Armstrong, Cernan Testify Against Obama Space Plan 411
MarkWhittington submitted a story about the first man to walk on the moon testifying yesterday that President Barack Obama's plans to revamp the human space program would cede America's longtime leadership in space to other nations.
So... (Score:1, Insightful)
Of all the things that Obama is doing, am I the only one who feels that him killing NASA really struck a nerve? It's literally the only thing he's done that made my blood boil.
and? (Score:5, Insightful)
dont we have bigger issues than who has the biggest space penis??
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
But we have to do it. How else will we have money in the budget to bail out bankers and pay for their billion dollar bonuses?
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
As opposed to every other NASA proposal since 1970 (Score:5, Insightful)
...which has been overambitious and underfunded.
We haven't had a decent space plan since getting to the moon. We have had some lofty goals, but never proper commitment or funding. We've also had changing directions every administration or so.
Perhaps the worst thing about Obama's plan is that it is a little more in line with reality instead of wishes?
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
a media event!
Re:and? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:and? (Score:5, Insightful)
Better yet, why spend money to send people when we can send machines and do science?
There is zero _urgency_ to send humans, we need robots on earth and in space much more than we need humans in space, and robots don't (unlike humans) impose a prohibitively costly burden. Let other countries eat the R&D, then do what China does to us and enjoy the fruits of other peoples research.
Re:So... (Score:2, Insightful)
International prestige? Further scientific understanding of the effects of microgravity on the human organism? The foundation for eventual space colonization? The laundry list of scientific breakthroughs and advancements in consumer technology that have come from the space program? Jobs?
Re:As opposed to every other NASA proposal since 1 (Score:5, Insightful)
We haven't had a decent manned space plan. Galileo, Cassini, Spirit & Opportunity, and plenty others worked out very well.
Re:As opposed to every other NASA proposal since 1 (Score:1, Insightful)
Apparently this is a troll because someone disagrees with you.
+1 Inconvenient Truth, IMO.
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
What do we gain from manned space flight that we wouldn't gain, in a far cheaper way, from unmanned missions?
Colonization of other worlds is clearly impossible without manned flight.
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Humans in space? Colonies on other worlds? Ending the cosmic equivalent of having all of our eggs in one basket? We're one natural disaster away from complete annhilation of our race. I'd kinda like to have at least a few people offworld just in case.
All this talk of "Unmanned missions are just as good!" is pretty unconvincing when reports come back that the latest rover mission may be failing because it's stuck on a 3 inch rock and can't wiggle it's way off . . .
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who cares about old racists? (Score:1, Insightful)
What is it with this administration that everyone who disagrees is a racist? Was it not Hillary Clinton who said that disagreement is a fundamental principal of a democracy?
Unfortunately racism is alive and well in the USA. But to call everyone who disagrees with you a racist is to cheapen the entire civil rights movement.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Colonization of other worlds is clearly impossible without manned flight.
Colonization of other worlds (which ones did you have in mind, by the way?) is clearly impossible without technologies that don't exist on Earth right now and won't exist for at least another few decades. Spending many billions of dollars on chemical rockets isn't going to get the job done.
Re:and? (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. People seem to be of this braindead mindset that governments must solve problems in a serial fashion. The most important one goes to the top and everything else must wait it's turn.
Newsflash - if the system worked like that as soon as "world hunger" or "world peace" floated it's way up there nothing else would EVER see the light of day.
The reality is that if you want to get anything done, you have to work on problems in tandem. Yes, we have a deficit, yes, there are starving children in the world, but those problems will actually get WORSE if you focus exclusively on them at the expense of everything else.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Killing NASA by increasing its budget certainly counts as change though. Most of the earlier presidents focused on improving NASA by decreasing its budget.
NASA needs to go (Score:5, Insightful)
Like any bureaucracy, NASA existed only as long as it pleased its political leaders. The result is a space agency that's known for stunts.
Put a man in orbit. First! {Grab genitalia and grunt here).
Put a man on the moon. First! (Grunt repeatedly here).
Seriously, if NASA's main missions now were spaced based power, Zero G industries, low-grav hospitals, a satellite based internet, a space based mirror climate control system, or any of *thousands* of practical, profitable, useful projects, would we even be having this discussion?
Instead, NASA is all about Texas and Florida political pork, controlled by politicians and shaped to *their* ends. Market based solutions, as bad as they are, would still be better than techno-military welfare that we can't afford.
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Really, unmanned missions bring the same amount of international prestige and goodwill as manned ones? I don't think so -- the United States gained more in this department from a handful of moon shots and space shuttle rides for friends/allies than it has from all the robotic missions combined.
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder aloud if space exploration isn't an excuse not to fix the mess we've created here on good old planet Earth. I've read sci fi since I was a kid, and there's a lot of future scenarios where humans now live offwold because Earth died of this, or that or radiation in a post-nuclear holocaust, etc.
