NASA Trailer To Be Shown Before Star Trek: Into Darkness

Tired of seeing ads for cars and soda before the films you watch at the theater? Well, a successful crowdfunding campaign at Indiegogo will see a trimmed down version of NASA's 'We Are Explorers' video aired before showings of the upcoming Star Trek: Into Darkness in theaters all over the country. "Most people recognize space as a key expression of our character. They know our space programs as a globally recognized brand of ingenuity. The recently landed Mars Curiosity Rover was the latest reminder that space systems are the crown jewels of our scientific and technical prowess. Less known is the indispensable value space systems bring to our everyday lives. Space provides irreplaceable capabilities for defense, public health, finance, medicine, energy, agriculture, transportation, development and countless other fields. Investments in space programs are precisely about improving and protecting life on Earth. ... By funding this campaign, we can remind students and the general public that our nation's space agency is working hard on the next era of exploration." The campaign's funding goal was reached in just six days — their stretch goal will increase the number of theaters for the clip from 59 screens to 750. The movie comes out on May 17th.

Comments

Good

[RobbieCrash]

Wider exposure to science cannot be a bad thing.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we should be more honest and direct about the pitch, though.

We crossed oceans, took flight, and went to space for some contemporary sorts of fame and/or fortune. Not simple curiosity. At some point we decided that was inappropriate motivation, and things have ground to a halt.

Now private spaceflight is kicking the door down and making real progress. Let's pimp that a little, eh?

Re:Good

[asm2750]

Once SpaceX, Orbital, et al. land a manned and privately funded ship on the moon I will say it's real progress. Right now we are still stuck with human LEO.

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[Anonymous Coward]

You make it sound like NASA / JAXA and every other space agency didn't make real progress. They did, in fact they did A LOT of progress over the past decades. We learned so much about space from knowing nothing, and learn so much about safety and protocols to follow. What needed to be learned was the foundations of space, not how to effectively make space crafts without rockets. We didn't even know if we could swallow in space or even keep in the food we eat. There was progress but then serious budget cuts every year just killed it. Now instead of focusing on space programs, a lot of the money is spent on re-budgeting from the new amount and which programs to kill. I would highly recommend reading up on the history of space (and exploration of new frontiers in general) and understand that the private sector cannot spend vast amounts of wealth on something that has no immediate financial gain. While I may disagree with the government for the most part, I do believe that space could not have been a reachable frontier because to make a profit off from it would have been impossible.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Real progress is also developing cheap spaceflight that works. It's doing everything quickly. It's actively developing reusable rockets. It's building inexpensive space habitats for people to live in.

Landing on Mars is a goal, with the added bonus of expecting real people to live there. Till they die of natural causes. Not regularly putting Captain America in an aging hunk in LEO for a few months until you replace him with a female Captain America, wash, rinse, repeat.

I'm not one to downplay what NASA does. But landing on the moon is an arbitrary goal you made up that doesn't define "real progress", and it's happening as we speak, by people motivated by more than a commercial about "it'd be nice to explore things".

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[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely not. If I could wave a magic wand and multiply NASA's budget by 5x's I would. But let's be honest, the exciting work that's headed in the direction we've all wanted forever is happening in private industry, rapidly and efficiently, paid for by way of contracts with NASA.

A more direct way of saying this is, our space agency isn't going to put you on Mars or a space habitat. Ever. That's not what they do, and that isn't going to change. However, they might be kickstarting the comapnies that really can, and want to do exactly that, by paying them to do work they can't manage on their own.

Star Trek was a lovely idea. But we know what works for humanity, and we should stop lying to ourselves because we prefer a more poetic version of what motivates us.

Re:Good

[Runaway1956]

Yeah. You make some sense. But, poetry is motivational too.

Go out, crank up your motorcycle, crank up some tunes, and hit the highway. Rumble out across the badlands, with "Highway to the Danger Zone" booming in your ears. Try it.

I'm no poet, but poetry is indeed motivational. If it isn't, then you probably have no soul.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about the soul part since I don't care for books while some may actually say I have no soul for not being able to read a full book cover to cover (too boring to me) and I don't care much for music. But I'll be glad to watch unedited videos from NASA or extended footage for star trek. hmm... Perhaps poetry goes beyond the bounds of words and is found in every moment in life? Oh snap! I think that itself was poetry? Nooo!!!!!

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Nasa isn't science, nasa is throwing trillions at a problem and NEVER ever solving anything or creating anything new..

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXkuo1yihjs

This one would be good, too.

Re: Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Even better if NASA has a double-wide (not that they can afford it.)

Re:Good

[websitebroke]

Um, they have yet to spend a trillion of today's dollars since NASA started.

Re:Good

[Teancum]

I guess you've never heard of Golden Spike Company or Inspiration Mars? The first is a private effort to land people on the Moon, and the second one is trying to organize a private spaceflight attempt to send people to Mars. Both plan on having this happen in this decade (meaning some time before the year 2020).

You can debate if either of these companies, or the numerous space prospecting companies that are starting to show up will be successful at getting things done in space, but they are trying to kick the door down and make some real progress by sending people and spacecraft well beyond LEO.

We will be stuck in the Solar System for quite some time as interstellar travel is quite beyond our capability (the Voyager spacecraft not withstanding.... and they won't get near another star within human lifetimes, much less the lifetimes of any current human civilization). The Solar System is a big place though with literally thousands of worlds to explore and enough raw materials to expand human civilization several orders of magnitude in terms of population.... and to do that with style and comfort.

The big goal of private spaceflight at the moment is to cut the cost of getting up there to at least make the fuel being used to get there as a major cost component. Several companies are making some significant progress in doing that.

Re:Good

[CohibaVancouver]

Nasa isn't science, nasa is throwing trillions at a problem and NEVER ever solving anything or creating anything new..

All I know is it's wonderful showing my son a picture of earthrise from the moon, and watching his eyes go wide in wonder (followed by him running to his big sister's room to grab her globe and start investigating).

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

As was said above - come back when they've DONE it. At the moment they're at least fifty years behind the front line. I know it's painful for you, but you have to admit it was the government that got us into space, and the government that got us to the moon. Not private enterprise, not profit motivation.

Re:Good

[Teancum]

SpaceX currently owns the only man-rated spacecraft that are in active service from vehicles launched within America, not NASA. That says quite a bit. Orbital Science (another private company) is doing the same thing and will have that spacecraft launched some time next month (aka April). I'd say they are getting things done. Bigelow Aerospace has not one but two orbital spacecraft in orbit right now that are capable of sustaining people, and are right now only waiting for a paying customer and for the private launching companies to get their acts together before they fly their next space station into orbit. Bigelow is also on the flight manifest for a future flight on the Falcon 9... so they aren't just sitting on the sidelines either.

Stuff is being done, so you may just get your wish.

I'd agree that paper studies and power point presentations mean very little, but these companies are bending metal, performing test flights, and getting things done. I'll admit that they have a long way to go, but there is no reason to think the government has a monopoly on talent and a whole lot of reasons to think NASA is impeding progress for people getting into space at the moment. The government may have been able to put people on the Moon, but they have shown a singular lack of ability to even keep people in space. NASA is in retreat and certainly not an agency on the forefront of aerospace technology.

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[jedidiah]

A Ferengi is far less likely to invest in basic research. We still need an agency that will develop the technologies that corporations will reuse. There is unprofitable work to be done before things can be handed over to the likes of Mosk. That is what NASA has done for 50 years and the new corporate space ventures are the dividend of very old investments.

The shoulders of giants.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Granted, but that isn't exactly breaking new ground, is it? The two companies you originally mentioned (Golden Spike/Inspiration Mars) seem to be doing little more than producing powerpoints. SpaceX, Bigelow, Virgin Galactic, sure, they're getting to orbit, but orbit is not the moon, and it's certainly not Mars. When private space enterprise reaches the moon, they've caught up with 1969 NASA, and it's much easier to follow a trail already blazed.

I'd also argue with the premise that keeping people in space is exploration. Exploration is done with robots and satellites, as another poster pointed out excellently below. Planck, WMAP, Hubble, Antares, and all other outward-pointing telescopes/satellites are government funded. Curiosity, Spirit, Opportunity are all government. Private enterprise hasn't explored anything new, they're only now reproducing half a century old achievements, and have no chance of doing any original exploration. I'd love to be wrong about this - the more players in the game the better, so far as I'm concerned - but I don't see anything yet that looks like exploration of space by private companies.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I am also a motorcycle rider, so it's a good example. And I wouldn't say that inspirational things are useless, at all. Only that we should suck it up and embrace the fact that most of the practical outcomes we want are best served by acknowledging how they'll come about. That is, by way of private companies. I'm simply tired of pretending that humanities greatest achievements are motivated by the spirit of discovery combined with tax dollars. While those sometimes play an important role, if only as a learning experience, they're not going to get us where we want to be.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't disagree. I posted this elsewhere, in so many words, but a big part of NASA's role now is to kickstart the kind of progress we've all been waiting for. And rightly so, I'd say.

Our space agency is not going to put you in space, much less another planet, ever. And while I'd love to multiply NASA's budget, much of that is because I want them swinging a big bat in their role of contracting practical ventures like SpaceX, Bigelow, etc. Those are dollars well spent, and I think we're seeing that play out as we speak.

I should cover any potential loose ends here by saying I do still want them landing rovers on Mars, checking out potentially habitable moons, etc. I'm just saying we should get over this (largely false) nobility complex we have about space travel, and embrace the fact that private ventures are where we're going to see progress towards the things that real people, like you and me, really want.

I'm sure someone along the line made critical discoveries about scurvy, improving aerodynamics, etc. because they were simply curious. But the boats with real people on them do the sailing, and the planes with real people in them do the flying, because people were motivated by things far less poetic than an uncompensated advancement of our species.

It seems like we (increasingly) treat this as a dirty little secret, and we should knock it off. For our own good. There are precious few things that are pretty consistent across history, but one of them is that people do amazing things acting in their own interest.

