NASA's Cashflow Problem Puts Moon Trip In Doubt 357
krou writes "According to the Guardian, the Augustine panel is going to declare that there is simply no money to go back to the moon, and the next-generation Ares I rocket is likely to be scrapped unless there is more funding. The $81B Constellation Program's long-term goal of putting a human on Mars is almost certainly not going to be possible by the middle of the century. The options outlined by the panel for the future of NASA 'are to extend the working life of the aging space shuttle fleet beyond next year's scheduled retirement until 2015, while developing a cheaper transport to the moon; pressing ahead with Constellation as quickly as existing funding allows; or creating a new, larger rocket that would allow exploration of the solar system while bypassing the moon.' All of this means that NASA won't be back on the moon before the end of the next decade as hoped, 'or even leaving lower Earth orbit for at least another two decades.' Another result of the monetary black hole is that they don't have the '$300m to expand a network of telescopes and meet the government's target of identifying, by 2020, at least 90% of the giant space rocks that pose a threat to Earth.'"
lotter tickets (Score:2)
One of these days Alice, to the moon...
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously ... (Score:2, Funny)
Cash flow problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
We're in the middle of a recession that's one of the longest on record. They're projecting that the budget they have now will be the same fifty years from now, and everyone panics over this? Oh please. Just wait until the Chinese start firing rockets into space with people on them and design their own Apollo program. I bet legislators will look between the couch cushions then and find the spare cash they need to one-up them. I've never credited Congress with an abundance of brains, but pride? Oh, they got that in spades.
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't America broke, compared to the rest of the world?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Cash flow problem... (Score:4, Insightful)
Congress won't do anything serious until it's blatantly obvious--even to Joe SixPack--that there's a space race again and we're losing. It has to be portrayable as a crisis of epic proportions, so they can rush in to save American pride with some epic spending.
It has been the same for the last 30 years (Score:3, Insightful)
Our manned space program has been on a budget that amounts to just enough to keep limping along in LEO, but not enough to do anything useful for the last thirty years. And honestly, we don't care about what the Chinese do. We don't need an excuse to develop nuclear capability anymore. We aren't in a battle of ideologies where allowing the Russians to be better than us in anything would be a "win for communism". If the Chinese put a man on the moon we'll say good "job catching up", and then do nothing.
Congre
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
The answer is:
USA non-death spiral of National Debt (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Just wait until the Chinese start firing rockets into space with people on them
They started doing that almost 6 years ago.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3192330.stm [bbc.co.uk]
It seems to me (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It seems to me (Score:4, Interesting)
Why exactly are we going to the moon again?
Uhhhh-- You're not from around here, are you? The non-geek answer is here [nasa.gov]. The geek-trying-to-not-be answer is here [nasa.gov]. And the real geek answer is... well, anything modded +5 on this thread that isn't "Funny".
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You don't need to stop a meteor. If you can spot it soon enough there are several techniques that could be used to change its trajectory so that it misses the Earth (such as putting a satellite near it that can tug it over time just using gravity, or by putting a coating on it that would alter the solar pressure on it and push it out of the way, etc).
Or you could leave everything to chance (or name your deity) but since we have the ability I definitely think we should give ourselves the chance to use it.
Re:It seems to me (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It seems to me (Score:5, Insightful)
We can't stop the stupid thing.
That depends wildly on how much warning we have. If we spot it two months, or even two years before it gets here, you're probably right. Even then, small rocks are more common than big ones so it would be statistically likely that an evacuation could be done, possibly saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
If we spot a rock, even a big one, 30 or 40 years out, we have the technology already to make a difference. Enough nukes detonated all on one side will ablate material off the surface and produce thrust, changing the rocks orbit by a little bit. Luckily, even a minuscule change in direction will produce a significant change in position 30 years down the line.
The really interesting thing is if a rock is detected that will hit in 10-15 years. At that point, it is less likely for our current technology to be fully effective. We'd end up with a crash program that would make Apollo look like chump change. I could even imagine NASA dusting off the old Orion nuclear pulse propulsion ideas if the whole world were at stake; after all, what's a few hundred nukes being detonating in the atmosphere compared human extinction.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But I don't believe you have the technology to prove said rock is going to hit the Earth in 30-40 years ; even small inaccuracies in orbital measurements and simulation could cause massive variation in the predicted position decades later.
