Is President Obama's plan for NASA a good idea or not?

[Bill Thompson]

Is President Obama's plan for NASA a good idea or not?

I watched a comment by a former director of NASA say that it is not a good idea because a private company launching people into space is not the same as a government agency because of the likely fatalities. It would be more cost effective for a private company to discontinue and shut down rather than go through with the demands of an investigation. This former director (you can see him in the MSNBC videos) puts it, it is a colossal mistake.

[Drysdale]

Another dumb idea by the chosen one.

[Upchurch]

There are some aspects of his plan I can get behind, but in total, the plan is a cop out and a disappointment.

[Shalamar]

I was extremely disappointed that NASA is getting some rather extreme cuts. I've always been a big fan of the space program, and I would like to see it continue.

[Darth Rotor]

The program will continue. It merely takes a different form.

Look, two guys who walked on the moon can't seem to agree with the future of our space program: Neil Armstrong is very critical of the current way ahead, Buzz Aldrin generally supportive.

I like the idea of increasing the use of robots/probes to explore Mars. The lessons learned and advances will enable, or demonstrate the wrongness of, a manned mission to Mars.

Going back to the moon: why?
DR

[uruk]

Going back to the moon: why?
DR

Why study the earth? We live here we see it every day. We pretty much learned everything there is to learn about the earth.


Climb mount Everest? Why? a crap load of people have done that already. Why would anyone else eve want to climb that old boring pile of rocks?

Been there done that.


Explore the bottom of the ocean? why? It takes alot of money and equipmemt to support people down there. It's dangerous. Robotic exploration of the sea floor is much more safer and economical. Lots of people have died there already. Anyway we've already had people down there, it all pretty much the same, just alot of water and silt.

And soforth......

[pgwenthold]

Bickering about the best way to go aside, we all agree that abandoning the Space Shuttle program is a good thing, right?

[Bill Thompson]

Going back to the moon: why?
DR

(1) Clean and Limitless Energy. Using the materials that are up there (silica and titanium) you could make solar collectors the size of entire nations on the moon. The amount of energy would be outrageous. It could easily be sent via microwave to collectors on earth.

(2) Putting The Hubble Telescope to Shame. What makes Hubble so valuable is the fact that it is not restricted by our atmosphere. So too would be true entire farms of Observatories on the moon but with abilities we cannot even imagine now. So you might say "big deal". How about this idea then: Our planet (Earth, by the way) is in a shooting gallary of life ending asteroids and commets. We do not have the time or technology to find and study them all. If we did, we could do something about it, thus saving our species. Populating the Moon with observatories that could track them is a good reason for going back to the moon.

(3) Our First Test of Lunar Soil. Few people know this but the first people to touch the service of the moon with their bare hands were not the astronauts. They wore gloves, remember? One of the first things scientists wanted to know about the lunar dust was if plants grew in lunar soil. They do. I remember it was a fern tree seedling. This means we can grow food on the moon. This means we can ship people up there -- albeit, it will have to be via a that space elevator (sigh, I know, i will have to stop and explain that here). Just think of it. If there was a sustainable ecosystem on the moon, prison overcrowding and dealing with islamofacists could be pushed aside. The UK once used Australia in a similar way dealing with their unwanteds.

(4) Going to the Moon makes going to Mars much much easier. The moon has a tiny fraction of the Earth's gravity. THis is good for many reasons. Two of these reasons are: (#1) it makes the possibility of building huge objects much easier and; (#2) it makes it much easier to launch huge objects. It will be easier in the long run to build and launch rockets to Mars from the Moon than from the Earth. So, why go to Mars? (sigh) I could make a long list for that too. Manned missions with a lab right there on the surface of Mars would speed up the understandings of the solar system and why live did or did not get kicked off on Mars. In short, we would learn what we did not even know what we do not know. Also, it is not talked about often but the asteroid belt has enough material wealth (apart from the unobtainium :p) to make everyone on earth billionares (so to speak, that is. I mean, I know the economy would be offset).

(5) It is a lot like asking "why go to the New World?". Lots of people in the 1700's and 1800's would ask such a question. But people did because of an undescribable spirit. They knew why but they could not put it into words. And they were right, it has turned out.

I can come up with more reasons perhaps. But how does ending the engergy crisis, saving humanity and creating a more peaceful world sound so far?

[BeAChooser]

I can come up with more reasons perhaps. But how does ending the engergy crisis, saving humanity and creating a more peaceful world sound so far?

Good post.

I suspect his call for going to Mars or an asteroid is just grandstanding.

But then, perhaps Obama got "The Briefing" about the real asteroid threat or the threat from martians?

:D

[willhaven]

I like the idea of going to Mars. I liked the idea when Bush pitched it as well.

Mars > Moon

[BeAChooser]

I like the idea of going to Mars. I liked the idea when Bush pitched it as well.

But Bush didn't pitch the same thing. He pitched a moon program to serve as a "stepping stone" for future manned missions to mars. He pitched using lunar resources on those mars missions. He pitched establishing an "extended human presence on the moon" that "could vastly reduce the cost of further space exploration, making possible ever more ambitious missions". He pitched assembling and provisioning spacecraft on the moon which "could escape its far lower gravity using far less energy and thus far less cost." He pitched a lunar colony that might have accomplished much.

What Obama is pitching is basically grandstanding, not unlike the first race to the moon. And how many of Obama's supporters think that was a good idea?

[Jimbo07]

Is President Obama's plan for NASA a good idea or not?


You forgot the poll option for: cautiously optimistic.

There were two threads about this already in the Science forum.

