around the world 675 times. It's never been done before. Imagine all the empty air that humanity could see, over and over again, during the three-year mission! And unlike the Mars mission, which will -- barring dramatic accidents -- yield nothing but some digital video of astronauts wandering around on a really big, airless, dusty, red field, at the end of the balloon trip the aeronauts can land in Paris! The bread will taste much better! The air will be much more breatheable!
Now, I constantly hear people saying one or both of two things:
But, after all, if humanity had held back and waited for technology to progress, we would still be stuck in Europe, and we wouldn't even need to fly to Paris, because we would be stuck there. Oh, hell, I've lost my train of thought. Can't you just take it on faith that I'm a genius and give me the money?
You've got Google, use it. According to the budget explorer roughly 644 billion for health and human services and 475 billion for the DOD. And NASA? 15 billion. The Executive office of the President gets about 25 billion BTW.
Eliminate cigarettes and alcohol and you end up with a heck of a lot of money not being spent that could be used for any number of better things.
Well isn't that just a load of off topic flamebait. Yet here at Slashdot, that's what mods call Insightful!
Well, allow me to retort with a few "insightful" comments of my own. I smoke and drink and I say, go right ahead slick... You also eliminate cigarette and alcohol taxes. Oops! Forgot about that, didn't ya sport? So, your "money saved" is already being spent. Here's a better idea... Why don't we institute a fat ass tax on fast food and junk food. Then we can go for a diabeties tax on colas with caffeine... You know, those deadly addictive products with no warning labels. Then we can have All Kinds Of Extra Money to spend on things like space travel and research! ... No? Don't like the idea of taxing your twinkies? Well damn! I could've sworn heart disease was the number one killer in America. Pot, meet kettle.
Alright. Go ahead, mod me down you guys. I know you want to.
I think the government should not have to pay medical expenses for obesity related issues, because they are 100% preventable and it is common knowledge, if not common sense, that weighing more than livestock is bad for you. On a related note, I think downhill skiers should not receive medical attention when they break bones, because it's 100% preventable and it is common knowledge that downhill skiing commonly leads to fractures. I also would like to add that I don't think dog owners should receive treatment for having their faces chewed off, because they were just asking for it by owning a dog. However, other people who are attacked by the mangy mutts should still receive treatment, because it was not their fault that someone else's dog chewed their scalp off.
So instead of bitching about NASA draining on economy and tax money, what about donations? Can't NASA just ask for public funding through donations from multi-billion corporations? I'm sure 40 million can be used as tax write off for them. Hell, worst comes to worst, at least I don't think, I'd mind seeing "NASA - United State of America (sponsored by CocaCola, the real thing)" logo flashing next to solar panel when passing asteroid.
For some reason, people tend to get more excited about silly sci-fi movies than real life scientific explorations. "Firefly" and "Star Trek" comes to mind, creating cult and asking for donations to continue on a silly melodrama for entertainment.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
That's a bit of an exaggeration... NASA's share of the federal budget is roughly 15 billion dollars. The DOD gets 475 billion. That's closer to the neighborhood of 30 times. It's worth mentioning that the executive branch gets 25 billion a year though; About the same as the legislative branch, the judicial branch, and NASA combined... Limos and jets cost more than shuttle missions apparently.
That's a nice idea.
But in reality, politicians are too focused on short term electability to care much about such long term plans. Anything much beyond the next elections is ignored.
Not because politicians are bad people. The voters just won't elect those with your long term visions.
It's hard to quantify, but I'd say that business in general is better at long term planning than government.
Taxes on cigarrettes don't even come close to covering tobacco related health care costs. Not even in Canada, which has obscene taxes on tobacco.
Modern medicine is capable of keeping dying people alive for a long time, but at HUGE expense.
Just because people don't realize that we need NASA's huge projects, doesn't mean they are unnecessary.
The market is all about perceived need, whereas NASA is run by scientists who have done credible research that determines what we REALLY need.
My previous post was making fun of the "free market decides everything" crowd.. which is probably why they got back at me by modding me down as a "troll"...
