Preview of Moon-To-Mars Report 170
schnarff writes "Space.com has obtained a sneak preview of the Moon-To-Mars commission report, which will be officially released June 16. The report calls for spinning off NASA centers as FFRDCs, establishing an independent cost estimation bureau, and otherwise streamlining NASA's bureaucracy."
Don't worry, I got a copy of the *real* report: (Score:4, Insightful)
"It's not going to happen. This whole deal is just election-year BS from your friends at the Bush Administration who are still trying to distract you from the gigantic fucking mess they've created in the middle east by waving around some cool-sounding ideas that they have no intention of following up on. Oh sure, we'll spend a whole lot of tax dollars coming up with reports (like this one!) and let some worthwhile science projects fall by the wayside, but in the end absolutely jack will come of it. Hey! Look at that shiney thing! And have a nice day."
Not NASA's fault (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm probably going to get jumped on for this, but *every* national space agency has had huge problems of every type. NASA being the biggest, it's no shock that we seem to have more than our share. But seriously - look at the ESA. Ariane has been a disaster. How many more bailouts are they going to need? How many more times is Ariane 5 going to explode? The Soviets, in their hayday, were even more unsuccessful than us; look at their appalling mars record, for example. We've got some newcomers on the scene - China, Japan, and India - for whom it is too soon to judge. However, don't hold your breath for a miracle.
Private industry? What a laugh. First off, much of NASA's work *IS* done by private industry. The company I used to work for, Rockwell-Collins, had a major shuttle contract when it was being developed. They abused the hell out of it. Whenever any project ran out of hours, they charged it to the shuttle, even if it was unrelated. Private industry is supposed to *save* us money?
Small startups? Not even the slightest bit of success. Hundreds of millions of dollars were poured into private space startups during the dotcom boom, and all they have to show for it is a bunch of loping along companies and half-completed projects of bankrupt companies.
Is everyone just doing a bad job? Of course not. The problem is that the engineering challenges are *massive*, and there are so many variables that it is almost impossible to see what realistically could go wrong. On the really big projects, it gets even worse: not only do you have so many more things that could get wrong, but you have so many more people who have their ideas of what could pose a problem, most of which are not real threats. And now, if you don't investigate each of them, you're accused of suppressing whistleblowers.
This probably isn't going to be a popular post. I'm OK with that. But I don't like the typical Bash-NASA threads that these usually turn into, so I thought I'd add my two cents. Mod me as you will.
Re:Not NASA's fault (Score:5, Insightful)
> charged it to the shuttle, even if it was
> unrelated. Private industry is supposed to *save*
> us money?
It will when private industry is footing the bill. There's a difference in the situation you described of a contractor stealing money from a government agency, and a company being paid by customers to get something into space, competing with other companies offering to do the same thing.
It will at that point be in their best interests to spend less. Not that it would matter, because if they experience overruns it won't show up in our taxes.
At least until they gets so large and integral to the economy that the government bails them out with huge grants whenever the economy goes tits up, aka the airline industry.
Re:Not NASA's fault (Score:2)
One you can not "steal money" from the government, its not theirs in the first place. When the US Army Corps of Engineers sold off its fleet of equipment and began using contractors to dredge and maintain US waterways there was a significant savings to the tax payer (again
Re:Not NASA's fault (Score:3, Insightful)
Government contractors are not the end-all and be-all of private industry in space. Plenty of companies, for example XM Radio, are
Distraction? Where's the elements? (Score:4, Insightful)
If one in a hundred people in the US could not even tell you anything about the program, could you really consider it a "distraction"? Or instead is this just another mindless attack agaist Bush, the content of which you post weither the topic is caterpillar reform or what kind of hot dog to include in the national school lunch program?
Perhaps you should get off your high horse and read the report to see if it's a good idea, regardless of who is elected. NASA needs an overhaul and at least this is a start. Otherwise you are really just an off-topic wanker.
