USA To Return To Moon By 2015, Then Mars 1480
securitas writes "This afternoon George Bush announced space exploration plans for the USA to return to the Moon by 2015, the design and construction of a new space vehicle fleet by 2014 (called the Crew Exploration Vehicle) to replace the aging space shuttles which will be retired in 2010, and the construction of a permanent Moon base, followed by manned missions to Mars. The initiative begins with a $1 billion increase to NASA's budget and $12 billion in new space exploration money over next five years. However Congress is concerned about how to pay for the new space policy initiative in the face of a $500 billion national budget deficit. AP via Yahoo has a Moon/Mars/space policy FAQ, and there's more at NASA and the New York Times among others."
How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the thing, the federal budget [whitehouse.gov] is well over a trillion dollars. NASA's budget is around 17 billion. It's roughly 1 percent of the national budget. People get so scared about the word billion that they forget the scale of cash that the US has to allocate.
Does anyone honestly think that putting that bit of money elsewhere would solve whatever domestic problems you want fixed? Have we yet cured hunger, poverty, or undereducation? No? Well, we've been throwing billions at them so far. If you're looking for funds to cut and inefficiencies to uproot, look in defense and welfare. Diverting funds from NASA to domestic programs will not change anything except to kneecap our development as a multi-planet species.
Another misassumption is that if money is cut from one department, it automatically gets redistributed to others. That's not the way it works. And yes, I know we're running a deficit but a 1 billion increase over the next 5 years isn't going to contribute significantly to it. And IIRC, every administration except for 1 (maybe 2) has run a deficit and the country has not yet fallen.
But won't this cost a trillion dollars? No, not if done right. Father Bush's plan was scrapped because the estimate he was given was based on an outmoded model for Mars exploration. On top of that, it was subjected to a committee that took it as a chance to write themselves a blank check with their 90-day report [pescu.net]. Bust the first was ignorant to any alternatives so he abandoned it. Read up on Mars Direct [nw.net]. It's a plan to do Mars missions on the same budgetary scale as the Apollo missions. Those were done for about the same budget that NASA currently gets. NASA doesn't need more money, just proper direction and it looks like they're finally getting some of that.
See my other post [slashdot.org] for more on the case for Mars and space exploration.
Shuttle replacements (Score:1, Insightful)
Money Better Spent (Score:2, Insightful)
Timeline hole (Score:5, Insightful)
How to pay for it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bush's Space Smokescreen (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, Bush II does the same thing. First, he tried the immigration proposal, and that went over like a lead balloon. Now, he's throwing the next shiny toy in front of us, hoping that we'll forget the issues that his administration are glossing over.
This is not a Kennedy-type announcement. We are not going back to the Moon, we will not be going to Mars, and more than likely, we will not be replacing the space shuttles.
Headline from 2012: President Jeb Bush announces that we're going back to Moon, and then on to Mars...
Reflecting on the prior article (Score:5, Insightful)
So Bush gets to look good to everyone who like space exploration -- which is most people -- without having to necessarily live up to his promise. Given Bush's track record as president and as a human being, I'm inclined to believe that he doesn't personally give a rat's ass whether we get back to the moon or Mars -- he knows that this is a simple campaigning trick (make a fantastic promise that you can't be held accountable for).
Yeah, I hope it does happen -- but I'm still not voting for the guy.
Preying on Emotions (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd say its pretty damn obvious he has no interest in the space program itself. Besides, it seems like a really bad time considering the economy + iraq + afghanistan. Then again, since most of the Iraq/Afghanistan money was conveniently left out of the budget, I could see how Bush plans to pay for this.
What saddens me is that, even though the majority of informed individuals can see right through this, there's not a damn thing we can do. There's no powerful candidate to oppose him. Odds are that he will win, and that'll serve as a pat on the back for all the stuff he's done since he entered office (in his mind and that of his administration).
Anyway, I would welcome a space program if it was sincerely intended. But I don't think this particular thing will amount to much - its very easy to plan something that'll cost hundreds of billions of dollars in the future, because you're not the one who's gonna be in office when the time comes to commit resources!
12B is chicken scratch (Score:4, Insightful)
Budget (Score:5, Insightful)
The entire budget, and debt and defecit mess is made up of nothing but "oh, it's only a few billion. It won't matter." That's what everyone says about their favorite pet spending program.
It does make a difference.
Has it occurred to anyone... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that I object to going to Mars, far from it. Just the 1 trillion estimates I see really make me wonder just how much is going directly into people's pockets.
Why so long? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:4, Insightful)
$10.45 trillion (2002 est.)
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbo
The money Bush is proposing, even if the amount goes up is minute compared to the Federal Budget and the GDP of the US.
Cost issues et. al. (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the scariest part of Bush's speech: "NASA's current five-year budget is $86 billion. Most of the funding we need for the new endeavors will come from re-allocating $11 billion from within that budget." Hey other NASA folks out there, you know what this means: The return of the "ISS Tax".
Developing a new vehicle, returning to the Moon, going to Mars... This is all going to cost a lot of money, will it be fully funded? Part of the reason that the Space Shuttle is such a failure is the fact that it was not adequately funded*. One of the contributing factors to our ability to go to the moon the first time was that NASA had a blank check.
* This is addressed in the CAIB report, if you haven't read the section on the history of the politics of the STS, it's worth a glance.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:3, Insightful)
Diverting funds from NASA to domestic programs will not change anything except to kneecap our development as a multi-planet species.
"multi-planet" species? We can't handle one planet.
A Cynic might suggest (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:5, Insightful)
Taking money away from those programs to pay to go to space is dangerous. That's not to say we shouldn't pay to go to space - the question is which budget to cut, and my point is that cutting public service and public assistance budgets isn't likely to be cost effective.
The place to cut is in military spending. The war in Iraq would have paid for a lot of space travel, unfortunately it paid for blowing up buildings instead. We have lots of highly specialized weapons that are very expensive - millions of dollars per explosion. Military aircraft are not built using standard parts. Everything is custom. So everything is brutally expensive. Cut back on the custom nature of this hardware, and you'd save a lot of money. Cut back on unilateral foreign wars, and you'd save even more.
We could also eliminate a lot of special-interest tax loopholes that Bush introduced in his "tax cut." But for some reason, it's always public services and public aid that get cut, not corporate welfare, and not military spending.
Sigh.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:2, Insightful)
Many say we just wasted at least 80 billion dollars on the Iraq War and what do we have to show from that besides several hundred dead American bodies. Now I'm expecting that we're also assuring ourselves a lot of oil so that 80 billion may not all be a waste.
But damn, it annoys me so much when people rat on the space program! Someone at work was saying about the Mars Spirit Panorama, "What, we paid 300 million bucks for a pikcha?" AH!!!
This moon proposal is space infrastructure. It is an investment in humanities future in this solar system.
Also, the Moon seems like a much better place to start. It's close, we can do a lot of equally inspiring stuff there that would just be more expensive, dangerous, and would take longer if attempted on Mars.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:5, Insightful)
And the dinosaurs couldn't handle one asteroid.
Re:4 years? (Score:4, Insightful)
ISS is supposed to be done by 2010 and moon base in 2015.
The bummer part is redirecting 11 billion of the current budget todo this. That means about 6-10 other missions will be canceled. Maybe it will be the Hubble space telescope replacement JWST [nasa.gov].
Re:Bush's Space Smokescreen (Score:5, Insightful)
The other piece I don't understandf is, if we have been to the moon before, why will it take us 16 years to return? I'm sure by then the Chinese will have landed.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, why spend money to determine if life can survive in a desert when we already know it can? I happen to live in a desert.. there's plenty of life here. There's life in the Sahara.. Antarctica, ocean vents.. The point is, getting life to survive on this planet is fuckin' easy.
Humans are an exloratory species.. always have been. We've spread across the entire planet, have we not? So to continue our exploration, we need to go into the Great Unknown.. space! And that starts with Mars.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:5, Insightful)
is manned space exploration worth it? yes.....when we want to go to Jupitor, the weight costs of the food alone would be emence....now just think what figuring out how to feed the astronaughts on a Jupitor trip with out packing the ship full of food would mean to world hunger.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean that's nothing compared to the billion or trillion dollars right? Its chump change.