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
No. Every dollar spent by NASA must be first appropriated by Congress. If NASA sells some old hardware, or receives a donation, that money goes straight to the federal government's general fund, not to NASA.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Bush's "mission to Mars" is just his attempt to neuter NASA, long-despised by the GOP because of its ties to the Democrats (e.g., Kennedy Space Center).
He will convince people (like you) that it's okay to kill off the Shuttle, the International Space Station, probes like the one being discussed here, and unmanned planetary missions -- because we're going to Mars. Then he'll use the fiscally irresponsible federal deficit spending (that he encouraged and approved) as a reason why NASA can't have enough budget for a manned Mars mission.
Adjusted for inflation, NASA's annual budget is half of what it was in 1966. How will we put men on Mars for half of what it cost to put men on the moon?
Out here in Silicon Valley, we have NASA Ames, which has a good wind tunnel and a large number of marginal NASA programs. The wind tunnel is worth keeping, but everything else, including the airfield, could be canned with no great loss.
The science missions were rapidly becoming useless anyway. Search for life my ass, they should have been exploring how exploitable the mineral resources were.
It's time to dump the stupid navel gazing telescopes and put some money into actually doing things in space instead of just looking at them.
It's morons like you who have made the U.S. fall behind in science. You see the spectacular pictures coming back from the Hubble Space Telescope and the only wonder you are filled with is wondering if there's a way to strip-mine the galaxy. Instead of having any wonder about how life began, how the universe evolved, and whether there is life on other planets, all you care about is turning NASA into an absurdly expensive mining company.
If you don't like science, then please don't post. You are just dragging down the level of the conversation and reinforcing the global belief that Americans are ignorant, greedy, and crass.
The National Academy of Sciences shall identify areas of scientific interest in which the quality of research results are quantifiable -- primarily in terms of information content. Examples of these kinds of research results are: DNA sequencing (human genome project), digital imaging of various phenomena (astronomical, planetary, terrestrial ozone-layer monitoring), quantitative behavior of systems in microgravity, quantitative mineral assay of various sites (terrestrial and nonterrestrial), etc.
A dollar amount, to be established in conjunction with Congress, shall be associated with each informative item and with varying degrees of accuracy of the information. That dollar amount will then be appropriated to The Trust to be paid out only in the event that an Eligible Party has delivered new information on the associated item of interest to a designated recipient. When a measurement has already been made, payout will be limited to information value corresponding to the increased confidence level of the measurement (e.g. additional significant bits or fractions thereof). In areas where an information flow is required (periodic sampling) the value of various sampling frequencies at the various degrees of accuracy (significant bits) will be included in the valuation of the measurement. Duplicate information flows will share the cash flow evenly. For superior information flows, the incremental increase in accuracy will enjoy less diluted access to funding flows allocated to those incremental increases in accuracy.
Income on The Trust will be used to adjust The Trust for inflation. Additional income from The Trust may be used to fund items within The Trust. In the event that an item is measured by a Party which is not an Eligible Party, and that information is available to the designated recipient -- the corresponding funding will be redistributed within The Trust. After-inflation losses will be redistributed within The Trust, deactivating items which are not currently being pursued by any Eligible Party.
Seastead this.
This project has experienced a problem with cost overruns, which was the real reason it was cancelled, not because of the CEV. Granted, had the budget not need to flex to push CEV development forward, the cost overruns might have been allowed, but there is more involved here than just human spaceflight goals affecting science.
I think you're really missing a very large point about what the government is for, and what private industry is for. Private industry is really great at putting money in forseeable goals where profit can be made. It's really bad at funding basic research in areas where there's no clear profit to be made. It's also really bad at developing anything that benefits everyone as a whole, but can't be charged for. 100 years ago what corporation would have wanted to fund some patent clerk who didn't even do any experiments and just wanted to think about the nature of light? But yet now our entire view of the Universe is different, and many of the devices you use every day rely upon an understanding of relativity.
The problem (as far as a corporation is concerned) is that in science you don't always know what you're going to find out before you find it out. Weird problems in one area can lead to huge advances of knowledge in something that's completely unrelated. That's why it's best for the government to continue funding this basic research, since it's the people that're going to eventually benefit from it, or maybe never benefit from it. What corporation wants to fund experiments counting the number of Neutrinos (very weakly interacting particles that have no forseeable practical applications) that come from the sun? No corporation in their right mind is the answer. They'll never make back money invested in it. But yet that very experiment has led to big developments in the understanding of particle physics. We now know that neutrinos have mass, and oscillate between the different types of them. And even this knowledge has no practical applications of it at all. Might it someday? Maybe, then again maybe not.
