NASA Asks the Public For Advice On Goals

JeremyYoung writes: "The National Academy of Science's National Research Council is conducting what is being called the Solar System Exploration Survey at NASA's request. In it they are including public opinion from a web-based survey on the direction of NASA through 2013. The survey itself can be found at this page on the Planetary Society website. The article with more detail in explaining this is here. The survey closes on January 31, so don't miss this chance to tell NASA what you think it should be doing. pssst ... Mars can be done cheaply."

instead of mars,

[Stone Rhino]

how about going to pluto? it would cost $600 million to send a probe, but the new nasa budget failed to include funding for that. If we don't launch a probe in 2006, we will have to wait 150 years for another opportunity. $600 million is nothing compared to the billions being tossed around on stuff like missile defense, so why not spend it and take advantage of this unique oppurtunity?

Re:instead of mars,

[Stone Rhino]

pluto may not be a planet, that is debatable. But comets have already been probed. I believe NASA has either already sent a mission to a comet or is in the process of preparing one. on the other hand, pluto has only had long range, high speed fly bys done to research it-no craft has landed, orbited, or come close enough to it to get really good pictures.

Re:instead of mars,

[niftyeric]

I would love to see a "mission to Pluto." These blurry pictures of Pluto just don't cut it! They need to take a probe to Pluto, [in my lifetime] and they better not forget to equip it with a LOT of "flashlights" for picture taking. :)

Re:instead of mars,

[ErikZ]

Why would we have to wait? Couldn't we use those new ion engines to send a probe there?

I thought the only reason to send a probe to Pluto now is because it's more efficent to do so, but if the probe is powered all the way there, then who cares?

Re:instead of mars,

[Stone Rhino]

has to do with positions of the planets. orbits will coincide in a way they won't for another 150 years, making this an opportunity. I don't have the article, and thats all I remember.

This may seem silly...

[gnovos]

But please note that 1 is the MOST important and 10 is the LEAST important. I rated them all incorrectly and luckily just caught it one second before I hit send. I'm so used to K5 style (5=good, 1=bad) that I didn't stop and read the tiny tiny directions.

Public surveys..

[billn]

Two good things about this survey. One, it used SSL to moderately obscure the data being sent in.
Two, and most importantly, it was a form of multiple choice, with no space for free form answers. Had it been otherwise, the inundation of 'hax0r j00!' and 'go away alien fagz0rs' would have convinced them to start searching for intelligent life on Earth, first.

We should locate the closest alien life

[CrazyJim0]

Study it, learn its weakness, then anhillilate.

Triton!

[Fweeky]

Funny retrograde orbit, dodgy orientation, nitrogen geysers, evidence that it was formed outside the solar system, but they include "Phobos Missions" but not Triton Missions?

Why go to yet another piece of inert rock when there are places like this? (ignoring for a second the small matter of cost, obviously).

Needs Guidance.

[Perdo]

First NASA's spacecraft then NASA's leadership. Not necessarily in that order.

You are under my power. You will do what I say.

[AntDaniel]

So, I can tell one of your govenment agencies what to I'd like them to do, and you the have to pay from your tax. Neat.

Is there anything like this for the CIA?

Re:You are under my power. You will do what I say.

[rtaylor]

If Nasa were to enlist itself as a Non-Profit canadian organization I'd probably donate. Till then I'll settle with giving my opinion.

That's alright...

[benjamindees]

Your government, whatever it is, does what our government says anyways. You may as well have a say in it.

Back To The Future:

[cybrpnk]

Schedule Apollo 18.

Needs Guidance

[Perdo]

After my Sargeant was berated by the Platoon Leader for letting me run the platoon he had the gall to ask me if I was running the Platoon. I told him if he had to ask, then there was his answer.

NASA has needed some propper Purpose, Direction and Motivation for a while. Too bad the bright Slashdot geeks can't provide NASA with some real Wall to Wall Counceling.

Perhaps to get Carmack some real funding and engineer support. Or land a sterile probe on Europa. Or a radio telescope on the dark side of the moon.