Why do I suddenly feel like a beggar asking for pennies....
Re:Bush's Space Smokescreen--WMD!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Its a cover for the Post Oil technologies (Score:3, Insightful)
Simply Put (Score:5, Insightful)
The program is the right thing to do.
It should have been started long ago, it's overdue.
Now is a bad time to do it, thanks to reckless spending and slashing revenue.
The motivation isn't purely political, it's because China and India are expressing interest and it 'looks bad' if the USA lets anyone get a leg up, in short it's for selfish pride.
This isn't the leader to kick it off, but he's the only one who has.
I feel the same frustration and exasperation, it comes with being educated.
A worried Astrophysicist... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:12B is chicken scratch (Score:2, Insightful)
IMHO its very hard to view this as anything but a political move.
Re:Bush's Space Smokescreen (Score:1, Insightful)
It's great that you are you hateful towards George Bush and you couldn't agree more and everything but why don't you try to read the news. You might be surprised that NASA is pretty pleased about this announcement and many at NASA have long wanted to go in a new direction, away from the space shuttle, but since the space shuttle was seen as a very popular program to the public, it was not possible. Bush has stepped up and made the way clear for NASA scientists to do what they need to do.
And you can't understand the issue, so how can you be so sure that it is all about politics?
Re:A Second Golden Age for NASA (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't mankind's idea, this is the idea of a United States president searching for ways to get himself re-elected without actually having to do anything, by setting crowd pleasing goals decades in advance that he will ultimately have no responsibility for.
How many technologies we are using toady are based (somewhere in their roots) on the Apollo missions or shuttle missions? What a great advancement for mankind!
The problem is that there is still no person or organization that is qualified to speak for mankind, nor does mankind have an unified message it wishes to convey to the universe. Mankind's current technological maturity is already thousands of years more advanced than its social maturity, causing all sorts of problems from the vast inequities in use of the earth's resources, to the constant threat of planetwide annihilation. Unless we spend the next few hundred years building a more mature society that is capable of handling the technological advances it has brought upon itself, mankind is going to burn out (figuratively and literally) much sooner than you expect. You might even live to see the end yourself...
What about the space elevator? (Score:3, Insightful)
With that, we can afford to take a big ship there. We can put in some infrastructure on Mars ahead of the astronauts getting there.
To send a person to Mars doesn't make sense to me. Spend the money on the space program, but not for this project please.
China, Russia and Europe (Score:5, Insightful)
To save costs, China, Russia and the ESA should also be involved in the missions. China has announced its own plans to go to the moon in a similar time frame. Russia has some lunar experience, especially with their robotic craft in the early 1970s and their sample return missions at about the same time.
Joint missions to the moon are not a new idea. The Soviet Premier Khrushchev proposed a joint effort to go to the moon with the Americans in 1961 and 1963. It was rejected by JFK in 1961, but JFK was more willing to consider the idea when it was proposed again in 1963. Had JFK not been assassinated a few weeks later, a Russian might have walked on the moon in 1969 with an American.
If Bush is talking about "humanity", he needs to involve more of humanity in this new space exploration initiative than just Americans.
the dinosaurs weren't an intelligent species. (Score:2, Insightful)
but we, on the other hand....
Re:4 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
And there's the key. NASA had a budget of about 70 billion dollars in the 60s IIRC. Now it's about 15. Bush wants to provide another $11 billion for the moon and mars programs. That's still well under half of the *yearly* budget of NASA when we made it to the moon.
Getting a base there in 4-6 years would probably require funding back on that level. I don't think even *I* could support that when we're already have a deficit the size of Jupiter.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: get life to survive in the harshest (Score:5, Insightful)
---------
That's complete crap. That's not how science works. Science is for the good of humanity, not one specific, transient country. Long after the US has gone the way of the Roman Republic (and it will, it is the nature of such things), its contribution to science and technology will endure.
Re:Mars (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It sucks. (Score:3, Insightful)
Tim
Re:How's Bush going to pay for it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Tax cuts have reduced government revenue -- they haven't paid for jack. And the "stimulus" they've provided (much like the stimulus your lifestyle gets if you max out your credit card debt in a month) has not grown enough to cover the cuts themselves, let alone the drastic increase in spending Bush has overseen.
See this article [washingtonpost.com] for starters.
Mars & Moon about Science, Not about Squatting (Score:5, Insightful)
If we spend $1 billion this year on this goal, then I want SOMETHING that we can show for it. Either a fleet of moon landers that do real science, or a working, low-cost rocket system that can carry nice sized payloads outside of earth orbit, etc.
I just don't want to spend $1 billion for a bunch of soon-to-be-obsolete technical drawings of a prototype lander that'll bring 2 guys to poke around the moon for a few days and then call it quits.
In other words, this should be about the science of it FIRST. We need practical deliverables OTHER THAN just being able to watch TV on Mars or the Moon.
Shuttle did NOT survive unmodified (Score:5, Insightful)
Has almost ANY NASA project survived intact 12 years?
The answer is that not even shuttle survived intact. Go back and look at the initial plans. It was for a flexible launch system that was fully reusable with a wide range of achievable orbits. What we got was a crippled alternative, with very high cost of turnaround, SRBs that must be almost completely rebuilt before reuse, and a maximum of Low Earth Orbit. Not much return on the dollar if you ask me.
I am also concerned that this announcement will drain all remaining funding from the current unmanned exploration programs. These are the programs that have been the greatest successes of NASA... and they are the ones learning to go with reusable designs, small and light, lots of flexibility. If we're being asked to drop those and pursue a single exploration strategy of manned missions, first to build a permanent presence on the moon and then a trip to Mars, it seems wrong. Let's not put all our eggs in this one basket.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention the advances in science and technology that the program alone generates. One example of technology developed from the Apollo program is the circuit board which of course led to the personal computer.
Re:Mars (Score:2, Insightful)
What have you against the deserts? (Score:2, Insightful)
Have you ever been to the desert southwest? It's already taxed and the water is about to run out (no fair trying to drain the Great Lakes or divert Mississippi river water.) Growth in the southwest has boomed in the past two decades. Las Vegas is over 1 million and litterally living off the Colorado River. You can drill wells, but the water still has to come from the same place.
Not too likely people will want to live on other planets, but you know industry is just itching to get a peek at any advantage to be gained by getting something somewhere else, cheaply and selling it here. Seems a long way off to get make money in space, but someone will find a way and take advantage of economy of scale. Then people will simply follow to live near work.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:4, Insightful)
Like crack, the first hit is free.
Funding for welfare, etc, isn't designed to wipe out poverty or mitigate its effects. It's designed to perpetuate poverty, because a permanent underclass of non-producing food tubes dependent upon the government to steal wealth from the producing food-tubes can be relied upon to always support the government.
If you're at the top of the food chain, the more poor, and the worse off they are, and the faster they breed, the more power you have over producer and parasite alike.
Consider the relationship between shepherd, sheepdog, and sheep. Sure, the sheepdog gets to have lots of "fun" by running circles around the flock. The "fun" the sheepdog has is immaterial to the farmer's purpose for the sheepdog, namely to have a few animals running freely enough to keep the flock in a predictable state, grazing contentedly until harvest time.
Bush's Words are Worthless (Score:3, Insightful)
And even if they DID pass it, a future president with more sense (one who can actually count and doesn't believe in imaginary money) will be forced to cut back or cancel this, unless the deficit is fixed first.
Bush has no more intention of seeing this carried out than his father did in 1989. Remember what Bush Sr. did to the space program. He put Dan "Mars is essentially in the same orbit... Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe" Quayle in charge of it. I'm still shocked over that blatant slap in the face, and the audacity it took to claim to be pro-space afterwards.
This is apparently obvious to a lot of people already. Stock in space program contractors dropped today.
It's an election year. Wait until December before you start the count down.
Bzzzzzt, but thank you for playing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Build the biggest coolest shit you want, in the deserts or anywhere else, and one decent-sized asteroid will take it out at the same time it kills everything else above the level of the cockroach and creates long-term nuclear winter for the lucky roach..