Re:Distraction? Where's the elements? (Score:2)
remember when bush started this 'new' program and direction? HUGE publicity, little of actual content/plans.
Huge publicity? (Score:3, Interesting)
I would be interested to know Kerry's stance on the whole issue.
Re:Huge publicity? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's exactly my point!! (Score:2)
It's not nessicarily a flop, just ignored.
Re:That's exactly my point!! (Score:2)
How does that relate to distractions from the comi (Score:2)
Past the election then (Score:2)
Re:Don't worry, I got a copy of the *real* report: (Score:5, Insightful)
"Well, a month ago the Soviets launched Gagarin to the first manned orbital flight and all the PR spin doctoring in the world cannot make Alan Shepard's flight a match for that. Also just a few days ago the guys from CIA made complete morons of themselves in Bay Of Pigs, Cuba. It looks like we'll count another humiliating defeat in Indochina. To make things worse to me, I won the election by a very narrow margin and the Republicans can hit me that I'm soft on communism. Oh, and I need that whole civil rights movement on the South like a pain in the a** - if I'll support them, the Southern Democrats no longer support me, if I'll oppose them, all the other Democrats no longer support me. Damn, I have no movement. To the left, to the right, to the north, to the south, obstacles everywhere. So maybe I'll just move up, up and away?".
Yeah, for Kennedy the Apollo Project was nothing but a clever PR-stunt, a brilliant escape from his political problems. But decades ago all that counts is that it was one of the greatest achievements of mankind in the twentieth century. In politics, major achievements are often made thanks to petty reasons. Even if the Moon-to-Mars project is also a PR-BS for Bush, it doesn't prove nothing will come of it.
Re:Don't worry, I got a copy of the *real* report: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't worry, I got a copy of the *real* report: (Score:2)
For-profit companies are not interested in space exploration, they are interested in making money. Therefore, they will find loopholes in NASA contracts (which will be there on purpose), abuse the hell out of programs, and so on. Basically, this
Re:Don't worry, I got a copy of the *real* report: (Score:3, Insightful)
Given some fresh ideas I think there is money to made by private companies shooting for Mars. I mean beyond the "space tourism" niche which the Russians could be making a killing from if they had a decent spacecraft for the journey up I think alot of different industries would love a chance to cash in on the exploits of Mars.
Seriously a good business plan, management, and some unique ideas and techn
Re:Don't worry, I got a copy of the *real* report: (Score:2)
And do Lockheed and Boeing employ people or not? I mean I am so sick of people bashing the companies who create jobs as being evil because those that run them (note I said run not own because they are corporations) are rich, of course their rich would you hire a bum off the street to handle your multi milloin dollar company?
WOrking with the governm
Re:So True! (Score:4, Insightful)
No, not a conspiracy. A plot. It's just Bush's attempt to make himself appear "Kennedyesque," ingnorant of the fact that Kennedy launched the space program because he was already Kennedyesque. It doesn't work the other way around.
Not that it matters, because a project of this magnitude is going to take the continued support of multiple administrations, these aren't Kennedy's times either, and that continued support will not be forthcoming. This project is essentially doomed. It's a shame, but that's the reality on the ground. We'll get to Mars when a canditate runs on the "We're going to Mars" platform and wins, and not before.
But that's ok. The point of the project is exactly where you say it is, and where the real conspiracy lies. Spinning off tax dollars into the private sector, into the hands of cronies.
Make hay while the sun shines, as it were.
KFG
Acronym abuse (Score:3, Funny)
(JK. I RTFA.)
Re:Acronym abuse (Score:3, Insightful)
As it happens, JPL runs as an FFRDC, and as a result is, IMHO, the best of the NASA centers (they pay real money instead of the paltry GS salaries, and thus are able to get some of the sharpest engineers).
rumor (Score:5, Funny)
I heard a rumor that R. Daneel Olivaw will be helping out here and there, especially with a new technology that can capture approaching comets and mine them for minerals. Can anyone confirm this?
