Slashdot Mirror
Obama Moves To Link Pentagon With NASA
Amiga Trombone sends this quote from the beginning of a story at Bloomberg:
"President-elect Barack Obama will probably tear down long-standing barriers between the US's civilian and military space programs to speed up a mission to the moon amid the prospect of a new space race with China. Obama's transition team is considering a collaboration between the Defense Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration because military rockets may be cheaper and ready sooner than the space agency's planned launch vehicle, which isn't slated to fly until 2015, according to people who've discussed the idea with the Obama team."
That's what they do. If this story is true, it is likely they have his ear.
"Houston, we have a problem.."
"Roger that, missiles launched"
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
For international socialist revolution to sweep away imperialist barbarism! Break with the democrats and all the capitalist parties! Forge a revolutionary workers party!
finally... a good idea from the Obama camp, I was praying for at least one - now they will be able to use the cover of black military programs to protect their funding streams. Time to to get back in the space business
Isn't it funny how "tolerant progressives" get all whacked and spew real hate when discussing "HalliBusHitler"???
Kinda like that "tolerant" neighborhood near San Francisco that's all up in arms because the "Negroes" are moving in....
NASA will become a fourth branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, known as 'Starfleet'.
Once Obama's people get their security clearances they'll learn that the "barriers" aren't what they think. Much of what goes on in NASA is done for the military already. Does anyone wonder why the space shuttle's cargo bay was a perfect fit for both the Hubble telescope and the KH-11 satellites?
The military and Nasa have always had a relationships; choosing astronauts from the ranks of the Air Force, for one. Obviously, the technology developed through the space program has military applications such as spy satellites and obviously a rocket that can put a man in orbit can just as easily deliver a multi-ton warhead to the other side of the planet. What worries me in this plan is shifting the focus from science to defense objectives.
While NASA has a long relationship with the military and shares plenty of technology, they are a civilian organization. I know that up until recently, NASA's mission was, "To understand and protect our home planet...", but the main focus has been to send interplanetary probes into the solar system, bust up comets and generally produce outstanding backgrounds for our desktops. Would this shift in leadership take more energy away from studying the nature of the universe, lofting the next generation of space telescopes and studying our planet from above? Under the military it seems more likely that NASA's goals would shift away from "understanding" and more to "protecting". I imagine this wold involve developing the next generation of anti-satellite and anti-anti-satellite weapons (despite the fact that earth orbit is supposed to be a weapons free zone).
What insight does the slashdot community have on this? Will shifting NASA to military control result in a more nimble and focused organization able to achieve the goal of putting a man on mars in the next 20 years, or will military research take precedence over science?
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes
Check NASAWatch to see some inacuracies in this Bloomberg story.
What's past is NOT ALWAYS prologue for the future!
It seems that not only was I wrong, I was very naive.
I was already concerned about his wanting to send more troupes to Afghanistan, but now this????
Many years ago when everyone was so busy with 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the like -- and even before 9/11, I had always told everyone to keep eyes on China, for they would become the next rival of the US in the 21st century. And it would seem I was correct in that assessment.
I also say something else: keep an eye on the relationship between Russia and China, as I suspect they will become strong allies in the years and decades to come, as a counter to the US and the EU.
My 2 cents' worth of analysis of the geopolitical situation. Take it for what it's worth. Oh, and stay tuned.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
1) Army
2) Navy
3) Air Force
4) Marines
5) Coast Guard
The design of the space shuttle was influenced enormously by the military, just FYI.
He's not a moron and this is not unprecedented.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
My interpretation of the article is not that Obama will want DoD staff to help manage NASA projects, but rather he wants NASA to be able to use already developed DoD rocket technology (which is now too classified for NASA to use). Since it's already developed, the over-budget and over-time has already been paid for....
So, let me get this straight. Obamas camp tends to disagree with the War we are currently engaged in for reasons to include the ongoing cost, so we're going to ramp up NASA spending instead?
Don't get me wrong, I think keeping NASA alive is important, but trading spending with bullets for rocket boosters is the chapter I must have missed in "Obamanomics". Is this economy ready for this right now?
conversely, it can also be undone from that spot. disconnected 3&4 letter agencies, can be trained to work together towards common, positive goals, as well as our demise. better days ahead.
Altruistic as the space race may seem, China will soon be a much larger influence in the world than today. Currently, their middle class is larger than the entire population of the USA, and the rest of the population is catching up fast.
If they have a well developed space program, it's all the more leverage if they start to flex their muscles. You can bet their bureaucracy knows of the military benefits of space. Everyone and their mother already has surveillance satellites up. The US government wants a powerful presence up there as well.
The race for power is underpinning this race for space, just as it did in the time of Sputnik. Only this time, bankrupting China (like the US bankrupt the USSR) doesn't seem to be an option.
I've been thinking for years that NASA should be "dismantled"...reduce its mission scope to military-related matters and take all the civilian stuff that NASA does now and take that commercial instead.
If the government bought its civilian space needs exclusively from commercial suppliers "off the shelf" that would be a huge boost for commercial space industry and would accelerate development of low-cost-to-orbit technologies.