If we don't get off this planet, then one simple day of cosmic bad luck is all it will take, and everything -- the $820 million dollars building cool desert shit, the wars fought, the ideas created, everything -- all of it will be for absolutely nothing. The only way we'll be able to leave then is if we start working on the problems now. The asteroid with your name on it does not give one single flying high-impact shit about your way of life, nor your fears of alien invasion, nor your "not giving a fuck".
Ever think of that? Apparently not.
Re:Shuttle replacements (Score:5, Insightful)
They do, in fact, build them just as good, if not better, than they did in the 1960s. The shuttle's problems are design and engineering issues, not anything to do with what generation of technology they are.
In fact, overall, the whole "they don't build them like they used to" is just a case of survivor bias. Everything from the 1940s that still works is on the mutant end of the MTBF curve and everything that didn't has been junked.
Re:Budget (Score:5, Insightful)
It's sad that some people really think like that and ironic how we take such things like this for granted. Some countries would kill for a 50 billion or even just a one billion dollar national budget, and in many countries (i.e. Japan, America, Germany, England...) your not even considered a major contender as a company unless your bringing in a billion a year. Just something worth thinking about that most people don't.
Regards,
Steve
Re:Reflecting on the prior article (Score:5, Insightful)
That's it. That's just about all there is, and yet millions of Americans are going to run around cheering at what a great idea it is. It doesn't matter how realistic a project it is, or whether there is any point in doing it. Nor does it matter that it will take money away from successful and cost-effective unmanned projects, let alone that we're already hundreds of billions of dollars in the red every year.
There is one more key reason for this proposal, aside from it being an electoral politics trick: it will pump hundreds of billions of dollars towards the same "defense" and aerospace companies that are currently being subsidized with the conquest of Iraq, itself a gift to energy trading companies looking to control the world petroleum market.
The American public, in the eyes of our heavy-hitting political elite, resembles the Roman public in the film Gladiator. Just provide enough circus, and the public will approve or believe anything, and apparently that means anything. For example, the alleged economic recovery we've been going through. Yup, nothing like prosperity. Pretty soon we'll all be rolling in the dough. Any minute now, yessir, the big economic indicators prove it! Don't pay any attention to the whiners and unemployed losers, they don't know what they're talking about. If there was no recovery, "they" wouldn't "let" the government say there was, right? Right?
Re:Simply Put (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the leader who kicked it off was JFK. The last White House resident who sort of made big mumbles about it was actually Poppy Bush--but most people don't even remember his Mars by 2035 mumble. Dubya is just trying to get it back on Daddy's schedule.
In terms of doing something useful in space, probably the strongest claim would be the international space station--but Dubya is destroying the international cooperation that depends on. Only natural, since Dubya's real motivation for supporting space flight is military dominance.
Actually, I'm a big supporter of real science, including the space program. However, you also have to deal with the economic realities, and if Dubya keeps losing 20% of the dollar's value every year, the US won't be able to afford anything remotely resembling a real space program.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been saying this for years. The increasing expendature on domestic issues will increase exponentially untill there are no money and/or resources for any real space program. It's got to be done now. The 'public' might think that the money should be spent on domestic issues, but the 'public' is full of complete fucking morons.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:5, Insightful)
yes, 17 billion isn't a gigantic sum, and yes, nasa brings good to all people, but has anyone thought about comparing that measly sum to the proposed 15% increase in the defense budget, that will bring it up to an amazing 380 billion?
i don't think that those brand-new small-scale nuclear weapons bring good to people...
and remember the 'project for a new american century'-stuff, you know, the paper from the end of 2000 that, besides talking about the need to invade iraq, also talks about starting a new 'space' branch for the military. what could the plan be? turning the moon into some kind of death star?
h357
I don't think this is wise. (Score:3, Insightful)
I just graduated from college with a terrific debt and the first thing I thought of when this proposal came up was how we would spend money to go to space but not to assure college education to anyone who wanted it. Then I thought about how my generation was going to pay the bills to support the retiring baby-boomers. Then I thought about how many friends / family members are having trouble finding jobs in this economy.
I guess solving real problems doesn't get any attention in an election year.
Re:Bush's Space Smokescreen (Score:2, Insightful)
You seem pretty smart. Let me walk you through it:
* 2/3 of the economy comes from consumer spending,
* Growth last quarter was 8.25%, but,
* Consumer prices went down at the same time.
Well, that certainly defies supply and demand. How can high growth in a consumer-driven economy lead to lower prices?
Answer: it can't, knucklehead. I don't care what about 8.25% - if it was all in Rolls Royces and Tiffany (which it more or less was), than it didn't do the economy a whole shitload of good. Please stop being so simplistic.
Oh wait, now you're going to say: but the unemployment rate went down! Ah, no, only those _reporting_ as unemployed went down. If you look at the REAL unemployment rate, and include those that gave up, and those that took part time jobs, it'd be over 13% nationwide. 20% in NYC.
If you can find a real Bush achievement, I'd love to hear about it. And no, Saddam doesn't count.
Jonathan
We have to go to Mars! (Score:5, Insightful)
We've got to figure out a way to get people off of Earth and Mars is pretty good way to start. I mean just think of what a great accomplishment it would be for humanity. No human has ever set foot on another planet before and after hundreds of thousands of years humanity is finally very near the point where we are finally ready to do so. What an absolutely amazing accomplishment considering that a few hundred years ago the vast majority of us still though the Earth was flat.
We finally have a president that is going to set out a proposal for getting us to Mars and half of you poo poo it because you don't like the guy. While I'm no huge fan of Bush, I don't really care who the heck proposes the trip to Mars. At least it's out there now; at least it will be talked about. At least there is a possibility that it will happen. 10 years is a realistic goal considering how much it will cost. Even if it ultimately takes 15 - 20 years, so what? If NASA starts now and plans correctly, there will be plenty of money available. It just won't be there all at once. It will require careful planning and probably scaling back and eventually ditching the aging shuttle fleet, but again, so what? The current shuttle fleet has nearly outlived it's usefulness.
Perhaps many of you don't like the idea because we've already been to the moon. Well I was born in 1981 and there hasn't been anyone on the Moon in my lifetime, nor in the lifetimes of subsequent generations. I, for the life of me, cannot figure out why, after so many successful missions, we would stop sending people into space with the hopes of going father and farther and exploring more and more. Heck, I would be happy just to see us send someone back to the moon so I could witness it with my own eyes (via TV that is). Think of all the good things that could happen if we do send someone to Mars. Think of all the technological advances that are sure to arise as a result. Think of all of the children that might be inspired to become engineers and scientists.
American scientists and engineers are a dieing breed. There were very few from my graduating class in high school that planned on studying science or engineering when they went to college. A manned mission to Mars could provide an inspiration to all of the young kids out there to become interested in science and engineering. Hey, it happened during the space race in the 50's and 60's and it could certainly happen again.
In short, don't shoot down the idea because it comes from Bush. A manned mission to Mars wouldn't require a huge increase in funding if it is something that NASA starts planning for and funding now with the goal of getting someone there in say 10 - 20 years. We have absolutely nothing to lose by trying to go and we have quite a lot to gain. With all of the things that presently divide this great nation, a manned mission to Mars is something that almost every single American man, woman and child could get behind and be excited about regardless of who the president happens to be and regardless of what other circumstances we may find ourselves in. In my humble opinion, something like that is definitely worth pursuing, no matter the cost or the time it actually takes to get it done.
Re:How's Bush going to pay for it? (Score:5, Insightful)
His MO is to announce big, impressive new government efforts, get them passed - and then block their funding.
If his history is any guide, here's what he'd planning: He will get bills passed declaring missions to the moon, Mars, whatever. He'll get lots of publicity from this. Hidden in the bills will be the elimination of existing NASA programs. Then, when the funding bills come up, he and his cohort will work hard to make sure that the funding isn't passed.
The end result will be to terminate most existing NASA programs, and fund no new programs. But he'll talk loudly and often about the great space programs that he has established.
For further details, google for the phrase "starve the beast".
(But the US military will get funding for an expanded space effort. That should reassure everyone in the world.)
