Slashdot Mirror
Lockheed Martin Wins Contract to Build Mars Lander
Lord_Slepnir writes "Lockheed Martin has won a contract to build the Orion crew exploration vehicle that will eventually take humans to the moon and then on to Mars. This vehicle will hopefully also replace the aging space shuttle fleet. According to NASA the vehicle will have manned missions by 2014 and moon missions by no later by 2020."
gur Jenvgu qrfgebl gur Bevba?
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Lockheed Martin has won a contract to build the Orion crew exploration vehicle that will eventually take humans to the moon
Great, the US will finally make it to the moon.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I hope it doesn't have to work below -5 F or need cameras on the side or require secure communications...
...those firms that lost the bid were awarded the Uranus probe contract.
Libertas in infinitum
How hard is it to post a YouTube whistleblower video from Mars?
Of course yes, there is a whole different social reason to go there and whatever, and times have changed..
Obliterate advertising!
I was looking at the pics of this thing and it looks to me like the same old thing that we took to the moon. By 2020 I for sure as hell hope we have some cool looking spaceship with panoramic windows like in the movies, not some crappy looking thing we took to the moon in 69.
This is a MOON lander, which could one day may be used to land on Mars, but probably would require changes due to differences in gravity, atmosphere, etc.
By that time I should be able to pay Burt Rutan a few hundred bucks and hitch a ride to the moon
Imagine the both of us, riding the spaceship one up to the moon, like a couple of guys on a motorcycle....err...
"NASA told the contractors to build a capsule that looks just like Apollo"
Extra points were awarded to Lockheed for their proposal to use vacuum tubes.
We have been to moon many times, since as long as 1969. That place is not good for living! What is the timeline for Mars?
Btw, how many of you think that 2020 coincides with President Bush's 'promise'?
or at least paid down the interest on the Chinese loans we have, then again we will probably be still in Iraq
How will we explain to our children that back in the day we had this sweet airplane shaped orbiter to take us into space, and now all they have is this cone-shaped hunk of a "spaceship".
Hey, guys. Big gulps, huh? Cool. All right! Well, see ya later.
...companies offering to reinvent the computer and rediscover Australia.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Did Lockheed actually have the best design for the money? Or was politics the deciding factor once again? (Boeing gets it next time, eh?)
According to TFA, this capsule is also supposed to replace the shuttle once it starts flying. Does it really make sense design a spacecraft that can land on the moon, (maybe) Mars, and do the kind of workhorse activity the shuttle has traditionally handled? Jack of all trades and master of none, maybe?
I pictured this guy with antenna, and I laughed. I bet he'd get real media coverage if he were an alien. After all, then Homeland Security might care their ships are in mortal danger if it gets cold outside, or if someone tries to approach.
I like how Lockheed Martin convinced the Canadian government to let them collect our 2006 Census data too. Makes me feel that my personal info is well cared for...
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
At first glance, and with recent reports of NASA trying to bring old technology out of mothballs, I really thought this could be the same Project Orion researched in the 50's that relied on dropping nuclear bomblets out the ass end of a rocket to propel it forward, with a giant shock absorber to smoothe out the propulsion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclea r_propulsion)
Too bad it's not. I mean, if it was, it would never make it off the ground anyway with all the nuclear fear in the world, but it would at least show that NASA is again looking forward, possibly resolving issues with that concept (possibly having it as a second or third stage, once the ship leaves the atmosphere, ionosphere, magnetosphere, what have you.
Instead, we have an big Apollo rocket (sigh).
Last I heard, there were no practical ways to deal with radiation in space.
Does this mean NASA doesn't consider radiation to be a problem, or think it has a workable solution? Is so, what is it? And isn't it irresponsible to begin contracting if they don't have a solution?
It's not even the LANDER, just the orbital vehicle.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
We could fund several hundred of these things for the cost of the Iraq invasion and occupation.