We have demonstrated techniques for simulation of accurate orbits out to 50 Myr http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0004-637X/592/1/620/ [iop.org] so I think even a few hundred years we can do for accurate collision calculations.
The biggest issue then is the orbital determination of the impactor. We use radar for orbit determination and we are very good at it: http://impact.arc.nasa.go/news_detail.cfm?ID=132 [arc.nasa.go] The article gives an example of measuring Yarkovsky effect on a 1/2 km asteroid, which changed it's orbit by 15
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why exactly are we going to the moon again? ... How about we use that other launch platform we have.. you know, earth
Because the moon is a very large bunch of ore in a MUCH shallower gravity well. For any construction for use in space that is of sufficient mass to make building and operating mines, some processing facilities, and a catapult on the moon cost-effective for a step in manufacturing its compaonents, it's the logical way to cut costs and/or boost profits.
There's never any money for space. (Score:5, Insightful)
There never seems to be enough money for something as fundamentally important and immensely valuable to the human race as space exploration. But apparently there's always a bottomless pit of wealth for bailouts, to help grow government bureaucracy and expand what in many ways are entitlement programs.
Re: (Score:2)
I do believe NASA's premiere mission should be one to identify and protect Earth from asteroid and comet impacts by developing technology to 1) identify hazards and 2) adjust trajectories. Everything else (man on mars, moon or beyo
The money isn't used for propellant! (Score:2)
"Can I have some money for food?"
"Aww...no. We're going to send a robot to the moon!"
Hey, you hungry? Go ask to wash the BMW of the guys who wrote the code for that robot, or the guy who tested the propulsion system, or THE GUY WHO EMPTIED THEIR TRASHCANS!
The money wasn't burned, it was PAID. Those who got paid will spend it. Give them a reason to PAY YOU for something, and they will.
I made money burning some of NASA's money, but also private customers'. Food and robots are NOT EITHER/OR.
Not surpised. (Score:2)
I really am not. The sad thing is that a lot of that money would have been spent on good high paying jobs in the US. It might have also started to inspire young people to think about jobs in science and engineering like it did in the 50s and 60s.
Well let's hope SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Dragon capsule work.
Or
Vote for me in the next election.
My platform is.
More money for Space.
Faster and cheaper broadband.
No more software patents.
And your tax refund can not be more that the amount you paid in taxes.
I guess I don't understand (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
NASA Benifits (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
No matter your political leanings, it is hard to argue that NASA does not provide a great return on investment.
Such as? I'm not trolling, but what sorts of things does the space program do that could be considered a great return on investment? When I think of space travel inventions, I think of Tang, but now I found out here [cnn.com] that it was around before the "space age". Are all of the inventions listed in that article good? Sure, but most of them could have been and probably would have been invented in the absence of a space program.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why did Europe dump so much into the exploration and conquest of the New World? Where was the even remotely near term ROI on that? It was expensive as hell and the first couple generations of Europeans didn't see a drop. However, run the calendar on a while longer and you'll notice a good many things: vast improvements in ship logistics, short haul and trans-oceanic; establishment of mineral and other natural resource mining/harvesting on distant shores to replace increasingly scarce resources locally;
Re: (Score:2)
And the result of starting a mining colony on the Moon would be huge, much like the huge advantages (which you so quickly dismiss) of Satellite communications
I'm not saying there aren't any benefits, but seriously, launching satellites into orbit could be done by a private organization just as easily as it is done by NASA, probably at a profit. What exactly would we be mining on the moon? It's not like it's filled with rare minerals we don't have here, so that wouldn't even be cost effective. Plus, how are you going to send it back to Earth? You think you can just shoot it back ala "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Many of the NASA technologies on this list would not have been developed if it were an unmanned only operation.
http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html [thespaceplace.com]
Don't get me wrong, I think there's an incredible amount of science that can be accomplished using unmanned probes, landers, etc. but to not have any manned exploration would be a mistake.
And no matter how good we make the robots a real human being is infinitely more adaptable. As an example, one of the Mars rovers (I think it was Spirit) at one point
Re: (Score:2)
No matter your political leanings, it is hard to argue that NASA does not provide a great return on investment.
No it doesn't (from Congress's point of view): Funding NASA doesn't result in graft^Hcampaign contributions.
Short sighted? (Score:2)
There is a world recession on now, but it will eventually get better. Most people seem to think that will happen in 2-3 years or even a bit less.
