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NASA Chief Tells the Critics of Exploration Plan: "Get Over It"
mknewman (557587) writes "For years, critics have been taking shots at NASA's plans to corral a near-Earth asteroid before moving on to Mars — and now NASA's chief has a message for those critics: 'Get over it, to be blunt.' NASA Administrator Charles Bolden defended the space agency's 20-year timeline for sending astronauts to the Red Planet on Tuesday, during the opening session of this year's Humans 2 Mars Summit at George Washington University in the nation's capital."
Can the astronaut be dead BEFORE they send him to Mars? ...because he certainly won't last long there.
This is a good analysis of NASA. It's a good oldie, but it should be read more often.
I have one thing to say. Hurry the fuck up.
When I was a kid, there was so much "by the year 2000". Space stations. Moon bases. Mars colonies. Mining asteroids. Deep space missions. Fleets of spacecraft. Hypersonic travel around the earth.
The only thing resembling a real space ship has been retired. 1960s tech is back as the best thing anyone can come up with, and it's totally owned by the Russians.
I am impressed by probes. They are cool toys. But they can't replace a person standing there, making decisions. Asking "what if..." We learn from being and doing. The rover we have on Mars now has a mostly busted wheel. A wheel that a human could have riveted a patch over in a few minutes. Or maybe some duct tape. You know, what the Apollo astronauts did, because they were there. Where humans can improvise, and grab a roll of tape.
If we hadn't given up on the space race, maybe we'd have most of those things. So we slacked for 20 years, lets get back on track.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Look a few articles down, and you will see one about FIRST robotics. Robotics is absolutely a requirement of any future space program.
Yet, slashdot, a web site for geeks, has a comment post count of 6.
This by itself is hugely important - there is little to no interest in a fundamental technology of the future.
Couple that with the US's current anti-science sentiment, and NASA being a science department of a funding challenged government, and the US days of space exploration is done for a while. Close NASA, sell the assets to the Chinese, let someone else take their rightful place as leaders.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
If I were planning a trip to Mars, solar and cosmic radiation would be one of my main concerns. And to date, I have not seen designs for a delivery system that would adequately protect crew members from what could be a catastrophic situation. We do not want to lose the first expedition to something like this. However, the shielding required dramatically alters the economics of the mission (lead's not cheap to shoot into orbit, let alone Mars). And that's just getting there. If we want to enjoy any duration of exploration or colonization, we should be looking for caves. Without a magnetosphere, it's going to be tough.
Radiation Rules Exploration
lol coming from a guy posting in monospaced font
Bravo, Mr Bolden! NASA does exceptional work. Sometimes the armchair critics should just STFU and let NASA get on with the fun stuff.
Hey, dumbass!
Browser settings. On your computer. Not his.
Hey, dickhead!
I like to allow people to post code samples in monospace format. Arker abuses this function on this site by choosing the "code" option when he should not. There's no discriminator option in the browser for "Fix only Arker's jackass choice of posting format while leaving responsible users' posts alone".
I would settle for simply having his comment threads excised from the entire forum, but that's not an option in Slashcode.
Who the hell uses the tt tag?!
On that note, why is my browser even interpreting the tt tag...
Provide incentives for private industry, and get the fsck out of the way.
Promise $5 billion to the first company to send the same spaceship to orbit 10 times and return. $10 billion to the first company to send the same spaceship to geo-sync orbit 3 times. $20 billion to the first company to bring an asteroid above size X to a lagrange point. $50 billion to the first company to have people live on the moon for two weeks. Change the goals and figures to suit. Total cost will be a fraction of having the bloated NASA bureaucracy do the same things.
Then get rid of all possible regulations, and eliminate most liability. Space is hazardous - let's assume participants are adults who know what they are getting into.
Then get out of the way.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Those comparison human ability versus rover crack me up. The problem is that they are comparing one single rover against one human. What they should compare is the energy and material resource expanded to 1) launch a human 2) make sure it arrives alive 3) stay alive long enough to do stuff 4) we are not even considering it coming back alive 5) we are not even considering the horrendous cost of setting up a colony (when we aren't even a step nearer to do one on moon) 6) and we will also ignore that rover are expandable I.O.W. if the first rover crash and burn, resend another one. If you DO the comparison, then it is much cheaper to make a serie of automated vehicule which can gather stuff analyze it, and if you see you are missing info or one break, send another one.
