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Can the Ares Program Be Salvaged?
MarkWhittington writes "The Augustine Commission has not officially presented its findings to the White House, but already a push back is starting to occur over the possibility that the Ares 1 rocket will be canceled after three billion dollars and over four years of development. According to a story in the Orlando Sentinel contractors involved in the development of the Ares 1 have started a quiet but persistent public relations campaign to save the Ares 1, criticized in some quarters because of cost and technical problems."
Should NASA be in the space launch business?
Yes, 3 billion dollars of taxpayer money has been blown. However, the decision to make is : will the gains from FUTURE spending exceed FUTURE costs? We don't factor in the 3 billion already spent in this decision. Alas, it's impossible to quantify gains since a few moon rocks and some pretty pictures don't have a readily assignable value. I'd say no, because I think the 20 billion or whatever a working Ares rocket line would cost could be better spent on other areas of space exploration. 20 billion would pay for a lot of unmanned missions, or could be used to develop a cheaper way to get to orbit (such as lasers or an EM accelerator or something)
The question should be SHOULD Ares I be rescued? Honestly, I do not think so. It always struck me as a waste since other rockets of similar size were available. That bring us to Ares V. Should it be? I honestly do not know. I know that USA needs multiple types of launchers and they need them to be low costs. I would very much like to see an Ares V or a Direct 2** be in the mix. Which is better? I am not sure. Personally, I have to give the nudge to Direct since it uses far far more of the current launch human-rated equipment. There is a lot to say for that. In the end, I am much more concerned that we will not do the right thing WRT to private space. I have aborted that several times. This time, we need to get it started AND give them an ALTERNATIVE destination; Basically, we need to get Bigelow building his Space Station. Also we need tugs combined with a fuel depot to haul things around. While it is nice to say that this is about NASA, but it really is not. It is about Obama and Congress allocating say 1.5B, 1B, and then .5B for the next 3 years and sticking with it. Will they do it? Tough question to answer
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The question is not whether Ares can be salvages. Instead, we should as should it be salvaged. Like its predecessor, the Space Shuttle, it is entirely too political in origin, promising to be all things to all people, and instead doing a half-assed job of doing much of anything beside making some congressman's constituents happy.
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
Another case of mis-framing: the question to ask is not "can the Ares program be salvaged?" but rather "should the Ares program be salvaged?" That's what the Augustine Commission is intending to decide, right? Perhaps the Commission should be sequestered like a jury, to keep it from being unduly influenced by these nervous contractors afraid they're about to be kicked from the back of the gravy train?
"We don't factor in the 3 billion already spent in this decision"
If this weren't a political entity, then you would be correct.
As it is, the 3 billion already spent is a VERY important variable in the CONTINUED support of NASA.
Your analysis is naive, as it considers NASA a business, not a political entity that is subject to voter whims like "THEY ALREADY WASTED THREE BILLION ON THIS".
Ignoring that, or pretending that "We don't factor in the 3 billion already spent in this decision" is wrong and ignorant of the polics that are involved in 3 billion dollar government spending decisions.
Augustine's personal views on human spaceflight have been known since 1990:
--
In its original report, the [Augustine] committee ranked five space activities in order of priority:
1. Space science
2. Technology development
3. Earth science
4. Unmanned launch vehicle
5. Human spaceflight
--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advisory_Committee_on_the_Future_of_the_United_States_Space_Program
http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2009/05/does_the_choice_1.html
However, if the billions spent on every cancelled shuttle replacement had gone towards a real project, we would *actually have something*. Following your logic (and that of many politicians), we have spent billions upon billions and have fuck all to show for it.
Meanwhile, the smart money is on China to carry on the banner of human space exploration. They don't suffer from political paralysis.
I don't so much care if we do it, or not do it, but today we have the worst of both worlds. We spend the money but don't get the results. Let's make up our damn minds one way or the other already and stop waffling around for decades on end. Either it's not worth it to send humans into space, and then let's stop spending the money and just send up robots, or it's worth it for whatever other benefits it brings, and then let's just fucking get ourselves a shuttle replacement already.
