NASA Plan to Return to the Moon 531
sjoeboo writes "NASA briefed senior White House officials Wednesday on its plan to spend $100 billion during the next 12 years building the spacecraft and rockets it needs to put humans back on the Moon by 2018.
The U.S. space agency now expects to roll out its lunar exploration plan to key Congressional committees on Friday and to the broader public through a news conference on Monday."
Update on Old News (Score:5, Informative)
The big changes since the inception of the program have been:
IMHO, Bush's administration has done a reasonable job of making sure that we are on a viable track to returning to the moon and reaching Mars. My hope is that the next President who shows up doesn't dive in and try to change everything. The plan is good. It only needs some nursemaiding, not micromanagement from on high. Thankfully there's a great deal of pressure to replace the Space Shuttle, so the future President may be willing to just let NASA do their job.
(FYI, Wikipedia has been keeping extremely good track of CEV Development [wikipedia.org] as it happens. While Wikipedia is not a news source, this particular article is a good place to go for the latest status of the project.)
Re:Update on Old News (Score:5, Insightful)
This seems ike a legitimate plan with a reasonable price tag, however, and I'm excited to hear it! Short timelines? Nuclear engines? This is the NASA that once kicked so much ass! I completely agree: it's now about whether the next president will ruin it.
Re:Update on Old News (Score:4, Funny)
They'll probably have to kill a lot more if they're going to use this guy's [slashdot.org] engine.
Re:Update on Old News (Score:5, Funny)
That's a lot of masturbation.
Re:Update on Old News (Score:5, Insightful)
Odds are, the current one already has. We're fighting a war, and currently spending about a billion dollars a week doing that. A reasonable guess is that the insurgency will take five or ten years to defeat. Meanwhile, taxes have been cut for those Americans who can most afford them. Things might not have been so bad if we'd had any sort of planning for the postwar situation, or if we'd gone in with a real multinational force, or if we'd simply stayed home, but what's done is done.
The result is that the U.S. owes a lot of money. Sooner or later, the Federal government will either need to raise taxes, cut spending, or both. Even if future administrations support the mission, in that kind of climate, 100 billion (perhaps more, knowing how these things tend to turn out for NASA) is gonna be a tough sell.
Not really that much money (Score:5, Informative)
If you look about halfway down, you'll see that the budget of the CEV is far outweighed by NASA's other activities, as well as being less than the amount budgeted for the Space Shuttle.
Re:Update on Old News (Score:4, Interesting)
Or completely cancel it like what the fresh-at-the-time Clinton Administration did to Project Prometheus, which the current Bush Administration thankfully restarted.
Re:Update on Old News (Score:3, Interesting)
What you may be thinking about is that the JIMO mission was cut [space.com] in favor of testing the Prometheus technologies prior to assigning the device to an expensive scientific mission.
But don't let me get in the way of a perfectly offensive rant.
Re:Update on Old News (Score:3, Informative)
are part of the story which led to the cancellation of JIMO, the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter
JIMO != Prometheus. JIMO is the name of the mission, Prometheus is the project to produce the technology that would have been used by JIMO.
This is NOT news. The JIMO mission was always considered risky and overly ambitious. Everyone loved the technology, but questioned the merits of sending it out so early. There were so much talk about scaling back the Prometheus project, that it came as no
Re:Update on Old News (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep, those would be the ones. I just find the idea that we have the technology but won't implement it due to budget issues is as short sighted and detrimental just as the Romans having had the capacity to create the steam engine (and thus start the industrial revolution long before it finally happened) but failed to do so because of cultural
Re:Update on Old News (Score:5, Informative)
I had to look up the term, so I'll save someone else the trouble to describe what spiral plan is. (info from Wikipedia)
Spiral One (CEV Earth Orbit Capability)
Spiral Two (Extended Lunar Exploration)
Spiral Three (Long Duration Lunar Exploration)
Spiral Four (Crew Transportation System Mars Flyby)
Spiral Five (Human Mars Surface Campaign)
Basically it's a progressive development of the basic vehicle into 5 different vehicles with different and increasing capabilities. It comes from the military development experience.
The proposal to eliminate this phased approach comes up because the military development experience doesn't appear to match NASA's requirements and procedures. There are steps in there that are probably unnecessary (spiral 2 and 4). The phases do not necessarily build on each other.
