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Subcommittee Stops Human Mars Mission Spending
An anonymous reader writes "Last week's House Appropriations Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, and Science FY08 budget markup would prevent work on programs devoted to human missions to Mars. According to a House Appropriations Committee press release, the markup language states that NASA cannot pursue "development or demonstration activity related exclusively to Human Exploration of Mars. NASA has too much on its plate already, and the President is welcome to include adequate funding for the Human Mars Initiative in a budget amendment or subsequent year funding requests." The Mars Society is already leading an effort to get the language removed."
The first link is to a PDF file. If you don't want to read the whole press release, here is the relevant part:
"The bill language also continues a moratorium prohibiting NASA from implementing a reduction in force and from funding any research, development or demonstration activity related exclusively to Human Exploration of Mars. NASA has too much on its plate already, and the President is welcome to include adequate funding for the Human Mars Initiative in a budget amendment or subsequent year funding requests."
Yeay -- way to go congress!
This unfunded mandate has been robbing our science for long enough.
If you play a Ke$ha song backwards, you hear messages from Satan. Even worse, if you play it forwards you hear Ke$ha.
If NASA is that busy, then why not offload some of its activities to the private sector fer cryin' out loud?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Wow I think we just found intelligent life in Washington DC, alert the press. Call the nation guard, they must be stopped before they do other things that actually make sense.
Yes I'm all for space exploration but I think Mars is a little far out there. There are a lot of other space programs that could really use the funding (launching a new hurricane observation satellites and global warming research satellites come to mind). Maybe we should think about a moon base first and once we get that up and running then a president can start talking about Mars.
-RZ
You can either go off starting random wars of aggression, or you can conduct planetary exploration. The American taxpayer, quite rightly, doesn't want to pay for both. Many don't want to pay for either, frankly.
If you would rather support explorers than crusaders, make sure the Presidential candidate you vote for in '08 agrees with your point of view, and hold him/her to it.
I'm not sure I disagree with this idea that we shouldn't be blowing money with some goal of sending humans to mars. What exactly would we gain of it? I suppose the theory is that we could bring back samples of shit to study, but why couldn't the same be done on an unmanned mission? Seems to me there is little reason a human needs to go there, and doing so is more about proving that they can than getting anything useful out of it. On top of that I would imagine it complicates the mission immensely with additional systems and failure points(life support, how the astronauts stay sane through the trip, etc).
Really, what is the point?
This is basically a big FU to Bush, one of many that will come out of Congress over the next 2 years. The relative merit of appropriations is irrelevant - this is the "We Hate Bush" congress, and their actions will typically have that as a primary element.
In other words, politics as usual.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
But that was 35 years ago. And the intervening time has been nothing more than a series of disappointments, vast amounts of wasted money, broken promises, contractor giveaways, and harsh realities. A shuttle that was supposed to be like a spaceship turned out to be more like a very expensive splashdown pod with wheels and a hefty refurbishing pricetag after each mission. A space station turned into little more than a low-orbit money sink. Promises of new ships and grand missions were promised--with little more to show for it in the end than some animation and a lot of wasted money.
The height of our achievement was putting a couple of glorified RC cars on Mars and putting a telescope in orbit. And both those missions were a pittance compared to the wasted billions of dollar spent on projects which went nowhere and accomplished nothing.
I've come to accept that man may one day land on Mars. But he won't be wearing a NASA logo on his suit.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
According to the article, NASA "has too much on its plate" and needs to focus. Given the fact that there are many problems in the low Earth orbit area (aging weather satellites, and Hubble to name just two), should NASA be diverting valuable manpower and time to Mars mission planning?
I know I'd rather have NASA put up replacements for aging weather satellites before putting up manned missions to Mars.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
Relabel it all as "Human Ganymede Landing Research."
Didn't anyone learn from Wrong Way Corrigan?
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Almost all of NASA's spaceflight planning for the next decade are focused on getting new flight hardware ready to replace the shuttle, and maybe then going to the moon.