Really, the big problem with a Mars mission is you're going to waste a lot of money on one big project that could produce a LOT more scientific results if used in 100 other small projects. You'll probbably gain some technology along the way, but what do we really expect to gain scientifically from a manned Mars mission? Maybe we'll find life on Mars, and learn more about planetary geology. Is that worth scrapping all the other smaller missions? I don't think so.
What worries me about the manned Mars mission is the vast majority of the money is going to go to private industry to develop technology only suited to going to Mars. That's great if you think Science is just about making the world like Star Trek, but it isn't so good if you think science is about learning things about our universe. Don't get me wrong, I think the manned missions have some importance. I just don't think that importance overshadows the science that Nasa (and really hardly anyone else) produces.
AccountKiller
And those taxes are a drop in the bucket compared to the health care costs inflicted on society by smokers. Forgot about that, didn't ya sport? The median tax rate on cigarettes in the U.S. is 80 cents per pack. If you smoke a pack a day, for 30 years, you've paid $8760 in taxes. That won't come close to covering the costs for chemotherapy, heart bypass, after-stroke care, or any of the other likely results of your habit.
Well damn! I could've sworn heart disease was the number one killer in America.
And smoking causes heart disease! According to the American Heart Association:
I smoke
Well who would have guessed that someone as clever as you would smoke?
First of all, technology has improved a lot since the 1960s.
There are cell phones with more computer processing power
than all of NASA during the Apollo program.
Second, to bring the cost down, we should use techniques
that have great leverage on reducing costs. These are
advanced automation and use of local materials.
Advanced automation means instead of sending robots to a
place, you send a robot factory. Instead of sending
structural beams to the moon, you send a magnetic sifter
to separate the 0.2% iron-nickel particles. These come
from asteroids that have rained down on the moon over time
and blasted themselves to bits and gotten mixed in with
the surface material. A focusing mirror or lens can heat
the steel to melting, and for a casting mold, just smooth
out the lunar surface and draw a groove.
The point is that automated equipment can have payback of
many times in less weight you have to bring from earth,
thus reducing costs.
There are also ways to vastly reduce the cost to get to
space. The Shuttle-derived launchers that NASA is pursuing
now aren't it. They are merely optimization of a fundamentally
poor technology - chemical rockets.
Daniel
Going to an asteroid made a lot of sense. The asteroid Amun, which is the smallest known metallic asteroid near Earth, has over a trillion dollars worth of metals. Mining it would pay back a hundred fold on the cost of developing the technology to do so. Instead, we have another pie-in-the-sky mission of going back to the Moon and on to Mars with no payback. It will just cost a fortune.
I'm all for going to the Moon and on to Mars, but I want a sustainable space program. I want to see us go out to space and develop the resources that are out there.
As has been pointed out on this thread, the Shuttle isn't the best way to do this. We need safe reliable transportation to space at a reasonable cost. I think the best answer is a space elevator. The folks over at www.liftport.com are working on actually building one -- well actually four of them. If LiftPort accomplishes it's goals, it will have four space elevators that will be able to carry a shuttle load of cargo to orbit on a WEEKLY basis. Since the elevator will extend out sixty thousand miles, it will also serve as an excellent launching platform for missions to anywhere in the inner solar system. The Earth's own momentum will supply the initial velocity needed.
-All that is gold does not glitter - Tolkien
www.ra
First of all, technology has improved a lot since the 1960s.
There are cell phones with more computer processing power
than all of NASA during the Apollo program.
A close encounter with Mars still puts it 69 million kilometers from Earth. The moon is about 385,000 kilometers away. Lighter weight computers just won't have much effect when you look at what must still be carried: Astronauts, food, water, compressed gases (for air), fuel, switches, wiring, etc. While processing power has done wonderful things to increase capabilities in satellites and unmanned probes, it has done little to reduce spacecraft weight. Sure, there is a lot to be gained with high-tech composites like carbon fiber, but you're just whittling away at what must remain a very heavy object.
