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Senators Blast NASA For Lacking Vision
An anonymous reader writes "A Senate science subcommittee clashed with NASA's chief on Wednesday, saying the agency and the White House lacked a clear vision and goal for the program. Skeptical senators told the space agency that it should not just talk about plans, but set out to do something specific. Lawmakers expressed a bipartisan opposition to the agency's plans and the initiatives of the Obama White House." Updated 23:13 GMT by timothy: Reader Trent Waddington contributes this video link to the hearing, if you want to come to your own conclusions.
All we need to do is say that Al Quaida has set up a training camp on Mars and see the money flow after that!
We'll be on mars in no time!
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
You do realize that the plans were unworkable, the designs flawed, and the very engineers for them introduced alternative designs which could be produced sooner/faster/cheaper. Look up "Ares V Base Heating Issue" sometime.
The management at NASA and the special interests behind key areas kept pushing for Constellation due to it's huge R&D budget, despite the laws of physics which stated that it would never work with the designs as/is. And Obama pulled the plug on the dead-man-walking. It was obvious 5 years ago that this would happen, which is why NASA's engineers "moonlighted" and introduced the DIRECT launch design.
Here is what they proposed. It could be ready from approval to launch within 36 months, as it is based on existing technologies *and* it has already passed PDR. If it looks familiar to you space nuts, you might remember it as the Regan-era National Launch System. Now it is called Jupiter.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Nuff said
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esCGYkVhhnY&feature=channel
Watch the Senate Hearing yourself, a lot more interesting stuff happened.
How we know is more important than what we know.
NASA has spread around the work to the maximum number of congressional districts to maximize their political support. But ask those same congressmen what they are willing to give up...ask them how important it is to balance the budget and even ...gasp..to begin paying off some debts..and they go quiet about what they want to give up...except to demand that the budget be balanced (but let someone else's district pay for it).
Obama puts a freeze on some agencies spending and already the constituencies are whining.
Where are politicians with guts who care more about the future of the country than getting elected with phony promises and posturing?
Its probably a more well thought out overall plan he had in mind. While the many successes achieved by groups like NASA are well worth celebrating, I share the dismay no doubt many people hold at recent and ongoing setbacks in the development of the future goals of space exploration. The central issuing facing Space groups, as I see it, is a lack of a single unified plan, a step by step global strategy to move mankind into space which takes account of commercial, economic, resource based and political realities, which is achievable within a reasonable timeframe. The piecemeal method of pushing progress forward is effective only insofar as there is public and governmental momentum in the area - something which has been falling off of late. In the face of such an environment, piecemeal efforts might not be as effective as otherwise.
What I would propose for the future, therefore, is the formulation of such a strategy, clearly laid out and with recognisable milestones, goals, estimated returns on investment, and timelines. I think that the provision of such a structure will remove the dependence space exploration has on fragmented projects and provide a key benefit that has so far been absent - direction, in cooperation with other national space agencies.
In addition to the points mentioned above, an official strategy group could talk to politicians and businesspeople in a language they can understand. One of the first goals after the strategy would be agreed upon would be to confirm its legitimacy at the international level, in the USA, EU, UN and other international forums. The next step would be to get an international fund set up in order to secure a set percentage of GDP of each nation (possibly only developed nations) to be put towards space exploration. Even if one thosandth of national GDP was set aside by each nation, that would come to some $60 billion annually, or several times the budget of the combined existing space agencies.
This would be similar to foreign aid funds, although probably of a lesser amount, and would instantly multiply the budget available to space exploration groups by a fairly serious amount. Legislation would also be needed in order to provide international tax incentives for corporations and governments to focus their efforts on areas that would be conducive to space exploration and resource realisation, even tangentially. Legislation for the open sharing of relevant information within existing intellectual property laws would also be needed to further coopeation between private and public organisations, plus and this a vital part of the effort, the standardisation of equipment and systems to make them interchangeable.
A few further points:
Why would my nation wish to contribute to this effort?
In addition to the well known issues of potentially life threatening hazards on earth, whether environmental, asteroid strikes, or contagion, and it is not a question of if but when they will recur - they have already happened many times previously - there is the question of the vast resources available in space. By contributing on an annual basis according to its means, each nation and its citizens has a legitimate claim on the unfathomable amount of raw material which can be accessed by a properly run space programme.
