Buzz Aldrin's Radical Plan For NASA 519
FleaPlus writes "Apollo 11 astronaut (and MIT Astronautics Sc.D.) Buzz Aldrin suggests a bolder plan for NASA (while still remaining within its budget), which he will present to the White House's Augustine Commission; he sees NASA heading down the wrong path with a 'rehash of what we did 40 years ago' which could derail future exploration and settlement. For the short-term, Aldrin suggests canceling NASA's troubled and increasingly costly Ares I, instead launching manned capsules on commercial Delta IV, Atlas V, and/or SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets. In the medium-term, NASA should return to the moon with an international consortium, with the ultimate goal of commercial lunar exploitation in mind. Aldrin's long term plan includes a 2018 comet flyby, a 2019 manned trip to a near-earth asteroid, a 2025 trip to the Martian moon Phobos, and one-way trips to colonize Mars."
Good ideas. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, NASA (and most space programs in general) should have one crucial long term goal: Getting us off this ball of rock and inhabiting other ones. I think that Aldrin's plans make more progress towards this than most of what has been going on for pretty much my entire lifetime.
Oh and one final thing.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Gah, no. (Score:5, Insightful)
Good idea ditching the extra launch vehicles. Let someone else take the risk if you can.
But an international consortium? Did he even pay attention to station?
International consortiums are great, if your goal is "to work together with other nations towards a goal." But they tend to fail miserably if you have something you want to actually accomplish. You end up doing everything redundantly anyway, and somehow it costs even more than just the redundancy ought to account for.
The only upside to the consortium idea is also a huge downside: you can sort-of force certain milestones by making them treaty obligations. Unfortunately, then you have a pile of treaty obligations in your way if you need to scrap part of the project to go down a better avenue, or you just want to cut your losses and get out.
I hope this is the path NASA takes (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good ideas. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Commercial exploitation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good ideas. (Score:5, Insightful)
Except it's not a colossal amount of money at all--this is the absurd misconception about space travel. The reality is it is peanuts. Cheaper in fact than fixing this world, by a several orders of magnitude.
Re:Manned space flight is a fucking waste (Score:4, Insightful)
Go ahead, tell me how sending dozens of rovers exploring the whole solar system and/or having a look at Proxima Centauri's planets is any less interesting for the general public than watching a bunch of bozos awkwardly trying to bolt a nut in 0g.
Why would anyone care what is interesting or not? The purpose of space flight is gain the ability to colonize (as in moving people out there) space. All we do we do for survival, and colonizing space is vital for survival. That is why we need manned space flight.
Re:I hope this is the path NASA takes (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Commercial exploitation (Score:1, Insightful)
He didn't say it was evil. He just said it saddens him that we don't have a better reason for doing it than money.
Gravity wells (Score:5, Insightful)
Better to work on building sustainable space stations with necessary stuff like artificial gravity and radiation shielding, so that people can actually live on them _indefinitely_. Start by building them near the Earth. After that work on space stations that can build space stations out of stuff like asteroids - space factories. Then we can have space colonies and roam about colonizing the solar system.
Once you have a sustainable space station, it doesn't really matter how long it takes to get to Mars or Titan (within reason of course). No rush.
In fact, the long term inhabitants of space colonies might view living on Mars or the Moon far more unpleasant than living in a space colony.
Trying to live on some other planet or some moon without having a "real" space station seems like trying to jump before even being able to stand unsupported. Yes, maybe you can still do it with great effort and cost, but it's ridiculous and stupid.
The current space stations don't count - they're spaceships "going nowhere", the equivalent of living in a cramped subcompact car. Not suitable places for raising future generations of humans.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Manned space flight is a fucking waste (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just a canard. The only thing we learn from manned spaceflight is that it's really expensive. If we want to colonize other worlds we need to spend the money doing the research and developing the technologies we need, not wasting money sending people on weekend getaways to airless rocks or spacestations that will deorbit in ten years.
Re:Manned flight is unsafe (Score:4, Insightful)
The inherent risk of manned spaceflight is an argument that people tend to throw in to give their otherwise self-serving cost arguments a false feeling of moral weight.
Re:Good ideas. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good ideas. (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA is a government agency ( an arthritic one ), government agencies don't colonize. Especially when international law explicitly forbids that.
What most people miss in 2001: Space Odyssey, are the logos on the space plane and Space Station V itself, where dr. Heywood flies to . They read "Pan American" and "Hilton Hotels" accordingly, NOT NASA, RSA or any other *SA.
Ironically, when time called for beating the communists to the moon, the great U.S. of A. did not tap into free enterprise, but created a huge socialist government-run space business, which 40 years later still thinks it should be running a space trucking line.
Re:Good ideas. (Score:5, Insightful)
You may think it's fantasy, but keep in mind that eventually, a life-killer asteroid strike, while extremely unlikely in any given year, is eventually a mathematical certainty. By all the best evidence, it has happened before, probably more than once.
