NASA's Bolden: No American-Led Return To the Moon 'In My Lifetime' 233
MarkWhittington writes "A clash over the future course of American space exploration flared up at a recent joint meeting of the Space Studies Board and the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board. In one corner was Al Carnesale of UCLA, who headed the recent study issued by the National Research Council that found fault with the Obama administration's plan to send American astronauts to an asteroid. In the other corner was NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, who has been charged with carrying out the policy condemned by the NRC report."
Re:Half colonized double planet (Score:4, Insightful)
A mission failure in the lunar capture plan could lead to a global disaster.
The Moon has already been captured so no reason to capture it again.
Oh, you mean the global disaster that would be caused by the somewhat bright light and perhaps even slight noise (we must steel ourselves to consider worst case here) that would come from a tiny asteroid dissipating way up in Earth's atmosphere?
The greatest burden to humanity would be the possibility of an unmanageable swarm of 911 (or equivalent) calls, thousands even. This will probably completely overwhelm our delicate emergency infrastructure. It might even be a worse disaster than the average Manchester football game.
Would obtaining an asteroid be worth that terrible, fearsome risk? I... I... just don't know.
Re:That's what you get... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sadly there was no real alternative to electing Obama.
Re:Harsh mistress (Score:5, Insightful)
In exchange, you get capabilities that aren't reflected in robots, such as on site decision making and complex on site study of surface characteristics and high maneuverability even in a bulky space suit. The Moon incidentally is the only place where such capabilities don't shine due to its closeness to Earth.
Ever wonder why even forty years after the end of Apollo, that no one from the US government dares go back to the Moon? Aside from the "Been there. Done that." attitude so common in space advocacy and the public, it's because you can't top the manned activities (all from only two man-weeks on the Moon!) with a few robots, even forty years later. Instead, it'll take an extensive though not necessarily manned effort to do better.
Fuck the moon. Mars too. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, but there's nothing useful in either place AND they're both at the bottom of another god damned gravity well. Orbital stations for spaced based solar would at least be *useful*. Satellite based internet would be useful. Is there something wrong with useful? Why is it that when we talk about space exploration, it always descends into some dick-waving "me there first" macho-chimpanzee rant.
We know how to get into space. We know there are useful and profitable things to do there. Can we just get on with it please?
The moon is useless and if there's life on Mars, it's not going anywhere. We can wait.
Re:Lets go to Disneyland! (Score:0, Insightful)
An "era of decreasing budgets"? What the fuck are you smoking? Have you seen the bullshit that we are spending and proposing to spend money on, and how much? Please go look! There are no decreasing budgets, no matter what the propaganda machine is telling you! It is simply not factual.
I get your point, but put the blame in the right place man. They would rather beef up FEMA, DHS, TSA, etc.. so that they can make good slaves of people than spend money on the betterment of society. You just buy into the bullshit that they are saving money by doing so.
Re:Harsh mistress (Score:4, Insightful)
Defense is generally when you respond to protect yourself from an attacker.
Defense is not what the USA has done for many years.
More accurate words that describe what the USA taxpayer's 'defense' funding is used for are words like: Invade, attack, assail, assault, occupy, enforcement, pressure, coerce, compel, spy, dominate, afflict, oppress, encumber, harass, plague, torment, torture, trample
I'm all for the USA having the biggest, most sophisticated and competent army in the world, it comes in handy when the leaders of TPLAC's (or northern peninsula communist regimes) go off the rails - but if it were for "Defense", you would expect to see a lot more of it inside the states, and not so much of it in places that never posed a real threat to the states.
Places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia & Vietnam.