Some technical points:
- Is everyone agreed that humans did not travel beyond low earth orbit since before 1973? That's 37 going on 40 years, with no reasonable outlook!
- Whether you supported Constellation or not, can we at least agree that even optimistic NASA estimates put Orion and Ares I at 2015? That this was the so-called "gap," and was a concern to lawmakers before Obama ever addressed it?
- Can we agree that even once the Ares V design was complete it would be between 40 and 50 years since humans had gone beyond low earth orbit, and that a subsequent launch date was mere speculation at this stage?
- Whether you supported Constellation or not, can we at least agree that Constellation had technical detractors, that Orion had to be scaled back due to Ares I performance issues and that Constellation was bound for a low flight rate?

Things needed a serious kick in the pants and a massive change in direction. Some people believe that another grand plan was in order with some kind of goal like, "Land 13.5 humans on Mars by 20tickety2. Plus, spit on the Chinese." I strongly believe that that day is done. I'm cautiously optimistic that this route is the radical change that human spaceflight required.

I suspect that there are going to be bumps, perhaps even retrograde steps. At times it will look like commercial spaceflight may fail. However, I suspect that from the perspective of 200 years from now, this era will have been seen not as the beginning of the end, but as the beginning of the beginning...

...

Now politics.

It annoys me to see conservatives wail and gnash their teeth about such things as access to health care for their fellow citizens. They cry that private industry can do everything better. Yet, finally with a destination (the ISS and maybe Bigelow), giving private industry access to transport contracts in space is also roundly decried! Which is it? Is private industry good or bad? Very frustrating...

Conversely, it frustrates me to read about liberals wanting to scrap the space program altogether. Uruk, I think you were reading something like this into DR's post, but I'll ask the non-political question:

...

Why the moon? I don't mean stop exploring, I mean why bother? Why not develop the technologies to reach further out into the solar system? Frankly, the moon would be an afterthought rather than a stepping stone. Once people can travel to Mars, putting a telescope on the moon would be almost inconsequential as a secondary outcome.

Finally,

From a technical perspective this is, hands down, the best approach in my mind. Money should be given to private companies to develop crew transport and for Heavy Lifter research. In fact, I submit that for a decade or so, these activities should proceed with no regard for fancier long-range missions! One of the most painful legs of any space trip is the stage to low and higher earth orbits. We should really focus on making that part easier with higher flight rates (and maybe, just maybe, access to private flights by private citizens which is what some of us space fans have hoped for, all along :) ).

[Leif Roar]

(4) Going to the Moon makes going to Mars much much easier. The moon has a tiny fraction of the Earth's gravity.

Yes, but the problem is that everything we actually want to send to Mars is down here, and not up on the moon. The additional cost of escaping the Earth's deeper gravity well are huge, but still pales against the costs of developing the moon to the point where you can actually build a spaceship on the moon from materials mined on the moon.

[Bill Thompson]

Good post.

I suspect his call for going to Mars or an asteroid is just grandstanding.

But then, perhaps Obama got "The Briefing" about the real asteroid threat or the threat from martians?

:D
Then give me kudos. You can do that here, right?

I thought of another reason. The moon, to much of the world is a "heavenly body" a "celestial object". It is etched in your collective psyche somehow. It is because of this that going to the moon was such a big deal in The Cold War. It was a psychological triumph. It gave the USA a boost over the USSR that nothing else could.

Going to the moon the first time was mostly a military mission. Even though it was a PR mission in this sense, it was still effective.

We are overlooking how returning to the moon (not necessarily by us alone) could also be used as a military and PR mission. It could be one heck of a proverbial "carrot" This time, launch the Saturn V rockets from Pakistan using Afghani astronauts under US engineering.

Something else is this. We do not have to send people there straight away. We could send up supplies for now, even tanks of water. That alone might make people consider that peace would be better for their and their kids future than war with the west. The spirit that we can do anything is something to be shared with the world.

=========

I thought of another reason (I smell a blog forming -- I might rework this into a blog) is that we don't have a choice. We have to if we want to survive. Eventually, human live on the Earth is going to end by one of several causes. Spreading humanity across several different moons and planets increases the odds of our survival.

[Bill Thompson]

Yes, but the problem is that everything we actually want to send to Mars is down here, and not up on the moon.

That is not correct. A mission to Mars will not look anything like a mission to the Moon. There are little simularities. We are not talking about a few days. We are talking many months.

It is a bigger deal no matter how you do it. And no matter how you do it you are going to need either big bulky ships or many small ships.

Raw materials that would make the bulk of the hulls can be from the moon and launched from the moon. The small expensive components can come from the Earth.

I know, lots of people think that we will build something in orbit and shoot it to Mars. But that is a one-shot expensive pipe dream.

The reality is this. It took several baby-steps and many Saturn V launches to get to walk on the moon just once. Remember, it was Apollo 11, not Appllo 1 or even Apollo 4 that was a complete step down to the moon. If we really wanto to go to Mars, it would most likely be sucessful if we build dozens of big bodied ships on the moon rather than a single roll of the dice from Earth's orbit or lower.

Building a huge ship to make a mission successful and launching it from the earth would be difficult.

Assembling anything in orbit is also difficult. Just look at any of the latest footage from Nasa.

The best choice is to build it on the moon.

Putting a base on the moon is not as difficult as you might think. I wish more people could have attended the meetings about the Space Elevator (http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=space+elevator&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=660ee1d70fc57116) that I have sat through.

The bottom line is this. An argument that going to the moon will not help or aid going to Mars carries little weight (ha, a pun).

[Bill Thompson]

Frankly, the moon would be an afterthought rather than a stepping stone. Once people can travel to Mars, putting a telescope on the moon would be almost inconsequential as a secondary outcome.