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:3, Insightful)
To perhaps put a more direct example in the light, the US has (by civilian knowledge) 21 plane B2 bomber bomber (mostly built in the last 3 years or so).
uhh, not even close. bomber #21 was delivered in 1997.
In fact the US General Accounting Office found the B2s actually have trouble doing even those missions; since they where originally designed to fly a single M.A.D. mission, they are not very sturdy. In fact every mission they fly causes extensive and expensive damage because of moisture in the air damaging the stealth covering.
the issue w/ the stealth coating has nothing to do w/ how many missions it was designed to fly- it's simply the nature of the technology at the time.
The cost for the handful of B2s was $45 billion (even if you exclude research costs and assume mass production, each plane costs over $1 billion to produce, let alone actually maintain). What worse is that the B2 is a somewhat cost efficent project as compared to others in the military industrial complex.
the reason the per plane cost for the B2 was so high was that gov't approval kept shrinking regarding orders; the fewer the planes built, the higher the per unit cost (since you were wrong about the $45b figure- that cost *does* include development, as well as procurement and military construction costs). it's a fact of life that the gov't is fickle, constantly changing requirements, making it likely you'll run over cost. this is applicable to space programs, and social programs as well. it's funny how you keep saying "in fact" when you don't appear to know about the facts... =)
How to get reelected 101. (Score:2, Insightful)
Solution: Use terrorist as a scare tactic to use Congress for his own personal agenda.
Problem: "War on terrorism" not working
Solution: Distract people by invading a country under false pretenses.
Problem: Occupation a complete failure
Solution: Distruct people with promises of space travel and extra terrestial habitats.
It's reassuring to know we have some real bright people governing this country.
Re: get life to survive in the harshest (Score:5, Insightful)
And before the Middle Ages, by the Arabs [wikipedia.org], used in a generic sense the way Europeans were classified as 'Latins' or 'Greeks' at that time.
The church had its history of book-burning [wikipedia.org] as well, and let's not forget Galileo [wikipedia.org].
The existence of multiple civilizations make it possible for knowledge to survive the destruction of Rome, and later, the stagnation of the Arabic world. Makes one shudder to contemplate the consequences of having One Global Culture.
Re:Bzzzzzt, but thank you for playing. (Score:3, Insightful)
But I cannot agree with your logic of spending billions to create some sort of extra planetary outpost of fornicating repopulators in order to expand the existence of the human species beyond its inevitable demise on earth.
The earth is ideally suited for human life because we have evolved within it over the last 200,000+ years.
Any outpost created will inevitably fall to murphy's law. I say within 50 years on the outside. Especially without base station support from mother earth.
Spend the billions on earth I say. So what if the potential for the discovery of the next "tang" is lessoned.
I am amazed that congress would vote to spend BILLIONS revisiting a SINGLE stupid rock orbiting our earth while they scoff at and cut off funding in the MILLIONS for a project that is scanning BILLIONS of solar systems for signs of intelligent life (SETI).
Re:Simply Put (Score:5, Insightful)
Now is always a bad time to do it.
Do it anyway.
Happens all the time! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Can you say "Election Year", boys and girls? (Score:3, Insightful)
1 billion a year is a start. a small and slow start. over the next 16 years, I (for the first time in his presidency) will give George W. the benefit of the doubt and will hope he continues along his roadmap to the red planet.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's designed to purchase some people's votes with other people's money. The art of governmet consists of taking money from those who aren't going to vote for you anyway, and using those fund to purchase votes.
Re:Lunacy and how to fix it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bzzzzzt, but thank you for playing. (Score:2, Insightful)
I sure wouldn't have given it if they didn't threaten me with violence... sounds like extortion to me.
Questions (Score:3, Insightful)
Will the initiative end when they discover that there is neither oil nor Al Quaeda operatives hiding on the Moon or Mars?
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:3, Insightful)
Hook, line and sinker. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:12B is chicken scratch (Score:1, Insightful)
Satellites
Advanced medical telemetry
Food preservation
Composite materials research
Composite fabrics research
Aircraft communications
Aircraft course tracking
Probably half a trillion $ worth of economic benefit, for openers.
Nice troll.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Preying on Emotions (Score:1, Insightful)
Perspective? You mean inch-thick rose-colored glasses? Iraq is going real well if you're Halliburton. The objective in Afghanistan remains unfulfilled. And the only way you can say the economy's going great is if you say that a man who loses a $75K job & ends up working for $6 an hour at WalMart is "employed".
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:5, Insightful)
Extra money seems to go to football stadiums, and condoms, and milk programs and extras and not to actual education.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:China, Russia and Europe (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are serious about this set up a lean, mean organization like the old Lockheed skunkworks and tell them to go out and hire the best engineers they can find wherever they can find them, and put them all in one place (unlike NASA with a center everyplace a powerful politician managed to put one). I'm certain a whole lot of Russians, Indians and Chinese will flock to US payscales, except where their government stops them( and I imagine only China would successfully stop them). They would also be diverted from making ballistic missiles.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:China, Russia and Europe (Score:3, Insightful)
To save costs, China, Russia and the ESA should also be involved in the missions.
This announcement basically guarantees that'll never happen. 'Abandon the iss' is the tone of the announcement, and sets the tone for all other organizations on what to expect when co-operating with NASA.
This whole announcement is a wonderful example of pork barrel politics, with a wonderful spin for the media. There's a billion dollars in pork there, and it's all gonna get spent on beaurcracy within the program, the majority of it in the Houston area. By the time that billion dollars is spent, NASA will have a lot more managers, a few more engineers, and they _might_ be halfway thru feasability studies. That billion dollars is gonna have to increase annually, just to keep the beaurocracy running.
If Bush was serious about going to the moon, and not about pork barrel politics, he woulda handed that billion dollars to Rutan and his crowd, the folks now creeping up on claiming the X-Prize. Give them 5 years and a billion dollars, they'll bring you back the steering wheel of a lunar rover. NASA wont even get past 'studies' with that kind of funding.
Bush v. Kennedy (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to lift a 2-paragraph or so quote from the CNN article [cnn.com] on JFK somebody linked to earlier:
"Some derided the dream as lunacy. Others viewed it as just another strategic move in the Cold War chess match between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Kennedy had just been humiliated in the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba, a communist ally of Moscow. In his speech, he called for many measures to combat communism, requesting billions, for example, to stop red insurgencies in Southeast Asia."
Now granted, in this day and age it's going to be pretty damned easy to beat the terrorists (in place of Communists) to the moon if the terrorists have no intention of going there in the first place. But still, both administrations had a chosen enemy: Kennedy the Communists and Bush Muslim extremists. One could argue that Bush also has an enemy in red China (and that they are the space program's intended target), but that seems less likely considering our trade volume.
Also, both presidents were coming off a controversial military action. America had the need for the containment of Communism drilled into its collective skull ever since Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech (if not before), and America has had the "War on Terrorism" drilled into its collective head ever since late 2001. Both presidents were realizing that military action was losing popularity, and both needed something to invigorate the national imagination (to paraphrase the CNN article's title). Now, I'm too lazy and this forum is too casual for me to research specifics of federal budgets and electoral politics during the Kennedy administration, but there may well be some similarities there, too.
In summation, my basic point is that it's possible Bush's intentions may be no less pure than Kennedy's were. Bush is certainly a popular target now, but he's still a part of current events and we don't have 20/20 hindsight through which to evaluate his actions. Current politics taint (or add flavor) to any discussion of this space plan, but only time will tell how it will be remembered.
Sometimes this place just cracks me up. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfrickin' believable. You want Star Trek to happen for real? It has to start somewhere, and here comes the best thing to help that along, and all you can do is bitch
Re:WMD (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a ruse (Score:2, Insightful)
Open your eyes people. While I think it would be great to return to the moon and visit Mars, this isn't anything more than a PR tactic for re-election. The numbers speak for themselves.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:2, Insightful)
However, Eventually != soon.
I completely support space exploration, but I think that Bush's deadline is more about his reelection than about cosmic adventures. He's just trying to be a second JFK and that's laughable.
From my point of view, space exploration should be done carefully and I don't see in the immediate future the need of a manned mission to Mars. In the short term, it is dangerous, too costly and unnecesary. We should continue with unmanned missions for quite a while.
