NASA Weighs Moon Plans

mknewman writes "Space.com is reporting that NASA is set to roll out next month a U.S. national strategy for lunar exploration, one that outlines both robotic exploration needs and the rationale for sending humans back to the Moon. This has been sorely missing in Bush's Vision for Space Exploration."

About time

[Salvance]

I've been wondering for years why we would ever want to step foot again on the moon given the risks and massive costs (other than the obviously political reason of: the chinese are doing it). This article is actually semicoherent, and it's great to see them putting a heavy focus on robotic exploration.

What I'd still rather see though, is human exploration being conducted on an "as needed" basis. For example, let's put robots on the moon that can determine if the moon can be utilized for its supposed natural resources (as NASA contends it has), and if these robots can't mine fuel or other supplies that could be used for a Mars mission, we can send people up there.

Good that its being done now vs later

[Zantetsuken]

Personally, its good that this is being done now than later, because otherwise I don't see it getting brought up again for like 10 or 20 years.

1. Set the groundwork, infrastructure, protocols, etc now, because I kinda wonder how much of the documentation on how to do some of this space flight stuff is on paper, and likely will be the one thing that won't be a digital document of some form, thus the odd chance of getting water damaged and lost forever.
2. Congress or any group of politicians won't see the "here and now" benefit of this type of investment, and so they'd rather put it towards something like replacing computers some department just bought a month or two ago (ya, sure they need thousand dollar each MacTel Core Duo Macbooks for basic word documents)...

Money?

[Cadallin]

I'd think that would be item #1 on the list. NASA needs cash. It's impossible to do R&D without the scratch to back it up. If we were putting a fraction of the money into NASA that we are into other things (*cough* Iraq *cough*) we'd be able to get to the moon today.

This has always struck me as absurd about Bush's Moon and Mars plans, he's been drumming up such ideas now and then, while at the same time slashing NASA budget. Why anybody believes he's doing anything other than posturing is beyond me.

Re:Money?

[thedeviluknow]

Yeah nearly half a trillion dollars a year on Iraq and Afghanistan vs. what 16-17 billion for all of the NASA projects? This isn't just Project Orion it's also all the aeronautical research as well as various space science related work. How friggin' nuts is that? Roughly thirty times as much money spent to kill innocent people as to expand the horizons of the entire human race. Oh well there's always Russia and China for all that good stuff.

Let's let the private sector explore space.

[chocolatetrumpet]

I am about the most nerdy, curious, star trek fan person in town. There is nothing more fascinating to me than exploring the universe. However, I'm completely opposed to using government funds to send people into space.

Let's let the private sector explore space.

People talk about the "benefits" of the space program, like plastics! Great, an oil-consuming product that takes hundreds of thousands of years to bio-degrade. If that's not progress, I don't know what is!

Resources on Earth are very limited. We all work very hard to pay our taxes. Let's let the private sector lead the way into this exciting new place!

Why should we send people back to the Moon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it a bit premature? Why not robotic missions for a while? We have a long way to go in understanding both human physiology and how to adapt it to the unforgiving environment of the non-earth realm. This is a journey of generations, not a sprint. Armstrong's footprints look nice, but honestly, humans living on the Moon and beyond will become a reality centuries from now, only after we lay the groundwork of unglamorous research.

Job #1: Making people give a damn.

[Kadin2048]

There's a good reason for manned exploration: people -- otherwise known as 'taxpayers' -- don't care about and aren't inspired by robotic exploration. When the Mars Rover does something, it's lucky to get a 5 second mention on CNN. Putting a robot on another planet isn't nearly as tangible an accomplishment as putting a person somewhere.

When people want a measuring stick to judge the successfulness of our technology, they still say "we put a man on the moon..." (generally followed by "...and we still can't do [something]"); you don't hear people saying "we put a robot on Mars" or "we put launched a deep-space probe beyond our Solar System..." While important, virtually everything NASA has done since the moon landing, with the possible exception of the Hubble Space Telescope (because of the neat pictures it sent back), has failed to capture the public's interest. And as a result, they have seen their funding grow slimmer and slimmer.

To be honest, doing exploration that doesn't get the average people excited is shortsighted, because it's ultimately those people, apathetic and ignorant as they may be, who control the purse strings that are the lifeblood of the space program. If they don't care about NASA, then NASA gets its budget cut by the Congresscritters next time they're looking for money to fund their Bridge to Nowhere. And that means no money for 'real' scientific research.

Putting people back on the moon ASAP is essential to restore interest in the Space Program to a country that has, by and large, forgotten it. Manned space exploration today is a joke: it's tourism. The adventure of space is something mostly reserved for a generation that's obsessing over the costs of prescription drugs, and has stopped looking outwards for new frontiers. The younger generation hasn't been given any reason by NASA to be interested. I haven't even seen as many kids these days saying that they want to be astronauts as used to. (And why would they -- ride up into space on a vehicle that would be cat food cans already, if it had been an automobile; have basically nowhere to go when you get up there; and there's always the risk of the whole thing falling apart on the way down.)

NASA is a far cry from the national inspiration that it was to previous generations, and unless it can demonstrate some ability to capture the imaginations of today's citizens, it's going to be budget-cut into nonexistence.

Re:Charge it!

[SnowZero]

Or you could make a tiny dent in US health and social programs, which have ballooned to 50% of the US budget (not including health research money which makes up a big chunk of the 20% discretionary funding). The military budget is 17%, which includes a lot of basic research (which US companies won't invest in) and general use things such as GPS. While we could already have a nice ISS and lunar output if we had forgone the Iraq war, by 2020 we'll be broke even if defense spending was zero, since health care will eat up everything else (and we don't even have universal public health care). It's amazing that we're willing to spend so much to add a year or two to our lives, while possibly hurting the long-term survival of humanity as a whole.

Re:Let's let the private sector explore space.

[Verloc]

At this stage in development, the risks for private industry in actual space exploration are incredible. Why would any sane business want to take that risk when there are plenty of defense contracts for perfectly good weapons of mass destruction?

No, Nationalism will carry the day in the exploration of space; Capitalism takes the easiest route to profit while Nationalism appeals to group notions of one-upmanship and achievement: witness China, who's 'Communist' ideology is strongly nationalist. They are putting people into space to show how fantastic they are, and don't care much less about the bottom line. The threshold where capitalism will begin to be effective hasn't come yet.

I personally feel that whatever works best we need to do and do soon; what kind of world would my grandkids live in if we are unable to stem our consumption? At that point, they will need everything we've developed so far to colonize other worlds.

Ultimately we're all prisoners of our ideologies. The best we can do is understand all of them and make the best choices.

Need a continuous series of 'firsts.'

[Kadin2048]

Sorta proves my point. They were inspired the first time we put a man on the moon. Not quite so much the second, and by the third, they weren't interested until something got screwed up.

It's the firsts that are important, and that's what NASA has to be continually aiming for. It has to constantly be extending our reach; pushing us further and further out.

I can guarantee you that the first time a person walks on Mars, while it may not be quite the same event as the Moon landing, that will get people to stop what they're doing and care, if only for a little while.

The idea is that you have to be the first to do something, and thereby capture the public's imagination; then, when you have their attention, use it to get the resources you need to consolidate that achievement, and start moving on to the next 'first.'

If NASA wants to keep going, it basically needs to give every generation a moon landing (and preferably more frequently than that). If people don't perceive that the money we're spending is taking us to new places, then they're going to take it and fritter it away elsewhere.