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Former Astronauts Call Obama NASA Plans "Catastrophic"
krou writes "Talking to the BBC at a private function held at the Royal Society in London, former astronauts Jim Lovell and Eugene Cernan both spoke out about Obama's decision to postpone further moon missions. Lovell claimed that 'it will have catastrophic consequences in our ability to explore space and the spin-offs we get from space technology,' while Cernan noted he was 'disappointed' to have been the last person to land on the moon. Said Cernan: 'I think America has a responsibility to maintain its leadership in technology and its moral leadership ... to seek knowledge. Curiosity's the essence of human existence.' Neil Armstrong, who was also at the event, avoided commenting on the subject."
American can, should, must and will blow up the moon.
I'd rather have health care than a trip to the moon for 4 people.
Maybe if we hadn't squandered a trillion dollars on the unnecessary war in Iraq we could afford things like going to the moon again.
Astronaut: "I'm outraged! How will people who achieve nothing other than taking part in one of the greatest international pissing matches in history, paid for with taxpayer money, now be famous?! Not in my day sonny! NOT IN MY DAY!"
You've got to cut something if the country is too politically polarized to raise enough revenue to cover expenditures. Sending tourists to a dry barren rock seems pretty low on the priority list, especially when robots can achieve the same science goals at a small fraction of the cost.
How about we explore the forests and oceans first. There's lots of scientific knowledge to be gained right here on earth.
Bringing men to the moon currently wouldn't add anything of value. It was possible in the '60s, doing it now would not bring any advancement. Space money is better spent on research for new propulsion systems and ways to get off the Earth. When that is done, THEN go to the moon.
With modern CGI techniques, surely faking moon landings should be getting cheaper?
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
If we had an unlimited budget, the US could have the world's biggest functioning high-energy particle accelerator running by now.
Oh wait...
I think China should explore space and generate the spinoffs from technology.
Their people are smaller, their country has all the money, and they don't have baby boomers sucking the life out of the means to do anything through which Congress might actually forge agreement.
re: "America has a responsibility to maintain its leadership in technology".--It's over. It's not 1997 anymore.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
Just like it is not now time to launch a rocket to a nearby star, now is not the time for maned space travel. The cost is ridiculous, and the value of Hubble has been exponentially larger. I'd be all for launching larger, more, or different versions of Hubble because the amount of science that has been done with the telescope is amazing. But manned space travel?
Why can't Congress just have an overall science budget? DOE, NASA, etc. can then figure out how to divide it up, independent of what the politicians think. Otherwise politicians compare astronauts playing golf on the moon against healthcare or their latest pork project (culminating in a celebratory round of golf). NASA should just have to compete against other science efforts.
This not only would insulate NASA somewhat from political agendas, but it would help keep NASA missions to a high standard. Missions with little scientific or technical benefit wouldn't be able to earn funding over more promising research in other fields.
My webcomic
We face no external threats, militarily speaking. It's time for us to discard our empire.
And what "empire" is that exactly? Do you demand we let go of Puerto Rico?
Other than that we have a number of military actions in areas where we are supporting democratic governments - Iraq and Iran - that are not in any way part of a U.S. "empire" (for better or worse).
As for the lack of military threats, I suggest to tell that to the people attacking our military and citizens. Perhaps they will stop once they realize they do not exist.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The only possible explanation for an opposition to Obama is racism!!!
Just ask Jimmy Carter, Chris Matthews, or Janeane Garofalo.
We need to work on mineing the moon / other places and not just sending people there.
if the republicans got elected the same thing would be going on - very little funding to NASA etc... Now, I can't help but wonder if both sides are really just one side... The all have two things in common. They got elected, and they want to stay elected. That's politics 101.
Why don't more private rich guys step up and fund moon missions?
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
the last person to land on the moon
Gene Cernan was the last person to walk on the moon. He was one of the two last people to land on the moon.
Though if you think about it. If landing on the moon inside a vehicle counts then walking on the moon inside a vehicle should also count, so he is still one of the two last people to walk on the moon.
Neil Armstrong, who was also at the event, avoided commenting on the subject.
True to form.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Don't everybody get it by now?
Landing men and women and planting flags on foreign planets is for Hollywoord special effects. They're better handled by private industries and on sound stages.
Who cares if there is or isn't life on Mars presently or in the past? Why, we'll make Mars suitable for life instead! And that should be the ultimate goal.
Granted, there are a *lot* of wastes in government I would like to see go away before government-funded manned spaceflight, but the US deficit is growing *dangerously* large. If the partisan divide is too great to eliminate anything else, something has to go, at least temporarily, before our social services go completely by the wayside, or much, much worse. I'm not saying that this is anywhere near the best choice. But these days, our country is divided that nothing else can be agreed on. Our politicians are at one another's throats instead of making compromises we need to survive as a nation. In addition, heroism aside, I think that the unmanned and orbital space programs like Hubble, rovers, and the ISS are much more critical for scientific discovery than manned missions. While less of a symbol, they produce immense amounts of useful scientific data. The Bush administration's Mars plans would likely have occurred at the expense of these programs. So there is no good answer. If civilian agencies take up the slack and begin performing the exploration, then there may be some hope.
We need to work on mineing the moon / other places and not just sending people there.
