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Rep. Bill Posey Introduces 'Back To the Moon' Bill
MarkWhittington writes "In an attempt to rationalize and give focus to NASA's human space flight program, Rep. Bill Posey, Republican of Florida, has introduced a bill that will direct the space agency to send astronauts back to the Moon with a goal of permanent habitation of Earth's nearest neighbor."
How about paying the government deficit that is about to default in a month so humans can habitat Earth first
http://saveie6.com/
... want to live on the moon if we can't even properly live on Earth?
Why waste the money on transporting meat bags to the moon? Send rovers and robots.
How does this advance the Republican goal of balancing the budget?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Oh ya... it's getting close to election time again. This is just the first gentle tug of it's grandstanding gravitational pull into the singularity known as US elections.
He's from Florida. Quit bringing down the space program so that your district can keep leaching off the system, leech.
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." P. J. O'Rourke
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
While I'm firmly of the stance that we need to drastically reduce spending (almost) across the board, this is the type of project I wish money would go to if it's going to be spent.
Trying to be ambiguous as to not divert the discussions focus, but spending on an endeavor that will ultimately benefit the entire nation as well as be a boon to science seems like a better use of funds than programs heavily favoring a specific subset of the nation. (Take that how you will, I have no particular program in mind.)
Probably both.
"To the Moon, Alice!"
you seppos ain't going anywhere.
Bill got a nice campaign contribution from and/or he owns stock in a company that builds moon rockets.
I'm guessing it's like the last 'humans should go the moon and then to mars' effort ... a mandate with no funding attached.
The folks from Florida complain because they're seeing the shuttle program shutting down, and don't know what to do ... but because of the requirement to keep the shuttle going, and no funding to cover it, many other NASA projects were shut down years ago to cover the costs.
Yes, there should be requirements to do interesting things, and that helps to drive people, but getting humans into space is expensive, and when there's no funding to cover it, lots of other programs are going to get cut in its place.
Or maybe that's the point -- more funding for manned space flight could mean less funding for climate change research and other politicized science.
(disclaimer : I'm a contractor at a NASA center, in an area that's human space flight, but is critical enough for human space flight that some of our tasks were classified as 'essential' for the possible budget related shutdown)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I went into shock when I read this! Far Out!
The purpose of existence is to make money.
All the co-sponsors have major NASA operations in their states. Rep. Rob Bishop has repeatedly tried to save ATK Technology in Promontory, UT, the exclusive manufacturer of the solid rocket boosters used in the space shuttle program and the biggest employer in his district.
This bill is an attempt to revive the failed SLS space launcher based on space shuttle parts. Here's the relevant text in the bill:
(3) The 111th Congress, in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2010, called for the development of a heavy lift capability of greater than 130 metric tons consisting of the Space Launch System (SLS) and Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) to pursue exploration, yet fell short on explicitly stating a clear destination.
(4) The 112th Congress has reaffirmed this commitment to the development of a heavy lift capability.
A few months ago a senator from Utah tried to get NASA to stop looking for alternatives to the SLS (such as SpaceX) by citing the 130 ton requirement. Now they're trying to pass a new bill with stronger wording to force NASA to spend money on the SLS, which happens to be built in their states.
Oh ya... it's getting close to election time again. This is just the first gentle tug of it's grandstanding gravitational pull into the singularity known as US elections.
Fool me once...shame on you! Fool me 8 or 9 times, shame on me.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
... if he didn't have a purely selfish agenda because it would just happen to directly benefit his state/district economically long before we'd even get there, and even if it gets cancelled later and we don't.
Here's an idea, we can launch all of our seniors to the moon and get rid of our Social Security and Medicare spending deficits. Call it "Use Space to Make Space" program. Maybe redefine AARP as the "Astronaut Association for Retired People."
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
in order to promote exploration, commerce, science and United States preeminence in space
Translation: "to restart the space race, bring in jobs to my home state, and billions of dollars in spending to defense contractors."
Please help metamoderate.
Or AARP, or AIPAC, or NRA, or SEIU or AFLCIO etc. Yes, those are nonprofits and or unions, but I don't think that was what you were implying.
Just have money or organzation that can help with elections and they'll listen.