Re:Good

[kermidge]

@teancum - SpaceX has a man-rated rocket? Capsule? I thought not yet, but working on it.

Seems to me the progression for commercial interests is:
get there (LEO, Moon, asteroids and/or Mars;
find and expand ways to make money at it;
low-level continued exploration for resources in those areas;
later explore and exploit stuff further out - moons of Jupiter and Saturn;

and in all or most all cases/areas they will be in the footprints of government exploration efforts. That's for near-term, next 100 years and more, barring gee-whiz magical discoveries in physics and consequent engineering. Or the Singularity. [grin]

Re:Good

[khallow]

At the moment they're at least fifty years behind the front line.

What front line? NASA has done much on the manned front in the last 50 years.

I know it's painful for you, but you have to admit it was the government that got us into space, and the government that got us to the moon.

And what has the government (and really by this phrase I mean all governments not just the US) done lately? They haven't returned to the Moon in forty years. They haven't surpassed any new barriers in that time.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

All of it is, in fact, breaking new ground. Porting research we've learned from (and occasionally forgotten again) into practical, affordable hardware that does real work in a way that matters to you other than providing pretty wallpapers, is the major series of hurdles that NASA never jumped, because that's not their mission.

These companies are already doing this stuff. As was mentioned earlier, they've driven the cost of space flight way down, and they're on the brink of driving it way down, again. They've already built the manned vehicles and habitats. Their stuff works, and all of it is done because they're acting in their own interests. Not coicidentally, that works for you.

We need NASA to land research robots on Mars. We need them coming up with, and testing, new propulsion tech. But petition your imagination for a second... is that really what we want? Of course not. You want regular space flight, humans flying to other places, and normal people living somewhere other than earth. That's only going to happen by way of companies like the ones we're talking about, doing things that NASA never did, and never could do. Not because they're incompetant, but because that's not what they're interested in, and would never have the funding to do even if their mission was changed.

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[khallow]

I'd love to be wrong about this

How about developing a new line of orbital launch vehicles. which SpaceX did, for less than a factor of ten that NASA would have payed for it (at least in the initial contract, it'd go up with cost overruns)? Some NASA people examined SpaceX's accounting books and reached that particular conclusion. Exploration (and more important things like development) of space will be helped along by this new generation of cheap access to space.

Don't you love being wrong?

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Hubble, WMAP, Planck, Curiosity, Spirit, Opportunity, to name a few.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

"How about developing a new line of orbital launch vehicles": Not exactly groundbreaking is it? We build new cars and planes every year, but they aren't a breakthrough on Wright brothers level (which Sputnik was, for example).

"cheap access to space" - great, so they're the Ryaniar of space travel. Again, not groundbreaking.

They've gone to some of the easier places cheaper. That's not exploration, that's just repetition. It's great, sure, and it advances the industry, but it's not new exploration. They did what all private companies want: Let someone else take the risks, do the hardcore R+D, do the first runs, and refine their model for economy. Where's the SpaceX Europa probe? Or flight to Saturn? Not going to happen until NASA does it first.

"Don't you love being wrong?" Don't know how it feels yet, but you could probably tell me. Quit moving the goalposts - the standard here is NEW EXPLORATION not old repeats. We don't put Delta up with Columbus because both got from Europe to America, only Delta did it later and cheaper. If you want to call that exploration you have a different definition than I (and the dictionary for that matter).

Re:Good

[Maritz]

Incoherent and factually wrong. You've excelled yourself, AC..! ;)

Re:Good

[khallow]

They've gone to some of the easier places cheaper. That's not exploration, that's just repetition.

Well, that just goes to show that you don't know what exploration is. "Been there. Done that." is useless as a principle of exploration because eventually you'll get to the point where it's too expensive to "Be there. Do that." You have to have affordable infrastructure, not merely a smattering of moderately adventurous activities.

That's what SpaceX (and in time others) will provide. Infrastructure for space exploration and other things. And rather than speak of the things we do in the past tense, we'll be speaking of them in the future tense.

We don't put Delta up with Columbus because both got from Europe to America, only Delta did it later and cheaper.

Columbus's most enduring discoveries wasn't in discovering the New World, but in discovering the dynamics of the trade winds, which provided a cheap way one could navigate around the globe going both east and west and cheap cross-ocean travel using just three small ships.

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[khallow]

Exactly. They haven't done much except a few one off and very expensive missions. It's remarkable how low peoples' standards are when it comes to NASA missions and the $18 or so billion dollars they spend each year.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Er no. No you won't. Precisely because NASA went there and did that. They didn't go to the moon only cheaper, they went there FIRST. Your ridiculous "Doing it again only cheaper counts!" is pointless. Exploration is about EXPLORING not repeating. There's a value to repeating, of course, and a real value to repeating cheaper, no-one is arguing that, but that isn't exploration. From Merriam-Webster "to travel over (new territory) for adventure or discovery". Note the NEW part there, not going back again. It goes to show that you have no idea what exploration is, and you're doing the usual khallow trick of redefining ordinary terms to fit your argument instead of realizing that your argument is pathetic.

Columbus was the first to do something (well, OK, not really, but the first so far as his people knew). That's exploration. Your definition makes me an explorer if I find a cheaper ticket to NYC than anyone else, which is patently absurd. Perhaps it's inventive, resourceful, and even very useful, but it's not exploration. You might contribute to exploration, just as someone who sews together the space-suits does, but the sewing machine is not an explorer, nor is the repeater.

Re:Good

[khallow]

Your ridiculous "Doing it again only cheaper counts!" is pointless.

Pointless compared to what? There is nothing that NASA does which would stick around, if the funding got cut off. The ISS would have to be deorbited, the space probes ignored (and eventually run out of juice), etc. That's because none of it generates a return in any concrete way that could continue to fund the activity.

It won't matter in twenty years what NASA does now aside from as a demonstration of technology (which incidentally could have been acquired for far less than the NASA price tag). All their work is inherently ephemeral.

Meanwhile SpaceX and many other commercial providers of space services, would be able to sell to private businesses and such. It would hurt to lose NASA since NASA is a significant source of business, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.

SpaceX among other things is self-funding exploration. That's new.

Note the NEW part there, not going back again.

The point of space exploration is we expect people to live at some of those places some day. This stuff is as a result important, something it wouldn't otherwise be. As I indicated earlier, I think the "Been there. Done that." attitude is ridiculous. But the "Been there in order to be there again and stay." isn't.

Your definition makes me an explorer if I find a cheaper ticket to NYC than anyone else, which is patently absurd.

It just means you don't understand my argument at all. The Moon has only been visited directly by humans six times, all more than forty years ago. That would be the same as NYC being visited only six times in its entire history. Do you really think that a world with surface area about a quarter of the total land area of Earth has been "explored" by six short trips?

All such trips whether exploration or other activities, must to some extent come from Earth. SpaceX makes all such trips cheaper whether it be another oh-so-boring trip to the Moon or a trip to someplace that would be "new" by your definition.

It's worth noting that even if we accept your analogy, it is possible for someone to buy a cheap plane ticket from Delta and explore (no "scare quotes" needed) NYC. Even if they've been to NYC before. It's a big place and not everyone has been everywhere there. So Delta and its cheaper air fares is indeed enabling new exploration of NYC as we speak.

and you're doing the usual khallow trick of redefining ordinary terms to fit your argument instead of realizing that your argument is pathetic

I'm doing the ordinary "trick" of reason. You ought to try it some time. I promise I won't complain.

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[asm2750]

$18 billion is a drop in the bucket compared to what we spend on defense and entitlements. I wish this damn country would fix it's self but it's never going to happen, even if you replace everyone in all three branches with completely new and sane people the status quo will remain.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got to be joking. "SpaceX among other things is self-funding exploration. That's new."

Er no, it's got external funding. Someone is paying for it, and not out of anything SpaceX is selling. NASA's paid for itself many times over as can be seen - http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/no_20100827_1798.php I know it may be hard for you to admit, again, but an ROI of 3:1 is a win, and that's the very lowest end of estimates. What NASA is doing now is vital to most of astronomy, cosmology, etc. Actual science, actual exploration of the universe we live in, not a playboy's joyride, which is what these commercial ventures really are.

Also, they are not, as has been pointed out many times, exploring anything. Yes, the moon hasn't been visited often. When's anyone going to go somewhere NEW on the moon? Not anytime soon, that's for sure.

Also moving the goalposts isn't reason. It's sophistry at best, disingenuous most likely. Where's the "stay" part of any private enterprise? When was their longer trip to the moon? None of this has happened, and it's not even on the (serious) cards. SpaceX makes things cheaper, I never argued that they didn't. But that's not exploration, any more than the sewing machine is an explorer as I've pointed out.

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[khallow]

Er no, it's got external funding.

Of course it does. It has NASA and it has private sources.

Also, they are not, as has been pointed out many times, exploring anything.

Not at the moment though Elon Musk has indicated plans down the road. But they are more important to long term space exploration now than NASA is because they attack the core obstacle to space exploration, namely cost of access to space.

and that's the very lowest end of estimates

I'm willing to lowball those ridiculously optimistic guesses. We need to keep in mind that NASA is grossly inefficient with its funding. You take at least an order of magnitude hit in cost from having NASA handle the project.

And the research focuses on economic stimulus? That assumes that economic stimulus works, namely, that stimulating economic activity is better than not. I just see it as another example of the broken window fallacy. The money that went to generating economic activity came from people who were going to generate economic prosperity - either now or in the future. I think it is a net loss both due to the net loss of wealth and because it encourages moral hazard, that of only thinking in the short term.

And once the stimulus goes away, so does any benefits from the economic activity. We are all poorer for such games.

As to the spin off angle, there's been a lot of notoriously outrageous claims as to what NASA has done over the years, such as computers and solar cells. What is ignored is that these developments would have occurred anyway.

