NASA Ends Plan To Put Man Back On Moon 460
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from The Times Online: "NASA has begun to wind down construction of the rockets and spacecraft that were to have taken astronauts back to the Moon — effectively dismantling the US human spaceflight programme despite a congressional ban on its doing so. Legislators have accused President Obama's administration of contriving to slip the termination of the Constellation programme through the back door to avoid a battle on Capitol Hill."
Good (Score:4, Insightful)
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The problem is, with whatever-will-replace-the-Shuttle system scrapped... we've got nothing capable of docking at IIS left. There's a few contractor projects in development so that problem will be solved shortly, but right now there's a void. If we can't maintain IIS without serious help, then just how are we going to build anything on top of that project? Some plans for a moon base would use IIS as a staging area... but if that project goes the way of SkyLab... just what is NASA exploring again?
Re:Good (Score:4, Funny)
The problem is, with whatever-will-replace-the-Shuttle system scrapped... we've got nothing capable of docking at IIS left.
I don't think IIS is involved. Its the International Space Station.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
So...the Japanese and Europeans have NOT built modules attached to it?
Re:Good (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Good (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Good (Score:5, Funny)
Societal Fractal (Score:4, Funny)
The old ________ has finally caught up with itself and now without the ________ we must pay the penance for its mistakes and not having proper plans afterwards.
There, generalized that for you.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:NOT Good (Score:5, Interesting)
We currently have our multi-core, 64-bit processors and 8+GB of RAM in our computers at affordable prices only because of AMD and Intel rivalry for the almighty dollar. If AMD never existed, Intel would never needed to develop the technology they currently use.
I believe you are unwittingly making the opposite point you were trying to. You are describing the virtues of competition in a free market. This bears no resemblance to the Constellation projects, which are (like the Shuttle) a government run development program. Government is good at stimulating early-stage tech industries with its purchasing power (especially the computing industry, from punched cards to supercomputers), but developing those technologies itself? When has a government ever been good at that?
Compare: Ares was projected to cost in excess of $40B to develop. [wikipedia.org] SpaceX with a few hundred million dollars of funding has developed the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9, both of which have now gone to orbit. We are talking about a few orders of magnitude difference in development cost. Ares would have cost more per pound to LEO than the Space Shuttle it's replacing. Why are people arguing to keep it?
NASA needs to hire companies like SpaceX to get astronauts into orbit. It needs to focus its technologies on what lies beyond: Interplanetary-capable craft, in-situ resource utilization on the Moon or Mars, automated precursor missions, and so on. All of this is consistent with what Obama's proposing. Nobody is proposing the end of manned spaceflight. There's a lot that needs to get done, and shelling out the majority of NASA's budget for a new rocket to get people into Low Earth Orbit, when much cheaper commercial alternatives exist, is a plan only a Senator from Alabama could love.
Good Riddance (Score:5, Funny)
The moon, you see, is a harsh mistress.
YEAHHHHHHHH!
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Unless we can set up a colony there, it just isn't worth it.
The moon, you see, is a harsh mistress.
But what if they start throwing rocks?
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he moon, you see, is a harsh mistress.
The wife is worse when she finds out you have a mistress.
Good (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
If nothing else, the Constellation program will have served the useful purpose of distracting ATK and other folks who were milking the program away from the shuttle long enough for that obsolete program to be shut down gracefully. Management at ATK has been hinting that the company will virtually shut down without Ares or the shuttle. Memo from Free Enterprise to ATK management: if you depend on a single customer to sustain your company, you deserve to go bankrupt.
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Can but won't. Saying a heavy lifter will be chosen in 2015 is doublespeak for never. If NASA was really meant to send somebody somewhere it would have most likely only meant Ares-I gets canceled and serious Ares-V development begins.
(allow me to recycle a comment of mine from a few days ago)
You don't need a heavy lifter for space exploration. In fact, it just eats up the funds you'd need for actual exploration. There's a reason that each of the times that a country has developed a heavy lift rocket in the past it's been canceled after a handful of launches due to being far too expensive. Heck, the US's and world's current heaviest launcher, the Delta IV Heavy, has only been launched 3 times in the 6 years it's existed, and it's much sm
An easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
If Congress is really mad that the Obama administration is shutting down the moon program, then there is a simple way they can handle the situation. They can vote to fully fund NASA's programs. So far, all I hear from Congresscritters is lip service. If they really want to send humans back to the moon, then show us the money. Talk is cheap. Space hardware is not.
Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
It's all about money. (Score:3, Insightful)
People act like any measures taken now determine the future of the American space program forever. The budget is what it is. If NASA needs to focus on less expensive methods of exploration, that doesn't mean it will be that way forever. If it's a major setback, that's unfortunate. It doesn't change the financial health of the country, however.
Re:It's all about money. (Score:4, Insightful)
If not us, who? If not now, when?
There's a "use it or lose it" concept with government money. If your project fails, it's likely to never get funded again. If the project comes in under budget, the amount it didn't need gets subtracted from next year's budget. Basically, if there's no funding for it now... it's pretty easy to assume it may never be funded again.
Re:It's all about money. (Score:5, Insightful)
Space dominance for welfare is a fair trade, but when the 'defence' budget is over 700 billion, with no actual threats to american soil. Makes you wonder if that money couldn't be directed to more useful things.
Re:It's all about money. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, no threats so long as you ignore the three thousand lives we lost, the two towers and several buildings around them, and a chunk of the Pentagon. No actual threats indeed.
Yeah, and a multi-billion-dollar strategic fighter jet or a missile defense shield is exactly what's needed to fight that kind of threat...
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Perhaps if you weren't forcing your political will on other countries at gunpoint, your three thousand people and your little toy buildings would still be around today.
Been there, done that. (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with political oversight (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The problem with political oversight (Score:4, Insightful)
Highly biased article (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Highly biased article (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep. There's a reason why some folks referred to Ares as Porklauncher I.
I cringed when I heard Alalbama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, say the launch of Falcon 9 as a display merely replicating what "NASA accomplished in 1964." I guess he forgot that Ares IX didn't even accomplish that -- nor even equalling the accomplishment of the 1960 flight of Mercury-Redstone 1A. Ares IX took an extra shuttle SRB (not the actual 5-segment solid booster planned for Ares I), avionics from an Atlas V, and a leftover roll-control system from a Peacekeeper missile. This Frankenrocket was topped with a fake 2nd stage and capsule and was a suborbital plink.
Falcon 9 had a fully new 2-stage rocket with all the pieces -- engines, avionics, control -- in place except a payload, and it achieved orbit to within a high degree of accuracy on its first flight. And the whole Falcon 9 development program came for less than the cost of JUST the Ares I Mobile Service Tower [spaceref.com].
The sooner the Constellation work ends the sooner NASA can start spending that money on something that will get us somewhere.
Oh, the irony! (Score:4, Insightful)
[blockquote]An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from The Times Online:[/blockquote]
Isn't it odd that these days, more and more, Americans have to find out what their government is doing from foreign newspapers?
It was too easy (Score:4, Insightful)
Going to the moon now would have been Apollo all over again, with little to gain. The moon has been done and we should leave it to commercial and new scientific activity now.
If we, as a species, want a project of comparable difficulty (compared to Apollo from the 1960 perspective) then we should send a human crew to Titan.
But the problem is how to fund it. The cold war and the US taxpayer funded Apollo. The Soviet people helped in their own unique way, by showing how not to do it. A new space program would have to be a global exercise, with contributions from many countries. If we decide to have just one war less then finding the money should not be a problem.
For a couple of decades we have been avoiding an important question: why do we want human beings to go into space? We should think hard and come up with some answers pronto.
Re:It was too easy (Score:5, Insightful)
"The moon has been done?"
Hardly. The moon is the next logical stepping stone to everywhere else we want to go in the solar system.
Maybe the US will wake up when China lands a man on the moon.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
...but then you gave a few examples which have nothing to do with going to the moon. The idea of stepping stones comes from our recent experience on Earth where the places we were going to already had resources we could use (air, water, food). Space isn't like that. The rules are different. If you want an analogy imagine us as the first humans leaving Africa, but going to Antarctica instead.
The moon was a logical step which we have gone beyond. There is no point going back down a 2km/s gravity well for the
Re:It was too easy (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps, but none of those things are time sensitive. China, Japan, India should all be capable of sending a man to the moon in short order, and as an American, I'm happy to see them be able to do so. I don't think it detracts from what we've accomplished, nor do I feel the need to send someone up there right now just to beat them back there. Why? I see no problem with sharing and/or helping other countries be able to reach the stars. Reaching other planets like Mars, would be best served as a cooperative move from many nations, not just one.