It's my personal belief that we have to fix the problems now, discuss them, and introduce population controls that cut down on resource damage until we can determine the nature of the problems we face (without glib one-liners).
What makes anyone think that subsequent out-migration to habitable planets will work, when we can't get this one right?
Obama is actually thinking logically (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Experience.
Re:So... (Score:2, Insightful)
Colonization of other worlds is clearly impossible without manned flight.
Colonization of other worlds (which ones did you have in mind, by the way?) is clearly impossible without technologies that don't exist on Earth right now and won't exist for at least another few decades. Spending many billions of dollars on chemical rockets isn't going to get the job done.
Indeed, no question about that. But I could argue that putting a small, permanent, self-sustained human outpost on the Moon or Mars is possible with technologies currently available. Borderline possible, but still.
it makes no sense to send people into space... (Score:4, Insightful)
it makes no sense to send people into space... until we know of someplace we can permanently stay.
robots are faster, more accurate, more durable, can stay out there virtually indefinitely, and are 3-20 orders of magnitude cheaper.
from a scientific perspective, low-earth-orbit (the only place we're sending people) just isn't that interesting. virtually all space-related scientific data comes from unmanned probes and robots.
until we're talking about settling another planet/moon, people in space are just tourists. so why is the government funding it?
Things cost money! (Score:2, Insightful)
The future?
$1 Trillion each year in the red. Nevermind the unfunded liabilities of medicare and medicaid.
That means:
You have to CUT! lots of spending has to be cut! If you want those programs to go ahead regardless, then send in a cheque and help them fund it! Just my opinion, Regards
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
All of *my* eggs will always be in one basket. It does me no damn good to have someone walking around on another planet. No, as cool as it is (and yes, it's very cool) it's a *massive* waste of money that could be redirected toward, oh, I don't know, science education, basic research grants, 10-times as many unmanned flights. Besides, the dangers inherent in manned flight hold us back from trying things. I mean, look at our early Mars record: we kept throwing things at Mars and only a few landed nicely. Eventually, we hit a couple jackpots with the current rovers. Prestige? Bullshit! Let's do some *real* science, damn it!!
bzzzt ... try again (Score:3, Insightful)
him killing NASA really struck a nerve
Except that he isn't killing NASA. If you RTFA you'll see that his proposal is for NASA to go to Mars, and get out of the business of low-earth lifting.
In other words, he is supporting the outsourcing of some of what NASA currently does. Why his predecessor didn't propose the same is beyond me.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's funny, if we send humans to Mars that could be all the time they have to spend. Robots just need sunlight, we humans need much more logistical support. Robots also just need one way tickets.
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure there is, it is a total boondoggle to keep the shuttle contractors rolling in cash. A fresh design would have been something, not another shuttle derived POS.
What do I get? (Score:3, Insightful)
Armstrong and the other astronauts got to walk on the moon. What do I get for billions of dollars thrown at more human spacetravel? Nothing.
I'll take the robots and the science instead, please.
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:2, Insightful)
Natural disaster or man-made disaster? Because other than an asteroid hitting the planet, there isn't a natural disaster that would wipe out all life on this planet.
And FYI, we are nowhere near the cability to colonize another planet. Not now, nor within 100 years.
But hey tell the poor shrimper in New Orleans we need to spend Billions on NASA so that someday we can land a man on mars meanwhile we can't do a damn thing to stop BP's Oil spill from killing his shrimping bed.
Yeah good priorities....
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm tired of this argument.
Part of what makes us human is our curiosity; the need to explore, to go and see what's on the other side of that mountain. We need a goal that's inspirational. Yeah, robots do great science, but they're not going to inspire a hell of a lot of people.
"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?" -- Robert Browning
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Humans in space? Colonies on other worlds? Ending the cosmic equivalent of having all of our eggs in one basket? We're one natural disaster away from complete annhilation of our race. I'd kinda like to have at least a few people offworld just in case.
And we still would be if all we did was build a giant rocket that could, at best, send a handful of people to the moon or eventually Mars.
The technologies the new plan is set to develop much more directly tackle the issue of humans surviving -- not just visiting long enough to plant a flag, but actually surviving -- than Constellation does. Constellation does absolutely nothing but let us put more boot prints on the moon. Yay. When we finally decide to send astronauts to Mars, there should already be robotically assembled habitats and a factory processing ice for oxygen and fuel waiting for them. We should have everything in place so the astronauts can stay on Mars for a year, or even more. It should be the foundation for a permanent settlement on Mars.
If you're serious about this "eggs in one basket" problem, and are serious about humans permanently occupying other planets, then you should be all for the new NASA plan like Buzz Aldrin is. He wants a permanent base on Mars, not a boot-and-flag mission.
Manned missions for their own sake, or to try to recapture lost glory by repeating what we've already done, is just wankery.
