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NASA May Drop Ares I-Y Test Flight
Matt_dk writes "Just one week after the first test launch of the Ares I-X rocket, NASA says it may decide to cancel a follow-up launch called Ares 1-Y, which wasn't scheduled until 2014. Reportedly, program managers recommended dropping the flight because, currently, there isn't funding to get an upper stage engine ready in time. Depending on whether the Obama administration decides to continue the Ares I program, this decision may be moot. Earlier this week Sen. Bill Nelson said Obama may make a decision on NASA's future path, based on the report by the Augustine Commission, by the end of November."
Future Leader: Let's use science to process people into Soylent Green!
I wonder if NASA is going to be able to keep up internal interest on these projects with the way their budget keeps getting cleaved. Hell, I wonder how they managed to keep people onboard, what with a 5 year delay between test flights.
Too bad we spend a trillion dollars invading the wrong country based on obvious lies and fabrications. I think we would have been better off spending that money on cool space toys or at least getting Afghanistan right the first time.
We will be paying for the George W Bush's disastrous presidency for a very long time.
...that Obama is really a conservative, not a liberal.
I hope you're joking...
I suppose in some very liberal circles, Obama is conservative ... if you use "conservative" as a "relative" term. But you usually don't use it in a relative term without stating what it is relative to. A conservative democrat? A conservative republican? Conservative conservative?
Anyway, Obama seems to be more "populist" than anything. He won based on his popularity and charisma, not so much his liberal or conservative policies. From my viewpoint, Obama is very liberal. But then, I'm very conservative. So there you have it.
Have you seen his energy initiatives? You can pursue science and "the future of our species" without spending billions on pie-in-the-sky space projects.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a space junkie. I like Battlestar Galactica just like any other red-blooded American geek. And if we were overflowing in riches right now, I'd say let's go for it.
But the practical fact of the situation is that space exploration is only one miniscule part of science, and it is very, very expensive. Yes, you make engineering discoveries, and some of it is really glamorous on the 6:00 news. But if you're looking for bang for your buck, let's be honest. You can pursue science that is much cheaper and which has much more immediate gains by investing in stuff like developing alternative energy, beefing up our computing infrastructure, etc.
Just because money isn't spent on the stuff that you personally think is neat doesn't mean that it's not being well-spent or being put to productive use.
Back then they were able to link landing on the moon with beating the Russians, which at the time virtually guaranteed as much money as you could possibly want to accomplish the goal. Having the goal set by a president who was later assassinated, and carried on by his VP who basically set himself up to be the guy who would carry on JFK's legacy, didn't hurt either. Of course, after that goal was reached, NASA's funding was slashed, and they've been unable to accomplish much in the way of manned exploration since then.
Now, if you could somehow link landing on Mars to beating the terrorists, we could get all the money we need to get this thing done quickly. Until then, though, they can only do things as fast as their ever-shrinking budget will let them.
were about the same. Both ran up monster deficits for no real reason. Both had economic bumps up front, so, I could not blame them for that spending. BUT, once the economy turned, they both increased the debts and threw money away. Between their debts, invasions of other countries, stealing of American rights, etc, the American dream is about to be the American nightmare.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Change you can believe and stuff? What better than a daring scientific project of national proportions to catalyze the United States, to unite the minds and the hearts of all the people, to inspire them, to give them hope and a vision?
During the Apollo missions America had a dream larger than life, a vision that propelled her forward for decades to come. The creativity, genius and overpowering enthusiasm that this country showed was what, I think, eventually broke the USSR - the Star Wars "threat" was so much more frightening to the Soviets, because they (the old gard, anyway) still had in mind the Apollo missions and thought that these crazy yankees might just pull this off!
America is now just a shell of its former self - a gigantic trade and budget deficit, a country wholly subservient to foreign (mostly arab) oil, and almost bought out by the Chinese government.
You want a stimulus, one that will really stimulate all the people, all their endevours, all their emotions? Give NASA more, much more money, and tell them to dream big!
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I'm going to break Slashdot etiquette by replying to my own reply, but this is the kind of thing I'm talking about.
If you were president, and you had the choice to, say, send a manned mission to Mars to collect some dirt and maybe begin the steps it would take to, if we're lucky and very, very good, colonize the planet a century or two from now, or roll out a national energy infrastructure that will get us off of fossil fuels today, thus keeping our own planet from boiling away (and most likely discovering a lot of very useful stuff that would make such a manned Mars mission much cheaper, safer, and more practical when we DO do it), which would you choose?
