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Why Does the US Have a Civil Space Program?
BDew writes "The Presidents of the National Academy of Science and the National Academy of Engineering have commissioned a study on the Rationale and Goals of the US Civil Space Program. In short, the Academies are asking why the nation has a civil space program (including human, robotic, commercial, and personal spaceflight). The study is intended to provide a strategic framework for the nation's activities in space that can provide consistent guidance in an increasingly interconnected world. The members of the study committee are interested in the views (positive or negative) of the general public, particularly those people with a scientific and/or technological interest."
I worked at the National Academies for a year, and I've never seen such a disorganized, confused, and visionless organization in my life. There were no less than 5 IT departments managing their web site(s), none of which was answerable to the others, and no CIO or central IT management. We had a database driven web site with a crumbling database and I spent most of my year telling them it was critical we fix it before it died, they decided to put the effort into CSS and graphics instead. More relevant here... I had an executive director tell me, and I quote, "Our reports don't matter, what matters is that we have them." The Academies are in theory one organization, but in reality it's 4 divisions that operate like warring principalities, and what little theoretical high level unifying management there is mostly seems to be disinterested. Each of these principalities is run by an executive director, so one of them saying "we exist only to exist" is incredibly sad. The Academies were apparently once a prestigious academic institution, but it seems now they're just a floundering Beltway Bandit - except they aren't trying to make any money even, it's a nonprofit.
For example, the helium-3 surface deposits on the moon could provide a energy source far greater than that of fission or conventional power generation.
That's space PR bullshit.
Certain molecular structures only form in the absence of a strong gravitational field. It could provide for advances in building materials, or allow for the development of quantum devices that may not be possible to produce terrestrially (or be prohibitively expensive) en masse.
Nobody has ever found anything worth manufacturing in space. NASA has tried. For small things, gravity isn't that big a deal. For big things, lift capacity is too expensive. Some early shuttle flights carried an electrophoresis apparatus to try to make some drug, but it turned out to be easier to do that via genetic engineering. Almost all the the "science projects" currently on the ISS are related to space flight as an end in itself. There's currently something up on "biological macromolecular crystals", but in fact, those can and are grown on the ground.
What is the real use of getting a man to Mars or another planet other thean bragging about it for the next 70 years? Somehow, some people are in favor of a manned space program. The question is, what is the tangible benifit of sending people to the moon/Mars/Jupiter/Proxima Centauri?
"Sending people to the moon" had a lot of prerequisites. These prerequisites include:
And many, many more (see http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/at_home.html, http://spaceplace.jpl.nasa.gov/en/kids/spinoffs2.shtml, http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/5-8/features/F_Spinoffs_Extra.html etc.)
"Putting a man on mars" is simply an easy-to-define milestone. The real benefits are too long to lists.
"defining what Bush's Vision for Space Exploration meant"
It meant: stop looking at Earth's environment.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.