Presumably then the money tap will be turned back on. If helium 3 turns out to be as important as it seems it will be in the next century, the money will be found.
One of these problems will fix themselves (Score:4, Insightful)
The agency needs about $300m to expand a network of telescopes and meet the government's target of identifying, by 2020, at least 90% of the giant space rocks that pose a threat to Earth. Congress has not come up with the money and is unlikely to, according to the National Academy of Science.
There is no advantage to detecting an incoming impactor if you do not have the means to prevent its impact. Having less time before large scale annihilation may serve the public better. But when it does hit (don't say if if you mean when), the loss of tax revenue will cause more damage to the budget than the space budget would have.
A microgram of prevention is worth a metric tonne of cure.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course this is totally retarded thinking. If you happen to know how long you've got before the impact, then you can evaluate your options and see what is possible. And certainly SOMETHING might well be possible. It seems reasonable to me that advanced warning is important in this scenario. Unless you know something the rest of us don't, in which case please share.
Re: (Score:2)
There is no advantage to detecting an incoming impactor if you do not have the means to prevent its impact
I disagree. It gives you time to get far away from where it will hit (or far away from the coasts if it hits an ocean). Preventing it from hitting and avoiding the destruction and impact winter would obviously be better, but being able to get out of the way is far better than being blindsided.
Re: (Score:2)
"But when it does hit (don't say if if you mean when), the loss of tax revenue will cause more damage to the budget than the space budget would have."
You know... This argument may just do the trick.
$1B Prize (Score:2)
Missing Tag: (Score:2)
Obama's Moon Speech to Country (Score:2, Funny)
I'm sorry kids, I know I promised it to you, but we're not going to get to go to the moon anytime soon.
(Pause for "Awe but..." and whining)
You see, the thing is, we're on hard times here. The country's not what it used to be. We just don't have the money right now to spend going on trips to the moon and such.
So keep up those grades and -- if you're good -- maybe we'll go to the moon in ten years.
NASA should do an IPO (Score:2)
IMHO, the Russians/Chinese/Indians/Private companies with their space organizations will get to the moon/Mars much faster than NASA anyway since their motivations are different, and especially, those countries take a lot of pride in their space related work.
Useful != Profitable (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
With the exception of pumping satellites into earth orbit(and even here, a fair slice of the demand is public sector) everything we do in space is a "frivolous project". Appeals to "discovery" aren't going to pay the bills in this case.
FAKE a Chinese Moon shot - Funding solved... (Score:2)
We have the potential for a new wide reaching conspiracy theory here people.
Iran or China might do an Orion (Score:4, Insightful)
The future of space belongs to a country willing to use nuclear propulsion. [wikipedia.org] Chemical rockets are a dead end. They haven't improved much in forty years, and the limits of that technology have been nearly reached.
My bet: This will persist for at least 50 years (Score:3, Interesting)
My prediction is that there will not be a human outside of low Earth orbit for at least the next 50 years, with the possible (unlikely) exception of the Chinese attempting a lunar orbit or landing.
Perhaps in the 50-100 year timescale, we'll have figured out radically different approaches: Nuclear propulsion, a space elevator, a launch loop. Or we'll be able to upload our minds into hardware, and send people into space without sending bodies. E.g., your consciousness gets radioed into the probe once it's tunneled through the Europan ice.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
My prediction is that there will not be a human outside of low Earth orbit for at least the next 50 years, with the possible (unlikely) exception of the Chinese attempting a lunar orbit or landing.
The Russians have already offered flights around the Moon for $300,000,000. Maybe NASA could buy a few.
The cost of human spaceflight is going up.
$300,000,000 is a lot less than Apollo 8 cost, and non-government prices are only going down from here as private companies take over the manned spaceflight business.
Nobody has identified a compelling economic, scientific, political, or military rationale for sending people into space.
Yes they have; it's called tourism. Get the price of a week in orbit down to a couple of hundred thousand dollars and you'll have more customers than you can handle... that won't happen overnight, but it's quite feasible in a couple of decades
Enter the Private Industry... (Score:4, Insightful)
This can also be seen in the Green movement, for example. Rather than fund or seriously investigate truly sustainable energy sources such as breeder reactors and fusion research, the government wants to hop on a trendy bandwagon (votes) that involves the more inefficient methods of solar and wind energy production and the costly subsidization of corn-based bio-fuels (money). We can, and should, therefore kiss off serious government spending towards goals like space exploration. True development and innovation will come in this field through privately funded space organizations and governments of other countries.