If you actually read the article and look at the images, you'll quickly realize this is more like the Mercury capsules, and is a giant leap backward for America. Meanwhile, the Brits are landing on the moon.
Some days, our continuing downward slide from prominence becomes more apparent. This is one of those days.
Is it better than a Mercury capsule? Sure.
Is it an improvement on the Shuttle? Doubtful at best, but you know they're spinning it that way.
However, it is possible this is more suitable to the space aims of a diminished nation that is at best an equal player with the EU, China, and Japan - and may even use less fuel to get the same basic job done.
But it's not progress. Unless you count progress as realizing we are no longer Number 1 in the Space Race.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
This phrase is in there twice" 1)"described by NASA's chief as "Apollo on steroids"" then later , 2) "in the words of NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, "Apollo on steroids.""
/. I can understand having editorial probs, such is the site, but CNN?? c'mon guys, hire a real editor, it's not like you can't afford it!
c'mon,
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
Ion drives are very efficient, but have very low thrust.
It would take months and months of circling the earth to get to escape velocity and headed to Mars. You'd need to store supplies for those months, and provide additional costly shielding to protect against flares and background radiation.
Then you have to do another big velocity change on the other side. Lots of time getting into a low circular orbit you can deploy a lander from.
In this case, a chemical rocket might actually be a better choice!
Even better would be a nuclear thermal rocket, like a modernized version of NERVA. If you have one of those, you may as well carry a spare reactor that can power a ion thruster to make the trip shorter.
Um... The Nazi's were the first on the moon. NASA was founded by Nazi's and Nazi scientists.
I got that from some old dusty documentary, but a search on google came up with this youtube video.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
Funny, Lockheed Martin seems to be in the news quite a lot of late.
. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
Considering that GW Bush's "vision" of human space exploration of the moon is crowding out much more productive and waaaay less expensive robotic exploration and even basic research at home, I'm even less convinced this is the right way forward. We could also consider the source, but we wouldn't want to get distracted by other failed visionary projects (such as democratizing the middle east by attacking Iraq) when evaluating a plan on its merits.
Certainly, human exploration is much more flashy and is the only type of exploration that captures the imagination of the average population. But what can we possibly learn from doing yet another moon mission? If you're looking to explore the universe, more systems like Hubble will do fine. If you're looking to explore the solar system, robotic probes go farther for a lot less. If you're looking for a microgravity environment, the ISS will do fine. If you're looking for a launch platform to Mars, the ISS or - for that matter - any old orbit around earth is much closer to home (read inexpensive).
Perhaps I'm missing. If so, I'd be happy to hear about it.
Wow, they seem to have some picky moderators there at NASA! Here in
Just to piss off most of the liberals here.
The title of this story is wrong -- Lockheed Martin just won the contract for the Orion Crew & Service Module (CSM). The CSM is the party which will transport astronauts around in space, and land them back on Earth. The actual lunar lander, the Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM), hasn't had its contract awarded yet, to say nothing of a "Mars Lander."
Of course, all this is rather confusing. I follow space news more closely than most, and I often get confused myself. Fortunately, Wikipedia's article on Project Constellation (the overall architecture) has a nice overview of what all the pieces are and how they fit together.
That said, I really wish that NASA would spend this money on the Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems program instead, accomplishing the same objectives in a more cost-effective manner. With COTS, companies only get paid if they succeed. NASA will instead be spending $3.9 billion (assuming there aren't cost overruns) just to get a capsule, while giving a total of $500 million (split between 2 companies) to COTS in order to get both rockets and capsules. To top it off, the COTS vehicles are scheduled to be completed years before the Lockheed Martin capsule is ready.
The Space Frontier Foundation has an interesting whitepaper arguing for why COTS should get they money instead of the Orion program.
Before taking the submitters/editors to task - you yourself should get your facts straight. This contract is for the Orion CEV - analogous to the Apollo CSM. It won't land on either the Moon or Mars - it's an orbiter.
