DARPA Chooses Leader For 100-Year Starship Project

Hugh Pickens writes "With Nasa scaling back its manned space programs, the idea of a manned trip to the stars may sound audacious, but the 100 Year Starship (100YSS) study is an effort seeded by DARPA to develop a viable and sustainable model for persistent, long-term, private-sector investment into the myriad of disciplines needed to make long-distance space travel practicable and feasible. The goal is not to have the government fund the actual building of spacecraft destined for the stars, but rather to create a foundation that can last 100 years in order to help foster the research needed for interstellar travel. Now DARPA has provided $500,000 in seed money to help jumpstart the effort and chosen Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman to go into space, to lead 100YSS. Jemison, who is also a physician and engineer, left NASA in 1993 after a six-year stint in which she served as science mission specialist aboard space shuttle Endeavour, becoming the first black woman to fly in space. Since leaving the space agency, she has been involved in education and outreach efforts and technology development. Rounding out her resume, Jemison also served as a medical officer for the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone and Liberia, is a professionally trained dancer, speaks Russian, Swahili and Japanese, and was the first real astronaut to make a cameo in an episode of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation.' Jemison won the contract with her proposal titled 'An Inclusive Audacious Journey Transforms Life Here on Earth & Beyond.'"

Comments

My Awesome Bio

[alphatel]

This reads like a bio of Jemison and her funding opportunities. News?

Re:My Awesome Bio

[mikkelm]

The guy is right. Why must they mention her race twice? Race wouldn't even have crossed the minds of those of us not familiar with the person, had it not been highlighted. Forget loud-mouthed bigots; this is true racism. For these people, race is considered relevant in everything as a matter of course, as long as the person of interest is a minority.

Re:My Awesome Bio

[Beelzebud]

No, actually the guy is a racist moron. No where is that OP lamenting the fact that her race had to be pointed out. He's saying the reason the manned space program went to hell was because of "diversity" which is dog whistle language for "affirmative action". We say "the first man in space, the first Israeli in space, etc; so what's wrong with pointing out that this was the first black female to go in to space?

Re:My Awesome Bio

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite a lot actually. These forms of "identification" with race, religion and nationality cause division, as this thread proves. We are either one people or a bunch of different groups competing. Make your choice, just don't call people who think we should be one people racist.

The original explorers who developed the trade routes were experts in their field, navigation and sailing. The outfitted their ships with those whose skills would support the mission. A lot of the decisions were political, even back in the 15th century and the exploration was just as daunting.

There is a huge problem though. NASA's bureaucratic process. When I worked with NASA we were told we had to imagine every potential issue and then make everything idiot proof. You take a very competent person and their competence is insurance in an idiot proof situation. The problem is that this kind of exploration can't be idiot proof.

In the end NASA needs to choose an egotistical know-it-all prick with a history of getting the job done without support regardless of the situation because unlike Apollo 13 there won't be any ground support telling the crew how to fix the problem.

People like that do not make it in the bureaucracy that is NASA. People like that typically succeed moderately in the private sector. This will be a wash, the bureaucracy can't pick someone like that so even if they launch a mission it will fail.

Re:My Awesome Bio

[awrowe]

I had a fat finger problem and moderated your answer "redundant" instead of "insightful". Invalidating the moderation, sorry.

Re:My Awesome Bio

[turing_m]

I have no idea as to exactly how qualified Jemison is. She may fit the bill on her own merits.

However, it is true that the foundation of Affirmative Action is the suspension of hiring standards in order to fill racial quotas for ethnic groups with lower mean qualifications, especially IQ. It cannot work any other way if it is to be implemented across the board in a society. If AA is enacted, it follows that most (not all) black people in highly qualified positions did not get there solely because of merit. It also follows that organizations like NASA that exist to pioneer very difficult things will be adversely impacted by AA.

Re:My Awesome Bio

[KingAlanI]

Agreed on both counts:
* I don't know about Jemison in particular either.
* Yeah, AA makes less sense in such a small elite group. The sample size is small enough that a low percentage of blacks might not mean much. Making sure X percent of astronauts are black won't make much of a difference in a population of millions. Also, one less-qualified person getting in would have more of an impact.

Re:My Awesome Bio

[flyingsquid]

I have no idea as to exactly how qualified Jemison is. She may fit the bill on her own merits.

However, it is true that the foundation of Affirmative Action is the suspension of hiring standards in order to fill racial quotas for ethnic groups with lower mean qualifications, especially IQ. It cannot work any other way if it is to be implemented across the board in a society. If AA is enacted, it follows that most (not all) black people in highly qualified positions did not get there solely because of merit. It also follows that organizations like NASA that exist to pioneer very difficult things will be adversely impacted by AA.

Jesus Christ. OK, sure, the fact that she added some variety to the space program after a parade of white men in the 1960s and 1970s undoubtedly helped her career and opened some doors. But read her bio on Wikipedia. She entered Stanford at 16 and majored in chemical engineering, she has an MD from Cornell, she worked in the Peace Corps, she was an astronaut, she was a professor at Dartmouth for seven years, now she's hired by DARPA... yeah, sure, maybe you could get one or two lucky breaks as a diversity hire. But you don't have a career like that without being the smartest kid in your class and working amazingly hard. You don't have a career like that by being below average, you don't have a career like that just by being good, you have a career like that by being better than 99% of everyone else out there, and I guarantee this woman didn't bring down the average IQ of the astronaut program.

To do all of those things and to have some bigoted, asshole internet troll like you say that maybe she's not really qualified, and to suggest that perhaps she just got a pass because she's a black woman... well, what the hell have you ever accomplished with your life, other than to write perhaps the single most racist, sexist comment I've ever seen on Slashdot? Although perhaps you could argue that this is an accomplishment, in a perverse sort of a way. If nothing else, it's eye-opening about just how far we all have to go. Maybe we've got black astronauts and a black president, but we're still a damn long way from the color-blind Star Trek universe that inspired Jemison to become an astronaut in the first place.

Re:My Awesome Bio

[KingAlanI]

that comparison is insulting to sewers. ;)
Stormfront is a Mos Eisley Cantina of the Internet (wretched hive of scum and villainy)

Re:My Awesome Bio

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's pretty much the unseen problem with Affirmative Action. It trivializes the accomplishments of minorities by planting the possibility that they're unqualified.

Re:My Awesome Bio

[Anonymous Coward]

The racists and advocates of AA deserve each other.

2 wrongs don't make a right. Even a child knows affirmative action is bullshit. I'm familiar with the statistics that inspire this mindset and I don't have enough white guilt apparently because I find them to be totally inadequate as a justification.

-Is there systemic racism? Very much so. The War on Drugs has been a borderline racial cleansing.
-Has this systemic racism resulted in a generational disadvantage, perhaps even on a genetic level? No doubt.(1)(2)
-Is there a known correlation between race, gender, and wages/advancement? Yes.

Do any of these things justify further discrimination by government against non-disadvantaged groups to balance the scales?
Do any of these things justify gift wrapping an argument for racists adding fuel to the fire of race relations?
Will a heavy thumb on the scales of justice even come close to balancing out the damage done by the backlash?

Not a snowball's chance in hell.

If you want to redistribute wealth to improve social mobility and prevent the formation of an economic caste system, do it racially blind or lose the moral high ground. I grew up with and went to school with children of meth cooks. These children were raised in a trailer with a handgun on the coffee table next to a scale and a crack pipe, and with milk jugs full of anhydrous ammonia in the trunk of their car.

Their rate of single mother-hood was terrible, and their food stamp diet frequently resulted in malnutrition. It was common for these kid's to have an incarcerated parent.

Impoverished slums know no racial lines, and these children had no more opportunity than a child in an inner city school.

All of this said, I think it's a bullshit disservice to soil the accomplishments of someone who has obviously done so much for society with accusations of Affirmative Action. In most places it has gone from a policy to an unspoken practice, which may be an improvement of the unspoken practices of some of my past employers.

At the end of the day, businesses hire people to make money, not to do society a service or to correct injustices. If a minority get's to the age of 18 and the government and that individual have failed to make that individual competitive, the fault and burden should not fall on the business owner to correct the governments fucked up economic & education policy's, or right the wrongs of a racist criminal justice system & failed war on drug users.

(1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene%E2%80%93environment_interaction
(2)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetic_Theory

Affirmative Action is the consequence of academics getting so isolated from reality that they find themselves with their brains falling out of their open minds.