Human on mars is only a question of fulfilling a dream, a dream which is completely cut off from the reality of cost. it is nice for you to have a dream, but some of us prefer practical solutions.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Most highly read sites are using layouts like this now because they adapt well to both Mobile and Tablets, which is how more and more people are viewing the web nowadays. Browsing the web with a keyboard and mouse with a monitor is going the way of the dinosaur very rapidly.
Ur already there.
Perscriptio in manibus tabellariorum est.
I fail to see how taking up 40% of the screen real estate in landscape mode on a cell phone is "adapted well to mobile".
The asses who do this do not even give an optional close box on these overlays. I look forward to urinating on the grave of the software engineer who invented this monstrosity.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Who the hell uses the tt tag?
Arker does, every time he posts. He likes his posts to look different from everyone else, then he tries to convince people it's their browser settings that make his posts look strange and not his deliberate intent. He gets a lot of attention for it. He's getting it right now, again. It's tiresome. It's trolling.
Bold words from someone who probably be long gone from the job before NASA even tries to get someone into low earth orbit again.
Interesting point. Back it up with some data, and get modded out of flamebait?
The layout is adaptive. Load it in your phone and see what it looks like. It will look at lot like browsing articles on Flipboard.
You can mod the AC down if you like, but it's true. NASA basically does just enough to justify its budget each year. But it's really more of an employment program and funnel for government leech contractors than anything resembling what it was during the Space Race. So they play along with whatever fictional promises the latest President makes, send up some probes, and piddle around on ISS. But they know damn well that they aren't ever going to put a man on Mars (probably not ever even the moon again). Shit, they can't even put a man in LEO right now.
So every President makes his obligatory "We're going to Mars!!" speech. And every year we not only don't get any closer to that goal, we get further away.
A man may one day set foot on Mars, but he won't be wearing a NASA patch on his spacesuit.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
"Get your ass to Mars!"
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
>>NASA, these days, is nothing but an organization designed to enrich top managers and engineers. It's a jobs program designed to pay out huge >>paychecks and accrue great retirement benefits.
So what? It's not like funding rocket science for the benefit of exploration ever got us anywhere.
When people first started dreaming of traveling to space using rockets all the action was in little private rocket clubs. They did some groundbreaking work and deserve to be remembered for that but they had no chance of ever acruing the resources to build actual spacecraft.
Do you know how scientists with an interest in spaceflight finally got the resources to build something that might actually make it to space? By piggybacking on the ambitions of the Nazis. A team of some of the brightest German scientists had the Nazis pay the bill for building some of the first rockets that could just about make it to space. The catch of course being that they carried explosives and for the most part 'landed' on England.
After WWII the US and Russians nabbed as many of those scientists as they could. That's how the first two human space flight programs started. Now the scientists were getting funded because the two sides of the cold war were afraid that if they didn't develop space the other would. That got us pretty much everything mankind ever did in space up until very recently when the Chinese managed to launch a few people. Keep in mind of course that the Chinese based their work on the Russians.
So with the cold war over (or is it...) I'm glad to see any funding go towards spaceflight, even if it is mostly the product of politicians sending money to their friends.
if you're comparing manned missions, NASA's asteroid-first plan actually makes more sense than Mars-first. Our most urgent need in manned space missions beyond LEO is to develop ways of deflecting asteroids. Landing on a nearby one is an obvious first step.
>>NASA, these days, is nothing but an organization designed to enrich top managers and engineers. It's a jobs program designed to pay out huge paychecks
>>and accrue great retirement benefits.
I don't think this should be modded down. Not because it isn't flamebait (it is) but because it is flamebait that is likely to spark a decent discussion. It kind of sucks when you read a +5 but it's all out of context because the parent post is below your threshold!
The only "realistic" (and I use the term loosely) options other than rockets are:
Space Elevator: We just don't have the materials technology to do this yet, and even if we did the costs would be astronomical.
Launch Loop (or other kinetic energy structure): Might be possible with today's technology, but it would be fragile, error prone, delicate, etc. And if something goes wrong, you're not out a rocket, you're out your entire launch system.
Space Gun: Acceleration forces are too high for manned flight.
Space Plane: Probably doable, but the total lift capacity would be a fraction what a rocket can deliver.
