NASA Willing To Team With China; Rumors of a Budget Cut

eldavojohn writes "2009 has been an interesting year for NASA — from a new strategy to even closer ties with an old enemy. So it's perhaps no surprise that NASA has publicly stated that they are ready to team up with China. NASA Chief Charles Bolden said, 'I am perfectly willing, if that's the direction that comes to me, to engage the Chinese in trying to make them a partner in any space endeavor. I think they're a very capable nation. They have demonstrated their capability to do something that only two other nations that have done — that is, to put humans in space. And I think that is an achievement you cannot ignore. They are a nation that is trying to really lead. If we could cooperate we would probably be better off than if we would not.' While the budget of the China National Space Administration is a fraction of NASA's, partnering with them has been considered since 2008. In possibly related news, rumors are circulating of the Obama administration cutting NASA's budget by ten percent for fiscal year 2011 despite the success of Monday's Atlantis launch. Considering the Augustine panel's recommendations, such a cut could halt US human space flight for a decade."

Comments

You're doing it wrong

[ColdWetDog]

We need China as competitor, not a partner. We need some sort of 'gap' to get the ignorant hordes* all worked up so they'll pay for it.

*Congress

Re:You're doing it wrong

[jimbolauski]

Considering China owns 10% of our debt ($800 billion) I wonder if Obama was made an offer he couldn't refuse.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Jane Q. Public]

I agree. And the statement that China is trying to be a leader is misleading. So what? They can try all they want. The real question is: do we want them to BE a "leader"?

And, as long as their government is structured as it is and behaves as it does, I say the answer to that is no. In fact I think a space partnership with China would be disastrous for the United States.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Shakrai]

I wonder if Obama was made an offer he couldn't refuse.

Somehow I don't think the Chinese are crazy enough to try and blackmail a nuclear armed state. It would hurt them as much as it would hurt us anyway. In the long run it might even be worse for them, as it would bring their economic growth to a screeching halt.

What pisses me off is that we can spend hundreds of billions of dollars we don't have on health care "reform" that isn't and hundreds of billions more on invading countries that never attacked us but we can't find the money to fund NASA. The last round of serious investment into space exploration brought us cheap microchips, GPS, satellite photography, etc.

Fucking shortsighted stupidity.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[rahvin112]

People make such a big deal out of China owning the US debt. They do so to act as a currency reserve because historically (meaning over of the last 50 years) the US has had significantly lower inflation and instability than most other nations. But the primary reason the Chinese have purchased US debt is identical to the reason the Japenesse continue to invest billions of Yen in the Debt, and that's to keep the US dollar artificially elevated.

These governments are intervening and unbalancing currencies to artificially keep the dollar high and cause imports to be cheaper in the US to wipe out US industrial production. Eventually the market will correct, but because of the intervention the correction is going to be much sharper than had it been allowed to happen naturally. Once the dollar drops to reflect the actual real value of the dollar US exports will rise and the system will re-balance but the pain level for the US consumer is going to be very very high. But we can't compete when we allow foreign governments to manipulate the value of currency to keep it high. Currency manipulation is a serious issue with China, it should be the top priority of any negotiations with China.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Nyeerrmm]

A political race is unsustainable. If we were to enter another 60s style space race, we would spend incredible amounts of money to do more flags and footprints and then sputter around for 40 or 50 years afterwards, again.

While Apollo was an impressive feat, I can't help but wonder where we would be now if we had stuck to an Eisenhower-esque slow and steady approach, and not gotten drawn into the space race. It certainly would have taken longer to get to the moon -- we might just be getting there now. However, we would be doing so in an affordable way, with an eye towards long-term missions, science and development. I think slow and consistent is better than massive rushes followed by 40 years of sputtering about.

The problem with Apollo is that it was run at a rate that history has shown is about 4 times higher than is politically sustainable without an external threat. Since this was the beginning of the Space Age, NASA assumed that the gravy train would go on forever, since there was no evidence otherwise. They never learned how to do things right within a small budget. This is why we're currently where we are. Vehicle design is always seeking an absolute perfection rather than a balance between cost and capability. The constant rallying cry is 'if only we had Apollo-level money again.' Perhaps most importantly, efforts to privatize the low-risk parts such as LEO transport is like pulling teeth, since the huge federal cost-plus contracts from the Apollo era are still massive employers.

Personally, I welcome the idea of cooperation. Sharing money, technology and development is the best way to make use of limited budgets and speed up frontier development. Competition is a great short-term motivator for politics, and can encourage efficiency in the long term. However, cooperative ventures are much more sustainable in the long-term, and competition in the free market sense only makes sense for developed technologies such as LEO transport, not the "Lewis and Clark" role that the government should excel at.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[MightyMartian]

The problem is that China is pretty much four and a half decades behind the US and the USSR. They're doing what Russia and the US did with the Vostok and Mercury missions. Now admittedly they should be able to progress at a far greater speed than either the US or the USSR did, because a lot of the groundwork has been laid, but still, even an optimistic estimate would, I think, put them at least ten to fifteen years away from being competitors.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[WindBourne]

The difference between Japan and China is that Japan DOES buy from us. Lots. China only buys resources. In fact, we have MANY things that they need. For starters, pollution control from most of the western nations. Yet, they are wanting us to GIVE THEM the tech. With China sitting on 4 TRILLION DOLLAR SURPLUS, they should be buying this and dropping their pollution and even CO2 emission. But, they do not. Japan wants to win at 2 way trade. China is in a cold war with western nations.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Loki_1929]

The Chinese have nuclear weapons capable of hitting the US as well. I don't think they're too worried we're going to nuke them.

Besides, they have something better. Go ask an economics professor what happens to the United States if China dumps their $1 Trillion in US debt for $10 Billion.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

You might want to start to do some buying of that anti pollution tech yourself. Last time I checked USA refused any commitment to lower its pollution at all and was the biggest polluter in the world.

If China wanted to hurt the US it would start shifting its dollar. It isn't a stable currency anymore anyway. The only thing that keeps it alive are foreign investments and that the OPEC trades its oil in $. No one in their right mind seriously thinks the US could even touch China military wise. You are thin stretched as it is fighting some small 3rd world countries. I guess the situation with the oil producing countries isn't that clear, you seem to be picking fights with those who don't want to follow your lead anymore.

I really hope the world will, some distant time in the future maybe, refuse to pay the debts of the USA. All the money you spend without possessing it does not come out of thin air you know, wouldn't other countries stabilize your currency (read: Pay your debts) you'd completely fuck yourself by just printing more money as you do now.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Shakrai]

Besides, they have something better. Go ask an economics professor what happens to the United States if China dumps their $1 Trillion in US debt for $10 Billion.

The same thing that would happen to your neighbor if he dumped his $100,000 house for $1,000. He'd lose a shitload of money.

Yes, it would hurt us, but it would hurt them just as badly if not more so.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Shakrai]

Last time I checked USA refused any commitment to lower its pollution at all and was the biggest polluter in the world.

CO2 != pollution

I really hope the world will, some distant time in the future maybe, refuse to pay the debts of the USA.

Translation: I really hope the world will willingly decide to gut the global economy, even though I'll suffer, because I hate the United States so much and want to spite them regardless of the consequences of doing so.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Chris Burke]

I don't understand "natural" and "artificial" in this context. I mean, it makes sense to talk about an ecosystem's "natural" balance -- i.e. the balance it had/would attain without the influence of post-industrial humans. But the economy is nothing but the actions of modern humans... So I don't understand the distinction. If China buying up debt increases the agreed upon value of the dollar, then isn't that just the value of the dollar? I mean I understand your point that the coming devaluation of the dollar will be worse because of these actions, but that still just seems like the "natural" market at work. Is it because they're specifically trying to inflate the dollar, rather than taking actions which just happen to increase the value of our currency?

Re:You're doing it wrong

[WindBourne]

You might want to start to do some buying of that anti pollution tech yourself. Last time I checked USA refused any commitment to lower its pollution at all and was the biggest polluter in the world.
First, you have it wrong. America is one of the cleaner countries in the world. And in terms of GDP and square km, we remain towards the top of that clean list. CHINA remains at the total bottom of the POLLUTION LIST.
Secondly, I am guessing that you are thinking in terms of CO2. Well, China surpassed America in terms of total CO2 emissions in late 2006. And they have accelerated even faster. They currently add 1-2 NEW 500 MW COAL PLANTS EACH WEEK WITHOUT ANY CO2 OR POLLUTION CONTROL. OTH, America adds one ever couple of months (actually, I think in the last year, we have added only 1-2 new coal plants) and these have most of the pollution controls and even have ways to lower CO2 emissions.

If China wanted to hurt the US it would start shifting its dollar. It isn't a stable currency anymore anyway. The only thing that keeps it alive are foreign investments and that the OPEC trades its oil in $. No one in their right mind seriously thinks the US could even touch China military wise. You are thin stretched as it is fighting some small 3rd world countries. I guess the situation with the oil producing countries isn't that clear, you seem to be picking fights with those who don't want to follow your lead anymore.
The dollar has been hurt BECAUSE of china tying their currency to it. And that is starting to do some major damage to Euro, the yen, Canadian dollar, Australian dollar, Mexican peso, etc, etc, etc. As to 'touching china military wise', did I suggest that? Nope. That is your demented thoughts. I thought that we were insane to have elected W the first time. I was opposed to our invasion/occupation of iraq (and backed by my posts).
I really hope the world will, some distant time in the future maybe, refuse to pay the debts of the USA. All the money you spend without possessing it does not come out of thin air you know, wouldn't other countries stabilize your currency (read: Pay your debts) you'd completely fuck yourself by just printing more money as you do now.
Oh, China and japan are the ones buying our debt to force their money lower against the dollar as well as ALL OTHER FREELY TRADED MONEY. Unless you come from China, or from one of the many 3'rd world countries that have their small money fixed against ours, you will find that when we go into bankruptcy, it will have devastating effects around the world. As it is, America bailed out EU numerous times, and other countries around the world. Each time, America absorbed not just the costs, but the impact of those. When we go under, the western world will not have the ability to absorb that. And china has ZERO desire to do so. As it is, they are far more interested in gaining control.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[timeOday]

in terms of CO2. Well, China surpassed America in terms of total CO2 emissions in late 2006. And they have accelerated even faster. They currently add 1-2 NEW 500 MW COAL PLANTS EACH WEEK WITHOUT ANY CO2 OR POLLUTION CONTROL. OTH, America adds one ever couple of months (actually, I think in the last year, we have added only 1-2 new coal plants) and these have most of the pollution controls and even have ways to lower CO2 emissions.

Ranking nations by total emissions is absurd; obviously it should be per capita. Per-capita CO2 emissions in the US are over 4 times that of China. So when we demand China reduce their emissions before doing anything ourselves, what we are doing is claiming the right of each American to pollute 4 times as much as each Chinese person. Bicycles for them, SUVs for us. Rice for them, beef for us. And then we are shocked when they object to this notion.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[CrimsonAvenger]

Sharing money, technology and development is the best way to make use of limited budgets and speed up frontier development.