It's not that a governmental entity like NASA *couldn't* accomplish the same thing, but they've spent the last 35 years proving that they *won't*. It's almost impossible to change the DNA of a government agency. The only alternative is to scale them back so far that they essentially have to re-invent themselves, and use the funds saved to nurture industry alternatives.
I hope that after I die the one word people use to describe me is "resurrected."
I'm pretty ignorant on this subject, and not a US national, but wouldn't this be a rather good way to eliminate redundancy in similar projects across both agencies at a time when the US needs to rationalise expenditure?
There would be riots in Berkley.
All the democrats in Congress would be "Outraged", whatever the hell that's supposed to mean.
Kieth Olberman and Mathews would have a stroke while on the air.
The late night comics would have entire routines built around it.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
What's maddening is that nobody involved in this debate seems to realize that:
1. We solved resonance and pogoing issues in the 1960s vis-a-vis the Saturn V stack.
2. We can simply dust off the Apollo 18-20 J-series mission plans and the Apollo X/ALSS/AES/LESA studies, and execute them.
3. All we need to actually get back to the Moon is a Saturn V stack updated with newer materials and automation technologies.
4. SRBs are insanely dangerous due to their non-throttalability, and should not be man-rated beyond the poorly-designed Shuttle stack.
We knew all this *more than 40 years ago* (we ignored the SRB issue back then, which led directly to Challenger); how can these people be so ignorant?!
Here's a link to just a few of the studies which were done of follow-on missions. Here are links to Apollo X, ALSS, AES, and LESA.
Stephen Baxter's Voyage is an interesting alternate history based upon some of these mission plans (although he's way too hard on the Germans, IMHO).
The bottom line - if NASA want to go back to the Moon (far better to offer a $20B X-Prize for the first organization to put 30 men on the Moon for a year and a day, and return them safely to Earth), all they have to do is to start building modernized Saturn Vs, Apollo CMs, SMs, & LMs.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I don't see what the big deal is. NASA and DoD have worked togeather before (Shuttle program but DoD dropped out for non-manned launches). This is not about militarization of NASA (DoD's space budget is significantly more than NASA), if it's cheaper for NASA to adopt or modify one of the heavy launchers used by the DoD, than why not ? What raised my eye brow was Griffin's response about NASA's inability to evaluate rocket options ....
To re-start the Saturn V program, you're going to need to rebuild all the factories and facilities to actually build Saturn Vs, not to mention redo a lot of development work that has been lost over the years. Also, Lunar Rendez-vous is an okay scenario if you really want to be first to the Moon; it's not exactly fit for a sustained presence though. And from a safety perspective Earth rendez-vous is vastly superior (Apollo 13 escaped by a very narrow margin and if the incident had occurred on the return voyage, American space casualties would have started much earlier). OTOH, I do like the X-Prize idea. A lot. Which means there's no chance in hell it'll ever materialize, not with socialists in power in the States.
I've always suspected that the military has an active and advanced manned space program. I'm not a conspiracy nut, but I do have a soft spot for dreaming about all the cool stuff the military could create in 40 years with trillions of dollars and little oversight.
Why would we spend so much money in the 50's, 60's and 70's then essentially abandon space for short trips orbiting the planet, and relatively cheap robotic missions elsewhere. At the same time having military spend 100 times as much as NASA on totally secret "black" projects for national security. I personally think the shuttle has always been a distraction, something to keep the people pre-occupied while working on establishing a preemptive advantage in space.
Considering Hollywood has been predicting a Chinese dominance in space for decades, it seems reasonable that the Military foresaw that possibility much earlier and took steps to prevent it from happening.
Anyway, the bottom line though is that cooperation between the two, can only lead to the tax payers actually getting some value out of that tremendous investment we paid for but know nothing about.
Those stacks would be even more useful for unmanned payloads, and unlike NASA the military is getting very good at understanding machines should go on dangerous places instead of people.
We only need to send people to the moon to explore and exploit it. We can explore and exploit it remotely and get more missions up. Getting meat in space isn't urgently required to learn what is out there.
The longevity of the Mars Rovers is yet more proof of this.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I'm not entirely sure whether Obama will actually pursue this, but I notice a trend going on. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like every time any idea is discussed, the press seems to make the assumption that the Obama administration is actually going to pursue it (and unmodified). Are they just not use to the idea of actual discussion about choices?
Yes, but the thing is, *we know how to do all that*, we've done it before. Far better and easier and cheaper, IMHO, than this Ares nonsense with SRBs ready to kill the crew during launch.
Hell, we could take the Saturn Vs lying on the ground (3-4) of them, the unflown CMs and LMs lying around, and refurbish them, for starters!
The military doesn't have, nor have any interest in, rockets that can reach the moon. And NASA has little interest in sub-orbital rockets.
They obviously want to dig into the moon so they can build a giant laser on the surface capable of destroying planets. In the process, they can mine the moon for cheese and repackage it as a U.S. export. That way, we can raise taxes on rising GDP which we can use to bail out mortgage-backed securities owned by the government so people who don't want to work can buy houses. See, war profiteering is your friend!
No, we don't.
