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President Trump Is Sending NASA Back To The Moon (npr.org)
President Trump has formally told NASA to send U.S. astronauts back to the moon. From a report: "The directive I'm signing today will refocus America's space program on human exploration and discovery," he said. Standing at the president's side as he signed "Space Policy Directive 1" on Monday was Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt, one of the last two humans to ever walk on the moon, in a mission that took place 45 years ago this week. Since that time, no human has ventured out beyond low-Earth orbit. NASA doesn't even have its own space vehicle, having retired the space shuttles in 2011. Americans currently ride up to the international space station in Russian capsules, though private space taxis are expected to start ferrying them up as soon as next year.
He's going to get Mexico to pay for it!
and it's going to be YUGE!
Can't blame this one on Trump. This is the result of the last two idiots in office that decided to cancel the space shuttle program before we had a working replacement. Not that the shuttle was a shining example of success ether. But cancelling it before we had a working replacement was a stupid in a special order of magnitude.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
This is simple: cut everything that NASA does that Trump can't put his name on.
If humans go back to the moon, Trump can take the credit for it and people will cheer. If NASA does some critical atmospheric research that no one pays attention to, does it really matter? How critical could it be if it doesn't fit into 140 characters?
I'm a bit dry at the moment... I know I had a can of Instant Froth around here somewhere...
Much better... Now then...
It's not a question of being "anti-science" or not, but more the question of "why?"
In the 1960s, landing on the moon was a huge accomplishment. We conducted important science, established permanent lunar installations of ongoing significance, and it paved the way for our current space-based experiments on board the ISS. Even today, there is a long list (that I've seen before, but can't find at the moment) of experiments that we want to put on the moon.
However, one crucially-important thing has changed between 1969 and today: robotics. We can send a robot to the moon and call it disposable, rather than have to also send fuel for the return trip home, supplies to sustain life, and a pressurized vessel to contain it all while the astronauts are up there. There's a reason the Apollo program required the largest, heaviest, and most-powerful rocket ever flown: Putting mass into space is exponentially expensive. Each Apollo mission cost (on average) about four times as much as the whole Mars Science Laboratory program.
By sending robots to the moon (and Mars, and elsewhere), we can continue to reap the scientific benefits without literally burning American tax dollars and risking American astronaut lives. Once there, the robots can last for much longer than a human, running experiments until they fall apart... and then just a bit more. Frankly, robots are superior explorers to humans in just about every way except for three.
First, robots aren't as adaptable as humans, though they are getting better. Space-bound rovers are designed with adaptability in mind, and the engineers controlling them from Earth are brilliant at remote repair and alternative uses, but a rover won't likely be able to recover from an accidental roll down a hill, even if the damage is minimal.
Second, robots are still limited in their capability. We can't just drop down a new camera and say "here, use this." There has been some work into making reconfigurable robots that could upgrade themselves, but ultimately it's still just cheaper and easier to send a new set of wheels with the new camera.
Finally, robots just don't make good humans. Humans are fragile and sensitive, and we get so upset when one is damaged and is... decommissioned. If the goal is for humans to leave Earth and look towards colonizing other planets, we still have a lot of questions to answer about how to keep those people safe and healthy. That's why we have the ISS. There are a lot of ongoing experiments running on board the ISS, and that's satisfying our current science needs (and exhausting what little budget we have).
In summary, that's why we are where we are today. We use the relatively-nearby ISS to run human-based experiments, and send expendable robots to further places, maximizing the scientific knowledge gain while minimizing the expense of rockets, engineering, and lives. As much fun as it would be to fling more humans at that floating gray target for the sake of patriotic glory, it really doesn't contribute much to mankind's future. We've already taken the giant leap that was beneficial in 1969, by starting extraterrestrial exploration. The next one will be a permanent colony, but we're not quite ready for that yet, regardless of which president wants it.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Yeah, it's not like NASA could ever develop something like an ion engine https://www.nasa.gov/centers/g...