U.S. House Wants 'Sustained Human Presence On the Moon and the Surface of Mars' 285
MarkWhittington writes "Politico reports in a June 18, 2013 story that House Republicans have added a Mars base to its demands for a lunar base in the draft 2013 NASA Authorization bill. Both the Bush-era Constellation program and President Obama space plan envisioned eventual human expeditions to Mars. But if Politico is correct, the new bill will be the first time an official piece of legislation will call for permanent habitation of the Red Planet. The actual legislative language states, 'The [NASA] Administrator shall establish a program to develop a sustained human presence on the Moon and the surface of Mars.'"
Cool, let's send Congress first. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Cool, let's send Congress first. (Score:5, Funny)
Just don't send any of that expensive oxygen with them. We can save that for a second trip.
Re:Cool, let's send Congress first. (Score:4, Insightful)
Too late, they're already full of hot air.
Re:Cool, let's send Congress first. (Score:5, Funny)
Then the whole CO2/global warming issue should be solved.
Re:Cool, let's send Congress first. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the first few vehicles might have some glitches. We should probably use Congressmen and Senators until they stop exploding.
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You mean, until we run out of Congressmen and Senators and finally decide to fix the faulty design...
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Re:Cool, let's send Congress first. (Score:5, Interesting)
Gawd, NO! Leave them here & let's the rest of us go!
Don't worry, you can have Venus for the geeks, Jupiter for the nerds and Pluto all for yourself.
Kudos to you, brave AC, for passing on all of the obvious Uranus jokes.
Unfunded mandate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unfunded mandate? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm surprised the House admits to the existence of Mars and the Moon as separate bodies in space rather than being lights in a crystal sphere around the Earth.
Re:Unfunded mandate? (Score:5, Funny)
rather than being lights in a crystal sphere around the Earth.
Around!? You do realize that in order to even conceive this notion, they'd first have to make a bold leap of thought regarding the sphericity of our humble middle realm of existence? There aren't many things I would put past them but I think you're too much of an optimist.
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Spheres are LIES.
All hail the TIMECUBE.
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Does it? How do you know the lights "Moon" and "Mars" are not simply used as easily identifiable beacons in an attempt to colonize the inner surface of the sphere Dyson-style?
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Re:Unfunded mandate? (Score:5, Informative)
The house thought they had the funds already, but it turns out they were looking at the NSA budget, not NASA.
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"enormous"
http://www.openculture.com/2012/03/neil_degrasse_tyson_how_much_would_you_pay_for_the_universe.html [openculture.com]
Re:Unfunded mandate? (Score:5, Insightful)
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It all makes sense really. Since the Apollo landing, computer generated graphics have come a long way. It should not be hard nor expensive to "travel" to the Moon and Mars, Hollywood style. Would make an excellent reality show, one that was more true to life than most of them on the small screen these days. Hell, NASA could even make money from this. Works for Industrial Light and Magic, doesn't it?
You people are too literal sometimes.
Humans cannot survive on Mars (Score:4, Informative)
Since the planet does not have a strong magnetic field, the surface is lethal [wikipedia.org].
As has been discussed elsewhere, at the time of arrival on Mars a person would already have received a lifetime's radiation dose.
Re:Humans cannot survive on Mars (Score:5, Informative)
Since the planet does not have a strong magnetic field, the surface is lethal.
Sure, if you're naked. But that's true anyway since it doesn't have an atmosphere worth mentioning, unless you're mentioning dust storms.
As has been discussed elsewhere, at the time of arrival on Mars a person would already have received a lifetime's radiation dose.
As has been discussed elsewhere, that assumes using an existing space vehicle design, with jack for shielding. But since you'll need to take water with you in order to bootstrap the mission, you can use it for shielding.
they found water (Score:2)
This is the natural consequence of the recent finding that there was running water on Mars, which gives a strong clue that there's still lots of it around. Anybody who reads sci-fi knows that water is like the oil of the solar system, so it's only natural that the USG will want to occupy the land.
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It doesn't say they're putting a permanent human colony on a different planet.
It says establish a program to develop. All they actually have to do is establish a program that's intended to develop such a program that will theoretically result in such a colony way off in the nebulous future. I can see that being done on not much money. Actually succeeding, of course, will require that enormous expense.
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This isn't so much about the Moon and Mars as it is keeping some monies flowing into the hands of the several major aerospace consortiums. On the plus side, a number of talented, skilled people will be kept on the payroll, else all their expertise essentially vanish without handover. NASA itself will not see worthwhile funding to do little more than continual studies and reviews. Meanwhile it plays well to the constituencies and lets a few of more deluded stroke their egos.