The people who did know are retired or dead, and plenty of critical data to recreate Saturn V is lost. Considering how the related technologies have advanced since then, it just doesn't make sense.
He should combine the CIA and SETI into the Search for Intelligent Americans ; ).
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
...that the military hasn't been running a black budget man in space program right along all this time. Their budget is huge compared to nasa, and right in the article, they have heavy lift rockets perfectly good for the task. And who's to say they don't have a two stage to orbit rocket plane or hybrid scramjet/rocket whatever dropped from a mothership already? Like they are going to brag about this, or we take it as gospel that they just stopped developing black budget advanced flying craft 40-50 years ago? The last one they finally fessed up to is the B2, we are now being made to believe they just gave that sort of research and deployment up? Really? They just stopped? And look at the near hysterical fit they went into when that dude in england hacked into some servers and he claims he found evidence of *just that*, a running black budget military manned space program. They want that guy shut up, locked away for the rest of his life in the US. Why? He didn't do anything but look, no damages, seems like a two year sentence or something like that is his native country would be sufficient, but nope, they went into serious overdrive to get him extradited.
Don't dismiss the thought out of hand. My guess is, because I have yet to see any evidence that they have given up black budget advanced aeronautical research, is that we had the technology for man in space a long time ago now, and the military just kept doing it, with the nasa efforts beng the public misdirection effort to keep focus elsewhere for deniability purposes, They just got better at burying stuff inside the black budgets.
Space is the high ground, no way in hell would they NOT want that advantage, including having humans up there and a way to quickly get them up and back. There's another guy out there who has been imaging rather large and pretty secret orbital craft, I don't have the url handy but I have seen his pics, those are some really large spacecraft, some of they completely large enough to hold a small crew.
from TFA: "Obamas transition team is considering a collaboration between the Defense Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration because military rockets may be cheaper and ready sooner than the space agencys planned launch vehicle,"
The idea is to SAVE MONEY. Whether that works out or not, we'll see. And as for "trading bullets for rockets", first that seems an excellent idea to me, but also Iraq is costing upwards of 300 billion last I heard; whatever NASA gets is pocket change compared to that.
While I agree with your conclusions, we can't just dust off the Saturn designs and reimplement them. For one, we don't have all the details. Some of them have been lost. For another, you'd have to redo a lot of things anyway -- do you really want to be using Apollo-era electronics? If you did, where would you get them? It would make sense to update the alloys used, at which point you have to recheck all the design parameters.
Of course, I'm all in favor of building an all-liquid rocket that focuses on reliability over performance by doing things like modest chamber pressures and gas generator cycles, and eschews the minimal gains and large headaches of hydrogen in favor of kerosene. Huh, where have heard that before? Building to similar specs as the Saturn V makes a lot of sense as well; it's an appropriate size for such a vehicle. But any idea that we can just dust off the old designs is as much a fantasy as the idea that the new Orion SRBs are just retouched Shuttle ones.
This is like putting a plasma TV on your credit card while you're undergoing foreclosure.
Spacefeet?
The design of the space shuttle was influenced enormously by the military, just FYI.
Truth.
He's not a moron
This, only time will tell.
I don't get all this hype about Ares and SpaceX's Falcon. To me they look the same conceptually as the rockets form the sixties. Shouldn't we go in the direction of the shuttle, by building one that doesn't suck and doesn't cost billions per launch? I mean, how are the modern rockets superior to the old ones? I feel like we are just standing still and reinventing the wheel ...
Could anyone please explain?
The whole reason the Space Transportation System (STS, or just "space shuttle") looks the way it does is entirely due to now-defunct military requirements. When they were designing the shuttle, the DoD had a requirement to be able to place a payload in polar orbit and return to Earth in one orbit, in order to "secretly" deploy spy satellites. This is hard. No, really, this is very hard. The earth is spinning "sideways" and it takes a tremendous amount of impulse (read: fuel) to change your orbit from sideways to vertical. Then you have to land again.
NASA, dutiful organization that it was, came up with the idea of "tacking" the orbiter on the side. And they gave it wings. This was the only way they could get the crew-carrying module to safely glide back to its original destination.
About 5 years into the design, the DoD said, "No, thanks, we don't want that system anymore," and left NASA holding the bag. So, we're stuck with this design where the re-entry surface is exposed to the outside during launch (nobody else does that). The engines on the orbiter remain the highest energy-dense engines ever developed.
For more trivia, see here.
"Diplomacy is something you do until you find a rock." --Richard Pound
You got it! The Imperial Space Marines are going to kick your mutant asses!
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
You know... The guys WITH SHIPS and things?
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
Bush = Bad! Obama = Good!
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
By these standard, G.W. Bush is a genius.
What he said. I'd also like to add that SRBs aren't inherently more dangerous than liquid fuel boosters. What did Challenger in, were highly unrealistic specs (the "need" for reusable boosters). And Ares is basically Apollo upgraded to the "new millennium", it's supposed to be easier, cheaper and better than Apollo.
Finally, the idea that the leftover hardware from the Apollo era is fit for anything but museum display duty, is -- to put it mildly -- highly optimistic (and if I hadn't promised myself to be nicer on the intertubes in the new year, I'd have written "bloody ignorant").