A socialist like Kennedy wanting to get to the moon by a socialist government program, I can understand. But a Republican? Surely we should just wait until GE or Boeing just picks up and goes with private money and objectives. It will be much more efficiently run, and no taxpayers will be robbed to give a (literally) free ride to socialist astronauts.
After reading all my Pournelle and Niven in the 70's, I've been waiting 40 years for the power of free enterprise to get me a ticket on the Pan Am Space Clipper. I'm not sure what the hold-up is; probably, the corporations are still too highly taxed.
Poor Rep. Mr. Posey Repub. of Florida does not realize that NASA is not just the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida.
A very bad missperception of geography and the actual day-to-day functions and contractual obligations of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Department of Commerce.
"The path to Hell is paved with good intentions." and the vast monies of the tax payers of the United States of America are financing the effort.
We could open up a bunny ranch and a big casino on the moon. It'll be the hottest tourist destination in the galaxy.
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we use the stargate for the real space travel!
thats a 60's signed treaty
Politicians can't agree on how much money to spend one year to the next, a moon mission needs careful planning and financing. Let the public sector find a revenue stream worth generating and do it themselves. Apollo worked because it had a martyr, without a dead popular guy to keep funding a project "because of" this won't happen.
The SLS is a joke and should be dropped. If we do COTS-SHLV for 2 vehicles (140 tonnes to LEO, 5 billion or less for build out and below 400 million to launch), then we can do a sustained base. In addtion, we need to get Bigelow and IDC Dover going with both of their space stations (which are actually transhabs).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
We can just issue more negative-returning debt to pay for this. We're already trillions in the hole, so let's see just how much debt it takes to destroy an economy.
Kennedy was more conservative then reagan, poppa bush, or W. Back then they could balance budgets. Now, we have uneducated masses voting in neo-cons who speak of balancing budgets, stopping illegals,and getting to the moon, but do the exact opposite. Sadly, these followers ignore results and simply listen to rhetoric. Neo-cons have fucked up education in America. Hell, reagan and W grew gov more than all other president EXCEPT for lincoln and FDR who were dealing with real issues.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
...the "Federal stimulus for Florida's 15th congressional district to get Bill Posey re-elected" bill.
Sure glad the Republicans have solved that whole deficit problem, so that now they can turn their attention to spending more money on pork-barrel projects!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Would you rather have them down here carving up the earth, or up there making money in space. Space is big...really big so big that
even greedy corporations cant use it up for a very long long long time.
We have two choices, we push out into space or face eventually extermination. I know when people are worried about taxes now it's hard to think in the millions of years but look at the future of the species. The realistic numbers are without some pretty radical evolution we have maybe another 500 million to a billion years before the world won't support the human species or it's likely form by that time. It's a mix of conditions from Sun output to how it'll affect climate and atmosphere. Yes it's a long time in the future but it's unlikely if we don't push out into space in the next 100 years that it'll ever happen so we will go extinct eventually. A far bigger issue is that resources on this planet won't support our current culture more than a 100 years. We're already exceeding our resources. It's one of the reasons if we don't do it now we never will. Our whole economy is based on fossil fuels that at best estimates will last another 50 to a 150 years. If our civilization collapses there won't be fossil fuels left to rebuild. Also little things like copper and rare earth metals have already been mined to exhaustion. Unless we find other sources we've expanded about all we ever will. I know the current feeling is to focus on our comfort and lifestyles today and not sweat tomorrow but that does condemn us to eventual extinction. Based on our choices in a Darwin system we are poor candidates for survival.
A favorite government project. This is mine. Go, go, go!
1-Manned space flight serves no scientific purpose, is expensive, and puts people at risk without cause. If we really wanted a public works project to help the world how about terraforming the sahara desert or building cities under water. 2-the USA is deeply in debt and going deeper by the second, you really can't afford it. If you can't afford universal health care you certainly can't afford space flight. 3-it's hard to plan ahead when you don't know if your project will be funded after the next election. What about the people you put up there? 4-there are only 2 tasks that could justify a permanent lunar base: astronomy (big telescope without interference) and solar panel production (launch into earth orbit, in bulk it's cheaper than earth launches).