What would this Global Space Initiative involve?
This group and strategy would have several purposes.
1. To create a master strategy for the human colonisation of space, taking into account the many different social and economic factors that would be involved.
2. To identify key early technologies that would be needed to realise the strategy, provide funding to create these technologies, and pressure governments to provide legislative and taxation benefits to groups developing them. There are a wide array of scientific and engineering feats that must be overcome before the reality of space exploration is commonly available. These would include things like semi autonomous robotics in order to take advantage of
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
If the President of the United States doesn't care about space exploration, as is apparently the case today, then NASA will be unable to fulfill its mission. Obama has had little interest in space from day one; his campaign plan even had a proposal to gut NASA's budget to pay for a nationalized day care system. Later this proposal was deleted, but Obama has really done nothing with the U.S. space program but cut its budget.
Shutting down the only manned space project on the horizon, Obama proposed to offload low orbital manned flights to the private sector. While the libertarian and free marketer in me loves the idea of a competitive market for space travel, I'm not convinced it's time yet for NASA to leave that arena.
Every manned launch is a huge, critical path project requiring hundreds of technicians and engineers to monitor every aspect of the situation. Is it really appropriate to dump all of these people and hope that several privately held companies (one hopes American ones) can step up to the plate and recreate all of that expertise and best practices almost from scratch? Even if they hired all of these soon-to-be-unemployed aerospace experts, they would still need to put in a few years to build up the kind of institutional memory and procedures, not to mention physical infrastructure, that are required for a complex project like this.
NASA was building the next generation Orion manned spacecraft and Obama announced that he may not fund it. Congress, ESPECIALLY one that gets a few more Republican members in the 2012 election cycle, can override him and restore funding, but realistically the President has the power and means to kill a program if he doesn't like it. He can appoint a schmuck to replace the executive director, for example, and he can argue that the money for NASA would be better spent on school lunch for poor kids, or building shelters for the homeless, or any number of similar but meaningless populist mouthings that make great TV sound bites.
We probably will have to wait for a change of government before we can get back to having a NASA with vision AND the backing to make it a reality. Sitting around, waiting for the "right technology" to be developed, and then saying we can finally think about realistically exploring Mars--that's not a bold vision, that's a cop-out.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
I can't believe the grandstanding coming out of the US government nowadays. From berating car company executives for flying in their jets (no, they should buy multi-million dollar jets and just let them rot), to coming down on Toyoda as if he were the embodiment of all evil (yeah, US manufacturers NEVER had recalls. I have yet to see the Toyota equivalent of the Ford Pinto), and now NASA.
Oh we took away all your funding and tied you up in red tape, but now we will complain that you lack vision and have not made any progress! It's NASA's fault for literally not delivering the moon, on a budget that would be barely noticed by an average defense contractor. Because it's ok to pour $65 billion into F-22's, the 140+ million dollar planes that always seem to be in the shop (68% readiness you know if I paid $140 million I want the damned thing to work), but no additional funding is required to move forwards in space exploration (the NASA budget has been fairly constant at all time lows since 1993).
It's the politicians in the US that need fixing. They didn't listen when the public said "no" to more war. They didn't listen when the public said "no" to the bailouts. They didn't listen when the public said "no" to the stimulus. There's a pattern here. "Voting" isn't going to change anything... real democracy died a long time ago, victim to the two party system set up by special interests.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I guess those congresscritters missed this recent, extremely detailed NASA announcement:
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/nasa_scientists_plan_to_approach
If this isn't clear vision, I don't know what is!
If you want to live in a barren desert, there's thousands of square miles here on earth that no one particularly wants.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Actually, it looks more like vintage-1960s Soviet space launch technology.
The problem here is clearly about the leadership changing priorities and budgets before anything gets finished.
The projects that NASA work on have long timelines, this is not compatible with budgets which change annually and where the govenment who holds the purse strings also often changes (as in this case) before the project is completed.
This is not too different in concept (but is admitedly different in scale) to software development where if priorities are allowed to change before projects are completed, nothing ever will be finished.