I can see why it is tempting to try and save some money - although when has the military ever had savings and synergy in their target? But it is always a very bad idea to mix military and civilian institutions. The military WILL try to take over, claiming that it is now all state secrets, and that will not benefit the people, or space science - proper science can't be conducted in secret, there must be free exchange of theory, regardless of national interests.
Common misconception about the Saturn V. The plans and resources are still there.
That said, given the changes in technology since then, you're right--it doesn't make sense. But the idea that we don't have the data necessary to build a Saturn V if we need to is a joke. It would not be easy, but there are examples and/or blueprints for, quite literally, everything in one of those.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
You're very right about the tech advances making it a bad idea, but not so right about the details of the Saturn Vs. We have the blueprints and, for most of the esoteric bits, actual examples "lying around". It wouldn't be easy, but it'd be doable.
Also very right about kerosene over hydrogen.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
OTOH, I do like the X-Prize idea. A lot. Which means there's no chance in hell it'll ever materialize, not with socialists in power in the States.
Are you referring to Bush, or Obama?
Attempting to reuse Saturn V technology is the wrong answer for a number of reasons. Vertically launched rockets are the wrong answer and I'm surprised they were ever used once digital computers became relatively cheap.
Why?
- Most of the fuel carried is used just to lift the fuel carried. Huh?
- Why dropping off parts that could be used to build "stuff" at the destination
- Reusable stuff is needed, but not designed by committee like the space shuttle. Let engineers design for the purpose, not to spread as much of the effort across as many congressional districts as possible
- If the Saturn V was such a good idea, why has most of the break throughs from that program been dropped? The main outcome still in use is the SSME (updated with newer materials and higher pressures)
Be bold. Think about a heavy lift aircraft to provide the initial lift to 40k feet and delta-v into the air. That entire craft is reusable and you dropped the amount of fuel used/carried by 50%. You can launch the space vehicle over the ocean (safety), and if a failure occurs, glide it back to Earth. The downside? No fabulous launch to watch from anywhere in Central Florida.
Certainly, other smart ideas can work too.
This seems to be an extension of his philosophy of mixing the civil and the military power.
Obama: We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.
Well done, well done.
I disagree. There is no value, either scientifically, ontologically or politically, if repeating stunts from 40 years ago. First of all, the Ares program aims to increase launch capabilities to reach landing sides other than the near-equatorial region and to allow prolonged presence on the moon. Furthermore, LV's of Ares V magnitude will be necessary for any future effort toward Mars.
You also aren't quite right about the SRB's. The Challenger catastrophe had much more to do with negligence of the glassification temperature of the rubber O-Rings, a procedural issue rather than a technology one. Throttleability has nothing to do with and it could be argued that cryogenic fuels or hypergolic fuels are much more inherently dangerous and volatile. The real safety and man-rating comes from the Crew escape system and capsule-style reentry, along with proven main engines, all of which comes from Apollo. They ARE learning from and using the best aspects of Apollo, where you are looking merely at packaging. If anything, Constellation is not ambitious enough, but nobody needs a publicity stunt resurrection of Apollo.
The DOD black budget is over 30 billion per annum now, as of 2007 figures I just looked at. Do you know what is in it? I don't. And it has been in the billions going all the way back, so add it up, half a trillion and change over the past few decades. That's enough to keep a little advanced space R and D going in there some place. Nasa for 2008 is 17 billion, and I would presume that any black budget efforts in space wouldn't have to be totally sourced within the black budget, a whole lot of the tech that could be used could just be schlepped over, they don't have to "develop" every single rivet or engine, etc in the black budget, just the interesting bits. A regular adapted airliner or b-52 can haul another craft, so something smaller than the shuttle but larger than the old x series of planes could be hauled up to drop point with off the shelf airframes. If Scaled Composites can get to suborbital for mere millions in a few years and a small handful of techs, the DOD could certainly already have something that could get to NEO given their budget and *half a century* lead time using similar mothership to dropship tech. Anyway, we have leaked names, aurora, brilliant buzzard, tr-3b. I say where's there's smoke, there's fire, and they certainly would have the motive and intent, plus the means as regards funding and secret facilities, plus a past track record of not only developing one off advanced prototypes, but actually deploying small fleets before it got released to the public, sometimes even at multi years level. How long were the nighthawk and spirit flying before they admitted to owning them, or the sr-71?
What I said, don't dismiss the notion out of hand, look at all the tantalizing clues plus the obviousness of how much they would want something like that as part of their total package. Robots and computers are damn useful, but sometimes there's no substitute for having a meat sack on the job someplace.
yes
All we need to actually get back to the Moon is a Saturn V stack updated with newer materials and automation technologies.
I share your admiration for the Saturn V. But re-creating it is not the best idea.
According to Henry Spencer, the blueprints for the Saturn V still exist, but much of the undocumented extra knowledge was in fact lost. The skilled machinists who knew how to turn those designs into working parts are long retired or dead; the special heat treatments needed to make some of the alloys are forgotten; etc.
And, as another poster noted in this thread, if you did build a Saturn V it would have 1960's electronics.