Also, don't forget that your cell phone's CPU is not tolerant of cosmic rays. That's why CPUs used in space must be rad-hard (radiation hardened). Such CPUs contain extra transistors that take more energy to switch on and off. Cosmic rays can't trigger them so easily. Rad-hard chips continue to do accurate calculations when ordinary chips would glitch. The space industry relies almost exclusively on these rad-hard chips to make computers space-worthy. But these custom-made chips have some downsides: They're extremely expensive, power hungry, and slow -- probably 10 times slower than an equivalent CPU in a modern consumer desktop PC.
Advanced automation means instead of sending robots to a
place, you send a robot factory. Instead of sending
structural beams to the moon, you send a magnetic sifter
to separate the 0.2% iron-nickel particles. These come
from asteroids that have rained down on the moon over time
and blasted themselves to bits and gotten mixed in with
the surface material. A focusing mirror or lens can heat
the steel to melting, and for a casting mold, just smooth
out the lunar surface and draw a groove.
That sounds like a lot of the pie-in-the-sky type of stuff that I've read in science fiction. While it's great to dream, we've not even put a man on the moon in over 30 years, much less stablished a base there. Just how big a focusing mirror or lens does it take to turn, say, 100 pounds of iron-nickel particles molten? How do we get that mirror/lens there? Where do we house the astronauts establishing the iron smelting factory? How do we feed them? While the moon may yield some minerals, it's a long way from crude, sand-cast iron beam to a structure capable of sustaining life or to a rocket capable of getting men to Mars and back.
Apollo was a touch-and-go compared to what you're proposing. I just can't see NASA mounting something as ambitious as what you propose on a budget that, adjusted for inflation, is half of what it was at the peak of the Apollo program.
There are also ways to vastly reduce the cost to get to
space. The Shuttle-derived launchers that NASA is pursuing
now aren't it. They are merely optimization of a fundamentally
poor technology - chemical rockets.
NASA, and the private sector, have examined all kinds of propulsion. NASA launched one rocket with a nuclear fission unit in 1965. The Soviet Union is believed to have made 33 such launches. Despite billions of dollars of research in the 1950s and 1960s, nuclear propulsion was abandoned due to technical and political difficulties. While ion-power looks promising to cut travel time to distant planets, it isn't the panacea that one might like.
P.S. I do know something about this kind of thing. I am writing this from my condo in Cape Canaveral where I am stationed as part of a launch campaign for a satellite.
I'll give you one. I have an idea to get into space as cheaply as a space elevator, with materials and technology we have now, I even know who would pay for its design and construction. I submitted it to slashdot as a story about a month back, but its still in the pending queue (presumably waiting for the right stories to come along). I might have to just spill it if its not posted soon, tis burning a hole in me brain. However thats neither here nor there.
Space has got vast, essentially unlimited resources. One recent story pointed out the trillion dollar iron asteroid up there. The thing has about 5 tons of steel for every man, woman and child on earth. And thats just one of god knows how many... billions more?
Once we leap the cost to escape hurdle (as I think I have managed), we can proceed to use these resources. There are several obstacles in the way of this, first of which is zero gee mining, we have no idea how to do it. We can either mine the ore out there, or bring the asteroid back into orbit and slice it up there. Or slice it up and send it back to orbit. I would be opposed to moving it back into orbit for processing, purely for the debris issue. Perhaps a lunar base would have some merit there.
So we set up a mining and processing operation either on the moon or in deep orbit, and start cutting and processing one of those bad boys. Whats the first thing we build? A bigger processing and mining operation. Space exploration, much like the internet, has to be a largely incestuous affair at first, existing solely for its own benefit.
Once we have that mastered, we can move to algae pods in orbit for food production, oxygen refining, and fuel production (biodiesel or chemical engines), all of which can be powered by the immense energy of the sun, and use the raw materials abundantly available in space. Whether you ship that stuff back to earth or use it for further colonisation, its a vital step.
The production of automated scouts is also a high priority; a vast amount of surveyor and prospector drones to sweep and map every square inch of every rock and gas in the system, out to the Oort cloud, and figure out what they are made of. I'd err on the side of quantity rather than quality, still no reason not to have either. This could be combined with deep space observatories that would make hubble look like the end of a coke bottle.