A metaphor for spousal abuse does seem a more appropriate name for the relationship between Congress and NASA.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
I can't believe how many of you are actually bitching about this. This guy tryin to pass this bill is brilliant. As much as dotters like to bash morals and ethics let me point out; The reason this country is going to shit so fast is everyone has their thumbs up their butts wondering and waiting to see who will or can give it (the country) direction. You want proof? How many of you have SCI/TECH news sources bookmarked and check them... Once... Twice... Three times.. MORE a day? To stay on a path it has to be there first. Aside from the myriads of other mounting reasons to go into space, inhabitation and posterity seem to be pretty damn good motives. A goal like this is massive, and requires many disciplines and industries. Not to mention just giving this country some direction.
Yes, Rep. Posey's bill would be self-serving if it weren't for the fact that the space industry wind-down in that region is nuking the economy of the area. If it's jobs that are called for - high-paying, can't be outsourced, STEM jobs - manned space flight is just the ticket. The push to the Moon, not Mars, is the correct stepping stone, and at least Posey calls for that bit of sanity. Manned space flight may not serve the same scientific purpose as robotics, but the program has paid off in significant indirect advances in our society. Go ahead, Google for "benefits of manned space flight".
In a country which is trillions of dollars in debt, which apparently cannot afford to offer national healthcare like others do in the UK and Canada but CAN afford to bail out the heads of banks who've screwed the US population out of their children's future can somehow come up with the rationale to send people to the moon because? Common sense is clearly gone today. I don't know what the hell anyone in government thinks anymore
The space race of the 1960s was a cover for manned orbiting spy space stations. America had better computer technology, so our humans were replaced by computers sooner than with the Soviet Union. Of course, this was all classified for a long time. When the 'manned orbiting laboratory' was cancelled in June 1969, the manned space program cancelled. I think Congress was smarter and more fiscally responsible back then.
The long term survival of the human species is dependent on our ability to live in outer space in self sustaining spaceships and in terraforming and colonizing other planets. That aside there may be more short term economic benefits to manned spaceflight such as collecting resources from asteroids and other things in the solar system (many decades or a century or two from now).
(disclosure: I am a NASA contractor.)
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
The fact of the matter is, everything a politician does is out of self interest. They are evil, self-serving, despicable people. In the rare instances in which their self interest aligns with the public interest we should rejoice. I wholeheartedly support this bill despite it's source.
Ground up moon rocks are pure poison.
Has this waste of resources written all over it. What exactly did we learn from the first moon rocks collected? They were radioactive?
Step 1: Mandate that NASA's mission is pure "research and exploration science"
Step 2: Open up the floodgates for private use of space.
Step 3: Remove *ALL* government mandates on NASA other than the four words articulated in step 1.
Step 4: Let NASA do its thing.
End result (hopefully:) We see NASA do pure science, for science sake (robotic missions to planets, asteroids, etc,) we see NASA do supported-by-cheaper-commercially-viable-companies manned exploration. No more "this Senator says he has to have 20 jobs, so we subcontract this minor part out to an incompetent vendor, this Representative says she has to have the bragging rights of this subcomponent being in her district" and so-on and so-on.
Atlantis shouldn't be at KSC, Enterprise shouldn't be in NYC, and Endeavor shouldn't go to CSC. Those are all purely political decisions. Get politics out of NASA, it has caused decades of harm as it is.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
You bring back cheese from the moon, sell it, and pay off the deficits. Some people need everything to be explained to them. Gah.
Then getting to the moon just a weekend trip. Escape velocity on the moon is only 2.38 km/s.
The last time was just a huge dickwaving contest with the Russians. Been there, done that, got the photographs and the moon rocks. Let the Chinese and the Indians wave their dicks for a while. There are many other things that NASA could spend its money on that would yield a lot more for science. Oh, or is there a company in your district that would build the rockets?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's just lame.
How about, "One of these days Alice, straight to the Moon!"
The marketing potential is much greater. The sales of spousal abuse shirts and mugs would almost pay for this silly assed adventure.
Unless they find alien two headed love toys on the moon. And then the sales of those would really revive the economy.
Yes we can! And so can you, right in your can!