Technology is certainly not where the old predictions had anticipated. Where is my flying car!
Well, you're going to have to let a German scientist hack your foot off. Then, while you're unconscious, he and his friends can have their way with you. All for the flying car.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
This reminds me of how the shuttle was supposed to be ready in time to run missions to Skylab...
What you should "like" is how Canada outsourced the job. They had an open bidding process and Lockheed won. The people you should complain to are your government, not the winner of the competition which your government decided to hold. Eh.
A very good comment. Considering a manned Mars mission in light of what it took to get to the moon the first time, what it takes to get an unmanned mission one-way to Mars, and how many pounds of groceries I buy each week to feed just myself (a Mars mission would be at least 3 people for anywhere from 6 months to 2 years), I'm skeptical that even the Mars Direct is feasible, and there's quite a few engineers familiar with spacecraft design pushing the Mars Direct architecture.
In a world where you can run down to the dealer and buy a car with probably 15,000 parts for $25,000 that works and conveys a sense of being trouble-free, it's hard for a lot of people to understand why it takes 8 years to design a new spacecraft that on the outside looks just like the old one and doesn't even have a big screen TV, or why it should cost $100 billion to return to the moon.
In the 60's we spent over $100 billion (2006 eqivalent) in about 10 years to land 2 people using a bare-bones single-purpose system that flew 7 missions (6 landings). Now we're looking at spending $100 billion to double the number of feet on the lunar surface, and double or triple the mass landed, plus have a new low earth orbit crew vehicle, new heavy lift vehicle, and a sustainable infrastructure.
Of course the really big difference is that in the 1960's, Congress basically said "how much will it cost to get this done by the end of the decade?" wrote out a check, and directed most of NASA's resources to Apollo. Today, they've said, "Do this, but you have this much money per year and you can't forget to keep working on this (ISS), that (space science), and that other thing (aeronautical science), too. How long will it take?"
So who's up for tagging this one "youtube"?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Whoa Mr. Gorsky! Twice in one century!
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
The problem as I see it isn't so much the cost of getting there then getting back. That just needs propulsion, and we humans have been blowing things up for a long time, and getting better at it daily. The problem is gravity, or rather the lack of it.
I mean, food, we can deal with that, algae pods fed by raw elements floating around. Air, water, no problems, what we can't pull from a comet and launch to the destination of our choice, we can recycle to the Nth degree. Energy, the sun is blazing with the stuff, and in airless environments its more than you will ever need. Yes, for the pedants in the crowd, I know that this stuff doesn't exist right this second; however I can see a clear path to developing all of it, with little in the way of impediments. The big problem that I really can't see a way around is that our bones weaken and become brittle in low-g environments. I don't recall the exact details, but one Russian cosmonaut who was in space for an extended period was unable to even lift his arm when he returned to earth, for fear of it breaking. And that wasn't for too long, either.
Theres no sign of an artificial gravity device, nor even the theoretical underpinnings of one. Space colonisation by humans will remain a dream until we can master that, if indeed it can be mastered. Maybe that "dark matter" that has no effect on the universe except for its gravitational pull? Thats a thought... of course the repercussions of an anti-gravity machine would go far beyond the plot of firefly or star trek, you could possibly use it to lighten a ship, making tremendous velocity changes and speeds a reality, at a low energy cost. Ah well, one can dream.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
... using shuttles to carry landers and transit craft (Bigelow inflatable?) into orbit, assembling them there, shooting off to the moon, returning to Earth orbit, and linking back up with a shuttle for the ride back down?
No need for a new launch system (NASA plans 2!), no need for a new launch complex, etc. Just build a couple of new shuttles to keep it going. If you're afraid to carry the lunar transit fuel cells up in the shuttle bay, use a few Deltas to get those up to orbit.
Seems like this would be a lot cheaper and faster. The only significant development is the new lander (which we need anyway), the transit craft is just a big air bubble with an engine on the end for geting to and away from the moon.