It may be a long-term goal, but eventually we must send at least some people "off this rock". Scoff all you want, but that is playing the real probabilities.
For the price of "setting foot on Mars" (Score:4, Insightful)
For the price of "setting foot on Mars" you could have hundreds or thousands of robots circling it, drilling it, terraforming it and beaming back terrabytes of data every second.
Re:Colony practice? (Score:5, Insightful)
The moon is an X day trip, whereas the time to orbit is much shorter. It's easier to help them if things go wrong.
Once you have self sustaining colonies in space, it doesn't matter so much how long it takes to get to Mars.
But people might then think, hey why bother landing humans on Mars, we'll just stay in our comfy space stations and send robot probes down to mars, while we mine the asteroids (and build more probes if necessary).
Re:Good ideas. (Score:5, Insightful)
You are right, shipping people off to other planets without making other changes, such as reducing birthrate, is not going to reduce population of Earth. However, if your goal (among others, such as access to new resources) is to ensure the survival of the species should something horrible happen on Earth, then a long term plan to spread to one or two other worlds does make a lot of sense. A self sustaining base on Mars is not a fantasy, it is something that could possibly be achieved with today's technology if the will was there. In 50 years, just as the biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction are getting within reach of even small groups of psychos, it will be no problem at all. You have to make a first step somewhere.
Reality TV (Score:4, Insightful)
Depending on the categories, winners get a one way or return ticket to various space destinations.
The voters pay for the tickets by voting (SMS etc).
And depending on the categories, either the candidates or someone else presents the case for why the candidates should win.
For example:
Proposer #1: "I propose George Bush, 'one way', since he's so keen on going to the Moon, we should send him and it would be a net benefit to the world".
Re:Old coot (Score:3, Insightful)
He has a frigging doctorate in orbital mechanics. Do you?
Re:Good ideas. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would argue that the main advantage of the "get us off this rock crap" is that at some point we are absolutely going to take an extinction-level hit from some other rock, or a massive solar flare that toasts half the planet, or some other damned thing. If we don't spread across several worlds, we vastly increase the likelihood of becoming just another trilobite bed.
It isn't merely a matter of fixing the earth, which I wholeheartedly agree is of prime importance; off-world colonies are essential for the survival of the species. We don't need to colonize only Mars and Luna; we need to colonize other star systems. Gamma-ray bursts, supernovas and asteroid impacts aren't imaginary bogeymen. The universe is an incredibly dangerous place, and so far we've been lucky, but that's only because we're new in the neighborhood. The geologic record is littered with evidence that bad shit happens. Hell, just look at a map of Canada. Lake Manicouagan in Quebec was created by a chunk of rock three miles wide.
At some point terrestrial homo sapiens is guaranteed to take an irrecoverable hit, and if we haven't put down roots elsewhere, that's it for humanity and any of our eventual descendants.
So yes, we have to get off of this goddamned rock, and the sooner the better. I'm astonished anyone even bothers to argue about this.
Re:Good ideas. (Score:5, Insightful)
A self-sustaining base must have the capability to expand (or else it'll just shrivel up and die as soon as a minor disaster strikes. Teetering on the brink of self-sustaining really is _not_ self-sustaining.). And once you have that capability, there's exponential growth and you'll have a colony sooner or later.
Ummm... Yes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Would you want to live on titan?
Yes. Yes I would. Absolutely, without a doubt. Where do I sign up?
Spending all the money fixing this world does nothing to get all of our eggs out of the basket, and if anything harms that basket, then we are screwed. To paraphrase Carl Sagan in "Pale Blue Dot", any species that does not move off its planet is doomed to extinction. You may not care about the long term survival of the human species (or any other species), but some of us do, and the best way to increase our chances of survival is to spread out. We aren't going to do that by spending all of our money and resources here. We aren't even going to do that by pussy-footing around sending only robotic explorers to other places (as much as admire these feats of engineering and the data they bring back). We are only going to do that by getting out there and doing it ourselves. And it will only become cheaper, easier, and safer as we do it more and more and more.
So, one way ticket to Mars? Titan? Points outward? HELL YES. I wouldn't hesitate to accept such an opportunity, and I doubt I'm alone in this.
Re:About time we had some public debate (Score:5, Insightful)
In my lifetime three things have driven technology's march:
* Space exploration.
* People wanting to kill each other more efficiently.
* Making a quick buck.
Of these, only space exploration is an example of Man aspiring to greatness.
Yes, because getting the funding to run a huge missile program right after the cuban missile crisis during the height of the cold war was soooooooo about taking money away from "People wanting to kill each other more efficiently." and gicing it to an altruistic aspiration to greatness. Sure, it came in a very nice sales package with a civilian agency and a great morale booster but the reason it passed was that it created lots and lots of high tech research and equipment of military value. If it was about "aspiring to greatness" why would the russians break their back trying to keep up with it? The other two points are timeless classics though. Add "Getting the girl" and you've summed up the reasons for most of humanity's innovation...