Setting these deadlines is just a proof of the political motives behind his speech.
Re: Slowing down on Space R & D (Score:1, Insightful)
No. It isn't. Several other countries do develop technology, but for instance, take pharmeceuticals - who foots the bill for research and development? The good ol' USA. And besides, what did the space race do to the C.C.C.P? If you answered "Bankrupt" and or "cold" you iz just about right.
Science is for the good of humanity, not one specific, transient country.I agree. Science (should be) is for the good of all, but have you ever heard of patents? How about gouging American customers for research and development. Spending on NASA DOES achieve stuff, no question, but we want the payoff, not some pie-in-the-sky promise about trickle-down science. There is progress, but lets slow down (R&D) and bring the price to deploy currrently possible products to the masses. Let's build up the Sustenance Infrastructure, thereby feeling good, and producing even more scientists.
Long after the US has gone the way of the Roman Republic (and it will, it is the nature of such things), its contribution to science and technology will endure.Again, I agree. We're still using fire and electricity and that is likely to continue. However, Rome had little more than brute strength, borrowing their logic and math and religion from Greece and the East. We are much like Rome to be sure. Anyone with enough capital and enough minds can develop new stuff - why they should constantly do so is the question. The law of diminishing returns comes to mind.
I just think we have SO MUCH technology that we should slow down. A hundred and fifty years ago, and all time prior, you and I would most likely be farmers or hunter gatherers. Not such a bad life except that it was only, on average, 335-50 years long. That 150 years of preogress has brought us light years ahead, and I for one don't need much more stuff.
Colonizing other worlds is on my agenda, even if I never live to see it - I think it's neccesary for the survival of the species, but we gotta pay to play, and I'm one for paying as you go. If we secure our sustenance infrastructure first, feed, educate, etc., then we can more readily pay for space travel. In the meantime, why not let other countries figure stuff out? Or, just wait for supercomputing to really develop and alot of stuff will figured out for free over time. While we perfect WHO is going to rule/live in space. Comparing us to Romans in this way could easily be construed as an omen to slow the fuck down.
Re:Sometimes this place just cracks me up. (Score:4, Insightful)
You want Star Trek to happen for real? It has to start somewhere, and here comes the best thing to help that along
No, Bush's proposal will not help you get Star Trek technology faster.
Star Trek occurs several centuries into the future. In the meantime, we will deal with ordinary issues like rising retirement and health care costs. We need a balanced budget, a sustainable environment, and peace. Otherwise, you may end up with NO space program.
The key word here is "sustainable". NASA may get an extra billion $$$ now, but what will happen to that Star Trek future when the deficit gets out of control?
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:2, Insightful)
B) We wouldn't be having this discusion right now if the DoD didn't get DARPA to figure out how to make a computer network work (Other than mainframes and dummy terminals).
C) There is no need for weapons on the Moon, if the UN even allowed them.
D) The first successful rocket launch NASA had was using a MILITARY ROCKET. The DoD and NASA have a nice good relationship, or have had ones at times.
Re:Wow Li'l George... (Score:2, Insightful)
COuld be, or also possible is that he has tried to do the right thing in all cases regardless of how people view him. Whatever way is true, we'll never know.
Re:WMD (Score:4, Insightful)
Weapons of Mass Distraction is more likely...
Election Year (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't be fooled. This is an election year ploy. If Bush gets re-elected, expect it to either quietly disappear from the media (like so many of his other lies) or get held up due to funding problems, insurmountable technical difficulties, and the like. Sure, it sounds good, but so did No Child Left Behind (which has rapidly become No Behind Left), all his "small government" talk (increasing the budget by over $300 billion from the height of the Clinton era is by no means small), individual rights...
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:4, Insightful)
How about funding a plan in Colombia to use an untested pathogenic fungus -- fusarium oxysporum -- to wipe out coca. Critics say the plan proposes illegal acts of biological warfare, poses major ecological risks to Colombia -- one of the world's most bio-diverse countries -- and will increase suffering, by wreaking havoc with human health, water quality and food crops.
But hell, what is one out-of-control war-on-%something% from our well-meaning leaders like the Good-ol USA?
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:3, Insightful)
I am sure we all agree that things aren't handled too well on earth. However, your argument goes one step further by saying that we should stay away from other planets, in order not to spoil them also.
I disagree with that view, because it assumes that pristine planets have value in themselves. IMHO other planets are just a bunch of rocks in space - they are valuable only when we enjoy them. If we stay away from Mars until a big rock falls onto our heads then Mars will be preserved in its original form. But what is the value of that if no one will ever see it?
Tor
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and a place with really low gravity would make a great retirement community.
Re:Bush's Space Smokescreen (Score:3, Insightful)
I have listened, and yes, I agree with this.
Hmm... Just went back and re-read my post... nothing about hating Bush in there... However, I do disagree with most of his policies. His direction is positive, his timeline and budget are terrible. The latter leads me to believe he isn't really serious about the former.
Bush has, indeed, cleared some roadblocks for NASA. However, what NASA needs, IMHO, is leeway to take risks, an aggressive timeline that challenges them, and a mandate to also focus on the facillitation of private ventures in space.
Lastly, I am hesistant to support Bush on yet another example of abandoning our allies and international partnerships. I would hardly be surprised if he also favored pulling out of the moon treaty and declaring our stake and property when we get there.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of the progams require you to a)get a job, b)being training for a job or C)looking for a job. Not exactly food-tubes, although it does say something about the wealth distribution in this country if the people working on the lowest rungneed government assistance in order to survive.
Also, welfare beifits 1) do not cover all of the cost of living, just some and b)often have cut off dates, so much for unending support of the government.
And just one question, how much does a secretary produce? or a storew clerk? or a CFO?
Re:Bzzzzzt, but thank you for playing. (Score:3, Insightful)
Money was taken from people without their consent.
The government has the right to do whatever it wants with the taxes it collects. If you don't like what they do you elect someone else, but that doesn't make unwise expeditures theft.
So when Nazi Germany spent its tax dollars exterminating Jews, that was legitimate? After all, if the Jews didn't want to be extermined they shouldn't have let Hitler win the election.
Second of all, it's not a "what-if", it's an eventual certainty. If we live long enough, a giant asteroid will hit the earth, or something else of that nature that will kill everyone on the planet.
I think somebody needs to look up the term "certainty". Unless you can point to an asteroid presently on a collision course, its just a question of probability. Since the universe is finite, there's no logical reason to suggest another asteroid "must" hit the earth.
Of course it's possible that we'll kill ourselves off before that happens, but if so, then what does it really matter what we spend a few extra billions on right now?
I know its a radical suggestion, but how about each person spends their own money on what they want to spend it on, rather than what you think they should, or even what a voting majority thinks they should?
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:2, Insightful)
I could be wrong, but I'm not seeing *any* productive uses for GPS, which, btw, wouldn't exist if it weren't for lots of technology that NASA pioneered to begin with. Prove me wrong.
Re:Bzzzzzt, but thank you for playing. (Score:2, Insightful)
The earth is ideally suited for human life because we have evolved within it over the last 200,000+ years.
Any outpost created will inevitably fall to murphy's law. I say within 50 years on the outside. Especially without base station support from mother earth.
The scope you use, "Earth", seems arbitrary. One could say that human life evolved within the Universe. Really, we mostly evolved in one small area of the planet. We just learned to deal with the conditions of other places. It is quite possible that we will learn to deal with the conditions of other planets as well.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm glad you are in no sort of position to decide how funds are spent or what projects are worked on. People like you never bother working on anything that lacks immediate gratification - since that sort of behaviour is self limiting the people who actually create things with long term value can get on with getting things done.
Re:We have to go to Mars! (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course that simply won't happen. Humans are greedy and wastefuls creatures and we probably aren't going to last long as technology keeps advancing faster than society.
In 3 billion years, as the sun swells and consumes the Earth, the super-intelligent arachnid overlords will have left and colonized 2/3 of the galaxy, long since having learned to live in harmony with each other and harvest the energy of black holes.