If you say "but we will just update the alloys and electronics" then it isn't really a Saturn V anymore, and it will need to be re-tested and re-engineered. In which case, you might as well have started from a clean sheet of paper.
Also, the Saturn V was our answer to the problem of getting boots on the moon as fast as possible. I'd prefer to see the problem of moon travel solved correctly, which IMHO means making it easier and faster to mount expeditions, and making it possible to send larger payloads. This means I want to see a cheap, really reusable orbital vehicle; a space station suitable for staging moon missions; an Earth-moon spacecraft, assembled in space, that was never designed to land on Earth or the moon; and reusable moon landing vehicles.
Every time you use a Saturn V to go to the moon, you destroy one Saturn V. That's expensive, and it doesn't scale well. If we have a reliable "pickup truck" that can carry a small payload to orbit, then do it again in less than a week, we can send up the crew and supplies for a moon mission.
With the Saturn V, our astronauts lived inside a little tin can for a few days, then returned. I'd like to see an actual moon base sent over in pieces, and see people living on the moon for months at a time (and doing science the whole time).
Cheap, reliable, routine flights to orbit change the whole game. Instead of repeating the space race, let's build an infrastructure and go to space to stay.
(far better to offer a $20B X-Prize for the first organization to put 30 men on the Moon for a year and a day, and return them safely to Earth)
Yes, yes, yes!! And make that prize tax-free while you are at it. And put a smaller prize for second place. These prizes would be cheap if someone succeeds, and if no one succeeds we would pay nothing. It's better than paying cost plus contracts to aerospace contractors.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Simply put, we found alien technology on the moon. We shut down the Apollo program publicly and continued it out in the pacific on a secret launch facility. We have had an established base on the moon for 20 years and are working on getting one on Mars. That is where the aliens were originally from. Could you imagine the mass panic and collapse of society to learn that there really is advanced life on another planet, especially one so close to home? What would happen to religion? The catholic church as well as the muslims would all implode.
The military WILL try to take over
Since Obama will be commander in chief, why would he do that? There's no point in hiding the public space program in the military where no-one can see what is accomplished, and the space program makes for great PR.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is anyone else uncomfortable with Obama's lawyers and bean counters architecting America's space program now that it is on a reasonable course? Reengineering a Delta IV heavy to carry a manned Orion would be like developing an entire new rocket.
an ill wind that blows no good
CHAPTER 141--COMMERCIAL SPACE OPPORTUNITIES AND TRANSPORTATION SERVICES
SUBCHAPTER II--FEDERAL ACQUISITION OF SPACE TRANSPORTATION SERVICES
Sec. 14731. Requirement to procure commercial space transportation services
(a) In general
Except as otherwise provided in this section, the Federal Government shall acquire space transportation services from United States commercial providers whenever such services are required in the course of its activities. To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=105_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ303.105.pdf
Seastead this.
hey dumbass...SRBs are much safer than the alternative Liquid rockets. SRBS usually DO NOT EXPLODE. Your choice of using Challenger as an example is beyond ignorant and wrong...Challenger did not blow up because SRB blew up, rather the Liquid tanks blew up. The SRBs has burn through at the o-ring and that caused the burn through to the liquid in the external tank which then blew up. SRBs are way freaking safer and the inability to throttle SRBs is also a FALSE statement...SRB can be throttled through the design of the internal solid rocket fuel cross sections...that's how you can throttle them.
I love your idiot "bottom line"...what the hell do you think the US is doing now, we are modernizing the old stuff as we speak, that's the whole damn stupid design.
I'm off my soap box...get off of yours.
For international libertarian revolution to sweep away authoritarian barbarism! Break with the democrats and all the socialist parties! Forge a revolutionary libertarian party!
Also, the Saturn V was our answer to the problem of getting boots on the moon as fast as possible. I'd prefer to see the problem of moon travel solved correctly, which IMHO means making it easier and faster to mount expeditions, and making it possible to send larger payloads. This means I want to see a cheap, really reusable orbital vehicle; a space station suitable for staging moon missions; an Earth-moon spacecraft, assembled in space, that was never designed to land on Earth or the moon; and reusable moon landing vehicles.
Don't forget orbital propellant transfer! That is all.
Sure, but what would hold it together? <perplexed>
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Heh. You beat me to it. Can anyone kindly give me a significant distinction between neocons and democrats? I'm not a USAnian, so perhaps the subtleties escape me...
Just to be clear, "The names are different" doesn't count.
We did vote for Obama so that we could do the samethings as under Bush/McCain, but feel progressive and enlightened about it.
Impressed by what? He hasn't done crap. His change consisted of installing mostly Clintonites in his incoming administration, including the Ice Queen herself.
Whine, whine, moan, moan. It's Clinton's fault. Everything is doom and gloom because Bush isn't going to be Daddy Government anymore.
You guys lost credibility long ago. It is finally time for you to step aside and let the adults run the country for a while. Keep crying like a spoiled child though; the best way to avoid repeating your failures is to be confronted with them.
>So we should turn the other check when they oppress >human rights and just keep doing business with them >as usual?
Youre a twit. And not the good kind.
The kind that hears press releases from the White House and takes everything at face value.