Re:My Awesome Bio

[one cup of coffee]

I hear this kind of argument quite a bit and it makes me wonder, no offence but, were you born yesterday? It comes off like you don't know anything about America, it's history or culture. I'll be honest, I didn't even notice he mentioned her race twice, the fact that you did, and that it made you lament that "true racism" is at play by "these people" in favor of minorities is a bit of a tell. To me it seems like you may have a distortion in your perception filters which makes you overly sensitive to instances of minorities using race to their advantage, which seems to be for you an injustice which offends to much to be permitted to go undenounced, at least in this case. I think you may wish to re-calibrate if you keep coming up with false positives as you did in this case. Anyway, you seem like someone passionate about right and wrong, I think it might be an interesting, even consciousness expanding exercise to examine how keenly your senses pick up, and how strongly you sense of justness is offended when you encounter instances of the majority abusing race in its favor.

Re:My Awesome Bio

[Rakshasa-sensei]

I haven't read the summary yet, but why wouldn't race be important when hiring someone to lead our 100 year starship project?

The project leader will likely have important duties when we meet some alien race out there, and thus who we hired for the job will matter a lot. Imagine if we head towards a sector with aliens who have been in conflict with our project leader for millennia? That's going to cause all kinds of issues.

Re:My Awesome Bio

[Anonymous Coward]

However, it is true that the foundation of Affirmative Action is the suspension of hiring standards in order to fill racial quotas for ethnic groups with lower mean qualifications, especially IQ

I'm no fan of affirmative action, but IQ is BS. Literally doesn't mean shit.

Re:My Awesome Bio

[drsmithy]

However, it is true that the foundation of Affirmative Action is the suspension of hiring standards in order to fill racial quotas for ethnic groups with lower mean qualifications, especially IQ. It cannot work any other way if it is to be implemented across the board in a society. If AA is enacted, it follows that most (not all) black people in highly qualified positions did not get there solely because of merit. It also follows that organizations like NASA that exist to pioneer very difficult things will be adversely impacted by AA.

"You have the qualifications AND you're $RACE" is not the same thing as "You're $RACE".

There's no inherent reason "hiring standards" need be relaxed to carry out "AA". Unless you want to try and argue that anyone of $RACE is incapable of meeting those standards.

(Not that I'm a huge supporter of "AA", but your argument against it is shit.)

Re:My Awesome Bio

[kdemetter]

No, actually the guy is a racist moron. No where is that OP lamenting the fact that her race had to be pointed out. He's saying the reason the manned space program went to hell was because of "diversity" which is dog whistle language for "affirmative action". We say "the first man in space, the first Israeli in space, etc; so what's wrong with pointing out that this was the first black female to go in to space?

I see no evidence of it of the above post. It's probably meant as sarcasm, which is often misinterpreted here.
The point is, race is not valid in this case : expertise is.

So the people who say : 'Look : we have a first African American astronaut ' , are making a distinction based on race, which is also racism.

A real problem would be, if they start selecting people on the basis of race ( quota ) , instead of expertise . I'm not saying that's what happened here, but it does happen in other places. This is not fair to other candidates, and makes it much harder for the selected to proof themselves ( as everyone thinks they got the job due to their race ).

Anyway, i wish her well, and i hope she can ignore this nonsense and do a great job there.

Re:My Awesome Bio

[Anonymous Coward]

Low IQ score butt-hurt detected.

Re:My Awesome Bio

[khallow]

Imagine if we head towards a sector with aliens who have been in conflict with our project leader for millennia?

That's why we do background checks. It catches most of these intragalactic scandals before they start!

This should have been done a long time ago

[teknx]

I've heard arguments that the space program should have never been put in the hands of government in the first place. If it had been left to the private-sector from day one, space travel would be the norm by now because of the competitive aspect of the private sector and the ability to raises more capital than going the bureaucratic route.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Moryath]

Bullshit.

The private sector STILL can't get a man into space. If it had been left to the private sector "from day one", the US would never have had anyone try, because the private sector never would have put forth the R&D money to get anything done.

Scaling back NASA is a result of small-minded fools from the right wing who scream "cut cut cut everything we like yeah military!!!" They want to kill PBS, they want to kill NASA, they call numerous things "government waste", but they never want to admit that the biggest waste of government money is sending the US military everywhere to be the world's policeman, wasting $500 billion a year to invade countries, set up military bases, and bomb the fuck out of places where nobody wants us.

PBS gets $422 million currently. That is 0.084 PERCENT of what we waste on the military.
NASA's annual budget is only $19 billion in 2011. And for that you get all this stuff that you fucking take for granted.

We should say fuck the military, stop buying them new toys, and spend the money on NASA instead. We'd be to Mars in 5 years if we budgeted it.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[currently_awake]

The private sector does stuff for money. The only "Space" thing with a ROI is satellites. The moon and probes would never have happened. Americans have this strange mind set where they think everything should be done by "not the government", even stuff like this where the government is the ONLY realistic solution.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[jythie]

Unlikely. The private sector tends to do pretty badly with anything that requires sustained long term research before having a return. The first commercial application was communication satellites, but it took decades of research (and failures) before it was possible at a reasonable success rate for private companies to get interested.

I always wonder if the people who put forward that idea have actually worked in research before. I have been on both sides (public and private) and have generally found that they dovetail and the economy moves forward best when they are both doing what they do well.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

2011 Military budget 600 billion

Welfare, medicare, social security, education etc. $2.7 trillion+

NASA budget $18billion

We are already cutting the military so here is a crazy idea how about cut two weeks of "entitlements" and you can expand the NASA budget by 5-6 times.

Or better than that instead of all the BULLSHIT bailouts that went to Wallstreet as well as the gov't worker Unions (fire, police, teachers, etc) they could have spent that 1.4 trillion they pissed away on political payouts (stimulus) and we could have expanded the NASA budge 78 times. I wonder how much that would have STIMULATED the economy?

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[triclipse]

That $422M given to PBS is a powerful pro-war propaganda "investment."

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Moryath]

2011 military budget, actually $683 Billion. I took off personnel ($154 billion) and rounded down to the nearest $100 billion since SOME maintenance of bases, equipment, and so on would be necessary. The rest? Oh yeah, first we WASTE money bombing someone back to the stone age, then we WASTE more money putting a military base in their country and WASTE more money sending "foreign aid" to rebuild the place we just WASTED money bombing the shit out of.

Welfare, medicare, SS, Education $2.7 Trillion - but unlike the military that actually cycles right back into the economy. Money spent on welfare goes straight to food and housing for actual humans. Money spent on medicare goes to the medical care of actual humans. Social Security goes into food and housing for elderly humans.

Education goes into raising the next generation of humans to be (hopefully) functioning members of society - though in your case it appears not to have worked. Oh and yeah, it pays mostly for the money to pay the teachers to teach the kids (though I personally would say fuck high school/ college sports, especially the basketball and football programs that are the government wasting a fucking ton of money subsidizing the hell out of the NBA and NFL by running their minor leagues for them).

As for the Wall Street bailouts, I agree. Put all that money to NASA instead and we'd be far better off than if it were in bankers' pockets.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Scarred Intellect]

The waste isn't necessarily the military.

It's General Dynamics and Fluor and countless other DOD contractors. My time in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Marine Infantryman was beyond understandably austere. Larger bases has clean flush toilets, clean showers every day, fresh cooked food every day including pop (soda) and ice cream. They had Pizza Hut, Burger King, Subway, Green Beans coffee, movie theaters, dance night... Reliable communication back home. Mail delivery every day. Gyms. And electricity. We shat in bags and burned it. We were able to shower at most once a week. Our Staff NCO's had to pay out of their own pocket to get a water pump that worked. We usually lacked air conditioning or heat in our bunks...

All that we lacked is understandable and doesn't bother me at all. What bothered me was that the POG's had it, and bitched if they lost it like it was their right to have it while we ate stuff I wouldn't feed to my dogs.

When it was suggested by a Marine General in charge of such things that they cut back on these MWR (Morale, Welfare, Recreation) activities in Stars and Stripes, there was outlandish backlash from POG's (Person Other than Grunt) about how it would affect them and how they needed these services. Nevermind that he wanted to cut them back to divert the funding for these activities to us that were farther deployed and had practically none of that.

Virtually all of these services are provided by civilian DOD contractors. I think the largest compound in Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan was the Fluor compound.

While there IS waste in military spending, it dwarfs compared to what is spent on unnecessary contractors. Hell, they built a golf course in Baghdad for the Generals to play golf!

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Nutria]

Scaling back NASA is a result of small-minded fools from the right wing

Except that the people who actually scaled back NASA were left-wingers who wanted to give the money to people who produce nothing but more children.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Nutria]

but unlike the military that actually cycles right back into the economy

Where exactly does military spending go, if not right back into the economy?