Most of the time, NASA's role has merely been to sign checks for work that would have been done anyway, and might even have been more efficiently done in its absence due to the interference of pointless government makework and other distractions that NASA funding entails.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

"Plans" ..."long term"

Yeah, not going to happen.

". I just see it as another example of the broken window fallacy."

Well, you know nothing of research then. Today's technology runs on yesterday's research. Not a broken window by a long shot.

" these developments would have occurred anyway."

Prove it.

My original quote "I don't see anything yet that looks like exploration of space by private companies."

Your quote now: "Not at the moment..."

After all your moving of goalposts, all your redefinitions, you end up at the point I was at originally: Private Enterprise has yet to explore anything space related. Next time could you just have a bit of a think before you post?

Re:Good

[khallow]

" these developments would have occurred anyway."

Prove it.

What do you mean by "proof"? I mentioned solar cells and computers. I think the vast amounts of non-NASA-based funding for that research, is sufficient evidence. But maybe you have some other research in mind.

After all your moving of goalposts, all your redefinitions, you end up at the point I was at originally: Private Enterprise has yet to explore anything space related. Next time could you just have a bit of a think before you post?

Well, let's go over what I actually posted:

How about developing a new line of orbital launch vehicles. which SpaceX did, for less than a factor of ten that NASA would have payed for it (at least in the initial contract, it'd go up with cost overruns)? Some NASA people examined SpaceX's accounting books and reached that particular conclusion. Exploration (and more important things like development) of space will be helped along by this new generation of cheap access to space.

Did I say that SpaceX was directly exploring anything? No, I merely pointed that they were in the process of greatly reducing the cost of all space exploration, which I think is more important, and you should as well. Let's see some more examples:

Well, that just goes to show that you don't know what exploration is. "Been there. Done that." is useless as a principle of exploration because eventually you'll get to the point where it's too expensive to "Be there. Do that." You have to have affordable infrastructure, not merely a smattering of moderately adventurous activities.

That's what SpaceX (and in time others) will provide. Infrastructure for space exploration and other things. And rather than speak of the things we do in the past tense, we'll be speaking of them in the future tense.

And later:

All such trips whether exploration or other activities, must to some extent come from Earth. SpaceX makes all such trips cheaper whether it be another oh-so-boring trip to the Moon or a trip to someplace that would be "new" by your definition.

It's worth noting that even if we accept your analogy, it is possible for someone to buy a cheap plane ticket from Delta and explore (no "scare quotes" needed) NYC. Even if they've been to NYC before. It's a big place and not everyone has been everywhere there. So Delta and its cheaper air fares is indeed enabling new exploration of NYC as we speak.

And:

Not at the moment though Elon Musk has indicated plans down the road. But they are more important to long term space exploration now than NASA is because they attack the core obstacle to space exploration, namely cost of access to space.

Time and time again, I make the important point that SpaceX is doing more for space exploration than NASA is because it is making space exploration greatly cheaper and doing so at a cost an order of magnitude less than NASA could muster. There's no moving the goalposts since my argument has never changed. This is NEW, a game changer that will make future space exploration whether it be by NASA, SpaceX, or anyone else much cheaper.

I'm tired of how people think the token efforts that NASA does now are somehow more important than huge improvements in the economics of those projects which would radically increase what we could be doing in space with respect to exploration.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

And I'm tired of people who think that doing something again that was done fifty years ago counts as new exploration. NASA has given us people on the moon, robots on mars, images of the cosmic microwave background, evidence that there might have been water on Mars, probes that have been to the outer planets, probes that have left the solar system, images of the deep field array increasing the known stellar population of the observable universe by a factor of 100 billion, provided bounds on the age of the universe according to the standard lambda-CDM model, contributed to the first actual space station, and found planets outside our solar system.

THAT is exploration. THAT is a fundamental contribution.

You posted in reply to MY comment, not the other way around, which stated that you should make claims once private enterprise has DONE anything to explore space. Now you're trying to claim that none of this is evidence that private enterprise has explored space. That's fine - we agree: Private enterprise has done nothing to explore space. It's made minor refinements on achievements NASA made fifty years ago, and will never make a fundamental move ahead of government funded exploration. If we want to see the universe, to advance science, to further human knowledge, we go to NASA, if we want a joyride we go to SpaceX.

I know it's ideologically uncomfortable for you, so I appreciate you sticking with this, but you have to look at the results: Government funded space exploration is the only exploration with a track history, the only exploration which has done anything fundamentally new, and the only exploration that will take us to new places. Private enterprise may repeat some of these feats half a century later, and a lot cheaper as a result of someone else doing all the hard work, but will never advance us, never push the frontiers of science, never lay the first tracks to our neighbors.

Re:Good

[khallow]

And I'm tired of people who think that doing something again that was done fifty years ago counts as new exploration.

Well, as I noted, you can still be exploring even if someone else had done it first, such as using Delta airlines to explore NYC.

NASA has given us people on the moon, robots on mars, images of the cosmic microwave background, evidence that there might have been water on Mars, probes that have been to the outer planets, probes that have left the solar system, images of the deep field array increasing the known stellar population of the observable universe by a factor of 100 billion, provided bounds on the age of the universe according to the standard lambda-CDM model, contributed to the first actual space station, and found planets outside our solar system.

And that is remarkably poor ambition for someone who claims to care about things that haven't been done before. NASA has flushed more than a trillion dollars on such things.

We should have a lot more to show for what's been spent. Why don't we? Almost no infrastructure development. It's also worth noting that in the 80s and 90s, NASA actually was an obstacle to space development including exploration by opposing commercial activities in space. Prior to 1984, all things launched from the US had to be launched on the Space Shuttle by law. Now, most NASA payloads are launched on commercial launch vehicles. Imagine if NASA had encouraged commercial launch from the very beginning in the early 60s rather than be forced by law in the mid 80s through the early 90s.

It's made minor refinements on achievements NASA made fifty years ago

Major advances not minor refinements. The barriers to space exploration are mostly economic. In turn, lowering the cost of putting something in space is the largest such obstacle. A huge part of this debate is merely your failure to acknowledge the big problems.

Government funded space exploration is the only exploration with a track history, the only exploration which has done anything fundamentally new, and the only exploration that will take us to new places.

And has done for a monstrously inefficient price tag which I don't think you're even close to comprehending. As I've noted here, I think we're beginning to see that change with businesses like SpaceX to a far more powerful private enterprise ecosystem for development and exploration, driven by need to support valuable activities in space rather than national ego.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

We should have a lot more to show for what's been spent. Why don't we?

Well, to be fair, the other (big) part of the history of NASA is a dick waving contest with the USSR, to put it poorly. To put it nicely, space development was a national defense issue. Military had their ARPA, and NASA is a way to "allow" non-military to operate in space.

So what "we have to show for" goes beyond just the technical and scientific.

It's also worth noting that in the 80s and 90s, NASA actually was an obstacle to space development including exploration by opposing commercial activities in space..

Well, again, the Cold War was technically still going on until end of 1991. So it's not surprising that the government wants to hang on to control in the name of security (it's also not surprising the same can be said to many things government does today, or almost any time in history)

I would attribute rest of the 90s to be a transition from the Cold War mentality.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

"Well, as I noted, you can still be exploring even if someone else had done it first, such as using Delta airlines to explore NYC."

So, you contradict yourself, that's fine too. But either way, it's not exploring by any real count.

"And that is remarkably poor ambition"

You're joking. These are all NASA firsts. These are all genuine exploration of the universe we live in.

". Imagine if NASA had encouraged commercial launch from the very beginning in the early 60s rather than be forced by law in the mid 80s through the early 90s."

Indeed, we'd never have been to the moon, we wouldn't have a space station, and we wouldn't have any science. But some rich kids would get to float, so that's great...

"And has done for a monstrously inefficient price tag which I don't think you're even close to comprehending....national ego."

Yeah, real science is done for national ego, joyrides are serious business. Again, you're a joker. As for inefficiency: Prove it could have been done better. R+D is HARD. Repeats are easier. This is something I think you're having trouble comprehending: We wouldn't be anywhere near this advanced without NASA. We'd be building rockets for joyrides. NASA brought the science, and the science has brought the technology we love today, and will love tomorrow.

I reiterate: Private enterprise has done nothing new, aims to do nothing new, and produces nothing new. Its efficiency is zero.

Re:Good

[khallow]

You're joking. These are all NASA firsts. These are all genuine exploration of the universe we live in.

There's something like eighty or ninety space projects right now? That's Genuine Exploration (TM), right? Here's the problem, the one I've been talking about since the first post. Once the funding dries up, the only thing we'll have to show for all those missions is a meager bit of knowledge, some pretty pictures, and a little litter in space.

Let's give a big example of this profound lack of ambition. The Moon is the only world outside of Earth where you can teleoperate in near real time. It has a number of basic elements, such as, oxygen, aluminum, iron, and titanium which we know we'll need in Earth orbit and elsewhere.

But nobody has done any prospecting for those elements aside from the crude collecting of the manned Apollo missions on the surface. All that exploration and we don't really know what's there. We also know that the Moon has a number of large lava tubes, some capable of storing a small city, but no one has ever been in one either directly or via a probe.

We also know that at least for the next future it's going to cost at least $2.5k per kg (that's the minimum estimated cost for SpaceX's Falcon Heavy which will throw 50 metric tons to LEO) to put anything in orbit from Earth. But the Moon with its absence of atmosphere and weaker gravity well, just might be able to put things in Earth orbit for less than it'd take from Earth itself.

Because the Moon is the only body in the Solar System next to Earth, that makes the Moon the most valuable body in the Solar System outside of Earth itself.

So what can we say about NASA exploration of the Moon's surface? NASA stopped doing it in 1972. Sure, they've occasionally put an imaging satellite in orbit and since managed a couple of interesting collisions with the surface, but that's it. The most valuable body in the Solar System and it's been ignored for forty years.