Look at how many countries the US has bombed/invaded since WW2 (between 35-40) and then take those human rights and shover them up your arse.
I'd rather a straight up israeli not pull any punches and own up to what they do than this 'we only bomb and kill people because we care' BS.
WMD's all the way right?
Its a-holes like you that make the Iraq and
Kosovo bombings acceptable things because you
will buy all the justifications.
Arent we due to find those mass graves in Bosnia yet? Seems that with satellite tracking we could have found them 15 years later.
Sorry but there is no way that the US government in the current climate is going to allow private citizen's to make UBER ICBM's based off of Saturn rocket designs.
Just ain't going to happen.
The launch vehicle is going to have to be something entirely different.
That's nice that Obama is this altruistic benevolent godlike leader
Actually, he's just a man, just like Bush was a man, just like every president (to date) has been a man (leaving room for Hillary or Palin in the future there).
Will the next president be so charitable with this tie in?
As I already explained, it's not charity - it's PR. Why would ANYONE hide behind a military vail stuff like the rovers? It makes America and the President (whoever that may be) look good, and it's great for the promotion of science programs at all levels.
If anything the military risks being subsumed by the space program (not that there's anything wrong with that as long as it's not carried too far). And it's not like the military is not already involved in space to a large degree, so there are natural cost savings.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is that a way to increase the money/resources available for the moon program without visibly pouring billions into NASA's pocket or asking it to cut back on other stuff? If so that's clever.
You just got troll'd!
This was bollocks when you posted it on BoingBoing, and it's bollocks here.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
If you take one look at the national budget and debt you can't help but think who the hell cares who gets to Mars first or back to the moon. So it's like what space race? Let China waste all their money on it. But of course China and all their satellite-frying lasers and stuff means we have to compete but only in a military capacity so they don't build a superior space weapon network. I mean they can build it but ours has to be better :-P So yeah, if you're gonna spend money on space stuff, you might as well do something constructive instead of living on the moon just to see if we can. Now I know ppl are gonna complain and say "but they'll do important physics experiments there." Okay, like 50 billion for some experiments? Donate 1/100 of that to the LHC instead and build some spaceships with laser guns!
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
"I will not weaponize space." (and technically, weaponize doesn't mean what his puppeteers think it means)
you do know, don't you, that you have to be at least six feet tall to join the Coast Guard? That way, if your ship ever sinks, you can wade ashore.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
During the Cold War the U.S. and U.S.S.R. were competing economic systems that were largely isolated from each other. Thus we could "win" by bankrupting them.
Today the economic systems of China and the U.S. are incredibly intertwined. It is in China's best interest to keep the United States healthy as we are a major trading partner--and vice versa. Interdependent trade has a stabilizing effect on international relations. We're in competition with China but so long as we maintain our trade and other relations with them it is very unlikely to result in armed conflict or a cold war.
China does not need to "lose" for the U.S. to continue as a successful and important nation. In fact we'll be much better off in the U.S. if China continues to develop into a strong economy and responsible leader.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Let's connect the guys who are tasked with waging war with the guys who are interested in space exploration.
Only good things can result from this, right?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Seriously... Is the US going to borrow from the Chinese to finance this kind of project? I'm not entirely sure the world's largest debtor is in a position to finance the frivolous wars it's engaged in, never mind a trip to the moon.
Give it a few years of what's going on now and it might have trouble just feeding and housing its people.
Then again, the US has nukes... Leveraging the threat of obliteration might become an option.
Mind the frickin' laser...
With his great amount of management experience and engineering expertise, I'm glad The One has become involved in space projects.
Great insightful comments.
Now imagine Bush proposed this.
Neocons don't like unionised labour. Democrats love them.
Democrats like gay people, and neocons hate them.
Other than that, they're the same.
Take off every 'sig' !!
(and if I hadn't promised myself to be nicer on the intertubes in the new year, I'd have written "bloody ignorant").
Sir, I know what I am going to say is way off-topic, but, I could not resist :-P
This phrase of yours let me dreaming that if you had said that on the .com bubble times, I would have jumped at the opportunity to create a site where random people would register to pest each other on such kind of new year's resolution.
I am pretty sure that, circa 1998, there would be plenty of greedy ignorant VCs eager to throw some millions at me for such a stupid thing.
Your ad could be here!
When you live in a country where 80% of the science research is funded directly or indirectly by a military budget, that question has long ago ceased to give pause to your government.
First, NASA has used a number of interesting launchers. What was Mercury launched on?
Little joe, Redstone and Atlas.
How about Gemini?
Titans.
What did those launchers have in common? All were DOD missile launchers from the 50's.
In addition, NASA already makes use of ULA EELVs and DOD use to use the Shuttle for missions.
IOW, there is always some crossover that goes on. THe problem here is that China's space program is under their military and has a secret budget. It was shown that the fix that we did for their "civilian" work went right into their missiles that are targeting the west. Not surprising. But even now, China is pushing hard to militarize space (in spite of what they claim). The west needs to remain on the high ground.
Obama has the right idea.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
SRBs ... should not be man-rated beyond the poorly-designed Shuttle stack... how can these people be so ignorant?!