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Moryath]

Wasted resources.
Bombing someone = wasted resources.
Fired bullets = wasted resources.
Crashed planes, fuel, all the rest = wasted resources we're not going to get back.

Military spending is almost ALL wasted resources. You think 3500 Tomahawk missiles, a cost ot $2.6 Billion, is anything but wasted resources? And that's JUST the Tomahawks, not all the bombs and missiles (most of which cost significantly more).

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Back to economy? Are you kidding me?
You don't earn a single penny bombing out places in Afghanistan.
They don't even have oil.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Nutria]

Except that people (presumably Americans) get *paid* to make (from mining the ore to writing the software) those Tomahawks. That money goes into the economy.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Moryath]

Except that people (presumably Americans) get *paid* to make (from mining the ore to writing the software) those Tomahawks. That money goes into the economy.

Except that the "pay", labor, is an infinitesimal fraction of the "cost" of those Tomahawks. And the material resources placed into them are destroyed, rarely recovered. Just as the lives that they take are unrecoverable, and the things that they are used to destroy - which usually amounts to a village, house, or the water supply for the immediate region - then cost even MORE material resources to restore.

It's waste. Pure and simple.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Nutria]

Precision guided weapons were designed for the sole purpose of not having to bomb villages, houses and water supplies.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Moryath]

Do we need to bomb Iraq back to the stone age in order to defend Alaska?
Do we need to bomb Afghanistan back to the stone age in order to defend Alaska?
Do we need to invade Libya in order to defend Alaska?
Do we need to have soldiers in over 1000 military bases in countries around the world, most of who don't want us there, to defend Alaska, Hawaii, and the continental US from invasion?

No. That's what I mean by WASTE. The military, to fulfill its actual, Constitutionally mandated role of protecting the borders of the US against actual enemies, needs less than 10% of the toys they have WASTED taxpayer money on since WW2.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Moryath]

And we've seen how often they actually worked as designed.
And how often the retarded "blow everything up" Rambo fucktards of the US military just targeted villages, houses, and water supplies anyways.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[egamma]

I've heard arguments that the space program should have never been put in the hands of government in the first place. If it had been left to the private-sector from day one, space travel would be the norm by now because of the competitive aspect of the private sector and the ability to raises more capital than going the bureaucratic route.

And what, exactly, has prevented the private sector from putting a man in space the last 50-60 years?

My guess is, a lack of government subsidies.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

"ass"ymmetrical warfare, indeed.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[TheCouchPotatoFamine]

so very true. Government agencies can train people with specialities that private industry would look at as wasteful - but thats because private industries' involvement ends at their front door. There are some things you /cannot/ accomplish alone. Humans are communal. Government is a given.

Privatize-everything-people are either stupid, or control freaks - but they are not as efficient as they want to think in accomplishing greatness. It takes a whole /people/ to do that - Not any one company.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you, an asshole?

Every gun that is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

It's not the cost of a missile. It's the opportunity cost of a missile. As well as the cost of human life. Do you have any idea how many civilians have been killed by US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last ten years?

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF, don't talk down to your soldiers like that. They should leave people like you unguarded on the battlefield ... 'nuff said ...

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[SETIGuy]

If we didn't have them, we would be less likely to launch strikes on defenseless countries. Look at where the Tomahawk has been used since its deployment. The few launches that were necessary were largely unsuccessful, and would have been better accomplished with a couple dozen SEALs on helicopters.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Nutria]

we would be less likely to launch strikes on defenseless countries.

That "defenseless country" needs, like all of us, to know who it's getting in bed with before it gets in bed with them.

better accomplished with a couple dozen SEALs on helicopters.

But we're all so terrified of American casualties!! (Oh my, I think I'm going to faint.. [girlish swoon])

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, do you remember the original gutting of nasa? You know that horrible right wing action known as the civil rights movement?

"You can't put people into space because children are starving."

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

"Do we need to bomb Iraq back to the stone age in order to defend Alaska?"

No of course not, and that's why Iraq has more major infrastructure improvements today than in the last 30 years. Why using Google Earth and Terra Server I count 6 new highway overpasses and vast areas of new housing, for example at 3324'50.68"N, 4422'18.93"E and 3321'13.30"N, 4417'54.54"E. Iraq has more electricity production than it did 12 years ago, http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=iz&v=79.

And as far as bombing goes, the Shiites and Sunnis are doing a pretty good job of bombing themselves back to the stone age despite the best efforts of dozens of countries to prevent them from doing so. We can only try.

"Do we need to bomb Afghanistan back to the stone age in order to defend Alaska?"

Certainly not. The Soviet Union had pretty much already done that. We seem to be rebuilding Afghanistan: http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PDACG278.pdf

"Do we need to invade Libya in order to defend Alaska?"

We didn't invade Libya. They had a civil war.

"Do we need to have soldiers in over 1000 military bases in countries around the world, most of who don't want us there, to defend Alaska, Hawaii, and the continental US from invasion?"

I count about 205 bases. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_military_bases

As far as wanting us there we wouldn't be there if they didn't want us there. Example: The Philippines asked us to leave and we did. Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_military_bases for bases closed.

As far as fighting wars I kind of think its easier to fight small wars, one at a time than it is to fight a war like WWII where 70 million people all die within a few years, don't you? And using that principle, yes I do think fighting the fights we have fought for the last 50 years has contributed significantly to the security of Alaska and the continental United States.

Look, I realize you are smart and everything, but you are just playing with me, obviously. Lulling me into a false sense of security before you crush me with your overwhelming intellect, right? Please, no more, I beg you.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

> The private sector STILL can't get a man into space.

Perhaps you mean "can't get a man into orbit"? Suborbital flights above the altitude defined as the edge of space have happened.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[0xdeadbeef]

Broken window fallacy.

Of course, the other fallacy is stating that killing people has no value. Somebody wanted those people dead, and the weapons were made and used to do so, so they must have been worth their cost.

The problem is... who the fuck values killing people in third world shitholes so highly, and why are they calling the shots for our military instead of the American people?

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Er... quite a few?

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Nutria]

who the fuck values killing people in third world shitholes

People who are pissed of at what the shithole's guests do. (Remember that "we" don't just wake up each morning and decide to bomb some random shithole. Otherwise, large swaths of China, India and Africa would be depopulated by now.)

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Shove it, bootlicker. Mindless nationalism is what has given us a fascist government.
"Fascism is the union of the corporation with the state." - Mussolini
You and your ilk ought to be denied the vote for having sacrificed the freedoms won by true patriots on the altar of authoritarianism.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[tfiedler]

Right on. That's how the left does it. Feeds and cloths the morons who refuse to do it for themselves, and penalizes those who will work.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[khallow]

The private sector STILL can't get a man into space.

They actually have several times with SpaceShipOne. I know you mean in Earth orbit now. In a few years, you'll mean beyond Earth orbit. Then it'll mean landing on the Moon. Then some time after that, beyond cislunar space. Then it'll be beyond the asteroid belt. Then it'll be beyond the orbit of Neptune, another star system, the local galactic spiral, whatever.

I don't know what the fascination is with telling us somewhat difficult things can't be done, but it has to be one of the more futile pursuits ever engaged in.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

I love your economic sense here. Yes, war has terrible economic consequences because a small group of individuals coerce resources away from the masses to make war. The opportunity costs do exist, I'm sure there are some single mothers who would appreciate having some of their wealth back.

Now this spaceship business sounds just like trading one form of statism for another -- a 100 year organization? Talk about randomness. If the opportunity costs for space travel were such that the next best alternative had a lower marginal value than space travel itself, we'd be doing it.

But precisely because of your point -- that despite our riches, we still have so many other things to do that are worth more than space travel -- the private sector might or might not do space travel at this time/past/future. Until the marginal value of space travel rises, why use the same organization that inefficiently allocates resources -- that small group of people, or government -- to orchestrate our resources away to some other end?

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[khallow]

The private sector does stuff for money. The only "Space" thing with a ROI is satellites.

Currently. Once things change, then statements like this become false.

The moon and probes would never have happened.

More accurately, they wouldn't have happened until private industry got to the point where they're feasible on modest budgets.

Americans have this strange mind set where they think everything should be done by "not the government", even stuff like this where the government is the ONLY realistic solution.

A "realistic solution" without a problem.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

You're insane.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Zibodiz]

I don't know. I think the jury is till out about what 'wing' B.O. is from. I mean, really... he has more people in Afghanistan that Bush ever did, he's not supporting things like PBS, Guantanamo Bay is still open...