Maybe NASA can try and work to smaller achievable goals within a smaller timeline that have a clearly defined benefit?
Sound familiar?
The Apollo program cost about $145 billion in 2008 dollars (Wikipedia), and quite a lot more if you factor in the orbital programs (Mercury, Gemini) which led up to Apollo. That's not exactly peanuts. They only get about $18 billion a year right now.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Where are politicians with guts who care more about the future of the country than getting elected with phony promises and posturing?
If you find any in D.C., let me know.
Put the senators in the airlock until we decide what to do with them.
Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
Then, of course, there is the pork. Representative Olsen, not of the senate, has voting against the economic stimulus package, which consensus seems to indicate that it has stopped the hemorrhaging of jobs, and now he is complaining that a few thousand government employees are going to lose their jobs. What is it Pete? Do we want to balance the budget or keep support a federal jobs program where the average salary is over 70K a year? Sure the NASA jobs are great, but the budget is the budget. These jobs and ancillary costs could save over a billion a year. I know that Clear Lake is the probably the most federally subsidized place in America, but we really need real jobs based on capitalism, not socialism.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Citizens blast the Senate for lacking vision.
For me it's as simple as survival. As long as humanity is confined to a single planet, we're vulnerable to being wiped out by a planetary scale disaster. Move some of us to a self-sufficient base on Mars, and even if Earth turns back into molten slag, humanity will continue to exist.
Exploring the bottom of our oceans doesn't accomplish that goal. I do agree it's a worthy goal, but if we are to decide where to expend limited resources, they should go towards the goal of ensuring the survival of the species.
Once we inhabit other planets in the solar system, the very next goal needs to be interstellar colonization to guard against a solar system level catastrophe. Even if that means pursuing the use of generational ships to do it.
You do realize, of course, that we spend more on toilet seats in the federal government than on NASA, yes?
Well, to be fair, there are enough significant asses in Washington DC to warrant that kind of infrastructure investment there.
Many of these politicos could care less about "vision." What they are really upset about is losing high paying jobs and projects in their districts.
"I'm not a quack, I'm a mad scientist! There's a difference." - Dr. Cockroach
How about a declaration that within a decade we'll have a space infrastructure that can actually support multiple goals at once, including LEO tourism, NEO mining, a Mars and Moon landing, and deep space exploration. Not saying NASA shouldn't be doing pure science, but I feel we're to the point now where the infrastructure is more important, at least if we ever want space exploration and exploitation to become commonplace.
Of course, that is essentially what the White House's new innitiative is saying, they just haven't thrown enough money at it to make it happen.
This is a completely backwards way of thinking. New propulsion systems are vastly more valuable than any specific space mission. Advanced propulsion systems could take the most difficult mission we might attempt today and turn it into a routine trip.
We need a willingness to develop new technologies that might take more than a few years to pay off, and even try things that might not work at all. We should tie this work to a specific goal in order to provide focus and to justify the price, but the real prize is the technology itself. Reducing fuel mass or cost to orbit by a factor of ten would open up the solar system to us.
Where are politicians with guts who care more about the future of the country than getting elected with phony promises and posturing?
That'll happen when the electorate becomes informed on the issues.
...Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah....
*wipes tears from his eyes and changes underwear*
You see, the bulk of the electorate is spoon fed information - over simplified information, I might add - about the issues from the electronic media because that's what sells. And the electorate ONLY wants information that fits in their World view. Fox News has this down to a science. Most people like it this way. Most people are ignorant and WANT to be so.
Now I know why Freud said what he said when asked why he always had a scowl on his face - something to the effect of being disgusted with the human race.
Why do so many people think that if there isn't a NASA plan to put a couple NASA astronauts on a NASA rocket and launch them to a specific NASA-picked destination by a specific time that we've somehow abandoned human spaceflight? How short-sighted can people be? We already did that 40 years ago, and where did it get us? The huge expense caused the cancellation of any real followup missions and damaged human spaceflight aspirations to this day. We're still seeing the effects, since apparently no one in congress (or much of the public, apparently) can imagine anyone except NASA putting people into space.
