Panel Recommends Space Science, Not Stunts

wisebabo writes "A panel reporting to President Obama is recommending that we skip landing on the Moon and Mars and instead consider progressively deeper space voyages (first to the L1 Earth-Moon point, then perhaps the L2 Earth-Sun point, then a Mars flyby/orbit or asteroid visits). While in Mars orbit, the astronauts could send robotic probes to land on the surface, which could be much more effective than current rovers without the 10-minute time lag to Earth. I, for one, whole-heartedly agree that this approach would lead to 'the most steady cadence of steady improvement,' and keep us from inconsistent achievements in space (like not leaving Earth orbit for 40 years). Some would say that this approach would be lacking in the photo-ops necessary to maintain interest in the space program (no footprints on Martian soil) but I think there would be plenty of cool vistas — perhaps a rendezvous with a comet, or even orbiting one of the moons of Jupiter, assuming they figure out radiation shielding — to keep the taxpayer dollars flowing. The science return would be much greater because it would hopefully utilize both man and machine at their best; robots on one-way trips down into a gravity well while the humans provide the intuition and flexibility from orbit."

Comments

Energy Space

[varanama]

I hope Obama stops the space Programm and puts all it's fund to a "Let's solve the Energy Crisis in the following decade" programm.

At the moment: 25% of the Wolrd Population has acces to energy:
- Oil, Gas, Coal reserves will be over at 2050.
- Uranium reserves will be over between 2100-2150.

IF China's population gains acces to energy (electricity, heating...), the world population with acces to energy would go over the 50%. The thing is that with the actual economic growth of China, they will get acces in the short term (2020? who knows), but that would mean:
- Oil, Gas, Coal would be over before 2050.
- Uranium would be over before 2100.

At the moment we don't have any other MAIN energy sources. We have solar energy, which is a really low efficient energy source. We have wind, which has a medium enviormental cost and is not reliable enough to be a main energy source. And we have hydraulic powerplants, which are highly efficien 94% and highly reliable. But without normal temperature superconductors they can only supply certain regions of the world and their enviormental cost is tremendously big.

So we have x possibilities at the moment, some of them are:
1) Solving the energy crisis before we run out of energy (that means put all the money we have into solving it)
2) Enforce the use of the actual regenerable energies and improve the energetical efficiency of buildings to maximize energy savings (today this will only be a patch to decrease our energy expenses but it won't solve the energy problem in the long term)
3) Go to Mars, ignore the problem till it's too late, and then start praying and die, because No Energy => No Industry, No Research, No Progress => No solution for the energy problem.

So yes, space trips are cool and stuff, but can we do them after we have solve the stuff that matters ;) ? I mean, with the energy problem solved, we would have time till sxxx, global warming kill us all.