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

So building things in Iraq and Afghanistan is what the US Military should be doing? I'm confused here. How is that part of a mandate to defend the US?
This country was not intended to even have a standing army. Nor a navy. We're supposed to have an armed *militia*, and stay out of conflicts beyond our borders. We would be a much poorer nation if that were the case, admittedly, but as is we've drowned our principles in oceans of blood.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

This was done a long time ago. In a galaxy far far away...

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Nutria]

Eh? Democrats eviscerated NASA almost 40 years ago.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[turbidostato]

"Where exactly does military spending go, if not right back into the economy?"

Broken window fallacy.

If it were so simple we could end all the world's economic problems today: just pay half the population for digging holes and the other half to cover them.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[turbidostato]

"Except that people (presumably Americans) get *paid* to make (from mining the ore to writing the software) those Tomahawks. That money goes into the economy."

Yes, but it doesn't create wealth, which is what matters.

Again, the broken window falacy in action.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[turbidostato]

"Precision guided weapons were designed for the sole purpose of not having to bomb villages, houses and water supplies."

May I suggest a third option? What about trying not bomb them -at all?

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[turbidostato]

"You don't earn a single penny bombing out places in Afghanistan.
They don't even have oil."

But they do have rare earths. You didn't really believe they were doing it for free, do you?

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2936

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

The Wright Brothers weren't funded by the government, you only assume this is the only way this could be done.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you, an asshole?

Every gun that is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

It's not the cost of a missile. It's the opportunity cost of a missile. As well as the cost of human life. Do you have any idea how many civilians have been killed by US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last ten years?

Are armed men not human?

You don't understand opportunity, you don't understand humanity.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

while i concur with the waste on the military. The article citing all the things we owe to the space program is a load of crap. None of that stuff is a direct result of space exploration. Necessity is the mother of invention. Those things would have been developed if they were need regardless of the existence of a space program. Sorry. The cost of manned space exploration is high especially in return on investment area. 450 million per shuttle launch. That's more than PBS's yearly budget for every shuttle launch. I believe I'm correct in saying that the shuttle failed to meet any of the goals for safety, cost, performance, or use. I can easily point to the Columbia and Challenger. So what's our return here? Tang? Freeze-dried meals? If there was money to be made in space private industry would be there. When there is a profit motive to be in space, private industry will lead the way, not government.

Anyway, the question is not Mae Jemison's race. It's the 100 year starship. What's our return on that project? Probably more temper foam and ribbed swimsuits. Woot!

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, blowing up the sacred tree on Pandora was going to create a lot of wealth before Jake Sully had to fuck up the share holder value by thinking with his dick.

Frequently, brown people get blown up because they make the mistake of thinking they should get a cut of the profit when their habitat is raped and environment destroyed in the pursuit of natural resources.

Although at the end of the day I do think it would be cheaper to buy all of them plane tickets to Austrailia or some similarly nice climate. Save the bombs & bullets for anyone who complains about the immigrants. You know, like that one time when we blew up the Palestinians?

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Rhodri Mawr]

Your entire argument is destroyed by quoting the single most dubious tabloid newspaper in existence - the Sun newspaper. There is no reason why anyone should trust a word they say. The Sun hires liars and spouts bile continuously. I wouldn't even wipe my backside with it.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't earn a single penny bombing out places in Afghanistan. They don't even have oil.

But they did have a ruling faction (Taliban) that was strongly resistant to the pipeline that Unocal wanted to build there...

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you get to that point? Who pays for basic research with no immediate gain but which may, eventually, lead us to a point where private entities see revenue-making opportunities and jump in?

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[khallow]

How do you get to that point? Who pays for basic research with no immediate gain but which may, eventually, lead us to a point where private entities see revenue-making opportunities and jump in?

I can think of two kinds just off the top of my head: non-profits and business labs. For example, the Keck Observatory is a state of the art, non-profit observatory. And there are numerous famous examples of business-oriented labs that produced a lot of research without immediate gain.

It's also worth noting that research which was intended to produce immediate gain often produces research with gain over longer time frames.

Looking past these abstractions to the specific case of development of space and of profitable enterprises in space, it is worth noting that commercial space flight has only been around for a bit over 25 years. Arianespace was the first commercial spaceflight vendor in 1984. A couple of US businesses followed shortly after, to develop privately owned commercial launch vehicles (the Delta and Atlas series of rockets).

Since then, there have been two US businesses which have successfully created an orbital launch vehicle from scratch, Orbital Sciences, which developed the Pegasus air-launched rocket, and SpaceX, which developed the Falcon series of rockets. Development costs for these vehicles was much lower than earlier development costs had been.

At the amateur level, there have been numerous cases of people building all sorts of relatively sophisticated systems from scratch. For example, hybrid propulsion (which involves a very thick, solid shell of material through which a reactive fluid or gas is pumped causing ignition of the two, which is then ejected through a nozzle), such as was used in SpaceShipOne and attempted in SpaceShipTwo, was for forty years developed mostly by amateur groups.

This brings up two related aspects of rocketry development. First, that development costs for a potential rocket would probably have declined anyway, even in the face of no government involvement. There would have been amateur groups exploring the technologies. And manufacturing and control technologies have steadily advanced for decades, making rocket construction and launch ever more feasible.

Second, effective space development has tended to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Attempts to jump large distances ahead, such as the Apollo lunar program or Indium's satellite phone system tend to fail because the destination doesn't turn out as expected while incremental development is favored by current commercial efforts such as Scaled Composites's development of the SpaceShipOne/Two vehicles and SpaceX's efforts with the Falcon series of rockets.

A large part of the reason for that is because the current obstacles to space activities are more economic than technological. For example, every orbital launch vehicle is launched well below what would be its optimal launch frequency. Similar problems can be seen with most satellites, probes, and other spacecraft. Each new design tends to be rather expensive, so the more spacecraft that use the design, the lower the cost per spacecraft.

So I don't see space development really being that far behind present even without significant government development. Amateur groups could have developed the technologies and launching infrastructure. Then they could transition to satellite launching businesses when the technologies became reliable enough.

And once you can launch a large enough satellite, you can launch people into space as well or probes to travel beyond Earth orbit, transitioning into yet other sorts of space activities. It has been somewhat helpful to have trillions of dollars of government money from several countries over the past 60 or so years put into space development, but I don't think it's been that good a deal for the money spent.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

It only seems to be the realistic solution becuase of how big the federal government has become. Constitutionally, there is no provision for the government to spend on manned spaced flight, nor countless other programs it spends on. Get off your ass and be an intorvator. Stop expecting the governement to take care of things for you.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Otherwise, large swaths of China, India and Africa would be depopulated by now.)

Maybe because China can retaliate and India is a big democratic ally in Asia with huge potential markets.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[cffrost]

WTF, don't talk down to your soldiers like that.

WTF indeed... I thought Marines didn't appreciate being referred to as "soldiers" like that.

Further, GP has a point. If Scarred Intellect didn't like USMC's disparity of treatment, he should have chosen a more equitable or all-POG branch.

Finally, every American's comment in this thread is (currently) protected by the first amendment, including those that offend your bullshit self-righteousness. If you want to order people how they can and cannot speak or write, you're in the wrong fucking place, asshole.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[IrquiM]

There haven't been any left-wingers in US able to do anything about budgets, ever!

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

What conditions do you expect out in the field? What do you think the conditions were for your forebearers in other wars? Do you think soldiers in WWII, Korea and Vietnam were living the high life out in the field? I'm sure you have it much better than they ever did.

Now of course those soldiers on the major bases will have the best of everything. That is the nature of the beast and has been true for all wars. You might as well complain about the weather. You'll have as much of a chance as affecting it.

This is probably the main weakness of any US force: we're First World people and find it nearly unacceptable when we face Third World conditions (and I'm not excluding myself from this either). You can't beat a Third World army unless you're able to live like they do. Our grunts asking for heated bunks and fine chow shows that we can't inhabit the same space as the Taliban and thus that we will never win in that space.

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[khallow]

Government agencies can waste money because they have a captive revenue stream.

FTFY. The number one reason that private industry would look at a government action as wasteful is because the government action is wasteful.

Privatize-everything-people are either stupid, or control freaks

"Stupid" is possible. Relinquishing control as would be done with privatization is not the symptom of a control freak. So "control freak" is not possible.

but they are not as efficient as they want to think in accomplishing greatness. It takes a whole /people/ to do that - Not any one company.

Pardon me for rolling my eyes at this nonsense. But the real answer here is several competing businesses. Not "any one company" nor a "whole /people/".

