Slashdot Mirror
NRC Human Spaceflight Report Says NASA Strategy Can't Get Humans To Mars
MarkWhittington (1084047) writes 'The National Research Council issued its report on the future of space exploration. The report stated that the "horizon goal" for any program of space exploration in the near term (i.e. the next two decades) is a Mars surface expedition. It also stated that the current NASA program, which includes a mission that would snag an asteroid, put it in lunar orbit, and visit it with astronauts is inadequate to meet that goal.
The report gave two reasons for its critique of the current NASA program. First the asteroid redirect mission would not create and test technologies necessary to conduct a crewed Mars mission. Second, NASA projects essentially flat budgets for the foreseeable future. Any space exploration program worthy of the name will cost considerably more money, with five percent increases in NASA funding for a number of years.'
The report gave two reasons for its critique of the current NASA program. First the asteroid redirect mission would not create and test technologies necessary to conduct a crewed Mars mission. Second, NASA projects essentially flat budgets for the foreseeable future. Any space exploration program worthy of the name will cost considerably more money, with five percent increases in NASA funding for a number of years.'
It doesn't work to do this with a democratic government. We need a monarchy :-(
It seems to me that SpaceX is on the path to a solution that might be affordable by a single administration, though.
Bruce Perens.
I think it's most people's impression that NASA is just going through the motion, making empty noises wrt Mars human exploration. There simply is no viable plan nor adequate budget to come up with a viable plan.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
There's no reason to go to the bottom of another gravity well. We should be travelling to, learn from, and eventually exploit the asteroids. It makes more sense for the long term viability of the human race.
Militarize NASA and make the liberation of the Solar System from the enemies of FREEDOM priorities of National Security. At that point Congress will be tripping over themselves put the US an additional 15 Trillion in debt in order to invade Mars and install a puppet dictatorship that is friendly to US and Israeli interests.
Seriously, forget Mars. It's like Utah, but cold, and even more boring. We know Mars.
Now, rearranging big chunks of our solar system to get our grubby hand on some sweet sweet platinum, that's the sort of crazy shit that our parents hoped we'd be doing by now. In any case, that's what we should be doing, imo.
I'm glad the National Research Council has published this... maybe now it will get some traction. Having said that, it does not take a rocket scientist to see that the program is underfunded and will not be able to meet any of its goals. Frankly, this is true of not just NASA, but science in general. Too many in Congress talk about the importance of STEM; but, when push comes to shove are unwilling to fund R&D and large scale engineering programs.
Setting up shop at a Lagrange point is a whole lot more interesting and likely profitable. Unless you really want little green men.
F=ma
Ah, yes, one world government. Because there isn't nearly enough tyranny on this planet already. Surely, a global government would concentrate resources on space and advancing the cause of humanity instead of large-scale theft for their own tribe and armed response to anyone who disagreed.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!