"Lockheed Martin convinced the Canadian government"
-What you should "like" is how Canada outsourced the job.-
Didn't I just say that?
I don't like how the government allowed a weapons dealer and a company beholden to the Patriot Act to design machines and software used to collect Canadians data, when it's a better thing for the Canadian economy to either design our own software or collect data the old fashioned way. EH? And I did complain to the government about it, and publicly too along with thousands of other people.
I also don't like how you used "eh" as apparently a slur against Canadians. It's one thing to be humourous, but another to be condescending, eh.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Are not they one big company now?
An early version of Northrop Grumman built the Apollo lunar lander. Companies bought by Boeing built the Apollo, Gemini, and Mercury capsules, and Skylab and the space shuttle.
"NASA decided to do something different and go with a company that has not been in manned space before, sort of spreading the wealth and making sure they've got two contractors that know the manned space business"
I don't know about you, but doesn't this scream cost overruns?
If I am going to the moon, I would like to have a company who has a history of building manned spacecraft.
I realize that all of these companies will have a piece of this, let's hope they can dig up some of the older engineers who knew how to design these capsules without reinventing the wheel again.
Cheers,
TFG
Radiation is definitely something to be concerned about. Who knows what "fantastic" changes might occur to the DNA of four astronauts caught in an onslaught of comsmic rays. How will they cope and what will they do with their new-found powers. Be sure to pick up ISSUE #2.
Please note that all this wonderous stuff happens in the next administration's budget.
:) so that we can then burn all the fuel and other expenditures necessary to launch from both the earth and the moon? But if that is what the president say we should do, then thats what we do, right?
NASA and space exploration is all about money, worse yet, NASA is just another beaurocratic organization of the federal government.
However, if some idiot says "lets go to the moon, so then we can get to Mars" then NASA will agree just to get the possible money to go do the job.
Why good god do we need to go land on an interim planet (um... dwarf planet? moon? gotta go see if the moon qualifies as a moon anymore, ever since Pluto had a mid-life crisis....
Prior to that "visionary statement" nobody at NASA, JPL or any of the others looking at interplanetary exploration even mentioned going back to the moon as an interim step. Why bother? The goal is to get to Mars, not go harbor hopping to get there.
Politics and science should not mix.
Getting off of my soapbox....
www.effectiveelectrons.com "chips that work" Analog, RF, Mixed Signal
Perhaps the spectacular carnage of Challenger and Columbia will help them understand the danger of bad design.
an ill wind that blows no good
This is supposed to be funny. For those that missed it, it's referring to the Lockheed Martin / US Coast Guard contract to refurbish older ships. Lockmart is violating that contract by not meeting all the requirements. Some (now layed off) lead engineer on the project put his story on youtube.
Ever hear of the military-industrial complex? http://malfy.org/
MSNBC titles this story: Lockheed Martin to build future moonship
Just struck me as funny that the Slashdot article is so much more professionally titled that the professional news source. Might just be me.
... but I know nothing of that.
I was simply trying to make a joke. My attempt of tying in the old Uranus joke with the losers of the bid was at least partially successful as shown by my #3 Funny moderation.
Libertas in infinitum
1. CO2 (from atmosphere) + 4 H2 (from Earth) -> CH4 (rocket fuel) + 2 H20
2. 2 H20 (from 1) -> 2 H2 (feed back into 1) + O2 (oxygen for rocket fuel)
You fly to Mars with just enough fuel to get you there, create your own fuel from the Martian atmosphere, and fly back. To make things less risky, we send the first one unmanned, so there's a return vehicle on the surface of Mars all fueled up when humans arrive.
The 300 tons is only if you insist on bringing the fuel for your return journey along with you.
This is clearly described in The Case for Mars by Robert Zubrin. Surprised more people haven't read that.