"take your comic books, light them on fire and shove them up your faggot ass."
While that's a wee bit harsh, we don't have even the slightest immediate need for manned missions.
Robots are what we should be developing. Sending people to do a machines job so others can live out Buck Rogers fantasies is an appropriate task for COMMERCIAL space outfits. Learning about space is an appropriate use for robots, which we will require to exploit the resources that are the main reason for going offworld in the first place.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
http://www.directlauncher.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Launch_Vehicle
The DIRECT system is a better option:
1) Most of the hardware is man-rated; unlike Ares
2) NASA does not have to retool manufacturing; unlike with Ares
3)Can be ready sooner with heavy lifting as an option
Why NASA is completely dug in on Ares is mind boggling. Orion, the capsule, is a go no matter what.
Also, the contractors won't really be affected: ATK would still make the SRBs, Lockmart would still manufacture the capsule, and Boeing would get it's money from being part of United Space Allaince.
is the real question. With the US fiscally bankrupt ( unable to meet its current commitments even with 100% taxation ), its productive industry off-shored, its people leveraged to the hilt ( those still with jobs ), and foreigners no longer willing to finance its deficits, everything but feeding and housing its people will be on the chopping block. With luck, Nasa may be able to retain a presence in space by launching other countries satelites for hire. This is a truly appalling prospect for the people who put a man on the moon fourty years ago. You'all should hang every politician and banker you can get your hands on for doing this to you.
NASA and teh space shuttle!!! It's like totally fail. Cuz it's like, teh goverment.
I think you got it.
The shuttle's problems were predicted before it flew, and even NASA appear to have understood that they couldn't possibly achieve the things they were claiming it would do (e.g. they didn't even have enough capacity to build the external tanks to support the two-week turnaround they were claiming they'd achieve).
No private company looking for a viable means of launching payloads cheaply would have built the shuttle; only a government could fail so spectacularly.
Sure, it's done a few useful things, but nothing even begin to justify the cost.
Over elaborate escape sequence consisting of several escape stages / chutes
Explosion of lift vehicle would melt escape chutes even if successful
Malfunction resonance would kill the astronauts before they can hit the escape button
This was spelled out for you 15 months ago right here on Slashdot.
There is no saving Ares. Not because there is anything wrong with Ares. The "technical problems" are trumped up exaggerations of the engineering challenges that have emerged and been overcome. The "cost overruns" are fictional; Augustine is "finding" dramatic cost overruns because that helps justify killing the project. The reason there is no saving Ares is that the US voted in people that despise manned space flight. They have "better" places to spend money so whatever plans the US had for manned space flight are on hold for the indefinite future.
Lots of apologists appeared to muddy the waters but the bottom line is that the original plan to give the Constellation money to the NEA (a.k.a "early-education") was never repudiated by anyone in the Administration. We're just doing the necessary political push-ups to bury NASA's manned space flight capability.
It is amusing to watch as NASA and it's contractors make sweeping their work under the rug difficult; the engine test will be dramatic and will unavoidably appear in the news cycle. Ares I-X has a launch date and is being erected right now... It's kinda hard to characterize all this as "failure."