May doom greet us with open arms.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:3, Insightful)
Conspiracy theories are great fun, of course, but I'm skeptical that there's any cohesive force acting to make anything like this happen. It sounds like there is from time to time, and I'm sure there are people who do actually make it their goal to make this happen. But they're isolated idiots, not a vast global conspiracy.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:3, Insightful)
NASA innovation is most often rapidly usable.
I'm guessing they see it as a source of funds, wereas the military see it as a potential weapon.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:1, Insightful)
Just because the ultimate goal of the military is to kill people, doesn't mean everything associated with them is evil.
Last time I checked the goal of any military was to protect the country and it's government, at any means necessary. Killing people may be the means, but not the end.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:3, Insightful)
B> If DARPA hadn't produced the Internet, someone else would have - it was an idea whose time had come. Even if your tired old saw were true, if we had spent the entire $4 trillion coldwar defense budget on the Internet, it would be a *lot* better.
C> The need for weapons (in US or even enemies hands), or the UN allowing them anywhere, has been proven to be a total nonissue for Bush/Cheney. As has "deficits", which according to Cheney, "don't matter".
D> NASA had always been R&D for ICBM research. Sensible capitalists (not "state capitalists", mafiosos indistinguishable from "communists") want to dissolve that vampiric relationship, and fund just the lucrative NASA.
Drop the rationalizations, back the drive to explore space, and leave the deathstar behind in favor of growth.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:3, Insightful)
My point is, the spinoffs from manned space exploration do not by themselves justify manned space exploration and its absurd budget. Why not try to invent these advanced technologies without spending billions attempting to shoot people into space? If they're useful here on Earth, odds are they'll be available soon anyway, without flushing all those tax dollars down the tubes.
Some thoughts (Score:2, Insightful)
The ISS has become a huge money sink. The Russians really need to get their act together money-wise (though in the delivery department they are currently better than us considering the shuttle fleet is grounded).
More money up to this point should have been put into low gravity (and zero-gravity) manufacturing.
In order to even conceive of building a lunar base at this point, a lot of money is going to have to be sunk into researching this. Manufacturing at low-G in hostile environments is not the same as manufacturing here on earth.
For any of these plans to succeed, NASA needs to get it through their heads that wings are a bad idea for orbital/lunar space flight. Why? The benefits are more negative than positive.
They are only used on landing - therefore on takeoff (where weight is a very important factor) they are the most inefficient waste of mass because they aren't used at all! I also believe that a reusuable, technologically sophisticated, recoverable capsule (similar to Apollo) will be cheaper to build, cheaper to launch, and cheaper to recover than any winged craft will be.
There needs to be a another X-prize, but this time its for building the cheapest, most efficient and economical manned reusable space (not near-space) vehicle. I think that if NASA licenses a technology developed in the private sector we actually have a chance of making some of these timetables that have been put forth, instead of new technology being bogged down by bureaucracy and stubbornness.
In this day and age, the part of NASA that manages manned space exploration is all about not taking risks but ducking their heads and making sure nothing disastrous goes wrong. The Apollo missions were a HUGE RISK undertaken by NASA. But since the last Apollo mission hardly any risks are taken any more because of fears of spending being cut, etc...
NASA needs to return to being able to take calculated risks for the good of exploration. I think this lack of any risk-taking has also stifled any new technology from going into current spacecraft.
Space spending not wasted... (Score:3, Insightful)
That money is spent here, in the USA, on engineers and such - right on down to the guy who sweeps up the turnings from the lathes at Boeing.
At the very least, that money has a chance for spin-off benefits.
If you think of it as "welfare for the military industrial complex", at least it has a chance of a payback. I'd rather give hard-working engineers "welfare" rather than "poor" people.
Pure social spending of Gov't dollars is money down the drain (unless you are trying to create/reinforce a dependent class of "citizens").
Tax cut economics (Score:3, Insightful)
The Earth is Void of Reason. (Score:3, Insightful)
I think about our so-called Judeo-Christian values. The cognitive dissonance between our idealized values and our actual values are lightyears apart. We polute our water and land and it has now it full-circle accumulates in our bodies. We idle by and by while the fruit of our labors supports those who will efficiently (and honorably) KILL innocents in their sleep (eg. on an airplane flight) when told to do so. These same leaders presume holy relationships: praying, visiting churches, and "God Bless" a common phrase ending many a speech. I think we need to close the gap between what we say and what we do before we spend our billions exploring half-heartedly.
How many billions are spent the world over in all countries on doublespeek "defense" and "peacekeepers"? Why not brand these with words with real meaning "KILLing" and "KILLers".
We infight like Clark/Kubrick's 2001 hominid ancestors while the next asteroid, CME, errant black hole (or other as yet to be discovered nano-dna-phenom) comes to take us to be one with God.
Nature is a terrorist with superhuman powers! If this isn't a reason to fear God and love one another... well I don't know a better one.
Evolve! GROW UP!
We share 99.9%+ DNA. We are all related. We are all family. We are all brothers and sisters.
There is a message "Do not Kill!" it needs to be taught at birth and reinforced in childhood and enforced as law. Killing is senseless and stupid.
Solutions abound that cost no thing "do unto others as you would have others do unto you", "love thy neighbor", "be nice".
Happy Valentines Day!
If you send this post to a friend, you will increase the love in the world, if you send it to ten friends...
they will want to kill you.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:4, Insightful)
Welfare is a *SAFETY NET* for *REAL PEOPLE* It's not the stereotype of cadillac driving welfare queens or the projects that has been forced in to your skull. If you think the tax burden of social programs is too great, imagine the nation without them. Imagine soup kitchens and Hooverville shantytowns.
Non-producing food tubes my ass. Eat shit and die. Please. Now.
It's PORN allright - for the MILITARY... (Score:2, Insightful)
Bush Mission to Mars: it's all about militarizing space
Excerpts from Bush's "space exploration" speech delivered earlier today:
America is proud of our space program. The risk-takers and visionaries of this agency have expanded human knowledge, have revolutionized our understanding of the universe and produced technological advances that have benefited all of humane's (sic) doing an excellent job.
Certainly, some of it has benefited people who live in affluent nations -- most notably, the aerospace industry, otherwise known as the "defense" industry. The vast majority of mankind, however, lives under conditions of grinding poverty and the advances gained from the space program do not benefit them in the least. In fact, many of the "technological advances" of the aerospace industry have resulted in widespread death and destruction -- for instance, the development and use of stealth bombers and cruise missiles. For untold numbers of Iraqis and Afghans, the American space program translates into GPS guided bombs killing their children.
Our investment in space exploration helped to create our satellite telecommunications network and the Global Positioning System.
See the previous comment.
Our first goal is to complete the International Space Station by 2010. We will finish what we have started.
Bush's "first goal" is to realize plans spelled out by the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization [thirdworldtraveler.com], chaired by Donald Rumsfeld in 2001. A report issued by the Commission demands the US "have the option to deploy weapons in space to deter threats to and, if necessary, defend against attacks on U.S. interests." In other words, the US will build a new generation of space-based weapons to further realize Pax Americana. Of course, this will motivate other countries (most notably China) to waste money and precious resouces on developing space weapons of their own, initiating an arms race.
In fact, China has already started its own space weapons program, according to a report released by the Department of Defense. "The report focuses on the current and probable future course of that country's growing military-technological prowess, including the use of space to assure military advantage," Leonard David [space.com] writes for Space.com. "This year's report cites a comment from Captain Shen Zhongchang from the Chinese Navy Research Institute. He envisions, according to the DoD, a weaker military defeating a superior one by attacking its space-based communications and surveillance systems." For more on the strategic thinking of the Chinese, see Chinese Views of Future Warfare [af.mil].
[Secretary of the Air Force Pete Aldrich] has tremendous experience in the Department of Defense and the aerospace industry. And he is going to begin this important work right away.
Aldrich does have "tremendous experience" -- he is the overseer of the Defense Departmenta(TM)s Missile Defense Support Group (MDSG) and reports to the DoD's Senior Executive Council (SEC) and the Missile Defense Agency. "The SEC, which is chaired by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and includes the service secretaries and Aldridge, recently was assigned the task of considering whether elements of the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) should move to production and deployment," writes Alaska Missile Defense Early Bird Weekly [akrepublicans.org].