Re:This should have been done a long time ago

[jwhitener]

I think most people who complain about military waste are (should be) referring to the horrendous waste spent on no-bid contractors. At least, I hope they are aware of how bad it has become.

Most of the people I know and associate with are under the impression that almost any push for military action is 50% to accomplish some strategic goal and 50% to funnel tax payer money to campaign contributors and/or companies that are directly or indirectly connected with some politician. Cheney-Haliburton for example.

What can't she do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously. This woman reads like "Also she built a time machine, killed Hitler, and fought back the entire Napoleonic army from Moscow." I know a lot of smart people make me feel stupid. This woman just makes me feel lazy.

Re:What can't she do?

[jythie]

Heh. Agreed. I had not heard of her before, she seems rather awesome. The TNG cameo is just icing on the cake.

Re:What can't she do?

[Hartree]

You and me both, AC. And I've met Jemison.

Believe me, compared to her I feel like a bumbling moron and an utter layabout.

And she topped it off by being the cutest person in the room.

For those wondering

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the episode where the Enterprise finds Riker's transporter-accident created duplicate that was abandoned on a planet several years earlier. The new Riker, dubbed Thomas, eventually goes on to leave the ship before one day ending up at DS9 where he steals the Defiant to help the Maquis and is captured/imprisoned by Cardassians. Fun fact: TNG writers briefly considered killing Riker Classic in the episode to have Riker II take his place in the show, but at a lower rank.

Re:For those wondering

[gmhowell]

Thanks for the information. I was wondering why the submitter included a link to that shitty Peace Corpse page instead of one to Memory Alpha.

Re:For those wondering

[bondsbw]

Ha, watched the DS9 episode on Netflix just yesterday.

The private sector won't wait for 100 years

[Hentes]

The private sector will not finance anything like this. They want quick, guaranteed profits. This is why governments should pioneer space travel: the private sector will never go further than LEO unless they are sure it's profitable.

Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years

[Megahard]

Here's one way to solve it.

1. 1. Develop near-light-speed spaceship.
2. 2. Put the stockholders on the ship

Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years

[Megahard]

Sorry, forgot the obligatory.

1. 1. Develop near-light-speed spaceship.
2. 2. Put the stockholders on the ship.
3. 3. Profit!

Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a pretty ignorant blanket statement. There are many visionaries in the private sector that would jump at the chance to contribute to something like this, even if the payoff is far into the future. Think about the profits possible to the first company that builds an interstellar ship...it is worth the risk to be first.

Even notwithstanding that point, if interstellar travel will ever be possible, it will likely be the culmination of thousands of other advancements along the way, the kind that the private sector is very good at making.

The private sector is efficient and knows how to get things done. All government knows how to do is keep itself in existence.

Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years

[huckamania]

They will go for profit. It is already profitable, which is why Branson, Allen, etc are all trying to get in on the ground floor. The cost of shipping a 'thing' to orbit is astronomically high. Lower the costs and you have a guaranteed profit.

IMO, this project is a waste of time and money. We have space around our own star that we have not figured out how to exploit. I would much rather see us try to build automatic mining/extraction probes for asteroids or recyclers to clean up some of the junk in orbit. I'd like to see a 100 year plan to get us to the asteroid belt. There are enough resources in our own system to sustain us for practically ever.

By the time we reach the edge of our own system, we won't need a 100 year plan to go to the next star. We'll already be there.

Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years

[Moryath]

Think about the profits possible to the first company that builds an interstellar ship...
it will likely be the culmination of thousands of other advancements along the way, the kind that the private sector is very good at making

What profits? It's going to go into space and never come back.
Exploration of near space wasn't "profitable" at the time. Not a dime of "profit" was made by any company in going to the moon.

All the "Profits" from space exploration have been from companies being subsidized far beyond 100% of cost on the R&D that went into developing what space travel we have now.

Was it worth it? Hell Fucking Yes. But if it had been left to "companies" and "private enterprise", none of it would ever have happened. The private sector takes all the things that were necessary to land on the moon, and says "where's the ROI on that? Fuck this, let's put the money into developing another muscle car or a pill to make men have 6-hour erections and multiple orgasms."

NASA is responsible for an incredible number of things you know and take for granted today. None of which would exist without NASA, because the "private sector" would never have come close to putting in the money to do the R&D.

Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years

[CRCulver]

They will go for profit. It is already profitable, which is why Branson, Allen, etc are all trying to get in on the ground floor. The cost of shipping a 'thing' to orbit is astronomically high. Lower the costs and you have a guaranteed profit.

Branson is not aiming for orbit. Virgin Galactic seeks to offer sub-orbital flights for touristic purposes, which is a long way away from orbital flights for commercial purposes.

Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years

[timeOday]

There is no remotely feasible way to make this a quick trip. At 1G acceleration halfway there and 1G deceleration the other half - that is, the fastest you could possibly go without suffering super-gravitational forces the whole time:

"A journey from the sun to the galactic core at 1G constant acceleration takes 340 years as experienced by the ship crew and 30,000 years as experienced by Earth observers." cite

So (overwhelming technical hurdles aside) the business case (especially for investors on earth) is extremely hard to imagine. Sure, corporations can outlive humans, so investors today can be paid in the hopes of returns in the future. But there is no corporation, no government, NOTHING manmade that has any creditworthiness over that time period.

Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years

[cduffy]

Think about the profits possible to the first company that builds an interstellar ship...

I'm having trouble thinking of any such profits. I mean, seriously, what's the business model? Put a few trillion dollars into space and wave goodbye, hoping that it'll by some miracle come back with discoveries that'll make your great-great-great-great grandchildren rich?

There are much safer investments to make if you're only caring about getting a return generations after you're dead. Compound interest, after all, is a beautiful thing.

Even notwithstanding that point, if interstellar travel will ever be possible, it will likely be the culmination of thousands of other advancements along the way, the kind that the private sector is very good at making.

The private sector is very good at incremental enhancements, but not big, high-risk research. Once upon a time corporations were willing to fund long-term research, but over the course of the last several decades American corporations have deprioritized their long-term, blue-sky research spending.

Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years

[CrimsonAvenger]

"A journey from the sun to the galactic core at 1G constant acceleration takes 340 years as experienced by the ship crew and 30,000 years as experienced by Earth observers." cite

Hmm, my calculations show ~30400 years as seen from Earth, but only 20 years foe the crew.

Of course, noone is interested in going to the center of the Galaxy. I think we'd settle for Alpha Centauri first. 3.5 years for the crew, 6 years from our PoV on Earth.

Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to clarify: They want profits for themselves.

Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years

[Anonymous Coward]

The private sector is very good at incremental enhancements, but not big, high-risk research.

Nobody is good at big, high-risk research. It's a legitimately hard problem.

Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years

[physburn]

Profit, By combining the twin powers of compound interest and relativistic time dilation. It indeed would work. Plus the passengers could benefit from the all the advances in Medical technology and other technologies when they get back to earth.

Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years

[climb_no_fear]

As was already pointed out, nearby stars with travel times in the years to decades would be enough.

I agree that this is a job for government. All the really big projects in the past (pyramids, cathedrals, Great Walls) were the result of government or religious (usually equivalent to government back then) entities throughout history. Some of them took hundreds of years to complete.

Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years

[kid_wonder]

You sir, are apparently unfamiliar with the newly discovered element unobtanium.

Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years

[CrimsonAvenger]

This notion of building a giant ship to go to another solar system is extraordinarily impractical.

The point of the operation, I think, is to consider the changes required for human society to implement plans requiring decades/centuries/millenia to complete.

Right now, we have a hard time holding our focus for one Congressional Election cycle, much less a decade. Much less a century.

So some fundamental changes will have to go down to even make an interstellar trip possible to plan, much less implement.

Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years

[HuguesT]

You need to decelerate halfway. 20 years to the core is if you go full throttle all the way and don't brake.

Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years

[CrimsonAvenger]

You need to decelerate halfway. 20 years to the core is if you go full throttle all the way and don't brake.

Nope. ten years subjective to accelerate 15,000 light years, another ten to decelerate the other 15,000 light years.

And yes, I did recheck my math. 10.0234 years acceleration and the same deceleration, rounded to 10 for lack of signifcant digits in the distance....

That is pretty much nuts

[demachina]

$500,000 isn't exactly a lot of money by U.S. government standards, but for a country that currently can't even get to people in to LEO spending money on interstellar space travel is completely nuts.

So, how about you get to Mars first, maybe then we can talk.

There is pretty much zero chance anyone in the private sector is going to sink any money in to interstellar space travel unless there is a juicy cost plus government contract funding it. If you dangle one of those Lockheed and Boeing will be on it in a heart beat, especially if the contract runs for a 100 years before they have to deliver anything.