Considering how much bigger NASA's budget is than China's space program, I'm not really sure where we'll get much, if any advantage from the deal. Yah, China gains a lot, since they get the benefits of our ten times large budget, but if they gave us their entire budget, it'd not be enough extra to get Orion/Ares finished on schedule, much less do anything worthwhile.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Tynin]

Mostly agreed, but you are thinking short term. The longer term problem is we continue to borrow from China, and they would no longer be lending to us. So where would we get the money, or how would we restructure our government gracefully so they spend less money, without the whole house of cards falling down? So not only would the dollar be massively devalued all at once, but we would also have to contend with the lack of funding China gives us. It would suck in the short term for China (but they have a cash surplus, so they'd bounce back without much effort), but America would be in recovery for a _long_ time. Hopefully China continues to see us as a good investment (otherwise my Libertarian ideals might come true in a painfully fast form. i.e. small gov, isolationist)

Re:You're doing it wrong

[lgw]

The goverment could easily carry out all of it's constitutionally mandated duties, and continue to service existing debt, without borrowing any future money. We could even back away gracefully from the >50% of the budget that we spend on charity/social programs. People would pitch a Hell of a fit if all that "free government money" went away, even gradually, but little of real significance would be affected. Of course, being a democracy, this will never happen.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Nyeerrmm]

Actually, most of our budget is devoted to the basic stuff, so each dollar added at this point is much more impressive than the money we already spend. The Augustine commission stated that adding $3B/year allows us to do a lot more than we do right now.

Its hard to know exactly how much the Chinese are spending, but its estimated at around $1.5B -- not too bad. NASA accounts for approximately half of world-wide civilian space spending, so real international cooperation (not degrading and subordinating other countries programs) has the potential for a lot of development.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[lgw]

It's a good thing CO2 is harmless, then. In terms of actual pollution, we're very clean indeed. Only someone who has never had to deal with real pollution would mistake it for CO2. On a bad day, at our dev center in Pune, India, you can just barely see the building across the street through all the particulate pollution in the air (American cities once had similar problems), and we very rarely have a river catch fire in America these days.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[WindBourne]

Per-Capita has to be one of the WORST ways that I can think to rank it. Just look at Kyoto. It is a TOTAL JOKE. Even now, every nation involved in it is working hard to cheat at it, rather than just do the right thing. Also, just because a nation decides to not control their population should not mean that others should pay for it. Instead, it should be seen as efficiency of GDP AND the size of their state (i.e. tonnes per sq. km). With this approach, the CO2 AND GDP can be easily measured.

Also, in terms of efficiency of CO2 per say $1000 GDP, China is at the absolute bottom. That is related to the fact that they are cutting corners on everything that they can. And if we look at the idea of just CO2 per-capita, then we are all screwed. Nations will cheat on the ppl count, and more importantly, you will find that if everybody on the planet emitted at the level that China CURRENTLY emits it, it will be MORE emissions than we currently do. Worse, China is working to NOT control their emissions. They keep saying that they will lower it, but they do not want to commit to it. Of course, many nations, including CHina, simply break their treaties.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[lgw]

Eh, I think he's just talking about the value the dollar would have net of it's use as a reserve currency. The dollar fell significantly with the advent of the Euro, just becuase central banks replaced some of their dollar holdings with Euros, despite the fact it's "natural" value was unchanged. This year the dollar is falling because were printing so many of them - a fall in it's "natural" value. Perhaps a poor choice of words, but the meaning was apparant.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Grishnakh]

I disagree. A better way would be funding NASA at Apollo levels, continuously. We most certainly have the money, and always did. The problem was that we decided instead to waste it on other things, namely "defense".

For instance, NASA had several other moon missions planned, which were cut even before the first one flew, because their budget got cut in the mid-60s. Why? The Vietnam war. Where would we be now if we hadn't wasted all that money in Vietnam, and kept NASA properly funded instead?

Remember, one common figure is that for every $1 spent on Apollo, we got $7 back in our economy due to all the technological spin-offs, like GPS, printed circuit boards, etc. Spending on space exploration is an investment in the future, not a sinkhole for money like most wars (especially recent ones) are. If we want to stay ahead technologically, we need to invest a lot of money again. If we don't, we're going to be surpassed by those who do. You have to spend money to make money.

Even now, we have far more money than we need to fully fund NASA. The problem is that we're wasting it all in Iraq, Afghanistan, on "cash for clunkers", on bailing out rich bankers who made bad real estate investments, etc. None of those things are going to get us any return on our investment. Space exploration will.

We could easily fix our economic woes by ending all these money-wasting schemes and wars, downsizing our military (such as by closing the 100+ bases in foreign countries), quadrupling NASA's budget, ending the failed "war on drugs", and then returning the leftover money to the taxpayers in the form of reduced taxes, which will spur more economic activity. Heck, we could even create a healthcare system for not much money that would take care of everyone's health needs, but it would require many things that monied interests won't like: eliminating bad doctors, reducing malpractice insurance and litigation costs, eliminating health insurance companies, etc. The problem is that NONE of these things will be done, because the powers-that-be don't want it, since it would end the gravy train for many people who are living large off our corrupt and bloated system, and our politicians work for them, not for regular Americans.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[WindBourne]

And India is actually quite clean compared to most of developed China. China has the majority of the worse polluted sites in the world and it is increasing exponentially.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[he-sk]

In fact I think a space partnership with China would be disastrous for the United States.

And why would that be? Precedent says otherwise. The US-Soviet cooperation in space probably helped a bit to bring the cold war to an end--to the benefit of both sides.

Also:

They can try all they want. The real question is: do we want them to BE a "leader"?

With that attitude you shouldn't be surprised when you wake up one day and are not asked anymore.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Chris Burke]

Perhaps a poor choice of words, but the meaning was apparant.

Maybe it should be but I still don't understand. How is banks divesting themselves of dollars and thus the value of the dollar decreasing unnatural, in any sense? And I don't mean why is that word being used, I mean please explain to me what the difference is? It sounds to me like one of the actions that should necessarily affect the value of a currency. When you flood the market with a commodity, whether by an institute selling their holdings, or by issuing more, the value should go down. Sorry, I'm confused.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

And who are you, of such moral superiority, to pass judgement on who deserves access to space or not?

Re:You're doing it wrong

[CrimsonAvenger]

Actually, most of our budget is devoted to the basic stuff, so each dollar added at this point is much more impressive than the money we already spend. The Augustine commission stated that adding $3B/year allows us to do a lot more than we do right now.

And a lot of the Chinese budget is devoted to basic stuff.

It should also be noted that the Augustine Commission's recommended $3 billion per year extra was enough to get Orion/Ares done on schedule, and that's all. It'll take more to do anything interesting.

Its hard to know exactly how much the Chinese are spending, but its estimated at around $1.5B -- not too bad. NASA accounts for approximately half of world-wide civilian space spending, so real international cooperation (not degrading and subordinating other countries programs) has the potential for a lot of development.

So, if we had ALL of the Chinese budget, it wouldn't be enough to get Orion/Ares done on time?

But we won't get that much, since much of their budget is spent on basic stuff too. So, they'll add a small fraction of what we need just to maintain a manned space progrem, assuming we get all the benefit from their discretionary spending. Which we won't....

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Nyeerrmm]

Actually, the exact statement is:
* Meaningful human exploration is possible under a less-constrained budget, increasing annual expenditures by approximately $3 billion in real purchasing power above the FY 2010 guidance.
* Funding at the increased level would allow either an exploration program to explore the Moon First or one that follows the Flexible Path. Either could produce significant results in a reasonable timeframe.

And yes, while the Chinese budget isn't enough on its own to achieve the magic $3B Norm and crew recommend, its a lot. By cooperating, they would be able to spend less focusing on basics, and be able to learn from us and gain experience. Throw in some real cooperation with other countries, and its possible to reach that goal. Now, how that cooperation is done is another question -- the best example of international cooperation is the ISS, not exactly a beacon of exploration and efficiency. A true international effort probably depends on a true international agency. All I'm arguing here is that in an era of limited budgets, cooperation can be a big advantage -- the devil, as always, is in the details.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[CrimsonAvenger]

And yes, while the Chinese budget isn't enough on its own to achieve the magic $3B Norm and crew recommend, its a lot.

No, actually it's not a lot. It would be a lot if they just gave us the money. But they won't. So most of their budget will be spent on things that make their administrators happy, not things that'll make our job easier.

By cooperating, they would be able to spend less focusing on basics, and be able to learn from us and gain experience.

Which is why the deal is good for them. Not arguing that. Wondering how the deal is good for US though. If we don't get anything from the deal, why bother doing it?

And frankly, in spite of all the good this'll do the Chinese, I don't see that it'll do anything meaningful for us....

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

You take money from defense and put it into a bloated waste of resources like NASA? Really? "Commercial" exploration of space should be left to people who commercialize, then leave the Defense of the country to the people who are supposed to protect our asses.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Amiga Trombone]

Considering China owns 10% of our debt ($800 billion) I wonder if Obama was made an offer he couldn't refuse.

Heh. That offer would have to be a loan. We sure don't have the money to go anywhere ourselves.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[shadowbearer]

Somehow I don't think the Chinese are crazy enough to try and blackmail a nuclear armed state.

  Nuking China in response to economic blackmail would turn the entire world against the US. I hope that none of our politicians here are that crazy. If there are pols that crazy, we need to lock them up. Immediately.

SB

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Morty]

Reality check: per-capita GDP and income levels are about 10x higher in the US. Consider for a moment that the major cost that each agency faces is in labor. Obviously this is reflected in agency employees and contractor salaries, but also in materials and goods -- most of the cost for an item is the labor to extract or manufacture. In the US, those costs are about 10x higher because US labor costs about 10x more, and aerospace isn't outsourced. So in a very real sense, the reason space costs the US 10x more than the Chinese is because we are paying Americans to do the work.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Miamicanes]

> So in a very real sense, the reason space costs the US 10x more than the Chinese is because we are paying Americans to do the work.

Yeah, but there's a big, huge problem with outsourcing the manufacturing of space gear to China, even if we do the engineering at home: China still hasn't matured to the point where it can reliably guarantee and enforce a specific level of quality. Anyone who's dealt with China's computer industry knows all about parts that aren't just substandard or low-quality... they're substandard, low-quality, and actively go out of their way to masquerade that fact. Post-WWII, Japanese companies made shit... but they were honest about it, and buyers knew exactly what they were getting. And when they got better, everyone knew it, too. The problem with Chinese industry is that they'll make you items that are absolutely flawless... then steadily cut corners in ways you never even thought possible, and do it in ways that aren't easily detectable. Think: melamine-"enriched" food products (melamine's chemical signature mimics gluten) and candy sweetened with antifreeze. Or flash that claims to be 256MB, is really 128MB, and goes a step further by actively data-compressing what it can, and silently overwriting the oldest data when it can't. Or motherboards with outright fake cache ram, and a BIOS that goes out of its way to lie about it. Google "quality fade" for megabytes of articles about it, almost all of which are specific to mainland Chinese industry.