Re:rumor (Score:3, Funny)
[dr.evil]
one million dollars! mwahaha!
[/dr.evil]
Can anyone confirm this rumor too?
Re:rumor (Score:2)
Re:rumor (Score:2)
I'm actually trying to find time to finish robots and empire right now... if only it weren't for this damned slashdot sucking up all my reading time.
Obligatory Chappelle "Balck Bush" quote (Score:5, Funny)
"Yeai yeaaaaii!"
Re:Obligatory Chappelle "Black Bush" quote (Score:1)
Re:Obligatory Chappelle "Balck Bush" quote (Score:4, Funny)
Article Text before ./ Mars Attacks (Score:3, Informative)
The President's Commission on Implementation of U.S. Space Exploration Policy is scheduled to release its final report June 16. A copy of that report, "A Journey to Inspire, Innovate, and Discover", was obtained by Space News
The 60-page report outlines the organizational changes the commission says NASA needs to make if it is to achieve the space exploration goals laid out by Bush in January. Those goals include returning humans to the moon by 2020 in preparation for eventual human expeditions to Mars.
The nine-member commission, headed by former U.S. Air Force Secretary Edward (Pete) Aldridge, said if those goals are to be met, the nation needs to commit to space exploration for the long haul, and that the private sector must be given a much larger role in the U.S. space program.
"The Commission believes that commercialization of space should become the primary focus of the vision, and that the creation of a space-based industry will be one of the principal benefits of this journey," the report states. "Today an independent space industry does not really exist. Instead, we have various government funded space programs and their vendors. Over the next several decades -- if the exploration vision is implemented to encourage this -- an entirely new set of businesses can emerge that will seek profit in space."
The commission calls upon NASA to reach out to small, entrepreneurial firms through business opportunities targeted to them. The commission also endorses NASA's plans to award large cash prizes to encourage technological innovation. And the commission encourages the U.S. Congress to enact tax incentives, provide regulatory relief and clarify and protect property rights in space to encourage commercial exploitation of the final frontier.
In the more immediate future, the commission wants NASA to turn over nearly all launch activity to private firms.
"The Commission believes that the private sector is willing and capable of providing the initial boost into low-Earth orbit for the payloads associated with the vision," the report states. "To foster the continued development of this emerging market, the Commission believes that NASA should procure all of its low-Earth orbit launch services competitively on the commercial market."
The commission specifically exempts the launching of human crews from this recommendation, saying in the report that it realizes this responsibility "will likely remain the providence of the government for at least the near-term."
NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said June 9 that he had neither seen the commission's report nor been briefed on its recommendations. But during a speech delivered at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce earlier that same day, O'Keefe pledged to heed the commission's recommendations on transforming the space agency.
"The Aldridge commission has given a great deal of thought to how we should be organized in order to achieve these objectives," O'Keefe said. "We will be willing participants in implementing their recommendations. We are determined to transform the agency and our way of doing business to put these goals within reach."
The report says NASA needs to transform its organizational structure, business culture and management processes "all largely inherited from the Apollo era" if it is to accomplish the multi-decade exploration agenda laid out by the president.
The commission wants NASA to transform itself into "a leaner, more focused agency" starting with a major headquarters reorganization that reduces the number of mission-focused departments or what NASA calls enterprises.
Planning for such a reorganization is already well underway at NASA. A draft organ
Re:Article Text before ./ Mars Attacks (Score:4, Interesting)
The FFRDCs can be good and bad. I work for one. I have worked for another. I'm lucky that I work for one run by a university with a rather good track record. However, ones run by private companies as contracts often get uber paranoid about the almighty dollar. The oversight of the contractor gets to be insane. The research in the end suffers.
I worked at a DOD equivalent of the DOE lab. Not so fun. At all. Defense contractors are evil to work for and the blood sucking that I saw to get as much money out of the contract made me sick.
If NASA can get past the problems associated with the privately run labs, then kewl, go for it.