Re:Ummm... Yes? (Score:5, Insightful)
> To paraphrase Carl Sagan in "Pale Blue Dot", any species that does not move off its planet is doomed to extinction. You may not care about the long term survival of the human species (or any other species), but some of us do, and the best way to increase our chances of survival is to spread out.
Dude, unless some meteor comes along and kills us all, we still have *millions* of years to perfect space travel. If we delay manned missions to other planets/moons for half a century, it won't matter. If you really care so much about the survival of the species, you'd be encouraging research that can protect us from really big rocks on a collision course with ours, rather than trying to get a colony on titan.
It's funny how you're using "Won't somebody think of the HUMAN RACE?!?!?!?!" like politicians would use "Won't somebody think of the children?!?!?!", using it to support your agenda by accusing your opponents of 'not caring about the survival of the species'.
"Self sustaining base" (Score:3, Insightful)
No, that is a indeed a fantasy. A self-sustaining base has to be able to produce food, clean water and energy. It has to be able to make replacement parts, and that means mines, chemical plants, machine shops, factories and chip-fabrication facilities. Oh, and also universities. That is a pure, utter fantasy given our current technology and our capacity for space travel. We can't make a self-sustaing colony on Antarctica or underwater, so why would you think we can do it on another planet?
Re:Good ideas. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should the human race survive?
Re:"Self sustaining base" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good ideas. (Score:2, Insightful)
Because we can. Even if the only result was to inspire the next generation of brilliant engineers, it would all be worth it.
Re:"Self sustaining base" (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have any balls ?
We don't need to create self-sustaining colonies in Antarctica, or underwater, so why do it ? If you put yourself in space, you not only need to, you have to deal with it. Necessity is the mother of invention. But I guess in the slimy greedy world of Intellectual Property, you would rather just accumulate wealth for yourself, fuck the universe (and your neighbours). If the only way we can have a space colony is to replicate exactly what we have here, then you're right - it's a waste of time. If you want to head in a new direction however, space is the ONLY place to do it. This planet's full of nay-saying assholes.
BTW, you missed out Burger King and Walmart from your list of "necessities".
Re:Good ideas. (Score:5, Insightful)
We keep complaining that math and science education in this country keeps sliding. Giving kids something tangible that says "math and science can be fun and exciting" is what we need.
Plus it's not like 100 billion dollars gets strapped to a rocket and blasted into space. Most of the money spent is put straight into the economy (through salaries). The only actual "loss" is the cost of the raw material sent into space.
Re:Good ideas. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's going to be difficult. Would you want to live on titan?
If you'd asked me before I settled down, I'd probably have volunteered. For many people there aren't that many ties that hold them here, and the opportunity to go and be at the forefront of space exploration, to boldly go where no man has gone before, well, that's really exciting and worthwhile! Personally I find people like Armstrong and Aldrin tremendously inspiring. Of course, I'm also finding the engineers behind the Mars rovers really inspiring too. Space is still new and novel and has a high amount of "wow" attached to it. There is new stuff to be discovered. Completely new experiences to be had. I mean, come on, how could you not want to, assuming you had no personal ties holding you back?
Re:Good ideas. (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.spacefuture.com/vehicles/how_the_west_wasnt_won_nafa.shtml [spacefuture.com]
NASA should be a regulatory agency, just like the FAA. But when you give regulation to a "competitor-in-the-field," amazingly, no-one else meets the regulatory requirements to compete.
(offtopic/ Think of that when they talk about a "public insurance plan" too. \offtopic)
Poor Author C. I wish he had lived to see his 2001 visions come to life. . .
Re:Ummm... Yes? (Score:3, Insightful)
we still have *millions* of years to perfect space travel. If we delay manned missions to other planets/moons for half a century, it won't matter.
You don't know that for a fact. It's probable to be sure, but not definite. Why not strive toward the goal of survival to the best of our ability?
Re:Ummm... Yes? (Score:1, Insightful)
Millions of years? IBTD
advanced technology like space travel requires a certain amount of stability (political, social, economical). Check the likelihood of such a stable phase throughout the history of mankind. we do not have this much time. We've been close to extinction (or at least major drawbacks) during the cold war and no one knows what will happen after peak oil, climate change etc.pp.
i see it more of a very narrow (on the timeline of human race) window of opportunity. either we make it or we are trapped on this rock and face oblivion in the long term.
but this must not concenr individuals here and now :-)
Re:Good ideas. (Score:3, Insightful)
That just a description of how hard the problem is, not an argument that we shouldn't do it.