You are going to need to send people there to do that, unless you want it to take 200 years. But I think the US Government is right to cut the apron strings between manned lunar exploration and public funding. There are now threads of private funding for human activities in space. These threads should be encouraged to grow.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Yes, some former Astronauts call this catastrophic. All two of them. I think the headline was worded specifically to make it sound as if this was a widespread belief among astronauts, rather than a minority one.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I think you missed the part where black voters voted "Fuck You" to the white establishment. This president may not be all that representative but the next black president will be and the more black presidents there are the more there will be debate on the issues instead of just giving the finger to honkies for centuries of oppression. So, a big "Fuck You" wait till there is a Mexican president.
It's rather interesting that Buzz Aldrin has a completely opposite view of the new plan:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/buzz-aldrin/president-obamas-jfk-mome_b_448667.html
... The President courageously decided to redirect our nation's space policy away from the foolish and underfunded Moon race that has consumed NASA for more than six years, aiming instead at boosting the agency's budget by more than $1 billion more per year over the next five years, topping off at $100 billion for NASA between now and 2015. And he directed NASA to spend a billion per year on buying rides for American astronauts aboard new, commercially developed space vehicles-that's American space vehicles. Other NASA funds will go into developing and testing new revolutionary technologies that we can use in living and working on Mars and its moons. ... For the past six years America's civil space program has been aimed at returning astronauts to the Moon by 2020. That's the plan announced by President George W. Bush in January of 2004. That plan also called for developing the technologies that would support human expeditions to Mars, our ultimate destination in space. But two things happened along the way since that announcement, which became known as the Vision for Space Exploration.
First, the President failed to fully fund the program, as he had initially promised. As a result, each year the development of the rockets and spacecraft called for in the plan slipped further and further behind. Second and most importantly, NASA virtually eliminated the technology development effort for advanced space systems. Equally as bad, NASA also raided the Earth and space science budgets in the struggle to keep the program, named Project Constellation, on track. Even that effort fell short.
To keep the focus on the return to the Moon, NASA pretty much abandoned all hope of preparing for Mars exploration. It looked like building bases on the Moon would consume all of NASA's resources. Yet despite much complaining, neither a Republican-controlled nor a Democratic-controlled Congress was willing or able to add back those missing and needed funds. The date of the so-called return to the Moon slipped from 2020 to heaven-knows when. At the same time, there was no money to either extend the life of the Space Shuttle, due to be retired this year, or that of the International Space Station, due to be dropped into the Pacific Ocean in 2015, a scant handful of years after it was completed.
Enter the new Obama administration. Before deciding what to do about national space policy, Obama set up an outside review panel of space experts, headed up by my friend Norm Augustine, former head of Lockheed Martin and a former government official. Augustine's team took testimony and presentations from many people with ideas on what way forward NASA should take (that group included me). In October, it presented its report to the President and to Dr. John Holdren, Obama's science advisor and a friend and colleague of mine. The report strongly suggested the nation move away from the troubled rocket program, called Ares 1, and both extend the life of the space station and develop commercial ways of sending astronauts and cargoes up to the station. And it suggested a better way to spend our taxpayer dollars would be not focused on the Moon race, but on something it called a "Flexible Path." Flexible in the sense that it would redirect NASA towards developing the capability of voyaging to more distant locations in space, such as rendezvous with possibly threatening asteroids, or comets, or even flying by Mars to land on its moons. Many different destinations and missions would be enabled by that approach, not just one.
But with the limited NASA budget consumed by the Moon, no funds were available for this development effort -- until now. Now President Obama has signaled that new direction -- what
'Under my watch, NASA will inspire the world once again and is going to help grow the economy right here in Brevard County,' said the presumptive Democratic nominee, speaking to a crowd of 1,400 at Brevard Community College's Titusville campus.
Obama has changed an earlier position, in which he planned to delay the Constellation program five years and use up to $5 billion from the NASA budget for education."
Like many politicians of all political parties, Obama tells the voters whatever they want to hear. After he wins election, he quickly changes course.
The principal difference between Obama and the typical dishonest politican is that Obama personally hates Western culture and Western civilization. For 20 years, he attended a church which taught that the West is solely responsible for the failure of non-Western societies.
Of course, Japan is proof that Obama (and his church) is wrong. Not coincidentally, Japan continues to aggressively pursue space exploration. According to a recent news article, "Despite the recession, the [Japanese] government budgeted ¥344.8 billion for space exploration in fiscal 2009, an increase of 10.4 percent from the previous year."
Two things need to happen first:
1) we need to ensure that we can grow life on other planets using just energy (nuclear or from the environment) and environmental materials
>There are things we take for granted on Earth like water, and food
>we need ways of making those in an environment that does not provide them: UV+CO2=plants
2) we need some way to automate construction, and the replication of the builders
3) extra: a space elevator (like a space tether) or cheaper propulsion would help a lot
Test 1
Get a biosphere working in a desert (an artic desert)
Test 2
Regrow forests in areas that have been completely turned to sand:
(like the sahara) using dome like structures
(climate controlled environment for plants)
Test 3
Make robots that can replicate themselves from rock and sand in harsh Mars like conditions
(these robots would be programmable as well)
Test 4
Construct these domes utilizing replicator robots on earth, in the sahara or artic deserts
Test 5
Send these robots to the moon and replicate a moon base
Going to Mars will not change the requirements for a sustained Planetary base on Mars. Going to Mars now with a manned mission and back would be prohibitive.