Skyhook: Maybe possible today but there's a lot of unknowns. Not to mention a single skyhook wouldn't be enough to replace our rocket capacity, you'd need several, possibly as many as a dozen.
Laser propulsion: A ways off, and you'll have a lot of people concerned about you building a multi-megawatt laser installation. By definition if it can launch a rocket it can vaporize large amounts of metal in a mater of seconds.
Orbital airship: Actually merits a chuckle to me but someone somewhere thinks is a possibility. No word on how you're going to stabilize and maintain pressure on a kilometer long hypersonic blimp.
Orion Drive: Ok, I'm in. Just don't tell the environmentalists.
For the record, I agree with you. I'd like to see every one of these concepts receive real funding. But in the end rockets are always going to be part of the equation, at least for the next 100 years.
There are two NASA's: 1) There is the pork-laded manned mission NASA out of Houston with power friends on Capital Hill. Their mission is to keep the pork flowing for things like the ISS and the Space Launch System. Bolden is a Houston guy 2) Science: This is the Science Directorate which is JPL out of Pasadena. They are the guys who actually do scientifically meaningful missions such as the rovers on Mars or the Cassini orbiter around Saturn or the probes reaching Pluto and Ceres next year. They are politically weak and constantly have to fight Houston to restore their funding which is always being poached for pork. Carl Sagan started the Planetary Society to stop the poaching but it is stronger than ever.
Sounds like ... well... every government program and everything the president says. I thought we had covered that material by now. What are you on about again?
I'll "get over it" if you "get on with it", how about that?
NASA pronouncements about manned spaceflight haven't really meant shit since the 1970s. Well, aside from delays and cancellations. They've almost always been in earnest.
But everything else has been political window dressing for one president or another (both parties, thanks very much) to make some bold pronouncement that he either KNEW wasn't going to make it through an enemy congress (and thus he could blame on them) or that he quietly de-prioritized and let wither on the vine.
-Styopa
I know, right? That was exactly what I thought when I found it. Slashdot is inserting it, not I.
Curious.
I use monospaced fonts to render essentially all web content, which is why I see no difference in the font of my posts and yours.
Okay, so among the changes you've made to your terminal is the automatic insertion of a tag to make your slashdot posts monospace to others. But it's 'their browser settings'. Got it.
Not for me. It's still a far leap from the picture painted in that book to "an organization designed to enrich top managers and engineers" and "a jobs program designed to pay out huge paychecks and accrue great retirement benefits". There are shades of gray; the fact that an organization has significant issues doesn't automatically imply it's good for nothing.
NO, it's not true at all. I'm sorry, but I know too any poeple working at NASA.
You got problems with NASA, talk to congress about getting them proper funding to accomplish what ever big goal you have in mind.
NASA generates a ton of revenue for the country. If they got all the tax dollar from industries the created, we would have outpost all through out the solar system ad probably be 2 decades ahead in technology.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Except it isn't true at all. Looking at the budgets. government programs are more effcient and produce better results the the private sector by a large margin.Just look at the budget reports, and EOY financials.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
He's another attention starved twit. I suspect an improper amount of praise from his mother.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It appears this way, but it's not by design. It's a necessary by-product of the way NASA is funded and run. Anything that NASA does has to be doable within just a few years, which is why it's done such great work with various rovers and probes; it's not that hard to build a small probe in a few years. Any project which is much larger in scope, budget, and time requirements is basically impossible, because things are going to change in 4 or 8 years when a new President is elected and a new Administration established, plus with Congress holding the purse-strings, and changing substantially every 2 years, their funding for any big project will be threatened before long.
There's nothing that can be done to change this as long as the government is set up the way it currently is. Space exploration needs to be left to countries which have governments with much longer-term visions, and that basically rules out democratic governments.
End of year financials? You mean the ever growing deficit? Tell me when they start being profitable again.
"Okay, so among the changes you've made to your terminal is the automatic insertion of a tag to make your slashdot posts monospace to others."
Uh, no. I'm inserting no tags. I have simply made sure my browser is configured to use fonts that work well with my combination of hardware, software, and wetware. A basic task preliminary to actually using the web which one would expect, especially on a supposedly technology oriented website, most people should have already accomplished before they got here.
"But it's 'their browser settings'."
