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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 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.
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.)
How about paying the government deficit that is about to default in a month so humans can habitat Earth first
Because if man is to survive as a species, we must leave this planet. To leave this planet, we must advance the state of the art. To advance the state of the art, we must spend money on human space exploration/colonization.
Deficits will never go away, and neither will the fact that the sun will eventually incinerate the earth.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
"To the Moon, Alice!"
How about paying the government deficit that is about to default in a month so humans can habitat Earth first
Because if man is to survive as a species, we must leave this planet. To leave this planet, we must advance the state of the art. To advance the state of the art, we must spend money on human space exploration/colonization.
Deficits will never go away, and neither will the fact that the sun will eventually incinerate the earth.
I agree that we need space exploration but as an Australian I am not going to demand that it be funded by US taxpayers. The fact is that Mercury, Gemini and Apollo were funded by the cold war and this funding is long gone. It was gone in the early 1970s and its not coming back. Fortunately a lot of good research and development was done in the 1950s and 60s. Launches are cheaper and more reliable now. Maybe the gap has been closed and exploration money can come from private sources. I think that is the only way space exploration will get beyond flags and footprints.
I hate to say it but nationalism and religion were the drivers of exploration in the past. Maybe this will happen in space.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
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.
Because if man is to survive as a species, we must leave this planet. To leave this planet, we must advance the state of the art. To advance the state of the art, we must spend money on human space exploration/colonization.
Deficits will never go away, and neither will the fact that the sun will eventually incinerate the earth.
If your worried about the sun going nova, then take a couple of deep breaths and relax. We've got time. Although I strongly support the space program, we would do better as a species if we realized that we're NOT getting off this rock anytime soon and we'd best spend some energy keeping what we've got habitable.
Supporting the space program could be done without materially increasing the deficit (NASA takes up some tiny fraction of the US budget at present). But it really bugs me when congresscritters put up stupid bills like this one. You get all sorts of earmarks and pork embedded in it, you get NASA (or whatever organization) pulled in all sorts of usually contradictory ways. You get things changing from year to year. If someone came up with a bill that funded NASA with x% of the Federal Budget for 50 years, maybe I could go for that but the current bill is just grandstanding and appeasing his constituents.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Nope. Outer Space Treaty makes it impossible to recover the costs of exploration, since you're not allowed to actually claim anything up there as belonging to you.
Note also that the relevant government is required by that Treaty to authorize and provide supervision to any private party going into space from their soil.
For that matter, any activity in outer space can be blocked (at least temporarily), by ANY signatory to the Treaty at their discretion.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
How about paying the government deficit that is about to default in a month so humans can habitat Earth first
Because if man is to survive as a species, we must leave this planet. To leave this planet, we must advance the state of the art. To advance the state of the art, we must spend money on human space exploration/colonization.
Deficits will never go away, and neither will the fact that the sun will eventually incinerate the earth.
Why must we leave the planet? Nothing is going to happen to it. The Earth is a lot tougher than we are, and will be here for a long long time, so "man is destroying Earth" isn't a reason. Are you betting on the mother of comets or asteroids hitting?
As far as deficits not going away, uh, yes, they can. It's just a matter of will. In fact, I say to you that, one way or the other, deficits are going away soon. Because either we're going to get our fiscal house in order and cut our budgets, or we're simply going to default, declare the debt null and void (with all of the hellishness on Earth that entails), and start over. We don't really have much of a choice otherwise. It's either fix it or go all Tyler Durden and blow it all up for a fresh start.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
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.
Then we are not, realistically, going anywhere.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
... 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.
GP's concern with a nova or supernova seems to me to be displaced - but I am betting on that mother of all asteroids. Somewhere out there, I'm quite certain that there is a rock on a collision course with the earth. It may or may not be large enough to "destroy the earth" - but it doesn't need to be that big to "end life as we know it" on earth. There is evidence of previous rocks, one of them in Siberia, one in the Gulf of Mexico, that were truly devastating, with global implications. Other less devastating rocks have hit the earth many times. "Less devastating" is a relative term, of course. Many rocks have hit the earth with enough force to destroy any one of our modern day cities. The fact that we had no direct witnesses to the events leads many of us to dismiss the very idea of it ever happening again.
Imagine, one morning, waking up to news that Hong Kong had been obliterated, and the resulting seismic activity had generated tidal waves that pretty much eliminated all the coastal cities in China, Korea, Japan, and much of the rest of the Pacific. Or, put that rock on Manhattan, or Paris, or - any city that is dear to you.