They weren't practical back then, but we're much more technologically advanced now. Your comment smacks of "Doing something amazing? That's probably impossible so let's make fun of people who want to try it!"
Why do you think we started SETI in the first place? We wanted to find intelligent life someplace in the Universe, cause there's fuck-all down here...
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Obama is fast becoming the ubuntu of presidents, to Bush's windows. Both things are supposed to do the same thing (operating system, president, etc). One figures out a way to operate quicker, more efficiently and also garners the support of smart people, while the other just swindles a bunch of idiots for support and then can't convince the smart people that they're doing the right thing.
The ares V that is planned using CURRENT engines (both solid and liquid) will have the GREATEST lift capacity of any rocket ever (including over the saturnV). It is expected to operate at a LOWER cost than saturnV. Most of the parts are in production.
BUT, you suggest that America should re-start with OLD systems that have not ran in almost 40 years, had the hightest costs/ heavy lb (actually costs more than the shuttle), and you want to return to it??????????
Let me guess. You are not a rocket scientists or an economist or finance guy.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Hell Yea!! SPACE RACE!!!
It is loose. You should adjust it, or else the CIA will be able to use their alien-technology brain wave scanners to read your thoughts and learn that you have betrayed their secret!
If NASA want to go back to the Moon (far better to offer a $20B X-Prize for the first organization to put 30 men on the Moon for a year and a day, and return them safely to Earth), all they have to do is to start building modernized Saturn Vs, Apollo CMs, SMs, & LMs.
Just about anything would be better than continuing with the Ares program using bastardized space shuttle technology which was itself highly specialized for the peculiarities of the Space Shuttle which in turn is probably the most unusual launch configuration ever flown with people aboard. It seems that NASA always tries to save money by stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. They made that mistake with the Space Shuttle program and they are all set to make it again with the Ares program. The SpaceX guys (who owe at least some debt to Boeing with their modular Delta rocket system) have the right idea, but for some reason(s), perhaps political, NASA doesn't want to be seen taking them too seriously. The SpaceX Falcon program demonstrates what can be achieved when the politicians are kept out of the loop and actual engineers make the vehicle design decisions instead of Senators with jobs to protect.
Yes, it could be done. But some of the blueprints have weird features to them the purpose of which is not recorded (I don't remember any examples off hand). And some of the precise details would have to basically be reverse engineered from the samples we have. Yes, it could be done; no, you don't want to. Fundamentally, any engineering project has a lot of information stored only in the heads of the people working on it (or perhaps on the table napkins they wrote on while discussing it). Those engineers largely aren't around any more, and even very good documentation isn't enough to build the system without redoing a lot of the engineering.
Thats no moon!
"Be grateful for what you have. You may never know when you may lose it."
Democrats == Tax and Spend
Republicans == Borrow and Spend
"Be grateful for what you have. You may never know when you may lose it."
Sure about that? Because Obama is planning on spending a TON and at the same time cutting taxes. Sounds like borrow and spend to me. No difference.
I was working down at Kennedy briefly in the 1980's. I was told then that they no longer had the capability or information to reproduce Apollo hardware. Apparently most of the blueprints were shredded as a matter of 'policy'
twenty years on from that there would be nothing left. Only the most junior staff from the Apollo days could still be around. it won't be in their heads.
It makes little sense to me.
I suspect that Chinese banking regulations require a percentage of their 'reserves' to be in US treasuries. Chinese banks were in deep trouble (nobody knows how bad it was) a decade ago. They should have been able to clean up their balance sheets on the basis cf Chinese economic growth, but who knows. They are not very transparent.
It made a kind of sense for China to 'lend some of it back' up to about six months ago.
In the end the paper will be worthless. Lending the money back to us to buy more junk (buy supporting our credit markets) was always a short term fix for them (with an ugly end game...think 'go' not 'chess'. Hope your industry has two eyes.)
Anyhow I'm told by a previously reliable source in this financial industry that the only large international t-bill holder that is selling into the current run on treasuries is Brazil.
I suspect China's heavy government hand on their banks will make them miss this opportunity to liquidate some value out of their treasuries holdings, screwing the end game for them even worse then us. It's only a question of when. Sometime between now and 2017 (when we will start to sell many more treasuries to replace the ones the 'SS trust fund' will start redeeming...)
How long can the current treasury bubble (is it a bubble?) last? You can bet when 'they' get out it will be a stampede.
About the only good thing will be the Arabs also stuck with a bunch of the federal government's worthless paper.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Maybe it's a way of extending the DoD's budget by another $17B.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
mod parent up.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Keep in mind that the only reason the military got involved was because NASA couldn't come up with the funding on its own for a Space Shuttle-sized RLV. If NASA had scaled back the ambitions of the Shuttle (for which they already knew they didn't have the demand), they wouldn't have needed the military money and wouldn't have had to make the design compromises that they did. And the DoD was left holding the bag when NASA went into CYA mode for a couple of years following the Challenger accident. Military satellites need to be launched on the DoD's schedule, not when NASA feels like it.
