NASA's moon plan too ambitious, Obama panel says

[Pneumothorax]

Originally posted by: 1prophet

.... despite the fact that this Nation's own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole...

John F. Kennedy - September 12, 1962

[/quote]

Corrected for 2009

.... our illegal alien/welfare population is currently doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole...

So sad where we're headed...

 

[Genx87]

What exactly does going back to the Moon do for us?!?!?!?!?
I'd rather they spent the money on tracking objects in space in the event one may hit us.
Mars is a more interesting and justifiable project.

 

[Brovane]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Brovane

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: ericlp
Sadly, I see a dim future of NASA. Obama doesn't want to spend money and bush hardly gave them any money to work with but Obama is giving them even LESS.

So, once the space shuttle get's mothballed and Hubble burns up and falls back into earth orbit because we can no longer maintain it. It's gonna be a long and bumpy road unless Obama pulls his head out of his ass and gives them more money. Maybe the next election who knows.

Bush gave NASA decent increases.

Hubble should have been dropped a long time ago as it would be far cheaper to build a new better hubble and replace it, than to send the shuttle up to fix it.

Well they are working on a replacement. The James Webb space telescope. However you do bring up some interesting observations about space telescopes and there cost. I have seen some estimates for the Overwhelmingly Large Telescope (100m) would cost around 1-1.5Billion dollars. This telescope could detect objects 1000 times fainter than Hubble. For visible light telescopes I wonder if it is better to invest in ground based telescopes because of the high cost of space based telescopes at this present time? It seems like the great strides in adaptive objects is allowing these telescopes to get incredible resolution even through the Atmosphere. I understand for some observations outside the visible light spectrum nothing can beat a space telescope.

The james webb is not a replacement as it does not going to work in the visible light spectrum.

The more accurate term is successor. The James Webb is the successor to hubble.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6645179.stm

 

[BurnItDwn]

I think now that people know about the plan to use clones to mine the Helium 3, thus never needing to train new staff, that this plan will not go through.

 

[rudder]

Originally posted by: Genx87
What exactly does going back to the Moon do for us?!?!?!?!?
I'd rather they spent the money on tracking objects in space in the event one may hit us.
Mars is a more interesting and justifiable project.

It will be decades before we can even think about a manned mars mission. The roundtrip is just too long for the human body to endure.

The Chinese will have an established presence on the moon long before then. I think we should just try to keep up with them technologicially. Whoddathunkit. Being sarcastic for now. But the Chinese have a vision and can get it done.

The problem with NASA is its run by our government and for some reason the most incompetent people are put in charge to manage the operations.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: PieIsAwesome
Why is it that this was done 40 years ago but cannot be done now?

Because people are self centered now. They don't care about the country as a whole or what the USA does as long as their personal life isn't affected. When Kennedy announced going to the moon in the 1960's people were proud it was something we were doing, they got excited.

Now all we do is bitch about how much we each are getting and pride in the USA is gone. We never do anything anymore as a nation, it is all about the individual now.


Look at how hard people worked at building the first nuclear bombs. Yes it was wartime, but they still accomplished massive projects on a tremendous scale. Look at projects like Hoover Dam, Empire state Building or even the interstate system. None of that would get done now, people would spend too much time trying to figure out how they could get their cut for anything to be done.

 

[Fern]

We really seem to be floundering around on this.

I don't think we've successfully moved past the whole manned or unmaned question, not really anyway.

So far it seems we moving to manned because it's more 'interesting' to the general public; I think that's a pretty poor basis for a decision.

I think we should chose based on our agreed upon objective; but this highlights the fact that we don't have one. What do we want to do?

Looks to me like we've chosen manned and are now flopping around trying to figure a mission for them. Stupid IMO.

What do we want to do? I can think of several things I'd like the experts to consider:

-An off-world platform for future launches. Seems to me a low/no gravity platform would be immensely helpful. Should this be a space elevator, an atrificial satellite or the moon?

