NASA Rolls Out Space Exploration Roadmap 128
MarkWhittington writes "NASA and the space agencies of a variety of countries, including members of the European Union, Canada, Japan, Russia, India, the Ukraine, and South Korea, have rolled out the latest version of a space exploration roadmap (PDF). NASA and its partners have created two scenarios, called 'Asteroid Next' and 'Moon Next.' This represents the continuing argument over which destination astronaut explorers should go to first. Should it be an Earth approaching asteroid, as President Obama insists? Or should it be the moon, as many people in Congress, NASA, and NASA's partner agencies suggest? In any event, all roads lead to Mars in the current plan. Both visits to an asteroid and to the moon are considered practice runs for what will be needed to go to Mars."
Should be (Score:2)
called 'Asteroid NeXT' and 'Moon NeXT".
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The roadmap is nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA needs guaranteed funding and a minimum of Congressional oversight.
Re:The roadmap is nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly AC has the truth of it. This plan should be labled "Current roadmap for the next 20-30 years... unless whoever is elected to congress and the presidency in the next couple of years change their mind. again."
The REAL Roadmap (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Adopt a plan
2. Spend a ton of money
3. Abandon achievements and the plan.
4. Repeat.
Re:The REAL Roadmap (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the roadmap summary. Here's the detailed roadmap:
1. Adopt a plan.
2. Make the plan more ambitious at the insistence of the President and Congress.
3. Receive 30% of the required funding from congress, 25% of which is non mission-critical pork.
4. Overrun lowball funding by a factor of 3.
5. Congress cuts off funding before real accomplishments can be met.
6. Repeat
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4. Overrun lowball funding by a factor of 3 because Congress didn't provide enough funding.
Why not both? (Score:4, Funny)
How about we go to an asteroid that's landing on the moon?
In other words, ... (Score:2)
... you're on the road to becoming part of the problem in your country.
The "American" problems which you so accurately point to are in no small part due to idealists turning into lobbyists.
Anybody can lobby, and, unfortunately, it's addictive.
Both human and robotic (Score:2)
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Why would we go anywhere and not bring some robots?
No Mention of the GLXP (Score:2)
cap in hand to the man (Score:3)
When you go to the government for funding, you don't want to admit you have options.
That is, unless you really don't need the funding.
Mining already a success. (Score:5, Insightful)
The rovers were a success. Now it is time to test our ability to create a long term orbital platform. I'm for the asteroid. China has shown an interest in going to the moon. Let them perform those experiments.
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There are some several good reasons to look at an asteroid as a first choice. Of course, the best reason to pick the moon is that its only 250,000 miles away, and if anything goes wrong you have even odds of getting home without it ending posthumously. That's why heavy, heavy robotic applications must be first. Build robots that can collect solar power, mine ore, sinter ceramics, build more robots, extract water, air, and organics. Most of all construct living spaces under enough material to protect from ra
International coordination? (Score:2)
Somehow the idea of international cooperation seems to make sense in the modern era. Although we Americans rightly take pride in the Apollo program, the space race was really a product of the Cold War. It ruled out multilateral efforts because the whole point was a race to beat the Russians. That doesn't make sense today; nation-states don't have the same kind of rivalries. The spirit of "advancement of human civilization" I associate with space exploration does seem more fitting as an international enter
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Re:International coordination? (Score:5, Insightful)
The catering?
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If the russians are the best at heavy lift, how come NASA has build the rockets [wikipedia.org] that can lift the most?
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The problem is, NASA can't build them anymore. And the ones they can build have a nasty habit of blowing up.
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The shuttle didn't have more problems than any other space launch system. That's saying a lot, because it is much more complicated than it needs to be. You are just being stupid.
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The Russians have both more experience and more reliable launch systems: http://www.ewp.rpi.edu/hartford/~cedenc/SMRE/Project/Space%20Shuttle%20Vehicle%20Reliability.pdf [rpi.edu]
You're the one being stupid.
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No, comparing the total number of rockets a nation has launched to the number of failures is an overly simplistic way of looking at things. There are many different space launch systems and experimental projects represented in such a figure. When you're talking about reliability, you want to look at the current state of the art, not some older system which is no longer used. And you can't just average all the launches together, because the individual launch systems have nothing to do with each other.
Here
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Considering the Russians have launched more orbital rockets than everyone else in the world put together, it might be fair to say they have the most experience, no?
And if you want to just compare the reliability of the latest systems, go ahead. Historical track record still counts for something. Note that NASA will not be doing heavy lift with Deltas or the shuttle, but something new. If it takes them thirty years to iron out all the bugs and get to that 98% value then there's still a problem.