It really isn't a question of "if" such an event will happen, but "when" it will happen. And, please, don't even try to make us believe that NORAD or any other agency is ready and able to deflect a rock fifty or a hundred miles in diameter. That made an alright movie - but it isn't happening in real life, in this day and age.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
You mean an event that will not happen for millions of years as in 2029 and 2036? Just because the likelihood is low doesn't mean it won't happen tomorrow. Frankly, humans themselves are a *lot* more likely to make Earth uninhabitable and a lot faster than a million years.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
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.
How about something catastrophic that is actually due *now* by geologic standards?
Not all world changing events come from above...
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
It is much much worse than just not paying for things.
The government holds much of the world's wealth in bonds and the tax payers end up paying for it on interest. If it defaults we could expect a 16% interest like Greece and many Grandma's 401ks and even your home mortgage will be effected. This is because the banks have money in bonds paying for the deficit and will have to raise rates and deny loans to people and businesses that hire if they lose money. Your 401k may even have companies that have a certain percentage of your savings in bonds.
No bailouts will be possible again this time as the republicans have control and the people will refuse it. A depression will come next as we still never fully recovered from the crash of 2008. Government spending only hid it.
So people will starve if it defaults and people will lose jobs. Bad indeed. Over 1 million people starved to death in the 1930s. Something to think about and I do not think the average citizen is informed enough about how serious this problem is.
http://saveie6.com/
The Earth is a lot tougher than we are, and will be here for a long long time, so "man is destroying Earth" isn't a reason.
If you mean that the pile of crushed metal is still 'technically' a car sure we aren't destroying the earth. We are destroying the environment we absolutely need to survive. That's pretty much what people mean when "we're destroying the earth".
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Would you rather the Moon and other celestial bodies be carved up by megacorps?
Yes. I want a Solar System so valuable that business is willing to invest serious money in its exploitation. It's the kind of universe in which humanity has a future.
As opposed to sitting here while governments bask in bureaucracy? Say what you will about commercial interests, unless there is a war on commercial interests have been the driving force of many discoveries and innovations, not governments.
Given the historical location of much NASA activity, and the introduction of the bill by the senator for Florida, it would probably be more efficient to pick out the parts that aren't pork than the ones that are.
Another aspect to the diversification argument is that there are plenty of large scale disasters that would be less harmful and easier to weather with an economy enlarged by a space presence. Global-scale economic messes happen at least once a decade, maybe more often. The more of your economy that doesn't depend on real estate financial instruments and hedge funds (or whatever the fad is this time) then the better your economy can weather these man-made train wrecks.
Translation: "to restart the space race, bring in jobs to my home state, and billions of dollars in spending to defense contractors."
I realize this is /. and is, therefore, reactionary to anything with an (R), but is it possible, even a little bit possible, that this Congressman really supports technological research? Could it be possible that he is more knowledgeable about such things precisely because he is from Florida and is therefore better educated about the United States' space program (being genuinely concerned for his constituents)? Is it possible that his motives are genuine and not simply political?
Oh, wait. This is slashdot.
Life is short; think quickly.
The largest employer in his district is the Weber County School District, but otherwise I'd have to agree with your position on Rob Bishop. The guy is a sell-out, and is partly responsible for a $3 billion earmark (nearly the only one in the current budget) for the "SLS" launch system (often dubbed the "Senate Launch System") to essentially restart under a new name the Ares V project.
It is useful to note that the ATK plant was in his Utah State House of Representatives district before he was elected to his current seat in Washington, thus has a rather cozy relationship with the people in that company as well as many neighbors who work for them as well.
One legitimate issue that needs to be addressed is in terms of how to keep domestic production going for the Ammonium Perchlorate, which is a vital chemical needed for general defense purposes. That is the primary chemical used in solid rocket boosters, and is used for most of the ICBMs in the arsenal of the United States (as well as the missiles in submarines). Right now, those missiles aren't being built, so there is a need for at least somebody, somewhere, to be using this chemical so that the factories making this rocket fuel can keep going for when the ICBM fleet needs to be refurbished for the next generation (the fuel is unstable and does need to be replaced periodically).