In other words, Reagan's Star Wars reinvented.
"[The] real scandal [of BMDS is] that the defense being developed won't work -- and few in Washington seem to know or ca
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:2, Insightful)
(*) extremely accurate clocks
(*) special waveforms with nice correlation properties
(*) ionospheric correction (dual frequency L1, L2)
(*) tropospheric correction (pressure, water vapor)
(*) general relativity correction
Re:Wow Li'l George... (Score:3, Insightful)
First attack on the United States since Pearl Harbor
Bush being president had nothing to do with 9/11. Are you saying that had Al Gore won in 2000 Bin Laden would not have killed those 3,000 people? Right...
an economy that just will not recover
I believe the economy is much better than it was in 2001 when Bush took office. The Dow is now back to 10,000 range, unemployment is the lowest in years and economic growth is climbing...
Re:Meh (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats not the article I wanted to refference but I can't find the one I liked so much right now.
In short start searching for actual new oil fields being found over the course of the last 20 years or so.
Demand is growing, finds of new sources have severely declined and exploration is getting more costly with less returns.. Ie we are spending more and more to find less and less. The idea represented in that discussion and others I have read is that discovery rate is not even close to keeping up with the current growth, and with India and China comming online as serious energy consumers that growth rate is going to expand in a hurry while all current indications are new sources/production will be declining, possible at an even greater rate. The two together will be devestating.
Thats where the close term predictions are comming from. Thats the worst case scenario. The more immediate fear is that even if we should find significant new fields all of the current major oil fields including those in the middle east are crossing the line, IE they have reached peak production and we will now see those oil fields decline as production rates go down as more and more effort must be made in the extraction process. The experiences with the north sea oil fields has shown that while technology allows us to get at the dregs it dosn't really help production all that much, IE its harder to get at and takes longer to get it, the technology just means we can get at it eventually but nothing replaces a natural gushing well for production.
Thus without finding new substatial fields our capacity to produce is going to be rapidly and continually outstripped by the increase in demand. Free market economy principles are pretty fuckin darwinnian in that scenario and it is a situation that will rapidly worsen until not only are new fields found but brought online.
The direst prediction of that scneario have it already begining, others think 2010-2020 time frame. In either case it is paramount to find new sources or a viable alternative primary energy source.
synthetic oils have a problem... they cost more energy to create than you recover. They also tie our biomass/foodstuff production into our energy needs. So far farming advances have kept us ahead of the nunmerous population crisis predictions with regards to providing food... but if the results of farming also has to provide the primary source of energy for machienary as well as for food will it be able to do so ?
I havn't completly given up on the idea.. waste recylcling shows promise and evidently not all of the synthetic production need take away from food stuffs. So it may work, but the discussions I have seen say its far from a certain thing. In the end regardless the problem of it taking more energy to make than it produces means it will always be a more expensive source of energy than naturally occuring oil.
Wrong wrong wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, stop liberating people would be a good start.
There you go.
Re:How will we fund it? Spend it elsewhere! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:It's PORN allright - for the MILITARY... (Score:4, Insightful)
If he is an illeagal alien then he has a far easier time getting employment and citizenship.
His average household income has gone up dramatically in his life. (NOTE: the average american home now has less people than in 1960)
The court system in America if FAR FAR FAR more liberal than it was in 1960, and tends to find in favor of ridiculous lawsuits against major companies.
America the most feared country in the world.... Well I guess you and I saw something different on TV when the U.S. came in and freed Iraq.
They have increased terrorism.... Umm.... let's see , you can either attack terrorist or be attacked. You obviously believe in negotiating with terrorist, and the current administration doesn't. Let's see now... negotiations has worked sooo well for Israel in the last 40 years... Please understand that I am not saying negotiate with other countries, but terrorist. There is a differece.
The U.S. is cutting back on... WTF? What do you call a cut? When the program gets $1 Billion a year and they don't get $2 Billion the next. Name a MAJOR program other than the military and NASA that has actually been cut. What people like to do is ask for a 100% increase in spending for their program and then when they only get 10% they say the administration CUT the budget.
You are either with us or with the terrorist.... Yep that is correct. It seems fairly clear. How many first or second world countries do you know that openly support terrorism? Why would they want to? If they do then aren't they basically declaring war on the U.S.? Should the U.S. wait until they kill another 3,000+ citizens before doing something? So to the previous poster... you are actually safer now, because the U.S. is not sitting by waiting for some governement funded terrorist to slam a plain in to your building.
They personally profit from the war... The U.S. and every other country that helped should gain some money back if possible. I understand that this is different than what you would do, i.e. give the terrist money and hope (but not pray) that they don't hurt us.
I could go on also.
The posters previous comments were on the mark. He has been given an opportunity to improve his social status with little true intervention from the government, short of possibly being drafted (he is too young for this).
Other things I can think of.
He has not had to worry about being gased. (Iraq)
He has not had to worry about starving. (Africa)
He has had one of the worlds best medical care.
He lived in a society that works to achive equality among it citizens.
His economy isn't run by the mob. (Italy)
His water is clean. (Africa and most 3rd world)
His information isn't driven by the government. (Many) Heck in this case it is just the opposite.
He could choose what type of career he wanted, and even still at 40+ could change it completely. (Ton)
He could get in to politics and drive the future of his country.
He could openly say how bad the U.S. is and how he hates our president. (kind of like you).
He has the ability to worship God freely.
America is a government by the people for the people... If you don't like it run for freaking office. Change it.
Its about time (Score:2, Insightful)
That said, Im not unhappy with his performance. I believe anyone who makes it to the presidence, sets out with the best of intentions. (even tho thats not where things always go) I think he knows, like the rest of us, that nasa has been in need of a clear mission for far too long.
The space industry has changed our lives more than any other in the last fifty years. It seems to me that investments in apollo have paid us back ten fold...
So why is nasa, this powerhouse of world change, sitting on its duff carrying out (seemingly) useless experiments?
Their new mission is clear even if the details are vague.
I think its a good thing.
Just to get my licks in before the thread archives (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the wrong way to go to space again. The nadir, the opposite, the way it shouldn't be.
I've been a space fanatic for 35 years. And emulating the Apollo model of spectaular and ultimately useless manned shots was proved a dead end thirty years ago. It is a dead end now.
We should go to the moon, but to establish mining and material processing plants. We should use mass drivers on the moon, rather than rockets, to move material into L2, L5, or earth orbit for contruction purposes. Using the moon for a launching platform for Mars is a terrible idea -- if you are in orbit, in zero G, you can use an ion engine to get to mars in weeks. But to launch from the moon, you have to use a high energy rocket, which actually gets you to Mars more slowly than the high-efficiency and always-on ion engine.
Build in space, not on the moon. Move lunar materials to Earth-moon space using an electric mass-driver on the surface, and make aluminum, steel, and titanium by the thousands of tons in lunar orbit or L5.
If you want to go to space as a nation, you go BIG, which means you proceed deliberately. No spectacular space shots of interest to geologists only. You build up industrial capacity in orbit and on the moon, and after that you can go anywhere at a much cheaper cost than lifting tons of miniaturized and fragile components from Earth, because you simply make what you need at the launching complex from raw materials. It's more expensive in the short term, but it the long term it pays for itself in materials and energy (powersats), AND you get the solar system as a bonus for cheap.
Additionally, if you industrialize near Earth, it means normal people could go and live off planet, because there would be enough resources to actually build habitats, regular shuttle services, make powersats for selling juice back home. Launching it all from Earth guarantees that although the "mission" of landing some miltary pilots on Mars would be accomplished, that no one else could go, and ultimately the whole program would be shut down because,and it pains me to say this, all we would have for our money would be some rocks, some video, and a small cadre of semi-military men who actually got to go to another world. It didn't work for Apollo, and it won't work here. This idea is pure Old NASA, and should be stopped immediately. Space should not be the province of ultrahealthy supermen who go up and come down. It should be about resources, economically sound exploitation, and the ability of a normal human to participate someday.
And finally, Bush's (Old NASA's) dream is a crock. The money will not be there after Supply Side 2, the Looting. The old dream will die again as the neocon party ball goes dim in the next ten years and all the bills come due.