So now we have a manufacturing bridgehead, a good idea of what's interesting out there, and a cheap means to launch to orbit. Actual manned system ships would come next, to either colonise or investigate the system. The rest, as they say, is (future) history.
A lot of this would require automation, robotics, right up to the point when we build a larger manufactory from the orginal small one. Robots would also look after a great deal of the exploration and colonisation, remote drones, no intelligence required. Once bare neccessities were covered, science stations, pharma research labs, the lot, could go up there.
The implications for life on earth are fascinating. We are talking about an essentially endless supply of food, medicines, and all the comforts of home, being supplied at ultimately no cost, due to high automation. It would be next to impossible to to charge actual money for anything but services, and a lot of these would be ultimately automated anyway. I would predict a golden age, as history shows us when a group of people no longer have to worry about food and survival, they tend to educate themselves. One example is ancient greece, where massive slavery (90% of the population?) removes worldy worries from the ruling class. The result was a tremendous amount of culture and technology being created in a short time.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Sounds like they missed thier window. With space missions, the orbital positions keep changing. Miss a couple of hours sometimes, and the next good shot might not be for another 15 years or so. There will be a lot of missions where delay means canceled. Expect to hear about a few more. Sorry, just physics.
Keeping the poor, homeless, nicheless, leaches of Africa alive provides what? More babies? No.
What you reccomend:
1. Give Free Antibiotics
2. Watch Them Mate
If you can't keep yourself alive, you deserve to die.
You're a Fascist Jerk.
Do you also frequent stormfront.org much?
Fight Frist Psoting!
Browse Slashdot with 'Newest First'!
Thanks for the interesting post. As I said the Dawn mission has merit. I sympathize with its cancellation. But it is involved in a game of budgetary musical chairs. The current budget is not sustainable given the NASA mandate to develop the CEV. As for NASA's poor reputation as an international partner, if Europe is complaining about this after the US spending $100G on the ISS and enumerable other missions then perhaps they would be better off with the Russians. Do you think congress is sympathetic with this view? If you want to blame anything for Dawn's misfortunes blame that useless money pit that is ISS.
an ill wind that blows no good
It's Evolution not 'darwinism'! Are you going to use a senseless word made up by the vatican, or whatever religious power house that opposes evolution?! I agree with Node 3.
we were going to Mars. So it must be true.
There's two categories here that most uninitiated folk don't discern -- Science vs. Engineering. Put simply, engineers build the stuff that allows the scientists collect data to do their research. So that's not to say that the technology to enable this stuff isn't wicked cool, but you always need to remember your ultimate goal, and that is science. In this biz, science data is the ROI; all the tech research that occurs is so that we can build sumarter missions to get -- yep, you guessed it, more science data.
BTW, I'm a spacecraft engineer.
correction: Should be "remote-controlled robots", not "reports". That is what I get for thinking of work sh8t while slashdotting.
Table-ized A.I.
You'll probbably gain some technology along the way, but what do we really expect to gain scientifically from a manned Mars mission? Maybe we'll find life on Mars, and learn more about planetary geology. Is that worth scrapping all the other smaller missions? I don't think so.
If there is microbe life on Mars, we better know about it before a manned mission. Otherwise, astronauts risk contaminating both Earth and Mars. We could be risking a nasty plague.
Table-ized A.I.
I'll post as an anonymous coward, as I do work for a NASA center and don't want my comments being assumed as 'official', thus getting myself into trouble.
I don't like to see *any* projects get cancelled, but the fact of the matter is that for far too long, project managers have not been held accountable to their ultimate boss - the US taxpayer who funds these projects. This project was behind schedule, over budget, and there were serious concerns about some of the technology involved.
I'm currently working my ass off on a flight mission, and I can tell every American would be proud of how hard we work to stay on schedule, and within budget. What sort of message does it send to us, and other NASA projects, if a project can be mismanaged and yet not suffer consequences. I think it's about time that projects such as Dawn be held accountable - and that includes manned-flight proejcts as well.
