Slashdot Mirror
Can the US Still Lead In Space Despite Shuttle's End?
Hugh Pickens writes "NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden says that the future is bright and promises that one day humans will land on Mars. 'American leadership in space will continue for at least the next half-century because we've laid the foundation for success,' the nation's space chief said in a speech at the National Press Club. 'When I hear people say that the final shuttle flight marks the end of U.S. human space flight, you all must be living on another planet. We are not ending human space flight. We are recommitting ourselves to it.' Bolden says within a year private companies can take over the process of sending cargo shipments into orbit and by 2015 industry can take over astronaut transport, freeing NASA to focus on the long-term goals of reaching beyond Earth's shadow. 'Do we want to keep repeating ourselves or do we want to look at the big horizon?' says Bolden. 'My generation touched the moon today, NASA, and the nation, wants to touch an asteroid, and eventually send a human to Mars.' A group of former astronauts and other critics have blasted the agency and the Obama administration for ending the 30-year-old shuttle program, once the cornerstone of NASA. 'NASA's human spaceflight program is in substantial disarray with no clear-cut mission in the offing. We will have no rockets to carry humans to low-Earth orbit and beyond for an indeterminate number of years,' write Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell and Gene Cernan. 'After a half-century of remarkable progress, a coherent plan for maintaining America's leadership in space exploration is no longer apparent.'"
Besides, what does NASA do for me anyway? Why does 'our nation' have to put a gun to my head and force me to fund the intellectual curiosity of others?
"NASA, and the nation, wants to touch an asteroid." I can think of at least 9.1-15.8% of 'the nation' that would prefer we spend that money some place else, like productive jobs that contribute to reality.
Why don't one of you smarmy assholes head over to Compton and take a poll on how many people in this part of 'the nation' give a flying fuck about landing on an asteroid.
Oh, look, it's the chiro-troll again. (Other readers should look at his posting history to understand -- and dismiss -- the point he makes.)
SpaceX's Dragon Capsule is going to be on display until July 10th at the Kennedy Space Center Air Force air/space museum, right down the street from the last shuttle launch (disclaimer: I'm going to see the last shuttle launch, and to see the Dragon capsule that has been to space and back). This is no accident.
The shuttle has been NASA's workhorse for the last 30 years, but its time for it to make way for the next generation of orbital launch vehicles. Goodbye Shuttle, and thanks for all the hard work.
'American leadership in space will continue for at least the next half-century because we
- aha, keep dreaming.
The US bond crisis is coming, followed immediately by the currency crisis. I bet there will be more pressing needs, like more weapons to start resource wars against multiple countries much before the US will once again be able to go far into space in its new ships, never mind having humans on board there....
You can't handle the truth.
What do you mean "still"?
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
It's underwhelming to slowly, ambiguously plan for maybe going to an unspecified asteroid someday. There won't be much excitement from the general public for such a plan, especially with the way it's been marketed so far. Say "in 10 years we'll have people on the way to Mars [or to a lesser extent, the Moon] to build a permanent base" and it becomes a different story.
We're in a budget crisis right now though, with fundamental moral, legal and philosophical disputes over the proper role of the US government. We already have a majority of the states openly challenging federal authority, and the federal government openly scoffing at the idea that there are limits to its lawful power. (Pelosi: "Are you serious?!") It's hard to justify any new government programs while that dispute is unresolved, even as relatively small as the funding would be. Figure out first whether it's okay to have a self-proclaimed "radical communist" serving as a White House adviser, for instance, before deciding relatively minor things like whether to increase one agency's funding. Otherwise we'll just be arguing past each other from completely different premises.
I'm definitely not taking the common position, "Let's solve our problems on Earth before we go to space." This is more like, "Let's figure out what we're trying to accomplish before we set out."
Revive the Constitution.
Space exploration may be a technological feat, but it is also a wonder of human intellect. By abandoning the shuttle, that human intellect is being dumped on the streets with nothing but promises for the future. Promises to the nation, though there will be very few promised to the people who will be pursuing other careers.
Even if things did start up again: within a year, most of those people would need to refresh their training. Within a decade, you would be training most of the workforce from scratch. Within 50 years, even most of the documentation would be lost or incomprehensible.
Don't believe me, just look at Apollo.
If you're a Canuck and don't believe me, look at the Avro Arrow.
Nations loose technical capabilities because those capabilities depend upon the people behind them.
It's not the end of HUMAN spaceflight...just AMERICAN spaceflight. You can't lead anyone anywhere if you have to hitch a ride to get there yourself.
_ Chinese are planning multiple mir like station, yes at first they will suck but with big budgets, they could have their sputnik moment ....
_ if aerobreathing engines like the one planned on the skylon are operational, they too could be a game changer. yes it is unmanned but drastically decreases costs
_ jaxa is planning a robotic base on the moon... and japanese definitely know their robots
_ if multiple changes mid programs don't cause nasa to redevelop the wheel, it will fall behind
maybe it can stay ahead... and I really hope it will get a big boost but I don't see that happening, especially with cost saving measures in budget... nasa is definitely not a priority
What I would love is all space faring countries to combine efforts and launch some big ass missions and really get the space race going... but because of pride never gonna happen :(
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
The 'next big thing', manned missions to Mars and beyond, is going to be so expensive no single nation can afford to do it. International cooperation is IMO the only way forward. The ISS was a decent first effort in that direction, but also shows the problems that will crop up in such a cooperation. The weird orbit dictated by the requirement that it can be reached from both Canaveral and Baikonur, different docking systems being used, etc.