The new plan abandons spirals entirely, in favor of blocks and stages. If that sentence elicits a 'WTF' from you, just read on:
Stage I, Block I is a LEO vehicle for taking over space station construction from the Shuttle.
Stage II, Block II is an interplanetary vehicle built in the same shape as the Block I vehicle. That vehicle will be able to fly to the moon, Mars, La Grange points, and so forth.
Stage III, no block, are lander modules that will work on the moon, mars, or both, with the Block II spacecraft.
So, it turns out that despite the screwey naming of the stages and blocks, the plan is actually quite a bit different that the spiral plan described. Maybe Wikipedia has just confused these Stages and Blocks a bit.
The only problem that I have with all this is the use of the SRB as a basis for a man-rated space launcher. That's a big WTF to me, and I really wish they'd go with an all-liquid fuel booster.
Re:Update on Old News (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Update on Old News (Score:5, Insightful)
My hope is the next President jumps in and compares the cost/benefit ratio of putting a couple of people on the moon for a few days with the cost/benefit ration of every other science project, including unmanned exploration, and the cost/benefit ratio of every other activity that the government could be involved in, and then selects the projects with the greatest cost/benefit. Putting men on the moon or Mars as a personal vanity project or to show that one can do 'the vision thing' probably isn't anywhere close to the top of the list. For example, for 100B, you could give 833,000 kids a free ride through the most expensive Universities in the country. For $100B, you could replace 5 million government vehicles with hybrids and save 500 million gallons of gas. Or reduce the Social Security deficit. Or return it to the taxpayers. Or fund 20+ Cassini-Huygens or Mars rover type missions. Bush has done a reasonable job of getting us back on track to the moon, but of all the possible challenges to the nation, is that the one that most deserves 100B of our money? I don't think so.
Re:Update on Old News (Score:2)
(Okay, so it wasn't New Orleans. But the town was rendered uninhabitable.)
Mars on hold... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mars on hold... (Score:5, Funny)
What happened to flying cars by 2000?
Re:Mars on hold... (Score:3, Funny)
What ever happed to flying cars by 3000?
Re:Mars on hold... (Score:3, Informative)
It's not going to happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically there isn't the political will to do something like this so they kick it into the long grass and allow schedules to slide, costs to rise until it becomes too expensive and has to be cut.
They're talking 100 billion anyway. They'd be better offering a 100 million prize for an orbital vehicle, half a billion prize for a lunar orbiter, a billion or two for a lunar base etc.
Re:Mars on hold... (Score:2, Insightful)
Katrina kills this, I predict (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Katrina kills this, I predict (Score:3, Insightful)
Also include: Iraq and Afganistan wars, Tax Cuts, High Oil prices, huge budget deficits, huge trade deficits, etc ...
The US needs a financial planner or at least a debt councilor.
I love space exploration. I grew up wanting to be an astronaut. But I just don't see the justification for this at this time. A good distraction, I guess.
Re:Katrina kills this, I predict (Score:4, Interesting)
Possibly we should convince them to grow this program to include the Executive branch, and to every newly elected or appointed official.
Re:Katrina kills this, I predict (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Katrina kills this, I predict (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I think we just need to quit electing rich boys who've never had to balance a checkbook.
Re:Katrina kills this, I predict (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, you get the idea.
Re:Katrina kills this, I predict (Score:2, Funny)
Then what?! I'm dying to find out. Will they ever come down or have we lost them forever? Maybe they will find Major Tom. Oh the suspense!!!
Re:Katrina kills this, I predict (Score:3, Insightful)
No. The Katrina rebuilding phase will bring about a fairly large economic boom. The increase of both construction jobs and money being exchanged for goods/services will translate into more tax revenues. This is in addition to an already strong economy, which showed little signs of weaking after Katrina. Plus, as the need to support the Iraq conflict slows down (and it is on average despite the constant
Re:Katrina kills this, I predict (Score:3, Insightful)
So maybe we should just destroy a few more cities, so the economy can really fly! The economy is being affected, negatively, but our country is a big enough economic engine that even catastrophic damage to one city of ~500,000 isn't enough to dramatically affect it.
Seems to me it's already making a $1,000 or more deficit in my finances, at least based on current spending plans and my family's share of taxes paid.
As for Iraq, I d
Re:Katrina kills this, I predict (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh... you do realize that in order for those construction jobs to exist, hundreds of thousands of other jobs had to be lost and billions of dollars in property utterly destroyed? People in that region would have been engaging in the same commerce as usual if Katrina hadn't happened. It's not like they were
Re:Katrina kills this, I predict (Score:5, Interesting)
Define strong economy?