Yes, it is. It's puzzling this seems difficult for you to understand, it's simply the obvious truth. My browser settings do not affect you (or you would see your own posts in my font, which you do not - you are seeing the fonts you have chosen and I am seeing the fonts I have chosen.) Browser settings are stored on the local computer, not on some server somewhere.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
undoing unintended offtopic mod
Some people just cannot be snapped out of the black-and-white thinking. I'm not glorifying NASA as the organization we have to thank for our present and future standard of living, that's just you setting up a strawman. Or what part of "significant issues" did you not understand? Nor am I willing to accept NASA is good for nothing, as the flamebait who started this thread implied. The truth lies in-between. HELLO, "SHADES OF GRAY"!
I see no mention of the highly successful missions by NASA / JPL such as the Mars rovers and the Pluto & Ceres missions. All Bolden cares about is the manned pork missions that accomplish nothing scientifically. Of course, since is an ex-astronaut....
Do you know how scientists with an interest in spaceflight finally got the resources to build something that might actually make it to space? By piggybacking on the ambitions of the Nazis. A team of some of the brightest German scientists had the Nazis pay the bill for building some of the first rockets that could just about make it to space. The catch of course being that they carried explosives and for the most part 'landed' on England.
Which from my point of view is absolutely awesome, because these scientists killed two birds with one stone: 1) they developed significant expertise in designing, manufacturing, and operating advanced (for the time) liquid-fueled guided rockets, which came in handy later for peace-time projects, and in doing so, 2) they diverted an equivalent of 150% of the whole Manhattan project budget from the German war-time economy to something absolutely useless for advancing the German war objectives.
Ezekiel 23:20
Would it kill you to check from time to time whether your braindead stereotypes correspond to reality? It's not that you have to dig far through my posting history...
As you see, you lose the bet, so I get to keep on posting to slashdot, and you have to move your trolly ass elsewhere. That was what we were beting for, right? :-P
Uh, no. I'm inserting no tags.
So are you telling me that these TT tags get inserted into your posts by themselves? Now how exactly does that happen?
Ezekiel 23:20
Sure, just as soon as the government can raise rates as easily as Time Warner does.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
'nuff said.
How about we let the smart people tinker on their space toys until us dumb-uns can benefit?
Umm... The Manhattan project was US, not German. And... the rockets they made bombed the hell out of England.
Yes, but the Reichsmarks wasted on that project *were* German (you *did* notice I was mentioning purchasing power, right?), and the rockets they made I'm sure made a great show when launched, and were frightening since you didn't know where they were going to hit next, but purely in terms of bang for the buck, they were actually peacemakers. Think about it: for each person killed with V2s, Germany could have built two fighter airplanes instead (which I'm sure are much more useful to a defending military than one dead enemy civilian). From a military point of view, at that stage of missile development, they were a useless money sink.
Ezekiel 23:20
What? You mean that it's got 63+ million years of abundance ahead of it?
Since I use an office, on a boat, which moves around the world, I don't see my keyboard and mouse going anywhere soon. And my favourite pocket computer (a Psion 5MX) had a keyboard, with a nice tactile response. They've not been made for over a decade now, so I have to downgrade to a modern tablet, but that has a keyboard too. It's a 3rd party add-on, but it makes the machine much more usable (as well as doubling up as a protective case). I just wish the tablet had the month of battery life that the Psion had, instead of 3-4 hours.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
5,416 species of known mammals in 2006 ; Birds (with some quibbles about lumping or splitting diverse species) are about 10,000 species. The birds are not doing too badly in the "age of the mammals". Or even in the "anthropocene".
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
That is a good question, and one my technologically illiterate stalker should ponder as well. It's probably good in that case for the browser to take the hint and use a monospace font, but it's certainly not required, and there is a reason we have the ability to change the default fonts. If a particular font looks bad on your browser the obvious answer is to choose a different font that does not have this problem.
Actually you are mixing up concepts here. The tt tag is not part of the current HTML standard. This website sais it is compliant with that standard, why is my browser interpreting a tag that does not exist in the standard. If my browser stopped interpreting the blink why does it retain compatibility with the equally meaningless tt tag. If you wanted to denote code or preformed blocks, you would use the code or pre tags. These would then normally be formatted using a mono space font, you know in CSS as the standard describes...