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
Aside from the predictions and suppositions I have yet to see evidence of the insurmountable problems of Ares I. No, it was not necessary to develop a new vehicle, but at this point why waste the effort to turn around. Just about every launch vehicle and spacecraft ever developed have had weight and payload problem during development, frankly the only thing that seems different about Ares is that the internet has made the whole development process much more visible. I hate to imagine what people would have said if the internet had been around during development of the Apollo LM. As far the as the design goes, I've never loved it, but there is something to be said with commonality between Ares I and V (and we do need the V for realistic missions beyond Earth orbit). Assuming the I-X mission next month is succesful I think any doubts about the actual workability of flying an SRB solo will be dead. On the Orion front, quite frankly I am, and always have been thrilled. We are correcting the mistakes of the 70s, and getting Apollo back, with modern technology no less. Apollo and Orion are actual spacecraft; designed for SPACE, and able to explore. The shuttle is what happens when an ICBM knocks up an Airbus. In all seriousness, while the shuttle was an impressive experimental vehicle, as an operational system anything but satellite retrieval could have been done just as well, and usually cheaper, by an enlarged Apollo capsule (read Orion) and unmanned launches of the Saturn V. Satellite retrieval is very impressive, but almost never used, and the experimental side of the program could have been done cheaper and faster with a mini shuttle launched on a conventional vehicle. All of this is moot anyway, since Obama could never survive the political hit of killing American manned spaceflight (the effective outcome of cancelling Orion), so only the Ares I is up for discussion in the real world. At this point we might as well take the vehicle that is being developed, and hope it will, as NASA claims, be operationally cheaper than Delta or Atlas. Switching now would drive up development cost for Orion, throw out the billions in work that has been done on Ares I, and quite possibly damage the badly needed 100+ ton booster (Ares V) program. In the worst case scenario Ares will be a comparable booster to the United Launch Alliance options that wasn't needed, but kept the SRB engineers employed while between cancelling the shuttle and starting up Ares V development.
Surely cloning a human from his nose is difficult enough without doing so in a rocket?
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
I thought Ares died?
Yes.
Seems to me could recoup the loss by, oh I don't know, cutting 3 billion from defense spending? Seems to me a lot of things could get done by diverting money from Defense.
Agreed. But this should be done anyway. By no means am I religious but I do believe in turning weapons into plows. Even more, I believe workers should be able to keep the money they work to earn and not have some government bureaucrat or politician demand people give it to them. Especially at the point of a gun.
At least government military weapons. Now the government and politicians better keep their grubby hands off privately owned blades, firearms, and other weapons.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This solid rocket was designed as a strap on, NOT a main engine. It was designed to attach to several hundred tons, to dampen out the vibration. They are going to make it longer, making the vibrations (or at least the resonant frequency) lower but stronger. So maybe the astronauts won't have a pleasant flight, it will only last a few minutes.
The Air Force has said it probably won't be safe, the engineers have added weight to make the vibrations survivable, How long until people decide it wasn't a good idea in the first place.
It seemed like a good idea, reusing what already exists, but once you really look at it, there isn't a scenario that makes the ARES I a good idea.
You fail to mention that the two are part of an architecture that you can't justify one without the other. Kill Ares-I and Ares-V will follow.
How we know is more important than what we know.
More socialist claptrap. Or communist.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The Obama administration might be swayed unduly by the 'can it' side of the argument because this rocket began development under a previous administration. There are engineering arguments pro and con (and, by the way, pretty much everyone on slashdot is not at all qualified to assess them) so they may fall back onto political reasons if they can't decided based on technical ones.
NASA will, hopefully, go on though. Libertarians are idiotics, and space libertarians even more so.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
They're not really two parts of the same architecture; they're two parts of the same project, namely Constellation.
[car-metaphor]
Imagine you're taking a trip across the country. You want to take everything you can with you, because you don't know anyone and you don't really want to pay for lodging. You need: a car to get you across the country and a trailer to pull your stuff in (tents, food, etc). The only requirement of the car is to be man rated. The only requirement of the trailer truck is to carry cargo (let's just say it's automated). The car does not architecturally lean on the trailer in any way: it's just a people carrier. It doesn't matter if the car is an Ares I or a repurposed Delta or a Soyuz. It doesn't matter if the trailer is an Ares V or a Delta-Heavy.
[/car-metaphor]
Killing Ares-I probably kills the Constellation project (seeing as Ares-I is the only lifter for Orion), but I'm certain a lot of the technology could be re-appropriated to a new project.
But then again there are even better options, so perhaps the whole project should just be flushed and the appropriate administrators canned.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Building Rockets is tricky business. Everyone magically wants results after only 3B? That's chump change... or is it? We have earlier designs that work well so what exactly are they trying to accomplish here that is costing them all this money? Are they trying to increase maintainability/reusablity and use less fuel? Or is this just another rocket? Maybe our space program needs to be more like the modern army... light (as in weight), fast, innovative, and cheap (cheap, lightweight, reusable and mass produced vehicles and launch methods).