It just pisses me off to no end. We need a space program that opens access to space for EVERYONE. Not just the few lucky NASA picked government employees. Do you want to go into space at some point? I certainly do, and constellation had zero chance of ever letting me do that. Maybe you think constellation would have opened access to space and expanded the possibilities for the rest of us, but I think you are wrong. So, so wrong. The current plan for NASA has the best chance of anything NASA has done since its creation of truly opening access to space. New technologies, reducing cost, encouraging multiple options for access to orbit. That's what NASA's goal should be and needs to be. Not a repeat of Apollo. Not another huge expense for flags, footprints, and some neat video that ends up getting 5 minutes on the evening news. So there's my rant. Take it or leave it.
Sure, it's leading to a place you happen to disagree with going to -- but going up against all the congresscritters getting jobs (and thus votes) off the Constellation program is unquestionably a gutsy move.
Moreover, I think it's the right one. Getting private investment into the business of shuttling things in and out of orbit and freeing up NASA's resources for "leaner, meaner" scientific work is exactly the right place to be going. Look at what kind of ROI we've gotten on the rovers; if NASA is going to be doing science, let them do science rather than being forever in the overpriced transport business.
Which *works* and is orders of magnitude cheaper to run that the shuttle program.
"Move some of us to a self-sufficient base on Mars, and even if Earth turns back into molten slag, humanity will continue to exist."
The hard part of that idea isn't getting to Mars, but making it self-sufficient.
NASA does lots of cool stuff - research and science on both earth and the rest of the universe. I happen to think manned space flight is very cool, but I'm getting more and more frustrated that NASA is seen as only manned space flight*, or that space research has to include manned space flight to be worthwhile.
If a congressman doesn't think NASA has any goals or program direction, it means he or she hasn't looked beyond putting people on a ship to [insert non-earth destination].
* this problem has plagued NASA for decades - manned spaceflight sucks up the bulk of funds, despite having a relatively low science per dollar quotient. It's good for marketing, though.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Ok, it's hard. So was building an airplane little more than a century ago. What's your point?
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
Tier One/Space Ship One traveled suborbitally. The Space Shuttle (STS) is an orbiter. The difference? SSO travels at Mach 3. STS hits Mach 25.
SSO flights take 3 people suborbitally. STS takes 7. Which is more important when you consider:
SSO flights take dozens of minutes. The STS can be up for 16+ days. It has to carry food, water, and process wastes for that length of time.
Space Ship One carries essentially no cargo. The Space Shuttle takes 25 metric tons to orbit.
Space Ship One is a suborbital craft. It is not a true space ship, despite its name. It would likely require multiple orders of magnitude more than $30M before it could orbit the planet.
Why live your life, why do anything? In the grand scheme of things, there's no point to anything. We create that meaning for ourselves.
Ok so you feel that you need to throw away a working system and start from scratch then? DIRECT leverages existing infrastructure and existing designs.
your idea is the same as Ford deciding to release a new F150 pickup truck but abandoning using Steel and internal combustion engines as well as wheels.
It's really dumb to redesign it all with fancy new pie in the sky technology. Use what works and get it in place fast. Why set your self up for a 2 year delay because of a problem that needs to be corrected? The SRB's and current tech works and works well no problems to have to design out. ALL DONE.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Maybe, but the grandparent's point about the bottom of the ocean is still worth considering ;).
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Disclaimer: I work for the space program, but I'm not high enough to make these decisions.
Some people will never be happy. All the dreams of the last 50 years are about to come true, and all people can do is bitch!
Look, chemical powered rockets have not changed much since the development of the SSME. So why are we only now getting private space launch? Because there was nowhere reasonable to go! ISS cargo is an easy enough mission for non-cutting edge rocketry, and since it is manned there is a long term need for supply flights that won't go away.
The future looks like this:
1. NASA guarantees it be buy x flights at y price from now until 2020.
2. Multiple vendors (currently SpaceX, Orbital, Lockheed, Boeing, and others) use this promise to secure capital to develop launchers.
3. Several years of regular supply flights gives ample qualification of the new boosters.
4. Once confidence is gained, NASA transitions from buying human flights from Russians to buying flights from Americans. Lots of politicians get reelected.