We need tax money to make craters, not explore them.
Currently bidding on sig
I've always looked up to the Space Program. Putting people and satellites into orbit or on the moon is incredible. That's it. Incredible. The scope of what they do and the success with which they do it is nothing short of phenomenal. To top if off, it's something that we have undeniably been the best at. No ifs, ands, or buts, we are quite simply the best at it. Now the politicians have decided it's no longer a priority. Toss it on the midden heap and watch us get passed by. Not just by the Russians (who were never ALL that far behind us), but by the ESA, the Japanese, and any other country who has leaders that have a sense of adventure and a sense of the long term benefits all the research involved produces. This is a sad day.
I say, hooray. NASA has better things to do, e.g. support science. Unmanned missions are a far better value.
#!
The crash is coming, are you prepared? China is currently propping up the US dollar (buying it), and loaning the US billions of dollars, while continuing to create a larger trade deficit for the US.
Defense spending is aggravated by a costly excursion into Iraq that is likely to require another decade of occupation.
Housing bubble has already shown it is ready to burst, and the net loss in wealth for the average American will make it very difficult for anyone to plan a way to pay off their own credit card debts, let alone the trillions of dollars the US collectively owes the world bank...
It's time to balance the federal budget.
www.jmagar.com
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Mission to Mars. ...
A Planet with a high percentage of Carbon Dioxide - What can we learn from that, maybe links to global warming?
Finding ways to store mass amounts of energy to shuttle astronots back and forth from earth to mars, in a small place, perhaps will help with out energy consumption problems?
Ligher Weight, easer to move, rugged space suits. This can help create far better materials for many applications.
Number of americans employed for such a project helping the economy.
Working with other nations of such a project, better tolerance for other cultures.
One project of this scale has many side efects that a lot of supid winy people just don't want to grasp their minds around to understand.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I don't particulary care if China makes it to Mars before us.
Maybe not Mars, but you should give a shit about whoever gets control of the rim of Earth's gravity well. Whoever does that first, wins whatever the fuck they could ever want.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
This is a dumb idea for America, because whichever nation has a Mars base has an escape valve from Mutually Assured Destruction in instance of nuclear war. "Yeah, you got Washington, all right, but our 6,000-person Mars base is going to last a lot longer than your radioactive, rubble-strewn ass..."
technical writing / development
Sorry folks, but Mars is a waste of time. We're better off studying the asteroid belt and sending probes to the more interesting moons. Even with fusion, it would take a really long time to make Mars even close to livable.
The asteroid belt is full of resources and the great thing about them is that they are already in space. We should start cataloging them and marking the ones that have necessary things like water, iron, gold, etc. Once we know what's out there, it won't be long before someone figures out how to get it and bring it back.
NASA is a dead end.
Stick a $1 billion prize into an investment fund and hand it over to anyone who can get people on to Mars and back alive. Do same for moon base. Close NASA down. Billions saved and lots of highly motivated businesses and individuals will do their damnest to earn that cash.
Deleted
Also keep in mind that it says that manned Mars missions need to be explicitly funded, and not taken from general NASA funds. So if NASA ever gets to the point that they actually could consider a Mars mission (many years away), this bill won't even get in the way - they'll just fund it explicitely.
There is no significant funding for human exploration of Mars, nothing that even registers on the FY 2008 budget highlights. There might be a few relatively small grants to develop next generation spacesuits, but those will be useful on the Moon, too, so they won't be affected.
This isn't then an appropriate response to a fiscally unsound endeavor by a careful legislature. It's a gesture that the Congress will not support the President's Vision for Space Exploration in its entirety.
But, this language has the capability to significantly delay an eventual human mission to Mars if it's passed. It will force NASA to view the Moon as its ultimate objective, rather than as a stepping stone to Mars and beyond, as envisioned by the President.
