NASA Unveils Strategy for Return to the Moon 377
mknewman writes to tell us that NASA recently announced plans to build a permanent base on the moon by 2024. The (still tentative) plans call for building the base on one of the moon's poles, which constantly receive light from the sun and have less temperature fluctuation. This base will start small in 2020 and grow over time with the hopes of eventually supporting 180-day stays and providing a jumping-off point to Mars."
FP for once... (Score:4, Insightful)
Nice... but... (Score:1, Insightful)
First Things First (Score:5, Insightful)
Beancounters and budgets (Score:5, Insightful)
I would guess that the lunar budget would be cut totally before it got that fine. There is plenty of time before an actual landing for Congress to cut that part of NASA's budget, saying "The money could be better spent here on Earth," leaving out the last part of the phrase. ("The money could be bettter spent here on Earth getting pork for my constituents so I get re-elected and/or my party gains more seats.")
I hope that it doesn't happen that way.
The plan will adapt to commercial developments. (Score:5, Insightful)
Some NASA centers (*cough* Marshall *cough*) feel threatened by it. The brass, and some of the centers, love it, though. They can't say it strongly in public right now, but they would love to take advantage of it to make lunar exploration cheaper and more sustainable.
If the commercial sector --- including COTS, Bigelow, and the other players --- take root and grow, expect NASA to revise the lunar plans. The current plan is the fallback plan. Read the words they used today. They make very clear that the plan is provisional, pending future developments.
Re:less energy to go direct? (Score:2, Insightful)
Also with the moon rotation around the earth you probably would be able to get an extra starting speed that you wouldn't have to spend fuel to get.
There are probably other factors involved in this that I haven't considered
Never gonna happen (Score:2, Insightful)
Put down your Heinleins and spend a little time trying to make the planet we will all live and die on a better place.
Re:Never gonna happen (Score:5, Insightful)
What is there to be had? (Score:3, Insightful)
Now we might all agree that space exploration is exceedingly exciting. But why on Earth (no pun intended) would we want to go to the moon? There's nothing there but sharp and spikey moondust. Now, missions like Hubble I understand and support. Those make sense as they get us a much better insight into what is out there and how it might have come to be. But manned missions to nowhere just to prove "we can do it"? It seems to me this kind of mission is designed purely for the publicity value. For the general public, stunts like these are much more interesting than some probes sent to other planets that actually provide us with new and possibly new information.
And don't even get me started on the "we have to spread out humanity to other planets" argument. I'd rather die out as a species than to have to live on Mars, I tell you that.
Re:FP for once... (Score:3, Insightful)
I would worry more about the new and future Congresses, and future presidents. After all, this is in response to President Bush's initiative to go to Mars, it will require a long term commitment to accomplish it, and some people prefer President Bush to be a "miserable failure [google.com]".
FTA:
There will always be pressure to spend the money elsewhere, especially since the budgets [heritage.org] for social welfare programs (social security, medicare, medicaid) are going to start ballooning* due to the retiring baby boomers. The politics on this will be brutal: "If you aren't for moving $5 billion from the moon base to put into social security, you are for tossing grandma out on the street to die." You should expect the media to perform to existing standards [vt.edu] on this issue, and Washington is a place where simply reducing the planned growth rate in future year's budgets is decried as a cut in budget. President Reagan used to be regularly excoriated in the media over budget games like this, and the pressure on future administrations is likely to be worse.
Some things, like a space program, require long term commitments as it can take years to get anything useful done. During that entire time you are subject to accusations of waste and failure since you don't have anything shiny to show for all of the time and treasure being expended. Over time, a disaster like Apollo 1 [nasa.gov] or Challenger [nasa.gov] is almost inevitable given the technically challenging and inherently dangerous nature of space exploration. The time and treasure required, and the practically inevitable lost lives, will all challenge to our commitment to go the moon and Mars. Will we remain committed? Almost everyone will celebrate the victory of establishing a moon base, and ultimately planting a flag on Mars; relatively few will support the long term effort it will take to get there.
I am hopeful that we can accomplish it. The fact that other nations are heading into space and toward the moon will probably serve to increase support for it since the US won't want to be left out.
* The combined total of social welfare spending already dwarfs military spending, including for the war against extremist Islamist terrorists. Let us hope that moderate Islam starts racking up some victories - even if it takes some time.
Re:Cost for supporting people is high. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:First Things First (Score:5, Insightful)
Earth, humanity will get fixed, but at its own pace.