Re:Good ideas. (Score:5, Insightful)
....Much better to spend the colossal amount of money on fixing this world....
Uh-huh; I heard that before, way back in 1969, in fact. Did a bang-up job on that, didn't we?
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Listen, meathead, before you go parroting crap that was utter drivel 40 years ago, perhaps you should compare NASA'a annual budget against, say, oh maybe the amount of money the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or the U.S. Department of Defense burns through in a WEEK.
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Then, please be so kind as to examine the RETURN ON INVESTMENT on those three budgets.
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Yeah; we're really 'fixing' this world.
.
Idiot.
Re:Ummm... Yes? (Score:2, Insightful)
> Dude, unless some meteor comes along and kills us all, we still have *millions* of years to perfect space travel.
Actually we don't. We have a limited window defined by the expendable resources (fossil and nuclear fuel, ores, etc.) on this planet. We can invest these resources to try to establish new sources off-world. Once the resources are used up, we're stuck on this planet for good.
Might be that we already crossed that point. Might be that it is not really feasible at all. But I believe we're approaching a point where this discussion becomes moot pretty soon.
Re:Ummm... Yes? (Score:1, Insightful)
Asteroid impact...
Comet impact....
Super Volcano explosion...
Super Flu...
Runaway Global Warming...
Runaway Global Cooling...
Planetary Mutual Assured Destruction...
Grey Goo...
Stranglets...
Mini Black Holes...
Raptor by the Flying Spaghetti Monster...
Etc...
Though these things may be very unlikely, the mere fact that that there are an enormous amount of ways that humans could be wiped out, or near wiped out, means that the chances are actually quite good that something will wipe us out before these million years of which you speak.
i.e. coincidences - There are an infinite number of coincidences that can occur to you. We label them as such, because the probability that they will occur seems fantastic. But experiencing one, or more, of these infinite number of possibilities is not actually uncommon.
Re:Ummm... Yes? (Score:2, Insightful)
If we delay manned missions to other planets/moons for half a century, it won't matter.
Sure. And if we delay them for another half a century after that, it won't matter either. And if we delay them for another century after that, too, that won't matter. And another million years...
It's not as though there's something specific we're waiting for. Sure, we probably won't be able to found successful space colonies without more experience - but the only way to get that experience is to try first, and fail a few times. If we really want to make progress towards getting off this rock, we do so by starting, right now. Otherwise we as a race end up like my dad talking about how he always plans on fixing the shed someday, maybe in another ten years.
Re:Good ideas. (Score:2, Insightful)
On the flip side, if you don't think humanity is something worthwhile, then what is? Certainly not art, if you don't care about there being anyone to appreciate it. Not happiness either, otherwise you'd be in favour of having as many humanlike lives as possible (assuming you agree that a life is, on balance, happier than the absence of one; if not, then I guess you want to exterminate as many humans as possible). Science? Maybe, but it seems a bit pointless without humanity.
Re:Good ideas. (Score:4, Insightful)
Once we can sustain a colony outside earth, we can use the same technology to live here. The real reason to leave would be political, to keep the population from being killed off by war.
Re:Ummm... Yes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ummm... Yes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, there are some who think that is untrue, and here's why. The cost of feeding the world is ever rising as the population climbs. As the population climbs the amount of land available to grow things falls. At the moment, finding the few billions it might take to get us off-world just seems expensive, but at some point finding those billions may actually require taking the decision to stop feeding some people and that will be a tough decision for anyone to make!
There are some who suggest that if we don't det off-world NOW we may never have the spare cash to throw at it again, and that's a BIG risk for the survival of our species, and presumably all the species we take along with us for the ride. Though, to be fair, they often quote 100 years as "NOW", but it's still a gamble upon which our species very survival may rest!
Not only that, but I'd like to see it at least start to happen!
Re:Ummm... Yes? (Score:3, Insightful)
Dude, unless some meteor comes along and kills us all, we still have *millions* of years to perfect space travel.
Predicting the future is a dangerous profession. The only demonstrable, premeditated success at prediction of future events has been in the financial field, and essentially that was betting that things will go bad, and it's just a matter of riding out the "fair weather" (Nassim Nicholas Taleb) [wikipedia.org]). So that being said, the only rational thing to do is to buy insurance, and so far, the best insurance we have is spreading the population out a bit so we're not a single target for whatever the universe decides to throw at us.
Re:Good ideas. (Score:4, Insightful)
I would humbly suggest it is a skillset we LEARN, and learn it quickly and well.
RS
Re:About time we had some public debate (Score:3, Insightful)
Asteroid hit event (Score:1, Insightful)
"At some point terrestrial homo sapiens is guaranteed to take an irrecoverable hit,..."
This is extremely weak argument. Deflecting asteroid is many many orders of magnitudes cheaper than evacuating the whole planet. I bet that we'll be able to correct asteroid paths in the next 100 years.