I see you'r
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No, comparing the total number of rockets a nation has launched to the number of failures is an overly simplistic way of looking at things
Sure, because percentages are misleading especially with low numbers of launches. the Biggets Delta has a success percentage of 100% because thye only launched the one time. So you also have to compare experience (the Proton has over 300 launches, far more than anyone else), launch capacity (Proton is the highest) and cost per Kg to launch (Proton is around a third the cost of other countries offerings). Any way you cut it Russia has a better system.
When you're talking about reliability, you want to look at the current state of the art, not some older system which is no longer used
Completely untrue. When evaluating systems NASA has a g
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And the ones they can build have a nasty habit of blowing up.
Well, the Russians had/have that problem too. They're just less squeamish about it.
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Nope, SpaceX clearly wins that one.
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better rebuttal? (Score:2)
The Russians have as many problems with the heavy lift as the Americans do. (Check the news recently?) They just have less problems with insurance companies.
Not sure why the Canadians should be seen as better than the Japanese at robotics. But robotics has a significantly wider field of application than heavy lift. (Not disjoint, even?) And even if the Japanese are better at some kinds of robotics and the Canadians are better at some kinds of robotics, cooperation does not mean just turning all of job X ove
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The Russians have as many problems with the heavy lift as the Americans do.
The Russians have over 300 sussessful launches of their heavy lift rovet the Proton. The US heavy lift capable rockets (Delta, Atlas) are all in the single digit launches and still don't have the capacity of the Proton.
Not sure why the Canadians should be seen as better than the Japanese at robotics.
I'm talking space robotics. All of the robotics on the ISS and shuttle are Canadian designed and built. Even the Japanese robot was actually a Canadian robot.
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Somehow the idea of international cooperation seems to make sense in the modern era. Although we Americans rightly take pride in the Apollo program, the space race was really a product of the Cold War. It ruled out multilateral efforts because the whole point was a race to beat the Russians. That doesn't make sense today; nation-states don't have the same kind of rivalries. The spirit of "advancement of human civilization" I associate with space exploration does seem more fitting as an international enterprise. It gives me a warm fuzzy.
That said, the reality of international undertakings tends to fall short of what I consider ideal.
International cooperation, as in the International Space Station aka cluster fuck #1 ?
No, if the US wants to go back in space it has all the means at its disposal. You just need a coherent political vision that doesn't change every day. Stop spending trillions of dollars in meaningless wars, in meaningless security state programs etc... Raise taxes, make americans feel proud of their country again and set your eyes on the moon and mars. One generation ought to be enough to send astronauts to mars, keep a fu
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Its stupid that of all the apollo missions, only 3 were really scientific and only one carried a real scientist. Less pilots, more scientists in space.
I don't know that it's stupid in itself, given what the Apollo program was -- short-term landings involving lots of flight, and relatively little surface time. It's a mission profile very poorly suited to science, but it's a nearly-essential step on the path to a semi-permanent manned base, which is much better for science. The trouble is just that we stopped there.
For the same reason, I'm not a big fan of the asteroid plan -- it basically limits you to one or a few flags-and-footprints missions per target,
The space shuttle was an experiment. (Score:2)
Sustaining the long haul with the Apollo was seen as too expensive.
It hasn't gotten less expensive, we have just become more willing to spend money. (Setting aside the question of whether we have the money to spend. Except, if we were willing to spend money on those big toys, why weren't we spending money fighting poverty? and there were too many people who couldn't see that space exploration was one essential part of the overall approach to fighting poverty.)
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Roadmap? (Score:4, Funny)
Roadmap? Why not a starchart?
Sun (Score:1)
I want to see manned exploration of our sun.
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Okay, but we'll have to go at night, when it's cooler.
You first. (Score:2)
You can go first.
I really (Score:3)
Re:I really (Score:5, Interesting)
Many people don't give a shit about exploration if there is no human present.
Yea the rovers have been a great success and they have some more in the works, but if we don't land boots on the ground the thought is that we did nothing.
It's not graft-driven government corruption, it's a ratings gimmick. If the majority of Americans start giving a shit about exploration then there will be more pressure on congress to fund NASA better. At this time most people just plain don't give a shit so NASA's budget is getting diminished.
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Re:I really (Score:4, Insightful)
We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and to do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
I truly pity you, sir. I'll get my grandchildren to send you a nice postcard from Alpha Centauri.
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If you want to do hard things, why not pick something that's both hard and useful instead ?
Re:I really (Score:5, Insightful)
Only true-believing sci fi space adventure magical religious cultists are gullible enough to swallow the "space exploration" excuse.