My personal solution to the problem: Rather than disguising a NASA program as something other than a make-work jobs program to keep the factory workers at these chemical plants employed, why not simply get into the business of making 4th of July fireworks and literally give these "missiles" to every city in America for their annual celebrations? $3-$4 billion would make a whole lot of fireworks, and it could at least be enjoyed for pure entertainment purposes by most Americans if they want to see their tax dollars literally burned up every year. You could even keep rocket developers busy, where they would be able to "test fly" their designs on a regular basis. That is much more to say that to have a bunch of rocket developers design a vehicle that will never fly due to an eventual shift in priorities, political parties, and mismanagement that usually accompanies most NASA rocket development projects.
RE: "leave this planet"
ha! the human race is doomed to this star system, we as a species will never get beyond this solar system, its a HUGE waste of money & resources & manpower to even try,
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Flagless Ship in the middle of the ocean. Solves that issue.
O.o
Then we're already screwed. I don't feel compelled to send some government selected Aryan to populate space.
SHRINK: Why were you up in the tree?
YOSSARIAN: Because I don't want to fly any more missions.
SHRINK: Hmmm. But we're at war fighting against a danagerous and ruthless enemy.
YOSSARIAN: Well, while I'm getting shot at here, there are lots of guys back home, going out with girls, drinking and having a good time, and I don't see why I shouldn't too.
SHRINK: But what if everyone felt that way...who'd fight the enemy?
YOSSARIAN: We'll then I'd be fool to feel any different....
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
"Nope. Outer Space Treaty makes it impossible to recover the costs of exploration, since you're not allowed to actually claim anything up there as belonging to you. "
Thankfully most countries with desirable launch areas aren't signatories of that treaty, rendering that null and void.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
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.
Yeah, right. Because the current greedy business model we have down here has a bright future.
...the "Federal stimulus for Florida's 15th congressional district to get Bill Posey re-elected" bill.
Although it is futile to respond to a classical straw man argument, I do want to respond in this particular case:
Where is you sense of wonder, a desire to go someplace different or do something that nobody else has ever been before?
Where is it that we can go which will inspire humanity to do something new, something different, and to bring new ideas into nearly all discussions?
Going into space, and in particular sending people (not just robots) to visit other worlds and to find new places to explore is something which can benefit all of humanity merely because it is being done, regardless of cost or difficulty. Not only will it be beneficial, I don't think there has been a person on this planet, regardless of where they live, that hasn't been substantially impacted for good as a result of manned spaceflight activities. No, I'm not talking about Tang, Teflon, or Velcro either (none of which were developed for or as a result of spaceflight... at least initially). More food is available, diplomacy is easier to conduct, and general knowledge of other cultures is much better as a direct result of spaceflight.
This will only improve and become better if we can build a permanent settlement on the Moon or other worlds. Besides, I think it can also be done for a profit, but that is a completely separate issue entirely.
Unless it's a hotel/rec center, and you charge beau coup bucks to allow others to spend time in your facility.
Unlike the Democrats, right, who are totally busy solving that deficit problem? US seems to be screwed either which way.
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.
Because if man is to survive as a species,
Yeah, but there isn't a need for hurry with that. Earth isn't getting wiped out anytime soon and even if, we neither have found another habitable planet nor the technology to get there. Toying around on the moon won't change that.
If you are worried about survival of mankind at this point in time it would make a hell of a lot more sense to build a few huge underground bunker so that you have some protection against an asteroid.
That whole "lets get to the moon for mankind survival" talk always feels for me like caveman discussion how to colonize America. Yeah, we might eventually do that, but it is not quite the right time to worry about that.
If a Democrat had presented this bill the majority of Slashdotters here would be fauning over how this would stimulate the economy, create jobs and advance science. But since the political partisanship here is so pathetic, it's clearly some type of evil corporate money grab.
This site is about as useful for political commentary as a toilet is.
Rob Bishop is rated as "the most conservative representatives in the U.S. House" and is one who constantly calls for fiscal responsibility and decrying earmarks of other members of congress as being wasteful. I call that hypocrisy at the very least.
If Bishop was running on the platform of "bringing the bacon home to Utah" (as his fellow member in the Utah delegation, Orrin Hatch, did for his 2006 re-election campaign), it would be a bit more understandable. Sadly, he complains when others do that kind of thing but has no hesitation when doing it himself.
Because the current greedy business model we have down here has a bright future.
And that's the thing that routinely is ignored. The so-called "greedy" business model works because it gives a channel for so-called "greedy" people to contribute to society in a meaning and positive way. The future is indeed brighter.
