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Senate Panel Authorizes Money For Mission To Mars (usatoday.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from USA Today: With a new president on the horizon, a key Senate committee moved Wednesday to protect long-standing priorities of the nation's space program from the potential upheaval of an incoming administration. Members of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee passed a bipartisan bill authorizing $19.5 billion to continue work on a Mars mission and efforts to send astronauts on private rockets to the International Space Station from U.S. soil -- regardless of shifting political winds. Under the Senate bill, NASA would have an official goal of sending a crewed mission to Mars within the next 25 years, the first time a trip to the Red Planet would be mandated by law. The legislation would authorize money for different NASA components, including $4.5 billion for exploration, nearly $5 billion for space operations and $5.4 billion for science. Beyond money, the measure would: Direct NASA to continue working on the Space Launch System and Orion multi-purpose vehicle that are the linchpins of a planned mission to send astronauts to Mars by the 2030s. The bill includes specific milestones for an unmanned exploration mission by 2018 and a crewed exploration mission by 2021. Require development of an advanced space suit to protect astronauts on a Mars mission. Continue development of the Commercial Crew Program designed to send astronauts to the space station -- no later than 2018 -- on private rockets launched from U.S. soil. Expand the full use and life of the space station through 2024 while laying the foundation for use through 2028. Allow greater opportunities for aerospace companies to conduct business in Low Earth Orbit. Improve monitoring, diagnosis and treatment of the medical effects astronauts experience from spending time in deep space.
"an unmanned exploration mission by 2018"
It's too bad no one thought of that 40 years ago. We could have had an unmanned exploration mission on Mars back in 1976 or so.
Oh. Wait. Viking landed on Mars in 1976, didn't it.
40 F'ing years ago. Are we maybe kind of done with the exploratory crap, and ready to send people yet?
Let's see... we went from the first autogyro to landing on the moon in 40 years. Now it looks like we've moved from an unmanned landing on Mars ... to Yet Another Unmanned Landing On Mars(tm) over the last 40 years.
Good job, dudes.
Senate Panel Says "Get Your Ass to Mars."
Shouldn't we be spending that money to save humanity by stopping global warming?
5 billion?
That's a drop in the ocean compared to (eg.) the military. One F35. A few days in Afghanistan. Why don't we start there instead of cutting the sciency things??
Making people interested science isn't a waste and NASA are the ones who might actually save the planet.
No sig today...
Most of that is because Americas factories have moved to China. Most of what China builds is exported. Reduce your consumption and you will reduce China's too.
I bet you blame India completely for the Bhopal disaster too.
See, this is the real problem. You move your most pollutive and dangerous shit overseas and then blame those countries when they are building the stuff you want.
There are over 300 million Americans. We do have the ability to work on multiple projects at once.
The problem with global warming or humanity issues isn't lack of money or resources. But the fact such changes will be in peoples behavior and culture. Money and government can't solve that by themselves.
A manned trip to mars. Is a PR stunt. But a PR stunt we really need. We have been overloaded with news that shows how we are such bad people. We need a big accomplishment to remind people that we can be better.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Rockets using kerosene: Atlas, Falcon, Soyuz
Kerosene is a fossil fuel
We currently spend stupendously huge amounts of money on healthcare, education and infrastructure.
Education "more than any other nation in the report' (per capita, roughtly $15,000 per student, approximate $1 Trillion):
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us...
Healthcare "$3.2 Trillion" (over $10,000 per person):
http://www.forbes.com/sites/da...
Infrastructure "$416 Billion":
http://usa.streetsblog.org/201...
That's approximately $4.5 Trillion
The bill includes specific milestones for an unmanned exploration mission by 2018 and a crewed exploration mission by 2021.
So in other words its a ton of hot air and complete horseshit. At best it's a way to secure funding for NASA under a label that'll be hard to attack - HAY U GUIES LETS GO TO MARS!!1! is the latest pop-sci meme after all. The Lunar missions only happened because of the most intense military/industrial standoff in human history - and even then there were Presidential advisers doing their damnedest to kill the Moon missions. The political will to undertake the Apollo program was purely the result of the Cold War standoff - where two superpowers were locked in an existential deathmatch - and the specific technology to deliver astronauts could also deliver thermonuclear warheads to enemy territory.