But we will eventually need to go to Mars (Earth will not last forever)
A moon base would be a good start
I think if we can sustain a moon base with a biosphere and a growing population then we are ready for Mars and beyond.
African-Americans vote 95% Democratic even for the white guys. That's been a fact since the civil rights movement. Going by your logic, any white person who voted for McCain is a racist because they voted for the white candidate.
Take this ignorant bullshit back to stormfront or whatever internet cesspool you managed to slither out of.
For some reason this only got posted to the politics.slashdot page (where it's gotten all of 2 comments), but since I figured others would be interested in learning more I'll re-post the details here, with relevant links included:
The White House has announced that on April 15 the President will be visiting Florida to host a conference on the Administration's 'new vision for America's future in space,' which is focused on developing new technologies and capabilities needed for sustainable exploration of 'the Moon, asteroids, and eventually Mars.' The White House's plans for reinvigorating NASA are facing vocal opposition from several congressmen in Florida, Texas, and Alabama, due to its outright cancellation of the Constellation/Ares program, which was found to be 'fundamentally un-executable' but is/was an important source of jobs in many areas.
while Cernan noted he was 'disappointed' to have been the last person to land on the moon.
I'm sure they could fake another one. The sfx these days are much better than 1969. Avatar looked stunning!
"We live in a global world" - Harvey Pitt, former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman
to successfully mine the moon, you will need to move many 1000's of tonnes of equipment. I know some people on here think mining is just matter of digging a hole in the ground, but extracting minerals is actually a highly involved process.
once you have the cost and pay issues solved, you'll need to have people live up there safely. remote control only will never cut it, at the very least you will require maintenance crews to live up there to maintain the robots. the biggest issue with this is protection from high energy space radiation.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
The astronauts, members of Congress, and defense contractors make it sound as though there was a robust manned program in place that Obama arbitrarily decided to cancel. Instead, the manned program was barely making headway and was cannibalizing the rest of the NASA budget. Here is background on the sad shape that NASA was in 2009: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/396093main_HSF_Cmte_FinalReport.pdf or http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/09/08/1955242/Future-of-NASAs-Manned-Spaceflight-Looks-Bleak Summary: There was not enough money in manned spaceflight to hit anything close to the proposed schedule for shuttle replacement/Moon/Mars. The lack of money was driving the costs up even further (if you spread a program out over more time you wind up with a standing army drawing paychecks). The administration had the choices to give NASA a lot more money to get the manned program back on track, cut the manned program, or watch the unmanned programs be cannibalized to feed the manned program as they have been for the last couple years. I suppose upping the NASA budget would have been as good a stimulus as some, at least for aerospace engineers like me.
Oh, man will walk on the moon again someday... just maybe not in any currently living person's lifetime.
And of course, that's assuming that we won't all be wiped out by some sort of mass extinction event before then.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The good news for sure is an increase of $6 billion over the next five years. It stresses new technology and innovation (to the tune of over $1.5 billion), which is also good. A lot of NASA’s successes have been from pushing the limits on what can be done. It also stresses Earth science, which isn’t surprising at all; Obama appears to understand the importance of our environmental impact, including global warming. So that’s still good news.
The very very good news is that half that money — half, folks, 3.2 billion dollars — is going to science. Yeehaw! The release specifically notes telescopes and missions to the Moon and planets. That, my friends, sounds fantastic.
NASA’s Constellation program – based largely on existing technologies – was based on a vision of returning astronauts back to the Moon by 2020. However, the program was over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation due to a failure to invest in critical new technologies. Using a broad range of criteria an independent review panel determined that even if fully funded, NASA’s program to repeat many of the achievements of the Apollo era, 50 years later, was the least attractive approach to space exploration as compared to potential alternatives. Furthermore, NASA’s attempts to pursue its moon goals, while inadequate to that task, had drawn funding away from other NASA programs, including robotic space exploration, science, and Earth observations. The President’s Budget cancels Constellation and replaces it with a bold new approach that invests in the building blocks of a more capable approach to space exploration
I'll just come out and say I really believe money spent of government programs that are supposed to help people is mostly smoke and mirrors and ends up doing very little real long term good. I grew up in the NASA era, I saw the first moon landing in first grade on a black and white television and it was easily the most memorable moment for me until I saw breasts. So I say screw almost every other budget item. Pour money into space exploration. Hell, split the difference and call them 'shovel ready jobs'. I don't care. The return on investment is so much greater investing in space related technologies then studying the 'reproductive traits of prairie dogs' or other uninspiring tripe. To boldly go where no man has gone before. That's the ticket.
'I don't know what it's called. I just know the sound it makes, when it takes a man's life.' ~ Four Leaf Tayback
Sucks for all the astronauts out there, but I think our problems back on Earth are more important than an intergalactic luxury cruise for a few rich kids.
I think the proposed plan does the best job of fulfilling our "responsibility to maintain its leadership in technology and its moral leadership... to seek knowledge.". I mean, it's all about technology and seeking knowledge. It's about doing things technologically that haven't been done before, not just engineering yet another rocket. We've kinda already acquired that knowledge, and it's fully baked enough to be put in the hands of private industry now. Instead focus on the kinds of things that JPL has been working on with minimal budget on the side and that have really pushed technology and increased our knowledge of the solar system.
It's only sad if he's the last one to ever land on the moon. I hope that when we do it's for more than to put boots down.
The enemies of Democracy are
What empire?
Are you effing kidding me or are you just a total idiot?