Boy, you are brave. Dissing 98% of the Slashdot demographic.
And while you're correct on purely rational grounds, humans aren't purely rational and canning manned flight for just robotics leaves a lot of emotion on the ground. Given that space exploration really comprises a trivial amount of human and financial capital, all things considered, the added emotional involvement of human spaceflight is more than justified.
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I don't agree that it costs a trivial amount of money. That is the old argument based on comparing NASA's budget with the total Federal budget, a rather goofy comparison. That can be claimed about any government program, but sum them all up and sum them
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Given that space exploration really comprises a trivial amount of human and financial capital
Yeah... now, but that's because we aren't really going anywhere. What NASA is doing is talking about going to Mars, which is cheap.
All the realistic proposals I've seen for anything of interest involving humans in space such as a Moon base, a Mars colony, or interstellar travel required funds that are a substantial fraction of the world's GDP. Think tens of trillions of dollars.
So lets say that at some point in the future we do end up spending those trillions of dollars and end up with a Mars colony or what
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What return will we get for that money? I don't mean some spin-off technology like Velcro or whatever giving back 0.01% of what was spent. I mean 110% return. Will we, as a human race, profit? Will we actually get a benefit from that money that we couldn't obtain, right here, on Earth?
The simple harsh answer is no.
The idea that only profitable things are worth doing is utterly without merit. The problems with this position are so numerous that it is difficult to know where to begin addressing them.
Money is not an end. Profit is not an end. These things only have worth insofar as they allow us to obtain things that ARE actually valuable - food, shelter, safety, stability, education, entertainment. You've bought so completely into the consumerist propaganda that you apparently believe that life has no purpose outsid
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The idea that only profitable things are worth doing is utterly without merit.
I never said that! What I said that things that are entirely without profit ought to have sufficient merit to justify the expense. I'm perfectly fine with spending billions of dollars on, say, the James Webb Space Telescope. That thing is going to take awesome pictures! Spending trillions of dollars to send people to mars... huge waste of money with no hope of a useful return.
Money is not an end.
Of course not. But money can be directly exchanged for things that are 'ends'. Like... food, shelter, safety, stability, education, a
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To get a cheap, sustainable, and worthwhile presence in space:
1. Develop inexpensive, rocket-based, man-rated space access technologies - SpaceX is making progress here, but we have all sorts of other options if we could get the fucking politics out of spacefl
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The only reasons against a sustained human presence in space are economic and political.
Those might be the only reasons against it, but there's no compelling reasons for it!
We went to the moon precisely because back then there was a good reason to do it -- competing with the Russians. It was pissing contest played on an international scale. You'll note that the Apollo program was cut early, because once we've pissed higher than the other guy, there was no compelling reason to keep going back the moon.
From a scientific perspective, humans were the best way to explore the moon, robot technology
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Those might be the only reasons against it, but there's no compelling reasons for it!
There's no compelling reason for most of what we do - a huge portion of our activities are completely inane and worthless. We do many of them for some kind of instant gratification, but is that really where we're content to stay? Some of us want something more significant to do with our spare time, a challenge that will make us push ourselves to new heights and see what we're capable of. I think this is the attitude we should have as a species.
I think it's important to notice WHY going to the moon was a
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if only (Score:2)
While I agree with you that Battlestar Galactica (sp?), Star Wars, et. al. are just cowboy movies shifted to space, and not realistic goals for our future as a race, I disagree with your assessment of the space program. As someone else pointed out already, the space program is a good place to sharpen the tools we call our technology.
Tools are usefull things, and keeping them in good working condition is important.
Promoting the worship of technology is bad, whether through space fantasy or game machines, but
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There is no useful scientific or engineering purpose to be served by manned space exploration.
Strong opinion. Undermined completely by your rant though. I personally think a permanent human presence on Mars and the Moon would be very scientifically valuable, but hey - it doesn't matter what I or others think about this, because we're "true-believing sci-fi space adventure magical religious cultists". Come back when machines can do everything a human would be useful for. Or even better, try to justify your opinion through a reasoned argument instead of an embarrassing ad-hominem rant.
get your ass to mars (Score:2)
Nobody called Zubrin - (Score:5, Interesting)
Let me be the first one in this thread to advocate for THE CASE FOR MARS by Robert Zubrin. They should skip the asteroid and the moon, and start sending robotic missions to Mars today. When the robots have manufactured a liveable environment (e.g. caves or lava tubes) and enough fuel for an emergency return trip, then you send the astronauts.
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The US is 14 trillion dollars in debt and growing.