The so-called "multinational" (the label which includes any business that operates in two or more countries) will have to buy space-based goods and services to support its claims and it'll have to come with profitable enterprises (which contribute to society) with which to support its ongoing expenses. Figuring out how to do that will lead to innovations and developments which will dwarf anything done in space to date.
That's far better than merely letting the Solar System be the occasional playground for a bunch of incompetent and disinterested governments (currently, the only other parties that can play in space).
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
Business is better at incremental innovation, not so good at disruptive innovations like computers, the atom bomb, the internet (all funded by govt). Biz is too focussed on next quarter's shareholders' report to invest enough in the long-term R&D that creates truly disruptive innovations. So govt should deficit-spend if necessary to keep the disruptive innovations coming, which can then be turned over to biz to improve incrementally and bring to the masses. Synergy! As long as we keep advancing knowledge and innovating things other want, we can print as much money as we like and run as big deficits as we feel, and the currency will remain strong.
When biz does start spending on more disruptive-type innovation again like during the 1990s, govt can balance its budget...
Recent evidence would seem to suggest that said greedy people do not wind up contributing in a meaningful way, but instead wind up finding every edge case they can to try to skim off the productivity of others.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
They were represented by their governments (USA and UK), and have done absolutely not a thing in space without their government's sign-off.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
None of the listed countries come even close to desirable launch areas. Essentially the best location for launch is at equator.
The point being made is that private interests could build a space center in one of the equatorial countries in Africa or Central America. While unrealistic in current political and financial climate, it would be doable, and they would even have a meaningful advantage over existing launch sites because of location allowing for less energy needed per launched tonnage.
Earmarks just direct the funding to specific sources, which is the point of having a representative, it's doesn't increase funding at all.
So the point of having representatives is to make sure the government cannot complete its mandated missions efficiently? What you describe is what we call an "unfunded mandate", and we in the civil service dread those like the plague. It means that we don't get enough money to do our jobs properly because half of our "budget" is directed toward boondoggles in one state or another.
The trouble with earmarks is they all too frequently result in "We will give you $20 million to do a $30 million job that would be best done in California, but you have to spend $5 million of it in North Dakota because otherwise that guy wouldn't vote for it." So we effectively get half the money they need and an albatross to boot. It's all very fine and good for representatives to decide what the mission of the government should be, but earmarks are just a way to get re-elected while de-funding an agency's primary mandate. This is both a disservice to the public and disgrace to the Congress.
So you want to go back into space? the top tax rate MUST go back to 90%
This is a non sequitur. What's government going to do that has anything to do with space? Never mind that I, at best, advocate a vast cutback in government spending, including space activities. Those "rich" are going to have to be the ones (they'd be the only interesting examples anyway) investing not government.
Instead what we are gonna have is a full on collapse, we will be NO different than the PIIGS in Europe, mark my words.
And the PIGS (I'm excluding Ireland out of a sense of optimism that they'll figure out cause and effect of their bank bailouts) are that way because the "rich" aren't pulling their fair share? Rather than a entitlement fantasy that relied on neverending flow of Other Peoples' Money to keep it going?
Here's how I see it for the US. Most workers in the US no longer deserve the premium they had enjoyed for many decades. And all those cozy regulations, health care perks, and other things? They'll have to cut back or remain underemployed for a long time to come.
That's right! Man will never fly! You tell them!
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
How much is "quite a bit", and how does it compare with their budget? If you're going to speak authoritatively, then you should be able to provide some numbers.
The representatives decide WHAT the agencies need to accomplish to improve society. That's their job. They know what their constituents want, they know what the societal and economic impact of certain objectives are (or at least they're supposed to), so they decide what goals need furthering--better health care, better technology, better financial regulation, etc.
The agencies decide HOW to do it. That's *their* job. They don't just blindly do whatever Congress says. They know the specific details of their operations, the costs of doing certain things in certain places and certain ways, they know how to analyze the impact of specific actions on the immediate communities relative to all their other actions, and the efficiency of those actions toward furthering an objective.
Take, for example, a National Science Foundation grant authorized by Congress. The Congress specifies that XXX dollars should be used to further a specific research goal, like cancer treatment or clean energy, based on their expertise social, economic, and international policy decisions, and this is called a mandate. Then the NSF gets applications from lots of researchers and decides which projects will give the taxpayer the biggest bang for the buck to meet the goals laid out by Congress, based on their deep technical knowledge of the field.
