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Obama Backs New Launcher and Bigger NASA Budget
The AAAS's ScienceInsider confidently reports that NASA is in line to receive $1 billion more next year. Reader coop0030 sends this quote: "President Barack Obama will ask Congress next year to fund a new heavy-lift launcher to take humans to the Moon, asteroids, and the moons of Mars... The president chose the new direction for the US human space flight program Wednesday at a White House meeting with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, according to officials familiar with the discussion. NASA would receive an additional $1 billion in 2011 both to get the new launcher on track and to bolster the agency's fleet of robotic Earth-monitoring spacecraft."
It was not 1.1 trillion more in spending. It was several annual spending bills. It increased spending by about 9-10% over last year. An increase yes, a 1.1 trillion dollar increase, no.
A lot of the blue prints no longer exist. Most of the original engineers have died off. There were a lot of issues that arose during design and construction that were largely undocumented. My stepfathers father as one of the designers of the saturn V's first stage.
It must be noted, for completeness, that the Republicans have had control of the government for two years of the last 40.
It should also be noted that the Democrats haven't produced a single balanced budget in the last 40 years.
As to Reagan's budgets, one might remember the Democrat mantra during the Reagan years as regards the Federal Budget - "Mr President, your budget was DOA in Congress".
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Yeah I was a bit intrigued by this myself. The entire article discusses a new heavy lift vehicle, but has absolutely no specifications or details. Is it liquid, solid, or hybrid? Will it be developed in-house by NASA or contracted out? What exactly do they mean by 'simpler?'
I checked Spaceflightnow, SpaceFellowship, and ParabolicArc and couldn't find anything but a parent of the original ScienceInsider article. Google doesn't reveal a whole lot at cursory glance either. Hell I don't even see anything on NASA's own website. If anyone digs up some particulars, please post some links, I would be very interested in seeing them.
Also, offtopic, but for those who say Slashdot is behind the news release cycle and doesn't post breaking news, considering it just posted a story that 4 other space news websites haven't picked up yet, I'd say you've just been proven wrong =P
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Um, that would be over 30 of the last 40. Remember those first five years of the Bush II Presidency, when the Republicans controlled Congress, too. And Bush didn't issue a single veto... the whole machine was just rubber stamping anything the Repubes wanted. That's were about half the deficit came from. The other largely started with Mr. Reagan. Before that, there was a little bit left over from WWII. A tiny drop in the bucket, by today's standards.
Also, Clinton did produce a balanced budget. It took some years of doing to get there, but he did. It was, of course, immediately trashed by the Bush Administration.
-Dave Haynie
If you look at the US discretionary budget the military accounts for over 60%, over 70% in shitty years. As for total budget war makes up about 25%, non-military defense programs an additional 14%. Veteran's pay an amazing 1.6%. Comparatively, NASA gets around .5% of the total expenses. http://www.wallstats.com/deathandtaxes/ (discretionary is in the middle, total in the bottom right).
1/15th is 6.6%, parent is outright lying.
And as mcgrew says, war is easier to not have than... Old people? Sick people....?
They were supposed to reuse shuttle parts and know-how to make things work better.
They were supposed to, but they didn't. They developed a new solid rocket motors for the ARES-I. They're developing new engines, new solids, new tankage, new upper stage engines (as well as needing new crawlers, and nwe launch pads) for the ARES-V. About the only thing that's reused from the shuttle (or so I've read) is the system that ignites the solids.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Don't discount the fact thsat the SRBs were Man Rated
No they're not. There's no man rating for the Shuttle and hence, for its components. As a first stage (renamed the "solid rocket motor" or SRM) of the Ares I, NASA still has to figure out a crew escape system that can escape from a SRM rupture (it's faster and hotter than equivalent liquid stage ruptures, hence requires a better escape system than the current design). That escape option is required to man rate the vehicle (using the current standard which is of course, subject to change at the whim and convenience of the NASA leadership).
By reusing the SRBs from the shuttle they were supposed to be able to rely on the safety record of the SRBs and get a new vehicle put into production far faster than a built from scratch new vehicle.
The irony here is that the SRBs aren't that safe. They have a historical failure rate of 1 in 250 or so. Yet the Ares I's SRM is claimed to have a failure rate of something like 1 in 3700. So how do they get that, when their first stage has a demonstrated failure rate more than ten times worse than the rate they claim for it?
Further, the choice wasn't between Ares I and a built from scratch vehicle. It was between a variety of Shuttle derived vehicles and the EELVs, Delta IV Heavy and Atlas V Heavy. The latter two are much further along in development than anything else and comparable in safety and cost (even using the flawed ESAS as your guide). The Delta IV Heavy even flies now.