Companies like Bigelow Aerospace will work to make space accessible to the civilian population. Companies like Orbital and SpaceX will continue to try to reduce the cost/kg to LEO until space is affordable and accessible. Universities will continue to inspire engineering and science students to work on space-related projects just for the sake of doing 'something totally awesome' such as the Cubesat project. This will, in turn, provide a place of invention and learning. Other governments such as Japan, Russia, the UK, and the EU in general will lobby harder to have more say and dabbling in international space endeavors such as the ISS. Slowly, unfortunately, I think we will see NASA start to sputter and stagnate over the next few decades.
All I have to say to NASA is, "Thank you for all of the inspiration and hard work you put into paving the road to space for us." That organization put decades of hard work and research into opening up a whole new universe (literally) to us as a species. NASA, at its height, embodied the peak of the American 'can-do' spirit and gumption. It very much did make heroes of many dreamers and it should forever be remembered as an organization that truly inspired and captured the minds and dreams of thousands of people. The human race owes NASA a great debt for this and this alone. Sadly, however, I fear this organization is going to lose much of its former glory under the suffocating chokehold of egoistic and, frankly, stupid politicians.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, what they have pointed to is either a) research that just happened to be done by NASA with little (if any) connection to manned space exploration, b) technology developed elsewhere that NASA uses and claims, or c) outright handwaving and propaganda.
Scare mongering (Score:4, Insightful)
Keep all the little, boring projects that the public doesn't care about in the budget and then threaten that unless you get more money, then you won't be able to do the big, visible ones.
It's one of the oldest budgeting tricks in the book and somebody should be handing NASA's chief his ass for pulling such a stunt.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Keep all the little, boring projects that the public doesn't care about in the budget and then threaten that unless you get more money, then you won't be able to do the big, visible ones.
Yeah, the public schools do that too. They let repairs go when they could have been fixed, but buy new uniforms for the football team and send the band to Disney, then they want a millage passed to do repairs.
Re:Screw it!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm going to have to disagree. NASA could survive, but only by doing something relatively radical that actually makes space exploration make sense. At a minimum that means setting up an orbital refueling system, with disposable heavy lifters to bring up fuel and other equipment, relaunchable shuttles to ferry people up and down, and ships that never re-enter the atmosphere but are refueled and stocked in orbit.
Alternatively, NASA could dust off the theoretical nuclear rockets (the closed cycle ones, not the ones that rely on detonating thousands of nuclear bombs) that they had started developing back in the 60's. Or they could start serious research on a non-rocket launch system. A space elevator is probably out of reach right now, but a hypersonic sky-hook, a launch loop, or a laser propulsion system is probably within our technology level (or soon will be).
Re: (Score:2)
Not within our budget limits however.
I would agree though, bringing back NERVA would definetly help with getting to Mars.
Re:Screw it!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
There is one objection to the space elevator that I've mentioned here before but never seen anyone seriously address.
The earth is built like a gigantic capacitor. The ionosphere has a relatively strong negative charge, while the ground has a relatively strong positive charge. An insulating layer of dielectric air is between them. It's a leaky self-adjusting capacitor because of lightning. A space elevator would bypass this insulating layer of air, making a direct physical connection between the negative and positive charges. Additionally, I believe that the carbon nanotubes proposed for its construction are electrically conductive, but even if they weren't there is probably more than enough current for electrical breakdown to take place considering that lightning does this to air molecules about three million times a day. What would keep the elevator from instantly vaporizing due to electrical arcing the moment it's installed?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It won't discharge very quickly because the ionosphere is a mighty poor conductor. A tower stuck into the ionosphere is only going to discharge the molecules it touches-- anything more than an inch away is effectively insulated.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
nobody seriously objects because nobody seriously believes the space elevator could be built anyway
Re:Screw it!!! (Score:4, Funny)
You're talking to a message board that sometimes has very earnest debates about the physics of Star Trek.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
"NASA could survive, but only by doing something relatively radical that actually makes space exploration make sense."
We don't need humans in space to explore space, we only need them in space to learn how to maintain them in space.
Tourism is not exploration. Learn first, then send tourists at leisure or let them go commercially.