Nations will have to put the cooperative effort above petty nationalism if these missions are going to succeed.
Even then, we're stuck to our local neighborhood unless there's a quantum leap in space technology.
"'When I hear people say that the final shuttle flight marks the end of U.S. human space flight, you all must be living on another planet"
If we were living on another planet, the shuttle would still be going.
This has already been posted on your journal. It's all you should know:
Yeah, you're going to do have to better than blanket label half the people here as big pharma shills. That would be a start.
You can also help your self out by not plugging your profession with every single post you make.
Try this for an experiment: Keep your proselyting to the journal and keep your comments on front page stories on point and you'll find your ability to post will increase. Honestly, you could be manufacturing the greatest geek gadget know to man, and people here would still get pissed of with the blatant self-promotion. You and your profession aren't particularly special in this equation.
SpaceX has already sent an unmanned Dragon capsule into orbit around the Earth. They have a contract with NASA for cargo flights to the ISS, and are developing the manned version of the Dragon with an integrated abort system (see this video for a demonstration).
American spaceflight is NOT coming to an end. It's just not going to be a NASA monopoly any more.
How is the coming hiatus any different that that between the end of Saturn V & the first Shuttle or for that matter the multi-year launch stoppage after Columbia? Why MUST it be a NASA developped rocket? Is it because parts NASA have turned into the aerospace work assurance administration?
I'm a manned space exploration fan but I have come to the conclusion that it would be better off for Manned space explorattion were Nasa to get out of the development of it's own launchers & buy from SpaceX or whoever else develops a reliable launcher without falling into the trap of growing a self justifying administration.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
There's a reason "alt-med" is despised by medical community. It's the simple fact that any "alternative medicine" that's been proven to work is called...medicine.
The US is changing its HUMAN space exploration program, but the space exploration program is returning far more knowledge than it ever has. We've sent robots to almost every planet. We've been to Mars many many times. That may not be as inspirational as landing on the moon, but it's produced a hell of a lot more knowledge than did putting people on the moon.
AccountKiller
we have more probes on mars then any other nation.
And look at mars rover that lasted for YEARS longer then planned.
Wow, I thought that you wre just being a jerk, but that is entirely correct. His page is nothing but "seeing a chiropractor cures everything!", "you are an industry shill!", and "slashdot won't let me post very often because I'm a troll".
>I'm not anti-science
One thing is for damn sure...
You're a loonie and a quack. Anyone who purports to cure cancer, colic, asthma, etc, with spinal manipulation is a fraud. And chelation therapy does not cure autism, no matter how many chemicals you pump through a kid. It just doesn't fucking work, you fraud. It's child abuse and defrauding the parents. And to suggest that it works either says you are a cynical liar, or you're "friggin retahdid" as we say here in the Northeast.
I don't know what psychoactive drugs you're taking, but increase or decrease the dosage, because whatever it is you're taking, it's incorrect.
--
BMO
*Real* space exploration these days is performed by robots. Humans have the wrong senses, the wrong body form, and needs that are very difficult to satisfy in space. But we're very good at building and directing robots, and getting better very fast.
The shuttle? Absolute garbage engineering. Sold as the cheapest way to get to space, it wound up the most expensive of all time. It was supposed to be as safe and easy to operate as an airliner, but it proved extremely dangerous. It proved the capability of the USA only in the sense that no other entity could possibly have thrown enough resources at it to make it work at all. NASA has finally come to its collective senses and decided to quit "throwing good money after bad", a decision that's about 35 years too late.
Human beings will have a future in space when the resources and infrastructure to support them can be gathered, constructed, and maintained by robots. But we have proven beyond any reasonable argument that using human beings as "space laborers" is hyper-expensive and counterproductive.
Can the US Still Lead In Space Despite Shuttle's End? - Yes
Will the US Still Lead In Space Despite Shuttle's End? - Answer unclear. Ask again later
Too many idiots and assholes on BOTH sides of the aisle to continue. One side wants to spend all of the money on unsolvable problems like poverty while the other side wants to keep all of the money literally for themselves. Given the volume with which each side whines, the congress kritters will use both to make themselves look good. So far the well outer space, we hardly knew ye...
i could care less if the US is seen as the "leader" in space exploration. what i do care about is getting the best science for the buck. let nations like china prove themselves and simultaneously ruin their economy by putting a man on mars. let the US focus on robotic / unmanned missions.
The Shuttle and ISS are black holes in NASA's budget sucking all the money away from almost every other project. Everything at NASA has been secondary to maintaining the Shuttle and ISS.
The best thing that could happen is that shutting down the Shuttle program will free up budget money to develop better, cheaper, faster manned and unmanned space programs.
The worst thing that could happen is that NASA decides to create another white elephant space program simply to keep the massive army of NASA employees and contractors who worked on the Shuttle program employed.
We need to come up with a way of keeping most of the fuel for lift on the ground instead of carrying it up too.
There's several ways.
Space Elevator - awaiting the materials tech. Also be a terrorist attack target.
Lasers - awaiting laser tech.
Magnetic acceleration - This would work now. Except that to launch people at a acceptable Gs would require a track 3 miles long. It would also be politically problematic because the same tech could be used to drop a bomb anywhere on the planet and be a terrorist target.
Yes. No. Maybe. I don't know. No-one does. No story.
Following my usual policy of dividing any optimistic-sounding number quoted by a government official in half, I give it 25 years before someone else (Russia? China? Uzbekistan?) takes the lead.
We're too busy bombing democracy into people in foreign lands and spending billions of dollars per month to do so.
You got an 8 year old girl that wants to go into space?