Robots are a poor substitute for people
Robotic systems are good for finding what you expect; to find what you *DON'T* expect usually takes human judgment. Lofting one planetologist on a one way flight to Mars with some lab equipment and a small set of hand tools recognizable to a geologist or rock hound on Earth would probably yield more data than all of the robotic Mars probes we have, or could ever, get to Mars.
Just like the information we got from the moon by sending people to putter around there, and then bring *the right* rocks back (which rocks are right is also a human judgement call that can't be emulated by a robot).
(And yead, I said "one way" - there are plenty of people who would jump at the chance, even thoughit meant they'd probably die there).
-- Terry
If you've watched the movie Stranded- you'd recognize the Orion. Perhaps the design idea has been kicking around NASA and the producers knew abot it, but...well...they're identical in proportions and appearance.
Please help metamoderate.
Zubrin's very well-written book makes a compelling argument that a bit of cleverness and rational analysis would go a lot farther than the "drive your truck to Mars" approach (perfect "feel good" weekend read). As far as I remember, Zubrin was one of the people who got the possibility of going to Mars on the media radar. He also founded the Mars Society.
What I don't understand is why they just do not build a modular 'space bus' from uploaded sections using todays heavy lift vehicle's. Then use the current Soyus/Progress system to transfer crew/fuel/supplies/equipment back and forth. With the occasional new module again using the current heavy lift stuff. That way your missions would not be constrained by how much a single heavy launch vehicle could get off the ground. Not only that but the entire program would be sped up and be international in scope with each player doing what they do best.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Now somebody just has to explain to me why we'd want to go to the moon again, especially with humans.
If you wouldn't jump at the chance to go to the moon or to Mars, then I can see why you don't understand the motivations behind manned space flight. It's not just about bringing back scientific data. Beyond expanding the reach of humanity, I think it's about the romance of reaching beyond the little rock we live on.
The desire to push beyond Earth transcends politics. There are obviously better ways to do it than the Bush proposal, but to me that doesn't invalidate the need for humans to explore space in person.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
It's bad enough the Bush administration is ruining Earth. But I wish they wouldn't contaminate the only other hope of getting away from them.
The only way out of this dilemma is to look for phenomenon that goes beyond our current understanding of physics. One possibility is the new model (of physics) developed by Burkhard Heim. He postulated additional dimensions beyond the 4 known ones: 3 spatial dimensions plus time. Using these additional dimensions, he rewrote general relativity in a quantum framework.
From this model, Heim developed a theory that enabled physicists to accurately calculate the masses of the fundamental particles. Unfortunately, this theory is the only part (of his work) that has been peer-reviewed in a journal.
Is the rest of his theory true? If it is true, it would have incredible ramifications. It means that we can build a hyperdrive to power a spacecraft to mars in about 3 hours. The hyperdrive would shove the spacecraft into a strange place which is outside of our standard universe of 4 dimensions; in that strange place, the speed of light is much faster than that in our universe. The hyperdrive would then push the spacecraft along one of those additional dimensions (beyond the basic 4 dimensions), powering the spacecraft towards Mars along that other worldly dimension.
The American military thinks that Heim's model is valid and is actually attempting to build a prototype of the hyperdrive.
Rubbish - sending people to Mars is not terribly tricky.
It's getting them back that is hard/expensive.
That's why I don't think we should even be worried about getting them back.
Just start sending people, and worry about getting them back later - if ever. I mean, you'd have no shortage of people willing to leave Earth now, without any guarantee of ever getting back.
By the time you figured out how to get people back form Mars, it'd have a population of a couple of thousand people, and most probably be a self supporting colony by that time. ISRU will most likely allow a group of Terrans to live comfortably on Mars for quite some time without constant resupply from Earth.
The real big questions still need answering though: how about mineral wealth on Mars? Is it going to be easy to mine the planet? What minerals are there, and where are they? Handy to water?
Hey - guess what - we need to send men there to find out.