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You give the House not enough credit, or I should say the Republicans on the Science and Tech committee. The chairman is a bible thumping Sauropod from the Jurassic Period. He want no effort in research for how humans are affecting the earth, nor does he want any naughty asteroid capture technology to be developed 'cause if the Big One has our name on its ass, then it is G-d's will and all "deserving" souls will be raptured. Yet, the Republicans thought he'd be perfect for a committee that effects how we sp
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Since when has lack of money stopped the government from major new projects?
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I don't suppose the house is planning to actually pay for the enormous expense of putting a permanent human colony on a different planet? They just want NASA to stop everything else that they're doing and start making manned Mars rockets? Is it any wonder NASA struggles with long term projects, with Congress meddling every year with crazy ideas and budget uncertainty?
If we pulled out of the middle east, stop spending so much money on military, (I know, long shot here), we'd have a nice chunk of money for NASA.
Re:Unfunded mandate? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a sure way of making the human race extinct.
Re:Unfunded mandate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, NASA has done a shitload of stuff since Apollo. They have been doing long term, small scale research on a whole raft of subjects including plain ol planes. They've organized some pretty impressive technology for the Mars / Jupiter / Saturn unmanned probes. They've kept the ISS up and running.
All of this isn't as sexy as the Shuttle or Apollo programs and NASA would be glad to ramp up it's efforts had it been given some decent long term funding and had Congress resisted the urge to micromanage everything. There have been setbacks of course. The James Webb Telescope/a) (successor to the Hubble) is over budget and over time. Sometimes rocket science is hard. [wikipedia.org]
Given the constraints they have had to work under, I'm surprised they get anything done.
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James Webb. Great. Another fucking telescope, like we don't have enough of those already. I guess i
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If you only get chump change, you do busy work. I agree in general that NASA should be doing bigger, more important things, but they're sort of resource constrained at the moment.
And, actually, you do figure out how to deal with long term issues in space by sticking up a metal can and orbiting earth for ten years. Yes, we could have done better, we could be doing better, but with the money and political power that exists, all you get is the ISS. Remember, space is hard. Really hard. The ISS has returne
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"If I had money, I would do great things", is how a bureaucrat thinks. Someone without vision does not suddenly develop it when they win the lottery.
An explorer on the other hand, has a vision first, and then moves heaven and earth to make it a reality. If we gave NASA serious money, they'd spend about half of it on toner for their printers, and for new conference rooms and educational programs. Giving NASA more money will mean more incremental science, more staid experiments in low
Re:Unfunded mandate? (Score:5, Informative)
Hubble
Kepler
Cassini-Huygens
COBE
WMAP
Spitzer
MSL
GRACE
GRAIL
Chandra
Galileo
SWIFT
We've been mapping the cosmos. We've studied the cosmic microwave background in great detail and discovered that that crazy inflation idea is basically correct (COBE, WMAP). We've determined the Hubble Constant within 9% - we didn't know it within a factor of 2 when I was in grad school (WMAP). We've mapped the large scale structure of the universe, voids and bubbles. Not to mention the numerous theories that have died in the face of experimental evidence from NASA probes, or crazy ideas that have been confirmed.
We've discovered that almost every star we've looked at has multiple planets (Kepler). When I started in this biz, we literally had no idea what \eta_{planet} might be, and now we're closing in on \eta_{earth}.
We've landed probes on Titan (Huygens) and Mars (Rovers, MSL). We're driving robots around on Mars. We've mapped the gravity fields of two planets (GRACE, GRAIL). We've studied the outer planets in great detail (Cassini, Galileo). We've discovered that we don't know what 96% of the universe is made of (HST/Chandra).
Not to mention mapping out gamma ray bursters (SWIFT), x-ray and infrared cosmology (Chandra, Spitzer), and detailed study of the planet we live on (GRACE, numerous others).
We're living in a golden age of cosmology and earth science. You think no one is going to care about these discoveries in a hundred years? Two of those, dark matter/energy and the discovery of extra-stellar planets are paradigm-shifting.
We have the capability to do much more. Give NASA the price of a couple of B2 bombers or an aircraft carrier (or an ISS) spread out over the next decade, and we'll determine the spectra of the atmosphere of other planets light years away (and perhaps find evidence of life), and study the universe in the gravitational wave spectrum. And a dozen other great ideas that simply aren't going to be funded in my lifetime.