Honestly, why don't we go with the Saturn V? Von Braun & NASA developed this great rocket that allowed us to get to the moon (and it's proven to work)... what's wrong with that one?
They're building a new rocket from the ground up and at full cost that does nothing we can't do with the existing Delta or Atlas rockets.
Neither of those are man-rated. Could they be? I don't know. It is quite possible that the acceleration or vibrations are too strong.
While I agree that commercial space outfits need people, I disagree with your absolutely stated position that humans are not needed in scientific exploration of space. Let's take a look at the Mars Rovers for a great example:
In all their technical ecstasy, they are slow -- they take forever to do any task, whether its to drill an amazing "life finding" 2cm into a rock, or move across the landscape. A simple rock throws them off course and gets them stuck for days while people back on earth, through video cameras, spend weeks trying to get the wheel unstuck in a delayed communications nightmare. Dust storms can completely kill their ability to power themselves, and built up dust diminish the power they can draw from the sun. Advances in AI have been crap in comparison with the other developments in technology. Their "brains" are spread between Mars and Earth and a brain that can think at the speed of light is what we need here... First off, NASA's two Martian orbiters, through which information is relayed to Earth, can only transfer a single megabit of data per second. Worse still, these orbiters only work in 15 minute increments before they must be repositioned -- a process that takes hours. Furthermore, bandwidth is unsurprisingly limited on the Red Planet -- messages between Earth and Mars usually suffer 4 - 20 minutes of lag, depending on the positions of the conversing planets.
People, on the other hand can diagnose and repair computer and equipment problems themselves. They have use of their senses and high developed brains to identify and troubleshoot issues. They have the ability to do "boatloads" more science, like pick up a damned shovel and start digging a 6 foot hole to find fossils... Or simply the ability to pick up a rock with their fingers and look at, or smash it open with a hammer.
Additionally, humans can take samples on Mars back to labs on Mars (which is what the whole Mars/Ares mission will have, as labs and habitable quarters will arrive separately and will be awaiting the astronauts) and analyze things there, with educated humans, instead of using crude tools on robots to analyze some of the most important scientific data to mankind.
I know its more dangerous and sometimes robotic probes and rovers make more sense, but it is just the opposite sometimes... it makes more sense to send a human to do a human's job. On top of that, human's need a challenge to keep us focused and growing in a positive direction, and conquering space with manned ships is a great approach to what we need to do. Giant interplanetary (and eventually intersolor) starships with the ability to house groups of experts to study the science of our planets, the stars, and everything else will do more than any group of robots ever could!
When National Geographic wanted some space history background material, they contacted NASA' history office. NASA's history office sent National Geographic to http://www.astronautix.com/ I assume NASA sent NatGeo there due to its objectivity and completeness, because they sure didn't send them there for pro-NASA propaganda. This is a good example: http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/ares.htm
Ares is a salvage project from its inception. It is an attempt to build a family of lifters from existing designs, technology and manufacturing as much as possible, with as little new design, technology and manufacturing as they can get away with.
Ares was designed by ATK Thiokol, manufacturer of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters, using derivative components of the shuttle, and in the case of Ares 1, the solid rocket boosters as the main engine. It is far more adaptation than it is invention. This is in keeping with NASA's "faster, cheaper" mind set that served well in many planetary probes. But since it is not a ground-up design, where flaws are handled when they first occur, it is prone to problems emerging from more complex configurations, the errors themselves more often due to complex interactions. Vibration problems, such as the current Ares booster 'pogo-stick' problem, are a common example of such emergent behavior.
