VP Pence Talks Moon Return and Mars Mission at NASA

Vice President Mike Pence spoke at NASA's Johnson Space Center on Thursday about the agency's plans to send humans back to the moon for the first time in almost half a century and eventually on to Mars. He said: The next Americans who set foot on the Moon will start their journey by stepping through the NASA's Orion hatch. And this extraordinary spacecraft will one day bridge the gap between our planet and the next.

The International Space Station has been an unqualified success. Soon and very soon American astronauts will return to space on American rockets launched from American soil. America will not ever abandon the critical domain of space, we will open the way for innovators and development and we will lead once again in human exploration. Our administration is working tirelessly to put an American crew aboard the lunar orbital platform before the end of 2024. In a prepared statement, Pence added, "We're renewing our national commitment to discovery and exploration and write the next great chapter of our nation's journey into space. It's now the official policy of the US that we'll return to the Moon, put Americans on Mars and once again explore the farthest depths of outer space."

Comments

Yep He Signed A Policy Memo - We're Almost There!

[careysub]

On 11 December 2017 Donald Trump signed Space Policy Directive 1, the operative part of which is:

The paragraph beginning “Set far-reaching exploration milestones” is deleted and replaced with the following:

“Lead an innovative and sustainable program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system and to bring back to Earth new knowledge and opportunities. Beginning with missions beyond low-Earth orbit, the United States will lead the return of humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations;”.

Now that Trump has done all the heavy lifting, signing a policy declaration, his work is done.

All of the stuff about having an actual program with funding and such are just minor details.

Evolutionnary

[DrYak]

The technology does not exist to do such a thing.

The technology is basically just keeping the slow pace of incremental innovation that up to now has given us things like the ISS.

The main problem is that eventually reaching the point mentioned by the above poster is going to take at least several decades of progressive innovations and require multiple year to build each successive station, and that slowness doesn't fit into the short-term needed for a publicity stunt within the 1 or 2 cycles of 4 years each that your US politics has.

Meanwhile, shooting people in (single use) tin cans is somethings that can be done quickly enough to be a somewhat viable publicity stunt (despite being completely useless from the technological and scientific point of view)

Re:Evolutionnary

[Anonymous Coward]

We have the technology base to handle almost every item on the above list. The scientific concepts are well understood and can jump from the white board to the real world IF someone is willing to commit the resources. The resources committed to the first Moon landings were limitless because the US wanted to one up the USSR and score a major propaganda win during the cold war. The USSR put the first satellite and man in orbit so the US needed something dramatic to show the world to make the USSR accomplishments look like something you would find a elementary school science fair.

Can you imagine how long the list of non-existing technologies NASA had to overcome to get people to the Moon and back? Of course during that era the US public wasn't a bunch of risk adverse pussies unwillingly to leave their safe spaces because they can't deal with a world that is neither safe or fair and growth requires risk and risk means there will be failures and setbacks as we move forward. Every man and women who has traveled to orbit knew going in the risks they would face. Every single man or women who has died while attempting to challenge the gravity well would be appalled if their deaths were used by a weak willed public and the politicians that pander to the cowards to curtail space exploration because it is dangerous.

What we don't have is a workable plan to actually build a real space craft. The ISS should have been the first step in creating an orbital platform on which to build and service space vehicles. Going to the Moon again or going to Mars should not be the top priorities. They are dead worlds that have little to offer other than planting a flag, making some footprints, and taking some selfies. A real honest to god space station would be a solid step in furthering any space exploration.

Re:Evolutionnary

[MachineShedFred]

This is the one reason that I feel that any moon landing conspiracy theory is ridiculous and absurd:

1. The USSR had radar capable of tracking the Apollo flights. If we didn't go, they would have been more than happy to let the entire world know in order to reverse the propaganda effect of faking it.

Plus, there's also mountains of physical evidence, including retroreflectors on the lander descent stages that you (for various well equipped values of "you") can bounce a laser off of.

Re:Screw the Moon and Mars...build a Real Space Sh

[sycodon]

That's the point.

For instance...this is being worked on

The Hatch

[nospam007]

"start their journey by stepping through the NASA's Orion hatch."

The code for the keypad is 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42

Re: Screw the Moon and Mars...build a Real Space

[UnknowingFool]

We can build ballistas today and we can rebuild Saturn V rockets if NASA wanted to do so. But NASA doesn't want to do so because rebuilding a Saturn V for today's needs is like restoring a 1964 Ford Mustang and expecting that it meets all current requirements of safety and features. There have been 50 years of development of rocketry since the Saturn V. Replicating one is going backwards. What the mission needs is a rocket with the same capacity as a Saturn V.

Re:Screw the Moon and Mars...build a Real Space Sh

[cjameshuff]

Most of those capabilities are unnecessary for either the moon or Mars, and aren't likely to ever be developed without active manned space exploration to drive the need for them.

What we really need is greatly reduced cost and deployed transportation infrastructure capable of frequent deliveries of large payloads, and people actually getting out there, discovering the problems that need to be solved, and working out solutions for them. Make it easy to get mass into orbit, and people will research stuff like magnetic shielding and advanced propulsion. Meanwhile, what we have is enough to start going to the moon and Mars. If SpaceX achieves their goals with BFR, the BFS will go straight from LEO to the surface of Mars with 150 t of payload and with a trip time short enough that simulated gravity, exotic radiation shielding, etc are unnecessary; then refuel and launch from Mars to land back on Earth. This isn't a tin can that can barely get a few humans there, it's a serious transport craft capable of supporting well-equipped research expeditions and colonization efforts. Blue Origin has similar ambitions focused around the moon.

The Lunar Orbiting Platform (or whatever they're calling it today), though...yeah, it's embarrassingly lacking in ambition and potential for meaningful progress. It can't even be occupied full time, and any reasonable lunar or Mars mission would blow right past it without wasting delta-v on rendezvous.

Re:Screw the Moon and Mars...build a Real Space Sh

[PaulBu]

It could've existed if not for irrational fear of everything "atomic".

Guys who built them bombs in Manhattan Project were planning to personally cruise solar system in actual spaceships (size of a, well, ocean ship), propelled by detonation of small bombs behind, once a second. Physics and engineering actually worked!

Look up "Project Orion", or read George Dyson's book (his dad Freeman was one of the leaders).

Paul B.