All this talk of "Unmanned missions are just as good!" is pretty unconvincing when reports come back that the latest rover mission may be failing because it's stuck on a 3 inch rock and can't wiggle it's way off . . .
Yeah, only 6 years of nearly continuous operation on a budget that is comparable to a manned Low Earth Orbit mission, and vastly less than any manned mission to Mars would be, and where even the stuck rover can still perform useful science, surely shows how unconvincing the argument for robotic missions is.
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
dude, we are barely out of the stone age.
Just 100 years ago most homes did not have electricity or even indoor toilets. Hell we were barely out of the Renaissance era. WW-I did not start until 1914 and at the beginning it was incredibly low tech. Sword fighting was still taught to military personnel.
Honestly, Wait until 2110. WE will have full walking humanoid bots (which will be dumb, send a dog design, they are faster, more agile and capable of doing more.)
Cripes the technology changes over the past 10 years have been more than the past 100. Honestly launching delicate ugly bags of water into space is really dumb for real exploration.
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
We just aren't ready to colonize the planets yet, and right now, a mission to Mars would be just as pointless as going to the moon was in 1969. Impressive, sure, a nice feelgood project if you will, but the practical significance is close to zero. Despite all the rhetoric, Neil Armstrong was not the Columbus of the 20th century; being stranded on the moon is, at present, still a death sentence. Let's do something about that before building more and bigger rockets...
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
We already spend more per capita on education than any other country, so I don't think throwing more money at that "money pit" is going to do any good.
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Assuming we do reach a stage where we can have a self sustaining environment here on Earth...suddenly all the horrid things that can happen to you here on Earth are no longer so important as you could survive without end regardless of what happens to the planet even if all life on the planet dies.
The first step is getting something like the biodome to actually work with NO SUNLIGHT...then and only then could we even consider another planet...unless you plan on eating rocks, breathing toxic gas, and bathing in a sun with no EM protection.
We're not there yet...maybe Obama realizes this.
And I think its gonna be a long long time (Score:3, Insightful)
Mars ain't the kind of place to raise a kid
Re:Killing NASA? I think not. (Score:2, Insightful)
Its funny - this is a rabid capitalist country, and yet when is proposed to allow commercial space flight to take over the boring operation bits everyone is up in arms. Whenever I hear astronauts talking about this my mind jumps to the infamous Mandy Rice-Davies - "well he would, wouldn't he".
Let NASA get back to some real research, not shuttling (sorry) people to the space station.
Who on earth believes that the government is more efficient than private enterprise at the operational level ? So set guidelines, safety regulations, create an environment where commercial enterprises can see an opportunity, and let us solve the problem. If that's done the country will not "cede America's longtime leadership in space", it will just be done more efficiently outside of the government.
Why should I as a large contributor to the government pay for someone to drive a bus into space ? What grabs my attention (and probably Joe public's for the last 30 years) is Hubble, Spirit + Opportunity, Pathfinder. The only time the shuttle breaks into public awareness anymore is when there's an accident.
And while long term we do need to have an off-Earth safety net - its not going to happen in my life, and a few people on a non self-sufficient beachhead doesn't do anything except waste money.
Re:So... (Score:1, Insightful)
It's an extravagant waste of money on the level of an engineer's bailout to keep NASA running the way it was. I hate to say it but to make an omelet you need to break the eggs. It's not an imperative to spend the most on space exploration especially when you can't even give your citizens healthcare or basic education. Yes, long term - LONG TERM, we should look to making extraterrestrial colonization plans, but it's just not in the budget right now.
Re:So... (Score:2, Insightful)
Ronald Reagan - you mean that guy who raised the national debt from $700 billion to $3 trillion? [wikipedia.org]
I'm pretty sure he had some help from Congress. As I recall the Democrats controlled the House for all of his Presidency and the Senate for the last two years of it.
Assigning all the blame for the national deficit to the President shows a fundamental lack of understanding of our political system.
Re:As opposed to every other NASA proposal since 1 (Score:3, Insightful)
We haven't had a decent manned space plan. Galileo, Cassini, Spirit & Opportunity, and plenty others worked out very well.
This is really the crucial point. We have done some first rate science without having any meat on board, and in most cases, we couldn't have done it with meat on board because meat is just not tough enough to do the job, and launching the necessary equipment to keep meat alive in space for years at a time is prohibitively expensive, and meat wouldn't serve any actual practical purpose in most cases.
Mind you, I am an enthusiastic supporter of manned spaceflight, but let's be reasonable and make sure we're putting people into space because we need them to do specific jobs that machines can't do, not just because it's cool to put people in space. All of the proposals for manned spaceflight I've seen in recent years start with the unquestioned and unsupported assumption that putting meat in space is a good thing. Seldom ever does anyone start by saying that accomplishing X would be a good and useful thing, and X requires a human presence in space, which probably shouldn't be surprising, since there isn't actually much of anything we need a human presence to accomplish right now.
