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NASA's Cashflow Problem Puts Moon Trip In Doubt
krou writes "According to the Guardian, the Augustine panel is going to declare that there is simply no money to go back to the moon, and the next-generation Ares I rocket is likely to be scrapped unless there is more funding. The $81B Constellation Program's long-term goal of putting a human on Mars is almost certainly not going to be possible by the middle of the century. The options outlined by the panel for the future of NASA 'are to extend the working life of the aging space shuttle fleet beyond next year's scheduled retirement until 2015, while developing a cheaper transport to the moon; pressing ahead with Constellation as quickly as existing funding allows; or creating a new, larger rocket that would allow exploration of the solar system while bypassing the moon.' All of this means that NASA won't be back on the moon before the end of the next decade as hoped, 'or even leaving lower Earth orbit for at least another two decades.' Another result of the monetary black hole is that they don't have the '$300m to expand a network of telescopes and meet the government's target of identifying, by 2020, at least 90% of the giant space rocks that pose a threat to Earth.'"
We're in the middle of a recession that's one of the longest on record. They're projecting that the budget they have now will be the same fifty years from now, and everyone panics over this? Oh please. Just wait until the Chinese start firing rockets into space with people on them and design their own Apollo program. I bet legislators will look between the couch cushions then and find the spare cash they need to one-up them. I've never credited Congress with an abundance of brains, but pride? Oh, they got that in spades.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
There never seems to be enough money for something as fundamentally important and immensely valuable to the human race as space exploration. But apparently there's always a bottomless pit of wealth for bailouts, to help grow government bureaucracy and expand what in many ways are entitlement programs.
No matter your political leanings, it is hard to argue that NASA does not provide a great return on investment. But with our myopic tendencies (Congress and Business) no one has the balls to invest what is needed to continue long-term success.
Conservative, mod down for violating
Look around. Do you see private companies lining up to fund Moon travel?
Believe me, if Boeing or General Electric or United Airlines (those seem like the most obvious candidates off the top of my head; I'm sure there are many others) thought there was a profit in it, they'd be lobbying like mad for whatever regulatory changes would be necessary, and simultaneously developing well-publicized plans. Instead we have the absurdly misnamed "Virgin Galactic" planning suborbital hops at some point in the unspecified future -- and as much money as the Branson empire represents, the truth is that when it comes to projects of this scale, Virgin Everything is a bit player.
Yes, eventually the technology will improve to the point that corporate investors will see a short-term profit potential, and at that point the dollars will start flowing in. But it is going to take massive government investment to get us there. As long as the US is dragging its feet, we'd better hope that the EU or Russia or China can step up, because otherwise we are just not going to see people on the Moon again in our lifetimes.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Not true. The US isn't the only country with space technology. I predict the Chinese will be the next to land men on the moon, and Mars, and everything after that. They'll probably work with the Russians, and maybe some US engineers will head over there too to help out after realizing everything here is going to pot.
While the USA is busy squandering its leading position in the world, China is working hard on becoming #1.
It's in Congress' collective pockets. And going towards fruitless things like corporate bailouts.
I propose a new tax. Hear me out please. Every time a white boy is raised in a loving home in suburbia and thinks he's a bad-ass, hard-ass street thug because he listens to top-40 rap on MTV and carefully rehearses his Ebonics until he speaks like someone who grew up in the Projects, tax half of his income. Put that money towards NASA. There's so many of these otherwise useless bastards that it should take about one year before we have a McDonalds on fucking Mars.
We can't stop the stupid thing.
That depends wildly on how much warning we have. If we spot it two months, or even two years before it gets here, you're probably right. Even then, small rocks are more common than big ones so it would be statistically likely that an evacuation could be done, possibly saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
If we spot a rock, even a big one, 30 or 40 years out, we have the technology already to make a difference. Enough nukes detonated all on one side will ablate material off the surface and produce thrust, changing the rocks orbit by a little bit. Luckily, even a minuscule change in direction will produce a significant change in position 30 years down the line.
The really interesting thing is if a rock is detected that will hit in 10-15 years. At that point, it is less likely for our current technology to be fully effective. We'd end up with a crash program that would make Apollo look like chump change. I could even imagine NASA dusting off the old Orion nuclear pulse propulsion ideas if the whole world were at stake; after all, what's a few hundred nukes being detonating in the atmosphere compared human extinction.
Just a tip - don't be partisan in your posts. Both parties spend spend spend, and have done so with reckless abandon since WWII. This is the check book republic.
Here, do this the next time your party is in charge: Take your income tax bill and write a check for double that. Because at our rate of spending, we only tax for half our expenditures. It doesn't matter who is in charge.
It us unfortunate that we have come full circle and now have taxation without representation. Our children and our kids have no representation in congress, yet they get to inherit our bills.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
The "get off this rock" crowd is a magical-religious cult, not a serious proponent of realistic, feasible, affordable, desirable, or even specific projects.
Except that space advocates have been for decades proposing projects which are entirely realistic, feasible, and specific. Whether they're affordable is of course an open question, and whether they're desirable is a matter of opinion, but there is nothing like the ambiguity you claim.