5. All the tech for better than chemical rocket launch now has a concrete mission to design for. Someone perfects laser ablative launch of cargo to ISS and does it much cheaper. Someone else gets an even cheaper launch option going.
6. NASA works on designs for solar system manned exploration craft. Design is steady and largely free from political pressure.
7. Private cargo launch matures, and one day both it and the NASA designs are ready.
8. ISS, which is now a largely private operation, is sold off or deorbited at its end of life.
9. NASA (and hell, maybe even private spacecraft) launch on commercial boosters and usher in a new era.
Look, promises smomishes. Unfunded mandates scmuded fandates. This is the ONLY way to get beyond LEO in a sustained manner by the 2050s ( when I will retire). You all should be overjoyed.
Forget planets. Space based colonization is where it's at. Let's capture a high metal asteroid and park it at L4 or L5 and start building large habitats and solar concentrators.
I drank what? -- Socrates
It is difficult to make long term plans given that your budget changes (usually in a downward spiral) each year.
NASA has a number of mandates that they have to use their funding for. And then they have the proposals that they are told to work on ("Go to mars", "privatize everything", "minimize risk because it is bad publicity"..) These cost lots of $$. Given no budget they mainly turn into paper exercises.
This should be a dilbert cartoon.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
Out of curiosity, why is the survival of the human race so important?
Why is the survival of life so important? Because as far as we know, humanity is the one and only chance for some of the earths biodiversity to ultimately survive. It took maybe more than half of the earths history for sentient life to arise, if it gets wiped out what are the odds it will happen again? Stewards indeed. On the other hand if you are content to see all life as we know it wiped out, theres not much more that can be said.
Are we that important to the galaxy or the universe that the survival of the human race is of such paramount importance? Seems like a bit of hubris to me.
The galaxy and earth in general are pretty hostile places. Why should we care what they think?
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
FYI, the craft was called SpaceShipOne. The program is called Tier One. Too bad neither compares with what the NASA programs are/were working on. To sum up:
1. Altitude. That 20-30 MM got to suborbital altitude only. How about going high enough to actually *get something done*?
2. Duration. SpaceShipOne can only stay at altitude for a few minutes due to the ballistic nature of the final trajectory. How about staying long enough to *get something done*?
3. Payload. SpaceShipOne has a max payload of some 2400 kg (in theory -- has not been tested), compared to 22,700 kg for the shuttle program, and projected 188,000 kg for LEO / 71,000 to the moon for the Constellation program. Even the Ares V Lite would carry 140,000 kg to LEO.
4. Crew capacity. SpaceShipOne can carry three crew members only, compared to seven for the shuttle, and six for the Orion capsule.
If you want to compare cost of the programs, you need to compare utility as well. And Tier One is woeful in terms of anything other than a stepping stone for more ambitious programs.
If you want to compare the cost of Constellation and Orion to what Scaled Composites is doing, then you need to wait until we know the full cost of TierTwo, which is supposed to encompass LEO, and some of TierThree, which is rumored to encompass both lunar travel and interplanetary travel. Until then, kindly fasten your seatbelt before takeoff and enjoy the view, because commenting on cost of programs with disparate utility and goals is meaningless.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Am I seeing this right? I see an Apollo module strapped on top of a Shuttle fuel tank, with Apollo rockets sticking out of the bottom of it, and it has two of the Shuttles booster strapped to the sides.
Wow the Orks from Warhammer 40k would be proud
"from scratch" my ass. The "private" industry is riding on the coattails of about 70 years of government-financed rocket research. Let's see one of these "more efficient than the government" private entities finance a revolutionary technology on their own.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
We're full of anti-intellectual skeptics now. You really think the endeavors of a scientific arm of the government is going to get the funding it needs for whiz bang cutting edge programs? American Idol is on.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
That's what all of this grandstanding is about. Vision? Bullshit! It's about jobs and votes back home. I'm sick of this fucking hypocrisy. Building an industry based on government handouts is stupid to begin with. They should consider themselves lucky to have made any money at all. The new plan for NASA is realistic and reasonable and these senators should go fuck themselves.