Why is that? Why would walking on Mars come second to a telescope on the moon?

[BenBurch]

The moon is a very bad place to site a telescope.

[Thunder]

The Space Program is a gigantic waste of money. Once cannot consider themselves a fiscal conservative and support NASA.

NASA should receieve zero funds as long as we have yearly deficits.

[Iamme]

Going back to the moon: why?
DR

This:


http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/helium3_000630.html

[Bill Thompson]

The moon is a very bad place to site a telescope.
but a good place for an observatory.

Do you mean it is a bad place for a telescope like Earth's orbit is also a bad place for a telescope?

[Bill Thompson]

This:


http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/helium3_000630.html

This further supports my idea as using it as a lunch pad to Mars.

[quixotecoyote]

-deleted for failing to meet even my standards for taste-

[Dorian Gray]

Is President Obama's plan for NASA a good idea or not?

I watched a comment by a former director of NASA say that it is not a good idea because a private company launching people into space is not the same as a government agency because of the likely fatalities. It would be more cost effective for a private company to discontinue and shut down rather than go through with the demands of an investigation. This former director (you can see him in the MSNBC videos) puts it, it is a colossal mistake.
Wrong. It is BECAUSE of the fatalities that the private sector will take the lead. It costs too much money to even put a test rocket or craft in space, that a failure would be the end financially - to say nothing of the negative press.

Consider Virgin Galactic. They're charging $200,000 for a 3-hour space flight, plus a few days and night of pre- and post-flight celebration at the Virgin Island that Branson owns. ONE bad flight, and that program is over. Besides Branson, there is another billionaire named Paul Allen behind the technology and concept.

I certainly hope you aren't a tea party member, or in any way supportive of smaller government or against government-run health care, because if you are, irony meter gonna blow.

[Leif Roar]

Putting a base on the moon is not as difficult as you might think.

Putting a base on the moon is one thing. Putting an [i]industry[i] on the moon is something else entirely.

How many thousand men and how many thousand tons of equipment do we have to send to the moon before we'd even be able to make milled steel there?

[BenBurch]

but a good place for an observatory.

Do you mean it is a bad place for a telescope like Earth's orbit is also a bad place for a telescope?

No, I mean its a bad place for an observatory;

1. The sky is only half-visible.

2. There is a LOT of thermal "shine" from nice hot moon rocks much of the day and the first few days of the night.

3. Dust that is very sticky and electrically charged - bad for optics.

The right place for a large telescope is orbiting the Earth-Sun L2 point. Which is where the Herschel Telescope was deployed.

MUCH easier to get to/from than the moon, too, in terms of Delta-V required.

[Jimbo07]

Why is that? Why would walking on Mars come second to a telescope on the moon?

I think there's been a misunderstanding. Once we could put boots on Mars, putting a telescope on the moon as a follow-up project would be comparatively trivial. In short, a program of building up technology potentially gives us both.

No, I mean its a bad place for an observatory;

Why? I thought it was the best place in the solar system due to the EM blind spot away from Earth. That's touched on in this article (http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/080716-tw-lunar-telescope.html), which reminds me...

... another technology that Obama mentioned was in situ resource utilization. It seems to me like he was really listening!

[barrymore]

The Space Program is a gigantic waste of money. Once cannot consider themselves a fiscal conservative and support NASA.

NASA should receieve zero funds as long as we have yearly deficits.

Hah! As a fiscal conservative, I am deeply offended. The Space Program has likely resulted in the highest ROI of any industry--public or private.

Which is to say nothing of the black holes (had to use a space analogy) that nearly all other government programs are--especially entitlement programs.

[BeAChooser]

The Space Program is a gigantic waste of money.

You've now just expressed what I think a large fraction of Obama's base believe. Which is why I'm a bit skeptical about Obama's sincerity where space exploration and development is concerned. If I were NASA I wouldn't depend on him staying true to this latest vision any longer than is politically convenient for him and his party.

[Leif Roar]

Hah! As a fiscal conservative, I am deeply offended. The Space Program has likely resulted in the highest ROI of any industry--public or private.

I think that's a baseless assertion which has no foundation in anything but wishful thinking.

I like the space program, and I'm in favour of the space program, but this idea that the spin-offs and technologies developed from it are so many and so great relative to the total cost of the program -- I've never seen that idea actually supported with anything resembling a thorough analysis. It's just a feel-good meme, "this must be true because I want it to be."

[barrymore]

I think that's a baseless assertion which has no foundation in anything but wishful thinking.

I like the space program, and I'm in favour of the space program, but this idea that the spin-offs and technologies developed from it are so many and so great relative to the total cost of the program -- I've never seen that idea actually supported with anything resembling a thorough analysis. It's just a feel-good meme, "this must be true because I want it to be."

I suppose here is a good place to start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget

[Dorian Gray]

(1) Clean and Limitless Energy. Using the materials that are up there (silica and titanium) you could make solar collectors the size of entire nations on the moon. The amount of energy would be outrageous. It could easily be sent via microwave to collectors on earth. They could do that in the Sahara, Gobi, Western America, and lots of other places RIGHT NOW without the added cost of leaving Earth and landing on the moon. They could also build huge solar collectors IN SPACE right now that are always in sunlight, without landing on the moon. When you discover why they haven't done either of these things, you'll discover why they won't do it on the moon.