Imagine, for a moment, the political fallout from a dozen American astronauts dying in a space accident caused by some equipment failure where the failing equipment itself actively went out of its way to hide the fact that it was failing... and somehow, NASA were able to forensically prove it after the fact. Americans take for granted that if some component's self-diagnostics say "Everything's OK", well... everything's OK. With current Chinese industrial practices, that kind of blind faith would be deadly.

China's making amazing progress, but it still has a *long* way to go before its industry earns the reputation for absolute quality that companies like Mitsubishi, Rockwell, and Siemens enjoy... the ability to look up the number laser-etched on a single bolt & trace it all the way back to a specific truckload of ore from the mine, with auditable information about everyone who's touched or had anything to do with it along the way.

Need more proof? There are STILL new electronic devices, being made in China *today*, with electrolytic capacitors manufactured with the same defective/formula-sabotaged electrolyte that caused all the "bad cap" problems ~10 years ago. How can this be? Simple -- the capacitors work fine for a year or two, they just tend to be more likely to fail prematurely. Inspect them at the factory, and they look just like capacitors made with the proper formula. By the time they fail, the company that made them is long gone. And of course, the defective electrolyte itself is dirt cheap compared to the real formula...

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. There is no guarantee that an investment in space would pay off. And frankly, if NASA was to be fully funded, I doubt that the folks working at NASA are as motivated as those working on the Apollo missions-- at least in the numbers that would return 700%. I'd rather see them scale back NASA (by firing management); strip it back to the core scientists and engineers that it used to be and streamline its operations. Then put the money into science and r&d programs that are best served by many *smaller* companies. (NASA can still coordinate and participate in r&d as well as act as SETAs, system integrators, etc. IF it can afford to do so efficiently.)

You have to spend money to make money.

Are you in high-school? (Not meant to be an attack, I'm just asking.) This statement is one of the best ways to trigger "bullshit alarms."

Spending on space exploration is an investment in the future, not a sinkhole for money like most wars

Any spending can be a "sinkhole." There is no guarantee that an investment will have positive returns-- even in the loooong run. Warfighters and weapons developers get paid to fight and develop weapons. They then spend the money on Tequila and Xboxes. Sure, it is not contributing to US infrastructure. But the US is not litterally dropping wads of cash on Iraq. And similar to space R&D, defense R&D has commercial applications: GPS, which you mentioned, is one example. It came from defense R&D, not space.

Even now, we have far more money than we need to fully fund NASA. The problem is that we're wasting it all in Iraq, Afghanistan, on "cash for clunkers", on bailing out rich bankers who made bad real estate investments, etc. None of those things are going to get us any return on our investment. Space exploration will.

"We" do *not* have far more money than we need to fully fund NASA. That which is spent on NASA must be carved from tax revenue. And "we" are not all in agreement on how "we" want our taxes dollars spent, or how much "we" want to pay. If the federal governmetn wanted to slash social security and medicare and hand that money over to NASA, I would be all for it. (Both of those programs are projected to be bankrupt by the time I am retirement age. So it's not a very good investment of my tax dollars-- or yours.) But I am absolutely not interested in paying a cent more in federal taxes until they can demonstrate competence, objectivity, and efficiency-- you know, the same things that workers in the private sector have to demonstrate at work.

We could easily fix our economic woes by ending all these money-wasting schemes and wars, downsizing our military (such as by closing the 100+ bases in foreign countries), quadrupling NASA's budget, ending the failed "war on drugs", and then returning the leftover money to the taxpayers in the form of reduced taxes, which will spur more economic activity.

You should google a pie chart displaying how the federal government spends money. The US's economic woes would not be fixed by cutting ALL defense spending. It is the debt and "entitlement" and social security obligations that are going to kill us down the road. Besides, the "war machine" is a large employer of productive people: Scientists, engineering, techs, machininsts, mathematicians, etc. Reducing taxes would probably spur more economic activity according to fiscal conservatives--(I am a fiscal conservative.) With all of the technology that they have now, they should take a survey come tax season, and let people allocate what they have paid in income taxes to "wherever" they want to see the money spent-- just as a survey.

Heck, we could even create a healthcare system for not much money that would take care of everyone's health needs, but it would require many things that monied interests won't like: eliminating bad doctors, reducing malpractice insurance and litigation costs, eliminating health insurance companies, etc.

Bad doctors are already eliminated through

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Jane Q. Public]

"And why would that be? Precedent says otherwise. The US-Soviet cooperation in space probably helped a bit to bring the cold war to an end--to the benefit of both sides."

I hate to break this to you, but China is not the Soviet Union. Not even close. You are comparing apples to oranges.

"With that attitude you shouldn't be surprised when you wake up one day and are not asked anymore."

And what attitude is that? Fact is, we have a lot of influence over China's progress. We do some power to decide. So it is a requiremkent that we ask ourselves this question, not an "attitude".

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Jane Q. Public]

"And who are you, of such moral superiority, to pass judgement on who deserves access to space or not?"

Who said anything about morality? I was referring to practicality. Regardless, as I mentioned to the other poster: we do have some influence over how this progresses. It is morally -- as well as practically -- necessary that we ask ourselves this question.

And as for the last part, I am not passing judgment, simply giving my opinion. I am rather flattered that you feel I have the power to pass such judgment. Maybe next time I will.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[damasterwc]

cancel the bailout, screw the financial speculators, and invest in the REAL economy! wallstreet != "growth engine"... whoever invented that needs to be shot. the real growth engine is when we have millions of high paying, blue collar, industrial jobs... we CAN have this, but we need to have a very well funded space program... we basically need to make a declaration that we are going to industrialize the moon, develop fusion power, and colonize mars... make a 50 year plan and fully fund it. ... for every $1 invested in apollo we made $15 back as of 25 years ago, who knows how much we've made back as of today. but to put it in raw dollar terms like that, even tho it was "profitable" (for those simple minded people who only see dollars) is a disgrace because we have much more value that you cannot put dollar values on... it inspired an entire generation to want to go into science and engineering... it really lifted the human spirit to be able to think in terms of being able to accomplish the impossible. so in short, f*ck london and wallstreet, the bankers can go to hell, and we want advanced technology to be properly funded!!!

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

"(i.e. tonnes per sq. km)"
If you want to move all the dirty jobs to Greenland, just say it. Russia and Canada will thank you greatly too.

What I'm saying is that it is easy to reduce carbon emissions and make your air clean, just buy things that are dirty to make else where. This is how most nations cleaned up. This will be how China clean up. (As it is now the factory of the world, but their living standers will be higher than factory robots.) There are still a lot of poorer virgins looking for some cash. (In the real world, the poor don't have obligations. In your proposal, the low populated have no obligations)

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it is really very easy. Any action that serves a Democrat or liberal agenda is "artificial". Any action that serves a Republican or conservative agenda is "natural". Tadaa.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[WindBourne]

Actually, both Russia and Canada pollute a lot more than you realize. Keep in mind that they have lots of coal plants and are up north. Though with that said, they are about 1/2 of America, but they are more than Australia (much smaller population in a nearly as large area as Canada). However, I suspect that both Russia and Canada can absorb a lot of jobs and not show the effect since they both have undeveloped hydro capabilities.

You are correct about moving the jobs elsewhere to clean up. That has happened far too much too the west. But, what is needed is to put pressure on all countries that have large emissions. It will either cause the jobs to move (which will drop the emissions), or it will cause that location to change their approach. For example, China might suddenly work hard to put Solar Thermal on their coal plants. For most of the west, we have much cleaner coal than china (apparently, they have some of the worst coal in the world), but our plants are older and less efficient. This would encourage change up to newer more efficient plants along with solar thermal/geo-thermal.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

And again, you're implying that it's for the US to decide whether or not China should lead the race back into space, and that--as you previously said--it should be contingent on how they structure their society. You're also assuming that it's the Chinese who are seeking help from the Americans in getting into space, and that the US has leverage over them in doling out technology and assistance.

The Chinese are perfectly capable of running their own space program. They've launched dozens of satellites to date, not to mention two manned missions. NASA, on the other hand, is in such a mess over Ares, the Space Shuttle and general funding issues that they will likely have a coming gap of several years with no lift capability whatsoever.

So, it's the US that will soon need China and Russia for basic access to space. (It's already a common arrangement for American astronauts to hitch rides on Soyuz to get to the ISS.) And you can't blame China or Russia for engineering this situation out of malice: it's really NASA ineptitude, exacerbated by a decades-long lack of coherent American space strategy.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[GargamelSpaceman]

Why do we want ignorant hordes goaded into spending our money on useless humans-in-space endeavors?

Better to spend the money on useful space science than to piss it away on humans-in-space.

Anyway, the humans-in-space race was about learning to build decent ICBMs. I don't think anyone seriously doubted China had the capability to produce decent ICBMs, but having put humans in space proves they do indeed have that capability. Yay for China. I hope ( for China's sake ) that they don't feel that they must put people on the moon to belabor the point. If they want national pride, spend the money discovering something interesting and cool, and NEW. Then it will go down in history FOREVER that the Chinese discovered it. Now there's a monument that will never fall down. And the best part is the whole world gets the benefit of the knowledge.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[lgw]

Part of the dollar's value - it's "natural" value, if you will - comes from the strength of America's industry, like any other currency. Part of the dollar's value comes from the fact that it is hoarded as a reserve currency by the central banks (and many individuals) of other countries - something that was unique to the dollar until the euro emerged. The difference can be important, as the dollar can fall in circumstances when any other currency would rise, and vice versa. This also exaggerates any percieved weakness in the dollar, as not only do you get the "natural" fall in its value, you get the add-on effect of central banks shifting defensively to more gold and euros, and less dollars. Of course the distinction is arbitrary, much like deciding that nuclear reactor are less "natural" than beaver dams is arbitrary.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Grishnakh]

I disagree. There is no guarantee that an investment in space would pay off.

There's no guarantee for any investment, but I feel pretty certain any investment in NASA would pay off better than the great bank bail-out.

And frankly, if NASA was to be fully funded, I doubt that the folks working at NASA are as motivated as those working on the Apollo missions-- at least in the numbers that would return 700%. I'd rather see them scale back NASA (by firing management); strip it back to the core scientists and engineers that it used to be and streamline its operations.

Yes, going through their upper management with a fine-toothed comb would probably be a good idea. Of course, that goes for any large company, but at least with NASA, since it's under direct government control, that's possible. Of course, with our corrupt government, there's not much chance they'd actually put good people in charge, rather than incompetent people like FEMA's Michael Brown (this goes for any administration; Obama and Bush are just as guilty).

Then put the money into science and r&d programs that are best served by many *smaller* companies. (NASA can still coordinate and participate in r&d as well as act as SETAs, system integrators, etc. IF it can afford to do so efficiently.)

Actually, this is completely normal. Even in the Apollo era, they did this; lots of the components were made by other private companies, like Rocketdyne, which supplied the F-1 and J-2 rocket engines for Apollo. You didn't think that NASA made everything for Apollo, did you? These days, they'd probably send a lot of the work to Orbital.