So let's start freaking well sending them!
NOW!
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
Very well stated. I don't think NASA could have done a better job.
You know, because Lockheed Martin makes the F-16, which has it, and um...Vulcans are also from that show Star Trek and um...the Mars Lander is going into space and um...OK I admit that was a lot of steps to take to get to teh funny. Sorry about that. Cheers!
Great
Now if they would just pay their F...ing invoices. They will have the subs around to build the damn thing.
What? The Martian atmosphere is about 1% the density of earths! Hyper sonic wind my arse... These problems you list aren't problems at all, really. The biggest problem I can see is long term attrition to our bones up there, due to a lower gravity. Thats one we really can't avoid.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Frankly the Chinese would be the type to land on the moon and start mining for resources and say: "Screw the moon treaty, what are you going to do about it?"
Most of the rest of the world would say this of the current United States attitude. A better attitude would be to launch a cooperative project with other space agencies, as NASA has been doing in the past.
If NASA went totally robotic, yes they may learn things, but public interest and their budget to do such missions would shrink as a few nerdy folks in the bowls of mission control would actually care.
If NASA went totally robotic, instead of this hair-brained scheme they can't afford, they'd have more robotic probes on the way to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and out of the solar system, and they'd be investigating self-assembling factories which could use endemic materials to boot-strap unmanned science stations which eventually could be manned. That would set us up to really colonise the rest of the planets instead of going for very expensive weekend trips, which is what we're going to get if this goes ahead at the expense of all the real science missions.
You're right to say pretty pictures matter, but the missions which have caused the most stir in the last few decades have all been robotic - Cassini, Mars Rovers, Mars Global Surveyor, Deep Impact, Voyager, SOHO etc etc. That's where the best return on investment currently is, no matter whether we're impatient to see humans up there too. Compare that to the ISS, which no one really cares about, and is manned.
Cassini, which brought back (and continues to) a huge amount of data, cost $3.26b total
This project is slated to cost $100b (before over-runs) - that's over 30 Cassini-type missions
If they want a sustainable human presence on the moon, they should be sending robots first. They could send a hundred lunar robot missions for the price of this manned launcher.
What is the case for manned exploration again? Robots seem to be doing a pretty good job already. We just need increasingly more advanced robots. This seems to be the logical path to follow. Eventually we will get to the point where robots can be programmed to construct anything needed for a human "base" and when its proven to be ready, then we can start sending people. Robots FTW!
For reference, he was talking about this article.
Meta will eat itself
The apollo missions were daring, to say the least. The stuff of heroes. The space shuttle was a spectacular innovation, capturing imagination, sci-fi come true.
The new Orion capsule is a calculated investment, nothing radical, playing it safe. It's hardly worthy to be in the news, except it's really sad that this will be the space shuttle's replacement.
The visionary positive attitude that made those legendary missions possible has been replaced by careful defensive planning. Not just with NASA. It's a sign of the times.
assignment != equality != identity
The Orion design sucks. It's not innovative. It's got a return capsule design... YAWN! I would have liked to see the shuttle evolve into a real spaceship. Possibly jet/scram jet engines for terrestial flight, scramjet/rocket to get into space, and then
ION propulsion once in space. Space is full of all sorts of radiation anyway, what's wrong with developing the cesium-ion thruster
further? That could eveolve into "Impulse Power". Instead of the 5kw ION thruser that NASA used in the past, how about a
500 megawatt ION thruster powered by an onboard nuclear reactor! That would be cool. Build a base on the moon, and launch from there. , or build an orbiting space port. That would really be cool. Look at what NASA achieved in the 60s and 70s with manned space exploration, too bad we lost vision, or we would have an orbiting space port with 400megawatt ION thrusters by now.
That's obsolete by 2 years. We'll be fortunate to still have earth by then.
//de ~ 9cimi
Corruption is why we don't have a space station or a moon base.
It's never been about the moon, really it's all about the money.