(2) Putting The Hubble Telescope to Shame. What makes Hubble so valuable is the fact that it is not restricted by our atmosphere. So too would be true entire farms of Observatories on the moon but with abilities we cannot even imagine now. So you might say "big deal". How about this idea then: Our planet (Earth, by the way) is in a shooting gallary of life ending asteroids and commets. We do not have the time or technology to find and study them all. If we did, we could do something about it, thus saving our species. Populating the Moon with observatories that could track them is a good reason for going back to the moon. A better idea is putting more Hubble-like telescopes in space so they can look 360 degrees along all three axes. On the Moon, they could at most look 360 degrees along one axis and 180 degrees on the other two. Plus, the telescope in space, again, could always be in sunlight, while one on the moon might be in darkness part of the time.

(3) Our First Test of Lunar Soil. Few people know this but the first people to touch the service of the moon with their bare hands were not the astronauts. They wore gloves, remember? One of the first things scientists wanted to know about the lunar dust was if plants grew in lunar soil. They do. I remember it was a fern tree seedling. This means we can grow food on the moon. This means we can ship people up there -- albeit, it will have to be via a that space elevator (sigh, I know, i will have to stop and explain that here). Just think of it. If there was a sustainable ecosystem on the moon, prison overcrowding and dealing with islamofacists could be pushed aside. The UK once used Australia in a similar way dealing with their unwanteds. What? There's still very little water on the moon and no atmosphere (no CO2), so most of the water would have to come from Earth. ONCE AGAIN, it would be so much easier to transform deserts on Earth than to incur the added cost of leaving Earth, landing on the Moon, and enclosing a huge area in a biosphere.

(4) Going to the Moon makes going to Mars much much easier. The moon has a tiny fraction of the Earth's gravity. THis is good for many reasons. Two of these reasons are: (#1) it makes the possibility of building huge objects much easier and; (#2) it makes it much easier to launch huge objects. It will be easier in the long run to build and launch rockets to Mars from the Moon than from the Earth. So, why go to Mars? (sigh) I could make a long list for that too. Manned missions with a lab right there on the surface of Mars would speed up the understandings of the solar system and why live did or did not get kicked off on Mars. In short, we would learn what we did not even know what we do not know. Also, it is not talked about often but the asteroid belt has enough material wealth (apart from the unobtainium :p) to make everyone on earth billionares (so to speak, that is. I mean, I know the economy would be offset). So... you agree that going to Mars is a good idea. Then why not just skip the Moon and go right to Mars, which has the same atmosphere problems as the Moon, but has lots of water and low gravity? Everything you needed to launch rockets from the Moon would have to come from Earth. Save a step and billions or trillions of dollars and go right to Mars. You're practically arguing this already.

(5) It is a lot like asking "why go to the New World?". Lots of people in the 1700's and 1800's would ask such a question. But people did because of an undescribable spirit. They knew why but they could not put it into words. And they were right, it has turned out. Again, you're practically arguing for going to Mars already. Because the New World people didn't have debates about going to Iceland, Greenland, the Azores, the Canaries - they'd already been there, just as we've already been to the moon. They argued about going to the New World, which is a metaphor for MARS in this case.

I can come up with more reasons perhaps. But how does ending the engergy crisis, saving humanity and creating a more peaceful world sound so far?Like a pipe dream. If we're not doing it here, we're not going to do it anywhere else. Are you in favor of giving up petroleum-based energy? Do you own an electric car, or have windmills or solar panels on your property? Right, and neither do most other people.

[BenBurch]

I think there's been a misunderstanding. Once we could put boots on Mars, putting a telescope on the moon as a follow-up project would be comparatively trivial. In short, a program of building up technology potentially gives us both.



Why? I thought it was the best place in the solar system due to the EM blind spot away from Earth. That's touched on in this article (http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/080716-tw-lunar-telescope.html), which reminds me...

... another technology that Obama mentioned was in situ resource utilization. It seems to me like he was really listening!

A RADIO telescope on the far side of the moon might be useful, but a robotic radio telescope in deep space would be more useful as you can use it to create a very, very long interferometry baseline, while being so far from the Earth that our radio emissions are insignificant to it. The moon is a disadvantageous place for any optical telescope.

[uruk]

I think that's a baseless assertion which has no foundation in anything but wishful thinking.

I like the space program, and I'm in favour of the space program, but this idea that the spin-offs and technologies developed from it are so many and so great relative to the total cost of the program -- I've never seen that idea actually supported with anything resembling a thorough analysis. It's just a feel-good meme, "this must be true because I want it to be."

Try these also:
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off

And you thought NASA just did space stuff.

[DC]

isnt NASA to socialistic/Communistic?

i dont know why Commrade Obama is so against Socialiced space travel.

he as a Communist. strange :D

[ksbluesfan]

I think we get more bang for our buck by sending machines into space than humans. The best science we're received from NASA in the past 30 years has not come from human space travel.

[DrBaltar]

Going back to the moon: why?
For one reason, to explore. You can't go to a world 6 times for 3 days or less each time and claim to have explored it. And for another, probably more important reason... we have a lot of work to do to become proficient living and working on another planet before we go to Mars. We could probably throw together a mission and send people to Mars to plant a flag and say we've been there. Then it would be over and people like you would say why go back, we've been there. We can check off Mars on our list of places to explore.

Naturally though we want to take advantage of Mars and explore it and learn to live off the land. We need to figure out how to reliably produce fuel and refuel for the return trip home. We need to learn how to do critical maneuvers like landing on another planet without mission control support because of the 20-40 minute comm delay time. Not to mention the 2 week comm outage when earth and mars are on opposite sides of the solar system.

We need to learn to operate on another planet WAY more than 3 days... more like months at a time. That means maintaining equipment with minimal backups and no resupply. Learn to handle medical emergencies when the nearest hospital is 40-150 million miles away. And on and on... We must learn all these things and get them right the very first time on a trip that's 170 times further and 85 times longer than any of the moon missions during a mission to mars at what will be more than 65 years after the last moon landing by BO's schedule.