He'd have my vote, regardless of party affiliation! I'll even support any presidenntial aspriations he might have, if he runs on this platform. (No, I haven't read the article and don't know what party he belongs to yet...)
Seriously, NASA has more than enough brainpower to build a city on the Moon or Mars. It doesn't necessarily even lack funding -- what it needs is focus and direction. (And to not have any project with a chance of getting anwhere canceled every two years, only to be reborn under a different name with all the progress lost. And to get rid of 90% of their non-engineer bureaucrats who have no interest whatsoever in getting to space)
The best thing GW did, IMHO, was to give that one speech giving NASA the goal of going back to the moon and then to Mars.
> due to your arrogant refusal to even THINK about the consequences of the ongoing invasion of your country, by the third world...
They are incapable of thinking about such things, other than with thoughts like, "bigotry is bad" and "all cultures are equal" and "we should not discriminate".
Welcome to the decline and fall of the American empire.
How does this advance the Republican goal of balancing the budget?
Funny thing: Changing NASA's direction is actually pretty cheap. There is a lot of paperwork and studies to do but that's a lot cheaper than building the hardware committed to in the last change of direction. Now there is still the issue of building the newly requested hardware but that won't happen until long after the next election.
His kid just wanted daddy to go save Wheatley...
Hopefully this dies without me having to spend time arguing/politically organizing against it. I'm kind of pissed I even wrote this comment.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
This story was submitted by the very writer of the article linked in the story. Look at the username, then load the linked article and look at the author's name.
In a few centuries, yes. Until then, the creation of self-sustaining colonies is not going to happen.
Right now, to advance the state of the art, we must spend money on robotic space exploration, automated manufacturing, biotech, etc., because without those things, human space colonization is never going to happen.
Colonization of earth was easy because all you really need is a bunch of healthy, fertile humans anywhere and they can survive and build a civilization. But humans are far too costly and inefficient at exploring and working in space.
If you want colonization of space, the most efficient thing to do is focusing on the workforce that can actually support it, and that means massive investment in space robotics. In addition, we need to invest in adapting humans to space better.
The way forward is through the private sector, with heavy government subsidies. The 'X' prize concept is great, it just needs to be expanded 100-fold.
Is Posey really thinking that this stunt will get past his Leader?
Some more practical Bills might be:
* Republican Fiscal Responsibility Bill
* "Gift of the Gab" Bill
* The "Farce, My Arse" Bill
* The "Hanging Chad Re-institution" Bill
And the polls tell us that politicians are good for nothing. That's a laugh, too!
Looking at space, radio, science and computing from a 'down-under' amateur enthusiast perspective.
Anyone ever go over the "Wagging the Moondoggie" set of essays (first hit in google with that phrase) by David McGowan on the bullgeschicte that was the NASA moon landing effort of the 60s and early 70s? Really good stuff.
It is only 1% of the budget. Now lets add up all the constituencies for the rest of the 50 states special park projects? Boom Deficit.
It doesn't matter all programs and pork barreling to special interests or for your projects back home HAS TO END for the survival of our nation's help. Sure one paper-cut wont kill you by what makes this guy's paper cut more special than someone elses and so on. Everyone has to agree not to do it and have cuts left and right across the board.
Of course there are other solutions like stopping corporations from cheating the tax system by outsourcing, off-shoring, and other tricks and raising the taxes. All of these as well as special health care and endless wars as well.
Republicans will be the kings of hypocracy if they make fun of spend and tax liberals yet do silly things like this.
http://saveie6.com/
Launch astronauts on the moon and then launch the moon onto mars. Problem solved.
You will never be able to top the humankind to explore. You could delay it, but never stop it. So probably we will be in space, even if on Earth the famine, and pollution, and war, and... will be present.This is the human nature. So why not try to allocate some resources and set some ambitious goals? Like going to Moon and Mars? Like colonizing Moon and/or Mars? Like mining the asteroid belt? On this day there are a lot of private companies and venture capitalist interested in space. NASA has the knowhow, they have the money. Lets do it!
articles on the topic electrical engineering
You know times are tough. Usually when an election come near the politicians begin talking about missions to Mars.
...just rename it the Colonial Defense Force.