Slightly Off Topic

[JPawloski]

A while back I saw something on PBS where some guy from NASA showed a computer depiction of a space station which "created" gravity through centripetal motion. It seemed like a good idea because I know a lot of problems with space travel is the time limit due to atrophy of muscles from a zero gravity environment. The PBS guy dismissed this though by saying, "In fact, the US government knows little to nothing about making a station like this one."

Personally, I think this should be the top priority. This would solve many of our problems and would allow a manned mission to Mars be possible. Why isn't NASA working towards this? What is prohibiting them from doing it? Or are they making progress that I am not aware?

Re:Slightly Off Topic

[AntDaniel]

I think Arther C. Clarke was the first to 'theorise' on this.

There's a problem with it though

Anything in motion inside the space station will be subject to what is called "coriolis forces", which would not be experienced due to gravitational forces. The direction of the force is always perpendicular both to the axis of the space station, and the direction of motion. The faster the station rotates, the more the effect will be. So, one should try to make the station larger to minimize coriolis effects.

http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae202 .cfm

Re:Slightly Off Topic

[sconeu]

The earth is subject to coriolis effects as well. When I used to do artillery control software, the distances were large enough that we had to take Earth's rotation into account.

Re:Slightly Off Topic

[JPawloski]

doesn't the coriolis effect have something to do with the way the water rotates in your toilet when you flush, too?

Re:Slightly Off Topic

[tooth]

doesn't the coriolis effect have something to do with the way the water rotates in your toilet when you flush, too?

hah :) you've been watching simpsons too much :)

A toilet bowl is far to irregular to notice this effect. Even a sink would have trouble showing it.

see: http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadCoriolis.htm l [psu.edu]

Re:Slightly Off Topic

[3waygeek]

Also see this Straight Dope [straightdope.com] column.

Coriolis force is not a killer

[Spamalamadingdong]

Coriolis effects on the inner ear are proportional to the angular speed of rotation, or (omega, radians/second). Centripetal acceleration a = r. For any given max value of , there is a value of r which will give you any desired value of a.

Of course, for a small station or vehicle it's more difficult to have a large value of r. Fortunately, there are at least two ways around this:

1. Use a counterweight on a tether, so that you can make r relatively large without needing a big heavy structure, or
2. Select your crew from people who've shown that they can adapt to a high- environment without getting motion sick all the time.

Priorities

[Tuxinatorium]

I don't think it's worth it to send a man to mars just for the sake of having said we've sent a man to mars. Nasa should focus more on new propulsion and technology research. Fusion propultion would be great for interstellar travel. Hydrogen fusion converts about 1% of its mass into energy, so theoretically a highly efficient fusion drive could get up to a maximum of 1% of the speed of light. Alternatively, a propulsion system that uses solar panels to power a system that ejects ions at 99% of the speed of light, (and maybe uses a ramscoop) could hypothetically get up to a very high percentage of the speed of light, although it would take centuries. The good thing about this is that it is infinitely replenishable. Another possible propulsion system involves using antimatter as a fuel. This would allow achieving a decent fraction of the speed of light, and with good acceleration, but antimatter is extremely difficult to manufacture in large quantities, and will probably remain as such for a long time.

Re:Priorities

[A Bugg]

dude you have lots of your info wrong, fusion drives can get to much higher velocities than 1% the speed of light you could easily attain 10% probably even 20%. just do some research and you will find its theoretical max velocity.
and why exactly would you use solar panels on an interstellar craft, mars is essentially on the edge of effective solar power usage, any farther than that and it becomes to weak to power the craft (just consider the inverse square law and you will see). and why would you want to accelerate IONS up to 99% the speed of light, what you would want to accelerate are protons and what you are refering to would involve a linear accelerator, and that isn't the type of thing you want to have to lug around with you considering it would be sereval km long, and weigh an ungodly amount. you would want something like that to be stationary on an asteroid or something, this is discussed in an old (97'-98') Discover magazine. and antimatter space craft have theoretical velocities of approximately the speed of light (~99.999%) using the best of the best because the exhaust would have a velocity of the speed of light if it is a true photon rocket.
you know your idea about not going if its just to say we sent a man is bull because what if all of the explorers of the past had said "its too far", or "it is going to take to long", or "i am just going to wait for some more advanced tech to take me there" i personally would have called them pussies, hell i don't care if it would take 10 years to get to mars you can sign me up. while i do believe we should devote a large percentage to advanced propulsion research it shouldn't stop our explorationm you know we can't just wait for the magical technology that will transport us there instantanously otherwise we will never get there, and will have likely missed out.
a bugg (aka the rocketman)