Re:It's PORN allright - for the MILITARY... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:It sucks. (Score:3, Insightful)
And today Congress would have told such an uppity President where to stick those balls and not passed his budget. And vast numbers of hyper-cynical citizens would have called Kennedy's challenge empty political posturing to woo the ignorant come next election. And every politician from the opposing party would have cut off one of their balls to keep the plan from working lest someone other than they look good.
The race to the moon was all about proving that the USA was better than those stinking commie Russians. Without that, we'd still be bickering amongst ourselves.
- Jasen.
How can you wonder? (Score:1, Insightful)
What could we accomplish with the resources that will eventually be absorbed by space exploration?
Issues of social service, government subsidies, military spending, tax rebates or decreases seem to eat most of the budget of the United States. We certainly should not abandon spending on these issues - they are the bedrock of the functionality of our government.
On top of those issues are the United State's humanitarian responsibilities. Fighting disease, hunger, poverty, oppression, etc. these are the measure of our humanity.
I can't discount the importance of these items. I encourage you to think, however, about the merit of space exploration. Imagine the world a thousand years from now. What will remain?
If any country that exists now can still exist in that far future the effort expended to remain viable will have been well spent. Certainly the continued existance of the United States must be paramount in it's own budget creation. But the projects that hound our space program today will have vanished like dust. This blip in the economy, that pork barrel project, social spending here, military spending there. Some politician and his desire to strip money from our space program in order to buy something that will get him re-elected. All will have been lost to time. As the events of the year 1000 effect us in a 'butterfly effect' manner so will we control the future in an unpredictable, unknowable, and anonymous fasion.
Space exploration is an entirely different sort of undertaking. In the bright future I imagine humanity is in several locations in our solar system. The Moon, Mars, the Jovian system, who can say what humanity will manage to adapt to. Perhaps they eye the edge of our solar system as the next frontier, or perhaps we will have managed to grow beyond that as well.
As a species we will no longer fear the simple destruction that befell so many forms of life previously on Earth. It's easy to be unconcerned about the threats to our species' continued existence. Asteroids, plague, environmental collapse, world war, overpopulation, none of these are going to happen tomorrow. The individual generally need not act upon their threat at all. I imagine not one dinosaur ever gave it a thought.
Further, in the future I propose, imagine the variety of human experience. Humans may paint landscapes under the light of Jupiter. Art and philosophy will be profoundly effected not only by the fact of it's own existence remote from Earth, but by the existence of other thoughts and philosophies developed in other environments. This variety, this ocean of experience will be a benefit to humanity that the people of 1000 years from now could not imagine being without. As the peasant of the year 1000, (never travelling more than 20 miles from his home!) will those who live in a future containing space travel look back upon those times when man dwelt only upon the Earth.
This is all to say nothing of the benefit to science and technology. Benefits and resources so unimaginably vast that words fail and I can only write this short paragraph about them.
Little will survive the next 1000 years in any recognizable form. We must continue to attempt to mitigate suffering and maintain the well-being of our nation, but individual efforts will swirl and vanish in the chaos of human progression. In the future, space travel or no, there will still be those who have and those who have not. In 1000 years people may die still from hunger or disease, or from lack of as-yet unimagined medical techniques or they may lack access to some future life-improving technology.
In contrast to all else that we may do in this time, 1000 years before that future, the development of space travel will stand out. The colonization of the universe off of this sphere will be like the development of FIRE, or the invention of the WHEEL. It will be of fundamental imporance to the entire human race.
Adam Thorne
Re:NASA good programs (Score:3, Insightful)
Just the great observatories program alone -- Compton, Hubble, Chandra, and now Spitzer -- each constructed and launched with roughly $1 B, underline the point that when TENS of billions of dollars get shifted around, science could very well be left out in the cold.
Moreover, the THEORY portion of NASA's science is peanuts of the overall science program, which is itself peanuts of the overall NASA budget. Each year, over a hundred PIs go all out to fight for the few million dollars provided by NASA's Astrophysics Theory Program (ATP). About a dozen are actually funded, to the tune of about $100 K each. The irony is that after all those tens of billions of dollars are spent on launching people on top of firecrackers and designing and building telescopes and satellites, only a miniscule amount is devoted towards our physical understanding of those observations.
Rhetoric again? Or something new? (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, only $1b is new money being allocated. You cannot do anything for $1b. The increase just covers inflation. As Bob McDonald of CBC remarked on tv yesterday, the $11 billion is just reshuffling existing NASA money and this may damage other areas of NASA. Bob was concerned about sacrificing robotics at the expense of human missions. Even with that amount of money, nothing major will be accomplished.
You basically need hundreads of billions to do anything major. This money hasn't been allocated.
Secondly--and most importantly--the only major endeavours in the past have been due to political reasons. Let's face it: As long as there isn't a political threat (however bogus), the public isn't going to be too keen on supporting any major projects. Unless USA initiates some massive propaganda campaign and brainwashes people into thinking that China, Russia, India, Japan, Europe, or whoever else you can come up with is a threat, nothing is going to be done.
Lastly, USA is running a massive deficit. The deficit is around $500 billion this year and unless the economy picks up, it might even get worse. Granted, this isn't a big deal for a big country like USA (at least according to theory), but nevertheless it will have SOME impact. Getting to public to support a massive tax cut for the wealthy is easy (just initiate some propaganda and you'll be ok). It is also easy to increase the military budget by claiming the imminent threat of others. Similarly, increasing budgets for DEA, CIA, and others is pretty easy--you just have to claim you are fighting a very important "war" (in these cases, drugs, and terrorism). You can also get the public to support a missile shield (which in all likelihoods won't work (automatically, the effectiveness against terrorists is 0% since terrorists use asymettric covert techniques)). HOWEVER, getting the public to support a scientific mission is pretty tough.
So to summarize my thoughts... not enough money is allocated... there is no political will... US fiscal situation isn't good enough to get public support... All this can just mean one thing. This is political rhetoric before an election. Nothing more; nothing less!
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Re:Bzzzzzt, but thank you for playing. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know that I'd classify the sun as "an asteroid or something of that nature" but lets not quibble.
You seem to be confusing legality and morality. Theft is a legal term.
Ummm... no it isn't. It has a legal context, but there are plenty of definitions of theft which do not reference "what is legal". Try a dictionary... you might like it.
What the government does with the money may or may not be morral, but the way they got it was legal,
Since the government itself gets to decide what's legal that seems a pisspoor way to determine the morality of a thing.I've provided previous examples, but "if you don't like it, get out" is a logical fallacy that has had holes shot into it a dozen times, so I don't feel like rehashing tired old arguments.
It's generally accepted that paying money for services is not immoral.
Argumentum ad populum. Somebody should put all these fallacies in a book. It was generally accepted 300 years ago that slavery was not immoral, did that justify it?
At any rate, the statement is flawed. It is not paying money for a service that is immoral, its stealing money and trying to justify it by providing a service that is immoral.
The US government is paid money to give services. Everyone in the country benefits from the services, so consenting to pay the taxes is required to live here. You don't like it? Stop immorally and illegally ripping off the government and leave.
An argument that is not only tired and predictable, but dead wrong. The mafia could use the identical argument to justify "providing protection" to everybody in the neighborhood. Don't like it? Move.
Sorry, that's not the way democracy works, sorry. Putting aside for the moment the legal complications in the system (constitutional rights, 2/3rd majortiy issues, representative democracy, etc) if 51% of the people want things a certain way, that's the way it goes.
That says nothing about the morality of the situation. Can you even talk about that or is rehashed civics lessons all you've got left?
Again, pretending for the moment we don't have the constitutional rights intended to prevent abuse of the system, if 51% of the people think it should be illegal to analy rape people with wolves, then it's illegal
And if only 49% think it should be, it magically stays legal and we have tens of millions of people like you arguing that its therefore justified. Its amazing how easy it is for you to take consent totally out of the equation and just replace it with "what the majority wants" (even if the majority happens to be only the majority of those that the remaining majority feel should be allowed to vote)
Don't want to be raped? Move.
But then that brings us to yet another interesting caveat. What about if 51% of the people decide I shouldn't be able to leave? Its happened before, often in fact.