SYS 64738
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I do not believe he proposed this bill with the expectation of it actually passing. Despite the fact that NASA has several facilities throughout the country, many people consider Florida to be its home, due to the Kennedy Space Center that launches spacecraft. I suspect this is an example of a Florida representative proposing something that has sentimental value to the people of Florida in an effort to make himself look good for future elections. I do not believe the representative actually expects or plans on this bill passing. Instead I believe it is an example of a politician setting things up so he can say, "I did this important thing for the people of our state," in upcoming elections. Its all politics.
The cost of going into space is largely the low energy of chemical fuels compared to the energy physics says we need to get there. It is close to 15 kWh per kg, which is to day more than a kg of gasoline, never mind the oxygen needed to burn it.
Another way to look at it is exhaust velocity. A rocket that is 2/3rds fuel can get to the same velocity as it's exhaust velocity. The best we can do is the space shuttle engines. They give 4.5 km/s. Orbital is about 9 km/s so rockets have to stage.
You can heat hydrogen hot enough to give 9 km/s exhaust velocity, but until recently the efficiency of laser was too low to make this practical. Big solid state lasers have changed that.
A flyback stage to 6-7 km/s and lasers from there to GEO looks like it could get the cost down to $100/kg.
Details if anyone is interested. hkeithhenson@gmail.com
End MGM. Get prospective parents of boys to Google: Men do complain
Do you want a real Moon program?
Bring help to SpaceX, and use some Falcon Heavy to build the base. Use some Bigelow modified modules to build a simple manned outpost and send a lot of modular robots to build something sustainable.
Moon is near so robots could be used with telepresence.
When you build manufacture to build more robots with little import of materials, the base can grow quickly.
There's a scene from the first episode of "From the Earth to the Moon" featuring a Kennedy adviser asking the opinions of Hugh Dryden, the Budget Bureau Chief, and the national science adviser played by none other than Al Franken. Dryden is clearly the realist of the group laying out a precise plan and why alternatives are pointless while Al Franken clearly in a method-acting role tries to opt for a cheap no-humans-involved alternative. The Budget Chief says "Pumping that much cash into the private sector could be very popular." The Franken character clearly misses the point as have many after him that the average taxpayer isn't going to care unless they feel like they're part of it. IMHO, people like to live vicariously through famous people. A handful of geeks think the Mars rover program is cool. The average taxpayer won't care until a human sets foot on Mars.
The point here is that instead of pouring trillions of dollars into a massive government bureaucracy that creates and produces nothing but more of itself as it is currently doing, steering tax dollars into NASA necessarily requires that private companies do the work. Furthermore, the technologies developed can be used for other things so the investment pays off long after the program ends. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/pdf/80660main_ApolloFS.pdf
Sure, private space companies are a good thing and I'll bet they end up being the primary contractors, but by themselves they have a more difficult time getting funded initially until they can regularly accomplish money-making launches e.g. satellite deployment.
Those moon rocks Cave Johnson needs are not going to create themselves you know...
If we really wanted a public works project to help the world how about terraforming the sahara desert or building cities under water.
So destroying an entire ecosystem is going to 'help the world'? And exactly how are sci-fi nerdgasms of 'underwater cities' going to help the world?
Lets see, pending global competition for decreasing oil, water, agriculture. Military bases everywhere. 60 years of extolling the usefulness of a manned moon military base. Big dots, easy connections.
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This is rubbish, superstitious claptrap. Manned space exploration will have a negligible effect on the long term survivability of the human species. This tiresome insistence that we can avoid extermination due to an asteroid impact (or whatever) by maintaining some kind of manned space program is little more than sci fi space adventure magical religious cultism. The cost of moving more than a trivial number of people to some desolate, unsustainable off-planet outpost will never be overcome, at least not within the next several hundred years). I challenge you to calculate what it would cost to move 10 million people (about 0.15% of the current world population) to some off-planet location to save them from cataclysm, and support them for 100 years. It is a ridiculous concept. Forget about moving and sustaining a significant fraction of the population. Only a tiny number of people survive for a few years more than the rest of us in such a cataclysm. It is a meaningless false hope that is essentially identical to religious faith in some sort of eternal afterlife in a spiritual plane. It is for children.