Re:Priorities

[Tuxinatorium]

You obviously don't understand general reletivity. The annihilation of 1 kg of matter WOULD produce sufficient energy to accelerate 1 kg of matter to the speed of light, if kinetic energy didn't inflate the mass of the object. (E=m*c^2). But mass is inflated according to the equation m(v)=m0/sqrt(1-(v/c)^2). Suppose you have a 1kg ship with 99kg of fuel and it uses it at 100% efficienct. Basically you have an object with 1 kg rest mass and you add 99kg of kinetic energy to it, so the mass increases to 100kg. Plug in the masses and solve for v in the equation. You get v=0.99995c. That's 99.995% of the speed of light, not 99.999%! :p But with a less unrealistic scenario, an object inflated to 10 times its rest mass would be going only 99.4% of the speed of light.

Re:Priorities

[A Bugg]

hey i took modern physics i understand general relativity quite well, for starters i never said it would reach the speed of light my figure was only to point out that it came damned close. with the figures you give you are just presupposing masses you don't technically know you just made them up to fit particular numbers, use a 1 kg ship with 9999 kg of fuel and you will see what i mean (you should get 99.99999949), because the theoretical max speed of a photon drive is the speed of light for a object without mass, and for an object with mass, assuming continuous acceleration, and fuel is unlimited, the max speed is 99.99 with an infinite number of nines. and yes i realize that scenario is unrealistic as well as the one you proposed.

Re:Priorities

[Tuxinatorium]

What about the time dilation when you're going so close to the speed of light? Wouldn't that make it "faster" in terms of your time (not mine) for you to go slower?

Re:Priorities

[A Bugg]

it would make it faster in both reference frames if you went close to the speed of light because you are going faster. time dialation only appears to make time slow down from the view point of the earth to the people on the spaceship in actuality the people on the space ship would not notice too much was different with the way things were besides the stars red shifting away, and tunnel vision i think. remember with the time dialation the people on the ship would age at a substantially lesser rate than at a slower speed, which means the trip would seem to be faster to them too, and to the people on earth it would seem a little faster because the spaceship was traveling a little bit faster. time dialation doesn't actually drag out time, it's just the change in the way time is measured between two reference frames. the passage of time would feel the same in either reference frame but appear to travel either more slowly or faster in the opposing reference frame depending on which one you were in.
a bugg

Re:Priorities

[Dancing Tree]

I both agree and disagree with the author of said referenced comment. Indeed, I do believe that we should be concerned with getting to Mars (or Venus, or back to the moon, etc.) AND we should be developing not just new drives, but new ways of getting payloads off of the planet's surface. The amount of mass and energy wasted in launching craft/cargos into space is ridiculous right now. So how about some magnetic accellerator action at least for the non perishables (I understand it can generate quite alot of G's in acceleration. Maybe this can be modded) and maybe some slower but less wasteful manner for getting live loads at least into orbit.

These questions weren't even asked on the survey though maybe NASA considers them as part and parcel of all the other options offered. Whatever the case, I do believe that it would be a great achievement for the human race and the planet, for us to venture out into wide and vasty space that is the rest of the universe. Who knows what mind blowing, cool stuff is out there for us to find.

What I'd like to see

[rakerman]

Enough with the shuttle and space station already, unless it's used as a stepping stone to space missions. The shuttle, which was supposed to be a space truck but turns out to be a space ferrari (in terms of cost, not performance) goes up a couple hundred km and then comes back. At least it has somewhere to go now, instead of just floating around, but still. It's boring.

Robots to everywhere.
Mine the asteroids.
Move industry into outer space where possible.

Men to Mars.