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Cite please. Cause I remember sitting in conferences discussing this with other people in the field, and we were apparently woefully underinformed.
I could, were I so inclined, find you numerous references to discussions of the Drake equation in the 80s and 90s when one of the unknown variables was \eta_{planet} and the explanation was, maybe planets are just ra
"come on Charlie Brown, kick the football..." (Score:5, Insightful)
a unicorn pony.
a well-hung unicorn pony.
Until these nimrods in congress actually come up with the funding for this, and given their history of cancellations, up front, this is just useless wheel-spinning that might fund a few shoestring studies that go nowhere. We'd get to Mars sooner if we put the project on Kickstarter than waiting for congress to fund it.
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The House and Senate pay for things just as much as you pay for your groceries. While their income source may be my taxes and your taxes, that money is in their account to spend. Your income comes from your employer or customers, so using your logic you spend your employer's money. Once you are paid something it starts being yours, just like once you pay out something it stops being yours.
And I, Anonymous Coward's alter ego, says Anonymous Coward is just like the people who would say there is no point in
If ever there was a role for drones... (Score:3)
...this is it. We've got drones on Mars already. They just don't fly yet.
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Anything of any shape can generate lift in a non-vacuum, assuming it has enough velocity.
Re:If ever there was a role for drones... (Score:4, Interesting)
http://marsairplane.larc.nasa.gov/platform.html [nasa.gov]
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I honestly don't know if they can fly. Atmospheric density and all of that
<sarcasm> Especially with only 38% of our gravitational field to work with... </sarcasm>
Rep. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-California) says (Score:5, Funny)
"Get your ass to Mars!"
I have an idea (Score:2)
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Insane (Score:2)
Any astronaut would be crazy to do this. Congress would be just one internal squabble away from defunding the stream of resupply ships.
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you forget politicians have to do something when people get into an emotional snit over something; the miniscule amount of money spent on space will never impact the defense contract or entitlement spending so no worries for them.
and,there will be no lack of qualified and able volunteers
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sure, sure, but it doesn't have to be presented to those in emotional snit that way, and even the anti-mil folk can vote for it
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Do it... but do it right (Score:5, Insightful)
I want to see mankind spread out into the solar system, and ideally I'd like to see the USA at the head of it all. So I'm not unsympathetic toward the idea.
But I really want to see the space program get done correctly. So far, every trip to the moon has been via a single-use rocket, completely used up for the one trip. It made sense when we were trying to win a race, but it also meant we hadn't built out the infrastructure.
The right way to do things: build a truly reusable space vehicle, often called a "space pickup truck". Proposed heavy lift vehicles are more like a "space moving van", and they will have their uses, but what we need more than anything else is a spacecraft that can fly and fly and fly some more with minimal maintenance.
We want a craft that can fly to orbit, return, and then go again tomorrow. It might need some maintenance overnight but it should be as little as possible. The space shuttle needed man-centuries of work between flights... we can do far better than that.
Single-stage would be ideal, but two-stage might be easier to get going... just make sure both stages are reusable and don't need too much maintenance. Cargo capacity need not be huge... it would be cheaper to fly things up in multiple small loads on a truly reusable craft, than to build, launch, and use up a single heavy-lift vehicle.
Once we have the "space pickup truck" we need to build a transportation hub in Earth orbit. It would have emergency Earth return vehicles docked, would have lots of supplies (fuel, water, oxygen, food, etc.) and would have staff on board all the time.
Once you have all the above? The moon becomes trivial. Build a "moon shuttle" that could be basically a couple of fuel tanks and engines bolted to a frame, with some sort of shielded crew compartment and a lunar lander docked to it. It need not be pretty and it need not be tough because it will never land anywhere.
Ideally, also we should build a "space cannon" system that can shoot things into space. This would be the cheapest way to send up inert things like oxygen and fuel, or even dried food and tough electronics. And humans living in space will need serious radiation shielding... the cannon could possibly send up lots of shielding mass.
Imagine how expensive it would be to deliver cargo from America to Australia if we had to do it by building a single-use cargo missile. With modern aircraft the dominating factor is fuel costs. If we could get space travel costs down to chiefly the cost of fuel that would be a massive reduction in costs.
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Wow. Let me guess, you are under the age of, say 40? This is the entire arguement for the Space Shuttle that derailed proper space development for over 20 years. FORGET about the whole re-usability thing - it just costs too much.
Cheap(er), reliable, modular, expendable life vehicles... Like what SpaceX is doing now.