Manned colonization of the cosmos is, at the present time and likely for centuries to come, no different from a belief in an afterlife filled with saints, virgins, and angelic personages.
By saying "cosmos," you're conflating science-fantasy ideas about warp drives and such with well-understood science and engineering problems involved in colonizing the Solar System. I suspect you're doing this deliberately to make it all look equally silly. In case you're really so ignorant that you don't understand the difference:
Cosmos -- not going to happen without fundamental changes in our understanding of physical laws. Too bad.
Solar System -- easily doable with technology that exists right now, using little more than a Newtonian understanding of the world.
It is not real.
Human footprints on the Moon are real. Many of the people who put them there are still alive. That's as real as it gets.
If you want inspiration, stick to anime.
How about being inspired by the actual record of what people did? Are you actually more inspired by fiction than by real life?
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Please don't toss out "Iraq". That old throw away line was childish during Bush's years and just as tired now. Iraq had no bearing either.
Sometime between the time Clinton left office and Obama entered office the Federal budget surplus disappeared.
Now where did it go? Hrm?
Secondly, the national debt went from 6 trillion in 2001 to 10 trillion in 2008? (I'm rounding up)
Now where did that money go? It could have been useful to have when the economy collapsed in 2008?
Keep in mind the President had veto power and up until 2006 a majority in the house and senate so anything that got approved for spending crossed his desk.
I'm saying this as a person who support conservative government fiances in time of plenty and who donated to Ron Paul. As it is... 8 years is a long time to be in charge. Anything we have to deal with today was because of that.
And don't say Clinton is at fault either because he had 8 years to undo any problems he had caused if such is the reason.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
There is one objection to the space elevator that I've mentioned here before but never seen anyone seriously address.
The earth is built like a gigantic capacitor. The ionosphere has a relatively strong negative charge, while the ground has a relatively strong positive charge. An insulating layer of dielectric air is between them. It's a leaky self-adjusting capacitor because of lightning. A space elevator would bypass this insulating layer of air, making a direct physical connection between the negative and positive charges. Additionally, I believe that the carbon nanotubes proposed for its construction are electrically conductive, but even if they weren't there is probably more than enough current for electrical breakdown to take place considering that lightning does this to air molecules about three million times a day. What would keep the elevator from instantly vaporizing due to electrical arcing the moment it's installed?
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
On the other hand, NASA's current budget could definitely pay for a TV studio and competent special effects people. I'm just sayin'...
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
Because it certainly has not had any impact on the orgy of irresponsible spending of President Obama and his fellow Democrats.
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Face it, it isn't because we "DON'T" have the money its because NASA != votes.
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I/O:
Please don't toss out "Iraq". That old throw away line was childish during Bush's years and just as tired now. Iraq had no bearing either.
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It is no more difficult than that. There is no conspiracy.
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This not because of Iraq/Afghanistan. This is not because of a bloated defense budget.
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It simply is because NASA does not generate votes or control and as such does not qualify for a President or Congress not interested in science.
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Please don't confuse a President who TALKS about being for science, just understand the science politicians support is the science that polls well.
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#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
That's surprisingly insightful.
Add sterilization to the package and we will also have smart people flipping burgers on the martian McDonald's.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
... which includes aiding, rather than usurping and suppressing, the development of PRIVATE spaceflight technology and business, the way they historically aided (somewhat) private air flight.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I'm sorry, but any solution that kills Bruce Willis but allows Ben Affleck to live simply cannot be allowed to happen.
For starters, it's a LOT cheaper to mine, refine, and launch material for space-based industry on the Moon than on the Earth.
You are missing a smiley here :-) It is definitely cheaper to launch stuff from the Moon if you have a cat-a-pult already. But where do you see metal ores on the Moon? Some refining processes require amazing quantities of energy, water, oxygen and other very specific ingredients that I'd be amazed if they just sit on the surface. And how do you "spiral out" a construction of a steel mill that weighs a few million tons and measures power in gigawatts? It can't be built without all the supporting industries being already in place.
Mining on Earth is already dangerous and difficult even though we don't need to do it in spacesuits. On the Moon the vacuum will be a major killer because an accident that on Earth leaves you with a minor wound will puncture your spacesuit and you'll be dead as a mummy before anyone can pull you to safety. There are all kinds of costs and dangers associated with Moon mining and refining, and it is absurd to suggest that they can be done there cheaper than on Earth (unless we terraform Moon or Earth.)
All the talk about cybernetic mining machines is just talk until I see a herd of them here, on Earth, mining something useful (like Uranium ore) completely autonomously and with minimum maintenance. If you need a spare part it will cost $50 million per delivery. Let's see how that helps to make Moon mining cheaper.
In my personal opinion, humankind will not get anywhere until a new propulsion method is discovered. Chemical rockets barely can lift a handful of people onto LEO. Nuclear rockets using something like water as reaction mass may be usable, but water is precious in space. Physics research does not go any faster if a Moon colony is set up (unless you expect to find some ET cache of knowledge.) NASA funding would be better spent on basic science, and whatever remains can be used to send cheap but resilient robots to neighboring planets. This is similar to space travel - a ship sent 100 years later will overtake the ship sent earlier earlier because it will move faster due to advances in propulsion methods.