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Draft NASA Funding Bill Cancels Asteroid Mission For Return To the Moon
MarkWhittington writes "A draft version of the 2013 NASA Authorization Bill nixes any funding for President Obama's asteroid retrieval mission and instead directs NASA to return astronauts to the lunar surface as soon as possible, funding of course permitted. The NASA bill is currently working its way through the House Science Committee. Thus far the Senate has not taken up NASA authorization. However the cancellation of the asteroid retrieval mission and an insistence on returning to the moon, which both President Obama and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden have opposed, would place Congress on a collision course with the White House should that version of the bill be passed by both houses of Congress."
Pork barrel for the 21st century
I'm sure the work will be spread out among every important congress person's districts
And it shouldn't. Going back to the moon is sexier and great for the ego, but working on capturing asteroids is more useful. But most Americans prefer things very simple. They think the moon is a planet and full of resources while an asteroid is a ball of sand like you see at the beach. It doesn't matter that that sentence contains many wrong things; it's simple and aligns with an ignorant masses level of common sense. The bottom line is people will say Republicans want to go back to the moon and reap the great benefits while Obama wants to visit a stupid rock. Never mind that "stupid rock" could contains trillions of dollars worth of resources and even some unknown/unavailable/rare materials.
Not sure how any serious engineer or scientist works at NASA these days. NASA's mission changes quarterly (or more frequently), subject to political whim. I think our only real hope in the practical exploration of space lies with commercial enterprise. Which, truthfully, isn't that bad a deal. Of course, we still don't have any viable commercial enterprise working yet (lots of startups but nothing concrete at this point). A friend of mine is a scientist who worked at NASA for 12 years. He bailed about 10 years ago because of the political interference and now works at a university on the west coast. Smart man.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
We would do both...
You can have your god back when you are old enough to handle the responsibility.
Scientific missions should not be determined by political whims.
> A mission to an asteroid seems like it would be much cheaper and quicker to accomplish.
Can you elaborate? It's farther. It's more dangerous (less is measured/known/visible, I believe). There's a lot more chance of well, getting his by micro meteorites up to big ones. Sample collection is going to have to be via new method(s)...I'm just trying to figure out what's the easier part. I agree it would give better return value. But if it was done quicker and cheaper, I'd be very pessimistic about anyone coming back.
OK, energetically, there are asteroids that we could could reach for roughly the same delta-V as going to the Moon, and coming back. (To put it another way, that Apollo could have reached with the Saturn V.) So, energetically, it's a wash, at least for the NEO we would be going to first.
In terms of technology, we are more or less there for an asteroid - we have demonstrated long duration flights on the ISS, and you don't land on a small asteroid, you dock with one, and that we have technology for. We just need a launch vehicle. For the Moon, we HAD the technology (the Lunar Module), but lost it, and estimates to get it back are in the billions of dollars. Advantage, asteroids. Plus, it turns out landing on the Moon and on Mars are rather difficult, so there is no synergy advantage in terms of going to Mars if we develop a Lunar Module first. Again, advantage, asteroids.
(I believe that avoiding that LM cost/development time was the "cheaper and quicker" the OP was referring to.)
Sample collection is well in hand, and not really a problem for either Moon or asteroid. That's a wash.
Now, going to an asteroid for 9 months is indeed more dangerous than going to the Moon for 9 days. No doubt. However
- if we are ever going to get to Mars, we have to develop the capability to do long duration deep space missions. Going to an asteroid is no more dangerous (or not much more dangerous) than just going out there and coming back, with much more return.
- When we do go back to the Moon, we are likely to go to stay. It is by no means clear that going to an asteroid for 9 months is more dangerous than going to the Moon for 9 months.
So, for the danger aspect, I regard as a wash, except that the asteroid mission would have real synergies.
So, IMHO, the advantages for the Moon are week and iffy, while the advantages / synergies for an asteroid are real and solid.
Also, there is a LONG history of commercial development riding the back of initial government investment. NASA going to an asteroid would jump-start commercial asteroid mining.
It's the Obama administration's idea, so it must be wrong. Just like when Obama has picked up old Republican ideas and tried to push them, they become wrong.
Sometimes I wonder it Obama's support of NSA domestic spying is just a clever way to get Republicans to come out in favor of personal privacy. It wasn't that long ago that the Republicans clearly stated that there was no right to privacy enumerated in the Constitution. Now because it's against Obama, they're thumping the privacy tub really hard. (Though I'll bet they still don't think any right to privacy applies to gay conduct, even in one's own home.)
But unfortunately I've lost sufficient faith to think that that's what he's doing, The "mini-me" cartoon seems scarily accurate, and makes today's Republican Congress-critters seem all the more buffoon-ish.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
What hardly anyone understands is that space is full of abundant energy.