The US has anywhere between 750 to over 1000 bases on the planet.
That would be THE very definition of empire.
The fact that these bases are in over a hundred countries.... thats another hint.
And those 30-40 countries the US has bombed since WW2 (not counting the ones it sabotaged, overthrew, armed/trained terrorists for, cuz that would probably triple the number).... yeah, that's worse than the nazis (this a a Godwin exception because it is not used for cheap shock value but the last time a country was so heavily invested in the business of death.
The US is an empire by any definition of the term.
Now go back to Glen Beck, CNN and Larry King and wallow in your self delusion.
3
So, the economy is in the toilet, we're throwing all sorts of money at fighting a non-military enemy, we're in massive national debt. Clearly we should also be dumping millions and billions into sending men to a god forsaken rock so they can bounce around, stick flags in the ground, and piss down their pants legs.
Great idea!
Wait, what, Mexico doesn't have a President?
A child on the Ghanaian Space Agency base on Europa asks her father, "Almost every nation on Earth has built outposts and colonies in the Solar system except America. What happened to them, Daddy?".
"Oh, they decided to stay home and play Dark Orbit instead."
there's probably a few others i'm missing
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Spend the "money" on cleaning up the existing spacejunk. You other privileged orbiters will just have to be content with your highspeed mansion.
Leave the politics out of it. Nasa is a drop in the bucket. Lets not argue about Iraq or Afghanistan and instead pull troops out of somewhere we can all agree on, like Korea or Germany. Or ban political contributions ALL TOGETHER. Or how about passing an amendment that bars the federal government from bailing out ANY failing company or industry? There are thousands of places the government is sending our money that we can unanimously agree are things we do not want to pay for, why argue about the ones we can't agree on?
you forgot japan.
It's totally inconceivable to imagine that when the Japanese Astronauts, the Chinese Taikonauts and the Indian Hehenauts live and work in their respectable moon-bases, we Americans are still stuck in the bottom of the gravity well.
The worst of all is this --- Not only are we stuck here, we rather waste time debating if we want to give the degenerates free healthcare than find ways to send our troopers to the moon.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
What's been catastrophic for space exploration is that we have sunk trillions into the manned space program for little return. What's been catastrophic is that romantic visions of test pilots and the moon landing completely skewed everybody's understanding of what space exploration is or what it can achieve.
The military is already figuring it out and increasingly switching from manned planes to drones. In a generation or two, when "military pilot" becomes synonymous with someone wielding a joystick, hopefully, we can also do the sensible thing and focus all our efforts on remotely operated space exploration.
... while he was writing about the hopes he had on the space exploration and everything. It makes me sad. In some way I'm glad he's gone so he doesn't have to see this.
That's the conclusion of an independent fact-checking organization known as PolitiFact.
The organization's nonpartisan assessment is expected to be widely quoted by supporters of NASA who are trying to reverse Obama's decision on Capitol Hill. "
Like many politicians before him, Barack Hussein Obama broke a campaign promise. He outright lied in order to get the votes independent voters.
Many news wires are now reporting that Obama broke his presidential-campaign promise to fund Constellation. In response, his supporters (of whom many are African-American) -- e. g., Beelzebud -- are pumping messages into the blogs and online forums to defend Obama.
"I think America has a responsibility to maintain its leadership in technology and its moral leadership... to seek knowledge. Curiosity's the essence of human existence."
Apollo's technology was at the cutting edge. But today? It takes decades to get a new idea into space. NASA's leadership is as frightened of 21st century technology as any superstitious savage.
Curiosity? Anybody who works with NASA these days knows that it has comprehensively institutionalized the murder of curiosity.
Seek knowledge? The joke inside the walls is that "NASA" stands for "Not A Science Agency".
"Personally I think it will have catastrophic consequences in our ability to explore space and the spin-offs we get from space technology."
Spin-offs? Very rare these days. You can't have spin-offs if you're not pushing the technology envelope, and NASA simply isn't. You want advanced technology, peek inside an iPhone.
The relationship between NASA and its contractors is rigorously legal, and thoroughly dishonest.
NASA is very good at PR, and totally committed to using it to get taxpayer money to spend (and its private contractors are experts at capturing the money without having to deliver corresponding value). They are also good at international cooperation, which they use as a vehicle to inflict their stagnant practices on the potential competition.
Within NASA, the human program is the most stagnant of all. The space station has the highest ratio of cost to actual accomplishment of anything NASA has ever done (but it gets great PR). The return to the Moon was never a genuinely serious program, just more institutional welfare.
In the great age of European exploration, it took about a year of human labor on the shore to equip a sailor for a one year journey. In NASA's system, that ratio is thousands to one. With that inefficiency, there's no way that space travel can become a truly significant human activity. If you look at the advances in the supporting technologies since 1969, it might be possible to reduce costs that much, but having institutionalized layers and layers of barriers to even trying means it cannot happen.
It's only a pyramid scheme if America ceases to exist.
IT's a pyramid scheme because it depends on the activity of new workers to pay for old ones. Because there are not enough new workers, social security, like many other entitlements, is imploding.
It -could- have not been a pyramid scheme had the USA not embarked on almost 50 years of free trade madness. Because of free trade, the USA had to continuously devalue the dollar to stay at least somewhat in the game, and would devalue again, if the asians weren't foolishly buying as many of them as can be printed. So... savings values face a constant erosion, people look for growth stocks to compensate, more money flows overseas, the dollar is devalued more to compensate, repeat loop, and the country gets gutted.