The reason is quite simple. If we start putting space probes on the lunar surface again, then NASA, its tail-wagging-dog supply chain, and US political leaders would have to explain why the second generation of Apollo never happened. It's all ego-driven.

Second example of this mentality are the Mars Exploration Rovers. The rovers were launched in mid 2003 and arrived half a year later at the beginning of 2004. With a few months, they had confirmed all the features of these rovers worked well. So why didn't they ever send more MERs? In 2005-2006, they could have sent several more MERs to explore other places on Mars. And they could have repeated that every couple of years.

They could have had a half dozen or more MERs on Mars by 2010 for the cost of the Mars Science Laboratory. The only real innovations they would need is to shave some weight so that the MERs could continued to be launched on Delta II rockets (the 2003 trajectories were unusually low delta-v) and an upgrading of the landing system so that it allows for more accurate landing.

More exploration over a shorter time frame. But building new technology was more important than exploration of Mars. We see this again in no follow on missions for more MSL vehicles and a vague plan for a single sample return mission that might happen this decade. This is your NASA at work. It's all ego-driven.

The same principle holds for Earth-facing satellites, space telescopes, probes to other planets, even manned vehicles. Where's the second or third Hubble telescopes? Overlapping climate observation platforms? It's all ego-driven.

The US doesn't want to be known as country which doesn't have mission X in space. But it doesn't care enough to have a second copy of mission X in space.

NASA ignores obvious economic principles such as economies of scale in the number of space probes or the launch frequency of a orbital launch system. It ridiculously overpays for space stations and orbital launch vehicles.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you're really drinking the koolaid, aren't you? I don't know how you can dismiss these projects as a "meager bit of knowledge" - that's ridiculous. We know how old the universe is. That's not meager, that's one of the most profound discoveries of history.

Then you complain about NASA costing too much and at the same time want more Mars rovers.

"What you forget (or perhaps never understood in the first place) here is that the point of space exploration isn't to do something "hard", "new", or "stupidly expensive", but to explore space and what's in it so that we can use that for ourselves when we go into space."

Ah, it's all about YOU isn't it. Useful for ourselves, I'm glad you're qualified to judge that one. Except you're not. As I've pointed out repeatedly, but you seem incapable of understanding, private enterprise does NONE OF THIS. Not one iota. No mineral prospecting, no exploration of the moon or Mars, no looking for water. It does joyrides. For rich kiddies. Private Enterprise would never build a Hubble. Never. It's just not profitable. It would never send a probe to Europa like NASA is investigating doing.

As for your patronizing "read up..." - I WORK on this. For a private company, I'm not going to say which. And I dream of NASA contracts because then I'll be working on something that will be a real contribution.

But hey, keep letting your ideology drive your arguments. It's funny so far. You've got private enterprise exploring even though they don't, you complain that NASA doesn't build enough telescopes and probes, even though no-one else would ever fund this real exploration of space. And you complain about a lack of ambition, when all that private enterprise does is joyrides. That's it. No exploration, no prospecting, no telescopes, no probes, no scientific satellites, just sending kiddies up to feel weightless, and perhaps putting a satellite in orbit so a few thousand more people can get porn on their cellphones.

Show me SpaceX's moon-mining project? You can't - doesn't exist. Show me Bigelow's Mars rovers? Or anyone's Europa probe? Or a private Hubble? Or McDonald's Planck replacement? Show me something that private enterprise is doing to explore space, not just exploit what NASA has already done for commercial gain. Of course private enterprise has a role to play here, but it would be nothing without the pioneering work of NASA. Private enterprise sits on the shoulders of giants to pick the cheap fruit.

Re:Good

[khallow]

We know how old the universe is. That's not meager, that's one of the most profound discoveries of history.

We would have learned that anyway with Earth based observation.

Then you complain about NASA costing too much and at the same time want more Mars rovers.

Then you didn't get it. Those Mars rovers were paid for with existing NASA funding. More exploration, sooner. Don't you want that? My point here is that even ignoring whether NASA is actually doing anything useful or whether SpaceX and similar businesses can lower cost of access to space, we can still greatly improve what NASA does and the outcomes it gets through some simple changes such as doing things more than once.

As for your patronizing "read up..." - I WORK on this. For a private company, I'm not going to say which. And I dream of NASA contracts because then I'll be working on something that will be a real contribution.

Even worse. Someone who should know better, but chooses to sacrifice our future for a piece of the sugar. I will say this. Despite your claim to "work on this", you still sound profoundly ignorant, else you wouldn't continue to advocate an approach which is a proven failure over 60 years.

You've got private enterprise exploring even though they don't, you complain that NASA doesn't build enough telescopes and probes, even though no-one else would ever fund this real exploration of space.

Don't get me wrong. I find this to be a solid indication that what NASA does, isn't worth doing at the price. But ask yourself these questions: why should private enterprise get involved when NASA burns so much more? Why should suppliers who make such things get involved when NASA contracts are so much more plush and risk-free? If I were to come up with a space exploration system and actually launch it at someone's expense, what's to keep NASA from one-upping it with a much more expensive program than I can ever do?

That last question is quite relevant because there's been a few times particularly during the 90s when NASA killed private efforts (for example, the entire market for very small payload launches) by introducing its own publicly funded competitor. NASA can't be bothered to run a serious space exploration program, but it can be bothered to knock down the competition in order to avoid embarrassment.

Show me SpaceX's moon-mining project? You can't - doesn't exist. Show me Bigelow's Mars rovers? Or anyone's Europa probe? Or a private Hubble? Or McDonald's Planck replacement? Show me something that private enterprise is doing to explore space, not just exploit what NASA has already done for commercial gain. Of course private enterprise has a role to play here, but it would be nothing without the pioneering work of NASA. Private enterprise sits on the shoulders of giants to pick the cheap fruit.

The Keck telescopes are one such counterexample. The first attempts at a solar sail were privately funded (aside from cheap launches through the Russians). And then there's SETI which is privately funded these days.

As far as calling NASA "giants", I'm not saying that their work is completely without value, but that it isn't worth the cost that has been paid for it. Nor have they made even fairly mundane efforts to reduce their costs. Sure, it's nice that NASA's work actually gets used for something, but think about that. The only real value that we're getting out of NASA is some prep research for businesses like SpaceX or Bigelow. And we might know the age of the universe to a slightly greater accuracy than otherwise.

Preaching the choir?

[Opportunist]

It's not like you have to convince the average Star Trek fan that NASA should get some sensible funding.

But given the quality of the more recent Star Trek movies, this might just be the best thing they'll see that evening.

Re:Preaching the choir?

[Opportunist]

Sorry. English is not my forte when I've been working for 20 hours straight. I should stick to French. Or German. Or Spanish.

Re:Preaching the choir?

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd be suprised.

The last Star Trek film had a very wide audience, and probably the highest fraction of female viewers of any Star Trek movie (or show). They're clearly not just going after Trekkies.

Re:Preaching the choir?

[jythie]

I was actually thinking the other direction, that this is the wrong audience for NASA. While I know the stats are up for debate, from reading interviews it really seems like the creators of the reboot are primarily interested in reaching people who didn't like star trek.. so films that are heavily built on emotional acting, fast pace, and special effects. So standard action flic stuff. Which has its place, but most of the science geeks I know who loved Trek saw the first movie, were bored, and are not going to bother with the second one.

Re:Preaching the choir?

[Anonymous Coward]

There were no mistakes in your post, ac was trolling.

I think that the trailer could be better

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen a lot of better trailers for NASA than this one. Also, why is Kirk holding a gun in the movie poster??

Stretch goal...

[Anonymous Coward]

...submitter works at Lockheed.

Re:Bureacracy

[dmbasso]

The fundamental principle of Capitalism [...]

Because we know how well it works with humans in command, right[U+2e2e]

Re:Bureacracy

[Anonymous Coward]

bzzt wrong...nasa can't spend money on a commercial - this was funded by donations

Re:Bureacracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Fsck "our nation's" space agency; there's nothing "our" about it—the government just took my money and wasted it on a commercial.

I don't trust bureaucrats to allocate my capital properly, and this ridiculous propaganda campaign is proof of the validity of this distrust. The fundamental principle of Capitalism is that capital is best allocated by those who accumulated said capital in the first place; the bureaucrat has no idea what he's doing.

I used to be a Libertarian, then I grew up and got a clue.

Guess some people never grow up.

Re:Bureacracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes yes, damn the government. Too bad your far flung accusations have no basis in this case, as it's a crowdfunded campaign. But don't let facts get in the way of your derp. Wear it proudly.

Re:Bureacracy

[MightyMartian]

1. It isn't your capital, it's the taxes that an elected legislature empowered by the Constitution collects.
2. Don't wreck a perfectly good economic system with Libertarian nonsense.

Kinda ironic...

[denzacar]

The entire thing basically looks like the intro of Star Trek: Enterprise. Minus the singing.
Also, practically minus the "future". All that trailer does is show things NASA "used to do".
Making the ST: E intro far more inspirational.

On the other hand, "We are explorers" is not really the motto that syncs with Jar Jar's Trek - which is about lens flares, explosions, running, shooting and apparently tits in space.
Not that there's anything wrong with tits in space, it's just that when talking about "exploration of celestial spheres" our goal should be set a little farther than a pair of double Ds.

Re:Kinda ironic...

[Runaway1956]

Tits in space? Hmmm. Interesting concept. Should I assume that we'll find human women attached to those tits? I don't know that whole mountains of disembodied tits would benefit man or mankind very much.

Re:Kinda ironic...

[Intrepid imaginaut]

If Star Trek has taught us anything, it's that green skinned alien women also have tits.

Re:Kinda ironic...

[denzacar]

Should I assume that we'll find human women attached to those tits? I don't know that whole mountains of disembodied tits would benefit man or mankind very much.

Well, benefits of disembodied sexual organs is has been previously pointed out.

NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

the GNDN conduit of the real world

Surely nobody will go see the movie anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

The last movie turned out to be a lie.
It was called star trek and it had some characters with the same name in and a few things in common.
But it wasn't star trek, the universe wasn't the same one.
I don't imagine many people will be conned again

Re:Surely nobody will go see the movie anyway

[Black Parrot]

That's exactly how I felt about it: It was a modestly interesting SF movie, but it wasn't Star Trek.

Re:Surely nobody will go see the movie anyway

[Lawrence_Bird]

I can give some slack to character interpretations bu honestly, the ending sucked and I concur, other than name it did not feel like 'star trek'

Re:Surely nobody will go see the movie anyway

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Yea, it was a lot better than the old one.

Re:Surely nobody will go see the movie anyway

[jythie]

Yeah.. sometimes I wonder if the same thing happened as Super Mario Brother's 2... some new author created an original world with its own backstory and characters, then some executive said 'hey, we like this, but if we rebrand it as something high profile then more people will watch if we just change all the characters and backgrounds.. and hey, since it is a dream/reboot the artifacts from swapping things out does not even have to make sense!'

Re:Surely nobody will go see the movie anyway

[jedidiah]

That is the nature of any inter-generational story. Some fanboy will always whine that the newest incarnation is not a true Scotsman.

It doesn't matter if it's Dickens or Batman.

and this is news for nerds how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd see the point if this was old trek, but it's lens-flare bieber trek. Not NFN at all.

Re:Bureacracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Fsck "our nation's" space agency; there's nothing "our" about it—the government just took my money and wasted it on a commercial.

I don't trust bureaucrats to allocate my capital properly, and this ridiculous propaganda campaign is proof of the validity of this distrust. The fundamental principle of Capitalism is that capital is best allocated by those who accumulated said capital in the first place; the bureaucrat has no idea what he's doing.

What the hell are you talking about
Did you hear about the Hubble telescope and the Mars rover Curiosity?

Lost opportunity

[allypally]

Just think how much more awesomer this would have been if made by the IRS. Cheaper too - they already have a Star Trek set and costumes.

great idea, not-so-great video

[Anonymous Coward]

The curiosity rover's "7 minutes of terror" is way better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2I8AoB1xgU

Still gives me goosebumps watching it.

Target audience?

[thatkid_2002]

TFA cites younger people as being the target audience. As a young person who also happens to know quite a few other young people this seems strange. In general, young people tend to understand the importance of NASA and space programs in general - we all know all know the associated trivia such as where ballpoint pens and Teflon came from. We all know the importance of science - we are all (unless you are in the Bible Belt of the USA) taught it in school and we are all aware of what science can do for us.

It seems to me that the people who actually need to be targeted are the middle aged and older people who are in control of the votes and money needed to revitalise the space programs. Luckily, there is some penetration of Star Trek into these age groups.

Re:Target audience?

[Black Parrot]

It seems to me that the people who actually need to be targeted are the middle aged and older people who are in control of the votes and money needed to revitalise the space programs. Luckily, there is some penetration of Star Trek into these age groups.

Like, everyone who watched TOS when it was new...

Re:Target audience?

[thatkid_2002]

TOS was terrible. I know I'm going to get hate for saying that, but it's truly unbearable crap. No-wonder that whole age bracket has an aversion to science.

Re:Target audience?

[Rogerborg]

Yes, "that whole age bracket" agrees with you, which is why the Historical Documents marked the beginning and end of the franchise, and it died alone, unloved and unremembered, inspiring nothing and no-one.

Re:Target audience?

[Anonymous Coward]

its good to watch stoned

Re:Target audience?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, it's "cheesy" or "corny" or whatever the word is, but it's fun.

Re:Target audience?

[Black Parrot]

TOS was terrible. I know I'm going to get hate for saying that, but it's truly unbearable crap. No-wonder that whole age bracket has an aversion to science.

Yeah, it should have been sophisticated, like today's television shows.

Re:Target audience?

[Anonymous Coward]

"(unless you are in the Bible Belt of the USA)"
"No-wonder that whole age bracket has an aversion to science."

You are either extremely bigoted and arrogant or a troll.

Re:Target audience?

[jythie]

While terrible in its way, compared to other media of the time period it was rather groundbreaking, and actually did result in many young people getting interested in science and engineering. So while it might not have had much of a mass impact on the general public, it has been sited as having an impact on the minority that really drove engineering for many decades.

Re:Target audience?

[Sperbels]

It seems to me that the people who actually need to be targeted are the middle aged and older people who are in control of the votes and money needed to revitalise the space programs.

It's also nearly impossible to change the opinions of middle aged and older people.

Re:Target audience?

[Lincolnshire Poacher]

we all know all know the associated trivia such as where ballpoint pens and Teflon came from

Do tell.

The ballpoint pen was invented by Laszlo Biro in 1938

Re:Target audience?

[kermidge]

Neither ball-point pens nor Teflon came out of NASA. But if they spur your interest in NASA, science, and the rest, more power to y'all. Go for it!

Re:Target audience?

[thrich81]

Though I don't agree, your comment should get modded up as a conversation starter because it is both right and wrong. Yes, many of the TOS episodes are unbearably (can't think of the right word) trite by some modern standards and even at the time it was pointed out (among other things) that the concept of the ship's captain putting himself in life threatening situations was unrealistic (to say the least). However, for the time (and I was there to see it) it was a fascinating and insightful show which often dealt with social issues which were otherwise taboo at the time (the first interracial kiss on US TV, heck actually one of the first integrated casts on US TV!). And the science, while mostly wrong, still exposed many people, for the first time, to concepts of human-computer interaction, personal communications equipment, etc. A very good comparison, I think, is to the original Twilight Zone. An iconic show, many of those episodes are barely watchable today, though they were written by one of the best TV writers ever (Rod Serling), but if you back off from your 21st century expectations and watch them for what they were, mostly morality plays presented on a new medium (TV) you can enjoy even the worst of them. I do have to take extreme exception to your comment about the "age bracket and aversion to science" thing -- many of us old nerdy techies were fascinated by TOS and it probably influenced positively a huge number of us. And TOS certainly deserves the credit for introducing concepts used by later, arguably better shows (TNG, for a direct example). And as a point made by another poster, it's not like today's television fare is a garden of sophisticated, thought provoking programming. I suspect that even the current critical and fan favorites (The Walking Dead, anyone?) will not hold up well in 40 years. Anyway, as I said before, I appreciate your comment to open up this whole discussion; I ponder it myself sometimes while watching a rerun of TOS and thinking, "this isn't as good as I remember it!"

Re:Target audience?

[k6mfw]

TOS was terrible.

Both true and false. yes, the special effects were terrible compared to nowadays and Shatner's ego tend to dominate everything. However, they had to rely on compelling stories (take a look at credits of screenplays, you will see some notable SF authors). They could not use CGI to make up for a bad plot though it seems these days it what they are doing, and it ain't working (who watches sci-fi channel these days?). One thing for sure it generated a whole genre and several movies and TV shows all based on a series made way back in the 20th century.

Maybe that is the problem, we keep looking back at the glory days of NASA and ST TOS, all in the days when things were made in USA.

We need to get to a point when we can have arguments of too many people putting things and people into space, keeping their hands off the ancient Apollo landing sites, and bitching about those idiots contaminating Mars and Europa with landers not properly sanitized. Or economists arguing about plummeting platinum prices because someone snagged an asteroid loaded with this stuff and dumping the markets. And chemists in a storm about all this extraterrestial material disorganizing values on the periodic table of elements. Ah yes, fun stuff......

Re:Target audience?

[SternisheFan]

I'm re-watching ST-TOS now (friend let me copy the entire series in avi format), and I've seen the first few episodes, starting with the original pilot episode. The first season had amazingly involved storylines that were probably way over most viewers heads at that time, since most tv then was 'I Love Lucy' fare.

What ST did was give young people a version of the future that was hopeful, something that was seriously lacking in the sixties in peoples live. It showed people cooperating for altruistic reasons. Explored human emotions in ways that were not the norm then. It showed sixties viewers the possibility of a future where humans had not destroyed themselves by nucleur war, something seen as quite likely considering the state of the political world then. It was a future that people wanted to see actually happen for their childrens children, and damned if it didn't inspire so many to make much of what then was far-off science fiction fantasy into present day reality.

Re:Target audience?

[dryeo]

The history of the ball point pen goes back a lot further then that. It just took a long time to perfect with the Biro brothers making an important step in the ink department and having luck like meeting the President of Argentina on an ocean liner and American pilots discovering it.
Really it was Bich who ended up perfecting it and managed to sell it which was hard as so many ball point pens had leaked and ruined shirts.

Re:Target audience?

[SternisheFan]

There was a pen developed for writing upside down and in zero gravity, not by NASA. It was advertised as the space pen, and 'pumped' the ink to the tip when you pressed hard a few times. And it was used by astronauts, that got used in the ads for it. The Space Pen had a short run as a product and faded quickly. It was more an unneeded gimmick since gravity fed pens work quite well on Earth.

Re:Target audience?

[kermidge]

Sure, I've owned several, they work well; only drawback I ever found was a tendency for a very small blob of ink to appear when starting to write. I found they were more than a gimmick on Earth; I've had enough occasions taking down measurements or marking up framing, for instance, worked nicely, and sometimes better than just using a pencil (and you don't have to sharpen it).

Was done by Fisher, of Fisher Pen; he put in a million out of his pocket towards development, so the story goes. See Wikipedia for a decent article, or go to the company's website. Uses a sealed, nitrogen-pressurized thixotropic ink container. Russians (Soviets) bought lots of 'em also.

Re:Target audience?

[kermidge]

Sorry, should have been a hyphen before ink. And no, it didn't have to be pumped.

Re:Target audience?

[SternisheFan]

Thank you for correcting me, I never knew it was activated by a gas charge of 35 psi.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen Space Pen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Space Pen (also known as the Zero Gravity Pen), marketed by Fisher Space Pen Company, is a pen that uses pressurized ink cartridges and is claimed to write in zero gravity, underwater, over wet and greasy paper, at any angle, and in a very wide range of temperatures.