If, however, a congresscritter decides to slip into the bill a line that says the NSF has to fund a researcher Y with X dollars (from among several similar ones), that is called an earmark. Unless said congresscritter solicited competitive bids and has a team of scientists to decide which one is best (duplicating the NSF's own effort), there is no way you can say the money will be spent in the best possible way. If that researcher really were the best place to spend the money, then the NSF would have picked them anyways, and the earmark was unnecessary. If not, then the earmark is wasting taxpayer money on less efficient projects. If the agency is so incompetent that the earmarks prove more efficient than the agency's own process, then it's time to fix the agency, not do end-runs around it.
If the original authorization had been to provide X dollars to researcher Y, there would be no problem. It would simply be Congress doling out money to a certain group without regard for value to the taxpayer, which is unethical but not dishonest. But because the authorization gave a general goal with a specific implementation riding on it, it is both unethical and deceitful. People read in the paper that XXX tax dollars are going to research, but don't know that only XX of them are being used efficiently.
In conclusion: Yes, there is someone better informed of the details on the ground in every conceivable field than the representative. All the agencies in the civil service were created because everyone knows Congress cannot--and should not--control every minutiae of what the government does. The agencies must act within the mandate and funding provided by Congress, but those are the only two knobs Congress should turn to control them. Micromanagement is never a good thing, and that is why earmarks should be eliminated.
Liar.
Here is a paper from 15 years ago from the University of New South Wales.
The above summary shows that energy payback times for modules incorporating thick silicon cells are, at worst, of the order of six to seven years and possibly less than three years. Since warranty periods of 20 years are routinely offered on such modules[ ] it is clear that the embodied energy should be easily recovered.
I'm willing to bet the efficiency has increased.
http://www.csudh.edu/oliver/smt310-handouts/solarpan/pvpayback.htm
Heres another source: (pdf warning)
Energy payback estimates for rooftop PV systems are 4, 3, 2,
and 1 years: 4 years for systems using current multicrystalline-
silicon PV modules, 3 years for current thin-film modules,
2 years for anticipated multicrystalline modules, and
1 year for anticipated thin-film modules (see Figure 1).
With energy paybacks of 1 to 4 years and assumed life
expectancies of 30 years, 87% to 97% of the energy that
PV systems generate won’t be plagued by pollution, greenhouse
gases, and depletion of resources.
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf
In short you are a liar in at least the solar panel area.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
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.
The colony is attainable in the near future - like the next 50 years. All that is required are funds, and people willing to endure some hardship. We had the means to put people on the moon about 40 years ago. Larger, more modern rockets could be built, capable of lifting materials up there to build a habitat inside one of those many vents. Supplies will be a problem at first, of course. Initially, all food, all water, all atmosphere, everything will have to be lifted. But, given only a few dozen people on site, with the initiative (survival is a pretty powerful initiative!) to solve problems, they can and will figure out just what they need to extract required materials from the moon itself. Almost everything man needs is there already. Erect a habitat, fill it with atmosphere, erect some mirrors, plant some seeds - you're halfway to having a sustainable colony. Only halfway - there will be setbacks, even some disasters. But, people do learn from their mistakes when their very survival is at stake.
I say that a self sufficient colony is possible in only 100 to 150 years - not hundreds of years.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
They were represented by their governments (USA and UK), and have done absolutely not a thing in space without their government's sign-off.
So Virgin Galactic suddenly closes shop in the US and reopens as a corporation based out of Nauru. And the GDP of Nauru quadruples overnight. Problem solved.
Because if man is to survive as a species, we must leave this planet... the sun will eventually incinerate the earth.
I'm not sure you've thought this through.
Sure, on a timescale of millions of years, the sun will burn out - and the only solution will not be just to leave the planet, but the entire solar system, which would require either some form of faster-than-light physics breakthrough, or a generation ship. Living on which would require developing ecological sustainability skills because it will have very limited resources. Those pesky Greenies! They've infiltrated even our shiny Space Future!
Meanwhile, on the same timescale, lots of other main sequence stars of the same age will be having similar problems, which means you can't just necessarily go to any old star, but would have to pick specifically young ones.
