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Obama Outlines Bold Space Policy ... But No Moon
The Bad Astronomer writes "In front of a mostly enthusiastic audience at NASA's Kennedy Space Center today, President Obama outlined a bold, new space policy. It's a change from his previous policy; the Constellation rockets are still dead, but a new heavy-lift rocket system is funded. He specifically talked of manned asteroid and Mars missions, but also stated there would be no return to the Moon. This is a major step in the right direction, but still needs some tweaking."
Yeah, I sighed. It's a shame that this concept is so hard to explain.
To go to the Moon you need a booster, a capsule and a lander. Without an Apollo sized budget its too expensive to build all three at once. So the question becomes: what can we do with just the booster and the capsule while the lander is being built?
There's lots of things of value. Developing cis-lunar space. Going to asteroids, to learn how to divert one that may threaten the Earth. To the Moons of Mars to learn how to do long duration deep space flights.
Eventually, the lander will be ready and NASA will try it out on the Moon, and then onto a Mars landing.
But that's not the kind of argument you can put on a bumpersticker or insert into a presidential speech.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Phil Plait offers his comments on Obama's new space policy: Obama lays out bold and visionary revised space policy.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Ares V development hasn't even started.. and ask Jeff Greason said "even if Santa Claus brought us the new program for xmas, we'd have to shut it down because we don't have the budget to operate it". The research is for *affordable* heavy lift. If you can't make heavy lift affordable (or as the codeword goes "sustainable") you have to do without it.. which is where the propellant depots and in-situ resource utilization comes in.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Leave the moon to the private sector, we should expect to see a private company touching down there within a decade or maybe two.
If by "the private sector" you actually mean "India or China" then yea, they'll be there within a decade or two.
Why would the private sector even want to go to the moon?
We can't even convince our domestic aerospace giants that building heavy lift rockets is a viable commercial interest.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Yes. Why not?
Because when I take a girl for a walk on the beach at night I want to see the moon, not a Pepsi logo.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
That's why you don't give your opponents actual facts, because his opponent's blatant lies are the only thing keeping the fifty-someodd percent of the electorate with him.
Do you really want private companies going to the Moon and commercializing it?
Yes please, as rapidly as possible. Coincidentally, a couple days ago space.com had an interview with construction billionaire Robert Bigelow (who currently has two prototype space stations in orbit, which he launched on his own dime). In the interview he discussed his plans for a private lunar base, which would be assembled from three of his space station modules in lunar orbit or a Lagrangian point, then land assembled on the lunar surface:
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/private-moon-bases-bigelow-aerospace-100414.html
After launching two prototype space stations into orbit, space entrepreneur and pioneer Robert Bigelow is now setting his sights a bit higher. His latest vision: A quick-deploy moon base capable of housing up to 18 astronauts in inflatable modules on the lunar surface.
The base itself would be fabricated in space, with consideration being given to crewmembers piloting the entire base directly onto the moon's surface. ...
"We need to make low-Earth orbit work first before we go beyond . . . but I believe we will," Gold told SPACE.com. "Once we've established a robust infrastructure in Earth orbit, created the economies of scale necessary to produce facilities in low Earth orbit . . . at that point, we've really enabled ourselves to look at a variety of options."
Bigelow's main limiting factor has been the lack of a commercial crew vehicle to transfer customers to his space stations, and NASA's newly-announced commercial crew initiative will solve that problem. Once Bigelow's LEO bases have proven themselves, a private lunar base will be able to take advantage of the propellant depots in LEO and Lagrangian points foreseen under the new NASA plans.
What I don't understand is why they were building a new heavy lifter when we've had a working heavy lifter for the past 30 years: The STS system. Remove the shuttle, put the engines on the bottom of the tank, and the cargo/Orion on the top, and you've got a launch vehicle that can put 75+ tons into orbit. Production lines already in place, no major development needed. Cheap and affordable, and with a minor shuttle extension no loss of jobs.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
You know, the American Dream is a lie. It's clever propaganda that is deeply ingrained in your life. Because of the American Dream, droves of poor people blame themselves for not making it, since, you know, anything is possible if you just work hard, according to the American lie. Suckers.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
I'm one of them. "Old McCain" was pretty much my ideal candidate. "New McCain" as spun for the presidency with new and improved(!) opinions on all issues was not. In fact, I believe Obama is a lot closer to old McCain than new McCain is. And Palin hit the Peter Principle as soon as she left local governance. I very nearly bought a "Republicans for Obama" bumper sticker after that announcement.
And I still support this prez. Not his owned-by-wall-street dithering, but his practical efforts to keep the country from running off the rails, which, Fox News yellow journalism invented terrors aside, he's doing a pretty darn good job of. I was especially impressed with his handling of the Stupak amendment, and the revelation that during all the healthcare debacle he was quietly putting together the largest nuclear summit in decades. Who knew?
I think that's unfair. For one thing, he is a politician and "managing the media" is a job requirement. If you're waiting for a president who is not an expert at that kind of thing then I certainly wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. Another thing, he didn't just "manage the media", he also wrote a very accomplished and worthwhile autobiography at the age of 33 and followed that up years later with his 2nd book, which was a full-bore political manifesto. How many other presidents have been elected on such a clearly laid out inspirational agenda? I should also say I think he has broadly stuck to that manifesto since getting office but YMMV. Most of the people who read those books come away with the impression that here is a guy who is genuinely in it for the love of it and not just the money. Or just maybe the single greatest liar in history.
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
To add to that- I was there yesterday when he gave his speech, I was positioned so that I was seeing him from behind and to the side, and I was quite close (~30-40 feet). He didn't use teleprompters, and he never looked down at notes. And that was a 25-minute speech. I thought that was pretty impressive, and I've never been crazy about the guy.