The Fisher Space Pen was invented by American industrialist and pen manufacturer Paul C. Fisher and is manufactured in Boulder City, Nevada, United States of America. Paul C. Fisher first patented the AG7 "anti gravity" pen in 1965. Pens claiming some or all of the same abilities have also appeared on the market from other manufacturers.

Models: There are two prominent styles of the pen: the AG7 "Astronaut pen", a long thin retractable pen shaped like a common ballpoint, and the "Bullet pen" which is non-retractable, shorter than standard ballpoints when capped, but full size when the cap is posted on the rear for writing.

Several of the Fisher Space Pen models (the "Millennium" is one) are claimed to write for a lifetime of "average" use; however the product literature states that the pen will write exactly 30.7 miles (approximately 48.15 kilometres).

Standard Space Pen refills can be used in any pen able to take a standard Parker Pen Company ballpoint refill, using the small plastic adapter that is supplied with each refill. Fisher also makes a Space Pen-type refill that fits Cross pens, one that fits 1950s-style Papermate pens (or any pen that uses that type of refill), and a "universal" refill that fits some other ballpoint pens.

Technology: The ballpoint is made from tungsten carbide and is precisely fitted in order to avoid leaks. A sliding float separates the ink from the pressurized gas. The thixotropic ink in the hermetically sealed and pressurized reservoir is claimed to write for three times longer than a standard ballpoint pen. The pen can write at altitudes up to 12,500 feet (3810 m). The ink is forced out by compressed nitrogen at a pressure of nearly 35 psi (240 kPa). Operating temperatures range from 30 to 250 F (35 to 120 C). The pen has an estimated shelf life of 100 years.

A common urban legend states that, faced with the fact that ball-point pens will not write in zero-gravity, NASA spent a large amount of money to develop a pen that would write in the conditions experienced during spaceflight (the result purportedly being the Fisher Space Pen), while the Soviet Union took the simpler (and cheaper) route of just using pencils. Russian cosmonauts used pencils, and grease pencils on plastic slates until also adopting a space pen in 1969 with a purchase of 100 units for use on all future missions. NASA programs previously used pencils (for example a 1965 order of mechanical pencils) but because of the substantial dangers that broken-off pencil tips and graphite dust pose in zero gravity to electronics and the flammable nature of the wood present in pencils a better solution was needed. NASA never approached Paul Fisher to develop a pen, nor did Fisher receive any government funding for the pen's development. Fisher invented it independently, and then asked NASA to try it. After the introduction of the AG7 Space Pen, both the American and Soviet (later Russian) space agencies adopted it.

In 2008, Gene Cernan's Apollo 17-flown space pen sold in a Heritage auction for US$23,900.

Re:Bureacracy

[Anonymous Coward]

This commercial was not paid for by NASA. As a Federal Agency, it is illegal for NASA to advertise. The commercial was privately organized and funded by aerospace lobbyists.

Re:Bureacracy

[Black Parrot]

Yeah, 'cause capitalists never screw up.

Or screw us.

Re:Bureacracy

[Anonymous Coward]

How in the hell do you manage to conflate Capitalism with the holy grail of national governance?

Look at all that light pollution - this is why you

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at all that light pollution - this is why most of you have never seen a starry sky. It's truly amazing and infinite times more inspiring than crap from Hollywood.

Finally

[dohzer]

I've been worried lately that to enough of my colleagues know about NASA or understand how prestigious it would look on their resume. Money well spent.
p.s. If you don't know, NASA is the government-funded space agency in the USA.

This is awesome BUT

[brunes69]

.. I wish there was a "This video was funded by public donations" under the NASA ad at the end. I can see a lot of people in the theatre being needlessly jaded by the idea that their tax dollars were spent advertising a government agency, when that isn't the case here.

All Hail the Federal Civil Servant

[gelfling]

In Start Trek's one world government run by the army, seemingly

Re:All Hail the Federal Civil Servant

[bill_mcgonigle]

You're just bitter that they send the roboticists away for reprogramming, aren't you? But with non-scarcity they need something for humans to do. Walk outside the ship to fix dangerous stuff? Great; and even better if a few float away or get eaten by space monsters.

Irrelvant space aggency

[Anonymous Coward]

Irrelevant space agency that needs to get abandoned in the cold-war era where it belongs.. (FIRE SALE)
seriously though, even in Star Trek it was a privately run thing with a really interested scientist trying to create a warp engine (and that's how it will happen)

people working at nasa are just doing their job, they don't care what they're doing as long as they get a frigging paycheck at the end of the month (jaded old workers)

Re:Irrelvant space aggency

[Lumpy]

Not it wont happen. a "warp engine" can not be made by some guys in their garage. it will take experiments on the billion dollar and trillion dollar scales to even hope to come up with anything that can do a significant % of C.

You watch far to many movies, Movies are not reality. Bill gates will not dump all of his wealth into ONE experiment.

Re:Irrelvant space aggency

[Anonymous Coward]

and i don't mean a guy in a garage, i mean a rich billionaire that's really interested in this POOP (hence fire sale)

Re:Irrelvant space aggency

[Lawrence_Bird]

Agreed. The only thing NASA should be involved in are basic science missions. And even there I think they should spin off their mission specialists/researchers to a university consortium. Mission control/operation services also could be spun off and offered as a service to any group.

I would also ask - why are there not any standardized delivery systems? IE, small, medium large to which instrument(s) can be readily attached? Why must NASA reinvent the wheel on every mission? Doing so could greatly reduce costs and time to space. Though I suppose the industry groups might object if their profit margins are cut.

Re:Irrelvant space aggency

[Maritz]

You mean they've wasted kajillions, surely.

Awesome trailer...

[Lumpy]

Problem is War is more profitable and more desirable to human kind. We prefer to kill each other in the name of god, peace, and love.

Please build more telescopes than spaceships

[WaffleMonster]

What excites me more than shuttle missions are satellites and probes NASA has been sending out all these years.

MRO and to a lesser extent MSL are worth 20 round trip human mars missions as far as I'm concerned. New telescopes like JWST are likely to be as priceless as HST and WMAP have proven to be.

It is simply cheaper and more productive to push technology without having to worry about earthly things like human safety.

My only problem with the video other than being slightly cheezy is the video is all rockets and no science.

Re:Please build more telescopes than spaceships

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Its using the right tool for the job.

The problem with NASA is that its a relic of the cold war. There is this manned mission thing that quite frankly is a waste of money. It does *not* even achieve anything that the space enthusiasts want. It has awful return on investment and stops the entire space program for years every time something goes wrong.

Some push manned missions because of inspiration and exploration spirit.. Shesh for the billions it costs you can make a lot of full length movies and release them for free.

Some claim you get more science done. This is odd since there is no scientific basis to such a claim. Lets not forget that probes, drones and robotic labs don't take people out of the loop, just out of hostile unlivable environments. In fact the apollo mission had crap return on investment, even for the technology of the time. That kind of mass budget could have really got a lot done, and since its not all life support system, probably been cheaper as well.

And if it is the science that is suppose to be the reason, then the current unmanned missions that are a fraction of the price of the ISS should already be inspiring everyone that give a crap? What does adding some dude with flag change?

Re:Please build more telescopes than spaceships

[Teancum]

In defense of NASA (and I'm a huge NASA critic), they seem to do better than most other government agencies in terms of returning value for tax dollars spent. At the very least the manned spaceflight missions provided some amazing entertainment and thousands of hours of programming for the major television networks at modest prices that would be comparable to Hollywood budgets.

I think using the "scientific inquiry" argument is about as lame as it gets and that doesn't even remotely touch what NASA actually accomplished.

The manned spaceflight program in particular has almost nothing to do with science, and that is mostly an afterthought. That is especially telling as the first scientist to go to the Moon was also the last one in the 20th Century to step onto the lunar surface. What you might say is that Apollo was an exercise in stretching engineering limits and pushing boundaries to see what could be done. That is what you get when you do things that have never been done before.

As for what NASA is currently doing, in particular the James Webb Space Telescope and the "Senate Launch System" that are currently in development, they are boldly going where thousands have gone before. I really don't see anything they are currently doing which even comes close to the boundary pushing NASA was doing in the 1960's when things were really happening. Almost all of that is now happening in private commercial spaceflight endeavors who are starting to get into space and get things done with NASA begging to come along for the ride.

Re:Please build more telescopes than spaceships

[the gnat]

I really don't see anything they are currently doing which even comes close to the boundary pushing NASA was doing in the 1960's when things were really happening.

This may be a fair assessment, but I'd also argue that the unmanned exploration missions have been incredibly successful and relatively efficient, and a more sustainable future for NASA. Science and technology don't always need to be "boundary pushing" - sometimes iterative refinement and incremental advances are just as important. Sure, the rovers and probes aren't especially daring, but they're relatively cheap, they've accomplished real science, and NASA has an excellent track record for pulling them off successfully - and just as importantly, no other organization has done anything comparable so far.

I don't see any conflict between letting NASA focus on (unmanned) science - and giving it the funding it needs to really excel at it - and letting the private sector lead the way in exploitation and human exploration of space. In fact I think that's exactly how it should be. The public sector may not always be the most efficient, but it has one key advantage: it can think extraordinarily long-term, in comparison to private companies which need a return on investment in the near future. Current missions like Kepler are laying the groundwork for advancements many decades or (more likely) centuries in the future. Personally, I'd like to see NASA focus on two things:

1) More planet-finding, including (eventually) telescopes capable of imaging extrasolar planets directly. (Probably using the sun as a gravitational lens, which makes Kepler look like a child's toy telescope, but that's the kind of long-term, far-out shit that I think NASA could rock.)

2) Continuing to probe (heh) every body in the solar system which might have life, or which is interesting for other reasons.