However, wasn't there a problem with this legally? Something to do with the NASA employees being unable to do the same job when transitioning straight from being a government employee to a contractor (which technically they'd be if they worked for a FFRDC). IIRC, it had to do with this [google.com] bill waaaay back: hence why teh bill died. I might be just misremembering though.
Re:Article Text before ./ Mars Attacks (Score:2)
Last I checked, the manned missions are by far the biggest and most expensive programs. The funding from the unmanned missions is used to offest it.
I'm sure industry would LOVE to take the juicy low-cost stuff, and leave the Government with the expensive risky stuff.
Re:Article Text before ./ Mars Attacks (Score:2)
Why not... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why not... (Score:1)
They could, but then I'd feel bad for the astronauts. In addition to the already rigorous training, they'd have to add another four months of hard-core VC buzzword brain reprogramming. And their little jet-powered PDAs [wired.com] would have to contain at least an extra ten GB of storage to handle the lexicon. I don't know about you, but I'd hate to have a VC 'analyst' peering over my shoulder as I manipulated a robotic arm around a $10 MM piece of high tech equipment.
They're trying to! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They're trying to! (Score:3, Insightful)
Too bad it doesn't come with a plan on how industry will benefit from space applications.
[SNIP]
Too bad the Internet didn't either. And after quite a bit of hype, folks are actually making money on it in ways that no one ever anticipated.
Do you know what the "killer app" is for space? I can assure you NASA doesn't. The civilian sector initially saw that communications was the big thing and now they're making money on it. Imagine that. What will happen if we can radically drop the cost of ge
Re:Why not... (Score:2)
Space launches aren't supposed to be profitable. Heck, do the airlines build the airports, or even the terminals, themselves? Hell no, they get the city or state to pay for them. Do the trucking companies pay for highway repair and upgrades? No, they expect the feds to do that. Do shipping companies pay to dredge shipping channles and construct ports? Not usually.
Pr
Re:Why not... (Score:2)
Hell yea. [servicetec.com].
time to payoff (Score:5, Interesting)
Space exploration is really a public works project. This [transhumanist.com] is a pretty interesting paper on the subject. The thing is that it ends up being a benefit to the entire human race but some the up front costs are so much, the payoff so distant and the effort so demanding, it's basically relegated to government bodies (or perhaps Bill Gates).
a whole new ball game (Score:3, Insightful)
$250/ton launch costs to low earth orbit [slashdot.org] sort of change things a bit. Even the Space Elevator no longer makes sense competing with something like this, and the problems with blimp-to-orbit projects are a hell of a lot easier to solve than the problems of getting carbon nanotube technology ready to build ribbons long enough and strong enough to carry freight by the ton to orbit.
They make projects like solar power satellite [nasa.gov]
Re:Why not... (Score:2)
WHy not? In fact, let's hand it all over to Enron. And Microsoft. And De Beers too, they really know how to make a great product!
Re:Why not... (Score:2)
Re:Why not... (Score:2)
But now what? You're many billions of dollars in debt, and the thousands of people you hired (directly or indirectly) can't buy food or make mortgage payments with "information"... that's a big part of the equation you seem to be missing.
Unless of course you're still federally funded, in which case I can't see how running NASA like a "venture capitalist" will increase effort
Re:Why not... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why not... (Score:2)
Re:Why not... (Score:2)
Bah, the vastness of space doesn't elude my imagination, and I can't see why any business would want to do it beyond the tourist/wow-bang factor. There's plenty of things to invest in here on earth that are closer to being fruiteful (e.g. biotechnology and nanotechnology) and profitable
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In other news... (Score:2)
They dropped the project because the Government insisted that DuPont be liable in lawsuits.
Talk about killing the golden goose.
Re:In other news... (Score:2)
Re:In other news... (Score:2)
Of course, it might be possible since DuPont still owes the government for making hemp cultivation all but illegal.
Going to the moon only happened to "hurt" Russia (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps I'm just to cynical but I tend to think that the USA decided to go to the moon to make the USSR look weak.