The rest of the ideas, like a proper transportation hub in orbit, and even to some extent a space cannon, make some sense. But realistically getting into earth orbit is easiest, fastest, and chea
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Wow. Let me guess, you are under the age of, say 40? This is the entire arguement for the Space Shuttle that derailed proper space development for over 20 years. FORGET about the whole re-usability thing - it just costs too much.
Cheap(er), reliable, modular, expendable life vehicles... Like what SpaceX is doing now.
Uh, you do realise that SpaceX's plan to dramatically slash launch prices is... drum roll... reusing their rocket stages, right? I believe they're going to test a relight of the first stage engines for landing on one of the next Falcon 9 launches, though it will just hover before being dumped in the sea.
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FORGET about the whole re-usability thing - it just costs too much.
Shall not! [reactionengines.co.uk]
But then, it is British, so the chances of one being built are pretty negligible...
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Wow. Let me guess, you are under the age of, say 40?
I watched some of the Saturn V moon launches on live TV when I was a kid. I had a Space Shuttle poster when I was a teen. So, no, your guess is wrong.
This is the entire arguement for the Space Shuttle that derailed proper space development for over 20 years.
The Space Shuttle program promised many things but did not deliver. A vehicle that requires man-centuries of labor between flights does not meet my definition of "reusable". So, the Shuttle could ha
Re:Do it... but do it right (Score:5, Insightful)
Fortunately, that's precisely what Elon Musk is building. The Falcon 9 will be partially reusable sometime next year, and fully reusable probably by 2016. (It's two stage.) A Falcon 9 launch is already an order of magnitude cheaper than a launch from the (illegal monopoly) United Launch Alliance. Once the Falcon 9 is even partially reusable, that price will fall another order of magnitude, making possible all sorts of on-orbit assembly of larger structures.
Nobody is likely to build a linear accelerator launch system this century. Building one at all is hard enough. Building one that doesn't result in smashing your payload into atmosphere at the end is even tougher.
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I don't think your proposal is practical. The "space pickup truck" idea is nice, but the idea that it should descend to and lift off from a planetary mass is unfeasible, without controlled fusion, and perhaps even then. (You could do something similar with some sort of skyhook [the PinWheel is my favorite, as being the most practical in the near term].)
But FIRST you need to work on a nearly-closed eco-system. This "space pickup truck" will take a long time to make a long trip. It will probably be powere
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Yep, but what we really need is an big, honking space gun to shoot asteroids out of our path. If we don't, nothing else will matter.
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The right way to do things: build a truly reusable space vehicle, often called a "space pickup truck". Proposed heavy lift vehicles are more like a "space moving van",
...and they have to pay a toll on the intergalactic superhighway, hurr durr?
The "right" way to do things is highly debatable. My money is on the space elevator. Then you only need a "space train" or perhaps a "space RV" or even "space velocipede" which makes trips between orbit and your destination. Getting out of the well is the big problem here.
If we could get space travel costs down to chiefly the cost of fuel that would be a massive reduction in costs.
And if we could get it down to where we didn't need fuel to get into orbit, that would be an even more massive reduction.
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I don't think people realize how many times we've come so close to having a real space program. And that's not to knock the good engineers, managers, and astronauts at NASA, it's just a description of reality. We were laying down plans for a thermal nuclear rocket when the space race was abruptly canceled. We were getting ready to attach a small rocket to lift the external fuel tanks into orbit for use as space station components (one of which would double the usable volume of the ISS) when disaster stru
budget (Score:3)
You know guys, if you want these things you're probably going to have to stop slashing NASA's fucking budget every year.
Pork, Pork, Pork (Score:5, Insightful)
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Just don't... (Score:3)
Just don't drink the glacier water...
All about voters (Score:2, Funny)
Army (Score:2)
Tell them there's oil on Mars and they'll be taking the funds from the army instead of NASA.
After all, there's always funds for the army, even when there's no funds to take care of things back home.
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There is no way that Army rockets could hit a target as small as a planet.
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Oooh look at this! *jingle jingle* (Score:2)
Odd timing of this, it follows a stream of wacky distractions coming out of Washington since a whole bunch of skeletons spilled out of the closet in the last few months...
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Sustained human presence on the moon (Score:2)
Yeah, we all know how it's going to turn out [wikipedia.org].
Just like Steven Hawking (Score:2)
And... (Score:2)
I want a pony.
The difference is, one of us has the power to make it happen.
Hint: It isn't the House.