Mars, the Moon and an asteroid mission will all never happen, until private industry sees a need for it... at least not by the US.
We only went to the moon as a political stunt, and an excuse for funding massive amounts of aerospace development during the cold war. That motivation does not exist now, nor does the will of the American people to pony up enough taxes to stop the bleeding and do things like that.
Its unfortunate, but NASA's just doing this to keep
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What you don't understand is how the economy works. If a government invests in the science and technology for this, jobs will be created (in that country) and the valuation of that country will be higher.
Currently, the US is more bent on destroying other countries (effectively reverting education and science into the stone age) than advancing technologically and building an economy. Why do you think China is booming? Not because every business moved there because it was cheap but because the government acti
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The government could also invest in different ares of science and technology, such as renewable energy. This would bring similar benefits in jobs and technological advances, while at the same time producing something useful.
Human space exploration is in its core a useless stunt. Exploration is much better done by unmanned craft.
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I agree that sending humans to the moon again as a publicity stunt is kinda useless. But even human space exploration in itself brings us much needed enhancements to existing technologies (such as life support systems, waste recycling, radiation shielding etc.).
I agree that short term, investment in other technology would benefit us more but that doesn't mean we should choose which science to fund and which we don't want to fund. If the US would just cut the massive 'defensive' (aka offensive) spending and
Third route (Score:2)
The two routes are presented as exclusive, and only differ in the order of the targets. I say there's a third route: Moon, Mars+Asteroid, Beyond.
Landing on an asteroid is orders of magnitude more difficult than on the Moon or a planet: chances are a lot greater that you'll miss, and there's not a lot of possibilities for in-situ resource utilization, while return windows are possibly few and far between.
It would be safer and more profitable to go to an asteroid at the same time we're building presence on Ma
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In space you do not want to go down any unnecessary gravity wells. As such I would describe the moon base as a destination, not a place to prep for a trip to Mars. We can and should test out technology we plan to go to Mars with on the Moon, but we shouldn't build a craft on the moon to go to Mars.
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Not build, although that's an option too (orbital assembly enables the construction of larger frames than possible to launch economically), rather just a refueling stop after breaking Earth orbit. After all, it takes a lot less delta-v to break orbit from Earth to Moon to Mars than it takes from Earth to Mars in one go...
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We can and should test out technology we plan to go to Mars with on the Moon, but we shouldn't build a craft on the moon to go to Mars.
There's very little you can test on the Moon that would be useful on Mars; the environment is far, far too different for lunar experience to be of much use there.
Moon environment is not the point. (Score:2)
We still don't have enough experience getting people through space in healthy condition. That's why we work on getting back to the moon.
That and all the science that remains to be done on the moon.
Also, while the environment-related tech for the moon and for Mars will be drastically different, learning how to deal with the moon's environment will only help learning how to deal with the environment on Mars. Seeing any of these options as mutually exclusive is missing the entire point of space exploration.
Pan
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We still don't have enough experience getting people through space in healthy condition. That's why we work on getting back to the moon.
The Moon is about three days away. Mars is months away. That's like saying that walking to the corner store will give you the experience you need to run a marathon.
Also, while the environment-related tech for the moon and for Mars will be drastically different, learning how to deal with the moon's environment will only help learning how to deal with the environment on Mars.
No it won't, because there's almost nothing in common between the two environments. Problems caused by the environment on Mars mostly won't happen on the Moon, and vice-versa.
You're assuming we have a lot more than we have. (Score:2)
How many people have made that "walk to the corner drugstore"?
You're assuming we have a lot more experience in space than we have. Meaningful human activity on Mars is just not going to happen until we have a lot more experience in space.
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If you can get the material to build a craft (or fuel it) from the moon, it would be a hell of a lot cheaper than lifting it all out of Earth's gravity well. It's all well and good not to go down any gravity wells, but that's where all the matter is.
Too little too late (for me) (Score:5, Interesting)
I was eight years old when Neil Armstrong set boots on the Moon; I should have lived to see a thriving colony on Mars! I'm not dead yet, but these sickening roadmaps make it obvious that the chance of me living long enough to see ANY offworld colony is pretty slim. What the fuck happened?
I share Neil Armstrong's frustration, but I don't blame NASA; NASA isn't the problem. The problem is that the species is dominated by short-sighted, ignorant, isolationist fools... and that foolish majority is not only allowed to choose our leadership but is also the pool from which that leadership is chosen. WE collectively are the problem.