- U.S. national debt is about to cross the $8 trillion mark
- The U.S. annual current-account deficit [epi.org] (trade deficit, budget deficit, etc) for 2005 was heading towards the $800 billion mark, tack on another $100 billion of deficit spending on Katrina maybe it will hit $900 billion. It was %6.4 of GDP in Q1 probably way worse in Q3 now post Katrina. Note from the chart, how the current-account deficit spiked under Reagan and George W.
- Oil companies are making record profits and I'm sure their results alone are bouying economic numbers though they are sucking the life out of the rest of the economy to get it.
A key point is a "strong economy" doesn't operate with staggering trade deficits or borrow massive amounts of money from other countries.
George W. is creating synthetic prosperity:
- Slash taxes for the wealthy
- Dramatically increase government spending
- Borrow vast amounts of money to make up the difference
- Import vast quantities of cheap Chinese goods which means Americans spend less and get more (only problem is all the money they spend is going to China not to American jobs).
All the borrowed money George W. is pumping in to the economy creates the appearance of growth. If the government pours hundreds of billions in to the economy though defense spending, medicare "reform" spending and drug benefits, incentives to energy companies(while oil companies are making money at record levels), $250 billion plus in the new highway bill to build bridges in Alaska to nowhere and massively increase farm subsidies.
The Bush administration has passed one massive federal spending program after another to artificially pump the economy. The rebuild the Gulf bill will just be the next in line. The return to the Moon and Mars is chump change by comparison. Sure the U.S. can afford $10 billion a year for that, it can't afford the hundreds of billions its squandering elsewhere.
You want to create phenomenal 10% growth in GDP, just borrow $1 trillion dollars and pump it in to a $10 trillion economy through government spending. The problem is the wheels fall off as soon as foreign countries stop buying your debt, the debt servicing kills youm and you are mortgaging the future for easy prosperity today.
Re:Katrina kills this, I predict (Score:2, Funny)
We must make the Moon safe for democracy!
New satellite photos indicate a clear presence of W.M.D. on the Moon.
SecDef thinks we can liberate the Moon with only 30,000 troops.
Regime change on the Moon now!
Re:Katrina kills this, I predict (Score:5, Insightful)
China is now a serious economic power, a declared nuclear power, a "space-faring" nation (since it put a man in orbit) and a major political force. Unless I'm greatly mistaken it has already has a stated aim of putting a man on the moon.
For China, this is - much like the American landing was - a political move: a show of power and technology as much intended as a show of power to the populous as a "tacit threat" to its political opposition.
Remember: China is a brutal communist regime; a man on the moon would boost its international stance, and help silence critics at home. And they're not playing directly against America in a Cold War "winner takes all" game which makes it much easier, as they don't have to "get there first" they just have to get there.
They're communist in name only ... (Score:3, Insightful)
They are brutal FASCIST regime now. They've given up the pretext on caring for the welfare of their people.
Modern technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Modern technology (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Modern technology (Score:2)
Re:Modern technology (Score:5, Insightful)
When someone died in an accident in the '60s we the American people dusted ourselves off and got back on the horse. After the Apollo I accident, an investigation was performed and a report was presented in only three months. And then NASA went back to work going to the Moon. After Challenger, "OMFG! We should just cancel the space program! OMFG! OMFG!" And then years later we finally started flying again and years after that another, completely unrelated accident and, "OMFG THESE THINGS ARE DEATH TRAPS!"
One of the reasons we don't do things like go to the Moon anymore is that we're wimps. We don't accept risks and we crucify people who do.
The other reason is money. The cost of the Apollo program in 2005 dollars was nearly $200 billion, and that doesn't include the other programs like Gemini etc. Now we're going to do more (more as in, it's got to be 99.999% safe this time because we can't accept any risk at all) and we're going to do it for less. It should be a little cheaper because of modern computers etc. But not *that* much cheaper! Rockets are rockets. They haven't changed much in 50 years. They should still cost about the same.
And again, the culture is really whimpy now. The space program was a point of national pride back then. These days people are embarrassed to show any pride in their country - it's not fair that we have a space program and Zimbabwe doesn't. Plus, if you dare to spend $1 on science there will always be a crowd of idiots screaming, "OMFG some kid is poor* we can't spend this money on science until after every other problem on earth is solved!!!"