OK, if you buy into Zubrin's method of generating fuel (Which again, as another poster has mentioned, has only been done on a lab scale test and never in the field, much less sent on a probe to Mars) you still have a deficit of 200T for the remaining supplies to support your crew. If you read the Case for Mars, you know he advocates mission stays on the order of years, and that is a lot of supplies...
I like Zubrin's writings - I own all of his books - but he is a freaking optomist, not to mention he makes a lot of unsubstantiated assumptions. You know what they say about assumptions....
What used to be a time filled with heroes that inspired a generation of space travellers
1. Remember, we had to beat those Russians. It wasn't just walking on the moon that inspired, it was the American spirit, the fact that we (finally) won. The russians beat us in every other space milestone, until we walked on the moon. Nowadays we don't have an enemy in space to beat - so there is no reason to derive a sense of national pride or heroism from space travel. They are just scientists and engineers, just like any other scientists and engineer working in a lab or research facility. They just get a cool ride once in awhile.
has now become a time where going to a space station is a big deal
2. Back in the Apollo days it was "space exploration" and human life was considered expendable. Now that we aren't facing the Russians we are more careful. Its like how people get all up-in-arms over human testing of drugs. We don't think the research is worth losing 7 human lives every now and then. That is why going to Space Station is always made out to be "such a big deal."
3. If you want to have it back to the "good old days" then NASA needs more money. Orion is being built for less than the Saturn V, and is expected to do a far more aggressive mission.
... which can be broken down into oxygen and carbon monoxide. Oxygen is breathable. Now, lunar regolith does have oxygen but from what I'm told the process on Mars isn't that hard to extract oxygen. And Zubrin proposes a process to make fuel from the CO (only done on labscale to date, take with a grain of salt for real-world work...)
In the current calendar, the shuttle will finish in 2010 and Orion not start regular flights until 2014. The shuttle could last longer if NASA regains confidence, but Orion too might slip too. I guess we'll have to depend on Soyeuz and Protons (large, unmanned) to service ISS during the gap?
big time in this country. I think that NASA is a worthwhile endeavor. It is mankind's future. Science in general has fallen behind in this country. Our military spending is a HUGE component of our federal budget (and deficit!). If we spent even a fraction of what we spent on military pork on scientific research programs in this country and infrastructure, I think we'd have a new golden age here. I also wonder if military meddling in NASA is holding the agency back some.
Our military budget is out of hand, especially given the relative sophistication of the enemies we're choosing to fight now. The money would be better spent in other sectors.
One would think we could get there a lot faster than 2020... I mean it took less than 10 years to do it in the 60s!
With technology we have now, I think it's too long of a wait. But oh well, horray moon!
Lockheed Martin has won a contract to build the Orion crew exploration vehicle that will eventually take humans to the moon and then on to Mars. The videos will be later digitally altered to "recover" the original missing videos of the 1969 moon landing. NASA will then renew viewer confidence by using the whole 69 theme to make pr0n on Mars.
Uhhhh....not really....
The main scientist was german and pretty much had no interest in the Nazi's...he did what he did for them 'cus he really had no choice. Its not like to could tell Hitler 'no' if you wanted to live. The men who actually landed on the moon would bitch slap you right out of your parents basement for making such a retarded comment.
This is admittedly off-topic, but not intended to be wholly philosophical or controversial. I am merely curious.
In the sense of technology and forward thinking, I do not consider myself to be an 'average person', yet I have trouble understanding why to so many people, the survival of the human race is of such high importance. Naturally I agree that a single human life has intrinsic value (and therefore so also, does a group of humans or the whole human race). I have also read enough humanistic literature to know that to many people, the survival and (sort of vaguely defined) betterment of our race is the prime virtue. Yet I still don't understand why people believe this (and I hope I have judged correctly that you fit in this group).