Missions like these will tell us what's out there; entrepreneurs and private investors can decide what to do with this information. One could also make a strong case for experimental propulsion research - let Elon Musk and others focus on making conventional propulsion affordable and routine (what the shuttle was supposed to do but didn't), and doing so quickly, and NASA can explore less conventional methods with a more open timeline.

Re:Please build more telescopes than spaceships

[Teancum]

I'd rather that NASA become much more like how the NACA (the predecessor agency to NASA) operated: They performed R&D to develop concepts and ideas, then turned those ideas over to private industry to make them into practical products. This happened in the aviation industry and it has benefited not just America (with a very strong aviation industry that is still around), but also everybody else in the world as well.

The James Webb Space Telescope simply needs to be cancelled though. It is an albatross around the neck of the robotic missions to deep space and doesn't even replace the Hubble that it supposedly is being built for. Mismanagement is horrible and it would be by far cheaper simply to dump the whole thing, restart the whole project over again from scratch if necessary, and get a whole new management team in charge or even evaluate if the project is even needed any more. It really is killing what is left of NASA at the moment, together with the SLS system that is sucking up whatever dollars are left. So many projects have already been cut to keep JWST alive, and it will only get worse until it is finally killed.

The problem isn't really the manned spaceflight program, but simply using what they have in a responsible manner. I'd agree that putting out a replacement to Kepler (essentially a Kepler 2.0 or however you define that perhaps even pointing at constellations other than Cygnus) and more missions to deep space as well. Ambitious projects like a balloon to Venus (a cloud-top observatory) and sending vehicles into the part of the solar system beyond Pluto would be awesome. Manned spaceflight should be in the mix, but they need to be reasonable and take advantage of the commercial spaceflight options that are now available instead of dismissing them.

NAUTLUS-X needs to be built, and it is a crying shame that won't happen. Genuine spaceships need to be built (as opposed to mere spacecraft). It could be built for the cost of the future SLS budget (consider what has already been spent as sunk costs) and be moving around the Solar System within five years.

Tired of Ads?

[MonsterMasher]

"Tired of seeing ads for cars and soda before the films you watch at the theater?"

A long time ago. I stopped paying $10 to then watch a commercial.. but I'm old fashion that way.

Wrong movie

[LordNimon]

What's the point of showing a NASA promotional video before a Star Trek movie? Everyone who watches that movie is already a fan of space exploration. The video should be shown in front of something completely different, like The Great Gatsby.

I would have sponsored the funding campaign on Indiegogo if that had been their goal. Instead, it's just preaching to the choir. What a waste.

Re:Wrong movie

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you see the recent star trek movie? It's a space fantasy. It's a blockbuster action movie. It's not a niche sci-fi film seen mostly by nerds like the old ones*, it made almost 400 million dollars in theaters alone.

This is a very appropriate spot for this, it doesn't even sound very expensive.

*Exception: "The one with the whales"

Re:Bureacracy

[bfandreas]

So we should entrust our future to people who use exactly the same rhetoric to justify blood diamonds, peddling inpenetrable financial constructs, weapons and run-of-the-mill South American dictators.
While your dogmatic assertions have some merit to them unmitigated capitalism is not what civilisation is supposed to be; The betterment of us all and those that come after us. Short term gain and long term goals do not mix very well. NASA has been spanning three generations and counting and none of them were in it for the money.

Your mad ramblings have made very clear that this infomercial is needed to attract those who might have their minds poisoned by the trappings of Get Rich Now and don't see yet that there is more to life than one's own petty existance. You know, the Working For Generations Not Yet Born bit. Not Working To Increase MY Shareholder Value. Mars funnily isn't made of diamonds. Immediate profits are not to be had.

Bureaucracy tends to happen when beancounting occurs. All for the benefit how your tax money is spent and what it does buy you. The answer of course is it buys you nothing. It might buy your great-great-great-grandchildren something if humanity does indeed suffer the misfortune of you procreating.

Space provides significant profits

[Lawrence_Bird]

for corporations suckling on the government teat: "Created by the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) of America" Want to know more?

Nerd test?

[Col. Klink (retired)]

Is this some kind of Nerd Test? The movie is called "Star Trek Into Darkness" (no colon).

Re:Nerd test?

[cmdr_tofu]

Noo it's "Star Trek into Darkness" (note the capitalization) http://xkcd.com/1167/

Should used actual Optimus Prime voice actor

[millertym]

... instead of a semi-close local small town play actor's.

Re:Should used actual Optimus Prime voice actor

[VanessaE]

If you read the fine article (yeah, right), it states that it actually is Peter Cullen. I presume he sounds like he does because he's not actually trying to do the low Optimus Prime voice we all know so well.

Re:Bureacracy

[Teancum]

More like funded by NASA fans and not really lobbyists. The distinction is a bit important to note, although I'm sure some lobbyists were involved as well.

The U.S. military is allowed to advertise (heck, they have a NASCAR team they sponsor and have run Super Bowl ads). The U.S. Postal Service was the primary sponsor of Lance Armstrong for more than one Tour de France race. Just because they are a federal agency doesn't prohibit them from running promotional advertising, but NASA is explicitly prohibited by federal law from doing this kind of advertisement.

Re:Bureacracy

[Blue Stone]

Speaking as a non-American, NASA is one of the few things I find myself admiring about the USA, and certainly one of the most worthy.

Your government clearly underestimates the high esteem in which NASA is held around the world, otherwise it would fund the bejesus out of it.

Re:Bureacracy

[jythie]

Do you rant at your doctors about how they should be balancing your humors and complain that the aether is hurting your cell phone connection?

The trip to mars.

[leuk_he]

This is all about NASA making a scientifically correct movie how to fly some astronouts to mars and back. They will use real life models of rockets and gear. And it will cost the budget of NASA a lot. THey might even make it *** an international co-production ***. Minimal CGI, and not those fake moon-landing minitures and errors like a waving flag.

It will be premiered on the news, and not in some MPAA controlled screen.

Re:The trip to mars.

[VanessaE]

Comments like this (serious or not) make me wonder just how many people out there truly believe we never landed on the moon, sent those probes to mars, etc.

Seen NASA Trailer!

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw that NASA trailer! It showcases NASA's new goal of getting a human back into space by the year 2100. :-)

now they only need to figure out the "space" part

[khallow]

If NASA was as good as doing things in space as they are at the propaganda, then we'd be doing great. Sure, they do a number of things in space that are remarkable, but the logistics and infrastructure for serious space activities just aren't there.

For example, they're kicking around the idea of a Europa ice drill. Why only one such mission? There are plenty of other icy Moon and asteroids out there. The same drill could be used on Saturn's moon Enceladus (which has similar liquid water activities). It could be used on Ceres, the largest asteroid which also happens to have a ice layer. It could be used on all of the other major Jovian moons. It could with modification be used on Phobos (a moon of Mars) or some Trojan asteroids of Jupiter.

Same issue with Mars spacecraft. All the rovers are one-off. They never sent another wave of MERs (Mars Exploration Rover) or MSLs (Mars Science Laboratory).

They never say, "Oh, this is a really cool tool. Let's use it more than one time." Manned space is even worse off with ridiculously priced space stations and terrible launch vehicle development efforts. It's all about securing government funding for all the special interests in the right congressional districts.

This is the lack of ambition and economic awareness that will cripple NASA until they (and the US in general) change how they do things.

Can they supply a working space ship?

[Anonymous Coward]

By Grabthar's Hammer ... what a space program.

NASA Logo

[walllaby]

Does anyone else still prefer the 1975 red typographic "worm" logo NASA used to use? I would have loved to see that in white against a black background at the very end of this trailer. Maybe it's just a generational thing; most movies trailers can't resist throwing in their titles in Bank Gothic near the end.

Re:NASA Logo

[k6mfw]

In 1990s NASA administrator Dan Goldin had a eradication program to rid the NASA worm. NASAwatch had a "worm watch" page to identify those worms that escaped eradication i.e. photo of visitor center on Mountain View phone book has object with the worm, and Hubble Space Telescope (oops, kinda hard to get rid of that). Occasionally the discussion comes back, http://nasawatch.com/archives/2009/03/worm-watch.html

Potatohead here.. That brought a tear to my eye

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit. Didn't think it would. Was not expecting it to go that way.

I miss who we were as a nation. Life is hard and knowing we are getting after it like that is inspiring in the best of ways.

Re:Bureacracy

[khallow]

1. It isn't your capital, it's the taxes that an elected legislature empowered by the Constitution collects.

And if I find a way to avoid paying those taxes legally or illegally, it remains my capital. Funny how that works.

2. Don't wreck a perfectly good economic system with Libertarian nonsense.

The US system has been circling the drain for decades. No doubt due to the Libertarian nonsense which has never been implemented in practice.

Re:now they only need to figure out the "space" pa

[kermidge]

Funding and continuity of mission as dictated by Congress is needed for what you describe, and that's been lacking since well before the end of the Apollo program. NASA has struggled just to manage to do what they're doing now.

way to stereotype

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations! You managed to inflate the intelligence of yourself and your peers while simultaneously denegrating and stigmatizing others. You earned bonus points for slamming the bible belt. Perhaps, if we had a visionary, charismatic leader like yourself, we could shed our problems and achieve uptopia.

MTV

[Anonymous Coward]

Young people are not what you say. MTV. QED.

Too bad the video is bad...

[787style]

Why couldn't they have used the amazing Carl Sagan video?

Re:Bureacracy

[Anonymous Coward]

So, somewhere along the way you decided that American policy makers care about the opinion of foreigners. I'd be fascinated to hear how you drew such a conclusion, especially since they don't even act as though they care about the opinions of their own countrymen.

Re:Bureacracy

[Maritz]

Fsck "our nation's" space agency; there's nothing "our" about it—the government just took my money and wasted it on a commercial.