*poor in this case means that his family only has one TV and doesn't even have Tivo and somehow they managed to buy enough food to become morbidly obese but we still call them poor because otherwise we'd have to ask if maybe their lifestyle is influenced more by behaviors than by money or opportunity.
The purpose of the space program ... (Score:3, Interesting)
The purpose of the space program was to show that we were going to be the uber-advanced space age society that would ultimately win the cold war. The space program was a pageant put on for the sake of countries sitting on the fence between dealing with the Soviets and dealing with the USA.
There is no such war now. If anything we've thrown in that towel since we now have no trouble trading outright with the worlds largest oppresor of people
We don't have to compete with China in this regard. We
Mod Parent +100 :) (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the one that causes me to have the blood pressure of a morbidly obese chain smoker. Some day people are going to wake up and realize that, well, we are NOT going to solve all the problems here on Earth. Ever. We'll be lucky to solve half. We can't solve problems when society refuses to recognize the true causes, which in many cases is "people are stoooopid." We need to focus on the big ones like energy, somehow eradicating the memes that make people vote for monsters or fly planes into buildings and getting the educational system out of the hands of the ideologues, be they on the Left (feed good education) or the Right (anti-science).
Anyway, it looks like the private space sector might actually be showing some life, so f*ck NASA. I'm updating my resume to send out to Rutan's company and maybe a couple others. I'm going to be there, baby!
Re:Modern technology (Score:4, Insightful)
Until you learn why. In the US, we go to extrodinary (some would argue, stupid) measures to save premature babies. If a baby is born three months early in some other countries, sure they put it on an incubator, but when it dies an hour later they call it, "stillborn" and it doesn't count against their infant mortality statistics. For whatever reason, in the US we keep that baby alive on machines for weeks and we we finally admit defeat, we call it the death of a three week old baby.
As to poverty, another poster already replied to you and pointed out that Cuba has a lower poverty rate than the US. That just shows how (like the infant mortality rates) poverty statistics are BS. While in the military I had the opportunity to travel all over the world. I have seen poor people. I know what poor is. I have yet to see a single person who is below even one standard deviation *above* the mean standard of living for all humans. In other words, even the poorest of the poor in the US look pretty damn good next to what you see in other countries. I give to the poor. I feel sorry for people in the US who can't afford nice clothes etc. But I'm not fooling myself - they are still a lot better off than most human beings. I wish they had more and I help where I can, but I know they aren't really poor by the standard of the rest of the world.
We're not just going to the moon (Score:2)
Re:Modern technology (Score:2)
2018?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:2018?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:2018?! (Score:3, Informative)
but what good would rushing do? they've already been there multiple times. i wouldn't care as much about getting there as to i would about what technology they develope to get there(and perhaps _stay_ there) this time around.
and I'd bet you 200$ that rutan won't make it to there in that time either(chinese could, they got the resources but i'm not so sure about them willing to spend that much to get there just for the sake of getting there).
Re:2018?! (Score:2)
100B over 12 years is a hell of a lot less money.
Keep in mind we're running a deficit the whole time (which we have been since Kennedy, oddly enough).
As we have not since balanced the budget (not even in the 90's, unless you ignore the interest accumulation), it's probably a good thing they're spreading out the cost.
Not Rutan (Score:2)
No bet on the Chinese. I don't think they'll do it by then, but I wouldn't put it outside their potential capabilities.
I'd take your bet on Rutan, though. The man's accomplishments are fantastic, but all he's accomplished so far are two flights to the lower edge of space, which is a whole different ballgame both technologically and financially than LEO, let alone the moon. We're talking orders of magnitude more difficult and more expen
What do you mean "Return to the moon"? (Score:5, Funny)
Besides, I would think that $100 Billion is too much. The price of motion picture special effects has come down a lot since the 60s.
Re:How to recoup costs (Score:2)
Re:How to recoup costs (Score:3, Funny)
Yowza, that's ambition. (Score:3, Insightful)
-JDF
What a waste (Score:5, Interesting)
Moon colonies would be great, from a science fiction point of view, but without an actual practical reason that involves real colonists with real practical uses, this new moon plan will be just another short sighted waste of time and money. I'd rather that money was spent on technology that had actual uses for most people. Don't preach to me about spin-offs. There would be just as many spin-offs from orbital hotels or quiet and environmentally friendly hypersonic transports or practical electric cars with batteries to go 500 miles.