Whether this is a good thing is up to debate, but I am inclined to believe that this empty gesture has great potential for unintended consequences further down the road.
*most people never really think about the consequences*
Just keep their hands off of NASA. Switch budgets with defense and leave em alone. We'll have colonies on the moon and Mars in a decade.
well it's not like we're escaping from a death star. surely not everything has to be decided by a committee ?
Deleted
For any of you who aren't aware, the Bush administration is notorious for unfunded mandates. If Bush thinks it's so good as to put it in the State of the Union address, he better damn well find a way to pay for it... otherwise it's just hot air as usual.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
since when does the government write using HTML or XML. :)
They just don't want the general public finding out about our existing DSC-304 shipyard on Mars.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
The committee has it right: trying to impose a manned trip to Mars on NASA without a huge funding increase is going to wreak havoc with NASA's science programs. If the president wants this, he needs to fund it.
The Mars society should be ashamed for trying to have this language removed; apparently, they think that going to Mars is worth dismantling the rest of our space program.
Sucks that short-term politics and pet pork takes precedence over the future of humanity itself.
What are you smoking? Do you seriously believe that "humanity" has any hope of colonizing another planet to "save" itself?
It's been half a century since we first put people in space, and now we're still "just" putting a select elite few up into space to screw around with silly zero-g experiments with little commercial or scientific value.
The suggestion that we will have the resources, technical capability and political unity as a planet to put a large-enough-to-be-genetically-diverse-enough-to-" save"-humanity population not only into orbit but to reach a habitable planet, build a base large enough to house them, grow food, mine raw materials....long enough to either "teraform" that planet or "escape" again to another...
...is absolutely batshit insane. It'd be a hell of a lot cheaper and easier to build protected self-contained habitats on earth.
Please help metamoderate.
While I think that a lot of bad choices have been made by most of the presidents involved with NASA (starting with Nixon), NASA has been moving forward. Take a LONG look at what is happening right now. Bezos with with his new Shepard is simply a clone of the DCX (funded partly by NASA), but a decade later. Likewise, you have Spacex with falcon/dragon moving up, which is definitely a copy of NASA's Saturn/Apollo. And of course, you have Bigelow who bought the rights to Transhab as well as has had support from NASA dealing with life support which are all from ISS. Scaled Composites is creating a low cost version of the craft that NASA was going to build in the 70's, but Nixon killed (foolish). Even now, with naysayers knocking the ISS, it is doing a great deal of ground breaking work. Before we can go to mars or moon, we MUST have subsystems that will not fail. In addition, NASA is designing new sats and engines all the time. Hopefully, by 2012, the indis will have us not only in space, but heading to the moon. At that time, NASA will probably re-focus on doing things that they can not/will not do such as Nuclear engines for LONG-TERM sats and mars. This will be needed by 2015. And we will see the indis once again use this tech as a means of springboarding elsewhere. NASA has a function in doing what companies/individuals can not/will not do. And to that end, they have been a trailblazer.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
However, I completely agree that any such plans should be funded appropriately - and not at the sake of other important NASA missions.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
The Mars effort was a stupid agenda from the start (presumably due to the fact that our 'leaders' do not understand science and have no vision).
One should only consider sending humans to planets, after:
1) One has exhausted all possible exploration capabilities of robotic explorers.
2) One has "rad-hardened" (genetically enhanced) astronauts that don't require tons of shielding from radiation.
3) One has robust nanotechnology to make such ventures significantly less expensive.
Now, shortly after one has all of these capabilities using nanorobots to disassemble planets and contribute their mass to a Matrioshka Brain seems like the likely situation. Thus humans don't get to go to the planets because they will no longer exist! The Mars Society is thinking in "primitive human terms" and fails to realize that humans are about to be transcended by significantly modified and/or more capable robots, AIs, and mind uploads. Would you send a "steam locomotive" (aka human)" to Mars if you could send an advanced Mars rover/AI/cyborg instead?
