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NASA's Bolden Claims NASA Is 'Doomed' Unless It Stays the Course To Mars (spacenews.com)
MarkWhittington writes: According to a story in Space News, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden made a speech at the Center for American Progress in which he declared that if the next president deviated from the Journey to Mars program, the space agency would be "doomed." The point he was making, that programs of that nature, have to have consistent support over several presidencies and congresses, was a valid one. The point was equally valid in 2010 when President Obama abruptly and without warning canceled the Constellation space exploration program. Bolden, however, had a ready answer for that, which may not be convincing on close examination.
In Canada we just had nine years of anti-science, anti-environment, racist, and slash taxes for well off families. No other party is like them and the last few years they were showing their true colours. It's going to take a long time for us to recover from them. For example in our census we had a short form and a long form. Both were mandatory. The short form was sent out to the majority of households while the long form went out to the rest. The Conservatives eliminated the long form and added an optional extra bit. We had some of the best census data in the world and even if we go back to using a long form in the next census that data won't be as useful as it could have been because we're missing that year's data.
I think it seems amplified in the US because the space program is such a high profile item. In Canada our high profile issue is how to equip the military but that wouldn't make headlines in any other country.
In the early 1960's the USA had the fear of Soviet missiles to motivate it. We don't currently have anything equivalent. Maybe if the Chinese send a person to the moon we'll finally get worried enough to devote the resources.
The closest thing to the "Sputnik scare" of late is 9/11 (twice), which basically drove us to invade random countries, snoop on ourselves, and hold endless email hearings. We landed on our own moons this time.
Table-ized A.I.
Calling Mars "well-mapped and explored" is a bit of an overreach. The bottom of our oceans isn't even well-mapped and explored, much less another planet that no one has stepped on and has only a handful of decent rovers. At 300 feet per hour, Curiosity is in no danger of running out of places to explore.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
That's certainly true. Mars isn't in the top three priorities for NASA under the current administration. Mr. Bolden (the head of NASA), said these are the three things Obama asked him to do with NASA:
When I became the Nasa administrator, he [Obama] charged me with three things.
One, he wanted me to help reinspire children to want to get into science and math;
he wanted me to expand our international relationships;
and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good
The point was equally valid in 2010 when President Obama abruptly and without warning canceled the Constellation space exploration program.
"Without warning"? You mean that the Augustine commission was secret? Nobody saw it coming that a lousy program that had delivered too little by that time for too much money got scrapped?
Ezekiel 23:20
Oh god, don't get me started on SLS. Have you seen the launch cost estimates? They're currently looking at $14k/kg to LEO not counting development costs, and assuming that you can manage to load the thing fully. Counting development, that depends on how many launches they make before they inevitably decide to cancel the way-too-expensive rocket. Most estimates I've seen so far put the development-included per-launch figure in the very rough ballpark of $40k/kg.
For people who know space, you already know that an "average" launch cost is $10k/kg to LEO. Russian and Chinese costs are usually around $7k/kg, sometimes cheaper. Falcon 9 is... if I recall correctly, about $5k/kg right now, maybe less. A rocket that costs $14k/kg, and that you have to lift something very heavy with every time, a billion dollars every time you fire the thing off... they might as well just paint the words "CANCEL ME" on the side.
"Oh, goodness. Look at my wrist, I have to go." "But what about your clothes?" "I don't love these."
Mars One is obviously not legitimate, and SpaceX is not currently funding missions to Mars just thinking about the future.
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