We've used NASA as a political football in a decades-long game of tug-of-war; how would you like to administer or work in an agency whose funding and priorities get temptingly dangled close enough to nibble one year but then yanked far out of reach the next, at the whim of Congressional purseholders beholden to public attitudes and corporate shareholders? NASA has been suffering from manic depression for decades because of it.
Neil needs to place the blame squarely where it belongs. How many more generations of visionaries will have their hopes and dreams crushed under the weight of an ignorant mob of billions?
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For the benefit of your fellow sci fi space adventure magical religious cultists, please calculate the cost of the following:
Transport 100,000 people to an off-world location of your choosing
Make sure accommodations are built and ready for them
Make them go from 100% to 0% dependen
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That doesn't even partially answer it. If the resources expended on wars in the last 50 years had instead been redirected to expanding the frontier (and enabling future homesteading for misfits and malcontents), we would have several colonies on the Moon and in orbit by now and be poised to make the jump to Mars.
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Who cares if you can transport 100,000 people and make them independent? We have bases in the antarctic and arctic that aren't even close to that, and we maintain them for scientific purposes. The moon would be a fantastic place to build some giant telescopes, for example.
Oh, and since you keep repeating yourself, let me tell you a little secret. Ready? There's nothing magical about space travel.
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Oddly enough, when the Pilgrims went to Plymouth Rock, they took fewer than 100,000.
Their accomodations weren't built and waiting for their arrival.
And they didn't go from 100% to 0% dependent on Europe in 100 years, either.
Personally, I'd settle for 50-100 peopl
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I hate to be a pessimist. Except I am not. You'll probably call me an unreasoning optimist.
When I was young, I dreamed of being a space cowboy with my own rocket to ply the routes between earth and wherever. I wanted to see the stars in my lifetime. Asimov and Heinlein clued me in as to how hard that was going to be, and some pseudo-psychiatry stuff clued me in as to how my personal desire to go there was as much as an expression of my desire to escape from the public school system as it was a real desire t
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Before any "next" (Score:2)
Rather than make pie in the sky plans for moon missions or asteroid missions, how about a good, solid foundation of getting people the first 100 miles. Plan for that. Achieve that goal and THEN see about trying to get further out, based on an actual, sensible reason for going.
Every journey starts with a first step.
It should be both asteroids and moon (Score:4, Interesting)
Private space is planning on being on the moon by 2020.
So, lets do both the moon and an asteroid.
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I wondered how long it would take for 'private space flight' to be mentioned.
Private spaceflight is, right now, pathetic. And an ideologically motivated insistence on it has crippled NASA. Congratulations on handing Mars over to the Russians and the Chinese.
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NOW, we will have TRUE redundancy in our syst
priorities all wrong (Score:1)
How about for a first priority: MAKE ACCESS TO LOW EARTH ORBIT CHEAPER, SAFER, MORE RELIABLE AND MORE REGULAR
NASA can make whatever plans they want, but the cold war is over, Kennedy is dead, and they will never have the budget to go to the moon the same way again. Period.
They haven't even got a
We need an Earth Orbit Asteroid (Score:2)
A VASIMR type plasma rocket can haul back 20x it's fuel weight in from a nearby asteroid. Since part of most rocks is Oxygen, you can extract that and use it for fuel for later trips, and keep hauling back more asteroid chunks. What do you do with all that asteroid stuff in Earth Orbit? Any metals can go to building living quarters and machines. Any carbon can be used to create space elevator cable. Some oxygen is good for breathing, some for fuel, and some to make water with. You still need to bring
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Tracking a satellite (Score:2)
THE Ukraine (Score:1)
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Is anyone familiar with any other countries that get a the?
Three from memory: "The United States of America." I've also heard "The Sudan" used; Wikipedia suggests and redirects "The Sudan" to "Sudan," but I didn't see an explanation therein, (nor did I look very hard). I've also heard "The Congo" used, which Wikipedia suggests and redirects to a disambiguation page, which is were I stopped.
[H]ow did the the even come about as common usage when referring to Ukraine?
Although it's common usage, it's not proper form...
Short version: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ukraine#Etymology [wikimedia.org]
Long version: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikip [wikimedia.org]
Maybe because he's NASA's boss? (Score:2)
The boss usually gets to express his opinion.
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And neither was JFK, what's your point?
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that our presidents are not qualified to make these decisions?
Re:Maybe because he's not NASA's boss? (Score:2)
The president is not supposed to be anybody's boss.
Well, except for the executive branch of the government, subject to restrictions set by the Constitution and Congress.
About the only group he is the boss of is his cabinet, and not really even that.
Because he's above NASA (Score:2)
He's boss of the entire executive branch. Whether you like Obama or not doesn't diminish his authority.
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