This is my sig.
And thanks for clearing up why you're so uninformed
I have the entire US budget down to every gory detail online at my web site.
http://www.mightyware.com/federalbudget.bhs
What has done Obama (and late Bush as well),is the simple fact that entitlements have exploded at the same time corporate profits have eroded. Yeah, the US military is up there, and Obama does bury the war now in the DoD budget proper, but have a look at outlays for everything from student loans, to medicare, to social services.... its increased enormously. I mean, Obama actually gets a nearly 150B break from TARP repayments, and Bush actually paid out 700B to TARP, and Obama is still over a trillion in the whole, and, at the rate of growth of entitlements, even if you completely surrendered the wars and cut the military in half, we would still be 700B in hock, and more, every year.
Go ahead and have a look - how much is out there for disability, old age retirement, medicare... even student loans have gone bezerk..
This is my sig.
A big portion of our bleeding economy is flowing out the giant bullet hole labeled "War against terror." and if we just stopped a _single_ _war_ that we're involved with we'd have a ton of money to put towards all sorts of stuff.
The USA spends twice as much money on entitlements as it does on the entire US military.
http://www.mightyware.com/federalbudget.bhs
This is my sig.
It's not just the "War on Terror." It's all the wars. We face no external threats, militarily speaking. It's time for us to discard our empire.
I agree with that, but in order to do that, free trade has to go. The whole reason we have the empire is to have free trade.
Now, I happen to think free trade is stupid... at least as our government thinks "free" is when it defines trade, but, without our empire, we get stuff like pirates and rogue states attacking everywhere, not just off of africa. transatlantic air traffic would stop and maritime traffic could only be done by armed merchantman.
This is my sig.
If our goal is to spend another 30 years in earth orbit.
Ares I was a piece of pork which should have long since been canceled. I'm glad it's gone. Everyone knows there are currently two US boosters (three soon enough) in the same weight and performance category and part of Obama's plan is to use those to go into LEO. This makes sense.
What no one has discussed, either in the pro Constellation crowd or those against, is what the propulsion package will be for Flexible Path. I'd like to see some of the ideas behind DIRECT refined so we end up with a moderately economical, scalable launch architecture for really heavy payloads. COTS is not likely to develop this on their own, they're happy at 25 tons to LEO and under. It's where their profit is. Note, I'm choosing to be optimistic on Flexible path being funded and implemented.
It looks like Orion Lite from Bigelow/Boeing/Lockheed is the front runner for crew transport. I'm not sure how much commonality is possible between it and a future Orion Heavy used for lunar or martian missions. Hopefully building one makes it easier to build the other.
I'm really surprised no one has brought this up in the health care debate:
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html
Anyway, I'm from Thailand, so I don't really care either way things roll. If the US doesn't bring its health care system up to the level of other industrialized nations and becomes paralyzed by preventable chronic conditions, it will be good for Thailand's "health tourism" industry.
There is nothing more important to our species than being capable of leaving this planet and finding alternative, habitable planets...
This is why Nasa's manned space program needs to end.
It has been the most inefficient and grandstanding spectacle by a civilization since the pyramids. Nasa has repeatedly claimed that the technology developed from the outrageously expensive trips provide innovations in the commercial sector. While there is some truth to this, it is not comparable to the money spent.
Nasa's JPL has been an example of efficiency in regards to gathering information about the universe. The mars rovers and Phoenix have been resounding successes when cost vs. information gained is considered. Keeping a human being alive and safe while traveling through space is a huge waste of resources whether it be money, energy or intellect. Our current technology simply does not allow for that to be done efficiently.
Pump money into the JPL for more remote missions, Offer awards and loans to the private sector for space travel innovations and utilize the private sector for low orbit missions and maintenance. Offer an incentive and some really smart people will dig their heels in and solve the problem...
Obama's decision regarding the Constellation program was a smart one. We will go back to the Moon eventually. Going now will not significantly improve our understanding of how to get there, how to live there, or what resources are available. It would just be another brute force spectacle.
"The budget shifts priorities from going back to the moon to developing advanced technologies, including advanced propulsion research and climate research done at Marshall. It also proposes that NASA take on the development of a new heavy-lift rocket by developing improved rocket engines, materials and ways to fuel rockets in what are basically floating gas stations in space."
Sounds to me like they want to promote the development of an infrastructure that will allow for further expansion of our space travel capabilities. That seems to make a lot more sense than the "America! F*&% YEAH!" trip we had planned...
But I think the US Government is right to cut the apron strings between manned lunar exploration and public funding.
One of the biggest issues for lunar activities is going to be infrastructure. That means getting electricity, oxygen, water, food, etc. There are lots of really great theories as to how to do this. What we need is to do is actually start trying these out.
There's uranium on the moon. How do we get to it? How do we use it in a nuclear reactor on the moon? Are we better off with solar? What do we do when we're rotated away from the sun? If we build lots of solar power stations, how do we get the power from there to a moon base?
There's water-ice on the moon, in theory. How do we get to it? How do we use it to create oxygen and water? Do we build our moon bases right next to it? What's that going to do to our ability to get in and out (this water-ice is usually located in dark cold craters which are not necessarily the best landing spots for ships). How do you build a water pipeline on the moon? We can supposedly get oxygen by heating moon rocks. Is that more or less efficient?