This "foundation" will just be used by the DARPA haters in Congress, mostly Republicans and Tea Partiers, as further evidence of how far DARPA and the Obama administration has gone off the rails, and after reading this I can see their point.

DARPA does some amazing things but they need to exert a little self restraint and focus on things that will payoff in less than a millenium. It will be unfortunate if the good R&D DARPA does gets cuts because they seem to have gone completely nuts on this. The U.S. doesn't do enough R&D as it is.

Re:That is pretty much nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree.. to put in perspective, you can't even buy a house in San Diego for $500,000.

Re:That is pretty much nuts

[currently_awake]

Pro: The best science isn't the huge dollar mega-projects, it's the slow steady bleeding edge science that gives long term huge results. If the government doesn't fund this then it won't get done, ever. Con: If your goal is to suck money out of the taxpayers and give it to your friends then this could be a workable plan. At least until your country goes bankrupt because your friends bled the country dry. Followed by a revolution where you and your friends are targets.

Re:That is pretty much nuts

[csmicfool]

Interstellar Human travel is the only way to ensure survival of the human race beyond any one single cataclysmic event. If the Earth gets destroyed - or more likely, if WE destroy the Earth - this is the only true way we would be able to continue our existence. The important thing is finding a way to ensure that we don't land on some crappy planet without internet access - then it would certainly be a mistake.

Re:That is pretty much nuts

[Cold hard reality]

This isn't science, it's PR.

Re:That is pretty much nuts

[uniquename72]

There is pretty much zero chance anyone in the private sector is going to sink any money in to interstellar space travel

There's a fair amount of private sector money flowing into space travel now (not specifically interstellar, but have you to walk before you can run). Bigelow Aerospace in Las Vegas is one example (although they've had some cutbacks recently thanks to what Bigelow refers to as the "Obama recession").

It would be hard to argue that working towards private space flight/exploration won't have a vast effect on interstellar study. It would be equally hard to argue that focusing on interstellar travel (one of many, many things DARPA is doing right now) won't have vast, ongoing short-term effects on space flight (and many, many other types of) research, so I'm not sure why you're criticizing it as a long-term goal.

Re:That is pretty much nuts

[Nutria]

Interstellar Human travel is the only way to ensure survival of the human race beyond any one single cataclysmic event.

A journey has to have a destination; there is only pie-in-the-sky hand waving crap in interstellar travel.

Re:That is pretty much nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears what happened is the administration decided to give a bunch of money to a minority woman to 'inspire' other minorities.

If the summary is to be believed, a smart and accomplished minority woman. I wish she had more engineering credentials, but I think I can live with it.

On the other hand although $500,000 isn't much, but in the current economic climate can we really afford a deep blue sky project like this.

Re:That is pretty much nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

i instinctively mirror your sentiments. then i wonder...what was the ROI motivation of the moon program in the 60s? what were the immediate and discernible benefits of landing on the moon when the goal was first set?

i think some potentially very relevant and beneficial knowledge could come from researching methods of long-term space-travel (LTS). LTS is basically an exercise in 'bio-dome' development in the harshest and most limited environment possible. even if there are 'technological breakthroughs' it should reinforce our ability to develop a sustainable way of life. as you said, $500k is not really a big purchase for the US government.

Re:That is pretty much nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah! Establishing a large population on the moon would be way cheaper. Catastrophe (short of obliteration) on Earth might make it unlivable for sustained presence, but we could still use it's biosphere to survive.

Re:That is pretty much nuts

[ModernGeek]

We decided that we were going to go to the moon before we could put a man into orbit. Brains aren't the only thing to get you somewhere, you also have to have the balls to try.

Re:That is pretty much nuts

[demachina]

Actually no Mars is the only rational place to put a colony in the foreseeable future. At least it has some water, some CO2 for greenhouses, a barely tolerable temperature and some atmosphere. As Mars is a desert compared to Earth, the moon is a vast desert by comparison to Mars.

Re:That is pretty much nuts

[demachina]

" It would be equally hard to argue that focusing on interstellar travel (one of many, many things DARPA is doing right now) won't have vast"

Actualluy it would be EXTREMELY easy to argue that focusing on interstellar travel wont have vast, ongoing short-term effects on space flight.

It will most probably be extremely counterproductive.
In the current hyper critical budget environment in D.C. this will just be a dart board for all the politicians who want to kill off science and R&D funding.

Re:That is pretty much nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

Im sorry: you're twelve.

Re:That is pretty much nuts

[demachina]

The moon program acheived its goals in 10 years. Politicians could rationalize the expenditure especially in the context of the cold war and the space race. Getting to the Moon was trivial compared to this. Von Braun was already planning for it in the 40's. Colonizing Mars is trivial comparted to this. When we successfully colonize Mars, come back and we will talk. This is seriously out of sequence on what we need to be doing in space exploration right now.

It will be a challenge to land on a planet and successfully colonize it in this solar system with the aid of resupply and technological support for Earth. At interstellar distances it will be a formidable challenge with a high probability of failure without a somewhat improbable FTL drive breakthrough.

Unless you come up with an FTL driver you aren't going to get to even Alpha Centauri in less than nearly forever and its open to debate what you would do when you got there unless there was a habitable planet there ready to colonize with water, oxygen, fuel, reasonable temperature profile and gravity. I think the nearest discovered planets that have a remote chance of being habitable are an even more formidable distance away than Alpha Centauri.

So, you have no chance to get anyone in government to sink any serious money in to a hundred/thousand year project at a time when the U.S. debt is passing 100% of GDP and has been going parabolic since 2008. The U.S. was still flush with cash from the post ware boom in the 60's.

You also have no chance to get anyone in the private sector to sink any money in to this unless its a billionaire with a sci-fi fetish like Paul Allen who are willing to blow a few billion on something they wont live to see pay off.

All things considered I think someone at DARPA was reading a little too much Sci-Fi or this lady had a friend at DARPA who could throw a half million to her to let her indulge her little fantasy. The cool thing is that since its advertised as a hundred year project she doesn't really need to deliver on anything for the rest of her life. Sweet job, where do I sign up?

Re:That is pretty much nuts

[0xdeadbeef]

DARPA does some amazing things but they need to exert a little self restraint and focus on things that will payoff in less than a millenium.

Yeah, because Mars rocks will totally pay dividends that engineering won't.

Maybe you need to exert a little not whining to your betters about what they should and shouldn't be doing.

Re:That is pretty much nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

Never has a nickname and a post been so perfectly in-tune.

Re:That is pretty much nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

My hat's off to her, and I wish there were more like her, damn straight. My point was, we can't even get to LEO right now, and the gummint is passing out money for *starships*. The cart's so far in front of the horse on that one it just flabbergasts me.

Re:That is pretty much nuts

[aztektum]

DARPA does some amazing things but they need to exert a little self restraint and focus on things that will payoff in less than a millenium.

You don't feel the research and development would create anything useful in the short term? The space program of the 60's didn't achieve anything for us in the last 30 years?

Let's just keep focusing on our own short-term gain. That seems to be working out well.

Re:That is pretty much nuts

[turbidostato]

"what was the ROI motivation of the moon program in the 60s?"

Are you kidding?

1) For the contractors: obviously, the contracts.
2) For those signing the bills (the politicians): the bribes from the contractors and the warm feeling for the American citizenship "we are the good ones, we are in a crusade and we are going to win it" that would insure the statu quo both for the contractors and the politicians.

Do you imagine the catastrophe if the Americans would even hinted that some thing might be learnt from the hatred communism?

Re:That is pretty much nuts

[gatkinso]

Better PR: slashing a few failing projects (of which DARPA has many).

Private sector couldn't do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's look at the Apollo program.

The costs associated with the Apollo spacecraft and Saturn rockets amounted to about $83-billion in 2005 Dollars

Yeah, many mega-corps have that in cash these days, but try to convince shareholders that a 83 billion dollar project that has a HUGE amount of risk with very little ROI, if any, is a Good Thing. I would sell that stock - fast.

Space travel has very little commercial value at this time and it's a stupid no, idiotic business decision.

Sure there's some crazy geniuses going for it but will they make a viable business out of it or at last give a decent return to investors? Nope. If I'm wrong, I'll eat a Moon rock off of Neill Armstrong's ass.

Very good to see this getting started

[Anonymous Coward]

This is very important research that will need to be done to go over all the possible scenarios and ways to fix them in a limited space ship with no help from Earth. (besides maybe a directed beam of energy focused from our sun through the solar sail method, but that's about it)

There are so many edge cases where we THINK we know what could be done, but rarely ever goes to plan.

