Slashdot Mirror
Future of NASA's Manned Spaceflight Looks Bleak
coondoggie writes "Things don't look good for NASA when the report outlining its future begins: 'The US human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory. [NASA] is perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources. Space operations are among the most complex and unforgiving pursuits ever undertaken by humans. It really is rocket science. Space operations become all the more difficult when means do not match aspirations.' Today the Augustine Commission handed to the White House the Review of US Human Space Flight Plans Committee summary report, after months of expert review and testimony. Many observers expected a bleak report, but ultimately the future of US manned space flight will hinge on how the report's conclusions are interpreted. Keep in mind too that NASA has spent almost $8 billion of a planned $40 billion to develop systems for a return to the Moon."
... fund a manned space program when you blow all your resources on worthless, unnecessary wars?
Why is it we can afford a f***ing trillion dollars on the f***ing wars, and not put together a credible space program?
I guess there's no profit in it, and our state religion won't allow that. That's why we're not only not going to have a manned space program. It's why we're fucked as a nation in general.
It's just mind-boggling, but there it is.
I think the most important thing can be crystallized:
Without more money, there will be no meaningful human space flight.
As for the details, I agree with the report where it says that Mars is not a good first destination. I concur that the Flexible Path scenario would be pretty smart. There's a wealth of information and experience to be made in exploring the Lagrange Points and Near-Earth Asteroids.
Basically, is the United States willing to cede space to China and Russia?
NASA's mistake in sending the last rovers to Mars was not to bring some gold, raw diamonds and black gold to seed the surface and report these as discoveries on the planetâ(TM)s surface. You would have De Beers, Mobile and a dozen other companies spending their profits from extorting us, their loyal customers, for a good cause this time. The American tax payer would not have to spend a dime to support the new space frontier
This "Send Robots Instead" nonsense is just that -- Nonsense. Mankind's Manifest Destiny may have nothing but an unmarked grave in your hearts, but for millions, perhaps billions, the reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.
If there's anything robots don't do, it is "look to the stars." It is men who comprehend the insignificance of this world in relation to the vast emptiness of space, and the costs it will take to traverse that scape. It is men who want to watch the enormous Earth grow smaller and wax philosophical. It is men who walked upon the lonely face of the moon and felt enormous elation and accomplishment coupled with their nigh-incomprehensible solitude.
If NASA is having its intercelestial driver's license revoked, it should at least be given the directive to help direct traffic of the private industry. Apparently we need half-insane men and women blasting themselves and their employees and friends off to distant space rocks if humankind wants to travel across this galaxy. We do not need them crashing into satellites and ploughing into nearby cities due to lack of launch pads or proper orbital-traffic readouts.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
Programs like the Hubble Telescope, Voyager, radio telescopes, mars rovers, etc, are all projects that teach us immensely more for the invested dollars than manned space flight. Maybe we should encourage more of this type of research? I think Americans have a special fetishism of the frontier that gives fleshy-contact primacy, but intellectual contact with astral elements is exciting too.
nasa costs peanuts relative to other, less noble, budgetary expenditures
According to WallStats, NASA's funding for 2010 is $18.7 billion. According to The New York Times, the amount of bailout funds committed by the U.S. Government to Bear Stearns and AIG (both of which are fraudulent companies) is $82 billion. That is 4.4 times the amount of funding that NASA is receiving next year. If the manned space program is canceled, let it be known that it was due to debacles such as this.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Moving the ISS to a Lagrange Point would require an enormous amount of fuel, and getting that fuel to orbit. You would need to attach engines, and the station structure cannot handle the force. There is also currently no way of getting supplies and people there. The Space Shuttle cannot leave earth orbit. The ISS is also not built for the radiation outside the earths magnetosphere. Seriously, you cannot just take a spacecraft and put it somewhere it isn't made for.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to just outsource manned spaceflight to China and India?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Look at the mess people create on earth. It's probably best that we keep our distance from other worlds. It makes me kind of happy to know there are vast expanses of uninhabited space. Our resources should be focused on fixing problems here first, then we can look to the stars. At this point, going to Mars seems like a pointless endeavor when crack-heads line the streets of the Capitol of the United States after dark. I'd like to see a thriving space program as much as the next nerd, but exploring the universe can wait until we've mastered being human without killing each other, the air, the seas, and the land upon which we walk.
. People have been asking why are when spending $X (what seems like a really big number) on manned space flight when we've been there, done that, and have Y number of problems still back on earth.