The likes of Apollo will never happen again. If you weren't convinced that "25 years to Mars" is a horseshit timeframe, its appearance in a Congressional budget bill should remove all doubt.
Wikipedia page for the F35 says: "In 2012, the total life-cycle cost for the entire U.S. fleet was estimated at US$1.51 trillion"
"Afghanistan costs 124 million a year"? Did you actually type "cost of war in afghanistan" into Google?
Some estimates put the at 14 million per hour:
http://www.ibtimes.com/14-mill...
Of course that's a junk new site so that figure is wrong. More reliable site put it two or three times higher than that:
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
No sig today...
Actually, the moon shot was one of the things that did a lot for US economy. Not only by the directly noticeable technological advances. Of course you had an incredible boost in a wide field of technologies. Propulsion. Electronics. Metallurgy. Plastics. Data processing. And so on. Lots and lots and lots of breakthroughs and developments that would otherwise have taken decades instead of being done "before this decade is out".
You also had a lot of supporting technologies that developed during this time. Hell, some were pretty much invented at that time. Process management and systematic creation of work routines in office positions was pretty much a novelty back then. Dedicated positions with defined interfaces between them, and how this is being documented and interwoven with technology, was a complex but crucial part of the organization of the moon shots. This translated incredibly well to corporate management and you can actually see productivity rise in the 1960s in the US. This was technology that wasn't so immediately visible and it took the other countries a while to actually realize where that productivity boost comes from.
But one of the most important factors was the human factor. First, people saw that these things work. They could see first hand that these changes are GOOD! Today, when a new process is introduced in the company, the resistance is usually incredibly high. What do we need that for? Why should we change, our old way is good? Who died and made you king? Here, you had NASA workers who took their experience with them when they left for a job in the economy, and they knew that these processes and these management structures worked. They knew it first hand. And anyone not knowing it first hand could see it. That's the stuff that got us to the moon, that works!
And of course pulling this feat off gave the country a boost to its self esteem. Remember, that was also the time of racial tension and foreign wars that don't run so well (sounds familiar?). And then there was this "small step" of a man, some thousand miles away. Moreover, it was something the whole country could stand behind. Because everyone could say that he had a part in it. From the guy at the MDD plant who welded the tank to the farmer in Kansas whose wheat was probably used to create the astronaut's food. It was an US effort. As in WE DID THAT. And that feeling lasted a pretty long time. You had role models that convinced young people to get into engineering and study.
And believe me, that would be a LOT better than what now doubles as role models for our youth!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The F35 is mostly pork barrelly. Hence the pig tag.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Actually, most first stages use Kerolox, i.e. kerosene and liquid oxygen.
And that's the environmental friendly variant. You don't want to know what hypergolic fuels are made of, and what their waste products are.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm pretty sure that something like this would also be seen favorably in the rest of the world. The reaction of the moonshot was also one of admiration and praise for the efforts of the US, and the general, worldwide feeling that the US is _the_ country, that they can do anything and that they'll show us the way.
Right now, the US is regarded as something between laughing stock and schoolyard bully.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I do not think you can stop global warming. There are different reasons of course and these may depend on the current view of reality that one has too. There is for instance this thing that Baltic sea could be crossed by foot few times in the middle ages and this happened not very long time after significant vineyards have been in operation on north part of the old continent and Greenland was actually green. I do not think you could stop processes that lead to such changes. The common human output is just adding to the change in some way of which we have only started to have a clue. Political bickering is not helping to get closer to truth of course. Secondly even if we were certain about how and could change that there would be the issue of thermal inertia of the system called earth.
Then you can turn from nature of things and interaction between humanity and nature to how production facilities are moved to China and how they pollute everything from there - the reason is probably at least as much quality of these factories (no enforced enforced regulation) as the quantities of stuff that they produce. Besides you turn off the shopping spree in China you will end up with a war as all societies under serious economic stress tend to turn to war to resolve the pressing issue of wealth distribution when there is not enough for lower classes.