In the days of terrestrial exploration, people and ships were throwaway assets. Now, we send people out of tradition, not utility even though they are counterproductive in terms of
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Better:
With a nuclear rocket you don't have to send fuel and oxidizer up - you only have to send propellant.
And, as soon as you establish a viable transport network, you can get your propellant on much lower-gravity bodies. One could land on a comet, get a lot of water out of it and use part of the collected water to get back to the fuel station.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sometimes I think Science Fiction is actually bad for real space exploration. We get people saying things like "Why is NASA dicking around with ISS and the Shuttle, they should get to Mars already". Well, you don't think we should practice being in space reliably for extended periods before setting out on a trip that takes years and any failure means the crew dies? But no, they skip over such details in SciFi so NASA should do the same.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> I think that exploring space is really kind of pointless of boring compared to all
> the earth based science and engineering one could do with the same amount of money.
You're forgetting the #1 reason it's important: Terrestrial asteroid impact. Right now, if a Chixilub-like asteroid hits anywhere on earth, it's likely to instantly set back human civilization and technology by AT LEAST a hundred years -- if we're lucky, and most humans aren't actually killed, and some anti-technology religious zealots
Re:Screw it!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Look around. Do you see private companies lining up to fund Moon travel?
Believe me, if Boeing or General Electric or United Airlines (those seem like the most obvious candidates off the top of my head; I'm sure there are many others) thought there was a profit in it, they'd be lobbying like mad for whatever regulatory changes would be necessary, and simultaneously developing well-publicized plans. Instead we have the absurdly misnamed "Virgin Galactic" planning suborbital hops at some point in the unspecified future -- and as much money as the Branson empire represents, the truth is that when it comes to projects of this scale, Virgin Everything is a bit player.
Yes, eventually the technology will improve to the point that corporate investors will see a short-term profit potential, and at that point the dollars will start flowing in. But it is going to take massive government investment to get us there. As long as the US is dragging its feet, we'd better hope that the EU or Russia or China can step up, because otherwise we are just not going to see people on the Moon again in our lifetimes.
Re: (Score:2)
Believe me, if Boeing or General Electric or United Airlines (those seem like the most obvious candidates off the top of my head; I'm sure there are many others) thought there was a profit in it, they'd be lobbying like mad for whatever regulatory changes would be necessary, and simultaneously developing well-publicized plans.
That's exactly the point. There's not really a whole lot done in space that couldn't be done down here for less. I'm all for space travel, and generally not hostile to NASA, but until there's a VIABLE reason for space exploration other than "Because we can", most businesses aren't going to do it. They'll stick to having their satellites orbiting the Earth.
Re: (Score:2)
Look around. Do you see private companies lining up to fund Moon travel?
Believe me, if Boeing or General Electric or United Airlines (those seem like the most obvious candidates off the top of my head; I'm sure there are many others) thought there was a profit in it, they'd be lobbying like mad for whatever regulatory changes would be necessary, and simultaneously developing well-publicized plans. ...
Yes, eventually the technology will improve to the point that corporate investors will see a short-term profit potential, and at that point the dollars will start flowing in. But it is going to take massive government investment to get us there. As long as the US is dragging its feet, we'd better hope that the EU or Russia or China can step up, because otherwise we are just not going to see people on the Moon again in our lifetimes.
Didn't Boeing take a bit of a risk with the 747 since it would take many decades to recover the cost of its development? I agree with a lot of what you say, but there are industries out there where long term investments are made, and civil aerospace is one of them, so I think you might have picked a bad example to make your point there. Personally I wish more companies would make these long term investments rather than just cherry pick whatever will pay off this quarter. Japanese companies like Honda are
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but that was in the days before the bean-counters took over the world. Now you need a cost-analysis and feasability study, not to mention 1000-page specifications before you get approval to take a shit.
Re: (Score:2)
Now you need a cost-analysis and feasability study, not to mention 1000-page specifications before you get approval to take a shit.
You forgot the environmental impact study :)
Re:Screw it!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Whilst it is always fun to kick the beancounters (I do often enough) I don't think it is entirely their fault in this instance.
Space travel is not a field that allows much real experimentation. As a programmer now moving into space science, I can attest how different this makes things. A programmer can compile-debug-compile 50 times a day until something is just right. The NASA equivalent of compiling something costs $300 million each time.