What's the point of putting people on Mars? Spirit did more than any manned mission could
Totally false. I single person with a rover could have done in a day what spirit has done during it's whole mission. A human can make quicker and easier judgment calls about the terrain so they can travel further and faster without input from earth. A human could have driven Spirits entire path in a day on something no fast than a golf cart. A human can make fast judgment calls about what's interesting and want needs further investigation. A human can clean the dust off the solar cells and not have to rely on dust devils. A human can walk places the rover can't physically go. A human can conduct research at the site and doesn't have to rely on a few very specialized instruments that were put on board. Humans can fix broken or flaky equipment. But ultimately, I think the real point of putting people on Mars is that it's our nature to expand into new territories and discover new things. There is no more unclaimed space on our planet. At some point we need to figure out how to live beyond the earth. These are just first baby steps. We have the desire to walk on two feet (at least some of us do), it's instinctual, but we can't quite do it yet. We keep falling down, but we keep trying because something deep inside us is driving us. You're like the baby who looks at the one trying to walk and tells him he's wasting his time because it's easier to crawl.
"Advanced Automation for Space Missions"
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/
"""
What follows is a portion of the final report of a NASA summer study, conducted in 1980 by request of newly-elected President Jimmy Carter at a cost of 11.7 million dollars. The result of the study was a realistic proposal for a self-replicating automated lunar factory system, capable of exponentially increasing productive capacity and, in the long run, exploration of the entire galaxy within a reasonable timeframe. Unfortunately, the proposal was quietly declined with barely a ripple in the press. What was once concievable with 1980's technology is now even more practical today. Even if you're just skimming through this document, the potential of this proposed system is undeniable. Please enjoy.
"""
Some individuals are still working towards that vision; one example:
http://www.openvirgle.net/
Ultimately, we will ideally end up with self-replicating space habitats that can duplicate themselves from sunlight and materials from the moons or asteroids of the solar system. There is enough relatively easily accessible materials to make habitats for trillions of people, probably quadrillions of people, and their associate biospheres. After we do that, then we can get back to talking about "Peak Oil" and limits to growth. :-)
The ultimate resource is the human imagination:
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
Why not shift 90% of the US defense budget to NASA? We're just making more enemies with most of it, anyway. :-(
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
A manned mission could have done what the MER missions have accomplished to date in a week or two... at a fantastically greater price and larger risk of loss of life. But definitely a lot quicker.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
No, I think it's actually an enlarged Apollo module and maybe a cargo module on top of a Shuttle fuel tank, with Shuttle main engines on the bottom of it, and Shuttle boosters strapped to the sides.
Apollo's F1 engines used kerosene, whereas the Shuttle's main engines use LOX and liquid H2, IIRC, so the two aren't really compatible, plus it's unlikely they'd go back to kerosene after already having the infrastructure in place for the newer fuels. Finally, the SSMEs (Space Shuttle Main Engines) are already developed and tested, so it's not hard to simply make more, or reuse the ones they already have. Building more F1 Apollo engines would probably be a big challenge since they haven't made any in decades and the plans are probably lost in a file cabinet somewhere, and all the fixtures and such are gone.
It's a perfectly sensible design, unlike an entirely-new design like the Ares. It reuses components that already exist and are highly tested and perfected, and simply jettisons the Orbiter and replaces it with a new capsule on top. It should be cheap and easy to build, unlike the Ares, and shouldn't have any problems except maybe for the capsule part, since that's the only new part.
Of course, this won't happen at all. And these agencies are supposed to be filled with the smart people? Yeah, well i can walk on water and summon plagues out of my ass.
NASA is filled with smart people. The problem is that it works with a budget and mandates from Congress, which is full of mediocre-intelligence people who really don't care that much about accomplishing anything great, only about their own personal power and wealth. And these Congresspeople are elected by people who are mostly complete morons.
I think you're on to something there.
The problem is the current focus of non-commercial spaceflight--science. That is, pure science for its own sake. We spend billions of dollars on flights (manned and not) for the sake of doing "science". Now, I like science as much as the next guy--its a great thing. But spending our billions of spaceflight dollars to launch a mission just so we can watch worms wriggle around in zero gravity is a waste. It's one thing to run such experiments in the course of something larger, but as an end in themselves, they're a terrible idea.