How about food? Growing vegetables is nice, sure, and animals are inefficient but tasty. But do you want to stick with a vegetarian diet in order to live on the moon?
Developing the technologies for that is going to cost big money--and that's just so people can live on the moon. Then we have to talk about making money from the moon.
Part of the issue with mining the moon is that there really isn't anything up there that we can't get down here on Earth. About the only thing I've heard of is Helium-3 which may be useful in Nuclear Fusion. But getting the Helium-3 from the Moon to the Earth is going to be pricey. Some ideas, such as fusion plants in orbit may make that cost go down, but you still have to get the electricity to the grid on Earth and if you come up with an efficient way to do it, why not use solar instead of fusion?
So you don't want to mine stuff on the Moon and send the ore back to Earth because it will always be more expensive than just mining it on the Earth. What you really want to do is mine it, refine it, make products out of it, and use those products on the Moon. Here's where private industry comes in. Yeah, they'll do that stuff if they have a market. But for there to be a market, there needs to be entities there to create the demand. Those entities aren't going to be there unless there's some kind of infrastructure in place for them to survive.
For example, I've commented previously that I think the Moon is a great place to build space ships. You have gravity on the Moon, unlike in Earth orbit, so you don't need any fancy system to transport, say, molten iron from point A to point B--let it flow downhill like we do on Earth. A dropped screw isn't going to go whizzing around the planet for the next 100 years, it will fall to the ground where it can be picked up. But the gravity on the Moon is 1/6th that of the Earth. So you can use 1/6th the fuel to lift an object into lunar orbit than you would into Earth orbit--or you can lift something six times heavier. And going outside the Earth/Moon environment will need less fuel if you leave from the moon than if you leave from Earth.
But, again, you need that infrastructure before you can start doing such things. Private industry is not going to pay for the R&D of that infrastructure. They might be willing to pay for the R&D of how to mine and build stuff on the Moon if a customer will come along who will pay them for the finished products (whose prices will contain the R&D). That someone is going to be a Government entity (US or otherwise).
There are now threads of private funding for human activities in low earth orbit. These threads should be encouraged to grow.
FTFY.
By the way, most of that isn't entirely "private" funding. One of their biggest customers will still be the good ol' US
Buzz Aldrin is channeling his urge to explore in the dance studio.
buzz
I don't understand.. look at all the computational power, design automation and advancements in basic materials science since 1969. We should be able to send care packages to the moon via FedEx today.
Personally I would rather see better space based telescopes and remote probes than manned missions in the near term. For the money its just more interesting and provides the highest cost/benefit returns in terms of research/knowledge.
At some point mass production, machine intelligence and less global availability of cheap labor will rapidly start to push more and more people out of the workforce as production becomes more and more automated.
Forget the manned missions to mars... hows about an attempt at something impossible like building a large (>1million ppl) city on mars or terraforming the whole planet. No new tech needs to be invented to get people to mars and back so whats the point in shooting that low? Maybe I watch too much star trek and expect too much or maybe you can't empty a lake with a bucket.
Going into (or deeper into) debt during a recession only makes sense if the expenditures are put towards something that will produce revenue for the government in the future. The public works projects that left nothing behind but worthless infrastructure in places with little or no population were mistakes. The Hoover dam though... that made sense, even though it still hasn't sold enough electricity to pay for all the costs involved. The original costs are due to be paid in 2037. Unless something bad happens though, it was a good investment that *also* created jobs. Just creating jobs by throwing money at people won't get you out of a recession.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
To go to the Moon again makes sense. We need to make a Moon Base. A permanent Moon Base. To go to Mars and back would be expensive. And a bit silly at this point. If we plan to go to Mars in a manned mission it makes more sense to go when we can establish a permanent colony. If we really want to live on Mars we need to: 1) put a biosphere in the Artic first. That way we can fix any problems that we didn't anticipate (shortages of supplies, accidents, etc). 2) put a biosphere on the Moon. And make it a permanent settlement, expand it and make it into a lauch site for rockets. Have entire generations live on the Moon: schools, businesses, colonies. 3) The end goal would be to put a biosphere on Mars The biggest hurdles to get over will be: Creating a biosphere that can scale, and keep it running with the only inputs being energy and the raw materials available on Mars. What will power a permanent Mars base? Fission? Fuel Cell? Solar? Wind? What will build the cities in Mars? Self replicating robots? A couple large but efficient builder robots? Or will they be like the Earth movers we already use? How do we cost effectively get that much stuff into orbit to build the giant rocket to get to Mars? We could mine asteroids and build rockets in space or on the Moon. I think it makes the most sense to start with a space colony (in space or the Moon) outside the Earth, and from their population and resources move on to Mars. Starting from Earth and going directly to Mars would require such a big rocket to start with (or many smaller rockets that would have to be assembled in space). A space elevator would be possible for the Moon already (and maybe for Mars). Earth->Mars is impractical (like a Saturn V except Bigger) Earth->Moon is doable (with a very big rocket) Earth->Moon->Mars would be much easier with a Moon Base A Moon Base would be a significant investment (assuming a one time cost, it could provide a growing population that could hopefully scale) There are of course political problems that could arise if the colony wanted to become an independent entity and wanted to claim Mars for itself. As it is the Moonists would be the ones who would go to Mars. Moon->Earth is easy (with minimal thrust) Mars->Earth could be done (it has less gravity than Earth, it might be possible to construct a space elevator for Mars)
We can get so much more exploration done using many small and comparatively inexpensive probes sent on special missions than we can by spending HUGE amounts to send people to the moon -- again. As they say, "been there done that". Much better to have two satellites apiece orbiting around every planet, more robots for Mars, Mercury, Titan, etc. We can do this now with our current budget and learn much from it. When we get the technology to send people to space, we'll go. Going now would be like Columbus trying to discover the Indies in a rowboat with his elementary school friends.