This led in the 1950's and 60's to the development of complicated methods of systems management, which because they enabled Apollo to be a success have been copied and rigidly adhered to around the world ever since (Europe is a prime example; our native systems management experiments in ELDO were a dismal failure whilst Americans were walking on the moon. So we scrapped everything, simply copied NASA system management techniques, and now we have highly competitive heavy lift launchers)
Rigorous documentation, interface management, and change management do tend to drown space agencies in paper work but by the same token shit doesn't blow up quite so often anymore. Space systems management is conservative (in the literal, not political sense) because it would be extremely costly to explore any different ways of doing things.
The way things are done now may well represent a local maxima in our ability to build and fly rockets, but randomizing the function could easily cost trillions.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"It only looks that way with hindsight."
No, it doesn't.
"At the time it wasn't a dead cert that the 747 was going to be a success."
Looking at the number of transoceanic travelers and its tendence it was obvious that lowering the per-passenger costs and increasing capacity was a no-brainer.
"Some people probably thought there was obvious profit to be made from Concorde"
Which only makes my point stronger. See that I didn't say that 747 benefits were *certain* but that they were *obvious*. The same is true for
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Look around. Do you see private companies lining up to fund Moon travel?
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/02/22/65477.aspx [msn.com]
Even as Bigelow Aerospace gears up for launching its second prototype space station into orbit, the company has set its sights on something much, much bigger: a project to assemble full-blown space villages at a work site between Earth and the moon, then drop them to the lunar surface, ready for immediate move-in.
In an exclusive interview this week, Las Vegas billionaire Robert Bigelow confirmed that his company has been talking about the concept with NASA â" and that the first earthly tests of the techniques involved would take place later this year. The scenario he sketched out would essentially make Bigelow a general contractor for the final frontier.
That role would be a good fit for Bigelow, who made his fortune in the real estate, hotel and construction business and is now focused on developing inflatable modules (or as he prefers to call them, "expandable systems") that can serve as the building blocks for orbital living complexes.
The first big step down that path came in July, when a Russian booster put Bigelow's Genesis 1 prototype module into orbit. Bigelow has said even he was surprised by the success of that mission, and he has committed himself to spending hundreds of millions of dollars to follow up on that first launch.
Re:Why, yes, I do. (Score:5, Insightful)
For starters, it's a LOT cheaper to mine, refine, and launch material for space-based industry on the Moon than on the Earth.
You are missing a smiley here :-) It is definitely cheaper to launch stuff from the Moon if you have a cat-a-pult [amazon.com] already. But where do you see metal ores on the Moon? Some refining processes require amazing quantities of energy, water, oxygen [wikipedia.org] and other very specific ingredients that I'd be amazed if they just sit on the surface. And how do you "spiral out" a construction of a steel mill that weighs a few million tons and measures power in gigawatts? It can't be built without all the supporting industries being already in place.
Mining on Earth is already dangerous and difficult even though we don't need to do it in spacesuits. On the Moon the vacuum will be a major killer because an accident that on Earth leaves you with a minor wound will puncture your spacesuit and you'll be dead as a mummy before anyone can pull you to safety. There are all kinds of costs and dangers associated with Moon mining and refining, and it is absurd to suggest that they can be done there cheaper than on Earth (unless we terraform Moon or Earth.)
All the talk about cybernetic mining machines is just talk until I see a herd of them here, on Earth, mining something useful (like Uranium ore) completely autonomously and with minimum maintenance. If you need a spare part it will cost $50 million per delivery. Let's see how that helps to make Moon mining cheaper.
In my personal opinion, humankind will not get anywhere until a new propulsion method is discovered. Chemical rockets barely can lift a handful of people onto LEO. Nuclear rockets using something like water as reaction mass may be usable, but water is precious in space. Physics research does not go any faster if a Moon colony is set up (unless you expect to find some ET cache of knowledge.) NASA funding would be better spent on basic science, and whatever remains can be used to send cheap but resilient robots to neighboring planets. This is similar to space travel - a ship sent 100 years later will overtake the ship sent earlier earlier because it will move faster due to advances in propulsion methods.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Or the Chinese. They'll probably be there in less than 10.
Re:Screw it!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not true. The US isn't the only country with space technology. I predict the Chinese will be the next to land men on the moon, and Mars, and everything after that. They'll probably work with the Russians, and maybe some US engineers will head over there too to help out after realizing everything here is going to pot.
While the USA is busy squandering its leading position in the world, China is working hard on becoming #1.