One of NASA's greatest inventions during the early manned space program was systems analysis software, intended to examine a large system as it was built to determine where problems might and/or did occur. But even now, with far greater computational capability, the complexity of potential interactions due to starting with a large system that has been altered in numerous small ways from its original design puts the Ares designs beyond predictability. That will continue to occur as long as the design philosophy is maintained. If this fact, and the fact that such problems could emerge only under certain conditions -- say at max Q, pushing a heavy load with a smaller, lighter load on the top (ie. an Orion) -- isn't at the forefront of those minds trying to decide whether to scrap it and start over, it should be.
Had the shuttle component and system design philosophy been based on extensibility and adaptability (such as with SpaceX's Falcon 1 -> Falcon 9 design), Ares might have a better chance. But the core design of Ares 1 is the SRB, which was designed over 35 years ago for one purpose -- to be strapped on the side of the shuttle to help with its initial lift phase. It did that job well, with its only major failure having been a NASA decision going counter to a Thiokol recommendation. Now we have Thiokol recommending and NASA deciding the same things.
Robert Truax designed vehicles using surplus components. He designed so many, with so much acclaim for his designs, that there was a TV show based on it (Salvage 1, with Andy Griffith, ABC, 1979). But Truax was salvaging components to use in their intended fashion, not entire systems being adapted to entirely new designs.
One has to wonder at the basis for decision making when an agency first builds from scratch, then declines designs reusing some of the parts, but later chooses to rebuild existing designs. The probability is great that the decision is not technical but rather administrative. When the decisions were technical we got "Not on my watch." and Apollo 13 got home. When the decisions became administrative we got "My God Thiokol, what do you want me to do, wait until April?" and the Challenger didn't come home. This is the sort of fuzzy, intuitive, gut-feeling stuff that gets trashed in serious discussions about such major projects as a space vehicle. But the people that trash that kind of thinking aren't going to fly these things. A pilot that doesn't have a personal example of an intuitive, gut-feeling decision that was right hasn't been flying long, and the older the pilot they more likely that following such a gut feeling
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
In other words, the irresistable hand of the government, from which no recourse is possible, in everyone's pocket. If you strip liberty from one, you compromise it for all. Look, if the minimum wage worked as actual tool rather than transparently fallacious, jive pretense, why not just set the minimum wage at $250,000, huh? That'll sure get rid of this pesky poverty, I'll say (NOT, of course). Progressive income taxes? An utter non sequitur with regard to the subject at hand. Taxing capital gains as income? Way to destroy the use of capital to create jobs! Strong unions? Good up to a point, but it leads to an arms race, labor vs ownership, which benefits no one in the economy as a whole. Tariffs against cheap 2-bit third world worker raping labor markets? Guess this is the point of agreement with which I avoid being as one-sidedly simple minded as you.
I particularly enjoyed your (presumably unintendedly) humorous exercise in language absurdification: "Laws against unlawful termination." That's a circular proposal by definition, eh?
Now, if you had said we could devise something better than rampant, uncontrolled capitalism, I would respect that proposition. If you had said we need something better than either socialism or rampant uncontrolled capitalism, I would unhesitatingly agree with you. But proposing fine-tuning nuances to this interminable, fruitless monkeying around with the details of a completely evil conspiracy between corrupt government and rampant capitalists gets no respect from me.
No. There are plenty of things we can do to stop it:
* Minimum wage
Minimum wages reduces demand for employees. I know when minimum wages go up small business owners may either have to fire employees or go out of business, both of which reduces demand for employees are therefore lowers wages.
Progressive income taxes
Why should I work my ass off to make more money, and increase demand for employees, if I have to pay more taxes on what I make? That's robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Taxing capital gains as income
If worked right I support this, if not I don't. The devil is in the details. Otherwise I do not support income taxes. What I, and you, work to earn should not be taxed.
Strong unions for collective bargaining
Strong collective bargaining yes, strong unions though is a big no no. If I do not want to be a member of a union or have union dues taken from my paycheck I should not have to live with either one yet still have my job. In other words no closed shops, which some unions push for. Twenty two states have right to work laws, which I support, that are supposed to prevent this.
Laws against unlawful termination
What? Laws make things unlawful, if there are no laws it not illegal.