"We" do *not* have far more money than we need to fully fund NASA.

Sure we do. We've spent over a trillion dollars in Iraq. If we spend that instead on NASA, there wouldn't be anyone complaining about the budget there. That's hundreds of times larger than NASA's budget.

I'm not saying we have the extra money laying around; I'm saying the money is there, it's just being wasted on stupid things like wars to prop up corrupt dictators like Karzai, and a bloated military with hundreds of bases around the world to "protect" us from the Soviets, who no longer exist.

If the federal governmetn wanted to slash social security and medicare and hand that money over to NASA, I would be all for it.

So you'd be OK with keeping FICA taxes, but sending it somewhere else? You do realize that Medicare and SS don't come out of regular income taxes, don't you? And what about all the people who paid into SS over the years and now suddenly get nothing? That's just plain dishonest.

But I am absolutely not interested in paying a cent more in federal taxes until they can demonstrate competence, objectivity, and efficiency-- you know, the same things that workers in the private sector have to demonstrate at work.

You mean like the workers at Enron, UBS, Countrywide, Fannie Mae, and General Motors? Sorry, this sounds like the pot calling the kettle black.

I'm not advocating paying a cent more in federal taxes; we pay too much as it is. The problem is that it's all wasted on things like quagmire wars, bridges to nowhere, and bailing out failing companies with bad management. As I said before, if we cut out all the wasteful spending, we could easily quadruple NASA's budget (much of which would go to private companies like Orbital for developing equipment), and STILL get a GIANT tax reduction.

The US's economic woes would not be fixed by cutting ALL defense spending.

It would go a long way towards fixing it.

It is the debt and "entitlement" and social security obligations that are going to kill us down the road.

SS sucks, but it's only about 3% of your paycheck (it's part of the FICA tax). It doesn't even come out of your regular IRS taxes, in theory. And as I understand it, Federal welfare was cut way back in the Clinton years. There's still a lot of welfare spending, but I believe it's m

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Jane Q. Public]

And again, you're implying that it's for the US to decide whether or not China should lead the race back into space, and that--as you previously said--it should be contingent on how they structure their society. You're also assuming that it's the Chinese who are seeking help from the Americans in getting into space, and that the US has leverage over them in doling out technology and assistance.

Whoa... who is doing the assuming here? Did I write any of that, anywhere? I will thank you to not try to put words in my mouth.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem was that we decided instead to waste it on other things, namely "defense". And weren't the original Mercury and Apollo rockets either retrofitted or based on DoD rockets? DoD spending as % of GDP hasn't really changed must since WWII.

Sure there's a balance, but you can't discount the whole in order to promote a piece.

Re:You're doing it wrong

[Epi-man]

It is the debt and "entitlement" and social security obligations that are going to kill us down the road.

SS sucks, but it's only about 3% of your paycheck (it's part of the FICA tax). It doesn't even come out of your regular IRS taxes, in theory. And as I understand it, Federal welfare was cut way back in the Clinton years. There's still a lot of welfare spending, but I believe it's mostly at the State and local levels. Don't live in California and it shouldn't be that big a problem.

You obviously didn't listen to grandparent poster when they told you Google federal spending. If I take the federal government budget for 2009 and look at the total DoD spending it only comes to 21% of the budget. Conveniently that matches pretty well with Social Security spending. You seem to want to exclude that since "it's part of the FICA tax," which comes no where close to covering its (projected) cost. If federal welfare was cut way back, why is it still the single largest part of the federal budget, and we haven't even started including Medicare, Medicaid, and all the other welfare programs?

Misquote

[Anonymous Coward]

'I am perfectly willing, if that's the direction that comes to me, to engage the Chinese in trying to make them a partner in any space endeavor.'

Should read:

'I am perfectly willing, if that's the direction that comes to me, to engage the Chinese in trying to make them a banker in any space endeavor.'

Am I missing something?

[proslack]

Sounds like a fantastic way to supply China with even more classified advanced US technology.

Re:Am I missing something?

[Tablizer]

Sounds like a fantastic way to supply China with even more classified advanced US technology.

Space rocket technology has been around since the late 50's. It's not like there's any major secrets, and if there is, we simply don't include those in designs, doing it the older way. Plus, they probably already have Soviet designs, which have proved more reliable than our stuff. In fact, many of our satellite rockets use engines purchased from Russia.
   

Re:Am I missing something?

[proslack]

It isn't just "space rocket technology". Radar, communications, avionics, tracking, gps, life support, $100 billion (today's dollars) of lessons learned from the Apollo program to say nothing of the Shuttle program. There's plenty of info they'd love to have. The point is: why not just NOT cut NASA's budget and do it in-house? Would you want to fly on a joint US-China spacecraft? Lost in Space Translation indeed.

Re:Am I missing something?

[rahvin112]

Just a slight clarification, in todays dollars the Apollo program cost $300 Billion. It also caused the microchip to be invented along with hundreds of other game changing inventions.

Re:Am I missing something?

[Tablizer]

in todays dollars Apollo program cost $300 Billion. It also caused the microchip to be invented along with hundreds of other game changing inventions.

The microchip was invented before Apollo. Apollo did inject funds into the industry when few other manufacturers seemed interested, I will agree.

     

Re:Am I missing something?

[DerekLyons]

Space rocket technology has been around since the late 50's. It's not like there's any major secrets

Actually, there are. Not so much military type secrets, but trade secrets and proprietary processes. Rocketry is still very much an art, as everyone from Armadillo to SpaceX is discovering. We haven't had that many design generations, and total flight experience is pretty low overall.
 

they probably already have Soviet designs, which have proved more reliable than our stuff.

That's what the urban legend would have you believe - but it's utterly false. The difference in reliability between American and Russian vehicles is statistically insignificant. (And the Soyuz capsule in particular has the questionable tendency to break just enough to ride the ragged edge between survival and loss of crew...)

Re:Am I missing something?

[Tablizer]

But we don't have to use the very latest or most sensitive technology during a shared mission. The 60's technology worked fine, for example.
     

Re:Am I missing something?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes you are missing something. The microchip, and a lot of the technological advances attributed to space exploration, were actually invented for use in ICBMs.

Re:Am I missing something?

[Comatose51]

Compared to how we've helped them by deporting this supposed "Communist" rocket scientist, this is going to be peanuts.

Re:Am I missing something?

[MightyMartian]

Oh come on. China has missiles. China has advanced guidance systems. That's in part because of the Soviets and in part because they've done so well at stealing US secrets already.

Re:Am I missing something?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, that was *54* years ago. Do you have anything more recent to contribute?

Re:Am I missing something?

[AndersOSU]

This is the second comment I've seen indicating that the Chinese have received substantial technological help from the soviets. If this is true, could some one point me towards a link that has some details. I was under the impression that Mao and Stalin really, really didn't like each other, and from about Nixon on, the US and China have had closer relations than USSR and China.

I know, for instance, that a good percentage of the weaponry used against the Russians in Afghanistan was Chinese made - typically you don't share advanced military tech with countries that are supplying militaries that are fighting against you.

Re:Am I missing something?

[MightyMartian]

After Mao booted Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists off of Mainland China, the Soviets sent oodles of technicians to China. The Chinese atomic program, in particular, was pretty much imported. But by then end of the 1950s, the relationship heavily soured. The reasons are complex, but in large part seemed to be over border issues but in large part because of Khrushchev's de-Stalinification process, which Mao viewed as foolish (you'll note that China has never really did anything on that level with Mao, admitting a few errors, but never going to the extent that Khrushchev did). At any rate, between 1949 and 1956, when the split between the Soviets and Chinese happened, the USSR invested considerably in China, wanting to assure that the PRC wouldn't be overwhelmed by a Nationalist surge with Western support.

Re:Am I missing something?

[0123456]

The microchip, and a lot of the technological advances attributed to space exploration, were actually invented for use in ICBMs.

No they weren't.

Apollo and ICBMs provided much of the incentive to mass-produce ICs, but they weren't 'invented for use in ICBMs'.

Re:Am I missing something?

[Nethemas the Great]

When did we start inventing stuff again? I thought we ended that fad back in the 60's. Last I knew we bought our innovations from S. Korea, our cheap from China, and our government mandated U.S. goods from local companies that out-source to Mexico.

Re:Am I missing something?

[mister_playboy]

China has made huge leaps in the military sector recently by working with Russian design bureaus who desperately need a strong export market to stay afloat. In the past, the USSR sold "monkey model" versions of their tanks and planes for export, but these days, Russian companies like Sukhoi work closely with clients such as China, India, Pakistan, and Venezuela (even Israel is in negotiations) to produce customized versions of their wares tailored to the needs of each client. The export program for the Su-3X series of fighters and strike aircraft, for example, has been a great success with license production happening alongside the original Russian assembly.

There is a huge market of willing buyers for the technology that powered the former Soviet war machine.

Re:Am I missing something?

[laddiebuck]

Oops, I got a reading on the ol' meter here:

The microchip was invented by a British scientist at the Ministry of Defence in 1952. It was first built by scientists at Texas Instruments and Fairchild Semiconductor, independently, in 1958. Nothing to do with Apollo. Technically a government's money in the inventing phase, but nothing to do with -- and way before -- Apollo.

Re:Am I missing something?

[rahvin112]

Ok, didn't technically invent, but name an industry that was even interested in the IC until NASA came calling with buckets of money and need for a computer that could calculate burn rates and trajectories on the fly while millions of miles from earth when the best calculators in service were called slide rules. Yes the IC was invented before Apollo, but be honest, no one even cared until Apollo demonstrated the capability of IC's and NASA has spent billions creating the IC industry from scratch.

Re:Am I missing something?

[Anonymous Coward]

in todays dollars Apollo program cost $300 Billion. It also caused the microchip to be invented along with hundreds of other game changing inventions.

The microchip was invented before Apollo. Apollo did inject funds into the industry when few other manufacturers seemed interested, I will agree.

   

I see your "microchip", and raise you "rechargeable hand-held cordless power tools".

In the 1960's NASA was the only organization interested funding development of cordless power tools, because of the extra mass and volume electrical cords would have, as well as managing the cords making work in micro and low-gravity environments even more cumbersome. I'm sure most people back then would have loved to have the rechargeable tool that is hanging in your garage/tool shed, but private industry wasn't willing to do the research into batteries that would enable such things (and also indirectly help some of the development of batteries for portable electronics). The tool companies already produced hand-held electric power tools, just corded ones. There attitude was "Why should they invest a fortune in something that might not pay-off in a decade or more?"

I'm not saying that if it wasn't for NASA's Apollo program we wouldn't have some version of these tools by now. However, we certainly wouldn't have had them in the 80's and therefore they'd be at least 20 years more primitive in terms of capabilities than they are today. That's the kind of value NASA funding can yield. It accelerates development of not just rocket technology, but also all sorts of ancillary technology necessary to achieve their exploration goals.

Re:Am I missing something?