As for JPL:
When JPL competes/bids for a project they compete with other NASA centers: Goddard, Kennedy, etc. I've heard from the mouths of JPL's own project managers that they often underbid just to win a mission. They assume that eventually they can go crying back to NASA/HQ and get more money because cancelling a mission is often politically difficult to do.
As to the comments about JPL building stuff in house? In house hardware development is the *exception*, not the norm at JPL. Yes there are some great, technically-competent folk at JPL, but the place is becoming more and more just a project manager. They'll win a mission, then outsource much of the technical work to local contractors. Inherently, that's not a bad thing, but if they're just going to be project managers, well that's a job that could be done just as well from NASA/HQ in DC.
Again, I hate to see a project get cancelled, but this cancellation serves as a warning shot across the bow of all other projects out there - do your job, be efficient in doing so, and expect to be held accountable if you don't. Would you expect any different from the person you hire to paint your house, fix your car, etc.
Thanks for listening.
100 years ago what corporation would have wanted to fund some patent clerk who didn't even do any experiments and just wanted to think about the nature of light?
Yet, strangely enough, said scientist was able to develop his theories, without Big Government coming in with a bureacracy and a whole civil service full of deadwood staffers and all the associated paperwork.
No, you've cited an example that just doesn't hash with the idea of huge government funded boondoogle initiatives.
The Mafia really didn't get going until prohibition. Criminalising things that people want makes for a hell of a mess.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Yup that's right folks it is an **administration** (== pen pushers). Anything that is an administration is geared towards administrators and their needs, not science and its needs.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Cancelling the DAWN mission is a blow to research and use of nuclear-electric propulsion. That is the main propulsion for the DAWN mission. It is a much more powerful and even more efficient propulsion system now, with a specific impulse of over 3100, making it more efficient than chemical propulsion by a factor of over a thousand. If we are ever are to send men to the other bodies in this system, not to mention sending them on recurring/mundane missions to established outposts/colonies, then nuclear-electric is the way to go. This cancelled mission would have taught us much. An excellent program on the Sci-Fi channel about the mission's predecessor, Deep Space I, went into the various pioneering technologies that were validated by Deep Space I. Chief among these were electric propulsion. Deep Space I used solar-electric propulsion. Solar electric is practical in the inner solar system, but falls off rapidly when one goes much past the earth or mars orbits as the intensity of solar radiation is much lower there. Out among the gas giants and certainly among the ice giants, nuclear-electric propulsion becomes a necessity. Also among these technologies were the ability to 'auto-navigate', or auto-astrogate as it were. This means a spacecraft using this technology can see and know where it is in space by sighting from known objects in local space. Using that information, the spacecraft can then astrogate itself to its intended destination with minimal intervention from mission control. This is very useful for deep space unmanned satellite missions, but can also be quite useful for manned missions as well, as it can free mission personnel for other useful tasks, and can make corrections faster than a human can react. This is only useful for missions that have an engine that can be used for a long time without running out of fuel, and used often. Another useful technology validated by Deep Space I was 'self-repair', where a spacecraft can self diagnose its own faults and find back ups or work arounds with minimal or no ground supervision. This can also be useful on manned missions. As an electronics maintainance tech for years, I know and appreciate how much help this can be.....believe it! It is a great tragedy that this asteroid mission has been cancelled, for beyond going to Ceres and Vesta, new improvements have been made to the Deep Space I technologies. It is for the purpose of testing these technological improvements that this mission was designed. The asteroids are actually of secondary importance to the new technology improvements checkout and test where this mission was concerned. No post to slashdot addresses this issue so felt it necessary to post direct to the head so it would get read. That is, of course, if and only if the post graders are of a mind to actually post this.
Heh, I was going to just disagree with you. But I realized that space development like most human endeavors has whatever goals or purposes that you decide to assign to it. Even the science and engineering has a purpose other than itself. For me, there's a strong likelihood than Man or something descended from Man will be doing stuff over time and distance scales that we can't currently comprehend. To get to that point, we need to establish ourselves in space, and to do that, we need to both build the tools that will get us there and understand the environment that we're about to enter.
In any case, my take is that the US is still unfocused as to why it wants a space program. As a result, we had for the past few decades a toy program that really hasn't done anything for us. In the past, great exploration programs were based on some need or desire. The New World was discovered (for the last time) by someone who wanted to get to the resources of the Far East. These motives may have been unusually mercenary, but at least they knew what they wanted to get.