Republicans are all about ownership (Score:2)
Waste of money, period. (Score:4, Interesting)
Sending someone to Mars is a complete waste of money in the short term. As is finding water or even signs of life on that planet.
And before you jump down my throat about bullshit such as Space R&D leads to beneficial offshoot technology, realize that we do not need to spend $100 Billion dollars to send someone to Mars with the offshoot of having a better memory foam for our mattresses, new flavor of Tang, or a more grippy version of Velcro.
We have real problems on Earth. We have an energy crisis. We are running out of fossil fuel and demand more electrical energy year over year. One could argue that sending someone to Mars could lead to a solution to Earth's energy crisis. However NASA could easily spend billions on R&D for energy for a space mission and find out the best solution is to tack a nuclear reactor to the end of the spaceship because you can just eject the spent core's into the void of space. A solution like this will not benefit Earth at all.
Instead, having a mandate to solve our energy crisis on Earth first, by finding real alternatives to using fossil fuel for energy and making technology use energy more efficiently, would lead to trivial solutions to generate and conserve energy on a mission to Mars. That is, NASA could operate on a cheaper budget and spend less time finding solutions for a Mars mission when we have real solutions to Earth problems.
Space R&D is limited in scope and we can only hope for there to be offshoot technology that could benefit Earth. NASA is not going to design solutions with a dual purpose, to work on Mars and provide solutions to Earth. Why create a limitation on R&D when it won't move the Mars mandate further, faster.
The problem, or course, is that a US presidency only lasts at most 8 years and its hard to hand over an easier Mars solution to the next president.
It's simply irresponsible to waste billions on Space R&D when we have significant economic, energy and climate issues on Earth. Three days after people see someone landing on Mars on YouTube nobody will give a shit and we will be stuck with the same problems on Earth, now just with even more repressive tax debt.
Fix Earth first, then lets see the planets and the stars. Why not have mandate to sustain life on this Planet?!
U.S. Public wants 'Congress On the Moon' (Score:2)
U.S. Public wants 'Unsustained Congressional Presence On the Moon and the Surface of Mars' where they belong... unless you believe in hell, in which case they'll be going there eventually for a lot less money.
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Instead, having a mandate to solve our energy crisis on Earth first, by finding real alternatives to using fossil fuel for energy
We have them already. Butanol for gasoline and algae into biodiesel for diesel fuel. These technologies are already-proven and would be profitable without government interference.
Expand U.S. Citizen Surveillance... (Score:2)
...to the moon and Mars.
The government is looking into out-of-this-world control!
The fastest way to Mars... (Score:4, Informative)
The fastest way to get a human on Mars is to launch from Earth.
The fastest way to get a sustainable human presence on Mars is to build a base on the Moon, and use its raw materials for shielding, fuel, etc., and only getting the hi-tech & wet-ware from Earth. Why lift a lot of mass off the Earth when it is is a lot cheaper to do so from the Moon, in the medium to longer term?
It is only cheaper from Earth for a one-off mission, or at most a small number of Mars missions.
For sustainable transport between the Earth and the Moon, you want at least 5 structures, 4 of which would be easy to reuse - in order to minimise cost:
(1) Earth-LEO shuttle - the most difficult to reuse
(2) LEO station - for transfer of men & material
(3) LEO-LMO shuttle
(4) LMO station - for transfer of men & material
(5) Moon-LMO shuttle
LEO: Low Earth Orbit
LMO: Low Moon Orbit
Similar reasoning applies to Moon-Mars transport, as there is no point in landing a craft capable of going between the Moon & Mars on the surface of Mars, or the Moon for that matter - though the Mars landing is the most technically challenging.
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Surface of Mars (Score:3)
Here is the real problem (Score:4, Informative)
Republican Members [house.gov]
Steven Palazzo, MS, Chairman
Ralph M. Hall (R-Texas)
Dana Rohrabacher (R-California)
Frank D. Lucas (R-Oklahoma)
Michael McCaul (R-Texas)
Mo Brooks (R-Alabama)
Larry Bucshon (R-Indiana)
Steve Stockman (R-Texas)
Bill Posey (R-Florida)
David Schweikert (R-Arizona)
Jim Bridenstine (R-Oklahoma)
Chris Stewart (R-Utah)
Democrat Members
Donna F. Edwards, MD, Ranking Member
Suzanne Bonamici (D-Oregon)
Dan Maffei (D-New York)
Joe Kennedy III (D-Massachusetts)
Derek Kilmer (D-Washington)
Ami Bera (D-California)
Marc Veasey (D-Texas)
Julia Brownley (D-California)
Frederica Wilson (D-Florida)
The ONLY one on this group who is NOT trash is Rohrabacher. The rest are seekers of pork.