Have her study her math, physics, *RUSSIAN* and *MANDARIN CHINESE*
Because the only way she's going to get there is with the countries that have the launch facilities and vehicles. We have *nothing* man-rated after STS-135. We don't even have spam-in-a-can on top of a fucking Titan, or Atlas like Gemini to get to the ISS.
But we sure have fucking cash to bomb the Afghanis, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Libyans, and Yemenis. Did I miss anyone there? I'm not entirely sure. Have we been bombing Somalia? What about Syria? Are we going to go there too? We certainly had plans as far back as 1991.
We certainly don't have money to subcontract it out to fucking Space-X. The bombs are worth more.
Fuckit. US space exploration is done. Throw dirt over the casket.
--
BMO - whose internal 7 year old is going to go cry in a corner because he'll never see anything inspiring like Apollo again.
Good point. Tends to get lost in the discussion.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I give it 25 years before someone else takes the lead.
I suppose it depends which lead you mean. There are several.
Sure, the USA is about to give up it's manned flight capabilities - though whether the scuttle represented a lead in that field is open to question. However, it still has a lot of capabilities in military launches (the military space budget is at least the size of NASA's - that's not going to be cut) and civil satellite operations.
You probably can't assign the non-governmental space business as "american" as it's, well, non-governmental so doesn't really carry a national identity.
Personally I doubt that there's going to be much manned activity past LEO for at least 100 years, as there's no real need for it. There might be some "gestures" by the chinese, but there's no need for a permanent manned base, or manned expeditions - unless it's for reasons of prestige and few people are willing to pay for that any more.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Private industry is taking some of the cost of deploying satellites and putting payloads of materiel into space. In a few years, they will be putting people up too. The space shuttle mission had to end, the shuttles are old. In general, they worked very well. A lot was accomplished with them. They have gone to museums because its time for them to retire. I didn't own a computer 30 years ago, but I owned one 25 years ago. It had a membrane keyboard, 4k of internal memory, and 16k of external memory. It ran at 1.77 MHz. My current computer has 12GB of memory (not including any support hardware or video memory), and runs at 2.66 GHz. I have 64 times as much memory in my L1 cache as my first computer had in its main memory (the 4k internal ram was disabled when you plugged in the 16K ram pack). My first computer came along 5 years after the space shuttles began service. I have never kept the same car for over 30 years. In the glory days of the Apollo program, it had an unlimited budget. America was surging. American was the engine of the world. Today, America produces very little. The dollar is flagging on world economies. The intellectual property drum is the only thing left to beat. America needs new cheap means to get into space. Rockets are expensive. Shuttles were reusable, and cheaper than rockets. Now something must come along that is cheaper than shuttles. The days of unlimited budgets are over. Welcome to space 3.0.
In 2006, the decision was made to end the Shuttle program by 2010 and put focus on Orion. NASA Administrator Griffin was not in favor of ending the Shuttle, but he had no real choice. The politicians in Washington made the call and Griffin nodded in return.
The ambitious goal of Orion was to launch in 2014, four years after the end of the Shuttle. Technical hurdles, over-promises, political jostling, and financial limits put Orion far behind schedule and it was apparent that the project had to make major changes or be scrapped. NASA can get back on track, but not without necessary funding, which has been made much more difficult thanks to an expensive and ill-advised war, overspending by Democrats and Republicans, and an economic recession caused by greedy bankers and investors.
Sure, we can send a human to the moon again or to Mars, but just like the first moon program, people will pay attention for the first few flights, then lose interest. Americans are more interested in American Idol, reality TV, smartphones, and YouTube than they are about human space flight today.
p.s. Sorry about the mindless rant.
then go joy riding
The Shuttle program set back access to space and kept it from recovering. It's been a decades-long effort to get NASA out of the space transportation business but it may finally be happening due in no small part to the fact that NASA is perceived by the Obama administration, however inaccurately, as competing for minority preference civil service jobs.
Seastead this.
Oh for Pete's sake. Obama did NOT cancel the Shuttle program, George W Bush did! Obama canceled Constellation, the rocket program to followup on the Shuttle, but he did so because it was overbudget and behind schedule. I have a long-ish article about this in the New York Post today. NASA has some serious problems right now, mostly due to lack of a strong vision and the ridiculous turf wars between the White House and Congress. Most of these problems aren't hard to solve in theory, but in practice, with the rabid partisonship going on right now? Hmph.
*** Phil Plait, aka The Bad Astronomer http://www.badastronomy.com
Uh, America hasn't led in space since around the time I was in third grade, in the 80s. Sorry to burst your bubble NASA, but you've been irrelevant and anachronistic since the end of the Apollo program. America hasn't led in space since that time because nobody has led in space since that time.
If America wants to lead in space, it should remember: HUMANS ON OTHER WORLDS, OR NOTHING. Low-earth orbit doesn't count. Telescopes don't count. Robots on Mars, though cool, don't count.
There is a nice PBS program called "The Astrospies". It reveals that a major purpose of the manned space program was to operate space stations to take pictures of enemy nations, much like the U-2 spy plane. By the late sixties, unmanned spy satellites were comparable to manned spy satellites. The manned space program then received major cuts. The use of manned spy satellites was classified in the US of course for a long time, and I bet major parts are still classified.
In the early 90s, Congress was ready to kill the fledgling space station, but thanks to lobbying and spreading out of pork, it lived. The Clinton administration tried to use it as an international relations ploy. $100 billion later, not much science has been done. What science will ever be done on the ISS?