Re: (Score:2)
We can only hope. I don't really care who goes to the moon (well, with the possible exception of Miley Cyrus) as long as someone does.
If the US is going to dick around, then I hope the Chinese get there. The only crap thing will be the terrible English translations of the lunar broadcasts.
NASA should return to their charter. (Score:5, Interesting)
... which includes aiding, rather than usurping and suppressing, the development of PRIVATE spaceflight technology and business, the way they historically aided (somewhat) private air flight.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How can the federal deficit be blamed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here, do this the next time your party is in charge: Take your income tax bill and write a check for double that. Because at our rate of spending, we only tax for half our expenditures. It doesn't matter who is in charge.
It us unfortunate that we have come full circle and now have taxation without representation. Our children and our kids have no representation in congress, yet they get to inherit our bills.
Re: (Score:2)
Whats scary are those scientists with their universe destroying super colliders and off predictions of asteroid impacts. Why the hell would they want to collect super germs unless they planned on making bigger and better killers, they made AIDS for the CIA you know. Then they tell us that those things moving in the sky are swamp gas, swamp gas! How dumb do they think we are? For what, so they can go out into the woods scrape owl shit off of trees. I can do that and for a whole lot less!!!!1
Re:How can the federal deficit be blamed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Please don't toss out "Iraq". That old throw away line was childish during Bush's years and just as tired now. Iraq had no bearing either.
Sometime between the time Clinton left office and Obama entered office the Federal budget surplus disappeared.
Now where did it go? Hrm?
Secondly, the national debt went from 6 trillion in 2001 to 10 trillion in 2008? (I'm rounding up)
Now where did that money go? It could have been useful to have when the economy collapsed in 2008?
Keep in mind the President had veto power and up until 2006 a majority in the house and senate so anything that got approved for spending crossed his desk.
I'm saying this as a person who support conservative government fiances in time of plenty and who donated to Ron Paul. As it is... 8 years is a long time to be in charge. Anything we have to deal with today was because of that.
And don't say Clinton is at fault either because he had 8 years to undo any problems he had caused if such is the reason.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone who implies Dubya is a conservative is lying out their teeth.
Re: (Score:2)
Please don't confuse a President who TALKS about being for science, just understand the science politicians support is the science that polls well.
And science that people are likely to think of as relevant and necessary polls well.
Re:How can the federal deficit be blamed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it certainly has not had any impact on the orgy of irresponsible spending of President Obama and his fellow Democrats.
Context failure on line 1: Orgies not related to root topic "Moon Trip".
Parsing failure on line 1: "President Obama" is not inherited from the class "Democrats".
Face it, it isn't because we "DON'T" have the money its because NASA != votes.
Illegal operand on line 3: !=; Class "Organization" cannot be compared with class "Citizen". /projects/moon_trip/John_F_Kennedy.h include file missing.
Compiler warning: All caps statement does not need added quotations for emphasis.
I/O:
Please don't toss out "Iraq". That old throw away line was childish during Bush's years and just as tired now. Iraq had no bearing either.
Compiler warning: Iraq.h included but not used.
Compiler warning: George_Bush.h included but not used.
It is no more difficult than that. There is no conspiracy.
Compiler warning: Illuminati.h contains errors and was not included.
This not because of Iraq/Afghanistan. This is not because of a bloated defense budget.
Compiler warning: Iraq.h alread declared.
File I/O error: Afghanistan.h not found.
File I/O error: Function bloat() included multiple times in budget/defense.h
Compiler warning: budget/defense.h required for NASA.c
It simply is because NASA does not generate votes or control and as such does not qualify for a President or Congress not interested in science.
Parsing failure on line 9: "Control" declared without operand.
Parsing failure on line 9: if/then branch always returns false.
Parsing failure on line 9: Class "NASA" not inherited from "Voter".
Please don't confuse a President who TALKS about being for science, just understand the science politicians support is the science that polls well.
Parsing failure on line 10: "President" cannot be confused by members of the class "Voter."
Parsing failure on line 10: "science politicians" is ambiguous. Add an apostrophe to politicians or prefix statement with a linking verb.
Parsing failure on line 10: "polls well" is ambiguous. Did you mean "does well in the polls" ?
Re: (Score:2)
Just cause its an old line, doesn't mean Iraq isn't still a relevant line.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Please don't toss out "Iraq". That old throw away line was childish during Bush's years and just as tired now. Iraq had no bearing either.