Get cooly cool boy, don't get hot, cause man you got a life time ahead, take it slow, and daddy-oh, you can live it up, and die in bed. Boy, boy crazy boy, just play it cool boy, real cool!" First of all, what China plans to do, and what will actually be done, may take longer than they think, unless of course, they steal more technology from US. Second, I think it should be NASA telling DoD what to do, as in, "give me some of them rockets, biotch, cause all your using them for is war!" They have to get rid of some anyway, under certain 'circumstantial' laws, so we don't need NASA going completely military, or the Hypocrisy of why we are in space to begin with is going to reek! This is something that should be shunned, even though a certain binding of the two happened long ago. No need to make this formal, unless we want to alert the Russians of our intent on a space war race. Hegads, no way! Under certain laws, our dear military has an obligation to get rid of some of them rockets, and to test others. If they really wanted to prove to civilian American's, their obligation to protect and serve US, then they need to stop absorbing so much. Instead Obama needs to take some of their money, and use it to recycle some of their old rockets for the Space Administration, being Commander. Attention!
The banks have been given bailouts and now are sitting on deposits and cash, not lending out to anyone. Money is useless if its not spent or lent out.
It was all printed out of thin air so we can print another 1000b and give it to nasa. It all will get spent anyway, as wages and equipment, which those people/companys will spend again.
Never ending building of homes is wasted (which btw why arent homes built from factories like those german kit homes - put together in 2 weeks)
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Surface tension!
All that genius knowledge, and the powers at be just say, "nah we reached our limit, its too hard now" CRAP.
Ex SR 71 designers have said that the next teams went way beyond, and they had designs decades ahead.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
In australia you cannot do that, there are penalties if you pay TOO FAST. I mean, what idiot lets banks do that?
Bad enough that most houses in australia are 250k+ to 500K, even in small towns.
Its a massive ponzi scheme where half the country is on it.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
That was the original objective for the Shuttle - a reusable vehicle that could be turned around quickly.
Good. It would be a mistake to rebuild the Saturn V.
How about build something with similar launch capabilities with new technology. Mostly stronger and lighter materials, better controls.
Did you know the space shuttle is something like 15% lighter today then it was when it first rolled out? do to the replacement of parts with better materials.
Lets create a goal, and then build something with the capabilities. The Saturn V was an awesome piece of technology. truly magnificent. But lets try to pretend we're not a bunch of old men pining for the days of yore.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
NASA understand the value of Robotics as well.
They also understand the public needs a face. A human doing wonderful things.
There are many missions for both. It's a false dichotomy to think it's robotics or humans. Stop it. Use men assisted by robots where needed, us just robots when needed.
All of the is irrelevant and created by the Neo. Cons. to divide NASA. divide and counter is a classic way of a minority in a bureaucracy getting their way when there position isn't logic or wanted by the people who would know.
What NASA needs is a clear goal. That's up to Congress.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Actually I am for a rocket design where the body ends up on the moon where is can be used for a primitive shelter. After a long term solution gets built, use these bodies for scrap.
Of course, we need a reason to stay on the moon, and there really isn't a good one at this time.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
sigh. The space shuttle was change ny congress to fit some fleetng military thinking that was irrelevant when the shuttle first launched.
DO not blame that one on NASA. It's congress's fault.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The design of the space shuttle was influenced by the movie 2001
Great...now NASA will have useless Gatling guns on space vehicles like in the movie Armageddon...
That very well may be... but there can be more than one influence. There were very challenging requirements from the military that ultimately constrained the design of the shuttle.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
No thanks, I'd rather wait for my maned rockets than sell my soul to the military.
Don't force each moon visit to drop off expensive mass that was lifted all the way from Earth.
I want a reusable lander. With reusable Earth-to-orbit vehicles, a reusable orbital transfer space station, a reusable Earth-Moon shuttle, and reusable moon landers, the cost to go to the moon becomes fuel cost plus operations cost... in other words, far cheaper than now. It becomes truly routine and inexpensive to go to the moon. Then we can extend our infrastructure to allow Earth-Mars shuttles, asteroid expeditions, you name it.
In addition to the reusable lander, design some kind of modular moon base, and drop pieces of it anywhere you think you might need one. These might even be inflatable structures designed to be buried in moon dust, or some other wacky thing; they don't have to be sturdy metal launch vehicles equipped with fuel tanks, plumbing, rockets, etc. that a moon base doesn't need.
Actually, what led directly to the Challenger incident was determined probably to be launching well outside the rated ambient temperature range of the O-rings on the solid rocket boosters.
My mother's department assembled heating elements used in the liquid fuel external tank, so my family remembers the investigation into the incident from a somewhat more personal perspective. Incident investigators repeatedly questioned the engineers and assemblers of all the components and subcomponents listed as possible issues in the reports.
As I understand it he doesn't plan to borrow it. He just plans to print money to pay for infrastructure. The economic growth from the improved infrastructure and short-term job creation will hopefully outpace the inflation that policy causes. It's a gamble, but it seemed to work for his party in the 1930s until the real economic growth of World War II kicked in.
For neocons, corruption is their goal, their way of life. Democrats just get tempted into it.
... and then they built the supercollider.
So was this the change we need? The one everyone was hoping for?
Liberty in your lifetime