[laddiebuck]

Gunlaying and guidance-systems. Face it, military work down on Earth prompted the development of most of those technologies, because the needs of warfare are greater than the needs of spacefaring. Sad but true right now.

Worst Idea going

[Anonymous Coward]

China has been leaching the west dry. They have their money fixed against the American dollar and it is designed to take down all of the western nations. Even here, China will only use this technology to improve their forthcoming multiple military only space station. China treats the west in the same fashion that USSR did in 1946-1955; as a place to steal from.

Hopefully, Obama is smarter than to do this.

Re:Worst Idea going

[Shakrai]

Hopefully, Obama is smarter than to do this.

Yeah right. Obama is just as addicted to "cheap" Chinese money as every other jackass politician (Republican and Democrat) we've had in recent memory. Cutting that supply off would require us to actually made hard choices about taxes and spending. Such choices might actually have consequences at the ballot box. We wouldn't want that to happen, now would we?

I had hoped that Obama would be an actual leader willing to make hard choices but he's just another empty suit that's ignoring reality in favor of catering to his base and pushing his agenda. Don't worry though, we can't ignore economic reality indefinitely. If you think the economic crisis last year was serious just wait until the ponzi scheme that is the US->Chinese economic relationship actually blows up. I hope you've stockpiled as much ammo, canned food and greenbacks (gotta burn something to keep warm) as possible.

Re:Worst Idea going

[AndersOSU]

knee-jerk cold war thinking.

Just because China is nominally communist, doesn't mean they're trying to destroy the west. Obviously China is more concerned with Chinese growth than US growth, but there is such a thing as win-win. With all the free-traders around here, I'd think that was a given...

China can't build modern war planes or modern subs - what makes you think they can build a useful military space station?

Re:Worst Idea going

[sep0209]

I'd be more concerned about guidance systems than space stations.

Do we really want the Chinese in space?

[Rei]

All they're going to do is put lead in it...

Re:Do we really want the Chinese in space?

[Sponge Bath]

All they're going to do is put lead in it...

There is a nationalist cry for us to rally around:
"Let's get the lead out in our quest for space!"

Re:Do we really want the Chinese in space?

[maxwell demon]

All they're going to do is put lead in it...

Well, how else would they become the leading nation in space?

Chinese requirements

[maxwell demon]

• Communication with the space ships has to be filtered by the Great Firewall.
• All flights are done with cheap Chinese copies of NASA rockets

Re:Chinese requirements

[morgan_greywolf]

• Communication with the space ships has to be filtered by the Great Firewall.
• All flights are done with cheap Chinese copies of Russian rockets
• Rocket vendor shall be WalMart Corporation
• Astronauts not to be tested for melamine or lead poisoning

Re:Chinese requirements

[lazylocomotives]

Actually, the Chinese are spending a lot of money on an (extremely interesting) adaption of the RUSSIAN Soyuz. The Soyuz missions have lost 4 Russian cosmonauts over 120 missions while the US has lost, what, 14 astronauts over 120 missions to the ISS? It's a little strange that NASA is suddenly saying this I admit, but I wouldn't be so quick to make fun.

Re:Chinese requirements

[jameskojiro]

Instead of de-orbiting the ISS, trade it tot he Chinese for some Debt write offs....

Re:Chinese requirements

[dtml-try MyNick]

• All flights are done with cheap Chinese copies of NASA rockets

Actually I think that is one of the main problems of today's space programs. Especially NASA's.

They are so hung op on the quadrupal redundant, 99.9999999999% safe and fail-proof flights that the costs to achieve such goals are way out of balance with the goal that needs to be achieved.

Fuck the almost 100% guarantee that nothing can go wrong
I'll settle for 90% if that means 10x more exploration.
Yes, rockets will explode, astronauts will die. So what? All in the day's job...

"there is a small chance you might die on your next mission, sign here please"
Not much difference compared to joining the army or something alike.

Re:Chinese requirements

[lazylocomotives]

Well, I don't know if that's right. Russia has less money for space than even the Chinese, but the Soyuz is one of the most reliable, if not the most reliable spacecrafts out there.

Re:Chinese requirements

[RiotingPacifist]

Maybe it's just marketing, but isn't the fact that the space shuttle can be reused advantageous? Better pre launch testing can make it safer, but AFAIK nothing can be done to the Soyuz to make it reusable. It seams to me that the space shuttle has more of a future to it than Soyuz, but that's just a fealing i can't really justify 10 more deaths just because the shuttle can land again.

Re:Chinese requirements

[lazylocomotives]

As far as I know, there's not REALLY such a thing as a reusable spacecraft - they CALL it that, but really what they mean is that they can keep replacing its parts and such, which is pretty costly anyway. If I remember right, NASA has spent way more on the ISS and such, anyway. It's actually kind of ridiculous when you think about it! Don't take my word for it though, I'm pretty much just a kid with a strong interest in this stuff - I'm not an expert (yet!).

Re:Chinese requirements

[mirix]

That's because Russians make stuff that *just works*. Might not be so polished; but cheap and reliable... AK-47, T-34, IL-2, Soyuz, etc.
It runs on kerosene FFS.

Why not team up with Russia?

[JoeSchmoe007]

Not to diminish China's achievement, but Russia is definitely way ahead of them or anyone else. Plus AFAIK China's space technology is mostly licensed from Russia. Is politics getting in the way? Well then doesn't it make even more sense to team with Russia since they are now significantly "less communist" than China (even if mass media may not reflect that)?

Re:Why not team up with Russia?

[JoeSchmoe007]

Well I posted and then possibly partially answered my own question: probably because Russia doesn't have money and China does? On the other hand wouldn't expertise be just as important or even more important?

Re:Why not team up with Russia?

[WindBourne]

Actually, much of China's Russian tech was NOT licensed. Much of it was out and out stolen according to Russia.

However, we are already talking to all of the ISS partners on future space missions. That esp. includes Russia and ESA.

Finally, neither USSR nor China have ever been communist. They were totalitarian states, with command economy. China remains a totalitarian state, but with about a mix of command and capitalist economies. For example, Chinese gov. still tells all of the major companies what they will do with regard to buying and selling lines of business; recently, Chinese gov. was shooting down a company that was to buy GM's Hummer line.

Re:Why not team up with Russia?

[DerekLyons]

Well, it does really boil down to politics. NASA is willing to team with China because the Administration is bullish on China. NASA is unwilling to team with Russia because Congress doesn't want to because of Russia's violation of various technology transfer treaties. (Congress is currently making noises about not renewing or canceling the special dispensation that allows NASA astronauts to fly on Soyuz.)

The basic technology for the Chinese program did originally come from Russia, but they've gone considerably beyond that now. However, real the problem is that China doesn't actually appear to be interested in much more than the "Potemkin village" program they currently have. They spend just enough and fly just enough and try just enough that they appear to have a space program (a modern hallmark of a 'Great Nation', as battlewagons were back before WWII) but no more. Sure, China produces a lot of press releases and Brave Pronunciations Of Grand Goals In Space... But there doesn't seem to ever be much in the way of actual progress. (Though it does keep columnists and bloggers busy pandering to the easily excitable demographic.)

Re:Why not team up with Russia?

[Grishnakh]

China remains a totalitarian state, but with about a mix of command and capitalist economies. For example, Chinese gov. still tells all of the major companies what they will do with regard to buying and selling lines of business

That sounds a lot like the USA these days.

Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's outsource the ****ing space program too.

Re:Sure

[Tablizer]

Let's outsource the ****ing space program too.

Why should rocket scientists be spared the "pleasure" of being offshored? Equal Opportunity Fu%%age. If every profession is touched, then voters may finally start to care about the effects of lopsided trade.
     

Re:Sure

[Nadaka]

Lets outsource national defense! Much higher opportunities to cut costs there.

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

We already do. It's called every other nation's pathetic attempt at not blowing themselves up just because "that's what they've been doing since the dawn of time". We then have to mobilize our defense to fill in the holes everywhere else.

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because Blackwater and such groups have such a good name in the international community for their even-handed techniques. Btw, your average Mercenary makes scads more than your average government owned grunt.

One of the crazy arguments people were pissed off about Bush (yes I refer to the overwhelmingly liberal fluffwits on slashdot) was that America pays often well in excess of $100,000 per mercenary in the security services, where our average soldier makes less than $30k/year.

Now here those same people come pissed off that we don't use more mercenaries. Do you people pay attention at all to what your stances were a year ago?

Re:Sure

[Nadaka]

What? I think my post was a lot better when it was modded +3 funny, now that it is +4 insightful it brings out the wack jobs.

Here is a hint, it was a joke. Because the idea of outsourcing our national defense to china is so absurd its funny. I would rather my joke stay a joke than get the karma boost.

Real Danger is avoiding rockets

[gurps_npc]

The quiet truth is that China has the rare opportunity to leapfrog ahead of the US.

Frankly, their rocket science is not up to our par. Instead of investing in rocket science they could ignore it and go right to Space Fountain. Cheaper in the long run.

The scientific basics are sound, they have the tibetan plateau (great place to build most space industries as it is has huge flat areas that are 5,000 meters above sea level), and they don't have to deal with an entrenched existing industry that doesn't want the competition. Yes, no one has built more than the most rudimentary test version, but the theory says it will work without the scientific advancements in materials that the space elevator needs.

The only thing protecting the US's space advantage is the inherent conservativism that all dictatorships develop. Their government actively discourages independent thinking so instead of trying to build something new, they will most likely stick with the old style rocket technology that the US has already proven to work.

Re:Real Danger is avoiding rockets

[Tablizer]

The only thing protecting the US's space advantage is the inherent conservativism that all dictatorships develop. Their government actively discourages independent thinking so instead of trying to build something new, they will most likely stick with the old style rocket technology that the US has already proven to work.

Ironically, we actually needed that thinking before NASA selected the shuttle. If we extended Apollo instead of bolted for the weird shuttle, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now. And probably fewer dead astronauts.
         

Re:Real Danger is avoiding rockets

[CrimsonAvenger]

If we extended Apollo instead of bolted for the weird shuttle, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now. And probably fewer dead astronauts.

Apollo had one loss-of-crew accident in about 13 flights. That's about 7%.

Shuttle had two loss-of-crew accidents in about 125 flights. That's about 1.6%.

So, what's the basis for believing we'd probably have fewer dead astronauts if we'd stuck to Apollo?

Re:Real Danger is avoiding rockets

[Tablizer]

But that was during testing, and thus carries much less weight. Plus, the capsule concept *in general* has been road tested by the Russians also. The shuttle has a known problem area: ice-chunks hitting the tiles. It's a design flaw that is difficult to work around. Apollo had no known significant and hard-to-fix design flaw.

FIREFLY

[cadience]

hmmm maybe Josh had it right! Ching-wah tsao duh liou mahng.

Re:FIREFLY

[sv_libertarian]

Dang! you beat me to it. LOL. This was the first thought that crossed my mind when I saw the article.

Re:FIREFLY

[Chris Burke]

hmmm maybe Josh had it right! Ching-wah tsao duh liou mahng.