The American public still doesn't know the original purpose of putting people into outer space, but the ISS and Shuttle consume more than half of NASA's budget. Would the average American notice if they disappeared? Does the average American even care about space science? The 40 meter European optical telescope is expected to cost $1.5 billion. How big of a telescope could $100 billion buy?
If the purpose of the manned space program is colonization, why didn't NASA build something like Biosphere 2 for experimentation? Why isn't NASA using Biosphere 2 more aggressively? How much will it cost to build buildings for growing food in outer space? People on Earth have a hard time affording housing. What makes you think they will be able to afford the much more expensive Mars and Lunar counterpart?
because we've laid the foundation for success
By outsourcing our heavy lift capacity to the Russians! Wooo, success!
I think a statement like that just proves NASA has become an overhead intensive collection of mid-managers whose best days are behind them. Shifting heavy lift to the Russians was necessary, and it may help get the program out of the hands of NASA management and the money-sucking contractors. Sad development but maybe ultimately for the best. NASA is over. They've lost the sense of urgency and turned into a giant, thoughtless bureaucracy.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Much like legacy support in software, the legacy support for the shuttle program was a tether to the past. The shuttle was an amazing achievement at the time of its inception, but 30 years later, it is time to move forward. Science, particularly engineering, is advancing at a rapid rate, the capabilities we have today far outstrip the capabilities that we had at the inception of the Shuttle program. It would be foolish not to embrace them. In that regard, shuttle retirement is absolutely necessary and presents the possibility for a new surge in U.S. space leadership.
However, Two things need to change. Firstly NASA needs to become less risk averse, and I'm not talking about human life, I'm talking about taking risks with unproven technologies that have the potential to push the envelope. There's a sense of comfort, an old guard that worships the way things were done in the Apollo era. The same capsule designs, the same methodologies, the same procedures. I think people worship the almighty "lesson learned." You could hear it in every quarter review of the Constellation program that NASA released. Yes, it is extremely important to learn from mistakes as well as successes, but NASA must push the envelope, they must explore parameter space in mission design, vehicle design, and technological advancement. Sure, there are constraints (i.e. the rocket equation for example), but playing it safe is hamstringing us.
Secondly, NASA and the US space industry need a consistent vision. It can't change every 4-8 years. It takes real time to develop the technologies necessary for the goals set before NASA, and until there is a strategic long term national commitment, U.S. leadership will slowly dwindle. Many of the breakthroughs in space technology were a result of necessity, and until we have that necessity, that mission that is right at the limit of our current capabilities the U.S. will stagnate. We need a "Mission" and a mission. Yes we need to recommit ourselves to exploration, yes we need to "out innovate..." but what is it that we're going to do? Rhetoric will only take us so far. Until NASA has a concrete mission that will last through administration change, we're going nowhere.
Nations loose technical capabilities because those capabilities depend upon the people behind them.
It's not really that big of a deal. We can just outsource those capability requiring positions to India or China.
Hint: Telemarketing, Tech Support, and now IT has never been stronger in the US. A friend of mine works in the Mortgage industry, her company is owned by an Indian company and much of the paper work is outsourced overseas. Just look how well the Mortgage industry is doing...
Manufacturing jobs only provide lower income positions -- It's not like we can't manufacture our own goods any more; It's not like we have a shortage of work or an abundance of unemployed folks. High Tech jobs are the same, just because we won't have a government funded manned space program doesn't mean our government won't be able to fund manned space programs...
...when you have Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and bases in dozens of countries?
How many Roman (Italian) manned spaceships do you see?
Portuguese?
British?
Spanish?
Spent empires are like spent rockets - they go nowhere
So the Obama administration was in charge when the program ended. He's been in office the last three years of a thirty year program. Is it credible to blame it all on him? Of course not.
These programs have huge momentum. They take a long time to ramp up and to ramp down. Years. If the Bush administration had enabled a meaningful strategy then the future at NASA, including manned missions, would be well defined. They are responsible for the lack of a clear path for US manned space flight.
It's not really surprising, given the Bush track record. The Wall St. meltdown, the failed Katrina response, the invasion of Iraq. Leaving NASA in the lurch is small potatoes compared to the big time screw ups. Still, they were consistent in screwing up everything they touched.
Why is Snark Required?
You say "NASA monopoly" like there were any valid other options out there for the US. Sorry, but SpaceX's Dragon rocket is not going to be the end-all be-all answer to the US's space needs. It's a moderately-capable lifting rocket, but under no circumstances does it have, say, what is required to go to the moon, or mars, or anywhere but around our rock.
Exploration implies that we will be going SOMEWHERE else in the future, which this contingency does not allow for as it stands.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Why no ongoing program of refinement & improvement, materials, methods, propulsion, recoverables?
40 year old design with little improvement, save 2 additional o-rings in the boosters, are sure to be inefficient & obsolete.
Smart people see the vision, rise to the challenge, create, invent.
Stupid people prefer stupid wars to blow unrecoverable money on. But it's what they can understand. Unfortunate there are more of them.
"Why MUST it be a NASA developed rocket?"
Because NASA is the only group who has gotten it right so far. I don't see an ESA shuttle, or a JAXA shuttle...I don't see their own independent space stations.
The fact is, the WORLD came to NASA for the ISS project, because they knew what they were doing. This hasn't changed. NASA still has far more experience and information about space travel than ANYONE else in the world.
The worry for me is that if they just shut down, as they're doing, they will lag behind and others will garner superior knowledge and technology in the area of space travel. We will then be subject to whatever prices and political bullshit they want to pull in order to 'use' their technology. I really hope Vatican City never develops a space program, or we're all fucked.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
...closure of the Apollo program.