We need to drop all the BS about "science" and "exploration" and "discoveries". The only goal of the public space program should be establishing as many permanent, self-sustaining stations and settlements as we can. Moon, Mars, asteroids, Jovian moons, 2001-style "wheel" stations, generation ships. Expand, or die.
The efforts to support this should be national level, right up there with fixing the national infrastructure and transitioning to nuclear/renewable power. I'm talking bigger than Apollo, bigger than the bailouts or the stimulus package. These ought to be the national domestic priorities, not shoveling billions of dollars down the drain for useless, ineffective social programs we've already wasted trillions on, only to pay trillions more because the first 20 years of payments were pissed away.
The first goal should be the development of a high flight rate, low-cost, robust orbital launch vehicle, because without affordable space access, you can't do anything else up there. This is what the shuttle was supposed to be, but wound up failing miserably at. Yes, it will be expensive to develop. It will probably take a few generations of vehicles and two or three decades to get it right. Offer it out to Lockheed, Boeing, EADS, N-G, SpaceX, Scaled, Dassault, even Sukhoi.
Supporting this and the future goals will take lots of engineers, scientists, and mathematicians. Add funding to existing educational money so that school systems can afford to hire existing engineers, scientists, and mathematicians at wages they will be willing to work for, and have them teach. Cut administrative and school board positions by at least two thirds, get rid of the do-nothing, know-nothing "education" majors that merely pretend to teach, and hire some retired drill sargeants to straighten up the schools with discipline problems. Give the kids a chance to work towards something worthwhile instead of glamorizing entertainers.
Once the reliable launch vehicle is in service, then you start the colonization and utilization push. Mine some asteroids, put bases on the moon and Mars, build thousand-person stations in low orbit. Set up space-based solar collectors and beam energy down to remote areas.
It comes down to this: we can sit here staring at our belly button lint for the next fifty years, or we can actually go and do something worthwhile with our lives. Doing it will be hard, it will be expensive... but sitting on our collective ass waiting for things to happen won't work. New technology doesn't jsut materialize out of thin air; someone needs to work on it.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
There aren't any. Not when Congress critters make more than the average American household (legally, who knows about back room/under the table dealings), get to vote on their own pay raises, and have no term limits. Where is the incentive to do anything besides make sure they get re-elected so they can keep getting paid and living in luxury? Especially when we as Americans keep people in office for decades and start to believe in family dynasties. (the Kennedy family for instance. When did political positions become something to hand down through generations? Doesn't anyone remember stuff like that in England was part of the reason we broke free?)
Just my $0.02...
Isn't that NASA's goal? To get that pie in the sky?
Yes, but you shouldn't need to use sky pie to get pie in the sky. Or something. I had a point there but I think I lost it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
To answer your underlying question, if you're a nihilist, then nothing has meaning and there's no reason to do anything. If, however, you find some meaning in existence, then it's fairly easy to extrapolate that the existence of others also has meaning, and it's a worthwhile goal to ensure that "others" will be able to continue existing for as long as possible.
Last post!
NASA: "Hey, look what we can do!"
Senate: "F*@$! Look how much money that costs! Stop that!"
NASA: "Um, well, we can do this too..."
Congress: "That's too &%$*!#@ dangerous! Shut it down! Shut it down!"
NASA: "Well, maybe we could try this... it doesn't cost quite so much, and it's safer. Is that okay?"
Senate: "I guess so. And take your sister with you."
NASA: "All right. Here goes..."
Congress: "That's TOO LOUD! Knock it off, and go to your room!"
NASA: *SULK*
Senate: "Why doesn't NASA DO anything? They have no ambition, and lack vision. Where did they go wrong?"
I never said that, I said it's a question that fundamentally can not be answered.
Why is it imperative that you continue to exist? What gives you this right of free will? Why is it imperative that you do so without infringing upon the rights of others?
That imperative never existed to begin with, it is an abstract concept that you have created and put faith in.
Your imperative to not infringe upon the rights of others is based on the idea that if all humans around you did so, no one would have their existence terminated. It is ultimately tied to the idea of continuing your existence, of avoiding death.