Re:What a waste (Score:2)
Re:What a waste (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay. How about I preach about lowering the costs of space transport? How about I preach about the billions of tons of cheap ore that could result? How about I preach about the free energy obtained from solar mirrors focused on space engines? How about I preach about a future where dangerous and toxic industries can be moved off the Earth? How about I preach about a future where man can thrive across the solar system, guaranteeing safety from little things like asteriods? How about I preach about a future where the power of the Sun is harnessed to power trips to other star systems? How about I preach about a future where truely inexpensive science probes can be launched to finally reveal the remaining secrets of the universe? How about I preach of a future with unimaginably technology that results from the science done?
How about we get off this rock and finally do something other than IM each other about Britney Spears or Paris Hilton? How about it?
Re:What a waste (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, because IMing each other about Paris Hilton would be so totally awesome on the moon!
Re:What a waste (Score:3, Interesting)
Like getting to live on the moon?
Not a waste. (Score:3, Insightful)
We are not going to get anywhere in space until we get out of orbit. Putting a permanent presence on the moon opens more opportunities than any orbital venture ever would. Other than distance the tech involved to live on the moon would be easier that staying in orbit.
Why is this so hard ? (Score:2, Funny)
All the rockets they need are stored in the kenedy space center museums.. gettem out.. dustem off and lets go already !
Re:Why is this so hard ? (Score:4, Funny)
I now have no reason for posting this message.
Re:Why is this so hard ? (Score:5, Interesting)
(Side Note: Someone once mentioned that the Saturn V's electronics were designed to cope with the electronic lag in transmissions by sending commands early. If the same design were followed in an update, the rocket would destroy itself because those early commands would be transmitted instantanously. Who knows how many more of these gotchas are in the design?)
NASA has the right plan here. The Space Shuttle engines are more powerful than the Saturn V ever was. By reusing the technology, NASA can build something better than the Saturn V in a relatively short amount of time.
Re:Why is this so hard ? (Score:5, Informative)
F-1: 1,500,000 lbf
SSME: 400,000 lbf
More efficient, sure. Isp = 452 sec for the SSME, and something like 260 sec for the F-1. But the shuttle engines are most certainly not more powerful.
Re:Why is this so hard ? (Score:4, Insightful)
SRB: 3,300,000 lbf
F-1: 1,500,000 lbf
SSME: 400,000 lbf
J-2: 200,000 lbf
All combined, the Space Shuttle is a more powerful vehicle. It produces more thrust, higher efficiencies, and can lift significantly more weight to orbit.
Re:Why is this so hard ? (Score:2)
As far as space technology is concerned, just about the only thing that has improved significantly is the computer processing capability, and that wasn't a significant limiting factor in 1966. And software development processes have, if anything, gone backwards as far as the ability to genera
Unmanned space flight mafia (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Unmanned space flight mafia (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Unmanned space flight mafia (Score:5, Insightful)
And how many such probes have we have sent out? How much have we missed out by not having people out (desk jockeys with joysticks don't count) there deciding what to probe with the existing hardware we have actually managed to land?
Quite frankly, as a professional scientist, the argument that computers and probes make better scientists than us human beings offends me. It's like saying that once you've mastered how to use a chemistry package or a DNA sequencer, you're a scientist. That's just technique. Science is intuitive art.
PS. It's Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM).
Re:Unmanned space flight mafia (Score:3, Insightful)
http://scholar.google.com/url?sa=U&q=http://link.a ps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.32.6131 [google.com]
http://scholar.google.com/url?sa=U&q=http://link.a ps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.67.075405 [google.com]
http://scholar.google.com/url?sa=U&q=http://jot.os a.org/ViewMedia.cfm%3Fid%3D67030%26seq%3D0 [google.com]
That's a start, there are plenty.
As to desk jockeys: why not have them be the scientists who you would otherwise be sending to operate the instruments directly. You admit you need the instruments, why is close phys
Re:Unmanned space flight mafia (Score:3, Insightful)
I think he's saying that robots make better explorerers than do scientists. Nobody is suggesting the robot should analyize the data itself or decide what to analyize. Nor construct hypotheses or design tests to validate them for that matter. And quite frankly I'm suprised that you, a professional scientist, should have jumped to such a conclusion.
Whatever happened to "within this decade?" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Whatever happened to "within this decade?" (Score:2)
Now we're going to do it again, but this time, there's essentially no pressure beyond "We'd like to do it". So we'll take our time, try to develop a reliable technology, and ultimately build a platform to take us onward to mars.