In a sense it was a competition between the USA and USSR over who had the bigest "dick", and phallic objects don't get any bigger or more powerful than a Saturn 5 rocket :-)
Now the enemy is Islamic fundamentalists, and none of them are going to compete in a race to Mars.
Re:Going to the moon only happened to "hurt" Russi (Score:5, Insightful)
China announced they were going to put a man in space and on the moon. Suddenly the US announced they were going to the moon and to Mars. It's not hard to connect the dots when there are only two.
Re:Going to the moon only happened to "hurt" Russi (Score:2)
Well, neither are the Islamic fundamentalists a superpower in any real sense of the term.
China, on the other hand, is gearing up economically, and has a stated desire to expand its space program. A Chinese landing on moon would cement their superpower status, so a US mission to Mars is the logical step in a (potential) space race with them.
And of course if the EU ever manages to form into a cohesive
Re:Going to the moon only happened to "hurt" Russi (Score:4, Interesting)
Slightly off-topic, but when the USA and the USSR were planning to dock two space-craft for the first time, neither power would agree to their craft being "penetrated" by the other - if I remember correctly a "female-to-female" adaptor was the eventual diplomatic solution.
Ironically, the Soviet Union was reasonably progressive in terms of putting women in space.
Re:Naah, you're just an idiot (Score:2)
I think you mean Neil Armstrong [nasa.gov] and Buzz Aldrin [nasa.gov]
Sorta disappointed (Score:3, Interesting)
At least they didn't make the mistake that the first Bush's commission did by putting a crazy (and rather arbitrary) $400 billion price tag on it.
I just hope that NASA and JPL will be able to get some actual work done on getting to Mars while they move people around and change their workflow. I can see a few years wasted on that easily.
Summary (Score:5, Funny)
To infinity and beyond! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:To infinity and beyond! (Score:2)
I agree it does not have to be a budget buster, but be very careful of using Zubrin's numbers. For the most part they range from the mildly to wildly optimistic, and he also relies on too many things that are currently on the lab be
Re:To infinity and beyond! (Score:2)
Re:To infinity and beyond! (Score:2)
The reactions aren't the problem. The problem is building equipment light enough to be transported, and reliable and heavy enough to last through it's service period. The problem is that dust in the atmosphere will clog the works, and it's a non-trivial problem to be able to clean/change the filters without building up contaminant
Re:To infinity and beyond! (Score:2)
And don't we know enough about the Martian environment to create a test chamber for systems?
I guess this is the real problem I have with NASA's solutions. Yeah, there are a lot of issues with going to Mars. But it's like everyone at NASA's saying "Oh, it's too hard. So let's not do it."
Get off your asses and figure out the solutions! Figure out ways to figure out the probl
Re:To infinity and beyond! (Score:2)
It's not even remotely ready to send to Mars. It's not even ready to sit in the JPL parking lot and run for a few months. No development work has been done at all. Even if we are actually going to Mars, development of such a major system will indeed be a big deal, because if it fails the whole concept f
Contracts to private industry (Score:4, Interesting)
If I could, I would mod this "+1 Insightful". When government research is done only in-house, the trickle-down effect of new technology is slower. I think that by harvesting the efforts of private industry you can drive down the costs of space exploration while opening up that technology for use in the private sector. And given that one of the main ways people justify space exploration is through the use of space tech for other applications, I see this as a good move.
(Disclaimer: Being an astrophysics student, I'm all for the exploration of space for it's own sake, but I'm not the one funding it...)
Re:Contracts to private industry (Score:1)
Re:Contracts to private industry (Score:2, Insightful)
By "harvesting the efforts of private industry", do you mean "licensing patented technology"?
The point of government research is that they often (especially when it comes to NASA) do research that is cost prohibitive for private industry to do. And, since all taxpayers contribute to the development, the results are freely available to all citizens. For example, NASA has large air tunnels and tons of specialized equipment to do research on icing (on airplanes, especially the wings). Their
Nail. Head. (Score:5, Insightful)
"The Commission believes that commercialization of space should become the primary focus of the vision, and that the creation of a space-based industry will be one of the principal benefits of this journey...."