You say "NASA monopoly" like there were any valid other options out there for the US. Sorry, but SpaceX's Dragon rocket is not going to be the end-all be-all answer to the US's space needs. It's a moderately-capable lifting rocket, but under no circumstances does it have, say, what is required to go to the moon, or mars, or anywhere but around our rock.
You can easily build a long-range spacecraft from components that can be launched on a Falcon-9, and it's just about capable of putting a Dragon capsule on a free-return lunar flyby trajectory if you want an exciting vacation. The Heavy variety could do a lot more.
The idea that you can't go anywhere other than Earth orbit unless you have a Saturn-V is just silly.
NASA has done a great job, they got us all to this point.
Now, NASA's strategy and role needs to change, their funding must change, it's way overdue, they know it, we know it.
To their great credit, they are doing it, they are adapting and embracing the change; it's hard for them, an era is ending.
Space is big, the opportunities are literally infinite, but science budgets are always way too small, efficiency matters.
So we cut the well known tech and commercially viable elements loose from the taxpayers dollar.
Let whatever NASA morphs into, fund and guide the basic research and science, spend more on that, less on vehicles.
That's the stuff NASA does well, the right stuff, basic research, initial exploration, the stuff that shareholders and businessmen looking at next quarters results typically do poorly.
NASA exploration vehicles and science packages can buy rides on whatever commercial launchers they need, at the going rate.
We buy planes and ships, trains and trucks from commercial vendors, shipyards, and aviation companies, so whats different?
Clear out the cold war, legacy buck rogers, pointy spaceship with fins thinking, and move onto real space-drives, profitable commercialization and real sustainable colonization.
As for the shuttle.... well I am as jingoistic as the next fella, I admire their bravery just getting into the thing (i think i would be terrified, but i'd also go...)
However... continually launching the mass of 7 people crammed into a vehicle that has twice failed, killing the entire crew...
Empirically, it seems obvious that the efficient way to do successful science in space is, small fast vehicles, robotics and AI's; humans should only boldly go... when their is a proven and compelling reason to do so, and little expectation of them making it back alive if anything fails.
Spirit and Opportunity did more, for far less, for far longer... than any human crew could likely have done.
That's the kind of research I want my tax-money to fund. Efficient hard science.
So lets figure out how to mine and move asteroids, survive indefinitely in deep space, harvest the oort cloud, build CHON Food factories, go where the resources are available, easy pickings...
If we want to get off this unguided mud-ball, we must adapt to new strategies as necessary, however hard they may be.
http://youtu.be/zxsJeND_D-k
There is no god; get over it already! Never exchange a walk on part in the war, for a lead role in a cage.
If you hang on a few years, we might have something for you:
http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/skylon.html
Its a unique vehicle, not only for running on air breathing rockets (currently being tested; I'm sure slashdot will carry the story when the results are out) but also because the people who want to build it have no intention of operating it - they will sell it freely to any operator. NASA could easily buy a couple and run them from the US.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Exactly. I remember Dr. Van Allen being summarily bitch-slapped by NASA for suggesting the very same thing. Lots of good PR in manned space flight and the droids couldn't stand anyone running counter to the status quo.
CAN the United States "lead" in space exploration? Certainly... but that's the wrong question, not the one to be asking. The useful question is: does the United States WANT to lead in space exploration? It doesn't matter what some bureaucrat or politician proclaims; what do the office clerks and farm hands and factory workers and service industry people think? Do THEY want to colonize Mars or the Moon or even L-5? Do THEY anticipate the benefits or necessity of doing so?
Further, there's that whole sickening competition thing again. How about we evolve the confidence to fully cooperate in exploring space, rather than once again setting the ultimate goals as dominance and some form of monopoly?
I wonder... what was it about the fictional Borg that so terrified people? Was it really the whole assimilation thing, or was it perhaps their ability to operate in perfect unison and harmony like a colony of ants? We could learn something useful from both.
This is just my naive opinion as a biologist rather than say, an aeronautical engineer, but it would seem to me that the role of government is to sponsor and conduct high-risk, high-reward research that has little or no probability of foreseeable commercial payoff while the role of corporations is to sponsor and conduct research that has been sufficient well-established in such a way so as to commercialize it for the general public and to reduce its cost to a minimum? (And yes, I consider space exploration to be a form of research.) We've been doing loops around the Earth for about five decades now, so don't you think that low Earth orbit is sufficiently well understood for it to be outsourced to the private sector, while NASA focuses on loftier goals?
I realize I may be drastically oversimplifying the issue, but it seems to me that NASA is on the right track. Wouldn't American space exploration stagnate if we continue to fixate on the space shuttle (whose success has not been entirely unequivocal, imho)? Just my two cents.
Cogito, ergo sum, fosho!
NASA has been a bloated government bureaucracy standing in the way of progress a half-century.
When did Goddard want to make it to Saturn? The 1970s! And we could have -- maybe if Goddard had lived, he would have pushed the US forward.
As it is, the US focused on a very narrow set of launch engine technologies-- essentially, nothing changed in engine design from Goddard's death until the mid-90s.
The shuttle, like everything else at NASA, was just squeezing these designs into new form-- not doing anything new. What do you expect from a government bureaucracy? It rewards mediocrity!
Now that NASA's big mouth is out of the way and not eating up all available resources, and there are other players out there, humanity may actually make it somewhere.
But all this concern about the "loss" is utter crud. What has NASA actually done? Engage in a political showmanship trip to the moon-- a half-century ago? I'm sure it played well to jingoist audiences back in the States, but big deal.