[uruk]

I think we get more bang for our buck by sending machines into space than humans. The best science we're received from NASA in the past 30 years has not come from human space travel.
I would say that not an entirely accurate statement (see links to NASA spinoffs) but I will agree that the manned space program has been floundering a bit aimlessly for the past 30 years because of a lack of commitment and direction.

[DrBaltar]

I think we get more bang for our buck by sending machines into space than humans. The best science we're received from NASA in the past 30 years has not come from human space travel.
Robots weren't able to tell us where the moon came from. Lunar samples brought back by astronauts did that. I'd say that's pretty good science.

[ksbluesfan]

Robots weren't able to tell us where the moon came from. Lunar samples brought back by astronauts did that. I'd say that's pretty good science.

They could have if we would have sent robots instead of humans.

[DrBaltar]

They could have if we would have sent robots instead of humans.

The Russians did send rovers and robots that brought back samples. They found nothing like the Genesis rock. Besides, science isn't the only thing that can be done there. Louis and Clark didn't go out west with a chemistry set. I don't think people know what exploration means anymore.

[ksbluesfan]

I'm certainly not an expert on this. I'm heavily influenced by Robert Park, the physics professor at the University of Maryland. He seems to be firmly against putting humans in space at this point in time.

[Darth Rotor]

For Ben, Jimbo07, and Dr Baltar: thanks, food for thought. For Dorian, likewise.

Given our limited budget, I will reconsider what the utility of a moon program would or should be.

DR

[uruk]

I'm certainly not an expert on this. I'm heavily influenced by Robert Park, the physics professor at the University of Maryland. He seems to be firmly against putting humans in space at this point in time.
The problem is that if you don't work for developments toward that time, that time usually never comes.

[BenBurch]

We can map the moon down to 5 cm rocks from space. Lewis and Clark did not have access to such a capability. Lewis and Clarke were interested in animals, plants, minerals and PEOPLE. Only minerals apply on the moon. And we have a damned good idea what is there from remote sensing. And at some point in the foreseeable future, robots with near-human decision making capabilities will be able to provide boots on the ground to look in detail into the remaining lacunae. Without risk of human life. Without massive expense.

[DrBaltar]

We can map the moon down to 5 cm rocks from space. Lewis and Clark did not have access to such a capability. Lewis and Clarke were interested in animals, plants, minerals and PEOPLE. Only minerals apply on the moon. And we have a damned good idea what is there from remote sensing. And at some point in the foreseeable future, robots with near-human decision making capabilities will be able to provide boots on the ground to look in detail into the remaining lacunae. Without risk of human life. Without massive expense.

So.... we're going to Mars around 2035 or later. The first landing on an extraterrestrial body in at least 65 years is going to be over 40 million miles away, for a trip lasting months, maybe over a year. That's your plan?

Eta: actually that's Obama's plan, but you endorse this?

[tyr_13]

As much as I love moon-bases and space planes with manned missions, I can't say that this is a terrible idea. First off, we need those robots to build our moon bases and death rays and such. Secondly, a lot of our space-faring research budget is actually Air Force funds, not NASA. This isn't the nail in the coffin people are making it out to be.

[DrBaltar]

As much as I love moon-bases and space planes with manned missions, I can't say that this is a terrible idea. First off, we need those robots to build our moon bases and death rays and such. Secondly, a lot of our space-faring research budget is actually Air Force funds, not NASA. This isn't the nail in the coffin people are making it out to be.

Well I'm not saying there shouldn't be any robotics. They definitely have their place and Nasa has been developing them under Constellation. As far as air force space funds, they aren't going to the moon (except for a rare technology tester like Clementine) or mars or anywhere else. What people are upset about is that all programs designed to get us flying again after shuttles retire have been terminated, leaving only speculative prospects like non-traditional commercial companies developing manned rockets 'some day'.

Initially Nasa's administrator said Nasa will not develop any new rockets for at least a decade. That's real comforting to manned spaceflight supporters. After their plan was shredded to pieces by congress BO defined 2015 as the start date to start building heavy lift launch vehicles. But I still say in the name of safety, being prepared, and common sense, before we go to mars we should use the moon as a proving ground for all the technologies we need to go to mars.

[Gangularis]

The Space Program is a gigantic waste of money. Once cannot consider themselves a fiscal conservative and support NASA.

NASA should receive zero funds as long as we have yearly deficits.


You've gotta be kidding me, NASA gets around half a penny on the dollar of all tax payer money.. NASA's ingenuity is responsible for a lot of great technologies that we all enjoy today.. In fact, I feel we're getting an incredible return on our investment.. Much more so than that of which we put into the military for nation building..

Here are some of the technologies that have been brought to us, thanks to the space program:


http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html

[Jimbo07]

Some decry human spaceflight as a fantasy and arguments in favour of it, emotional. Fair enough. However, this:

Without risk of human life.

is an emotional argument against spaceflight that I have never bought in to...

Astronauts know spaceflight is risky. In fact, in the emerging space tourism enterprises, they are having to deal with such legal issues as informed consent regarding risk. Being an Alaskan King Crab fisherman is risky!

To not do something simply because of risk is a terrible argument.

I'm much more willing to argue the economics, whether it's really a zero-sum game, whether robots will ever surpass humans in terms of flexibility, etc.

[Travis]

I'm certainly not an expert on this. I'm heavily influenced by Robert Park, the physics professor at the University of Maryland. He seems to be firmly against putting humans in space at this point in time.