As another poster noted, if the human race were so inclined we could map within say, the next couple of decades, every major object in the Solar System to a fine level of detail perhaps commeasurate with what we have on Earth. Perhaps, even start a huge program of sample returns from these bodies. I'm sure I underestimate here what could be done just on the unmanned front, if there was huge interest in space. But frankly, there's little incentive. For most of society, space science isn't useful in itself. They have other priorities.
The point here is that as long as space development continues to wallow along with out goals, it'll continue to be a toy program.
Government is only good for war, taxes, and tyranny
Hey, can I get that on a bumper sticker? Oh, a tshirt would be really cool. Chicks who are a fans of Ayn Rand would be all up on my junk if I wore a tshirt like that. Yeah, both of them. Maybe at the same time. Oh yeah, totally.
fuck damn shit crap bitch nasa
That's absurd. Native Americans have no souls, so what's the point of teaching them about the Bible?
China has a moon program and they don't have as many missions as NASA. Russia has a moon program and they don't have as many missions as NASA. India has a moon program and they don't have as many missions as NASA. These are the largest countries in the world and they've made sacrifices to have moon programs.
Unlike the big 3, your united government can't force a moon program on you if you don't want it.
It introduced this idea to make the deaths of your astonauts seem like a stepping stone to something important, but if the cost to basic science is too high, you can defeat it and go back to low earth orbit missions.
As the budget reallocations multiply and the pressure mounts against a moon program, it's undoubtedly going to force your government to think more in terms of low earth orbit and basic science.
The voices of millions of complaints may be all the evidence we need that small science missions and low earth orbit are more practical than what China's doing.
Guess what causes heart disease!
Fun?
I assume your $0.80 number comes from somewhere like so. Let's see... at $0.35 per pack in NC, and $1.50 in NY, that should equate to a difference of $11.50 a carton... Well, Marlboros run about $30 a carton in NC, while in NY they're closer to $70. That's difference of $40 a carton, or about 350% higher than your magic numbers show. You're obviously overlooking a staggering amount of tax. You also assume all smokers die from smoking related disease and that all smokers die after 30 years of smoking. It looks like someone is twisting the truth.
Well who would have guessed that someone as clever as you would smoke?
To be so clever yourself, you seem to overlook a lot of facts.
My original point remains the same: Berating smokers is rude. It's the equivalent of approaching someone walking their dog and professing how much you hate dogs. Learn some manners. I stand by my original statements. You are a troll. The topic is not cigarettes, it is NASA. No one mentioned cigarettes but you. You obviously would like to argue about cigarettes. Stop acting like a child or take your personal problems elsewhere. I will not argue with you any further.
Ugh, sounds like a great way to funnel money to people. Possibly one of the worst ideas I have ever heard, and especially bad because it supposedly saves us from wasting money on something. Instead, we'll just be giving it away. Kind of like that "alternative energy" money that was being given to companies who sprayed coal with...what was it, pine tar?
...where do I pick up the check?
Maybe creationists could even get in on the action.
mission: explanation of the origin and evolution of life.
results: god did it
I think it's fair to give the moon and mars missions priority. I think there should always be at least one big mission on NASA's plate. I would say the NGST should take priority, but all I see is small beans coming out of the NGST planning. I'd like to see an array of 10 or more telescopes functioning as one lens. I also want to see us manufacturign plutonium for use in RTGs, but you don't see that happening, what the fuck? If you ask me, the whole thing wreaks of politics, someone's found a way to blame the shuttle disaster on GW. Politicians in florida are trying to protect the shuttle program. Go figure.
On top of everything else, I just like to see something exciting happening, some bookmark in the history of mankind in my lifetime, you know? It's another leap forward for mankind.
I really doubt that ... if something can be done, and there is a trace of hope it might pay off, somebody will try it ... For an example, check the SpaceRef article where they say something about what motivated Elon Musk to get into rocket building ...
