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NASA Safety Panel Finds Concerns With the Journey To Mars (examiner.com)
MarkWhittington writes: NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel issued its annual report on various space agency programs. The panel found a number of areas of concern surrounding the Journey to Mars program, virtually all of them stemming from inadequate funding. It suggested that NASA's plan to launch the first crewed mission on the Orion, which would use the heavy lift Space Launch System to go around the moon, in 2021 was unrealistic given current, anticipated funding. The panel also suggested that lack of a clear plan for the Mars program is compromising its viability. It also suggested that the decision not to return to the moon should be revisited in view of the desire of international partners to do so and the need of low gravity surface experience in advance of going to Mars
Paper rockets for a has-been nation. Obama killed NASA heavy launch and gave us fake, unfunded programs. Go talk to China or India if you want progress.
Are you sure this was Obamas's doing? I thought these sort of funding decisions was down to congress?
The president can have great visions, but in the end depends on congress to allow them to happen.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
"The panel found a number of areas of concern surrounding the Journey to Mars program, virtually all of them stemming from inadequate funding."
Then the panel is considering the wrong things. The areas of concern regarding a journey to Mars are many, all much greater than any funding consideration. Basically, sending people to Mars with current technology is a stupid idea. The moon is _right next door_. Let's figure out how to live there first.
Yes, Congress funds projects, not the President.
The problem is not a particular president or a particular Congress. It's the fact that space missions have, somehow, become politicized. So, every time the balance of power shifts, the new legislature/administration immediately cancels the space program decided upon by the previous administration/legislature, because they want to screw over the other party. Then the new guys propose their own plan for space exploration, which, just like the old one, will take 15 years to show results, which of course guarantees that it will be cancelled in its turn when the electorate gets tired of the clowns in charge and votes them out again.
If NASA is ever again going to be a serious participant in the exploration of space, then it's going to need to either run missions that only take a couple years start-to-finish, which severely limits what can be done, or get buy-in from both parties for a longer-term project, which will be almost impossible to achieve.
The panel found a number of areas of concern surrounding the Journey to Mars program, virtually all of them stemming from inadequate funding.
They needed a panel to figure this out? Shit, I have nothing at all to do with NASA and I thought that was bleeding obvious from the cheap seats where I sit. The Apollo program required funding about 4X what we see today as a percent of federal budget. I don't really see us getting back to the moon within my lifetime (much less mars) without a very substantial budget increase. It's been 40 years since we landed on the moon and we haven't been out of low orbit since. I see nothing in the current plans that will change that.
no, and sticking nano on the front of it doesn't make much difference.
You know how barometric pressure used to be given in inches of mercury? well that was the number of inches you could suck a pool of mercury up a straw (don't do that!) before you end up with a vacuum at the top of your straw and you are sucking away and nothing is rising any further because the pressure of the atmosphere won't push it up any more. Turns out you can't suck it up that far before it would rather not go any further. If you use other fluids the same kind of thing happens, but more so, because mercury is heavy. For water I think it is about 13 meters For the atmosphere itself the distance you can suck it up a straw is exactly the height of the atmosphere!
Let's go back to the moon and stay in high orbit.
Let's stop pretending humans can survive in deep space or or Mars.
It doesn't take a week of reading articles @ JPL to realize we're not built for longterm weightlessness or different gravities.
Let's send remote devices that can do our bidding now.
Maybe one day when we start either manipulating our DNA or build ships with artificial gravity....but landfall is going to be unhealthy
and not in anyone's lifetime that can even see this page. It's all a con.
End of Line.
Perhaps you don't get as much science by sending a human, but humans relate to the experience of another human far better than what can be done remotely via camera and sensor.
When Apollo 11 landed on the Moon in 1969, which was hardly one of the most peaceful years on record, the whole world stopped and watched. An entire generation of aerospace engineers was energized and motivated. It was a seminal moment in a turbulent era that defined what humans are capable of when we try.
The Apollo program was worth 10x what we paid for it, and as a highly taxed citizen of the US, I'd happily pay to see my generation's moment when we step onto another planet for the first time in our species existence.
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