Because NASA is the only group who has gotten it right so far. I don't see an ESA shuttle, or a JAXA shuttle...I don't see their own independent space stations.
Interesting point of view. So the Soviet/Russian space achievements are just written off or are they also a part of NASA ;) . Just a reminder it was just 50 years ago the Yuri Gagarin completed his first orbit. (April 1961)
NASA isn't just about space and the US is developing a lot more commercial space ventures than the rest of the world put together.
The US has more earth sensing satellites, space probes, commercial communication, government communication and scientific satellites up there and more in development than the rest of the world.
The US has more deep space probes out and more in development than anyone else.
The Russians can do one thing well, launch to LEO, the Europeans can launch to LEO well, the Chinese, Indians, Japanese are just getting the hang of reliably LEO payloads. The Russians, Indians, Chinese and Japanese have all these plans for the Moon, meanwhile the US sends probes to the Moon, is getting ready for a lander/rover on Mars, another mission to Jupiter, has a mission at Saturn, has a mission at Mercury, has a mission going to Pluto, is working on a mission to Titan.
Even with the retirement of Shuttle, the US is still being more active in space for the next 10 years than the US was from '72-81.
Ignoring the entirely rational argument that a private launch service industry, without fear of government-subsidized competition supported against bankruptcy by fear of political embarrassment and loss of special interest votes, would follow a normal industrial learning curve: We here speak merely of the government launch capability was at the end of the Apollo program:
The Saturn V payload was 120,000kg to LEO and, again, by NASA's own estimate, that 120,000kg to LEO cost $(2011)1.11billion ($(1969)185billion).
Doing the math for you, just in case you are stupid as well as ignorant:
Seastead this.
We aint gonna do shit in space as long as countries compete with each other over it. Gotta work together.
Why waste R&D funding flying to the moon, when you can develop an alternate currency here on earth.
The USA are losing their technological advantage in many fields. And as they are not able to sustain further investments in research they will not play a leading role in space exploration. To fix this. The US need to use their money to fund education and reduce the military budget. The USA have 40% of the worlds military budget. But they only have 23% of the worlds GDP even less than the EU.
Privatize the whole damn thing top to bottom.
SpaceX and others are coming. Government jobs programs for engineers are not.
Cheat the moderation system - here's where countertrolling explains what he's doing while he trolls others (to his fellow trolltalk.com friends) to downmod them via his registered account, logout, & ac stalk, harass, and troll them:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2245866&cid=36491652
Here's where countertrolling's "troll mechanics" for downmodding others is explained in detail by someone that got sick of it happening:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2271908&cid=36579618
As far as bogus up moderations, the trolltalk.com bunch (tomhudson, countertrolling, & others) collectively "team up" to upmod one another, in teams, as favors to one another.
(Talk about low, and bogus!)
---
In fact, here's what countertrolling says about it, why he does it, and to all of us here:
"What the skiddies here don't understand is that I don't give a shit about dumbass 'karma' on the internet.. I'm here for the jollies with nothing to lose or fight for.. watching them destroy their world.. They can go absolutely nuts as far as I'm concerned.. It's nothing but pure entertainment (and data points) for me and mine... Tragicomedy is probably the best word I can think of to describe it" - by countertrolling (1585477) on Thursday June 30, @10:26AM (#36622502) Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2281808&cid=36622502
Sounds like a sick individual to me.
(Don't get lured into their journals either. That's their main goal along with getting these data points that way. Just ignore them and they will be powerless before you know it (no mod points)).
Cheat the moderation system - here's where countertrolling explains what he's doing while he trolls others (to his fellow trolltalk.com friends) to downmod them via his registered account, logout, & ac stalk, harass, and troll them:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2245866&cid=36491652
Here's where countertrolling's "troll mechanics" for downmodding others is explained in detail by someone that got sick of it happening:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2271908&cid=36579618
As far as bogus up moderations, the trolltalk.com bunch (tomhudson, countertrolling, & others) collectively "team up" to upmod one another, in teams, as favors to one another.
(Talk about low, and bogus!)
---
In fact, here's what countertrolling says about it, why he does it, and to all of us here:
"What the skiddies here don't understand is that I don't give a shit about dumbass 'karma' on the internet.. I'm here for the jollies with nothing to lose or fight for.. watching them destroy their world.. They can go absolutely nuts as far as I'm concerned.. It's nothing but pure entertainment (and data points) for me and mine... Tragicomedy is probably the best word I can think of to describe it" - by countertrolling (1585477) on Thursday June 30, @10:26AM (#36622502) Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2281808&cid=36622502
Sounds like a sick individual to me.
(Don't get lured into their journals either. That's their main goal along with getting these data points that way. Just ignore them and they will be powerless before you know it (no mod points)).
Why do we have to send humans into space when we have robots? Robots are the future. Let's face it, 90% of a manned space craft would be for the expendables to keep a human being alive. A robotic craft to Mars could do so much more than a human could. I think we have our priorities all messed up. We can do a lot more science with robots. With teleprescence it would be like we are actually there in any part of the universe anyway. Has anyone figured out what we could do with the same money it would cost to send humans vs robots.
For the simple reason, human presence defines empires and civilization and freedom and tyranny.
You can't flee disaster whether it be man made or nature made with robots.
The single driving goal should be manned colonization of space, and building the science and technology to make it happen.
If you really are a proponent of man made global warming, you wouldn't be wasting time like Al Gore and his billionaire pals proclaiming we have to pay taxes to him and his pals or Man Made global warming will doom the planet.