Actually I think people are beginning to say why are we spending $X sending humans to do something a robot can do faster, cheaper and more reliably for one tenth the price.
NASA may continue to fund some great robotic programs, but it doesn't capture the public's mind.
Speak for yourself. I distinctly remember as a child poring over the photos and discoveries made by Voyager 1 and 2 and dreaming of what lay beyond that frontier, awaiting discovery by our non-human servants.
And in any case, is that really important? If we TRULY think exploring space is worthwhile for objective reasons, perhaps those objective reasons should be the driver and the inspiration, rather than the light and sound show of human space travel.
If only NASA was too big to fail......
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
What gives you this confidence?
What an odd question.
First, I believe it is possible to go to the moon and return, because it was done about 40 years ago. Are you with me so far? If you aren't sure, consider that technology has actually improved just a little bit since then, and the laws of physics are about the same.
Second, I believe that 20 billion dollars is still kind of a lot of money. The Ansari X Prize was only 10 million, and it accomplished its goal of getting privately-built launch vehicles into space.
Third, various companies are already working on launch systems. The existence of a lucrative bounty ought to help motivate them and/or help them get funding, and very well might cause new ones to form. In addition to the value of the prize itself, the publicity surrounding the project ought to increase the chances a company can get funding.
Political ideology?
If you want to call it that... I do believe that the private sector can still innovate and produce new things, and I do believe that competition is more productive than a giant entrenched bureaucracy.
There, I have answered your questions. My turn:
Do you believe that private organizations cannot build launch systems? Do you believe that the NASA bureaucracy can get things done faster than an assortment of competing organizations? Do you believe that the only good engineer all work for NASA or that NASA has some sort of secret knowledge that nobody else has?
Now, consider that all the money NASA spent on X-33 was wasted; the X-33 was canceled as a total failure. Do you believe that private organizations would do worse than that?
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
okay this needs to stop.
yes the moon has lots of raw resources. Do any of you understand how much work it takes to make something simple like a metal wall, how many people it takes to dig up the ore, break it into pieces, smelt it down to purification levels, forge blocks, with which to forge the other objects, and the presses to stretch it into sheets. You need 100,000's of tons of equipment to build a simple airtight box that the moon walkers can live in. It would take way to much effort for a simple colony for a few hundred people. It would take a century to pay of that kind of investment. no current government, or business is thinking that far ahead. No investor would back such an endeavor.
We need something better than current ion and chemical rockets. When we figure out that part So it is cost effective to ship a nuclear aircraft carrier there then will a real colony start to be seen that will take advantage of those resources. Since none of those resources included large sources of fuel(or even water to make fuel from) then the moon will sit there for a while.
This isn't star trek. the effort to bring you something simple like a pair of scissors is huge involving the jobs of thousands,
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Did you actually read your Ansari X Prize link? "$10 million was awarded to the winner, but more than $100 million was invested in new technologies in pursuit of the prize."
So apparently the prize resulted in a 90% loss of investment (in the short-term). Now take into account the fact that there are a lot more people capable of losing $90M than $180B...
Given the nature of our flat Earth, I foresee no leap of science allowing practical travel to the east by sailing west. So any human sailing expeditions out of sight of the coast seems pointless to me.
I've never understood why the slashdot crowd has such a collective hardon for manned space flight. Are there not enough other "big problems" to solve down here on the planet?
Flame my ass, mod me down, I don't support this level of idiocy that exists here.
NASA does not get a real budget because NASA does not generate votes.
What gets votes are two categories...
The masses through one handout after another, to keep them placated between elections and loyal to their local politicians who "did this for them out of the goodness of their heart"
The money on Wall Street. Those who deliver the real campaign donations through various routes, direct and indirect.
We have seen trickle down economics distilled into its purest form now, we just hand money to Wall Street and its interest.
So, yeah, while the parrot heads all love to sip their half cafe decaf lattes nodding their heads over the wit of "its the war, man" it isn't true. Its a terrible excuse. Are the wars bad? Yes, but parroting that line is exactly what politicians want you to do. Why? Because they are pissing away the money that could have gone to NASA and many other valued science related projects instead on building monuments to themselves in towns across America (the number of buildings/roads/bridges named for LIVING and in power politicians is amazing now).
Sorry ... I hate replies like your every time I see them and every time they get modded insightful. Wars are wrong, but they are an excuse that Congress and the like use to not fund NASA, funny thing is even without expensive wars when was the last time NASA got any real money?
Well? Show me.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.