In 100 years time, hell, less if the world doesn't decay in to full-on war, we should be more than ready as a species to take the dive.
Many of the technology just getting out of their baby steps in to toddlerhood we have now will be fairly common by then, from metamaterials to 3D printing.
Metamaterials will pretty much be a requirement, outside of using the solar sail idea to continuously supply power, to save power in these trips.
They can be used to create essentially highly one-way materials for most frequencies in grids that will prevent leakage of EM energy in to space. I think there was also some experiments with them and heat as well.
3D printers would also be an absolute necessity for using resources efficiently, especially for repairing things.
They will be the end point for the recycling system for most macro-scale objects, probably even food as some have experimented with recently.

Thousands of other things, if not millions, required in order to create a stable portable ecosystem right and have it last as long as possible.
Remember, not even Earth is 100% stable. It cycles all the time and can quite easily fall apart given the right conditions.
It could fall apart and on a downward spiral to what would essentially become Mars, all it takes in one major change and chain reaction of failures.
We are just lucky, at the moment, that Earth is stable. That core could fail at any time. That sun could wipe everything off the face of the Earth at random, it could have been responsible for the extinction level events for all we know, rather than gamma ray bursts. (not likely and is likely due to the plane shift of our solar system going through the spiral arm, but they are all still good guesses at best)
We NEED to get off of here as soon as humanly possible. But not before.
If we don't cover everything, these starships will fail harder than anything.

The elephant in the room: propulsion

[Anonymous Coward]

Advanced propulsion system to get some significant mass to another star in 100 years is SciFi. From our current technological POV it's not even sure it's possible at all.

Re:The elephant in the room: propulsion

[istartedi]

The other elephant: collision. If we get any significant fraction of c, how are we going to know when a rock the size of a marble is in our path? At that velocity, it's bye-bye charlie when it hits you.

Re:The elephant in the room: propulsion

[Anonymous Coward]

Tagline: For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"? For all intensive purposes should be for all intents and purposes. As well, you've misused and misunderstood the expression 'to beg the question' "Begging the question" is a form of logical fallacy in which a statement or claim is assumed to be true without evidence other than the statement or claim itself. When one begs the question, the initial assumption of a statement is treated as already proven without any logic to show why the statement is true in the first place. A simple example would be "I think she is unattractive because she is ugly." The adjective "ugly" does not explain why the subject is "unattractive" -- they virtually amount to the same subjective meaning, and the proof is merely a restatement of the premise. The sentence has begged the question.

Re:The elephant in the room: propulsion

[MLease]

I do believe I just heard something go " WHOOOOOSH! ".

Re:The elephant in the room: propulsion

[jigenbakado]

Did ya see that? It's a joke, son! Flew right by ya!

$500K

[atari2600a]

What is this Somalia!?

Re:$500K

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't complain. That's $5,000 a year for the project. You can send an Estes pretty far for that kind of money, maybe with a cricket in it.

Star Dancer

[lazarus]

"Jemison ... is a professionally trained dancer".

Spider Robinson must be thrilled.

Re:Star Dancer

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary notes she is both the first African-American and first black woman to reach space, quite a lady!!

you're all missing the real story here

[Anonymous Coward]

DARPA is now hiring people on 100 year contracts? Forget space, advances in battlefield medicine are the real story.

Don't Blame Me!

[grumling]

I voted for George Clinton!

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Getting Real About Capitalism

[Baldrson]

The only way to get capitalism to work is to shift the tax base from economic activity to the liquidation value of assets, and set the tax rate to the interest rate used to calculate liquidation value.

But no one with wealth wants that to happen even though just about everyone who has high incomes would want it to happen.

So, due to political economic considerations, capitalism cannot be made to work.

This is not to say that socialism can be made to work, since in order to do so it would require that the liquidation asset interest collected by the government be dispersed equally to all citizens, no "means testing". Socialists want to figure out how to spend your dividends for you because they're so smart and all.

In other words: All fall down.

Re:Getting Real About Capitalism

[DanDD]

Woa, this is a new idea for me. I'm not an economist, just a lowly engineer, but I find this idea rather tickly in my brain. Do you have any books or references where this idea is investigated further?

Re:Getting Real About Capitalism

[Baldrson]

My 1992 white paper introduces an early version of the idea. The impetus for it came from my work to privatize government technology development programs in space and energy.

Charles Murray of the CATO Institute later wrote a book on an idea related to the citizen's dividend.

Interstellar garbage skow

[kawabago]

It might be cheaper to send our garbage to other star systems rather than keep using expensive land to bury it!

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Funding...

[Gavin Scott]

Now DARPA has provided $500,000 in seed money to help jumpstart the effort

"All you have to do is deposit one penny in a savings account in your own era, and when you arrive at the End of Time the operation of compound interest means that the fabulous cost of your meal has been paid for."

G.

Yes, $.5M is a lot of money, but...

[Dammital]

... damn, you should have gone to the symposium. These people were not nuts - they were capable engineers and sociologists and educators and authors and astronauts, who well understood the enormity of the challenge (which does in fact edge into astronomic scale).

There were reviews of existing technologies, reports on current research, proposals ranging from modest to blue-sky, discussion about the science that would have to be done. Social engineering was also prominent - any future colony would be a microcosm of human society after all.

Without the Dreamers, you wouldn't have the Planners. It was awe-inspiring to be among the Dreamers for a couple of days, and I begrudge not one dime of the money DARPA spent on it.

The U.S. doesn't do enough R&D as it is.

Right you are.

If nothing more...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is useful to remind us of how young is the US (and the whole Freedom idea): 236 years.

Surely, that explains why Freedom is still so fragile that greed can threaten it's very own existence...

Starship Project

[mfnickster]

Well, this project may not build a colony on another world... but it might just build a city on rock 'n' roll!

Bah ah ah hahahahahaaaaa!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hoo boy, you Space Nutters are precious!

Government is the answer?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing to me how many people assume government is the answer to space flight. NASA contracts a lot of work out to private corporations, and if we didn't have such large government spending today there wouldn't be the crowding out effect to space operations that we have been subjected to for the past fifty years. In other words, private space endeavors would be even further along than they are today. We'd certainly already have far more cost efficient launch mechanisms, since private businesses would not be willing to spend tons of money on launches just to fill their budgeted allowances before the end of the year and Lockheed martin, Boeing, and SpaceX would have to compete with one another far more. We might not have put a man in space yet, but then again, who cares? What does it give us other than irrational pride in the short run? If something isn't profitable it means it cost more than it produced. Plain and simple. The Soviets launched Sputnik first, but does anyone think the Soviet Union is the superior country to the United States now? No. Is it because we went to the moon first? Not really. It's because they went bankrupt.

WOW

[Anonymous Coward]

This is one incredible human being. Imagine if everyone PUSHED the limits like this woman - we'd have permanent colonies in space by now.
Really - consider what you're capable of: without submitting to fear, or being told "it's not possible". Incredible self discipline, hard work, and focus. This is the sort of person that drags us into the future.

Re:WOW

[Anonymous Coward]

No, we wouldn't. You can flap your arms as much as you want you'll never fly. Sometimes the effort is not correlated to success. Basic physical limits are.

Money Awarded to a Track Chair and Organizer?

[Araes]

I deeply enjoyed attending the 100 YSS symposium, and actually presented in the economic track that Jemison headed. However, awarding the final seed money to one of the track chairs and program organizers makes the whole process seem like collusion. Note the Education, Social, Economic and Legal Considerations track in the 100 YSS Symposium Agenda. Having worked program allocation, this is the kind of stuff that could spark lawsuits if it weren't for such a small sum (in gov't terms). Also depends on whether she was funded by DARPA in her track chair duties. (Note: I did not submit a proposal to the RFP)

Hopefully the money is put to good use, as it looks like she partnered with Icarus, who are at least motivated and active.

Re:Money Awarded to a Track Chair and Organizer?

[Anonymous Coward]

It does appear very fishy that the award was given to someone who had a role in conducting the competition. It makes you wonder if this was the predetermined outcome from the very beginning and that the RFP and conferences were just for show, or PR building for the resulting award recipient's organization. If you know about the government grants process that is actually a very likely possibility. We'll have to judge for ourselves if it was the right choice once we get more information on what the plan for this organization will be, but this definitely makes me more skeptical about the whole effort.

intersteller = nukes = governments

[0111 1110]

1. Interstellar missions require thousands of nuclear bombs.
2. Governments are the only ones how have nuclear bombs.
3. Governments are required for interstellar missions.