Fantasy thinking. Scientists tend to like the idea of robots because we can explore more for less but they always overlook the problem that a NASA devoid of a human spaceflight program would be a NASA that would probably be defunded for lack of general public interest altogether. The people who control the money tolerate the robot probes but would never support funding them on their own.

For Ben, Jimbo07, and Dr Baltar: thanks, food for thought. For Dorian, likewise.

Given our limited budget, I will reconsider what the utility of a moon program would or should be.

DR

The budget is only as limited as we allow it to be. As for utility, what is the price of "grandeur?"

[Bill Thompson]

They could do that in the Sahara, Gobi, Western America, and lots of other places RIGHT NOW without the added cost of leaving Earth and landing on the moon.

The moon is bigger and it is not up for grabs for wind farms or mining or oil drilling or hotels. You do know we are talking about a whole celstrial object with a surface area of 37,932,328.1 km2. But that is not the most important thing. There is no weather on the moon. There are no cloudy days. In fact the solar radiation hitting the collectors would be 100% pure. And did you miss the point that I made that the raw materials to make the things are already on the moon?

Why do people debate issues without considering that they might be wrong?

Anyway, two other reasons for making a large base on the moon are #1. Gamma Ray Bursts. It wiped out life on Earth once, it can happen again. Sure the odds might be against it, but it only has to happen once. It is a good idea to put our eggs in more baskets. #2. Nuclear War. I doubt if there is a nuclear war on earth, an enemy would wipe out the moon bases just for good measure. If we somehow wipe ourselves out of existance by our own hand on Earth, humanity would still survive if we had life on the Moon and/or Mars.

[Bill Thompson]

A better idea is putting more Hubble-like telescopes in space so they can look 360 degrees along all three axes. On the Moon, they could at most look 360 degrees along one axis and 180 degrees on the other two. Plus, the telescope in space, again, could always be in sunlight, while one on the moon might be in darkness part of the time.


The moon is a sphere. I did not say we should put just one telescope on the moon. Observatory farms places around the surface make your 360 degree argument invalid. Your comparison is wrong for lots of OTHER reasons. All objects we put in orbit are in orbital decay. They will all eventually fall to earth unless we ocassionally give them a boost. Also, space is not really 100% empty. Small debris hit objects in orbit all the time. Telescopes on the moon, provided we have a base there, can be serviced all the time.

Radio Telescopes on the moon would be better than any telescope in low earth orbit or on Earth. Currently we have to launch probes into deep space to get this sort of data.

[Bill Thompson]

What? There's still very little water on the moon and no atmosphere (no CO2), so most of the water would have to come from Earth. ONCE AGAIN, it would be so much easier to transform deserts on Earth than to incur the added cost of leaving Earth, landing on the Moon, and enclosing a huge area in a biosphere.


What does this have to do with anything I said?

Do you think I am saying that we should go to the moon because we can grow things there? That is not what I was saying.

After the Apollo 1 accident, the next few Apollo missions were test justing huge tanks of water instead of men and equipment. Taking water to the moon is easy and is something we should be doing now.

[Bill Thompson]

So... you agree that going to Mars is a good idea. Then why not just skip the Moon and go right to Mars, which has the same atmosphere problems as the Moon, but has lots of water and low gravity? Everything you needed to launch rockets from the Moon would have to come from Earth. Save a step and billions or trillions of dollars and go right to Mars. You're practically arguing this already.


Because, unless you have some sort of new, mircacle propulsion system, you cannot go to Mars without first making some huge ships for the long haul. And it would be way easiter to make those huge ships using the raw materials already on the moon. And with the less gravity it would cost less fuel to laundh those huge ships from the moon.

[Bill Thompson]

Again, you're practically arguing for going to Mars already. Because the New World people didn't have debates about going to Iceland, Greenland, the Azores, the Canaries - they'd already been there, just as we've already been to the moon. They argued about going to the New World, which is a metaphor for MARS in this case.


You are not correct. There are many things we need to have a perm base on Mars that we could build on the Moon that would be too difficult to build on the Earth.

For one thing, it is freaking cold on Mars. It would be a good idea to first build some solar reflectors on the moon that oculd be used to keep bases on Mars warm.


Like a pipe dream. If we're not doing it here, we're not going to do it anywhere else.

Wrong again. It would be easier to build huge structures on the moon than on Earth.
Are you in favor of giving up petroleum-based energy? Do you own an electric car, or have windmills or solar panels on your property? Right, and neither do most other people.

Think big. we would not need windmills or solar panels or petroleum based energy if we had solar collectors on the moon. It would simply change things in ways we cannot imagine.

[DrBaltar]

After the Apollo 1 accident, the next few Apollo missions were test justing huge tanks of water instead of men and equipment. Taking water to the moon is easy and is something we should be doing now.

After Apollo 1 there were unmanned flights that tested equipment. I haven't heard of any of these unmanned flights carrying water. Was it for ballast? That doesn't make sense because it's easier to deal with metals for weights. But they did test all of the equipment that was used in manned missions. Apollo 4 (there was no 2 or 3) was an unmanned flight that tested the command & service module in orbit. Apollo 5 was an unmanned flight that tested the lunar lander in orbit. Apollo 6 was unmanned and did more testing of the Saturn V systems and structural & thermal integrity. The rest were manned.

We should not be launching water to the moon for long missions. That would be very expensive. There is water in some form at the lunar south pole, perhaps the north pole too. Launch the equipment to extract water from regolith. Or take hydrogen tanks (much lighter than water) to combine with oxygen extracted from regolith to make water.