The Singularity ramp up makes any multi-decade long plans based on "common (historical) human perspectives" dead on arrival. One might hope that a few wiser representatives might see that and take actions such as those which seem to be taking place.
Off-planet habitation should focus on the moon instead of Mars.
You'd still need completely enclosed domes, caves or spaceports.
You'd still need full shielding from cosmic radiation and hard UV.
You'd still need imported air, water, food, medicines, equipment, etc.
However, you'd be a lot closer to home, reducing shipping costs and times, both ways. You can coast to the moon in three days, or accelerate there in 12 hours.
Reduced time in transit means reduced radiation exposure, which means reduced ship shielding (and weight) necessary.
You'll have better solar array efficiency because of brighter sunlight and no dust. Or you could use nuclear power.
No pesky winds or dust to mess with your instruments.
More people would be able to afford a vacation trip to the Moon than could afford a vacation trip to Mars. Better revenue stream.
0.16G surface gravity means a space elevator would be more feasible to move cargo and people up and down the lunar gravity well. Getting off the earth would still be horrendously expensive, but maybe our space elevator cable could be made in our lunar factories out of moon dust. That would certainly be convenient.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
An optimist...strange. I didn't think there where any left.
Look...to put it bluntly, I don't think the human race has any chance to creating any kind of utopia here on earth. Space is our only hope.
1) it ain't SciFi 2) it is based in solid physics and economics.
I agree that we should focus on the steps necessary to get to Mars, but it appears that Congress is out to cut the funding from even that.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
You can either go off starting random wars of aggression, or you can conduct planetary exploration.
Or you can divert that money to humanitarian purposes: clothing, feeding, housing, educating, and providing medical care for your citizens. Or, cutting taxes while putting 50% of the federal tax burden BACK on corporations, where it was in the 50's, and where it belongs.
Got some money left over? Great. NOW you can go play in space.
PS: You do realize that most of NASA's research goes straight to the military, right? When they develop a new rocket booster, it isn't to put sunshine and lollipops into orbit, son. It's (mostly) for weaponry; missiles, fighter jets, UAVs, spy satellites. The rest is for commercial purposes.
Please help metamoderate.
I think this is totally the right decision. The "Mars mission" was just another load of horsecrap from Bush to throw sand in the face of (in this case) the geek crowd. There was no plan, there was no money provided, there was no rationale, it was dated decades in the future when he knows he won't be accountable, there's *no way* it would ever happen the way it was laid out. It was yet another impossible Big Lie from Bush, one that actually damaged all the other priorities NASA has that could actually accomplish something. Yay, this time, for Congress.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
The robots are far from being R?C cars. They pretty much have to do a lot of complex maneuvers on their own because otherwise we could accidentally direct them off a cliff. The robots mainly have human input because they aren't capable of finding points of significance or getting unstuck.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
No doubt, a mission to Mars might yield technical advances which could better life on our space rock. That said, there are large immediate problems here on Earth which require great technological pushes as well. I'm sorry, but screw Mars. We need massive pushes for energy independence, stem cell research, water acquisition etc. There is knowledge to be gained there and solutions developed will likely have a much greater impact upon our future.
We should secure the "future of humanity" by addressing our terrestrial problems, as opposed to solving extraterrestrial problems that will hopefully yield a technological trickle down. No doubt, I like Temperpedic pillows and freeze dried ice cream, but I'd also love for our country to never to funnel money into crazy nations chocked with bubbling crude.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
When the Shuttle program ends it will give an out to the ISS partners to begin the end of the ISS program. When the ISS program ends, manned spaceflight be over for at least the remainder of the 21st century.
Why would you care if one day a man walks on Mars? Maybe I am just a selfish prick, but unless that man is me, I don't really care. Turning vast amounts of society's resources into a project to get a handful of humans onto Mars is a waste of my money. It might make your nationalistic pride feel warm and fuzzy, or maybe give you a feeling of greater human accomplishment, but warm fuzzy feelings is the extent of what is really accomplished.