I don't trust bureaucrats to allocate my capital properly, and this ridiculous propaganda campaign is proof of the validity of this distrust. The fundamental principle of Capitalism is that capital is best allocated by those who accumulated said capital in the first place; the bureaucrat has no idea what he's doing.

Given that this was funded by an NGO through IndieGoGo, you should re-assess your remarks given that you are railing against something that didn't happen. Other than that, well done.

Re:now they only need to figure out the "space" pa

[Maritz]

I agree with you in general. However I would say that Europa is the outstanding target candidate, because there is significant evidence of melt-through (e.g. Conamara Chaos, other 'chaos' formations). This suggestive of a reasonably thin (10km) crust and potential for cycling of materials through the crust.

Re:Bureacracy

[Anonymous Coward]

"And if I find a way to avoid paying those taxes legally or illegally, it remains my capital. Funny how that works."

And if my aunt were a man she'd be my uncle. This is a ridiculous statement. Grow up.

Nor has communism, or anarchism, nor anything else. But that's because anyone with half a brain can see through them, just like libertarianism. Libertarianism would never get us to the moon, would never cure a disease (treatment is much more profitable) and wouldn't do shit in the face of a Panzer division, but hell, let's keep flogging the dead horse that is this infantile religion.

Re:Bureacracy

[khallow]

And if my aunt were a man she'd be my uncle. This is a ridiculous statement. Grow up.

A lot of grown ups figure out how not to pay their taxes.

Libertarianism would never get us to the moon, would never cure a disease (treatment is much more profitable) and wouldn't do shit in the face of a Panzer division, but hell, let's keep flogging the dead horse that is this infantile religion.

That's not its job. It's to create a sustainable society which is capable of doing those things.

So bleeping cool

[zorro-z]

All I can say is: WOW. Seeing that video is the kind of thing that inspired me to want to be an astronaut in the first place. I went to Space Camp twice, won the Right Stuff award one time... but my less-than 20/20 vision conspired against me.

Re:Bureacracy

[CayceeDee]

It's to create a sustainable society which is capable of doing those things.

You are kidding right. The Fiscal Libertarian methodology cannot create a sustainable society. It doesn't matter what the Objectivist pipe dreamers say. Any system based solely on the premise of "as long as I get mine" isn't sustainable in the long term because everything becomes an externality. It especially isn't suitable for a space faring civilization.
Think about a long space journey. A couple of years long or longer. Each person is only concerned with his own profit and his own survival. What happens when the water system does down and the people needed to fix it decide to extort major profit from the situation. I know how to fix it and if you don't put me in charge then I won't help you fix it. They can take care of the their own repairs, but they don't have to do a thing to help you with yours. After all they have what they need. My favorite example is from the media. The scene in the original Total Recall movie where Cohaagan turns off the air machines because they belong to him.
Sorry, but space exploration requires a high level of cooperation and interdependence which is something Libertarians can't handle. The Libertarian pipe dream is an illusion based on ease of resources and the opportunity to pass the buck to someone else. Won't work when you are in a closed space colony.

Re:Bureacracy

[khallow]

So what am I supposed to say to your blatant straw man? Why are libertarian societies going to be any more likely to have problems here than anyone else who has the same cooperation problems?

Each person is only concerned with his own profit and his own survival.

Why would that be the case? Are you only concerned about your profit and survival? What makes you so different from the libertarian?

My favorite example is from the media. The scene in the original Total Recall movie where Cohaagan turns off the air machines because they belong to him. You do know that's fiction and didn't really happen, don't you?

Could have been a lot more convincing if...

[heteromonomer]

In my opinion it could have been far more convincing. It is not just an "optional" desire to explore the reason we should fund NASA. It is the moral and logical imperative in order to survive as species. For the survival of intelligent species on earth. Larry Niven's line comes to mind: The dinosaurs are extinct because they did not have a space program. We need more telescopes around the earth and Venus to look for incoming small and large objects that can hit earth. And then we need to devise ways to intercept and avoid them. This argument does not make space exploration an optional luxury, but a critical necessity.

SpaceX vs NASA

[sanman2]

I'd prefer a commercial ad pitch from SpaceX rather than one from NASA, which looks more like a pitch for taxpayer dollars.

SpaceX has accomplished so much in the last 11 years since its founding, that by the time the next 11 years are over, they will have relegated NASA to a backseat role.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujX6CuRELFE

Dumb and dumber

[Anonymous Coward]

First, by using the NASA video, they will fail the same way NASA always fails... by NOT telling the audience what it needs to know and does not already know: That NASA only gets a fraction of a percent of the federal budget. Every time the public is polled on this stuff they think most government money goes to: the military, foreign aid, "waste, fraud and abuse", and the space program. The truth is that we spend more than ten times as much every year in interest on the national debt as we spend on NASA

Second, By airing at Star Trek showings, they are reaching out to people who already like "space stuff"... but most of them are into the wrong type of space; too many of them want to know when we will have warp drives and phasers and sex with aliens while not enough are interested in the hardest part of spaceflight (the 100 miles between the ground the black airless void, both going up and coming back down). For many Trekkies/Trekkers a "real" space program is boring and most will never act to support it. They'll not make a phone call to, send a snailmail to, or kick some bucks to a politician who supports NASA unless that politician already supports other things he/she likes; in other words: even for most SciFi people, NASA is a lower priority than just about everything else including social policies (like abortion, gay marriage, etc) personal economics (like student loan policy) superficial things (like how "cool" a politician seems) and even non-political things that take their time (like a Taco Bell run, or going out to a movie...)

Third, an outside group running an ad in some movie theaters cannot overcome one basic fact: NASA is now so incapable/inept/pointless/incompetent that it cannot even put a monkey on a sub-orbital flight (something it could do back in the 1950's). NASA made attempt after attempt after attempt to design a replacement for the Space Shuttle over the past couple decades and failed on every try... it became too dependent upon a defense industry that had shrunk and consolidated post-cold-war to the point where we now have several big firms that each is essentially a monopoly in the area of defense it has focused on. Anything the taxpayer buys from these firms is now nearly guaranteed to be behind schedule, over cost, and bug-riddled (they simply lack competition and they KNOW that their customer, the government, also knows they lack a competitor to turn to). As a solution, many herald Space-X... which is nice, but they too are learning to live on government money and if they do not work VERY hard to resist the urge they will gradually morph into another big lazy corrupt defense contractor. When Space-X goes public there will be lots of exciting news stories and a big public IPO... but they they will have a board, and their investors will demand increasing profits by any means..... geeks should remember there was a day when the board at a place called Apple thought that the place needed to be run by a sugar-water salesman instead of one of its founders. This sort of pressure can override even the best intentions of a CEO.

Here, in the spring of 2013, if congress told NASA to either put an American in space on an American rocket by the end of the year or be de-funded and disbanded, Charlie Bolden would start issuing layoff notices and turning-off the lights; the agency lacks a "can-do" spirit. Some other administrator in the same spot might order his agency to focus on helping Space-X man-rate the Dragon/Falcon in the available time, but that would mean reducing paperwork and regulations (regulations that were not there to block NASA from putting two government astronauts aboard the very first space shuttle launch). It's partly an attitude thing; NASA employs far too many non-technical government employees who have nothing to do with spaceflight (or aviation) who are comfortable and want to keep getting paychecks, but real action (like putting people into space) is risky and if such actions go bad can lead to job-loss for managers and bureaucrats.... in such an environment "can-do" attitudes are dangerous and disruptive.

Oh, please...

[Anonymous Coward]

A robot might crash on Mars.... TERROR!!!! ... Oh, the HUMANITY!!!!!!..... Robots are destroyed every day in factories all over the world.

That whole "7 minutes of terror" thing was about the fears that a bunch of [a] over-paid government employees, and [b] researchers and grad students (with future research papers and grants on the line) might lose the gravy train that they were counting on for the next few years of their careers. If a guy/gal is planning to make his/her house payments for the next two years from a paycheck provided in exchange for operating a rover, and the rover is destroyed, then he/she is out of work... that's the only "terror" involved and that person does not care about the "terror" that any of the taxpayers who pay his/her salary face on every April 15th.

In a SANE world, the people exploring Mars would finally grow some brains and would build a series of much cheaper identical rovers and plan to send each to explore different areas of Mars as launch vehicles could be afforded... If any particular rover "crashed-and-burned", the next rover in line would use the next launcher available to re-attempt that mission; no jobs would hinge on landing and then operating one unique, extremely expensive, specialized hunk of hardware that is so expensive the exercise can only be re-attempted at several year intervals. Oh, and those newly-sane people would send the rovers to places people on Earth might actually be interested in... like the jaw-dropping volcanoes, canyons and other such places (like the mountains that some morons think are alien faces) that people know are there. Good geology can be done in such places while still entertaining and inspiring the public. The current crop of people who design, build, and operate robotic explorers are absolutely CLUELESS about public relations and inspiring the public.... then they lament the lack of greater public support.

Re:Bureacracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't bother arguing with the statists. They're just so heavily invested mentally into their ideas that they will fight you to their last breath.

Re:Bureacracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, man, don't bother. It's like they have all these reasons and arguments, evidence and rational thought that shows it's a bad idea, when we all know that, like, libertarians would totally take care of everything... I mean themselves... I mean, the tragedy of the commons doesn't apply because....

SCREW THE STATISTS!

Re:Bureacracy

[GodGell]

Speaking as a non-American, NASA is one of the few things I find myself admiring about the USA, and certainly one of the most worthy.

Your government clearly underestimates the high esteem in which NASA is held around the world, otherwise it would fund the bejesus out of it.

Speaking as a non-American, NASA is one of the few things I find myself admiring about the USA, and certainly one of the most worthy.

Your government clearly underestimates the high esteem in which NASA is held around the world, otherwise it would fund the bejesus out of it.

Speaking as an European, ...EXACTLY!!!

NASA is probably the greatest (still-)standing achievement of the United States when comprehended as a whole.

It is a representation of back when the USA was at its finest.