Because, unless you have some sort of new, mircacle propulsion system, you cannot go to Mars without first making some huge ships for the long haul. And it would be way easiter to make those huge ships using the raw materials already on the moon. And with the less gravity it would cost less fuel to laundh those huge ships from the moon.That's one reason I've heard for going to the moon first, although I haven't heard anything about actually doing this since 2004. There are a number of other reasons for going to the moon first. And basically it's to try technologies and manned operations procedures 240,000 miles from home rather than 40 million - 150 million miles from home.

BTW, miracle propulsion systems are not needed to go to Mars. A larger Saturn V could do it with 1960s technologies. It would take months to get there but it would work. Miracle propulsion systems would be nice though, such as the VASIMR rocket. If you powered it with a large nuclear reactor it could get you to mars in days rather than months.

It would be easier to build huge structures on the moon than on Earth.Not any time within the next few decades it isn't. Yes, with less gravity you can build larger structures, but if those structures have to contain 1 atm pressure that will be more difficult. And you can't hire illegal aliens to build it. The construction workers would be highly trained workers wearing space suits. Plus you'd have to create the infrastructure on the moon to create the materials needed to build these large structures. All of which we need to do, but it won't be easy.

[Supernovae]

I like the plan.. just not sure how we're going to get a heavy lifter from scratch again and be within budget.

However, i do like the thought of having private sector handle NEO missions and put NASA on the forefront of exploration and pushing the limits of man once again. I think Obama's plan does that quite well.

If we can make it to orbit around Mars, that very same technology will make it feasible to stay on the moon and if the private sector can't find any reason to make a moon base NASA has that much less of a reason to be there (other than to burn money and test something that is already planned to be tested with long range missions to Mars and Asteroids..)

[BenBurch]

Sea Dragon.

[Supernovae]

Think big. we would not need windmills or solar panels or petroleum based energy if we had solar collectors on the moon. It would simply change things in ways we cannot imagine.

What i love about solar panels isn't just the offset of carbon/oil dependency but the liberation from utility dependency and so called "Free market" energy prices.

Moon base doesn't change that. Still makes you dependent on whomever can "control" the moon.

If home owners invested yearly less than what they pay on their cell phone bills into micro-inverter solar systems our energy needs could be self-sustainable within the next 15-20 years. No moon required.

[DrBaltar]

I think former astronaut and former Nasa Associate Administrator sums it up quite well here:
http://www.marssociety.org/portal/a-trajectory-to-nowhere-by-scott-doc-horowitz/

[DrBaltar]

I want the deal offered to commercial rocket companies. I want somebody to give me 6 billion dollars up front for me to go and develop a transportation capability that does not exist, and when I get done developing it I still own it, and the government has to come rent it from me. I want that deal. I don’t understand how it’s commercial, but I want it.
-- Mike Griffin, former Nasa Administrator

[Dorian Gray]

The moon is bigger and it is not up for grabs for wind farms or mining or oil drilling or hotels. You do know we are talking about a whole celstrial object with a surface area of 37,932,328.1 km2. But that is not the most important thing. There is no weather on the moon. There are no cloudy days. In fact the solar radiation hitting the collectors would be 100% pure. And did you miss the point that I made that the raw materials to make the things are already on the moon? No matter how many raw materials there are, a large amount of equipment must be brought to the moon to turn those raw materials into something usable. The surface area of the moon is only half in the sun at any given time, and some of that area is permanently out of the sun, and some areas are not conducive to placing solar panels, etc.......
Not much weather in the American Southwest, you know. Phoenix gets rain about 3 days a year. And did YOU miss the point I made that it's far cheaper to place solar panels on earth than on the moon?

Why do people debate issues without considering that they might be wrong? You tell me.

Anyway, two other reasons for making a large base on the moon are #1. Gamma Ray Bursts. It wiped out life on Earth once, it can happen again. Sure the odds might be against it, but it only has to happen once. It is a good idea to put our eggs in more baskets. So somehow the moon would protect all life on it from gamma ray bursts - with no atmosphere? You might want to rethink this.

#2. Nuclear War. I doubt if there is a nuclear war on earth, an enemy would wipe out the moon bases just for good measure. If we somehow wipe ourselves out of existance by our own hand on Earth, humanity would still survive if we had life on the Moon and/or Mars. Practically arguing for Mars, anyone?

[Dorian Gray]

The moon is a sphere. I did not say we should put just one telescope on the moon. Observatory farms places around the surface make your 360 degree argument invalid. Your comparison is wrong for lots of OTHER reasons. All objects we put in orbit are in orbital decay. They will all eventually fall to earth unless we ocassionally give them a boost. Also, space is not really 100% empty. Small debris hit objects in orbit all the time. Telescopes on the moon, provided we have a base there, can be serviced all the time.

Radio Telescopes on the moon would be better than any telescope in low earth orbit or on Earth. Currently we have to launch probes into deep space to get this sort of data. One telescope is very expensive, or else we'd have them all over Earth and all over in space. But with one telescope, we can photograph in every direction. With one on the moon, we can't. Therefore, space telescopes are superior.

A cursory glance at the moon tells us that it occasionally gets pelted with debris, so the 'service' might consist of viewing a huge smoking crater. In space, we can simply maneuver the telescope out of the way. Can't move a ground-based telescope.

And finally, the Hubble has been up in space for 20 years with no signs of slowing or falling. That's a lot of life. And once again, less expensive, given your 'provided we have a base there'.

[Dorian Gray]

What does this have to do with anything I said?

Do you think I am saying that we should go to the moon because we can grow things there? That is not what I was saying.