If NASA wants to do something worthwhile, it would dumped the maned space programs all together and focus on making space access cheaper. If Europe had a NASA in 1400's it would be trying to make a row boat that can cross the Atlantic so that three people can go over, come back, and tell us how awesome North America is. Screw that. I don't want row boats for three. I want big three masted ships packed full of pioneers looking to plant crops, build houses, find gold, and kill the natives (OK, that wasn't the most PC analogy). My point is that if NASA wants to make itself useful, it should be working on space ships to let any brave/stupid soul cross through space, rather then showing that using the resources of a civilization it can get half a dozen people into space and back again.
If I had my hands on NASA mission statement it would do exactly two things. NASA would conduct basic research into the nature of the universe (Hubble, Mars Rovers, etc.) and it would conduct and fund research to bring the cost of space travel down. There would be none of this silliness around blowing a few billion just so that a handful of humans can say they went to Mars and came back.
BTW,
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Huh? If we can't get it right down here, why should we be able to do any better in space? Already, at this early stage, a lot of the talk and actions are militaristic, how can we secure Mars before the Chinese, etc. I can't see any way space will end up as any kind of utopia.
See, here's the problem with the idea of building a utopia by sending people to Mars... they will still be people.
Ah, for the joys of 1850.
There were no polltion problems to speak of. London was a bit dirty, but outside of one or two urban areas everything was fine.
All resource utilization was "sustainable", meaning that natural processes provided sufficient recycling of used materials back into new raw materials.
There was no population pressure anywhere.
We can return to 1850 and it would solve all of our resource, pollution and population problems. It would require killing off somewhere around 6 billion people within the next 20-30 years but after that the problem would be solved. With strict worldwide controls on population growth we wouldn't have to worry that things would build back up to an unsustainable level again.
The question is, do you believe that the Earth would return to a more pristine state after such a population reduction? If so, there is little time to waste in implementing such a plan. I believe there would be a great deal of support for this idea today. Unfortunately, it does mean that most people have given up on any real future for humans.
Good riddance to Bush's 1969-throwback Mars program. Humans should not approach another planet until that orb has a functional orbital network, and a ground-based network of rover/robots.
Money spent figuring out how to keep wetware alive to pick up a bag of rocks is better spent investing in robotics, nanotechnology and the AI to fully explore any spot in our solar system we so choose. And, having learned how to do so, expand that robotic/AI/nanobot presence to neighboring systems, whether they have earthlike planets or not.
Learning how to live on the Moon is a great waste of time, as is the ISS. These things drain resources from the interesting and progressive sciences and projects. Tell me, what are the top results from the ISS project? A whole lot of nothing, is what.
Humans to the Moon and Mars is just an extension of the dead-end thinking that you can't go anywhere if you don't drive there yourself. Free yourself from that particular transport-bound thinking and the world's space science programs will blossom and knowledge will accelerate.
So, humans should remain earthbound only to send huge fleets of robotic servants everywhere in the solar system and beyond. Let the results from a vast array of interplanetary cameras and analyzers and comm equipment drive human imagination. And if you really need to feel a freakin' rock, send a thousand errandbots to fetch the best ones from any point--not just those available to a chucklehead on a golf cart.
To use a phrase that Bush 41 uttered with such contempt.
Why anyone would trust this administration to get this initiative right in any sense is beyond me. Even with funding and congressional support this Bush couldn't send a man to New Orleans and get it right. Making the attempt resulted in colossal waste and fraud, and a transfer of taxpayer dollars to his political cronies. Attempting to send a man to Mars at his behest would have the same result--only this time with trillions of dollars instead of just billions.
We should be thanking Congress for this. We're all better off waiting for (and supporting!) leaders who actually have vision and are capable of achieving it. Not just making hopeful, distracting speeches but actually focusing on and funding your initiatives to realize your goals.