Another thing is this - the amount of money and CO2 associated with mission to Mars is minuscule comparing with financial implosion caused by system relevant institutions and what human built economy farts into atmosphere in comparable time window. It does not mean it is negligible but it is nothing as major as you make it to be. Better this than wasting money on so called refugees from MENA or subsidizing banksters aka saving economy.
cost $123.9 million...per year
You're confusing budgeted and actually spent. Wartime expenditures are not restricted to budget. For example. On paper, we budgeted only a few billion for wartime expenditures between 2001 and 2006, yet the actual money spent was in the trillions. My poli-sci teacher said in those 5 years, we spent enough money on the war to fund all healthcare and college for all of the USA for 10 years.
It is true that the Apollo program generate great innovations and jump started the US Tech sector. Which is why going to Mars is the wrong focus and a waste of time. And the reason is the very same reason people think it's a good idea to go.
Going to mars from a tech perspective, is an incremental affair. Sure, there will be new tech created, but it will be incrementally new. Better this, better that,more powerful, etc. But still the same thing
Today's equivalent of the Apollo program isn't incremental improvements and shooting people across the solar system in tin cans. The equivalent would be to build an actual Space Ship.
Features of a space ship vs a tin can
1. Nuclear Power Supply...hundreds of megawatts.
2. Non-chemical propulsion.
2. Magnetic shielding to protect against solar radiation.
3. Rotating living quarters for "artificial gravity".
4. Complete atmospheric and waste recycling.
5. Detachable vehicles for EVAs and descent vehicles.
Now THAT is a challenge that rises to the level of difficulty as Apollo and would spawn a like number of innovations for the rest of the world.
Hell, if you can make number 4 alone work reliably enough to go to mars, then imagine the benefits here on Earth.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Exactly. And why are they still using useless wheeled rovers, instead of LEGGED robots,
Because wheeled locomotion technology is about five thousand years further down the technology development learning curve. Wheeled rovers are reliable compared to any other locomotion technology.
that can move about a hundred times faster,
The speed of rovers is not limited by how fast the wheels can roll.
and be designed to overcome or go around any obstacle, and virtually never get stuck?
Legged rovers that have better capability of traverse over rough ground than wheeled rovers are yet in the future.
You could make tracked rovers with more obstacle traverse capability-- but they are mechanically more complex, and hence less reliable.
The bill includes specific milestones for an unmanned exploration mission by 2018 and a crewed exploration mission by 2021.
So in other words its a ton of hot air and complete horseshit. At best it's a way to secure funding for NASA under a label that'll be hard to attack
This is the authorization bill, not the funding bill.
It tells NASA what to do. Funding them to do that is separate.
The "unmanned exploration mission by 2018" refers to the Insight lander; the "crewed exploration mission by 2021" probably refers to SLS launch EM-2 (testing the launch system with a crew.)
If you weren't convinced that "25 years to Mars" is a horseshit timeframe, its appearance in a Congressional budget bill should remove all doubt.
This isn't a budget bill.
I assume the whole aluminum oxide = "VERY poisonous" is some sort of joke.
Of the metals in solid rocket fuel, aluminum is the most common, followed by iron. Aluminum and iron oxides in dust form are otherwise known as "clay".
The hazardous chemical that comes out of SRBs is hydrochloric acid. But it's not super-dangerous in the quantities that are released over the areas that it's released over.
The GP is correct, the hypergolic fuels are much worse for the environment. Some experimental ones have been even worse, such as boron-boosted (zip fuels) and fluorine-based fuels. Crazy-high performance - the highest ISP rocket engine ever built was a fluorine-hydrogen-molten lithium triprop** - but they're a nightmare to work with. I can guarantee you that if beryllium wasn't so crazy expensive it would have gotten a shakedown as well.
** The fun thing in that rocket is that the hydrogen both enters and leaves in the same form, H2. It exists solely to function as a working gas, to maximize the expansion potential of the heat released from the lithium-fluorine reaction. A lot of things with rocket propellants are counterintuitive that way - for example, with aluminized hydrocarbon-based rocket propellants, the optimal combustion is to burn the hydrocarbons to H2 and CO, not H2O and CO2. It's not worth the extra energy release to carry more oxidizer, and you need as much light gases as possible to transfer the energy from the aluminum since it condenses out of the gas stream at high temperatures and thus can no longer contribute directly to expansion.
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