So you're suggesting that our space-faring culture will be heavily influenced by our cooperation with the Chinese, but that we'll screw them over somehow before the great migration, so there won't actually be any Chinese people in the new solar system?

Could happen, could happen.

Re:FIREFLY

[Grishnakh]

Don't be ridiculous. There were plenty of Chinese-descent people in the new solar system. They were on the inner worlds, which weren't shown very much in the series. The "Independents" who moved to the outer worlds were of course mostly American-descent, since independence and frontier living is much more rooted in their culture.

Also, I believe if you read the official website, the inner worlds are divided into mostly Chinese and mostly American, since the (Sino-Anglo) Alliance is just that: an alliance, not a union. And of course, the show's/movie's characters, when they did visit an inner world, went to one of the Anglo worlds where people mostly spoke English.

Re:FIREFLY

[Chris Burke]

Ah, so there are people of Chinese descent in the 'verse, you just wouldn't know it from actually watching the show. Got it.

I kid, because I love. ;)

Don't be ridiculous.

[Rei]

As if we have any classified advanced US technology China doesn't already have.

Re:Don't be ridiculous.

[proslack]

Given the nature of their military equipment, I'd say there's plenty they don't have yet. No need to hand it to them on a platter.

Re:Don't be ridiculous.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure their hardware is 20 years behind, but they are closing the gap rapidly and at a far lower cost than we spent to develop the gap. They are putting less emphasis on developing their own technology than simply stealing it from other nations. China also happens to be very close to or even ahead of the US in IT warfare.

Re:Don't be ridiculous.

[RiotingPacifist]

Just because they haven't got a modern military doesn't mean they don't already have the plans, there is a big difference between having the designs to a Bugatti Veyron and being able to make one.

Re:Don't be ridiculous.

[GodfatherofSoul]

Be serious, China can't even manufacture a car that won't disintegrate on impact.

Really,

[Anonymous Coward]

What could possibly go wong?

Ummm...?

[PirateBlis]

Sooooo our shuttles AREN'T going to have "Made in China" on the bottom?

By all means

[iamacat]

Space missions are non-contraversial, expensive and a perfect way for a country to show off its might without killing anyone in the process. It's a perfect case to cooperate with any country, friendly or hostile, that has the resources to contribute. Soviet-US joint missions were pretty much the norm during cold war. I don't see any reason to leave out China, Iran or North Korea if they are willing to contribute money and talent.

Re:By all means

[sconeu]

So about 3 missions (ASTP and maybe a couple of visits to Mir) out of 80-100 missions was the norm?

Disclaimer: I don't know the exact number of Shuttle=>Mir missions, nor have I counted the total number of space missions. I am making what I believe to be reasonable guesses as to the entire total of manned US and Soviet missions between 1961 and 1991.

Re:By all means

[sconeu]

Follow up.

OK, According to NASA, there were 18 Shuttle/Mir missions. However, none of them occurred prior to 1991. Therefore ASTP was the only Soviet-US joint mission.

US Manned Space Missions from 1961-1991:
* Mercury - 6
* Gemini - 10
* Apollo - 11
* Skylab - 3
* ASTP - 1
* Shuttle - 44 (per Wikipedia)

Soviet Space Missions from 1961-1991 (per Wikipiedia, includes ASTP): 66

That gives 141 missions. So out of 141 manned missions before the fall of the Soviet Union (your timeframe: "during cold war"), exactly 1 (or 2, depending how many times you count ASTP) were joint.

Would you care to explain how 1 out of 141 is the norm?

Re:By all means

[Shakrai]

I don't see any reason to leave out China, Iran or North Korea if they are willing to contribute money and talent.

Iran and North Korea? Are you fucking serious? You do realize that space launchers have other applications, right?

Re:By all means

[iamacat]

Who is saying anything about telling other people how to build space launchers or paying them money for that purpose. But if they just happen to develop the technology themselves, why not cooperate on scientific research that doesn't have immediate military use. Whom are they going to blow up with Hubble?

Re:By all means

[Shakrai]

But if they just happen to develop the technology themselves

Yeah, and if dolphins crawl out of the oceans and master fire we can partner with them as well....

Re:By all means

[RiotingPacifist]

There is however a lot of tech that can't be weaponized, the shuttle for example isn't going to be used as a fighter plane any time soon (in fact most of it's design principles are the opposite of those used when designing fighter planes). Cooperation on non-military parts of the space mission wouldn't be hard, let them put a few scientists on the ISS, etc in exchange for funding and cooperation in other areas, try using the carrot instead of just the stick

Re:By all means

[Grishnakh]

It's easy: we can (assuming they actually have any ability to contribute) have them work on things like satellites, robot arms, parts for moon bases, etc., and we can contribute and control the launchers. We wouldn't give them access to that technology; we'd just let them hitch a ride.

Re:By all means

[daath93]

Or we could understand that nomatter how much we suck their dick, they dont like westerners at a cultural level that cant be fixed!

Re:By all means

[Grishnakh]

Actually, I don't think that's really true for Iran. Many of the people there aren't that bad (unlike the Arab countries to their west), but their government is a bunch of assholes. Obviously, there's enough jerks in the population to keep the government in power, but I don't think it's nearly as bad there as in countries like Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Iraq, etc. People in those countries will spit on you if you're an American visiting. Or, if you're a female, they'll masturbate on you (this really happened to someone my wife knew). My wife visited Morocco many years ago with some other Americans and the natives were banging on the bus, yelling insults, etc. Really a nasty bunch of people.

Anyway, I only made my post under the assumption that those countries really would want to work together on a space program, just for the sake of discussion. I think North Korea or Iran (with their present government) are about as likely to engage in that as pink unicorns are to fly out of Ahmedinijad's ass.

Re:By all means

[Anonymous Coward]

GP status: told.

Re:Just 10%?

[Akido37]

They haven't done anything really interesting in manned flight in almost 40 years, and until we invent warp drives, manned exploration will continue to be a waste of tome and money.

How do you expect this to happen without funding NASA?

Re:Just 10%?

[Tablizer]

The unmanned exploration is mostly useless. Nobody other than soil scientists care whether the crust of Mars is 27.6% silica or 27.7& silica.

Hogwash. A good remote-bot sample-return program could cover more areas than humans for roughly 1/4 the cost.
   

Duh

[hatemonger]

If this surprises you, then I would argue that you haven't been paying attention to the state of science in America. At least China isn't wasting its time arguing over evolution or fretting that the LHC will kill us all.

Ah! China gets tech knowledge for free!

[meburke]

We are going to give away technical knowledge with military and commercial value to China without them having to spend the high costs of research or espionage. Has anyone read, "The Asian Mind Game" by Chin Ning Chu? http://www.amazon.com/Asian-Mind-Game-Chin-ning-Chu/dp/0892563524 This, and many similar books show the strategies that China and Japan have been using to create dominant positions internationally. China will never be a "full participant" but will always be glad to accept any knowledge we can give them.

we should team up with Canada and Mexico

[Joe The Dragon]

we should team up with Canada and Mexico

Re:we should team up with Canada and Mexico

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about Mexico but up here in Canada we're too busy dealing with the massive igloo manufacturing fraud to partake in any space adventures.

Re:we should team up with Canada and Mexico

[Yvan256]

Canadians are always prepared to give a helping hand in space programs.

Re:we should team up with Canada and Mexico

[Tablizer]

we should team up with Canada and Mexico

Nah, Canada's only interested in flat icy moons for hockey, and Mexican astronauts keep shifting off to other planets in the middle of the night.
   

Re:we should team up with Canada and Mexico

[Anonymous Coward]

Canadians are always prepared to give a helping hand in space programs.

Maybe so, but they're whiney little assholes.

Fuck the disingenuous Canucks; they can have their shuttle arm. At least we know where we stand with the Chinese.

Re:we should team up with Canada and Mexico

[stagg]

Unfortunately the Canadian sled-dog training program for this fell apart when the recruits heard about what happened to Laika.

Re:we should team up with Canada and Mexico

[denis-The-menace]

we did it for the moon landings.

Our Avro engineers needed a job.

Re:we should team up with Canada and Mexico

[Gryle]

Makes sense. My map shows Canada's farther up than we are, which obviously makes them closer to space, right? :)

Re:we should team up with Canada and Mexico

[Grishnakh]

You've got to be kidding. Canada might be able to contribute some things, but Mexico can't contribute anything besides drug cartels. Teaming up with Mexico on a technological pursuit makes about as much sense as teaming up with Amazon jungle tribes or African bushmen. The country has no technological ability to speak of; their only technology is foreign owned and operated factories that they use Mexicans as manual labor for.

Re:we should team up with Canada and Mexico

[Anonymous Coward]

i thought it was more like a robotic arm...

space station's arm is canadian

Re:we should team up with Canada and Mexico

[Anonymous Coward]

Self-aware woosh?

There is a solution

[downix]

There are NASA engineers which have the solution, which can work even with a reduced budget. They call it DIRECT. Rather than sink tens of billions into R&D, they adapt the existing Space Shuttles systems into a launch vehicle. The Shuttles R&D costs were paid for decades ago. The new systems are well within the realm of "relatively simple" as far as rockets go. It could be ready within a few years, and can operate within even a reduced budget realm.

The alternative is to modify the Department of Defences EELV vehicles, Delta and Atlas, but we all know how much the DoD likes having their babies played with.

Re:There is a solution

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying use existing knowledge, experience and preivous R&D work to create a future solution?

That's blasphemy!!!

That's thinking common sense (the auto has been doing it since the invention of the V8 engine), but with the politicians and researchers running the NASA show, it's a game of reinventing the same thing to add cash to someone's state or elevate someone's ego/CV.

Noo....

[Anonymous Coward]

But they ARE wasting their time trying to parse the internet so the "loyal" populace don't get any funny ideas about human rights or democracy, sexual freedom, religious freedom,( basically the things the rest of the world believe in).In the end, this will become a VERY bad decision.

Stereotype Obligatory

[Tablizer]

The problem with Chinese missions is that you feel like going back up just a few hours after landing.

We're Never Going to Mars...

[pegasustonans]

If Obama cuts NASA's budget by ten percent. No matter where you stand on the issue, we're not even going to have anything to debate anymore if a budget cut goes through.

While I understand those who advocate robotic-only exploration, a budget cut is truly a sad scenario for all concerned.

Re:We're Never Going to Mars...

[Yvan256]

It's better this way, Mars ice is infected, the Doctor told us so.

Re:We're Never Going to Mars...

[stagg]

Now while I agree that there MAY not be much direct benefit from a Mars mission, I don't see the reasoning behind cutting it. They should be funding institutions like NASA. If nothing else it's a massive make work project for the tech industry and creates an environment that's friendly toward the highly educated. It's a fairly harmless and uncontroversial project to center that on, unlike funding educational institutes or healthcare apparently. heh. It really seems like funding NASA would be a positive thing for the US government, certainly not the best place for budget cuts. But then I think that governments need to increase arts funding and educational funding as well.

Re:We're Never Going to Mars...