Tariffs against nations with poor labor laws
Thus reducing demand for employees, see above. Without government interference markets will improve employee pay and labor conditions. Look at China and India for examples. Because of relatively free trade, though there still is government interference, throughout the 1990s and early 2000s to the recession both nations saw booming middle and upper classes rise up. Real wages in both nations increased. They both went from relative backwater economies to being major economic powerhouses. In competition with each other they now offer other nations assistance.
Now I'm not saying there should be no laws or regulations, the less there is the better, but the ones there are need to be smarter and if necessary reformed or eliminated.
These things worked here for 50 years, and they still work in Western Europe. What the hell is wrong with you when you argue against policies that benefit your own economic and social interests?
Oh but do they? If I go to France and want to start my own business employing people can I do so easily? I don't think so. A few years ago there were riots by the youth when government proposed making it easier for employers to fire employees. I know I would not want to hire someone if I can't fire them because they cost me more than they make for me. It's in my own, and society's, interests to be able to easily fire a bad employee as well as get rid of them when they aren't needed.
And starting my own business is something I want to do. My sister already did, with friends of hers she started an accounting firm which now employees others.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Socialist fuckwads like you won't pass up an opportunity to insult libertarians when you don't know what they stand for. You are the one being dishonest.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
seriously, is that really all that much money?
I *do* think that Ares program is the result of Aerospace engineers getting fearful and going back to the 1960s.
Seriousy, is there nothing else we can do with the space shuttle in the 25 years since it was designed?
NO.
NASA will be "end-of-life"'ed in 2013. Total shutdown; the aeronautical parts regarding US industry monitoring and spying (on US corporations) will be maintained, and transfered to another US agency, yet to be named.
Satellite retrieval is very impressive, but almost never used
Without a returnable space shuttle, what about all the space junk? As I see it one is needed to clean space so it does not become too dangerous to launch rockets, and people, into space.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Sending people to do a machines job so others can live out Buck Rogers fantasies is an appropriate task for COMMERCIAL space outfits.
Building machines to do man's jobs take meaning away from men.
There must be a meeting of the ways between strictly unmanned flights and manned flights. Personally I'd let commercial businesses or other entities offer manned and unmanned space flights.
Learning about space is an appropriate use for robots,
Not all learning can be done remotely. Nor is that the only reason to go into space. So long as they pay their full costs I have no problem with Bigelow builds an inflatable hotel in earth orbit or Virgin Galactic offers to fare passengers to Hilton's moon hotel, or mine workers to the mining camps and bring back products.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
i would say that a lot of issues goes away ones one look at what money is supposed to represent...
Not really, at least not to me. To me money is meant to facilitate or make easier the exchange of goods and services.
Reminds me of a scene in the movie "Phenomenon" where John Travolta's character plays a garage owner and someone who drills wells comes into the garage to pick up his truck which was being repaired but says he doesn't have the money to pay for it. Travolta saying he needs solar panels he was given as a birthday present installed on his roof. The driller asks what's that got to do with his truck and Travolta says the installer needs a well drilled so if he drills the well the installer will install the panels and he'll fix the truck in return.
In these exchanges all three were voluntary, fixing the truck, drilling the well, and installing the panels. When government takes money people work to earn that is not voluntary. Related to that but applicable to today, today I heard a report on CNN about how because of the recession more people planted gardens this year than have in years. I wasn't impressed but the report said that 19% of those who planted gardens this year this year was the first year they planted a garden. What some are doing is exchanging produce, what one person doesn't grow someone else does and they trade what they have for what they want.
Unfortunately we haven't gotten as much rain this year and it's been cooler than previous years, I don't know if that's why but my garden didn't do so well this year. My garden did much better last year, I grew enough to eat one or two meals every day for about 3 months, but this year I had lettuce for salads and sandwiches but not what tomatoes I got have been small. So I haven't been able to share much, only about 1/4 what I shared last year. Of course I got some acorn squash, onions, and radishes I didn't grow last year. But my corn and carrots didn't sprout.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I haven't looked at it in a while, but the payload integrator's manual for the Taurus launch vehicle specifies a thrust-axis acceleration of 14G plus a random-vibration acceleration of about 4G. For us ugly-bags-of-mostly-water, exposure to a launch environment such as this will kill us pretty quick. The acoustic environment is pretty harsh as well.