Some people are still under the misguided notion that we don't have to make such choices, that we can just do both. That's one of our problems with science initiatives today. We're trying to do everything, and we end up half-assing it all and nothing gets done.
Personally, I'd rather just not have a space program (well, nothing much more than putting satellites in orbit now and then) than spending billions on the white elephant of one that we have today.
Woulda worked better back in the commie days. "Beating the reds to the red planet" would have had so much good marketing in it.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
The summary is trying to make hay. There are other tests already on the board between now and the 2014 Ares I-Y test flight. Project managers simply decided that the objectives of that particular test fly could be achieved by other means (test flights) thereby saving the program unnecessary expenses. A very helpful thing considering their already tight budget.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
The saddest part is the test launch of the Falcon 9 has been sitting on the pad since JANUARY. It's been tied up in paperwork ever since. If I had my tinfoil hat handy, I'd say it was tied up solely to make sure the Ares launch happened first. SpaceX has demonstrated their competence with a successful payload delivery to orbit on board a Falcon 1. Not giving the go-ahead for the Falcon 9 smells of excuses, to me. Canaveral is built to handle rockets that size, and the Canaveral range officers have a fine understanding of rockets that size. They know how to use an abort button if necessary. There isn't any danger to anybody, anywhere, whether it works or not. The hazards are to Elon Musk's wallet and to certain pork barrel charity-for-engineers NASA programs. Playing politics has crippled space efforts more than any launch fatalities, anywhere.
I'm not sure not spending money on space flight in a conservative philosophy as I at least would consider space abilities to be very much in line with providing for the national defense. There's a lot of overlapping technology and abilities in that realm and most conservatives don't have a problem with the government spending money on programs that are huge boons to our technology/industry/defense sectors. I've lived in both New York and conservative North Carolina and I've never heard any backwoods Conservatives down there complaining about spending money on NASA. But I have heard a lot of saved the world through government programs liberals complain about spending money on space flight when we could be feeding people instead. In reality I think there are people on both sides of the fence that support it and people on both sides of the fence that don't
Either way the one thing we POSITIVELY want to avoid is anyone managing to label supporting space exploration as a "liberal" or "conservative" policy and having party lines drawn on the issue as that way we'll never get it done. Space Exploration isn't something we can accomplish during the time span that one party is in power, it has to be a common endeavor supported by the entire nation.
Well NASA sure as heck isn't raking in the funding under Obama either. And don't go saying he'll be giving more funding to have NASA do Earth Science either because of his stance on Global Warming, because he isn't doing that either.
All I see right now is liberal special interest groups getting waaaayyyy more money than NASA is even asking for showered on them and NASA continuing to get the shaft from this administration just like they did from the last one.
I am sick of hearing how science can now breathe a sigh of relief because Obama's in the White House. They won't be doing anything at all unless they get some real funding pretty soon.
The first stage was sent back for more testing. Then they did second stage engine tests without the engine nozzle. Second stage mechanical tests. They should still need to make a second stage engine test with the nozzle on, an integrated second stage fire test, vehicle hold down firing tests. Pad work probably isn't 100% finished either.
Since Nixon, the budget has been at ~1% of the federal budget. It dropped pretty heavily under reagan and W, stayed mostly even with Clinton and Carter (though both dropped it in their last years due to the economy) and increased with Poppa bush. This current budget which is W's has it at .52% of budget.
It remains to be seen what Obama/Dems will do with it. When it comes to ppl screaming that they do not live in their budget, I see nothing by idiots. The president SETS NASA'S DIRECTION. W set it to be massive new undertaking, but then grossly underfunded it (just like everything he did).
Right now, everybody is screaming for NASA to push THEIR idea of what should happen, and few want to provide proper funding for any of it. Personally, I hope that the dems get the clue that the neo-cons did not; Space is near to being able to survive on its own and grew RAPIDLY. This is the time for the dems to pour a BIT of money into it and get this set up. It is NOT hard to do. What is amazing is that with less than and increase of 3 billion next year, 2 billion the year there after, and then 1 extra billion for the next few years thereafter, they can create in space what the Internet did; massive jobs and new frontiers.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.