If you did not believe your life is worth living, then why do you choose to obey any of the human laws? After all, they are nothing but rules we have created to insure our own survival. If you do not believe it is necessary to insure our survival then you also should have no reason to follow any laws, yet you do so because you are alive and because you wish to continue living.
The imperative is to prevent such a thing from ever happening.
What is importance? If humanity were wiped out tomorrow, the more important ideals of health care, world peace, etc would be nothing. We place importance on those values because we have faith in the continuation of the human species. If there were a looming threat that could wipe out humanity, nothing would be more important than to solve that simply because without our continued existence, none of our other values matter.
Don't even mention dollars, the dollar is an abstract human concept that values the labor of man and does not exist without human civilization.
Yes, if we could get a person to Mars fast enough (need undeveloped technology), cheap enough (need technology about 1000x cheaper than now), and keep him alive on the trip and on mars and on the trip back (need undeveloped technology), a human with a rover could outperform the robot we did send.
Also, you perhaps overestimate what a human can accomplish under those conditions. The human will need to tote around life support equipment. He will be in a pressure suit, which really drops mobility and productivity. Also, repairing equipment under those conditions mostly means clearing jams and swapping in spare parts.
And last, the human can't hang around for months and months while scientists back home digest data and decide the best place to send him next. Accumulated radiation dose will do him in first.
Question is, with all that technological development needed to send a human, couldn't we just send a better robot instead with the same resources? And wouldn't that better robot technology help us in 1000's of other ways?
--PM
For those of you who've watched the Senate hearing video that QuantumG linked to, there's this rather bizarre part where Sen. Vitter (R-La) made some insinuations that Bolden wasn't actually involved in the planning, but it was all supposedly done by his deputy Lori Garver. The Orlando Sentinel has some follow-up on this, with sources reporting that ATK (one of the primary contractors on the Ares I rocket) had put up the Senator to make those attacks:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_space_thewritestuff/2010/02/senators-attack-on-nasa-deputy-chief-lori-garver-backfires.html
The attacks on NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver spearheaded by Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter during a hearing on Wednesday on the 2011 NASA budget have badly backfired, according to a range of sources.
Vitter accused Garver -- who was not present at the hearing -- of orchestrating the cancellation of Constellation. He also seemed to suggest that Garver was running the agency, and not Administrator Charlie Bolden. Bolden later called Vitter's comment "unfair."
Not only were administration outraged by Vitter's remarks but several female civil servants and women executives in aerospace companies who have known Garver for years felt compelled to send their complaints to senate staff Wednesday afternoon.
Several sources on the Hill, in industry and inside the Obama administration blame rocket maker ATK, the developer of the Ares I rocket first stage, for putting Vitter up to the attack. Sources say that complaints have been sent to ATK and so far there has been no response.
In the meantime, members of the Senate and the House said they were going to refrain from any further personal attacks as they move against the White House's proposed 2011 budget for the space agency.
For me it's as simple as survival. As long as humanity is confined to a single planet, we're vulnerable to being wiped out by a planetary scale disaster.
Okay, but we're a long, looong way from having 100% completely self-sufficient off-world colonies that it doesn't even make sense to start. The chain of technologies necessary to allow a human to survive in space is ridiculously long and at the moment completely infeasible to implement outside of the hospitable environment of our home planet. And that even applies after some global disaster. It pretty much would take the destruction of the earth for it to be less suitable for human life than any other rock in the solar system.
Certainly a "get to Mars in 10 years" plan makes zero sense in this context, since such a rushed mission would absolutely not be the foundation for a permanent off-world colony, much less a self-sufficient one.
And any colony that isn't self sufficient isn't a back-up to preserve the human species in case the earth is destroyed. It's just a place to recreate a really depressing novel in a sci-fi setting.
Personally, even for the purpose of eventually giving humans another place to live besides earth, the current plan is much better than one with the specific goal of reaching Mars. New propulsion systems, in-space construction and assembly, these are things we will need for a future off-world colony to be feasible. Trying to implement such a colony starting today would be silly. Wait until we can at least access LEO cheaply before worrying about landing habitats on Mars or building them in space.
The enemies of Democracy are