[Grishnakh]

If Obama cuts NASA's budget by ten percent. No matter where you stand on the issue, we're not even going to have anything to debate anymore if a budget cut goes through.

Obama is giving us change we can believe in! A big budget cut for NASA, and more soldiers in Afghanistan. I'm so glad everyone voted for Obama instead of that warmonger McCain.

Re:Just 10%?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up.

1% of the budget to ensure the continued survival of our species is entirely too much to spend. I mean, sure, one fortieth of our current military budget, one twentieths of our human resources budget, or one tenth of our general government budget could easily pay for NASA. But who needs that when we can just gut the program and let someone else take care of the issue!

Who cares if this is your responsibility, government! Several of my friends, who are currently against this government, fully applaud this decision. Sure, we normally complain about "socialism" and letting other people take care of our responsibilities.... ... but in this scenario, it's OK. Let the Chinese take care of our responsibility to ensure the long-term survival of our species. We've better things to spend our money on, such as waging a war on personal freedoms and producing guns.

I'm just saying.

Team Up With

[Anonymous Coward]

Energia.

Yours In Baikonur,
Kilgore Trout

Re:Just 10%?

[stagg]

Low cost Chinese labor! Using child astronauts will allow NASA to reduce payload and save money!

"ending manned spaceflight for a decade?"

[arkham6]

Perhaps it should say "Ending government paid for manned spaceflight for a decade".

It would be really interesting to see the conservative reaction to this. Will they oppose simply for the sake of opposition, or will they applaud it and call out for the free market to provide for manned space flight.

Personally, I think stopping goverment funded spaceflight is a bad idea, there is not enough economic benefit yet for corporations to go into space, beyond quick space tourism flights.

Re:Just 10%?

[NoYob]

The unmanned exploration is mostly useless. Nobody other than soil scientists care whether the crust of Mars is 27.6% silica or 27.7& silica.

Hogwash. A good remote-bot sample-return program could cover more areas than humans for roughly 1/4 the cost.

Thank you. That's right. Unmanned exploration gives you the biggest bang for the buck.

The GP talks about white collar aerospace welfare program, which is exactly what I think whenever I see an ISS story. Exactly what has that given us with regards to science or engineering?

How about a mission to an extrasolar planet? Or even the outer reaches of our solar system?

Folks talk about sending people out there, usually over some fantasy based on Star Trek, but the thing is, if we start just sending folks out without really knowing what is out there, we'll be not only putting folks at needless risk, but we'll also be putting money and other resources at risk. When I say risk, I mean needless risk. Risk is inherit with any human activity, but we shouldn't be sending folks out there willy nilly and without a stated goal other than putting them out there for the sake of having manned space flight.

Cuts not for certian.

[Waste55]

It would be sad and somewhat hypocritical (watch the video) of Obama to kill off the Shuttle's successor. However, keep in mind that these are rumors stir from a blanket statement applied to all agencies.

FTA:

But a senior administration official, who is not authorized to speak on the record, cautioned not to read too much into the proposed reductions. The official said agencies were given "global" instructions to cut their budgets by 5 to 10 percent to help reduce the record $1.4 trillion deficit.

"When the president makes a decision on human spaceflight, he can ignore that," said the official.

Why is this a surprise? Obama hates space.

[dtolman]

Sad truth is, there was only one candidate out there who liked the idea of NASA. Hillary. If you gave a damn about space, you voted for her. After she was out... NASA was screwed.

Obama - said early on he'd cut NASA for education funds.
McCain could care less one way or another if memory serves.

Obama heralds the age of no more manned NASA. About the only hope for US manned ambition is Dragon, or a COTS contract.

About the most optimistic thing I can say about this, is that maybe killing off manned space will free up room for more awesome robotic missions (Terrestial Planet Imager, I'm looking at you!). Who knows? Maybe he'll punt, and we'll abandon the moon for visiting an asteroid (which always sounded more interesting to me anyway).

Re:Why is this a surprise? Obama hates space.

[Anonymous Coward]

Barack Obama doesn't care about space people.

Re:Why is this a surprise? Obama hates space.

[Waste55]

Yep, Obama originally said take away from CxP to fund education. He then changed his tune when he gave his speech in florida. ( My thought is why the hell would those two compete for budget when they compliment each other so well. )

McCain is no better, he recently voted No in restoring funding that NASA has already lost. It passed anyways.

Not just space: Joint statement by China/US

[FleaPlus]

It actually isn't just space the two countries are planning on cooperating on. Not sure how much beef is behind this statement, but here's a snippet of the joint statement by Presidents Obama and Hu during Obama's visit to China:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/joint-press-statement-president-obama-and-president-hu-china
http://nasawatch.com/archives/2009/11/china-and-us-to.html

The complementing departments of China and the United States have already signed a number of cooperation agreements, including the MOU to enhanced cooperation on climate change, energy and environment. The two sides have also officially launched the initiative of developing a China-U.S. clean energy research center.

Both President Obama and I said that we are willing to act on the basis of mutual benefit and reciprocity to deepen our cooperation on counterterrorism, law enforcement, science, technology, outer space, civil aviation, and engage in cooperation in space exploration, high-speed railway infrastructure, in agriculture, health, and other fields. And we also agreed to work together to continue to promote even greater progress in the growth of military-to-military ties.

Why?

[WindBourne]

At this time, 10% cut is about a 5% cut of historical levels (which was about 1% of GDP). Right now, it is about .5%. The reason is that W/neo-cons effectively cut it 50% over the 8 years.

Do not get me wrong. For the life of me, I do not see this as being the place to cut (like eating our grain seed in late April), BUT, I also do not thing that this particular cut would prevent us from going to Mars. I would place the blame for that on the last 9 years of spending and bad cuts.

In the end, the real question is not the cut. The real question is, what will he replace this with? Will he push towards commercial space COMBINED with Direct (which COULD get by with less money)? Or will he do like a neo-con, do a cut, then push the agency to spend money foolishly? What scares me the most, is that he may do the later, rather than the previous.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

latter, former

Re:Why?

[FleaPlus]

In the end, the real question is not the cut. The real question is, what will he replace this with? Will he push towards commercial space COMBINED with Direct (which COULD get by with less money)?

Another major question is whether or not it's truly necessary for NASA to spend tens of billions of dollars developing a new heavy-lift vehicle. For example, this proposal by the ULA uses commercial launchers and propellant depots instead of heavy-lift to create an exploration architecture suitable for NEO, Lunar, and ultimately Martian exploration, at a fraction of the cost:

http://ulalaunch.com/docs/publications/AffordableExplorationArchitecture2009.pdf

Abstract:

A Commercially Based Lunar Architecture

Frank Zegler1, Bernard F. Kutter2, Jon Barr3

The present ESAS architecture for lunar exploration is dependent on a large launcher. It has
been assumed that either the ARES V or something similar, such as the proposed Jupiter
"Direct" lifters are mandatory for serious lunar exploration. These launch vehicles require
extensive development with costs ranging into the tens of billions of dollars and with first
flight likely most of a decade away. In the end they will mimic the Saturn V
programmatically: a single-purpose lifter with a single user who must bear all costs. This
programmatic structure has not been shown to be effective in the long term. It is
characterized by low demonstrated reliability, ballooning costs and a glacial pace of
improvements.

The use of smaller, commercial launchers coupled with orbital depots eliminates the need for a
large launch vehicle. Much is made of the need for more launches- this is perceived as a
detriment. However since 75% of all the mass lifted to low earth orbit is merely propellant
with no intrinsic value it represents the optimal cargo for low-cost, strictly commercial launch
operations. These commercial launch vehicles, lifting a simple payload to a repeatable
location, can be operated on regular, predictable schedules. Relieved of the burden of hauling
propellants, the mass of the Altair and Orion vehicles for a lunar mission is very small and can
also be easily carried on existing launch vehicles. This strategy leads to high infrastructure
utilization, economic production rates, high demonstrated reliability and the lowest possible
costs.

This architecture encourages the exploration of the moon to be conducted not in single,
disconnected missions, but in a continuous process which builds orbital and surface resources
year by year. The architecture and vehicles themselves are directly applicable to Near Earth
Object and Mars exploration and the establishment of a functioning depot at earth-moon L2
provides a gateway for future high-mass spacecraft venturing to the rest of the solar system.

It's About Time, It's About Space

[DynaSoar]

Pinning a long term program on a single nation is a bad idea because some time during the program the administration changes and often changes the funding or program. Then things fall apart. When we teamed with Russia things went more slowly than they would otherwise but they kept going when they might have faltered.

I've always been of the mind that space exploration should be an international endeavor. ESA is a good start. So is the US/Russia team. If we add China, we'll have a 3 country team. At that point there's two international teams. When confronted with a major program, say data indicates the probability of life on Europa and they want to send people to explore, they'll consider then about a consolidation to get the job done.

I think this should be made easier for them by creating an international organization for them all to join, with administration already in place, but that only handles the cooperation aspect and leaves the program to the people who run the national portions. Such an office could be set up by the UN. A benefit to this is that the charter could be written so that nations unable to have a space program could participate in at least a small way in this.

When humans land on Mars, I think it would say more that they came from Earth itself in name rather than a particular country, than it would that humans got there at all.

Hopefully America Can Rub Off on Them

[BJ_Covert_Action]

One of my professors in college that used to work for Boeing explained to our spacecraft design class that Boeing stopped contracting launches with China because China launches their rockets over landmass rather than ocean. While this alone is a very dangerous practice, it important to note that a good amount of the crap pouring out of the back of some launch vehicles is poisonous....especially when hydrazine is added into the mix. As a result, the Chinese launch vehicles were dumping significant amounts of poisonous crap down on some of their towns, villages, and even farms. I hope that if NASA does start partnering with China, NASA can influence China to stop such inhumane practices. It would be sad to see bad habits adopted in the reverse order instead.

Just a thought...

Re:Hopefully America Can Rub Off on Them

[jameskojiro]

Yeah, hell of a lot chance that will happen, if they do anything they will just tell the town residents and farmers to leave town the day of the launches....

Re:Hopefully America Can Rub Off on Them

[Shadowmist]

I highly suspect that Boeing's cessage of it's contracts with China (assuming that actually occurred) had a lot more to do with dollar matters than some sudden concern for the Chinese population. Another reason to consider this fallacious. We launch spacecraft from Vandenberg Air Force base, including some heavy Titan 3 loads. Last time I checked the majority of the U.S. landmass is below the launch path.

Re:Hopefully America Can Rub Off on Them

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Last time I checked the majority of the U.S. landmass is below the launch path.

There are a couple of differences here. First and foremost, the Titans were solid rocket motors which use significantly different chemicals for fuel than liquid or hybrid rockets. That is why we can get away with having missile test ranges in landlocked states like Arizona. Solid rocket fuel produces (usually) less toxic crap.