This is basically a big FU to Bush, one of many that will come out of Congress over the next 2 years. The relative merit of appropriations is irrelevant - this is the "We Hate Bush" congress, and their actions will typically have that as a primary element.
Do we know a Democrat inserted this language? I'd love to know, but 5 minutes of searching didn't help me find out.
Besides, Bush can't back Human Spaceflight to Mars - there's a Republican War on Science underway, don't you know?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Of course, the President knows for sure that God only put life on earth about 5000 years ago. Going to Mars is a waste of money. Even you can see it is much more important to send money to Africa to inform the AIDS infested people there that using condoms is a sin.
Bush doesn't want the money to go to Space research because he needs it for Iraq!
My web domain.
But why assume that we must colonize space using machines that are identical to the ones on earth?
Especially because the machinery we send with any space flight will be extremely delicate and difficult to reproduce, all in the name of keeping the weight down. But when you arrive, you can build a 30-ton inefficient monster of a machine.
We're not going to reproduce earth hardware in space. We're going to develop types of hardware that are more suited to their respective planets. Start with extracting resources, then bootstrap new machinery from those resources. It does not need to compete with earth designs, because shippign costs for those will be crazy.
Finally, you can spend a few hundred or thousands of years to do this. It's not like we need that self-sufficient colony by next friday.
I lost my sig.
Pournelle got it half right: every dollar spent on NASA's budget for manned space travel is a dollar wasted.
NASA's satellites, robotic missions, etc., however, are highly successful and yield incredible results. They are also the kinds of missions that, like all basic science, would never get funded by comparnies.
Your assessment, in typical fashion, ignores an essential fact of budgeting. It's not an all or nothing game. Yes, we have pressing issues at home, but it's not always easy or cogent to redirect funds and people. By your logic, why don't we devote most scientific research to curing cancer and other debilitating ailments? Maybe because not every scientist is interested in these things?
Or another example might be the woefully ignorant college student who knows nothing about bond measures asking why they don't stop constructing buildings on the campus and instead spend that money to hire more professors. That's not the way things work, plain and simple, and in the long run, it's good things don't work like that.
Any talk about budget discipline that doesnt include paying off the national debt and/or reforming entitlements is just pissing in the wind. So far, none of the candidates have really put any effort into the matter, so quit using financials to justify your own political opinions. Certainly, the democrats have zero credibility here.
c le/2007/06/20/AR2007062002342.html
We're spending twice as much just on the interest associated the national debt as we are on Iraq each year. And, the debt continues to grow.
Going forward, if entitlements aren't under control, in a worst case scenario 75 years from now, about 95% of the entire net worth of america would have to be sold off to pay for social security, medicare, etc.
And, the numbers get worse each year we delude ourselves into thinking iraq/etc are the major financial issues.
Read up and get informed, then send this on to your friends:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
I don't think you're flamebait.
This isn't just science. It's politics too. As soon as another country makes the bold leap and beats us to Mars, they are the winner. They will have built upon a pyramid of technology that will leave us like we did to the old USSR. As we work on getting machines on that planet they may well be working on getting people there and we shouldn't dismiss this as only a possibility. They are gutsy enough to even work on one way trips. With our present view, China will own Mars.
Am I the only one here that knows Congress is the one that writes the budgets? States can (rightfully) bitch about unfunded mandates all they want, but if the legislature wants to make something happen, it can. Saying "Bush didn't fund it" is a cop-out. They should just be honest and say, "All things things considered, we don't want to pay for that."
P.S. I'm no friend of W.
That's a good point about the airlines. At least in some sense, they do a bit of long-term planning. However, I think it might be more the exception than the rule. (And I think the planners and investors also realize that should their plans not work out, the planes are an asset that can be liquidated fairly easily to someone else; it's not a complete and total commitment.)