The world's fossil fuel (oil, coal, and natural gas) reserves are equal to 7 trillion barrels of oil, and one barrel contains 6 x 10^9 Joules. Thus we have 42 x 10^21 Joules of fossil fuel energy. The area within the Moon's orbit (384,000 km radius) has 38 x 10^21 Joules of sunlight passing through every minute, nearly as much....Every Minute!
Asteroids and the Moon are sources of raw materials, but the energy is what enables you to do something with it, and solar energy in space is easily extracted.
Asteroid capture and mining is potentially lucrative but completely unknown in terms of economy, safety, proper technique, etc. Generally what governments excel at is exploration of unknowns. You think there would BE private space flights and planned space stations if NASA and the USSR hadn't gone up first to see if, oh, people could even survive in zero-G, let alone get up there and back? Is it inefficient? Sure. But governments can take risks that private agencies, with shareholders that demand risk prevention, can't. Once the maps have been made, so to speak, then you can get the massive influx of private sector enterprise.
In other words, it's an investment.
I'll be honest, we're throwing science against the wall to see what sticks. -Cave Johnson
First off, this nightmare that is ongoing with NASA, is NOT NASA's fault, but the fault, of the God Damn neo-cons that are running the house. .750B per launch and then another .750B rebuilding the craft for another launch ). It is INSANE that we spend that kind of money.
.5B / launch, and they will get 2 launches/ year for 3 years. Also, whoever has the lower amount will get 3 launches/ year. IOW, you can get 50% more launches by being a GOOD low bidder (i.e. has to be realistic). You will note that we will spend 2.5B/year on sending up equipment for 3 years.
The majority of those shits are looking to keep NASA as a Job's bill. They do not care whether we go to the moon or not. THey want to spending our money on SLS which is mostly situated in neo-con districts( I note that a few dems back this as well, but they are pushing for both SLS and private space; spend, spend, spend).
So, what is insane about this? We will spend 20B for a launch vehicle that is mostly based on 60's/70's technology and design and will give us exactly ONE launch vehicle (though with several different designs). Since this vehicle will launch so infrequently, it will cost us 1.5-3B PER LAUNCH. Yes, it will cost as much or more than the shuttle did ( 1.5B per launch was the final price that we paid to send 7 ppl and 24.5 tonnes into LEO; that included the
So, what is the sane Alternative? The one that Obama, dems, and even the tea-party is pushing: We need PRIVATE SPACE.
If we spend less than 2B over the next 2-3 years, we can have 3 launchers that will carry 7 ppl into leo (dragon rider/f9, atlas V with either cst-100 or dreamchaser). With this, we are guaranteed that we will NEVER lose cargo or human access to space again.
BUT, it gets better. Bigelow Aerospace has a SSA with NASA that both are working on getting private space to the moon BY 2020. It will costs less than the 20B that neo-cons are trying to force on NASA. Most importantly, by allowing NASA to pursue the asteroid AND help private space, we gain:
1) multiple launch vehicles so that we never lose space access again.
2) multiple tugs/fuel depots, that will include electric tugs (suitable for moving equipment/sats) and chemical tugs (suitable for moving ppl, or starting missions to extra solar).
3) multiple space stations at various altitudes in orbit, along with friendly nations helping to fund this.
4) a lunar base by 2020, again, with friendly nations helping to fund this (by paying the private companies money to put ppl on the surface).
5) Man on Mars by 2025.
6) learning on how to move asteroids around, and hopefully, prevent a large impact on earth. In addition, this technology will then allow private space to mine other asteroids.
And if we do this smart, we will then create a COTS-SHLV, in which we hold a contest for 2 launch systems to carry a minimum of 150 tonnes to LEO, for which we give 5B each to develop it. In addition, later one, we offer up 2 competitive contracts in which company will carry a minimum of 150 tonnes to LEO for no more than
You will note that the above spends just about the same as what the neo-cons want to spend on just building a rocket. BUT, if we do the above correctly, we will have NASA focus on just going to an asteroid, but also helping private space get BEO, and hopefully, NASA will be able to R&D new tech, such as nuke engines (we lead the world on this and our tech from the 60s is STILL ahead of what everybody else has).
With above approach, we convert NASA back into what it was before neo-cons turned them into a jobs program for themselves, get private space from being a cost center into a taxable item, and get ourselves BEO.
BUT, these god-for-saken neo-cons need to be stopped.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Putting money on Moon related projects has helped everyone, and accelerated human achievement better than any program that uses money to subsidize greed.
If you've followed Jon Stewart more, you'd know that he's painfully aware of this. On several occasions he has rather angrily taken the mainstream media to task, primarily with the tune, "I'm a comedian, why aren't YOU covering this stuff the way it ought to be!"
Jon Stewart is the Court Jester of our day. (Which is a bit more than one might think, if you look up more of the role of the Court Jester in medieval times.)
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.