This one point seems so obvious. It has been said many, many times. Yet it's so hard for "The Powers That Be" to implement.
When the history of the airplane is considered, one has to be thankful that the Wrights did not work for the National Aeronautic Administration in 1904.
I am grateful for all that NASA has given us. But if we are to truly make the next step, the financial incentives for space must be given a chance to exercise their power.
It's hard to allow a child to move out on it's own, but for the good of both the child and the parent, it must be done. Yes, there will be mistakes and risk and danger. But the alternative is a stunted, deformed life that is nothing but tragedy.
Re:Nail. Head. (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, I'm a huge believer in the commercial possibilities of space, and I don't mean just for the people who build the rockets. I want, and hope, to see space tourism, 0-g manufacturing, asteroid mining, and eventually permanent colonization, and I even have some hope of seeing these things before I'm too decrepit to have a chance of getting on a rocket myself. But the suits aren't going to pour their money into making these things possible, no matter how much we might wish otherwise. NASA, or something like it, has to build the infrastructure. And we've got a lot of infrastructure to go before corporate investment on a massive scale is even a remote possibility. At the very least, we need launch vehicles that can reliably move people to and from orbit for no more than a few thousand dollars per trip per passenger, and can haul cargo at similarly reduced rates.
IIRC, the Wright Brothers' first paying customer was the Army
Re:Nail. Head. (Score:2)
You want profit?
NASA's budget is what? 16 billion dollars? Say we just closed it all down and instead stuck half of that in the bank every year. 10, 11 years thats nearly 100 billion dollars just waiting to be collected if some enterprising companies or individuals manage to achieve whichever goals are set
Inducement Prizes (Score:2, Informative)
"The commission also endorses NASA's plans to award large cash prizes to encourage technological innovation."
The inducement prize [nap.edu] allows one-off profits.
Profit = Prize - Cost
The ANSARI X PRIZE [xprize.org] and Centennial Challenges [nasa.gov] are the first steps.
Robert Zubrin recently had the idea of 'a competition open to all the different NASA centers and national laboratories and companies to see who could develop the most efficient Mars plan'.
Re:Nail. Head. (Score:2)
Okay, here's a clue: corporations only care about the bottom line. Worse, in the last 15-20 years, it's all been about the bottom line in the next, oh, 1-3 years (hell, these days, it's all about the next 2 quarters). Corporations will *never* "[take] risks in the hopes of making big bucks down the road". Why? Because they're incredibly risk averse regarding their bottom line. After a
Re:Nail. Head. (Score:2)
And that's precisely the problem. There aren't any financial or economic incentives to go into space.
Re:Nail. Head. (Score:3, Insightful)
I always shake my head when I see this. It's essentially the same verbiage used in 1957. Now, of course, we know that GPS and comm sats make near-Earth orbit valuable ... but, you see, that market is mature and clearly there aren't any other ways to make money in space...
I don't know what the other ways are, but I'm pretty sure they're there. And it's always easy to see how the
Re:Nail. Head. (Score:2)
Not in this ficton. Here on Earth everyone was convinced that it was raining soup and we had to do is build rockets to carry the buckets up there.
Sure they are. You are much smarter than the folks who believe the market is there, who have studied the issue, who have thought long and hard about the issue... And still can't come up with a marke
Re:Nail. Head. (Score:2)
Instead, they attempted to use their patents to lock everyone else out of the aircraft industry while making few major advances themselves, nearly setting back the progress of aviation by a couple decates.
Re:Nail. Head. (Score:2)
You know what I find most interesting about Wilbur and Orville Wright?
Everyone has heard of them, everyone knows they invented and built the first aeroplane.
Except they didn't.
Do a google on the Wright brothers and try and find a reference to Charles Taylor.