Until we rewrite the laws of physics the only practical interstellar propulsion is going to be Freeman Dyson's Orion pulsed nuke system. IOW interstellar travel is all about nuclear bombs.

Here are the steps:
1. Start a small permanent lunar base (Moonbase Alpha) whose immediate goal is to set up mining/smelting operations while seeing if long term survival on the moon is possible. Once we have lunar manufacturing a lot of things become much easier.
2. Construct a nuclear power plant to power the settlement as well as supply plutonium for nuclear bomb manufacturing. Solar is not adequate for serious manufacturing capacity. Although solar furnaces might be possible.
3. Start work on building a spacecraft manufacturing facility at an earth-moon Lagrange point.
4. Before even thinking about interstellar ships, build smaller nuclear powered interplanetary craft to finish exploring the solar system and nuclear powered shuttles for transfers between the moon and the Lagrange spacecraft assembly station.
5. Continue to grow the size of the moonbase by allowing anyone with relavent technical skills on semi-annual transport ships. It shouldn't be just astronauts and pilots. The idea would be to have an entire 'army' of people up there working together toward a common idealistic goal.

African-American

[arisvega]

Slightly off-topic, but since TFS mentions it, am I the only one that finds the designation "African-American" stupid? I have heard of Native Americans, yes. But no "European-Americans", or "Caucasian-Americans". And somehow, Asians are just Asians.

This for a point: http://snarkyintuition.blogspot.com/2011/11/p-p-p-pass-mic-yo.html

It used to be simple, now I have no idea what the frak is going on.

Re:African-American

[manwargi]

Not the only one. All terms used are misnomers, and they all desperately try to label something that isn't even a thing anymore. Plus, it has lead to such wonderful things as this gem.

The word I'm thinking of is:

[Hartree]

Fool. Yeah, that about sums you up, AC.

I have the advantage of having met Jemison, albeit only talking to her for a few minutes.

Race wasn't a factor. She could be yellow with purple polka dots and still be highly qualified for anything.

Extremely bright gal.

Re:The word I'm thinking of is:

[turbidostato]

"Race wasn't a factor."

Sure. But then, why somebody feel necessary to mention it?

Do you know how can we know ours is not an eye-color hating society? Because nobody mentions the eye color of somebody when stablishing that person's achievements. And we don't do it because nobody gives a damn.

We can't have a truly egalitarian society till the same happens with the skin color too.

Re:The word I'm thinking of is:

[Anonymous Coward]

Blonde hair and blue eyes do come up, ranging from the camps that likes dumb blonde jokes to the camps that place proud Aryan blood on a pedestal.

Re:The word I'm thinking of is:

[IrquiM]

We don't mention it, because everybody knows that people with blue eyes are better than the ones with green ones. However, for people with green eyes, the subject is a bit touchy.

Re:The word I'm thinking of is:

[Anonymous Coward]

Purple (violet?) eyes rule, however.

Starship studies way premature

[jwbales]

It will be hundreds, perhaps thousands of years before mankind will travel to other stars unless some kind of faster than light travel becomes possible.

One or a few ships would never make it. It would have to be a journey of an entire civilization, one large enough and with the resources and technology to endure a journey lasting thousands of years. And it would only make sense to take such a journey when the resources of this solar system have been exhausted. When the Oort Cloud has been exhausted, its civilization might have the ability and the motive to make such a journey. And such a civilization will have little use for habitable planets, they will be looking for systems with lots of asteroids and other low-gravity resources.

Can't stick with anything

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a bright person, but looks like she's a person who can stick with anything for very long. I'm sure she'll go on to something else quite quickly.

This program requires commitment, and it doesn't looks like she has much of that.

100 Years?

[uranus65]

Shouldn't they be choosing a baby for this?

Whoa wait what?!

[Anonymous Coward]

What do they know that we don't know....

Did they sniff some communications from a distant star? And, now they're worried and want to fund interstellar travel to go check it out?

The military doesn't spend anything unless it has immediate military applications.

Having said that I've been saying for a few years now that we can create a ship filled with human DNA to a distant star we suspect might harbor life with a decent probability. And, then, when the ship is within a certain distance a gestation machine kicks in and clones a small group of humans in the DNA database (of which there would be hundreds of thousands or more), and then raises them like children with an AI, some educational and fictional TV programs, and later in life instruction videos. It would probably be a good idea to also include historical and editorial videos that explain why we sent them, what Earth and society here is like, and what we expect of them.

If they manage to survive, and land on a habitable planet safely. They could use the ship's gestation unit to clone the more people to help construct a civilization from the DNA database. We should also send along any available source material for producing medications, including equipment and instructions on how to create them. And, enough food, oxygen, water, music, movies, books, etc. to get them through the hardest parts of the mission.

Worth noting we shouldn't send just one mission like this, we should send many to many different locations. Most of them are going to fail, if not all. But, we may get lucky at least once, which means we would have succeeded in extending human life beyond just our own planet.

It would also be interesting to provide them with end-game instructions that specify that if they succeed in finding a habitable planet, to send a signal (machine design blueprints included) to Earth coordinates which will activate one of many dormant space capsules which will fire up and fly to their location with the DNA of all animals on earth. Unless of course we can fit those reasonably into the original craft as well, which might be possible I'm not sure how much that would weigh. Because, you'd want to send multiple redundant sets of DNA for each species.

Anyways, just a thought.

And, for those who are also wondering..

[Anonymous Coward]

Fun fact: TNG writers briefly considered killing Riker Classic in the episode to have Riker II take his place in the show, but at a lower rank.

How exactly did you come by this information? I call bullshit.

Re:And, for those who are also wondering..

[Anonymous Coward]

From here, it's apparently in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion.

The TNG writing staff toyed with the idea of killing off Will Riker in "Second Chances," permanently replacing him with Thomas Riker as the new ops officer and moving Data to the first officer position.

Re:Mars

[qxcv]

At NASA spending rates, $500k would get you three or four "artist's impression" drawings of an American-flag covered spaceship which looks suspiciously like the USS Enterprise. $500k is chicken feed for a government agency like DARPA.

Do we want it?

[Bensam123]

A lot of people are commenting about how asinine it is to spend money on other things besides NASA, which I generally agree on, and the general mindset in the US is that everything should be done by private sectors, which I don't agree with.

Has anyone thought about what would happen if we seeded an extremely profitable business to outer space for private companies to suck the life out of? The government is paying for the groundwork and they're paying to get people interested, why are they even doing that in the first place? We'll just end up having some giant conglomerate in a 100 or so year that's milking the government and milking the citizens. It's not like the corporation is just going to prance around with their new product and/or service and then give it back for free, they'll milk us for every dime we have. That's how businesses work, especially very big ones with a death grip on a certain market.

I mean this is pretty much what the internet has turned into and is a stunning example of just such a creation. Everyone is all about making businesses in america, but no one stops to think about what happens when giant mega corp is taking their lunch money. Somethings you don't want companies to run or if they do they have to be heavily regulated or they will just have their way with you, your spouse, your kids, and your doggie too. I for one don't want giant megacorp being the one delivering a significant portion of a market back to us after building off our lunch money, just to take more of it. At least we have some control over the government, the same can't be said for the motivators behind companies, even if in the end they try to control the government.

Immoral

[Sqreater]

Once again: space is a vast desert like no desert on the face of our Earth and unworthy of our money. And to cause someone to be born outside the Earth steals from them their genetic legacy of life on the Earth. This is immorality of the highest order and anyone who works to bring about phony "colonies" on other planets is immoral because they work to bring about massive unhappiness and suffering in human beings. It is simple and it is obvious. We are not living on the Earth; We ARE the Earth. We are not Mars and we are not the Moon and we can never live comfortably or at all anywhere else. Period. Stop the nonsense.

Missed Opportunity

[Ambiguous Coward]

"Jemison Starship" just doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

PC

[Anonymous Coward]

Politically correct crap - her interests are elsewhere and are unlikely to align with the project

D.A.R.P.A (translated) Space Travel

[Anonymous Coward]

World Nuclear Stockpile Report 20,000 weapons.How will the U.S. survive if a small fraction of them are used?

Political Correctness News?

[Taco Cowboy]

Out of the Hundreds of Thousands, if not Millions, of qualified candidates, from all races, men and women, is it mere coincidence that they choose a black female to lead this program?

The news-worthiness of the entire article boils down to Political Correctness

Re:Political Correctness News?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a job opportunity. The grant is only $500,000 and hardly covers the cost her foundation will need. She will have to fund raise the rest and put together a successful organization that can last decades to encourage and produce technology to reach another star.