So basically, we have very different goals and pri
Re:Whatever happened to "within this decade?" (Score:2)
Money. Things cost more now. That, and you don't feel the need to beat the Russians. Americans already know they have the biggest penis.
Why? (Score:3, Informative)
They probably could, but why should they?
What pressing reason is there to divert a large portion of NASA's money and manpower to rushing out a lunar vehicle? What would be gained by doing it in 9 years instead of 13? What terrible thing will happen because of that extra 4 years? Why is doing it faster important for anything other than appeasing complainers? There might be a good reason, but nobody's prese
I'd rather see robots go (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm also all for a more agressive effort to explore Mars robotically. But the idea of sending humans there so soon seems very foolish to me. Why? There's little b
Re:I'd rather see robots go (Score:2)
Re:I'd rather see robots go (Score:2)
The only problem (Score:2)
The only problem I see is finding a spacesuit to fit Grizzly Adams. [grizzlyadams.net]
Re:The only problem (Score:2)
Weasel Words / Read the Fine Print (Score:5, Interesting)
Read between the lines.
Not "to get to the moon". Not "to put humans back on the moon". But "building the spacecraft and rockets it needs to".
In 2018, NASA will have spent $100B (or about $8-10B a year, probably around half to 3/4 of its bugdet). At the end of that timeframe, NASA will have contracted out the design and production of a new spacecraft, and some new rockets.
That's it. There's no lunar mission in there. There probably isn't even the planning for a lunar mission in there.
Most likely, the new spacecraft and rockets will either continue to fly into low earth orbit to service the white elephant known as ISS.
To blue-sky for a minute - the timeframe from 2018 to 2024 will be used for planning a lunar mission. The mission will be funded for the timeframe from 2018-2030. By which time, the spacecraft and rockets developed around 2015 will be obsolete scrap.
We're going to divert a lot of funds that could be used for science (which might be OK if we were going somewhere), but the fact of the matter is - just like 30 years ago, unless you count the contracts that'll get farmed out to every Congressional district, we're not going anywhere.
... the part of the CEV I like best ... (Score:2)
I'm hoping that's it's similar to my own Fire Depression System -- a 12-pack of beer.
The Plan (Score:5, Funny)
But's who's gonna fly it? (Score:3, Insightful)
"But who's gonna fly it, kid? You?"
"You bet I could! Ben, we don't have to take this."
No doubt there will be those of the next generation up to the task, but you just don't see the push of science and space at least as I remember when I was going through school (of course the round wheel was the big thing back then). Is becoming an astronaut or rocket scientist as cool as becoming an "American Idol" or a reality TV star?
Re:But's who's gonna fly it? (Score:2)
Time For NASA Sunset (Score:2)
NASA is living proof of many key concepts of inefficiency in systems engineering, buraucracy and Parkinson's law.
Katrina is living proof of what happens when key infrastructure goes underfunded in deference to pork barrel projects.
The time has come to put an end to this sort of waste. We just cannot afford the opp
Re:Time For NASA Sunset (Score:5, Insightful)
So, New orleans would have been better off with no warning of the approaching hurricane at all? Cause, you know, those weather sattelites are just the sort of waste we need to put an end to?
The space program has had few side-benefits in recent years because we haven't been pushing our limits, merely doing things we already knew how to do. If we embrace a new space program with a goal we don't know how to achieve, we will once again reap ten times what we spend. That's what happens when you force yourself to invent new technologies.
13 years to the moon? (Score:2)
Sustainable This Time Around (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm thinking this time, that perhaps we will see some additional leaps of technology. We certainly got enough technology breakthroughs from the space program. Perhaps, even with pesky physics still requiring the same effort to launch payloads into space, we c
Imagine... (Score:2)
Pie in the Sky (Score:3, Interesting)
I wish we did, I want the US to go back to the Moon, especially to leverage all our science, engineering and indisputably pioneering investments. Before other, more ambitious (and less complacent) countries, like China, get up there first. And then, for example, set up giant solar power stations with technology we developed in the USA, from rocketry to photovoltaics. Solar power we'll have to buy with more money we haven't got.
But we've already spent that money. A $300B Lunar/Solar energy platform would make the US a lot safer than the terrorist cesspool we've created in Iraq. A lot more prosperous than the $TRILLIONS in taxes we're cutting on the rich, who don't seem interested in putting Americans on the Moon - not while they're staying rich enough selling us $12:barrel oil for $70.