At the VERY LEAST his input was equal to both the wright brothers combined, sure, they may have had a back of the envelope idea but only a true Genius like Charlie Taylor ( http://www2.hmc.edu/www_common/aviation/images/ta y lor.jpg ) could have take
independent cost estimation bureau (Score:2)
Thank you. That is the funniest thing I have heard in a long time.
Streamlining bureaucracy? (Score:5, Funny)
Only in the federal government would "streamlining bureaucracy" involve "FFRDCs" and a "cost estimation bureau."
Don't bother RTFA.... (Score:5, Insightful)
[the commission] is recommending streamlining the NASA bureaucracy, relying more heavily on the private sector, and maintaining more oversight of the nation's space program at the White House.
My leap to a conclusion leads me to believe that this is just another chapter in killing NASA completely. This means that more funding previously routed to NASA/JPL will go to the private sector. Whitehouse oversight further implies that the administration does not trust NASA with what little self-governance it has remaining to it, particularly after the most recent shuttle disaster.
Which all just points to the private sector being the future of spaceflight for all practical applications. Hopefully companies will do a better job than our government has been doing.
Re:Don't bother RTFA.... (Score:2)
They just want to turn NASA into the MIC once congress nixes SDI.
Re:Don't bother RTFA.... (Score:2)
Re:Don't bother RTFA.... (Score:2)
Re:Don't bother RTFA.... (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, I agree that more Whitehouse oversight is probably a bad idea. Having worked at an FFRDC (not JPL) involved in the DoD side of the space game, I've witnessed first hand what happens when the idiots at the executive level try to make trench-level decisions. The folks at the executive level should be making strategic decisions, and evaluating the results of trade studies and analyses to make those decisions. Instead, they had a tendency to try to make decisions at the level of individual projects (often overriding those they had appointed to run the project in the first place), and to mandate their pet designs instead of looking at what the results of the trade studies actually showed. I'd hate to see NASA get stuck in the same kind of mess.
my reaction now is... (Score:3, Interesting)
Launch services! (Score:5, Insightful)
As an added bonus, people who complain about their tax dollars being "wasted on space" will have much less to bitch about.
Re:Launch services! (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps, but if these private firms run security at their launch facilities like the airlines do at the airport, we are going to have rockets flying into stuff instead of planes.
But it really isn't their fault. They would be running a business and security costs money which eats at the bottom line. The natural thing to do is to cut it. And there in lies the problem.
Re:Launch services! (Score:2)
Re:Launch services! (Score:2)
I wish that the TSA would have been given more
Re:Launch services! (Score:2)
I call bullsh*t on this. The security at Boston Logan did exactly what it was supposed to do. It even flagged some of the hijackers as security risks, and searched them. But the hijackers didn't have bombs, so they were considered ok to let on board. That wasn't a security contractor decision, that was an FAA decision (i.e. the federal government - just like the TSA). Boxcutters were not considered a threat, a
Re:Launch services! (Score:2)
Re:Launch services! (Score:2)
I thought there already was competition between Titan, Delta, Ariane, Pegasus (for smaller payloads) and the Russian launchers. Am I missing something?
Yes, you are missing something.
- Titan: NASA
- Delta: NASA
- Ariane: unreliable, and run by a baby NASA that speaks French
- Pegasus: NASA
- Russian launchers: you're kidding right?
To put it in terms understandable to this crowd, that is like saying you have competition between Windows 98, NT, and XP.Re:Launch services! (Score:2)
Re:Launch services! (Score:2)
I am referring to the ESA as a "Baby NASA", since it is basically the same thing as NASA, even basically the same acronym, just much smaller. Speaking French isn't a problem in itself, but I listed it since it is one of the few noticable differences.
Re:Launch services! (Score:2)
So yes, ESA == Baby NASA (French speaking)
or in other words, NASA scaled down to a European size.