In the near to plausible mid future, you achieve absolutely nothing for the survival of the human race by going off-planet to the local solar system - and you're going to find very expensive, dangerous, exhausting and degrading work trying to scratch out a living on your average Sol system planetoid - a chunk of frozen metal, gas or ice without even functional dirt, and on a strictly bring-your-own oxygen basis.
tldr: If you want to imagine a future in space, go right ahead. Imagination's free. But in reality, we're all going to be living on Earth for a long, long time, so why not start treating it like the spaceship it is, and not just a giant strip mine / scrapheap?
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Uh huh...to quote Mel Brooks bullshit bullshit aaaaand bullshit. maybe you'd care to explain how a full 2/3rds of corps paid NO taxes this decade or how GE, who paid paid NO taxes in 2010 and in fact got a REBATE and is now using those funds to fire Americans and build overseas with the head of GE actually having the brass balls to say "We've globalized around markets, not cheap labor. The era of globalization around cheap labor is over. Today we go to China, we go to India, because that's where the customers are."
BULLSHIT and EVERY single time of growth in the history of this country TAXES AT THE TOP HAVE BEEN OVER 70% full stop. We have had unprecedented tax breaks for the top 1% for THIRTY YEARS and NOTHING has gotten better. NOTHING. So peddle the rep fantasy somewhere else, we ain't buying it no more. America WILL BE COME NATIONALIST the only question is how violent the change over will be. China is about to drop their US dollars so the game is over friend, time to pay the check.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Just so you know, the US isn't going to default its debt. Thats silly speculation from the conservative press thats led to a bit of nervousness from some isolated quarters because the statuatory debt limit is being reached.
But its just a debt limit, its got nothing to do with defaulting what so over, because pushing the default button would nuke the economy and the whitehouse knows it. It simply won't happen.
The US economy is still held to be a low risk of defaulting, simply because it doesn't need to, as it can just go austere instead. Or raise the limit.
Of course austerity is going to suck, because spending cuts wreck economies that are slumping, but life goes on.
If you ask me, its about time the US pulled out of a few wars and cashed in that peace dividend.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Note that the Outer Space Treaty only requires that a signatory nation announce at least a year in advance that they are going to withdraw from the treaty. If the political will is there to have a country like the United States to claim extra-terrestrial real estate, it can easily happen and no other signatory nation can do a thing about it.... shy of going to war over the issue.
If the technology exists to be able to mine an extra-terrestrial body or do anything else in space, it can be done. Besides, commercial "exploitation" of space is already happening even with the Outer Space Treaty.
About the only thing it really impacts in terms of private citizens is activities below the Kármán line (if your spacecraft or satellite crashes into somebody's house, you have to pay damages, and you need aviation clearance to launch and/or enter the atmosphere). Spacecraft actually in space are governed by the laws of the country who launched the vehicle (giving some odd legal issues in the ISS if a felony happened up there). Ownership issue by private individuals is not covered by the treaty, but then again neither are the land allocation rules either.
While not really the intention of the treaty, the rule in space is that possession is 99.99% of the law, and if you have a bigger gun, you get to keep whatever it is that you possess. And yes, guns have already flown in space, and I'm not talking just a pistol or airguns either. The net effect of the Outer Space Treaty is that no nation claims territorial status to anything beyond the Earth, so it is a free-for-all as private citizens to work out governance principles in space for themselves. Somehow I don't think that situation will last when people who are not government employees are in space in large numbers.
a rock on a collision course with the earth. It may or may not be large enough to "destroy the earth" - but it doesn't need to be that big to "end life as we know it" on earth.
And yet, even after surviving an asteroid impact sufficient to destroy "life as we know it" or a full-on nuclear war, what remains of Earth will still be a million times more habitable than Mars.
We simply don't need colonies in space to ensure the continuance of the human race. If going all survivalist is what lights your fire, just build a sealed bio-dome in a mineshaft in Texas. It will be orders of magnitude cheaper, you'll get free oxygen and dirt to start with, and as a bonus, you'll get to find out whether it's even possible to build a self-sustaining colony. And if that answer turns out to be "no" (as it did for Biosphere 2), you can jump out the escape hatch without needing a working billion dollar rocket and a nine-month wait.
Space is not magic fairy dust which will make unworkable science or uneconomic technology spring into life. If sealed colonies in a can are possible, they're possible right here on Earth, for cheaper.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
That's been a fact ever since Einstein declared that the universal speed limit was C.
Then we should try C++.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
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!
You know times are tough. Usually when an election come near the politicians begin talking about missions to Mars.