After the Apollo 1 accident, the next few Apollo missions were test justing huge tanks of water instead of men and equipment. Taking water to the moon is easy and is something we should be doing now.
*checking the rules* Nope, I can't find anything that indicates all my responses must directly relate to anything you say. Sorry. By the way, what is "test justing"?

Look here (http://www.conferenceboard.ca/HCP/Details/environment/water-consumption.aspx). Americans use 1682 m3 of water per capita per year. Water for one year would weigh 1,682 tonnes. The space shuttle weights 2,000 tonnes and costs $800M per launch. Assuming some ultra-strong tanker vehicle, fuel, control and life support systems, a year of food, and two people only make up 318 tonnes somehow (not likely), and assuming the people seriously conserve water, it would cost >$800M just to send enough water for two people for a year, to say nothing of a place to stay or of getting them back.

[Dorian Gray]

Because, unless you have some sort of new, mircacle propulsion system, you cannot go to Mars without first making some huge ships for the long haul. And it would be way easiter to make those huge ships using the raw materials already on the moon. And with the less gravity it would cost less fuel to laundh those huge ships from the moon.
And even less to launch them from space.

[Dorian Gray]

You are not correct. There are many things we need to have a perm base on Mars that we could build on the Moon that would be too difficult to build on the Earth. There is nothing that we need to live on another planet that wouldn't be much much easier to build/create/grow on earth. Nothing.

For one thing, it is freaking cold on Mars. It would be a good idea to first build some solar reflectors on the moon that oculd be used to keep bases on Mars warm. Oh my god. This is just ridiculous.
Wrong again. It would be easier to build huge structures on the moon than on Earth. I present, as utter and unequivocal refutation of your argument, the fact that there are millions of huge structures on Earth, but not a single huge structure on the Moon.

Think big. we would not need windmills or solar panels or petroleum based energy if we had solar collectors on the moon. It would simply change things in ways we cannot imagine.Think logically. Replace 'moon' with 'earth', and your statement is not only still true, but magnitudes cheaper.

[barrymore]

I hope Bill never gets in a position of power wrt to NASA. I am a huge supporter of the space program, but with limited funds, there is no reason to spend money just to spend money. Especially on projects that, as Dorian has shown, can be refuted in a single sentence or two.

[Jimbo07]

I hope Bill never gets in a position of power wrt to NASA. I am a huge supporter of the space program, but with limited funds, there is no reason to spend money just to spend money. Especially on projects that, as Dorian has shown, can be refuted in a single sentence or two.

As an engineer, my position has been changing on the big technology issues (by which I mean not issues which are primarily social like poverty, law enforcement, freedom of religion, etc.) such as: government involvement in spaceflight, energy policy, etc. I once said things like: oh, just build a base on the moon, or just put solar panels on everybody's rooftop.

Now, I'm more often likely to ask, "How?" It's no longer easy for me to see the sequence:

step 1 - Dream of building a moon base
step 2 - ?
step 3 - Profit

as a viable plan. At least, I hope this is a consequence of me gaining experience as an engineer, and not simply a consequence of getting older and more curmudgeonly. *ugh* :boxedin:

...

There was no clear path back to the moon which would have made large industrial projects 'easy.' There is no clear path to Mars which makes large scale settlement projects 'easy.' In fact, there will be no clear resolution to the question of humans/vs robots (beyond "each in their best capacity") re: exploration soon!

A human first orbited the Earth almost 50 years ago. In that time, five decades of government space programs have not brought humanity much closer to widespread access to space. The Constellation program was not going to help with that. It's time for a game-changing plan.

I think the new public/private thrust is going to appear to fail at times. In fact, I believe there will be stumbling blocks and abject failures, not only terms of engineering challenges, but also in terms of financial and legal troubles. That said, it is revolutionary enough, that I think it is time to give it a chance.

Let's see if the marketplace can handle this challenge. This way, we don't need a single program/plan. There can be multiple plans. The "how" does not need to be decided now. The goal does not need to be decided now. Several little "hows" can be tried. Some goals can fail to be reached.

Perhaps the ISS is just enough of a destination to kick start private industry, or hold over until Bigelow modules are ready. Perhaps not. Perhaps Bigelow will fail. I don't know.

I do know, however, that Constellation was not a road to making many of the projects in this thread happen: not telescopes on the moon, not moon industry, not Mars settlement, etc.

Embrace change! :)

[Jimbo07]

*bump*

This just in:

Another Apollo astronaut supports Obama's plan. (http://www.space.com/news/apollo-astronauts-split-obama-space-plan-100518.html)

After Cernan and Armstrong gave their testimony opposing Obama's plan, I read comments from people on the web which went so far as to accuse Aldrin (who supports it) of being Obama's lackey! Now, Schweickart's name can be added to Aldrin's in support of the plan.

I think that this is another signal that this is the right direction. I don't mean specifically the number two as in, "my team is catching up." Rather, I mean that the public positions are divided. Maybe a real dialog is about to start regarding the direction of human spaceflight in the United States, and inevitably, by extension, its international partners. This would be a dialog, not a commission, but a very serious exchange by legends and media personalities.

Obama is forcing a public conversation that should have been had in 2004 when Bush decided to retire the shuttle. It's a conversation that should have been had a decade earlier as the Clinton administration was implementing the ISS program (with the Russians, as opposed to Reagan's Freedom). What should be done? How should it be done? Even: why should it be done?

I wish spaceflyers (esp. retired) in my country would come out with equally passionate statements. I wish my country would come out with a space vision, rather than limply paying a chump change sum and playing a "me too" role on projects like the ISS. I recall as Constellation got going that some wanted the Canadian contribution to Orion to be another robot arm. Great... the one thing that wasn't in the specs! Good job boys...

:boxedin: