Cool NASA Tech That Will Never See Space

coondoggie writes to tell us that with the "new and improved" NASA budget on the way it looks like many of the cool projects NASA has in the works will never see the light of day, let alone space. The biggest cut looks to be the Ares heavy lift rocket but other cuts include a new composite spacecraft, deep space network, inflatable lunar habitat, and an electric moon-buggie.

Comments

NASA needs more budget.

[hayd]

It's sad really and NASA is definitely who should get more budget. It's the idiotic short-sighted quick-profit thinking again. We are draining Earth resources and should try to expand to space. If it wasn't for NASA we wouldn't ever have visited or learned so much more about Earth. This way we never get intergalactic flights nor can live on other planets.

Re:NASA needs more budget.

[truthsearch]

Maybe NASA could sell or license some of this "cool tech" to private industry. The private sector would have more to work with and the space agency would get more money for the projects they are left to focus on. And maybe some of the specialists at NASA could fork their own companies with the technology, keeping more people employed.

Maybe they already do this. But the tone of the post makes it sound like they don't.

Re:NASA needs more budget.

[gad_zuki!]

>It's sad really and NASA is definitely who should get more budget. It's the idiotic short-sighted quick-profit thinking again.

How come Bush's promises of massive explorations with no funding backing isnt stupid, but when Obama has to clean up Bush's mistakes and bring Bush's BS promises to a real budget, then suddenly he's the bad guy?

Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

With the cut of Ares and other international status seeking nonsense, NASA can concentrate on their roots of science, exploration, and aeronautics.

Re:What does this mean for manned exploration?

[gad_zuki!]

>If we're not going to move forward up there, other nations will. And we will have ceded the high frontier.

They'll go broke putting meatbags in space and learning the same lessons we have, while we're focused on robotic missions and investment into private enterprise, instead of a purely government approach.

On top of that, the Mars mission is still on. While China or India attempts to put a meatbag on the moon, the US will most likely be on its way to Mars. The US isnt ceding anything, its just spending its money more wisely along with the "trophy" of Mars. Turns out Bush's incompetence wasnt limited to just economies and wars, but to also signing checks his ass couldnt cash.

Funny how the "fiscally responsible" Republicans want my tax dollars to keep subsidizing useless jobs in Florida and Texas and keep a runaway project like Constellation going to the tune of an extra 3 billion a year in cost overruns! Dont confuse the politics of pork with space exploration. Meatbags are too expensive to ship around all the time and moon base fantasies turn out to be too expensive in real life.

Stop spending so much on the military...

[fantomas]

The US military is something like ten times larger than the next country's military spend for goodness sake. How about easing off on the military spend and using the money for peaceful exploration of space.

Do you really need a military budget that big?

Re:Stop spending so much on the military...

[Grishnakh]

Yes, we do, so that we can control oil resources and help companies like Halliburton be very profitable. We've decided as a society that we don't care about future energy sources, and we're going to stick with oil no matter what, so we have to use a giant portion of our GDP to fund a military for the sole purpose of maintaining access to that oil. Later on, when other societies develop energy sources not involving oil (such as electric cars, better nuclear power, solar power, tidal power, etc.), we'll still be driving around in old gas-guzzling vehicles looking for food with a collapsed economy while nations like China, India, and Russia are leading the world in technology and space exploration, and have prosperous economies.

Re:What does this mean for manned exploration?

[blind biker]

Science is made by meatbags. Scientists are meatbags that don't hope to earn much money or fame (save for the very few that get a Nobel prize). No, our motivation is the science and the great things it can do for humankind. Specifically, my research is related to technology that can potentially be used on spacecraft/deep space probes. But if I knew it will only be used so that a rich banker can go to LEO, fuck it, I can go back to a job in industry and make about twice the money I make now. I can easily imagine that manned exploration of the Moon and Mars would similarly invigorate and inspire tens of thousands of US scientists, not to mention the other people involved, and the american public in general. The american nation could again have a big, common dream that transcends their short existence.

The Moon is very important because we can learn how to survive there, and then use that experience ans science to build a base on Mars. Yes, the Moon is in many ways harsher than Mars, but as far as things we can learn, it is still very useful, and the proximity of Earth is very useful in case of unexpected problems. Besides, if Constellation is out, Mars is out, too. It's *not* on.

Finally, I'd like to emphasize the need for manned exploration of Mars and other remote objects, as radio-delay makes robotic probes severely crippled to the point of being useless, compared to humans. A human can find ways to dislodge a stuck wheel, for one thing.