- Creating a beter spaceship for longer trips (like Mars where the current round-trip is estimated to be about 18 months). could work on speed, safety, comfort, efficiency etc.

- Propulsion systems. Similar to above, but whether manned or unmanned seems to me we could benefit from faster, more reliable efficient systems. Let's consider building some exotic systems and testing them.

- How about working on an inertial dampening system. That's one of our big problems in any manned Mars trip - why it takes so long.

- Heavy lift vehicle. If we're gonna build any bases, whether on artifical platforms or the moon, we'll need some vehicle/rocket to lift the heavy materials needed. We don't have one ATM.

- Do we wanna mine anything on the moon, or anywhere else?

- Do we want to fool around with colonized bases?

What? IDK, but I wish they could settle on something that sounds good to most of us giving a direction and then get started on it. We've already had 12 Americans walk the moon, and another 12 who were there but stayed inside. Sending more to walk around gathering rocks seems like a big waste and a 'yawn' to me.

Fern

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: piasabird
The moon would make a good launching platform. It has low gravity so it would take less effort to launch from there. There is not much atmosphere so it might also make a good location to put up a telescope or even used to spy on the earth or to get views of storms. It is innovation and scientific discoveries that will bring a brighter future. It might be that the moon may have some good sources of raw materials of some kind that we do not know of. I would rather waste money on space exploration than on government programs.

I agree 100%. The moon would be a great launching platform.
Just one thing though, that I don't think you or anyone else touting the "launch platform" idiocy have thought about: launch what? Just what is it on the moon that we're going to gather and launch? Are you dreaming about building a moon base & mining minerals on the moon to build space craft there to launch from the moon? Perhaps you and others suggesting this should stop and think about the infrastructure necessary to produce the necessary components on Earth. And, then consider that you need the additional infrastructure of keeping people alive there while they're doing it.

Your suggestion for a place to "spy on the earth" - the Hubble Space telescope cannot resolve small enough to see the flag planted on the moon by the astronauts of Apollo 11. What makes you think they're going to be able to spy on the Earth from the Moon? Furthermore, there ARE better places for telescopes than on Earth (depending on the application) - the Lagrangian points. The James Webb Space Telescope will be placed in orbit around L2. If the completely built DSCVR satellite ever gets off the ground, that's supposed to be placed at L1 between the earth and the sun. The perfect place to observe how much of the sun's energy is absorbed by the earth and how much is emitted. Gee, NASA could use that satellite to answer questions about global warming definitively. Who could ask for a better scientific question to be answered by NASA so easily?

As far as observing storms on Earth, think about it. A lower Earth orbit satellite is much more suited for something like that, else several geostationary satellites (or several orbiting satellites.) Here's what the forecast would sound like based on a telescope on the moon. "A hurricane is in the Gulf of Mexico. We'll update you on this story in about 24 hours when the Earth completes another spin on its axis." (Yes, I know, it'd be less than 24 hours.)

As far as raw materials being mined on the moon and brought back to Earth - that's nothing more than wishful thinking. Think about the few hundred pounds of moon rocks that HAVE been brought back from the moon. How much did it cost to accomplish that? With a possible exception of He3 (and I really doubt that), there's nothing there of any value; certainly without a value that isn't eclipsed by a factor of 1000 the cost to get it back to the Earth.

 

[Chunkee]

I do not think Obama has any school buds or in pocket friends that work there...?

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Colonization of space could help to ease the population burdens of Earth in the future, just as the discovery of America helped ease a bulging Europe's population. We just need to find (or terraform) habitable worlds and develop the means to get there. Currently, NASA is our best hope in this effort.

Find, we may be able to do within a decade or so. Get there? That's laughable. We're nowhere close to getting out of this solar system. I'll use my analogy to crossing over water. Imagine there's a stream that you need to cross without getting your feet wet. You get a few rocks and toss them into the stream at convenient locations, and manage to step across. You then arrive at a vast ocean, spanning 1000's of miles. You want to get across the ocean. Your rock technology is NOT going to get you across. Likewise, we do not have the technology to get humans out of the solar system. Sure, we can put down more rocks and get across wider streams, or even rivers in the case of traveling to Mars, but it accomplishes nothing in the big picture.