A bit of Background on the Survey

[CheshireCatCO]

A little background on this survey might be in order. The survey is being run by the national academy of sciences, although most of the input (from the planetary science community) was gathered by the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Science. The survey is a decadal one, meaning it'll be redone in 10 years. So if you have a strong hankering to go somewhere that can/should wait a decade, you'll get your chance to sound off in 10 years. Astrophysicists have been doing these decadal surveys for several decades now, and they've been very sucessful.

Science magazine had a news article [sciencemag.org] on this in their 4 Jan. issue, if you want to see

The public has no say on the most important things

[Spamalamadingdong]

Unfortunately, NASA is tied to established projects with established constituencies; without the lobbying of those interests, NASA does not get its budget. Moving money from today's cash cows to tomorrow's research projects is like pulling teeth, and this only seems to change when there is some issue of national prestige at stake (between 1957 and 1969, it was showing that we were better than the Russians on the stage of international grandstanding). Don't believe me? Consider the following:

1. The established Saturn booster production line was scrapped to eliminate competition for the Space Shuttle and its lucrative R&D contracts.
2. The various incarnations of the space station keep losing size, personnel and research capabilities, but the whole thing is never tossed out and re-done from scratch. Apparently it suits the entrenched interests more to have a white elephant in orbit sucking up every available dollar than to take the budget and see what can be accomplished with it. The effort to quash the Lawrence Livermore Labs "community space suit" space station is a case in point.
3. The DC-1 project was on track to produce an SSTO launch vehicle which could fly far more frequently and cheaply than the Shuttle. Of course, it was developed by SDIO (it could never have been built at NASA). The established interests got it taken away from SDIO and handed over to NASA, which completed the test program and promptly crashed and destroyed the DC-X test vehicle.
4. Rather than pursuing the development of the DC-Y using the results of the DC-X test program, NASA scratched it and instead decided to fund a completely new vehicle, the VentureStar (which promised a lot more development money). Of course, the VentureStar's future is now in doubt as its fuel tanks apparently cannot be built.

Unless we the public can get behind some program which demands results instead of pork, we are going to be dumping more billions and tens of billions on projects which leave us little or even nothing to show for them; meanwhile, all the cutting-edge stuff like DC-Y and Deep Space One will be done on a shoestring if they can be done at all. Our future in space depends on shouldering the pigs away from the money trough and demanding results.

Re:The public has no say on the most important thi

[Winged Cat]

And note that nowhere on their form is there an option to specify the development of space infrastructure like that. There are any number of possibilities; here's one of my fave examples:

Arbitrary "cheap" (by government standards - say, $1 million or $10 million a pop) prizes for the first N organzations to achieve certain milestones (for example, the X-Prize one of getting one vehicle to 100 or so miles up, twice within two weeks; next one is maybe a hypersonic transport, capable of getting a 100 kilogram payload from Los Angeles to Tokyo in under two hours, again twice within two weeks with the same craft; et cetera). Various limitations on the types of organizations, to discourage cheating (and maybe also limit to US orgs only, to help this get around national security concerns)...but, once the specs are out, they do not change. Boeing and Lockheed can maybe pick off a couple of the prizes then scrap development of their projects like they have in the past, but smaller entrants (not affiliated in any way with any other winners of the same prize, or with the US government) would pick up the rest...and then, out of (say) 5 prizes, there would be 3 viable cheap-to-orbit lauunch vehicles out there, ready for public use.

Science by polls?

[selectspec]

The fact that NASA has been doing "science" based on polls is nothing new. However, I've never seen them be so open about it until now. Where do I check off "stay home and send me the money", because if they are going to let the general public pick the missions, I'd rather just keep my tax dollars.

Are you bored of brocolli experiments in space too?

NASA should...

[SIGFPE]

...fake some more evidence of life in outer space so as to increase public interest and get more money out of the government. Meanwhile they should spend the money on doing some real research.

Give it to the Russians.

[badvictor]

They probably have better ideas anyway.

How about something simple...

[thogard]

There is a fundamental flaw in our understanding of gravity. This needs to be fixed.

1) Space probes all are slowing down
2) GPS sats are not moving they way they should
3) pendulums swing funny during solar eclipses

I think these three are related. I also think they are ignored because they don't fit in with so many modern theorys but then again alchemstry keept many smart men from seeing the truth.