So please forgive me if this seems like an odd or stupid question. I certainly don't mean it to be an insulting one. It's just that you asserted something quite strongly that I'm not sure I believe and so I'm curious as to why you believe it so strongly. Beyond your natural instinct to survive and reproduce, what additional reasons do you have to believe that the universe is 'better off' with the complex molecules that are our genome floating around here and there? Perhaps what I'm asking is:
* Why do you believe the survival of our species has intrinsic value?
And as a bonus:
Is there anything more important than the preservation of our species (i.e. somem particular moral)?
I'm interested in anyone's opinion. Thanks.
-Charles
Fine, but the expensive way to get off the rock, is to have humans start leaving immediately. The cheap way is to spend astronaut money on computer scientists instead, to develop strong AI and other automation. A hundred years later when astronauts finally go to Mars, there can be a luxury hotel full of robot farmers/miners/butlers waiting for them, right across the street from the already-built solar or nuclear power plant. And who knows, give 'em a few extra hundred years and they might be able to live in a partially terraformed atmosphere instead of inside bubbles.
Slow down and do it cheap and easy. That's my tax money everyone wants to spend. If someone wants to do something more speculative, inefficient, risky, expensive, and spectacular, let 'em spend their own money!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Ofcourse not. But at that time many Germans worked for their fürher, thinking their were superiour. They were being quite "patriotic" and chauvenistic, as Americans tend to be. Though a lot of scientists having committed war-crimes have been protected by the USA to understand the [rocket] technology the Germans had created. Russia had to do it with the scraps of what remained. So you cannot say it was 100% American technology that brought you to the moon, far from it... And thus no reason to be all chauvenistic about it. It was -if Armstrong actually set foot on the moon- a great achievement, but it didn't sprout just from US minds. It originated in German minds.
Wouldn't that be an emotional reaction (which has been seen before), opposed to start a dialogue and bringing actually something insightful to the discussion/doubt? Explain to me why it would be so "retarded", instead of trying to "slap" into in me. I mean, being slapped doesn't provide any proof other then forcing a view onto the slapped one with force not with reason.
And FYI I have my own house, and my life isn't quite hermit like here in Europe where American media doesn't reach me as directly or isn't trying to manipulate me.
Building on your "living in your parents basement" sortof thinking, I conclude you're just a high-school kid. Let me tell you, you wont come far with beating stuff into people (meetings and seminars would be more fun though, but mostly those with the least intelligent things to say speak the most anyway) but by articulating your thoughts and beliefs. And you'll come across people disagreeing with you. That's life. You cannot make everyone think like you or adjust to your beliefs. And no one is ever going to come up to you "say, what you said really made sense" or "that really made me think and look deeper into the matter" after you "bitch slapped him silly" telling him or her what they should take as "real" or absolute truth. Don't ever think you yourself hold absolute truth, because noone does in the same way noone is more or less then anyone else.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
"Ofcourse not. But at that time many Germans worked for their fürher, thinking their were superiour."
;-) And saying "Nazis went to the moon" is just silly. They didnt. Some of the scientists involved with the project were forced to work for the Nazis but the last time I checked the tools used to pull this task off were designed and manufactured in North America...not Nazi Germany. Who cares what the national origin of some of the minds were, the war was over, and these people were all Amercians.
My point was that Wernher Von Braun was not one of these people. He worked with the Nazi's but did not do it by choice. He did not share their ideals. But what Wernher did during WWII is not really the point anyway. He actually had fairly detailed plans for moon landings as a teenager well before anyone knew wtf a "Nazi" was.
"Explain to me why it would be so "retarded", instead of trying to "slap" into in me."
Did you even read your original post? You said: "Um... The Nazi's were the first on the moon." Thats "retarded".
My main gripe with your posting was the 'saw it on the net...must be the truth' attutude of your post. Google it up...must be true
"It was -if Armstrong actually set foot on the moon- a great achievement"
Well there you go...you are one of these people that think it was all a hoax...