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US Space Policy Update Urges International Cooperation
eldavojohn writes "The recent shift in NASA's spaceflight goals has caused great stress in the space community and those related to efforts in space. A White House update to the policy is said to emphasize cooperation with the international community and looks to be a move away from individual nations competing in space. Instead, the document urges intense competition (PDF) in the commercial sector and reasons that 'The United States considers the sustainability, stability, and free access to, and use of, space vital to its national interests. It is the shared interest of all nations to act responsibly in ways that emphasize openness and transparency, and help prevent mishaps, misperceptions, and mistrust.' Space.com also notes that you can submit your comments and thoughts to the task force Obama appointed to determine new directions. No doubt this avoidance or departure from another Space Race will have a lot of people concerned that the US is out of the game."
Competition got us Apollo. Cooperation got us ISS. You sure you don't want to rethink that?
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
Ah, the old people. Send them into space. Shit blows up? Pfft. They're old and were going to die soon anyway.
It's a win/win! NASA gets funded. We have an unlimited supply of expendable astronauts. And, it takes care of all those old people burdening our system. And lastly, the old people get first dibs into going into space - it could even be a one way trip!
Yeah! What a gimmick! Hey old farts! Say good bye to your loved ones and go into space!
As far as the senile ones are concerned just say, here you Gramps! There's a Matlock marathon in that rocket and all the chocolate and banana pudding you can eat!
*The mods* Ooo! What to do...what to do... Moderation guide:
Like old people -> Flamebait
Don't like AnonymousClown->Troll
Some old guy pissed you off today-> Funny.
Seeing the budget deficit going horribly into the Red and all that Medicare money go out of your paycheck while you see the old farts in their Cadilacs, Land Yachts, and telling you to get a job and compete with the Asians because they had to work hard in the snow (with virtually no overseas competition) and you're just a slacker-> Insightful
Huh. Gramps always wanted to go into space and get away from Grandma-> Interesting
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Until somebody figures out what the ????? is supposed to be between "1) Space Travel" and "3) PROFIT!", we aren't going anywhere.
Man I miss that game.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
So... who's spending more than NASA?
According to this the Chinese were spending about 1/10th of NASA in 2007. Does that make them the Royals?
JAXA comes in at around 2 billion dollars as well.
ISRO spends about half that ($1.23 billion).
Oh, who could forget about Russia? The FRO has a declared budget of about $2.4 billion.
Puny old NASA with it's $17.6 billion budget. The Mets indeed.
This document is not a " This is what NASA is going to do" sort of thing; It is a top-level, national guideline towards spacerelated ( and by related, I mean everything even vaguely connected ) business. Even school teaching programs. And if the USA can get data from satellites for climate change. This is a set of soft guidelines, without any realistic impact. For that impact, we need way, way more technical and financial reports.
For such a thing we will have to wait till congress looks at budget proposals, and some real life testing. constellation is still doing some tests, but everyone knows that the Ares 1 will never launch a single human to orbit. Officially - and even this document changes nothing about that - it is still going on.
And please, dont attach too much meaning to rumors of a new "space race". The chinese have a launch rate of one mission every 2 years. They are currrently way below 1965 level of experience from the USA. Instead, look at the slow but significant progress:
ESA getting Soyuz acces: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Launchers_Home/SEMXN619Y8G_0.html
Russia upgrading its production facilities to build a 5th soyuz ( notably the upgrading of its thermal room so that 2 soyuz heatshields at the same time can be fitted to the spacecrafts: http://www.federalspace.ru/main.php?id=2&nid=9719&lang=en
While its nothing flashy and I think there should be more money into spaceflight, spaceX and orbital and the likes are really going for it. Talk in the article about "losing the space race" is overly simplistic, certainly with an ISS that'll be around till atleast 2020, and very possibly 2030. It is international, dont forget that.
also, a rumor; ATK ( they manufacture the shuttle srbms) have finally caved in it seems, and are willing to build the old 4 segment boosters instead of continueing to lobby for a 5 segment version. Great news; they finally might get something moving now...
China steals 5 pieces of tech for every 1 they build
This kind of thinking is why the US and other western countries are going to fail in the long term.
Just like Japan in the 50's, China right now is largely perceived as being a country that makes cheap knock offs of products that are invented in the US or Europe, with no real innovation of their own.
The reality of course, is that we mostly only see the cheap crappy products that importers are willing to import - China actually has some pretty good tech of their own that does not get exported.
They are already the main producers of our favorite tech toys - iPads, iPhones, etc etc.
When I lived in Japan I was always surprised to see how far behind the "latest and greatest" consumer goods were back in my own country (eg. video cameras) compared to what was available in Japan. I would be very surprised if this is not already the case with stuff coming out of China too - we only see the goods here that importers are willing to import, which seems to be mostly the cheap knockoff stuff.
China is now greatly out-pacing the rest of the world in terms of growth in scientific research, and it already massively exceeds Japan - 125,000 in 2009 vs 72,000 from Japan) it will only be 6 or 7 years before it passes the US too.
The we keep believing the myth that the only the US or Europe is capable of producing innovative products, the further behind we will slide in science and technology, until we wake up one day and wonder why it is that the only thing that we are producing is the very goods that we used to ascribe to third world countries - ie. agricultural and primary products like ore ore and coal, with perhaps a few Britney CDs thrown in too.
The amount of money that was spent to reach the moon during the space race was astronomical - and justifiable at the time due the the cold war. To really get back in the space business properly, there has to be a good commercial reason to get there, and it has to be private companies that do it. What we should really be doing is encouraging more private enterprises to get into the field by having more schemes like the X prizes, which has so far been very successful at helping drive private industry into the field. The problem with large publicly funded NASA driven projects is it just generates way too much pork barrel inefficiencies, with relatively little return for all that public spending compared to what can be achieved by private companies for the same money.
I would like to see someone actually start trying to do something like actually capture an asteroid (or use some of the existing hunks of rock) at one of the Lagrange points as the basis for industrial mining, processing and fabrication of stuff in space - as ultimately this is probably going to be the most affordable way to build substantial structures up there, as opposed to pushing up every single component on rockets at thousands of dollars per Kg. Perhaps it is time for an X prize type competition for the first company who can actually make something from stuff that is already out there in space, so we can finally start building real space based industries.