Here's an idea: we recoup some of those unprecedented profits from American oil companies, that are underwritten by so much American expenses (dollars and military lives, just to get started). We reinvest them in the government space program to install American energy facilities on the Moon. Whoever and whenever we do that, American or otherwise, the American "oil" companies are going to wind up owning the business anyway. We might as well get ahead of the curve, and keep more for Americans. And get it done faster, so the rest of us without our own oil company don't have to suffer through $10:gallon gas before we finally are forced to do it.
For real, or for Burt? (Score:3, Insightful)
What saddens me most is that I don't really have much faith in them anymore. When I was growing up in the 70's, the folks at NASA were my heroes. They were the smartest, most determined, and best people anywhere in the world. I kind of wish I had that back, but at least private industry has given us a few new heroes to live vicariously through.
Return to the Moon Prizes (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's a seat-of-the-pants outline of prizes that achieve the goal:
$5 billion:
$5 billion
$5 billion $5 billion $5 billion $5 billion We're not even 1/3 of the way through the budget and we've got a system that can transport the mass equivalent of the Apollo missions.Where we go from here is a choice I leave to you...
Obligatory Mastercard joke (Score:3, Funny)
A mishandled natural disaster : $100bn
A permanent tax cut for the rich : $800bn
A trip to the moon like in the '70s : $100bn
Driving your country into bankrupcy : priceless.
invited for tea at Moonbase China (Score:3, Insightful)
Sooner the better, with preparation (Score:3, Informative)
The major benefits I can see are:
- ensure survival against earth killer asteroid hitting in say the next 2 centuries
- increase pressure and funding to build independent robotic mining and factories
- draw minds and effort away from fragmented religion, and towards a unified goal of conquering space
- exploit space-based power generation and develop better water extraction and conservation technologies, reducing pressures to start oil wars and water wars
- get advanced physics research off the planet's surface as soon as possible. One possibile reason for the lack of alien contact is that nature holds a booby trap (or a jackpot) that most cultures hit by accident and everything goes boom. We are already close to primordial densities in particle physics and if it is possible to use advanced space-based resources to quickly and cheaply (say with a self-organizing robotic factory) build a ring in space or on the moon that would be excellent.
- add low-noise observatories on the moon. Currently we are just starting to observe in very noisy RF bands for example.
- develop unified educational program based on integrated science and exploratory culture. A free course of study for any child on the planet, instilling a citizen of the world sense of identity, respect and practical knowledge of science, an imperative to stride beyond man's history of intolerance and enter the next phase of our civilization, develop emotional intelligence, and in general train people so that we can achieve 10 times more efficient exploitation of the world's human resources, with 10 times better health and welfare for the world, and international collaboration to develop key technologies more quickly. Sure there is more to this but obviously there is still demagoguery, genocide, famine, disaster, and demonization in the 21st century. We need to get beyond it and work together.
Many of these things can be done on the planet. But the fact is, our societies are still pretty uncivilized and we need a common project to bind politicians and peoples around the world toward the same goal. It seems that broad, continued, well funded efforts for space science and every connected area - including advances in biotech, robotics, and education for example - could be a spark that begins humanity on exponential growth and saves us from nuclear races and preoccupation with trade deficits and resource starvation. People need to have something to work towards, and we need to provide great salaries and lionize people who go into these fields and go to space.
Re:Say it with me now... (Score:2)
Because that is NASA's budget. IIRC, NASA's budget used to be about $14 billion per year. Bush has given the budget a few small increases since then. Yet even at the figure I gave, we're still talking about spending $168 billion on NASA over the next 12 years.
There really isn't anything new in these figures. I don't know about anyone else, but I'd rather see that $100 billion go into getting to the moon than into flying the Space Shuttle up and
Re:Say it with me now... (Score:2)
Remember, oil isn't everything. Neither is science, but it's still important enough to spend money on.
Re:President Kennedy... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:President Kennedy... (Score:2)
Re:Why bother ? we all know its George Bush bulls* (Score:5, Interesting)
If we can get launch costs down (the best way to do that short of a miracle breakthrough is frequent launches) and a *productive* human outpost that is capable of 'living off the land', we'll get amazing robots assembled in space that don't have these severe mass limitations we get down here. If you can assemble your rocket engine from lunar materials, of course you can build a whiz-bang robot explorer.
Re:Guh (Score:2)