Secondly, I can tell you with 100% certainty that the ground traces of the current EELV vehicles take them over water to the South and West of the California coast line. The flight path certainly does not take it over any US landmass (aside from maybe some radiated islands on the Pacific, but that's just a possibility because I cannot confirm that it doesn't happen). I was not working on launch ops during the Titan III days so I cannot say with any certainty one way or another whether those vehicles flew over US landmass or not. I would be surprised to learn that they flew trajectories which were radically different from the current EELVs as all three vehicles (Atlas, Delta, Titan) tend(ed) to deliver payloads to similar orbits. Thus, I would assume that similar azimuths were/are used for all three VAFB launch vehicles and that the Titan III's actually flew over water. I can also say that, in general, solid rocket fuel tends to burn less toxic (depending on the fuel, usually the less toxic fuels are chosen for handling purposes) and, thus, if the Titan III's did fly over landmass, there were probably quite a few safety checkouts and range requirements that prevented them from poisoning the general US population. I would also wager that IF the Titan III's indeed did fly over US landmass, there more than likely was a path requirement that no population centers be under the ground trace.

So, in summation, scoff all you want, but I am much more prone to taking the word of someone who worked for Boeing satellite operations for 40+ years and my own experience in launch operations than minor quip of a fellow slashdotter. Of course, if you want to provide fuel composition data and ground trace data for the Titan III's I would be more than eager to review it for my own sanity.

Cheers.

Space Shuttle replacement testing.

[jameskojiro]

At least China has already tested it for us and we won't need Ares....

Re:Just 10%?

[jameskojiro]

And Pr0n, don't forget someone has to watch it....

More info on budget cut rumors

[FleaPlus]

FYI, it's not a directed budget cut towards NASA -- every single non-military agency has been told by the Obama administration that they may see cuts of 5-10% in order to reduce the deficit.

http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/11/17/sharpening-the-budget-cleaver/
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hBr0LFXMFF1HE6-n_ZTN1829QS1QD9BUTPVG0

On the plus side, if there is in fact a budget cut, it'd hopefully be the cover NASA needs to shut down/reduce its politically well-guarded Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), which uses up a huge part of NASA's budget, but due to its chronically incompetent management has spectacularly failed in basically all of its large projects over the past 30 years.

Re:More info on budget cut rumors

[WindBourne]

Actually, I am glad to see the 5-10% cut across the board. We need to get control of this deficit.

Interesting about MSFC. BUT, that is the land of Dick Shelby. It will be interesting to see what will happen in congress.

Give them more money!

[Silm]

I wonder why it is so bewildering for any government to just give more money to NASA and the likes. The arguments for an increase in spending are huge, both from an economical standpoint, and of course as a good way to increase the scientific knowledge of the whole human population. Should I perhaps be more cynical and just assume leaders are all corrupt, powerhungry, and dont really care for the common good? I can accept some of these exist, however regrettable. Keeping that in mind, there should atleast be some leaders with a good interest in science. Where the heck are they?

Budget Cut

[Game_Ender]

NASA is only 0.6% of the federal budget, a shadow of its peak at 5.5%. Cutting a measly $1.7 billion (10% of its currently $17 billion budget) a year cuts the $1400 billion budget deficit by 0.12%, practically nothing.

We should increase NASA's budget by $2.5-$5 billion, so they have the resources to really make progress. We should then get some management that actually has a pair, and can deal with the politics to find practical solutions without worry what congressional district parts are made in or which NASA center does the work.

Re:Budget Cut

[FleaPlus]

We should then get some management that actually has a pair, and can deal with the politics to find practical solutions without worry what congressional district parts are made in or which NASA center does the work.

That's nice in theory, but unfortunately when it comes down to it, Congress has all of the funding power. If an administrator tried to rock the boat too much, they'd just find that politically-powerful and fiscally threatened Congressmen would remove funding for whatever they were trying to do. Example:

http://nasawatch.com/archives/2009/06/sen-shelbys-crusade-against-commercial-space.html

Re:Budget Cut

[WindBourne]

Actually, W left it at .55% of the GDP, while most of NASA life has been around 1% for dems and .9% for republicans. As such, if we really want NASA to get back to where it was prior to W/neo-cons, then we should increase its budget to about 30-32 BILLION.

Politics of Rare Earths/Technology

[Dripdry]

Perhaps this is a way to use a carrot, rather than a stick, to get China to give up some of some of its Rare Earth Metals for at least scientific research purposes.

Think about it: China gives easy access to their yttrium-bound rare earths (no one else has these, they're not radioactive when they come out of the ground) while America gives up some technology and in return we can continue research.

However, the prospect of the Last Frontier getting outsourced to China seems almost hilarious if it weren't so depressing. I realize teaming up with other nations is supposed to be good, but I just don't see how any real good can come of this. China will take all it can get and leave us with sloppy seconds, there's just no two ways about it.

Alliance going into space

[bsupak]

Time to find me a Firefly class ship.

At this rate

[AP31R0N]

with budget cuts, our space program will be on par with the UK.

"Hello, Swindon."

Armageddon said it best

[krystar]

American components. Russian components. ALL MADE IN TAIWAN!

Hillary was hardly the only pro-NASA democrat....

[Ellis D. Tripp]

Dennis Kucinich called for TRIPLING the NASA budget, far better than anything that Clinton proposed:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x446335

Military Dimension

[jcasman]

Space, unfortunately, is the "next" battlefield. China with its small military budgets and limited means -- currently -- has identified our communications systems as a fatal flaw in our military operations. The modern battlefield includes heavy use of satellite imaging, real-time mapping, communications jamming, coordination with tactical centers often far removed from the front lines. Prestige is important motivation in becoming the third country to put a person in space but getting stronger in space military applications is the key strategic objective. It's the only way to compete with the US militarily in the near-term. This military angle should be an important consideration for the US side regarding any agreement on cooperation in space.

Re:Military Dimension

[WindBourne]

In fact, china has already said that they going for space. It makes sense. They are putting up MULTIPLE military only space stations (which have NO use except as a weapons platform), as well recently a Chinese general said that they were going into space weapons.

Re: of course Russian Soyuz is a piece of crap

[Anonymous Coward]

it's just not as crappy as anything being used in this country :) . Somehow they always manage to get to the survival side of the edge. At least since 1971.

And rocket engines in particular tend to go from Russia to US, not the other way around. RD-180 is here for years, and there are talks about doing the same for NK-33.

What?

[jwriney]

Until they stop relying on toxic, storable propellants for their manned launchers, and get a better handle on range safety (referring to the first LM-3B launch which took out a village - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qVaXFhu7NE)... how about *no*.

The propellant issue alone ought to be a show-stopper. We knew storable propellants were a horrible idea during Gemini, but did it anyway for expediency. There was legitimate question whether, during an abort, the astronauts would manage to escape what was termed the BFRC - Big F-ing Red Cloud - created when the booster's tanks ruptured and burned.

--riney

Attention SpaceX, your opportunity has arrived

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA problems seem to open the door for SpaceX and others to finally have a shot proving their worth. I think in the long run, this will be a good thing for the US and spaceflight in general.

good reason Chinese caught up to US & Russia

[peter303]

They are very good at gathering all the information about a technology they can- both above board and below board. The more, the merrier to me.

Their program is very low key with a test every three years. This is an order of magnitude less effort than the space shuttle or Soyez.

Re:Just 10%?

[Tablizer]

How about a [probe] mission to an extrasolar planet?

That would be cool. It could arrive (fly-by) in about 30 years to another star system with nuclear propulsion and even continue on and study other star systems. (Stopping to orbit would require more time and fuel.)
           

Screw Obama

[Shivetya]

The only science they want is the study of how to get more votes. Geeks cast by the wayside as soon as he had the keys, along with main street

Re:good reason Chinese caught up to US & Russi

[WindBourne]

Yes, but the test really were not needed. Look, if you had plans (both bought and stolen) for a car, a bomb, or a rocket, could you not put it together if you had money? Absolutely. China's 3 year is time to refine and test approaches and fill in the gaps of knowledge that are missing and simply piece these things together. The hard part is that by obtaining tech from both countries and trying to mix them, they do not know what will work together well. What so many miss is that China has gotten in just 3 missions what it took USSR and USA a decade of many launches EACH YEAR. They simply substituted 'By hook, or by crock' for expensive research.

Re:Hillary was hardly the only pro-NASA democrat..

[Grishnakh]

Sounds good to me. It could easily be paid for by downsizing the DoD and getting the military out of the mideast quagmires. Unfortunately, Kucinich was about as well-liked by the media as Ron Paul (and his views were similar in many ways).

What we need is to have Kucinich and Paul as co-Presidents. They'd push the things they agree on (which are the things we really need), and their crazier ideas would be canceled out by each other.

Backdoor to advanced Russian technology

[flyingfsck]

Hmm, I guess China would be a good back-door to advanced Russian technology for the USA...

How about this

[code_rage]

First of all - take a look at the joint US-China statement - the only thing we have agreed to is a high-level visit. Not a marriage, maybe just a coffee date.

Second - what is this really about? Probably not NASA. More likely this is just a deal sweetener for something else we want, like:
- devalue the Chinese currency (see NYTimes this week)
- improve WMD nonproliferation efforts
- green technology

At the NASA level, which is at best a secondary concern of most US politicos, here are some possibilities:
- hedge against Russian monopoly of US human access to space during the Gap
- engagement may offer US a better view into Chinese goals and means re: space than isolation would
- possibly a veiled threat to NASA: Ares is not the only game in town: get your act together

Chinas rule in Space would be preferable to US

[lostinmadnez]

If you can expect any nation to make big streps into space its china. They came quite far in short time and now it looks as if they will collaborate with NASA. I would put my bets on china on who will have the first million people in space ;-) And since governments are inherently evil, screw criticism on China for human rights stuff, get me into space and let me be a space buccaneer! They see themselves in space, more then the US, they need lands for their millions. I dont think its as abstract for the average chinese as it is for westerners. And given the history of china as an open merchant state I think they'd do a good job governing early space!

Easier to transfer all our nations technology with

[Anonymous Coward]

Its clear that the Democrats and the GOP both want to give away everything we have developed. A deal with NASA and China makes perfect sense. Our parents generation worked hard to create NASA's intellectual property. Let's show respect by handing it over to the communist.

Move NASA to China

[Baldrson]

For crying out loud already! Move NASA to China. Move Microsoft to India.

Re:Hillary was hardly the only pro-NASA democrat..

[dtolman]

Sorry - I should have said - Hillary was the only serious candidate who supported space.

Actually, they're doing it right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Since we're basically all indentured servants to China, this was only the next logical step. The next logical step after that is to just disband our entire government and hand it over to the Chinese. Face it - we couldn't say no to vote-purchasing through pork, and no one left in our government has any balls to tell their constituents the truth about the state of things (that we ALL need to re-learn to live within our means, including the Federal and local governments), and so now we have to pay the piper. Suck it up, you whiny bitches.

We won't just sell the rope,but the rope machinery

[bobvious]

China will do exactly what they're doing with the rest of industry... they make deals provided they do some manufacturing in China. They lift every secret they can, then open their competing industry. Of course their competing industry is well on its way. Remember, they have more honor students than we have students, and they're outproducing us in engineers around 9 to 1.