The "man rating" isn't so much about safety records as it is about having a launch design profile that won't kill human passengers.
I never understand that one either. I've not seen anything that needs one-big-launch. Anything we've seen so far can be connected in orbit, perhaps at the ISS, to make it larger/longer: The Lego/modular approach more or less. Sure, there's overhead for re-connecting parts, but is it really more than the savings of economy-of-scale of smaller rockets?
Table-ized A.I.
It's not about danger, but about cost. A friend of mine, now working for NASA, did his Masters thesis on the logistics of a Mars mission. His estimates not only required major delays as preliminary, unmanned missions had to be done well in advance to generate fuel and oxygen for the stay, but just the cost of designing, building and launching a vessel to get to Mars without getting the astronauts irradiated would be huge. You could have over a thousand little rovers running around in mars for the price of sending two humans for a stay of very few weeks. With such a difference in scale, does it even matter if the rovers are more limited?
BS! Pension plans are about planning for the future.
life is not about finance
Life is about personal responsibility. And it's each individuals responsibility to plan their own future. If that means they have to pay someone else to do the planning for them or learn to plan themselves then it's their responsibility. Heck I don't know what's so hard about that for most people. In jr high we were required to take a civics class. In it though only an intro we had to learn about investing, and this was a public school in a relatively poor area. One of the things the teacher had us do was pretend we had $25,000 to invest any way we wanted. Daily we'd decide what we wanted to buy and sell, sell X stocks and buy Y bonds or Z commodity. The following day we'd look in the newspaper's business section to look up the prices of what we bought and sold. We did that about 4 weeks after which I wanted to be an investor and trader. Today with the net it's so much easier.
If someone happens to retire during a bear market, then through no fault of his own, his standard of living is much reduced versus someone who has the good fortune to retire into a bull market.
Except it's the investor's own responsibility to adjust their investment strategies. As young and new investors people can afford to take risks investing in growth and maybe aggressive growth stocks. But as they age their investments should shift. By the tyme investors are about to retire their portfolio should be mostly if not only value stocks and bonds that generate income. Even in today's recession there are still businesses making money. BP with one exception has increased dividends every year since 1993. Altria, formerly Philip Morris, is a cash machine. BMS, Bristol Myers Squibb Co., which closed at $22 today, declared dividends of $0.31 for the quarter ending 30 June 2009. That was the same as paid out the past three quarters. Annually that's $1.24 a share, at today's closing price the rate of return is 5%. During a recession that's nothing to sneeze at.
Old-fashioned pensions are much better for normal people
Except those plans are Defined benefit pension plan and government has to pick up the tab if the company goes out of business. It was because of these plans that Detroit found itself in it's problems. Chrysler, Ford, and GM agreed to these types of plans with the unions but they were not able to service the debt.
And since pension payouts are guaranteed, this organization has every incentive to properly manage the account.
See above. Actually because they are guaranteed, by the government there isn't an incentive to properly manage the accounts. Let tax payers pick up the tab when business fails.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
but lighten up; it was a joke [ notice I used a :-) ].
I wish I could, but I find we're in hell of a mess now. Bush dropped the ball by turning his attention to the invasion of Iraq instead of making sure Afghanistan was stable. I don't know about you but I have a nephew who has served in Iraq twice and is being sent to Afghanistan as well.