As for cathedrals, they're historically a very good example of the sorts of multi-generational projects that I'd like to see more of, but when's the last time you've seen anyone build a cathedral like that? (I don't just mean a cathedral as a literal building, I'm sure there's some of those that have gone up around the world -- with today's construction methods you can put up something the size of Stephansdom in a few months or years, I mean something on that scale, relative to what's possible at the time.)
Oddly enough, regarding corporations in my earlier post, I was informed that Disney actually issues 100 year corporate bonds. I'm not sure if that's the sign of a long outlook, or just arrogance on their part. Somehow, a blind belief that you'll be around in a century, doesn't in my mind necessarily imply that you're actually planning for the next century.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
But manned missions are very expensive compared to robotic/unmanned missions. The science per dollar is generally much higher with robotic missions. There are also some fantastic plans to find earth-like and potential life-bearing planets around other stars using specialized telescopes. I would rather see the money spent on that. Manned missions are mostly about "glory", not science.
(I've been in heated debates about robot sample return versus human geologists on Mars. I hope I don't spark one of these again.)
Table-ized A.I.
Politicians are not interested in space. For the majority of people that have power, including politicians, religious leaders, CEOs and military commanders, their interest is in how they will maintain and extend their power on Earth. It's only you and me, probably geeks, probably sci-fi fans, who are excited by space exploration.
Let's not forget that (if) we went to the moon, it's because of the cold war. The USA wanted to dominate the immediate space around Earth, because of the fear that the Soviets would launch nuclear missile space platforms.
It's a sad fact, really, but the chances are in favor of a big (probably nuclear) world war (with religious tones) rather than constructing the NCC-1701 and going off to explore outer space...
Because it really doesn't when it comes to NASA funding.
NASA funding is only popular when NASA does something that keeps it in the eye of the public for weeks on end. Then and only then does NASA get any real consideration from Congress.
When the rovers were first popular you could always find a Congressman on tv or print saying how important NASA was for science and America. Yet when the mission goes on without press release after press release of something that catches the public's eye; the space station doesn't seem to anymore; they get ignored.
The Iraq issue is just a convienent dodge. The money would be sucked up somewhere else for someone's bridge, library, or homeland security project, long before it ever made its way to NASA.
Only two ways NASA is going to get more money. The people who support it make sure that their local Congressmen know that as VOTERS its important or if NASA can find an exciting way to market the mundane activities of a space station to where enough public support occurs simply because its on the tube everyday
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Look, I thought this when Bush announced it and every bit of news like this only confirms it:
A manned mission to Mars will NOT happen within our lifetimes. Not the US, not China.
As far as I understand it, there's no way currently to get something down onto the surface, with enough fuel to get back up into space again. Therefore, any manned excursion to the surface will be a one-way ticket. Anyone fancy volunteering for that?
As for sending enough kit to manufacture fuel from the resources on Mars and use that to come back, don't make me laugh.
I guess you could use dozens of shuttle-launches to assemble a massive spaceship in Earth orbit before sending it off, but that'd take decades and cost far more than the $100bn proposed by Bush, at least if the ISS is anything to go by.
The whole thing's pie in the sky nonsense dreamed up by (probably) Karl Rove to keep a few geeks onside during elections.
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
"Certainly someone already got the point that killing humans, on Earth, outside this country called the United States of America, which the US Congress happens to have at least a portion of authority over, is way more important than sending humans to a rock somewhere out there in space."
Why bring it back ? Any resource that's not sitting in a big fat gravity well (like Earths) is worth more than one that is.
Except for some really rare materials (no, even gold doesn't count here, but maybe Platinum or Rhodium do).
Yay! Indeed. Mod parent up. Humans on Mars is a fraudulent boondoggle, or it would be if it ever happened in our or our children's lifetime. We're not ready; there's no decent rationale anyway, and the costs and risks are simply out of sight. Can you imagine the consequences of a failure of this particular stunt? Space exploration would be set back decades, generations even. There's nothing humans can do there that robots can't do -- more slowly, yes, but far more cheaply and safely. The Incumbent said, "we're going to Mars" in the same way he said, "mission accomplished". He was simply ... what's the word I want? ... Oh, yes: lying.