A throw-away line for a throw-away war.
You know, once upon a time, we had a presidential candidate who is very gung-ho about science. He even won most of the votes. I suppose that invalidates your conclusion.
You need to recognize that there are very specific segments of the population who are actively hostile to science, and pandering to them using words they can understa
Re:Sure they do! (Score:5, Funny)
It's in Congress' collective pockets. And going towards fruitless things like corporate bailouts.
I propose a new tax. Hear me out please. Every time a white boy is raised in a loving home in suburbia and thinks he's a bad-ass, hard-ass street thug because he listens to top-40 rap on MTV and carefully rehearses his Ebonics until he speaks like someone who grew up in the Projects, tax half of his income. Put that money towards NASA. There's so many of these otherwise useless bastards that it should take about one year before we have a McDonalds on fucking Mars.
Re:Sure they do! (Score:5, Funny)
That's surprisingly insightful.
Add sterilization to the package and we will also have smart people flipping burgers on the martian McDonald's.
Re:Sure they do! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yessure, but don't count on Coppola this time: he's living with E. Presley his golden retire.
Re:Sure they do! (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
B.S. Corporations don't have the giant amount of capital needed to fund any serious space exploration, especially when the financial rewards are questionable and probably many decades away (asteroid mining, space-based solar power, etc.). Corporations have to get their capital from investors, who want to see a return quickly, not 50 years from now after they're all dead (since most investors are older and saving for retirement; young people are busy spending all their money at the mall or other disposable
Re: (Score:2)
yeah, mankind will never go back, not in this era of civilization anyway.
we have become to trite and petty, we much rather kill each other off or maybe just watch american idle that achieve anything that might be beneficial to mankind as a whole.
hell, we even stopped curing our ailments when we realized that treatments could be more profitable that cures.
but take heart, hopefully we've left enough record that mankind's successors to this planet will have a chance to learn from our failure.
Re:Enough with the manned missions already! (Score:5, Interesting)
The "get off this rock" crowd is a magical-religious cult, not a serious proponent of realistic, feasible, affordable, desirable, or even specific projects.
Except that space advocates have been for decades proposing projects which are entirely realistic, feasible, and specific. Whether they're affordable is of course an open question, and whether they're desirable is a matter of opinion, but there is nothing like the ambiguity you claim.
Manned colonization of the cosmos is, at the present time and likely for centuries to come, no different from a belief in an afterlife filled with saints, virgins, and angelic personages.
By saying "cosmos," you're conflating science-fantasy ideas about warp drives and such with well-understood science and engineering problems involved in colonizing the Solar System. I suspect you're doing this deliberately to make it all look equally silly. In case you're really so ignorant that you don't understand the difference:
Cosmos -- not going to happen without fundamental changes in our understanding of physical laws. Too bad.
Solar System -- easily doable with technology that exists right now, using little more than a Newtonian understanding of the world.
It is not real.
Human footprints on the Moon are real. Many of the people who put them there are still alive. That's as real as it gets.
If you want inspiration, stick to anime.
How about being inspired by the actual record of what people did? Are you actually more inspired by fiction than by real life?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Earth has seen multiple mass extinctions (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as the human race is confined to this rock it will eventually go the way of the dodo. From a species preservation point of view it is immanently logical that the human race needs to aquire a foothold on another planet. That is why such well known raving lunatics like Stephen Hawking are very much in favor of a Mars colony [go.com].
Re: (Score:2)
What's the point of unmanned space exploration if we never plan on going there?
The engineering work behind designing human capable long distance space craft HAS to be done eventually, why sit and wait? It's not as if this kind of technology grows on trees.
Besides, getting off this rock is the only thing that will save it. The resources in space are unlimited and as is pretty obvious from looking back at history, almost all wars are fights over limited resources.
Re: (Score:2)
The people that stay behind are still going to be fighting over the resources, so what's the point of sending a few people away ?
Re: (Score:2)
Another mindless rant from the we should be exploring space with machines team. Thanks so much for your opinion. We loved it so much.
Re: (Score:2)
You would spend billions and billions of dollars building a pointless low earth orbit ferris wheel and pretend you are some kind of space-faring Christopher Columbus. Oh, wait...
"There is nothing out there worth the $$$ of going (Score:2)
Starglider29a
Offline document