Of course I can only blame him for Afghanistan, the Marines offered to pay him a $250,000 bonus for reenlisting and he took it. I didn't even know that until my brother-in-law told me later. Tell you what though, at my age I'd enlist if I was paid a bonus of $250,000. And I'm middle aged.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The protest were about the period of time you are being "tried" by the firm giving you the job. Usually within the first 3 month you can be given the boot at any moment, this is the try-period. They wanted to expand that period to something insane like 24 month (or maybe it was 9 month I do not recall) for young people. So naturally they went on the street and protested. Did what we call a "manif" (manifestation/protest march). That is quite different from rioting (going in the street to steal and make damage). Although I do not exclude there is a minority of thugs which always take the occasion to riot, the intention of the crushing majority was only to protest agaisnt that law.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
We'll know the (lack of) future of space exploration for sure, when the head of AMTRAK is transferred to NASA.
It's a classic strategy for getting rid of programs - structure the spending in such a way that nothing useful can be done, but huge amounts of money are spent in the process. Finally, after 10 or 20 years, the program is obsolete and no longer part of the popular psyche and can be cancelled completely.
Sadly, routing the space program onto a side track will also have the effect of removing about 1/2 of the market (my number) for high tech engineers in the US.
I'm sure all those smart engineering graduates will be thrilled that all that money that was 'wasted on rockets and useless scientific trivia' can now be spent on 'the poor' that they will become, instead of productive participants in the most vital initiative of modern human history. They can get together over beans and rice, and dream big dreams of the colonization of space. And colleges, no longer burdened with the need to maintain truly rigorous engineering curricula, can relax and provide more 'global studies' and 'conflict resolution' programs to help us 'understand each other'.
Then, in four or five hundred years, maybe the pioneers and explorers of the United States of Africa can congratulate themselves on the first orbital probe launched since the decadence and collapse of the "Euro-centric global cabal."
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
I just got done watching Mars mission documentary on discovery. It's pretty great. All countries around the globe are spending money to develop different areas (although NASA is really paying the most). I think the current plan is to send Astronauts for an extended stay, more than a year, because they have to wait for Earth to orbit the Sun an come back in alignment again. Building a ship in space needs to be done, and will be a great exercise. Not to mention it will have the first artificial gravity (by rotation). Why does the cost to build a ship have to be huge? I know if will be a lot, but the Russian's are doing it a lot cheaper. As for radiation protection, some ideas are using electromagnetic shields, similar to the Van Allan belts).
This ship can be used on future missions and the food, water, fuel, and buildings set ahead of the astronauts can be used again for future missions -- as we build permanent Mars base.
So that's the plan. Thousands of rovers.. yeah, that's cool, but they are still limited. They don't have the brains, dexterity, or power of a human being. And I am not one of those people that envision humans sitting in their arm chair while robots explore the universe. Sure you could send a robot to Antarctica, but we don't -- we send human's, because it's in our nature (not robots) to explore. It's dangerous, but we do it anyway. The fun is getting out there, into the stars, and we need to take the first steps. Money is nothing, it technically doesn't even exist (except to the tax payers, sigh), but a creature evolving on Earth and being smart enough to leave its mother planet and travel to another one, on a semi permanent fashion, it the next stage of human evolution.
Did what we call a "manif" (manifestation/protest march). That is quite different from rioting (going in the street to steal and make damage).
There weren't any deaths, burned cars, or other violence?
Although I do not exclude there is a minority of thugs which always take the occasion to riot, the intention of the crushing majority was only to protest agaisnt that law.
The rioters may of been a minority but there were some protesters who supported them and some rioters supported protesters. Perhaps I could have phrased what I wanted to say better though, so I'll try again. The government in France wanted to boost youth employment, even today France has a high unemployment rate for youth. But the youth protested against making it easier for businesses to fire bad employees who are youth, as if a job was an entitlement not something earned. If you want more employment of youth you want to make it easier to fire those youth who are poor workers. Even today Youth unemployment is high in almost all of Europe.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Didn't we just spend EXACTLY $3B on the Cash For Clunkers fiasco in about 2 months? That's what we WASTED on Ares I... Jeez... I guess wasted is in the eye of the beholder and it really is true that a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about some serious money... (For the record, I'd be happy to throw another $3B at Ares or any other alternative for spaceflight over handing out $4,500 checks to people for killing their old minivan or SUV so they could buy a non-American car)