As far as easing the population burdens of Earth, that's similar to the thinking that if something bad is about to happen to this planet, these colonies would allow us a place to go. Absolute nonsense. We have no way of getting any quantities of people off this 3rd rock from the sun. Think about how much energy & resources that go into a single Space Shuttle launch. That's less than a dozen people. And, they *barely* get off this rock - they're in a low Earth orbit (200 miles?) & not even near geostationary orbits (22,300 miles above the earth). Think about that... Think about how many shuttle launches it would take just to empty the population of my little town (about 700). I'll make it even better - you can exclude the Amish who wouldn't go. Ease the population burden??! Not with any technology that has ever been invented. Sending men to the moon, using our existing technologies (or re-inventing those technologies) aboard solid fuel rockets is NOT going to advance our technology in that direction, just as driving cars does not cause the invention of sailboats. Regardless of propulsion system, certain physical laws still apply - conservation of energy. And it will take energy to get any person with mass away from the Earth. Lots of energy.

 

[DrPizza]

I'm all for extra funding for NASA. Exploration is wonderful - but there is no need for manned exploration. Robots can do it better and cheaper. Furthermore, there are a lot of potential important scientific "things" that NASA can do, but can't because of a low budget. How about scanning the heavens for rocks that might send us the way of dinosaurs? How about actually figuring out what to do & planning for it, should we find a rock that might become smashed into the side of the Earth 50 years down the road. (The sooner such an object is discovered, the simpler the solution/less energy it takes to save the planet.) The recent collision with a presumed comet & Jupiter, creating a blemish on that planet the size of the Earth should be a wake-up that maybe, just maybe we should be using the technology *that we already have* to spot these things before it may be too late.

Global warming? Look at the debates here. Look at the debates in government. How about actually measuring it from space and knowing definitively if it's happening? The satellite to do so has already been built, but was moth-balled by the Bush administration. That's another valuable NASA mission. There are many others that have benefits for our society. There will probably be plenty of spin-off technologies that will benefit us all. But unmanned/robotic missions are just as likely to result in those spin-off technologies. (Well, perhaps not tempurpedic mattresses - robots can work 24hours a day without needing to rest, eat, make calls to their family back home, complain about living conditions, etc.)

 

[JSt0rm]

I was listening to npr the other day and the guy (don't remember his name) was talking about how flying deep space missions like out to the gravitational null point could yield good science and not cost nearly as much as doing the moon base thing right now but still be a step forward to mars.

 

[CaptnKirk]

I always was on the impression that not placing the ET Tanks into a long term parking orbit was a mistake on the part of NASA.
Once you have raised the Shuttle to the altitude on orbital insertion, you already have the tank positioned for parking.
When the ET is jettisoned, there are some 10K LH & 5K LOX remaining in the tank section.
A small regenerator motor could use that fuel to place the tank into an orbit below that of Hubble.

Each tank has forward and aft cover plates for manufacturing access, and could easily be joined into cells consisting of the component.
27.6 foot diameter chambers with an ogive end O2 mated to the aft H2 tank of another.
L2 tank is 54.5 long, H2 is 97 ft.

Pressurized, insulated, multi chambered, joinable into a large revolving, dockable
temporary space port with quarters.

3 at each end corming a triangle
6 around the ring alternately joining each triangle section.

12 tanks form a cluster.

We've thrown awway over a hundred, and there are only 7 left.

 

[Jeff7]

Wow, lots of DrPizza in this thread.

Originally posted by: DrPizza
I'm all for extra funding for NASA. Exploration is wonderful - but there is no need for manned exploration. Robots can do it better and cheaper. Furthermore, there are a lot of potential important scientific "things" that NASA can do, but can't because of a low budget. How about scanning the heavens for rocks that might send us the way of dinosaurs?