Want more incentives ? Drop the lame "Outer Space" treaty and set up a system for allowing enterprising people stake claims on useful resources they discover in the "Outer Space" as long as they prove they can and want to exploit them, or set prizes for discovering exploitable resources out there ... sooner rather than later some insane billionare will start putting money into space exploration, and he might just get lucky, the same way Christopher Columbus got lucky.
US got the space program running because they got scared by Sputnik ... if the entrepreneus get some guarantees that they could make money in space (and not the only certainty they have now, which is that if anybody is stupid enough to risk their money and acctualy finds something valuable, the UN freeloaders will gang them instantly), you'll see the IRS forking money to NASA in order to be able to send tax inspectors to LEO ...
Quite rightWell yeah, if you deeduck Medicarez & Medicades. :-)
I've heard from many scientists that you just can't do some research with robots. They fire a projectile into an asteroid and measure the debris and stuff with x-ray spectrometers, that's ok, but with people on mars they could dig a shaft 3 feet wide and take pictures of the evolution of mars. Try and build a robot that does that, with any likelihood of success.
I'm sure ignoring everything else you could get more science done with Astronauts than with robots. I don't think anyone would dispute that. But what about all the other science that's been done over the years with just robots and satelites? Look at all the science we've gotten with projects like the Hubble, or lesser known projects like Wmap Should we cancel projects like this to blow all our money on manned Mars exploration? That's really the question at hand here. I think you're going to get a hell of a lot more science per buck with small missions than spending a LOT of money mostly on getting a few humans to survive for a year or two on a Mars mission.
On top of everything else, I just like to see something exciting happening, some bookmark in the history of mankind in my lifetime, you know? It's another leap forward for mankind.
Well, I suggest you look at the science that Nasa has produced instead of looking at great media stories. While the moon landing certainly captured peoples imaginations, it didn't really produce that much science for all the money that went into it. Since then NASA has done a hell of a lot of great science. You honestly don't think all the massive amounts of gains in knowledge that NASA alone has been responsible for is a bookmark in history in your lifetime? Good god, we've still got two functional robots moving around on another planet! Just a few weeks ago it was revealed that comets aren't the dirty snowballs that we've been told they are since I can remember. We've got very solid evidence that there was once water on Mars. I think those are some pretty amazing discoveries, and that's just a few of them.
AccountKiller
I'm a smoker. I think you should go and think long and hard about having a basis for your opinion. Where I live (Norway), with each pack of cigarettes I buy, I'm taxed. These taxes, for the average smoker, will add up to about twice the extra cost of additional health care the average smoker requires. It turns out that I'm financing the health care of others. (Before you go say this doesn't apply to your locale, go actually check it out for yourself.)
The point is, risk must be allowed for. Plenty of people are too timid to do anything that anyone ever said is dangerous. That's fine with me, it's their lives after all. But I refuse to judge how well I lived my life in how many risks I avoided. And I'm in no way unique in that.
Thank you.
If there is life on Mars it will not be the kind that infects multicelled organisms. Most importantly because there's a lack of (large) multicelled organisms on Mars. That life couldn't infect anything even if it could survive being brought into the conditions present on Earth.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
You have to admit that sending up a mission to study the damn thing was pretty wasteful since it was "coming for a landing" anyway.
Say good bye to the west coast. The NEXT tsunami will make the earth ring like hitting a bell.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
As for the moon landings, I think we're beyond the cold war now. We're going back to the moon for more constructive purposes than defeating soviet Russia. I don't make a direct comparison between past and future manned space missions.
If there is life on Mars it will not be the kind that infects multicelled organisms. Most importantly because there's a lack of (large) multicelled organisms on Mars. That life couldn't infect anything even if it could survive being brought into the conditions present on Earth.
Probably true, but I would not want to bet the life of my entire home planet on just a "probably".
Table-ized A.I.
I think most of the robotic missions, which start out as the brainchild of really forward thinking (and usually way-out) scientists, have a pretty good idea of what the ibgger picture is. The manned progam, however, is what started NASA, but has grown into the 800-lb gorilla. Consequently, our flagship program, which really defines us, has no goal other than to serve politicans whose district has a say in it. We really need a refocus (which we got, but in absolutely the wrong way). Privitization would be nice, but let's be realistic -- there's no way private industry would get enough money to pull this off. We need those govt dollars.