You also wouldn't be meeting in secret places like Bill Gates does to discuss how we can kill off 2/3rd's of the "useless eaters" because it is just too hard to put 6 billion people under your thumb to rule them.
If anyone is serious about what are future is, what we are and actually believe in the future of humanity in a compassionate way, we would have given 27 trillion dollars to start a new era or Golden Age of space exploration to tap the limitless materials and energy which space holds.
Instead, we decided to give it to a bunch of bankers.
Humanity is running out of chances and missed opportunities. Time and time again throughout history, we have had civilizations rise to our level and beyond and we have squandered the chance to remove the tyranny and injustice which plague our world. Instead, a handful of people end up torching the entire surface of the globe into lifeless soot, or just end up burning libraries because the fire looks "glorious" as entire human lifetimes are wasted in pursuit of knowledge.
Only to end up getting burned and having to be "rediscovered" all over again.....well....in between centuries or eons dark ages at least.
I doubt the Universe or God or whatever you believe in is going to let this nonsense go on indefinitely. The next Dark Age may find us in a bit of a disadvantage when we sit around the fire in the grass hut village and the elders talk about a time when men flew in the skies and walked like Gods on the moon.
Or when Men hurled "thunderbolts charged with the energy of the universe" and obliterated whole countries in a single hour.
And what will children say when they look at the sky at night and point out to the elders the new star?
Will they know that the new star up in the sky that night they notice spells DOOM for the human species as a rock 23km in diameter heads for Asia and wipes out anything larger than a mouse on the surface.
Too bad too. Because we have had many attempts to get off and stay off this planet and they have all been squandered by a few very foolish people who always tend to get in the way.
-Hackus
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Had something to say.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
I posted just above - but the whole shuttle idea is a distraction. The shuttle should have been a subordinate project to the real goal of putting mankind into deep space, and onto other planets, and into some kind of space habitat. The shuttle is only a support mechanism for serious space exploration. NASA, Washington, and the United States forgot what space exploration is all about when they got hung up on a shuttle program.
Low earth orbit is not space. Geosynchronous orbit isn't space. Real space doesn't begin until you're about 3/4 of the way to the moon, where the gravity of another body begins to influence you almost as much as earth's gravity.
Look at it like a well. Here, we are at the bottom of a huge gravity well - let's say it's a 1000 foot deep well. We've climbed up the sides of the well several times, to an elevation of maybe 400 to 600 feet. We see more and more light, the closer we get to the top of the well, but we always stop short of the top. We never climb out of the well, and start exploring. Only a couple times have we actually sent men to stand just at the top of the well - then like frightened cave dwellers, we brought them back down to the bottom.
Frigging cave men. Maybe mankind really are a bunch of bottom feeders.
"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
If the shuttle weren't retired, we'd still be making many points. Perhaps private space industry will prosper, but not public. We've kinda decided we don't want to spend that much money on it, and it hasn't been marketed to us with the right angle.
The shuttle was designed and built in the 1970s. NASA (or more precisely the STS model of one vehicle to rule them all with politicians at the helm) has consistently failed to develop a replacement vehicle in the 40 years since then.
Time to try something new.
While I can't speak for the robots, as a HUMAN, I want to go to another planet. I don't care about the knowledge the robots return, I care about how much longer until I can live on mars, the moon, or somewhere else.
Both parties in our government are creating poverty by sucking away wealth to line the mega-corporate pocket, including a profitable prison system and laws to fill it (this would include fighting both sides of "the war on drugs" with the growing, guarding and selling narcotics to help fuel it).
...just as soon as we can do it on a balanced budget.
Until we can do that, we're pretty much Zimbabwe, which doesn't have a space program either. The US National budget is in crisis, and threatens the very existence of the Nation itself. If the problem is not fixed very soon, we can look forward to an economic collapse that will make the suffering of the 1930's look small by comparison. The people of the 30's were largely agrarian, and most wouldn't starve. Not true today, so if there's no money to buy diesel to transport food to Krogers or Food Lion, people are going to go hungry, possibly to a termination. Since the Wall Street Journal proved that taxing "The Rich" of ALL their income would only produce $938 billion more, and the deficit is $1,650 billion, we know that taxing our way out of the crisis is not possible. We have to quit spending, and this is one of those things. Passing the Fair Tax to dramatically grow the economy would sure help, but we just can't fix it with taxes.
So, no, the gov't should get out of space and about 1000 other places that we can't afford, and get about making the country prosperous enough again to be able to afford things like this.
...that cannot be won & the [alleged] end game of which can be accomplished by a couple of well placed cruise missiles.
SpaceX is running a NASA developed rocket
Disclaimer, I am a progressive libertarian..
I don't see the bang for the buck when it comes to the shuttle system. It should have been replaced with a new model in 1995
anyway but politics and lucrative Nasa contracts got in the way. Nasa is an inefficient government agency. It can't afford mistakes so it throws money at problems. When it came to getting to the moon that is what was needed.
We are far better off gutting the Nasa budget and stop building ships and reinvest in R&D for ten years. The aerospace industry is more than capable of designing more efficient and safer vehicles. It is far more beneficial to just give grants away and fund development races like the xprize for actual achievements. And it doesn't matter if we no longer have a functioning space shuttle, the nuclear arsenal is slowly reducing all the time; we have more space capable rockets than we know what to do with at the moment. Nasa served it's purpose and proved what can be done. Quite frankly it's time an international coalition took over exploration with Nasa managing the purse strings. It will be 75% American anyway.
The goal for solar system development means private corporations. Manufacturing and power systems. We need to get them up there.
Does the average American even care about space science?