If a one of them REALLY wanted to go to the mars and/or the moon, they would be allocating money for setting up a base in Antarctica using BA's BA-330 and/or ILC Dover's equipment as well as pushing private space. But, do they? Nope.
In addition, they would kill the SLS and instead push a COTS-SHLV for 2 SHLVs. Do they? Nope.
Re:no (Score:5, Insightful)
Like...
Encouraging children to get into STEM Degrees. The moon landing back in the 1960's but a large boom into these careers. Although a small portion of them will be working on the space missions. The interest in these things as a kid will make them far more interested in the topics. Getting kids interested in Science Technology Engineering and Math, will help them get off their butts go to college and get in less serious trouble.
Our Environment. Sure launching a rocket into space take huge amounts of carbon. But to figure out how to get people to survive and thrive on the Moon and Mars (extremely harsh conditions, and little energy sources) will create technology that we can use here on earth. Hey that solar panel on the moon can keep a small city running with a half a month of darkness, means on earth we could at least get it to run half a small city. Plus it will need to be small and light to get there. Extracting Drinking water out of the brimy pools on mars, would help us get drinking water out of our oceans and deserts.
Agriculture, these people will need to be self sufficient, in a bubble, imagine what we could do with these ideas on earth.
Health Care. The people in colonies on the Moon and Mars can get sick, we will need to find new procedures to fix these problems. They can be transferred back to earth as a cheaper solution to many problems.
Those are just a few.
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Encouraging children to get into STEM Degrees.
Is there a reason we need more people to have these degrees? Then encourage them to take the degree for those reasons. It's not as if the science we already need to do and the engineering we already need to do is not a challenge.
The moon landing back in the 1960's but a large boom into these careers. Although a small portion of them will be working on the space missions. The interest in these things as a kid will make them far more interested in the topics.
And after the boom came a bust. One of the big negatives of the apollo mythos is the intertwining of space exploration with sending bags of meat into space. The role of the bags of meat, is, as you say, to give the venture a human face - it's soap opera and (accesible) human drama.
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Cheap rocketry uses liquid kerosene. Lots of carbon.
Liquid hydrogen is reserved for the crazily expensive NASA boondoggle known as the Space Shuttle. 'cause what you want in a "space truck" is the world's most exotic and difficult to handle fuel....
Gonna feed the anonymous troll (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:All for it... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Now just hold on there... I might need a used car some day.
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Don't forget the telephone sanitizers.
hot air (Score:3)
Enough hot air to heat up and terraform the planet
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The only political goal NASA ever achieved was the Apollo project. Every other piece of political grandstanding is just noise in the background to the scientists and engineers on the ground who are trying to advance the state of the art. The only projects that NASA ever finishes these days are either small enough to fly under the radar (pun intended) or involve international agreements which if we break them would make us look bad to our allies. The unmanned Mars program and many climatological satellite
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Like everything else Congress does, this seems like nothing more than another reason for them to pat themselves on the back. What it actually accomplishments is irrelevant.
With an attitude like that... (Score:2)
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Re:Permanent Mars habitation sounds great (Score:4, Informative)
And what is it like on Mars? COLD. The mean on Mars runs from -87C to -5C. Lots of high speed winds, with cold temps with dust in it, that eats at material. Days that are ~24 hours long. seasons are similar, though 2x as long. Sun is missing in the winter. Shortage of water (though it can be picked up in various amounts). Plenty of local resources. If they want to do well, they should bury down into the frozen ground.
If this can survive at the Antarctica, then it can not survive mars. Something that works on the moon, MAY or MAY NOT work on mars. The ONLY thing that the moon has for testing purpose is life support, and that is available on the ISS.
OTOH, The moon is the worst place for testing. Little to no wind. No atmosphere. Lots of micrometeorites (mars has some, not many). Temperature extremes (mars does not get hot). Radiation galore (far far more than mars gets). In fact, mars surface gets less radiation than does the ISS (which is partially protected by our magnetosphere). The Radiation hitting the moon surface is 4-8x what the Martian surface will get. So, if BA units check out in Antartica for 2 years or longer, AND can check out for several years as a space station, then it is fully tested for Mars.
About the only advantage for the moon is testing a lander. Nothing else. All else should be tested here on earth or at the ISS.