In all the talk about space exploration, I've not heard any of the so-called experts speak to the need for a concrete return on the multi-billion (trillion?) $$ investment required. As in mining the planets, moons, comets and asteroids of the solar system for the incredibly abundant mineral and chemical resources that most assuredly are out there. By now, the US as well as other nations should have a long-term intelligent plan developed that would bring this reality about.
This, and not the pissing away of vast amounts of blood and treasure to conduct catastrophically destructive limited-resource wars here on Earth, should be the goal. Ultimately, all such activity could of course become commercialized.
The planet we live on currently has about 6.8 billion residents. Most estimates of Earth's carrying capacity are around 5 billion. We simply cannot sustainably survive on one planet unless we're willing to have a nuclear war to kill a few billion people. We need a plan to start moving people off of Earth in the next 50 years. NASA and it's European, Russian and Chinese equivalents are the most important agencies for the future of humanity, and I find it appalling that they're getting less funding than the wars in the Middle East.
But what will China do if we are unable or unwilling to pay our debt?
That is what you get from burning your trees behind you.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You forgot gamers, that was your first and last mistake.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Obama makes the right decision. Space exploration has no practical purpose.
The moon missions did do a lot of research when the camera's were off. For instance part of it is in constant use, measuring the distance of the moon thanks to some reflectors placed at the last landing site.
Just because the played golf to please the punters who paid for the mission, doesn't mean they didn't do hard science.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Perhaps next time you make a joke to Americans you should try something else then sarcasm. They don't have that over there. Like beer and cheese, the knowledge seems to have been left behind when we kicked their puritan asses out of the civilized world.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Mars is not and should not be at all considered "our ultimate destination in space". That is too short sighted. Interglatic, multigenterationalMars is not and should not be at all considered "our ultimate destination in space". That is too short sighted. Instead of the Moon (been there, done that) or onto Mars (just a longer trip), we should focus on building Intergalactic and multigenerational space craft. We can start doing that research and construction in low then high Earth orbit. And using robots instead of astronauts is much less expensive than just putting humans on Mars. Times are tight and the space industry should adjust along with the rest of the world.
When I was 6 years old my parents moved to Titusville, Florida right across the Indian River Lagoon from the VAB. I grew up watching Saturn V's, Atlas, Delta, Titan, and Shuttle space vehicles thunder skyward. I went to school with the sons and daughters of real "Rocket Scientists". I'd say the number one reason I got into the engineering field was the excitement and allure of these kind of epic and difficult endeavors. What inspires people to go into engineering today ? I only worked on Spacecraft and launch systems for 10 years before I got into other things, but would I have been inspired at all by a presidential challenge to build a better battery, or an energy efficient home ? I somehow doubt it. So I would argue that not only does going to the moon spin-of useful technology it inspires the youth of today and tomorrow to achieve great things in engineering !
Instead of this "Our Moon!, Our Mars!" "First!" crap, then they might be taken more seriously than a bunch of footballers trying to win the championship.
Near earth orbit living environment for hospitals, enhanced communication satellite networks, space-based solar power, zero-g industries. The list goes on. If NASA was engaged in these useful and profitable activities, nobody would think of shutting them down. Their job is done. Let private industry take over.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
a plan. Let me point out that Bolden and Obama have said all along that the W moon plan is dead along with CONstellation. They have not said that we are not going to the moon.
CONstellation was a disaster in the making. It would count on ONE arch to get us to the moon and loads of money to keep us on the moon. We have already seen massive shutoffs and stumble over and over in NASA's goals. For starters. Nixon killed Apollo and then he started the shuttled by underfunded it. As such, it got off the ground late. What was the consequence of that? We lost SKYLAB. Skylab was to be our ISS that the shuttle docked to. Because Nixon kept cutting Shuttle funding, it was late to the game. Too late. We lost skylab, and it would be another 20 years before we had our lab in the sky.
When Challenger was lost, we were grounded for two years while we sorted it out.
When Columba was lost, we were grounded for two years while we sorted it out. again. We put the ISS on hold during that time.
Now, W and the neo-con congress killed the shuttle, and underfunded the CONstellation. Where are we today? Well, we are about to lose the shuttle and up to two years of not launching humans.
So what is wrong with this pix? We would do the SAME THING had we continued with CONstellation. Instead, with the approach of building multiple launchers AND private space, we will gain the ability to NEVER lose space access again. We also gain having private money going into this. L-Mart, Boeing, ULA, USA, etc have all been nothing but bleeders of money. Now, we are going to ask them to put it on the line and invest in space. We see that already in SpaceX. And Bigelow has absolutely been doing that. IF America invests into the private space, we can get to the moon BEFORE 2020. WIth CONstellation, we would not be there before 2025, and more likely 2030.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Sadly, yes. Previous president made big statements...without funding.
Previous president ^2 made big statement...without funding.
This president...defunding.