While the Russians are also trying to compete for launch business, it is still largely the official government-sponsored launch sites and designs. They are more responsive to private industry simply because the Russian governmen
Moon First? (Score:4, Interesting)
We can't learn anything about living on Mars by living on the moon, except maybe how people respond to being so far away from Earth.
Going to Mars AND going to the moon makes more sense, since the only related operations are leaving Earth orbit. Of course, since the moon is close enough for unmanned craft to do really good, long-term science, maybe we should set up unmanned craft on the moon, and send people to Mars where they can do the most good.
Re:Moon First? (Score:2)
The moon has low gravity and no atmosphere, and experiences strong radiation. Its a good place to practise building a place for people to live off-Earth. After all, mars has very little atmosphere, low gravity and lots of radiation. The advantage of the Moon is that the colony would only be a couple of days travel away from Earth in case of problems.
The moon isn't anything like Mars
it is - see the comments above.
you can't grow your own food witho
Re:Moon First? (Score:2)
Each world has its own strengths/weaknesses and offers unique resources as well. The Moon has H3 (which Mars does not in substantial quantities), and Lunar mining can provide the raw resources for LEO activities that Mars simply would not find practical.
Besides, I think that Lunar activites would also be useful for eventual waystation
Re:Moon First? (Score:4, Informative)
If your Mars flight is one of many, then the Moon is the oply sensible place to setup such a thing. (There must be corresponding stations in Earth and Lunar orbits, too. Gotta do these things right, by damn.)
The availability of vast Lunar regolith components can reduce Earth shipments to Luna to things like hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon and other trace elements, as well as specific equipment and personnel (who, you will note, are mostly made up of hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon). Very acceptable, even luxurious ships made from aluminum, steel and titanium can be built upon the Moon, stocked with oxygen and powdered aluminum as fuel components, and (more to the point) they can be launched from the Lunar surface via extremely long mass drivers, saving most of the fuel load for maneuvering and deceleration (although I'd like to see designs that use anti-slingshot and aerobraking). And the ships can be enormous to boot, avoiding a resource crunch that can kill a crew that is 110 million miles from the nearest assistance.
I haven't run the numbers, but a line of accelerator/restraining EM rails can probably be built around the Moon's entire circumference, and the acceleration of the cradle holding a Mars ship can be very gentle before slinging the ship off on a Mars trajectory at many klicks per second. If we choose 30km/s (which could result in a 1-2 month trip to Mars) and 1g launch acceleration:
... well, this is too long. 1g is rather light, expecially since the launch phase is so short (about 50 minutes). Most Humans lose consciousness at 10g, so let's choose a 4g launch:
... which is about right. In fact, since the launch is only about 12 minutes at a little over (to compensate for the lesser X) 4g, we can try 6g for the same length (Lunar circum.) to get a higher launch velocity:
... which is 20% faster.
30km/s or more can get the craft to Mars in 1 to 2 months depending upon relative positions of Mars and the Moon, less braking time. Since the launch was 6g for about 18 minutes, I imagine that the deceleration could be done at 10g for about 11 minutes. Since it really didn't matter how much fuel load was launched (since the Lunar launch ring should be built to launch many thousands of tons at once), burning fuel to produce 10g for 11 minutes shouldn't be much of a problem, fuel-quantity wise.
One thing that could be done is the construction of a launch system upon Phobos, which is about 20km long. It may be worthwhile using Phobos for this purpose. Since it's so tiny compared to the Lunar launcher, it would have to use higher force to be useful. Let's say we can use a 20km length (through it?) with various steering mechanisms to make sure of proper aim. Since it's so short, let's choose a relatively high force for launching: 8g. (Mercury program launches involved 6g, and 12g upon reentry.)
... which is a little low, but the launch time is of very short duration. Let's try for a rough launcher at
Re:I assume... (Score:1)
I think spinning-off portions of government is reasonable. It decreases taxpayer burden and leaves more money in the hands of individuals. If a group of citizens wants to support an organization like this, then more power to them; I might even participate.
However, bellyaching about government cutting your favorite program is
Re:I assume... (Score:2)