Science fiction for grown-ups...
And in 2006 there were $29 billion (with a "b") in unvoted-on earmarks, spending that was tacked on to budget and other bills, which go to friends and other local constituents in Congressional districts. The Executive branch isn't required by law to spend these, but it's been traditional that they do. If you're talking a multi-year program, $29 billion would go a long way to funding that.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
But see NASA isn't a dead end. No company is going to operate at a $119 Billion loss(assuming it only costs $120B, but that could be as bad as the trillions) to get to mars, when it has no current current practical value. NASA exists because there is no company that could operate with such losses when there is no immediate commercial gain. That's not to say that going to Mars doesn't have amazing repercussions for science or giving the human race a place to expand to. It is a good goal for sometime in the future but NASA has more practical considerations that should not be dropped just for Mars.
NASA makes contributions into aeronautical research both in safety and in generating new technology and in environmental science. The first is how we stay competitive with other nations who's aerospace industries are heavily supported by their government (China, Europe, et al). The second is extremely important for anyone who believes that we have air, water, dirt and life on planet Earth irregardless of climate change.
So if you're willing to see our aerospace industry collapse, our knowledge of the Earth stagnate AND real space exploration fail then we can go your way, otherwise you're just not being realistic. Of course we could just give NASA the money it needs for all jobs, but this is probably not feasible at the moment considering the mismanagement of our taxes either fighting wars that we probably should not be in, or through pork barrel BS.
Patrik
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Just your ordinary BOFH
http://killertux.org
Is that different from the Tomahawk made by Raytheon?
Why don't we consentrate on getting a good foot print on the moon, set up a base, maybe even a launch site w/orbital fueling and then... think about Mars. It's hundreds of millions of years old, it'll still be there next century and with a base on the moon to supply fuel at a fraction of the launch cost we can send a much, much better equiped mission there.
Also the technology developed to sustain life on the moon can be used on Mars with the added bonus that the moon is that much closer should anything go wrong.
br.Until man goes to the moon I think we should consentrate on sending more driods to Mars, maybe set up a remote base built and run by robots.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
What made you think that creating a utopia in space is possible?
You can't go until you start going.
There is nothing impossible about having a colony on the moon or mars, it just takes time. To get there we first have to start going - it will probably take 20-30-50 years. Or never if we don't ever start.
For Candyland all you need is the pony - but it has got to be the *right* pony.
So we ship spares.
lots of them.
1) build colony that can make air and water and food...
2) ship spares
3) BIG ROCK HITS EARTH
4) Profit!!!!
The trip will go a lot more smoothly once development of the Lyle Drive is completed. It's probably better to wait for that rather than pen up a crew in a tiny spaceship for over a year, just to get there that much sooner.
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
It would take a lot less effort and we would be a lot more likely to succeed at establishing a permanent Lunar base using local resources for all bulk mass requirements (oxygen, hydrogen, food and structural materials) than even a single Apollo-style round-trip Mars mission.
And the next stop... the asteroids are closer, energy-wise, and more useful.
To hell with Mars, we have unfinished business on the Moon.
You're assuming that the activity wouldn't cause a space based economy to develop. Things like space based factories, asteroid mining, space tourism. etc etc.
Deleted
I think we need some context here.
Nothing made me think that. I was replying to your comment, where you say "Space is our only hope". My opinion is that there is no better chance of creating a utopia in space versus on Earth.
2) Live without it.
Also, I don't think anyone ever said that a self-sustaining colony couldn't import things from Earth.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
They are still working on sending a man to Bahgdad and keeping him alive there.
Does it mean that John McCain and that Senator Pence from Illinois didn't really go to a market in Baghdad and come back to the USA?! So it was an hoax too!?
I knew it couldn't be just like "any open-air market in Indiana in the summertime"!
You just got troll'd!