Of course, this is a species encompassing a substantial number of people who willfully engage in activities that WILL result in health problems, such as drug use/abuse. An asteroid is a remote possibility....and people also have a very tenuous understanding of mathematics, much less statistics. Of course, that one in a billion chance would also quite possibly cause devastation unlike anything any human has ever seen, perhaps with the exception of those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And of course, people like seeing other people out there. If they see robots, it only serves to remind the average person just how uneducated they are when they see exceptionally advanced machines doing incredible things.

How about actually figuring out what to do & planning for it, should we find a rock that might become smashed into the side of the Earth 50 years down the road. (The sooner such an object is discovered, the simpler the solution/less energy it takes to save the planet.) The recent collision with a presumed comet & Jupiter, creating a blemish on that planet the size of the Earth should be a wake-up that maybe, just maybe we should be using the technology *that we already have* to spot these things before it may be too late.

And of course, we such at planning ahead. Hell, look at politics - a new president is elected, and within a month or two, people are complaining that the economy isn't fixed. Launch a gravity tractor spacecraft toward an asteroid, and they'll be calling to save money and scrub the mission after two weeks, because the threat will still be present.

Global warming? Look at the debates here. Look at the debates in government. How about actually measuring it from space and knowing definitively if it's happening? The satellite to do so has already been built, but was moth-balled by the Bush administration. That's another valuable NASA mission. There are many others that have benefits for our society. There will probably be plenty of spin-off technologies that will benefit us all. But unmanned/robotic missions are just as likely to result in those spin-off technologies. (Well, perhaps not tempurpedic mattresses - robots can work 24hours a day without needing to rest, eat, make calls to their family back home, complain about living conditions, etc.)

Knowledge could prove some people wrong, and we can't have that now, can we?


I also like the idea of robotic missions because it helps the entire field of robotics, specifically robotic intelligence. The Mars Exploration Rovers, simple as their computers are, are now much smarter than they were upon launch. They can now detect things like slippage, using another new feature: Optical odometry. They can also be given a distant target, drive themselves to it, and then position the instrumentation arm properly. Upon launch, they couldn't do that.
And even so, these are machines (still) operating on another planet, able to drive themselves around obstacles, and able to lock onto a distant target, visually, and move to it in a safe manner.

I see much more automation in store for the manufacturing sector. A lot of simple machines can enable some mass production, but there are still certain industries where humans are still needed. As robots become more intelligent and more nimble in terms of what materials they can manipulate, even more menial jobs will be performed by machines.

And I have a feeling that this industrial revolution will be just as significant and substantial as the first two.

Originally posted by: cwjerome
I disagree that the military we have now is bankrupting us... as a % of the GDP or budget, it's not out of the ordinary. That's not to say it couldn't be cut though. It should be.

I'm all for more money going towards NASA but Jeff7's little rant was not well thought out.

It was called a pipe dream. Yes, I know, humans love to attack and kill each other, and dominate other little nations. It's what we do best, it seems. And without our military, others would probably have tried to do just that to us.
It'd be nice if that were NOT the case, if people could stop being such primitive, petty, unevolved, uncompassionate shitheads. The Cold War's arms race was a fine example of the idiocy. Great, so we have the firepower to kill every last person on the planet five times over. Wonderful! That's progress! Oh hell, let's go for ten times! You can never kill your enemy enough.

So many resources over the ages have been diverted simply to defending us against ourselves - and we still like to call ourselves "intelligent" and "civilized." Yet we fight over the simplest, stupidest things, usually dominance, perceived scarcity of resources, or ideologies. For far too many people, the value of life is only high for people on your own side of the border. Everyone else is simply in your way, and disposable.

It's a shame that that's how it is; it's a shame that those resources could not be used for the advancement of the species, rather than continually searching for new and innovative ways to hold it back.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
-snip-
I also like the idea of robotic missions because it helps the entire field of robotics, specifically robotic intelligence.

I think that's a good point, and, as you say, may have substantial commercial benefits.

Fern