Astroids (Score:3, Insightful)
Going after astroids is both cheaper (in terms of delta-v) and more interesting economically: You have anything from volatile rich comets to core material iron/nickel balls in all different sizes and at delta-vs as low as several hundred m/s from HEO (as compared to 2 x 1.4 km/s for the moon). Also, a zero gravity enviroment has many advantages for processing, requires less structural support (e.g. for solar pannels and mirrors) and makes it easy to move heavy stuff around.
After all, if you're serious about developing a permanent space presence, you will need some sort of space industry which is easier to bootstrap from astroids than on the moon.
2024?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:less energy to go direct? (Score:5, Insightful)
The only role the moon might play in the actual Mars launch would be as a gravitational slingshot.
Re:Astroids (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, it may be more interesting/rewarding to go to an asteroid, but if it aint staying in the neighbourhood, how do we get anything back?
Re:Such a shame Sergei Korolev died. (Score:2, Insightful)
When did US win space race? USA was second to put man on space. 2nd woman. 2nd to be over 24h at space. 2nd to space walk. 2nd to do multi-personnel space walk. 2nd to put a space station on orbit (3rd space station). 2nd birthday on orbit
About staying in space. Longest US stay on US station 84 days. Longest USA stay on Russian station 188 days. With those figures they would not even listed in Russian list top 20, could be more but top 20 is listed with a longest single stay 438 days. Longest cumulative stay 747 days. USA cumulative record 230 days.
USA leads 18-4 space deaths. So that race you won if it ended today.
Don't be a victim of US propaganda. What USA can claim is winning of "moon race". But that isn't space race.
Re:Beancounters and budgets (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess looking at that list, you would either have to assume that the U.S. has the worst economy in the world or the best economy in the world. The obvious truth is that it's the best. Just look at the trade deficit. All the other countries make a living selling stuff to us -- our economy drives the world economy. We're the only country with that much debt because we're the only country that could afford it. We should pay it down, however, and there's only one realistic way to go about it: (1) conclude the military actions we're involved in in Afghanistan and Iraq, (2) get back a Republican Congress so we can run budget surplusses again.
P.S. Be careful before accepting any raises or new jobs. If you ever end up in the top 15% "rich" bracket, you'll have to change all your conspiracy theories.
Re:Beancounters and budgets (Score:2, Insightful)
There, Fixed that for ya. The neocons can't help us now.
Re:Apollo = 2.5 Iraqs (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Earth to the Moon (Score:3, Insightful)
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
It is perfectly legitimate to judge people by their actions. You are welcome to believe anything you want about people who are in some way different from you. But the instant you step over the line of treating them differently because of that belief, you have marked yourself as evil. And realistically, there are very damn few racists/sexists/religionists/whatever-ists who can keep themselves from crossing this line.
What makes the anti-racist better than the racist? The same thing that makes the person who kills in self-defense better than the serial killer.
This is great news .. (Score:2, Insightful)
I've said it before, I'll say it again. America is a great country but it NEEDS a competitor. Without Russia to "compete against" the whole game has fallen apart, the US has lost its confidence, progress in "national pride" projects such as this grinds to a helpless standstill while the narrow-minded lefties whine about "the money could be best spent at home" and similar short-term thinking - and let's not even mention the miserable standstill in the middle east.
China is shaping up to be the new Russia for America - a capable, proud opponent who will catalyse any number of "races", some good, some bad. But any way you cut it, this can only be a good thing in the long term, and China certainly presents less of a threat than Russia.
Now if the Euros could get in on the action, we could have a three-way race to the stars, and progress in space technology will accelerate to a pace we can only dream of today, and about time.
Brilliant news, let's wait for China's response - that's what will really "lock it in".
Re:Earth to the Moon (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong. Such changes happen if, and only if, they give a significant advantage in the number of offspring such people produce. Since the human hipbone is already too thin for safe birth, and the reason it can't get wider is that you'd have trouble walking then, it is likely that evolutionary pressure would be for wider, not thinner, people. Why the muscle structure would change I have no idea; large (strong) muscles are only disadvantageous during a famine (since they consume energy), since upkeeping them consumes more energy than smaller muscles, and such famines are pretty unlikely in a colony dependent on high technology (if it breaks, the colonists are all dead anyway). Unless you meant the places the muscles anchor to, in which case we're talking at least millions of years of evolution...
Of course all of this completely ignores human medical and other technology, which is likely to render any such advantages/disadvantages insignificant. But even discounting that, let's all repeat now: "Acquired charasteristics are not inherited, with the only exceptions being mutations".
Good fearmongering nonetheless. And, I suspect, a good troll.