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Buzz Aldrin's Radical Plan For NASA
FleaPlus writes "Apollo 11 astronaut (and MIT Astronautics Sc.D.) Buzz Aldrin suggests a bolder plan for NASA (while still remaining within its budget), which he will present to the White House's Augustine Commission; he sees NASA heading down the wrong path with a 'rehash of what we did 40 years ago' which could derail future exploration and settlement. For the short-term, Aldrin suggests canceling NASA's troubled and increasingly costly Ares I, instead launching manned capsules on commercial Delta IV, Atlas V, and/or SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets. In the medium-term, NASA should return to the moon with an international consortium, with the ultimate goal of commercial lunar exploitation in mind. Aldrin's long term plan includes a 2018 comet flyby, a 2019 manned trip to a near-earth asteroid, a 2025 trip to the Martian moon Phobos, and one-way trips to colonize Mars."
Since I had to look it up:
Most astronauts have refused to grant him interviews due to his questionable tactics used in attempts to obtain footage of them confessing to being conspirators in a hoax. The most infamous incident involved Apollo 11 crew member Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon. According to Aldrin, he was lured to a Beverly Hills hotel under the pretext of an interview on space for a Japanese children's television show. When he arrived, Aldrin claims Sibrel was there demanding that he swear on a Bible that he had walked on the moon.
When Aldrin refused, Sibrel called him a coward, a liar, and a thief. Aldrin punched Sibrel in the jaw and the incident was captured on video. Sibrel later attempted to use the tape to convince police and prosecutors that he was the victim of an assault. However, it was decided that Aldrin had been provoked, and did not actually injure Sibrel, and so no charges were filed. Many talk show hosts aired the clip.
True - the NASA budget is about 1/20th what our total military expenditures are if you leave out the ongoing operational costs that are not in the primary budget. http://throb.typepad.com/special/2004%20US%20Budget.jpg
Most Americans also believe we should increase spending on NASA.
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2007/01/10/bad-and-good-news-about-public-support-for-space/
If we spent as much on space exploration as we did on the military or on bank bailouts for just one year we would have an endowment capable of funding permanent bases on the moon and robotic development of Mars.
... and just to make sure everybody's curiousity is satisfied:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaUqaVj51w4
Sometimes violence is the answer...
We live, as we dream -- alone....
By necessity; free enterprise has never produced a viable manned orbital space programme..
Have you looked into the matter of WHY ? Without giving away too much, when you research the matter, you'll run into interesting terms like obstructionism, turf protection, pork politics, ITAR, entrenched interests and common misconceptions, perpetuated by certain groups and so on.
Nevertheless, there are several companies currently on track to start operating manned spaceflight vehicles, and when commercially successful with orbital versions thereof later. SpaceX is shooting for manned orbital from the get-go, with or without government subsidies.
and really struggles with unmanned ones.
Huh ?? Do you have any idea about the volume of the global commercial launch market, every year ? It isnt a "programme", as you put it. It a transportation market like any other. Currently with military lineage going back to ICBMs, but commercial market nevertheless.
What do you mean by "really struggles" ?
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
NASA also used to be a key source of funding for university research in the fields of Aeronautics and Astronautics (and many others). Since this whole Ares push, NASA's university research funding has been almost completely eliminated and there isn't many other funding agencies to take their place (Air Force/DOD has stringent secrecy requirements that most universities can't fulfill).