The average American doesn't care about Slashdot, and he most certainly doesn't know or care about a certain AC. This doesn't mean that /. or that AC are worthless. It only means that the average American is not omniscient; he is not even smarter than the average :-)
\Why MUST it be a NASA developped rocket? Is it because parts NASA have turned into the aerospace work assurance administration?
I'm a manned space exploration fan but I have come to the conclusion that it would be better off for Manned space explorattion were Nasa to get out of the development of it's own launchers & buy from SpaceX or whoever else develops a reliable launcher without falling into the trap of growing a self justifying administration.
I don't see why NASA couldn't follow the same development model as the United States military has. For example, the Air Force doesn't develop its own aircraft; they simply announce what they want and let contractors do the engineering. Add in multiple competing contractors and you get some of the best technology being actively used in the world.
... asked me to sign and send a petition to Obama, requesting him to (basically) pull his finger out. I agree with TPS's philosophies (mostly) which is why I kick in for membership. Nice to have some part in pushing our species up and out. But - Obama has bigger fish to fry. And he'll ignore me anyhow, I don't vote in the US.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
start a new cold war... that'll get things moving again
With manned presence, I support a good healthy budget. And I'm happy to let my representatives know that.
If we're just going to launch unmanned science probes, with no concept of a human ever going there, I support a budget of exactly $0.00 And I'm happy to let my representatives know that too
If we are never leaving our cradle, we can just stay here, and look at the universe from the ground. Spending money just to have rovers run around on Mars or find the heliopause is just wasted taxpayer dollars in that case.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The issue I have, is the arrogance of people wanting my money to perform science of dubious worth.
Just taking Mars for instance, I'm antsy with anticipation that we might find proof of life there. But it would make me want to send humans there all that much more.
So if we're just going to send little robots there, and never send humans, all it is is the biggest tease-job ever performed.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
SpaceX is not designed to be an exploration company, they are expecting to make a profit on their spacecrafts. They are developing vehicles that will be profitable. That means that every time they go into orbit, someone is going to be paying for it. They are probably not planning on circling the Earth with a schoolteacher on board so they can televise a "class in space". If they don't go commercial, then they will run out of money and go out of business really fast.
Flying around in space is expensive, and if you don't have a government behind you to confiscate other peoples money to pay for it, then you need to find another way to pay for it.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
The US is abandoning its HUMAN space exploration program,
FTFY
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Read the post again, idiot.
Seastead this.
Astronaut John Blaha was available for a group lunch last week at KSC and I attended. When asked about the end of the Space Shuttle program, his disgust and frustration was clearly communicated in his response. He blamed politicians Washington. When asked about life in a post-STS world, he said: "We need another Kennedy to get us (humankind) further. It doesn't have to be a U.S. figure, just any Kennedy-like person somewhere who can get the ball rolling."
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
Prior to the launch of Sputnik the US was still absorbed in licking its wounds from WW2 and Korea -- space exploration was the dream of a few. Then the Russians launched Sputnik and I came back from summer break to find that the wood shop had been transformed into a science lab. From then on it was just good old competition. I remember JFKs speach with particular fondness -- 'not because it was easy but because it was hard'. Our lives have been transformed by the things we have learned -- and yet our will to succeed has flagged. The US (and to a more limited extent Canada) prospered because of the challenge of new frontiers where one was constantly challenged and not continually fenced in by vested interests that made sure that 'the right people' made money and not just anybody. I doubt we could do the Manhatten project again or any other big project. We struggle to keep the water running and the bridges standing and argue vigorously in favor of the profits of the few. The largest frontier lies over our heads and is vast beyond comprehension. And it will be populated by some of us -- who understand the strategic value of owning the high ground. But as for the US and its leadership...we are legends in our own minds.
That's not freeze drying as the rest of the world knows it.
The reason it is called ISS is because it an International Space Station & not just to avoid offending... In the same narrow minded vein you display I point out that ISS's heart is russian, so I fail to see an American Space station.
The fact is, after having wasted billions & failing to produce flying hardware, Nasa went hat in hand to the rest of the world to help them define a space station & exit the design/redesign/redesign/redesign/redesign/... infinite loop they had fallen into. It's THAT political bullshit that has cost the US trillions & decades. It's a major part of why Nasa should no longer be developing their own launch hardware. Redesigning for the sake of redesigning is for haute couture, not for flying hardware. Move Nasa out of the way & let the US commercial space launchers find ways to bring the kg/$ to orbit down. That way what is left of Nasa's knowhow of how to get the most science out of the smallest budget (aka the people working on payloads) will be free to flower once again.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
John V. Karavitis Why does America even bother anymore? We see this funding idiocy re NASA all the time. NASA must have a neon sign outside its front doors that say "Slash Our Budget", which is what happens every time Congress needs to find ways to slash spending. Aren't our politicians aware that NASA's needs have driven basic research into a number of areas, and that this basic research has benefited everyone? This latest blow to NASA will mean that, as one recent article put it, there will be a "brain drain" of people leaving NASA (altough where they will end up is a difficult question, given the flatlined economy and the dead job market). This "brain drain" will leave NASA with only the "B players" (in the word of this article). AMericans should face facts, no one cares about the space program except Europe, Japan, China and India. America certainly does not. And as for the Shuttle, it was designed by committee, and thus has never really performed any of its functions well. And as for the heat-resistant tiles, they've been more problematic than they were worth. America needs to commit to space exploration or let the military take that over. Enough nonsense. John V. Karavitis
We stepped aside allowing China to proceed ahead of us so they wouldn't foreclose on the US