Defunding?? Clearly you have never bothered to read ANY coverage of this since Obama has INCREASED funding for NASA! The budget is going up by 3% in real terms, which in this fiscal environment is HUGE. And the effect of cutting the extremely expensive and scientifically unproductive (in fact, nearly useless) manned mission is to MASSIVELY redirect money to actual space science!
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Private launching is pretty much a non-starter in the US. Today there are three companies that are trying to do this and the Virgin Galactic method is to sidestep most of the process. They are also the only ones to have actually launched anything at all. Why is this you might ask? Well, the whole White Knight/SpaceShipOne was a trick to get around the licensing and it worked.
You see, you can't launch anything without a license from the FAA. And, because possibly polluting chemicals are used, you need another license from the EPA. These organizations are not in the habit of licensing much, so at this time NASA has a license and the US Air Force has a license. Nobody else, not even Virgin Galactic. Sure, there are a few other companies that have attempted to get licenses but none have been issued. And there are no plans to issue any anytime in the future.
So while it is really nice to talk about the wonderful achievements that have been made in static testing and hovering, nobody is going to launch anything from US soil anytime soon. And I suspect should someone come up with the bright idea of trying to launch from Mexico there would be an immediate denial of export on the grounds of an arms export license being needed.
So nobody is going anywhere anytime soon - except for NASA and the Air Force.
By the way, the next time Virgin Galactic tries a launch I would expect there to be an army of FAA and EPA guys on hand to tell them why exactly they cannot do so. That a space launch license is needed for their airplane. And they can't have one.
"Research" by google nets you propaganda, and nation-states and all sorts of NGOs are good at propaganda. And "researchers by google" just lap it up.
For example, anyone who knew anything about the USSR knew that the Soviet military budget did NOT count any work performed for the army by civilians, and neither did it count huge investment into industries that could be converted to military uses at a month's notice. Yet "useful idiots" in the West kept repeating Soviet claims of a much smaller military budget than the US. There is hardly any reason to believe that China is not doing the same thing now, and guess who is back in power in Russia: the same old KGB.
Of course if you want to believe that the US is some sort of a world evil, nothing will convince you otherwise.
That is SO damn odd. I could have SWORN that Atlas and deltas were launched (which ARE privately owned). Likewise, I thought that I saw 5 falcon 1's be launched, but it must have been a trick. And of course, the multiple OSC's launches must have all been faked. Of course, it could just be that you are full of shit and do not have a clue of what you are talking about. But hey,....
To everyone who says we owe the computer industry to NASA,
No, we don't. If anything, we owe the computer industry to the Census Bureau, the U.S. Air Force, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the National Security Agency. Those were the government agencies that really pushed computer technology. UNIVAC I, SAGE, the Atlas Guidance Computer, the early airborne computers, and all the early supercomputers were funded by those agencies, not NASA. The Apollo program was mostly off the shelf computer technology on the ground. The spaceborne computers were custom, but those were descendants of guidance hardware from early ICBMs.
NASA's main innovation in computing is generally considered to be NASTRAN, the first finite-element structural analysis program.
I believe that the Jupiter projects would be of more benefit, there is not enough effort spent or dedicated effort to see what is happening on the oceans below the Europa Ice. 2030 is too long for flyby's.
... America has a responsibility to maintain its leadership in technology and its moral leadership ...
Hmm, yeah, right. Here's a few thoughts:
I think the US abandoned moral leadership a long time ago in search of profit; let's talk no more about that.
Technology: There is no doubt that it would be a good idea to strive for the best you can achieve in the areas of science. It has become modern in recent years to replace the word "science" with "technology" and "research" with "engineering"; because technology and engineering sound like something that can make you money, whereas science ans research tend to make people think too much for themselves and become unruly. It seems perfectly possibly for people to work with technology and not question the irrational dogmas of religion and establishment, but it is hard to believe in the myth of the infallible truth of the Bible, when you are a scientist schooled in critical thought.
The snag here, of course, is that techology and engineering won't go very far without heavy investments in science and research.
Responsibility: Who do you owe your responsibility to? Big money? Religious tradition? The nations of the world? Or perhaps yourself? It is not for me to tell others how to live their lives, but isn't it worth considering, that while the rest of the world can continue progressing with or without America's participation, no single nation can achieve a lot on its own. The Romans became great by assimilating the knowledge of the Greeks, Egyptians and others, European nations built on the achievements of the Arabs as well as the Romans, America harvested the best scientists and knowledge of Europe and Russia after WWII, and now the Chinese are doing the same.
Talking about responsibility, leadership and morality like he does, sounds overly pompous. It is still not unachievable for America to assume the leadership, given that the right decisions are made; and keeping in mind that leadership isn't quite the same as "being first" - it also implies that you have followers. As far as I can see, America is at the moment engaged in a game of blaming others for everything and not wanting to play; if you want to be leaders, you can't afford to sulk.
" 'I think America has a responsibility to maintain its leadership in technology and its moral leadership"
Haha, The whole world knows america is morally bankrupt, and that a large part of the stuff NASA did was done using russian rockets for many many years now.
But that doesn't mean I think america should not try though, but perhaps moonmission can be put on the backburner, I don't know, the counterargument is that the moon has certain economical and practical potential rather than only expanding knowledge like probes do, the planned moon stuff was for 'building infrastructure to power the future', something obama likes to push back on earth.
obama had to postpone those missions to the moon, "They" do't want us back there just yet