The bottom line is that there is no end of productive scientific projects we could pursue with robots for a fraction of the cost of a handful of much less productive manned projects. Moreover, the more we learn about the solar system through robotic probes, the more likely we are to discover actual reasons for a manned presence in space.
Re:So... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's my personal belief that we have to fix the problems now, discuss them, and introduce population controls that cut down on resource damage until we can determine the nature of the problems we face (without glib one-liners).
We will never do this. Western civilization has basically reached a tipping point, an existential crisis, in which it finds itself unwilling to protect and preserve itself--much less advance--thanks to the adoption of a radical cultural and moral relativism which promotes protecting freedom from being offended and group rights over freedom of expression and individual rights. The legacy of the Third Reich in Europe and of slavery in the New World is this existential crisis, in which the West has vowed not to oppress again--even if it means allowing others to oppress our entire civilization out of existence.
We refuse to even control our own borders and limit immigration, so we could never "introduce population controls that cut down on resource damage"; the result is that established Western democracies like the U.S. and those of Europe are being flooded by immigrants with no experience of true democracy or common effort beyond tribalism, who seek to remake their host countries to serve their particular interests according to their own selfish and undereducated desires. In the old days, immigrants were expected to acculturate and assimilate into their new country and be educated in and adopt its history and norms; today, immigrants expect their new country to acculturate and adjust to them, and to be educated in and adopt their history and norms. The natural result of this is to fracture the host country, and make it immolate its own values, culture, and norms wherever they come in conflict with the immigrants'. The debacle over South Park's recent Muhammad-in-a-bear-suit-who-was-actually-just-Santa episodes, and the liberal furor over Arizona's new sensible immigration enforcement law (while immigrants carrying Mexican flags protest it with violent rhetoric, people are being murdered or raped or kidnapped by illegal immigrants weekly if not daily, and Mexican drug cartels and Federales make armed incursions on our border with no reprisals), are just two recent American manifestations. And the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which had no problem displaying "Piss Christ" over the finger-wagging objections of politicians, has pulled even reverent depictions of Mohammad from its collection of Islamic art.
In Europe it's even worse; when artist Lars Vilks gave a presentation at one of Europe's oldest and most hallowed universities, this was the result:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zjZRLOdMgk [youtube.com]
And while most Americans react with sentiments like these:
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20100513.html [findlaw.com]
many European commentators had a less admirable reaction. Stockholm News wrote "By deliberately insulting Muslims in this already-charged climate the artist placed himself in danger. Insulting people's deep-felt religious beliefs is not free speech it's hate speech." While the artist said he'd like to come back to the university and finish his talk, the university says it's not likely he'll be invited back because of the incident--so much for intellectual honesty in academe. The video linked above is the future of the American university as well, though it remains to be seen whether the violent protesters will be shouting "Allahu Akhbar" or "Por La Raza."
Meanwhile, totalitarian collectivist countries like China have been able to "introduce population controls that cut down on resource damage" and protect their own interests; while they're currently big polluters as they're still modernizing and industrializing, they face a future far brighter than the West's. Their population controls will ensure a manageable future population with adequate per-capita resources, and their efforts to maintain the
Re:and? (Score:2, Insightful)
Critical thinking, its something you ought to learn ... I suppose you never thought of the possibility of developing the tech here, apply here, and skip the trip?
I'm for manned space flight, a romantic I suppose, but talk about a weak argument.
- kg
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, robots do great science, but they're not going to inspire a hell of a lot of people.
I've been far more inspired by what the Cassini probe has seen, or the Hubble Space Telescope has seen, or the Mars rovers has seen, than anything the manned space program has done in 40 years, or could do in the next 20. Nor would I be inspired at all by repeating what we did 40 years ago, just to prove we could.
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
yes it will.
If there isn't a continuous effort to put people on another planet, then we won't ever develop the technologies needed to do so.
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Western civilization has basically reached a tipping point, an existential crisis, in which it finds itself unwilling to protect and preserve itself--much less advance--thanks to the adoption of a radical cultural and moral relativism which promotes protecting freedom from being offended and group rights over freedom of expression and individual rights.
haha. similar CRAP was said in the 20's, after WWII, after Disco.
It's meaningless blather of big words that makes you feel like you are saying something useful. Rest assure, you are not.
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
"He's only killing NASA's next shuttle plan (and the plan to go to Mars), something they had been working on since their current one began falling apart and proving to be obsolete. "
you mean the one that doesn't work because non engineers keep fiddling with the goals?
yeah, scrap it. Start new. Sorry, sometimes that happens when engineering.
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but by the time honored catch-22, anyone who'd accept a one way ticket to Mars is not worth risking the price of a ticket on.