NASA's Bolden: No American-Led Return To the Moon 'In My Lifetime'

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:Harsh mistress

[roman_mir]

Defence is not what USA does, it's not what USA has been doing since the end of WWII. Yes, including what passes for 'defence' nowadays, shutting down all military basis around the world, brining all troops back to America, getting rid of 90% of offence spending. Of-course legitimate defence is what Congress is authorised to collect taxes for in the first place, it's actually an appropriate role for gov't as per the Constitution (which I disagree with, by the way, I don't think central gov't should be running defence!)

Priorities

[argStyopa]

Let's remember:
"Mr Bolden said: "When I became the Nasa administrator, he [Mr Obama] charged me with three things.
"One, he wanted me to help reinspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.""

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7875584/Barack-Obama-Nasa-must-try-to-make-Muslims-feel-good.html [telegraph.co.uk]

Unless there are muslims to assuage on the Moon, we're not going back.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

NASA's manned spaceflight program is over

[ErnoWindt]

What Bolden is simply acknowledging is that NASA's manned spaceflight program is over. Sure, they're still recruiting and training astronauts, but that's so they can keep the ISS manned until it is retired. The future of manned space flight, including space stations, Moon bases and interplanetary and interstellar travel will belong to private industry. NASA will focus on scientific missions. There's nothing wrong with that - it represents the evolution of the space industry. Billionaires like Elon Musk can build, launch, and return space capsules today. Fifty years ago, Musk's approach would have been highly unlikely, if not completely impossible. The US government will help fund and provide frameworks - think DARPA's development of the Internet and now the 100-year starship project and the humanoid robotics initiative. Along with its own research and development, private industry will take the frameworks and ideas DARPA is developing now and leverage and exploit them in unimagined ways, just as with the Internet.

Re:That's what you get...

[Attila Dimedici]

Several people replied with a question they thought was insightful but which was rather a non-sequitur. They wanted to know what was wrong with NASA inspiring children or expanding international relations. The answer is "Nothing." The problem is that none of those three things should be NASA's primary mission. NASA's primary mission should have something to do with the Aeronautics and/or Space. We have another agency that is tasked with expanding international relations, as a matter of fact that agency was established for the express purpose of managing the U.S. government's foreign relations. It is the State Department. If NASA is going to make foreign relations one of its primary goals, it is going to make itself redundant. Reaching out to Muslim nations also falls under the rubric of the State Department and NASA doing so is redundant. We also already have an agency that has one of its primary focuses as inspiring children to get into science and math (or at least it should). That is the Department of Education. Once again if NASA starts making that its focus it becomes redundant.
I will repeat, the head of NASA should see his primary missions as being involved with Aeronautics and Space, not foreign relations or education (although both of those may be secondary or tertiary objectives).

Re:That's what you get...

[bondsbw]

Sadly there was no real alternative to electing Obama.

I'd like to see the Modern Whigs [modernwhig.org] gain support, if for no other reason, because one of their goals is to reform the electoral process to reduce the ill effects of our plurality voting system.

Re:He's retired

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody is saying they shouldn't do those things, but the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's foremost task should be to expand United State's scientific and technological knowledge in the fields of space and aeronautics. The fact that all three of his primary tasks are essentially PR outreach programs with three different groups is telling; it seems to point that President Obama sees NASA as more of a good PR machine than the top-tier place for science and engineering that it once was.

Re:Fuck the moon. Mars too.

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Is there something wrong with putting solar panels in the desert, or using fiber optics? You have a nostalgic 1970s view of space and technology.

Yes, I also have a 1970s nostalgic view of physics, as in, land area is limited and the energy falling on it is limited and by multiplying the two, you get available power and THAT, as they say, is IT.

However, before you squeal with delight and tell me how *much* that is, please expect that you'll also need to calculate and exclude land and sea areas that are not currently supporting food crops or working ecologies, as well as areas without significant weather, or property rights problems. Oh, and do exclude land with other other instalment, theft or maintenance problems (e.g. Brooklyn, Antarctica). Oh, and don't forget those line losses for your little desert energy-topia.

If you ever want to get more solar energy than what's available on earth, it's lots of space, Mylar mirrors and microwaves.