Just shoot another one. (Score:5, Funny)
They should just shoot another Moon landing footage on a studio lot in Burbank. That should be enough for another 40 years of national bravado.
Except this time we'll do it in 3-D and put it on Pay-Per-View with heavy product placement. Doritos Moonwalk? Why Not?
Robots (Score:4, Insightful)
NASA FAQ on new direction (Score:5, Informative)
To attempt to head off common misconceptions about NASA's new plans (like those in the article summary), I'll go ahead and post the contents of an FAQ straight from the source. Also, it's important to note that the new budget -increases- the amount of money for NASA.
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/new_space_enterprise/home/faq.html [nasa.gov]
This section contains answers to frequently asked questions about NASA's exploration mission and its associated programs and projects following the 2011 Budget Rollout.
Why is the Administration proposing a new direction for Human Space Exploration?
In May of last year, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) tasked an independent committee with reviewing U.S. human space flight plans and activities, with the goal of ensuring that our nation is pursuing the best trajectory in this arena - one that is safe, innovative, affordable, and sustainable. While the committee did determine that the Constellation Program was technically sound, they found it to be "be on an unsustainable trajectory" because it NASA was "perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources." In other words, the budget did not support the Constellation architecture.
What is better about the new approach?
The new approach proposed by the Administration focuses long term investments on the fundamental capabilities required for human space flight beyond Low Earth Orbit, but that we currently lack. The plan calls for technology development in areas like propulsion, in-orbit propellant storage, automated and autonomous rendezvous and docking, advanced closed-loop life support, and tele-robotic operations. It also increases funding in NASA's human research program, allowing us to better understand the potentially harmful effects the space environment might have on people and how we can best mitigate them. Most importantly, this approach is financially sustainable.
Does this mean that NASA has given up on returning to the moon?
Absolutely not. In fact, recent discoveries of water on the moon have made it more scientifically interesting that ever before. Our focus in the near term will be discovery through robotic missions, such as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, followed by robotic precursor missions, to scout the terrain for the eventual return of humans.
Why is turning over a portion of human spaceflight to commercial industry a good idea?
NASA has already committed a significant investment to commercially provided space flight services. Almost all of our satellites and many science missions are launched commercially. In addition, we recently contracted with commercial companies to carry cargo to the International Space Station commercially. The next natural step is for NASA to buy commercial flights for our astronauts to the ISS. This will free up NASA to pursue the greater challenges in the way of a trip to Mars.
Exploration Systems was the directorate that managed the Constellation program. What will its role be under the new plan?
Under the new plan the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) will be responsible for many research and development programs including exploration technology and demonstrations, heavy lift and propulsion technology, exploration precursor robotic missions, and human research. In addition, ESMD will manage the commercial crew and cargo spaceflight programs.
Ariane ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ariane ? (Score:4, Informative)
The US has several off-the-shelf medium/heavy lifters such as the Delta 4 Heavy that can put up to 20 tonnes into orbit similar to the Ariane V. What they don't have (and nobody else has) is a superheavy lifter capable of carrying a 70-tonnes plus payload which is needed to perform the one-shot-to-the-Moon mission envisaged for Constellation (with a separate crew flight). However there are problems man-rating an existing lifter; the flight profile needs to be configured so that the maximum acceleration at any point in the flight is tolerable to the Spam-in-a-can plus a lot of other factors such as safety and abort flight modes and hardware mods.
ESA is preparing to buy and fly Soyuz spacecraft from their Guiana spaceport, initially to carry unmanned payloads such as the Progress ISS supply capsule. The Soyuz design is already man-rated and well-proven (over 1700 flights) and it wouldn't take much upgrading to add a manned spaceflight capability to the ESA catalogue based on the Soyuz.
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Launchers_Home/SEMFFUZO0WF_0.html
There are 2 different arguments being raised here (Score:5, Informative)
The first is from those who say "ending Constellation will cost jobs in my state" (i.e. those who just want more pork thrown their way and more lobbying money from the contractors) and who wont accept any option other than the status quo.
The second argument is from those (including various astronauts etc) who say that the alternatives proposed by Obama will leave America without manned space flight capability for too long (forcing the US to buy expensive seats on a Soyuz to get to the ISS). They claim that the "commercial providers" Obama wants will not be able to deliver a manned booster/capsule fast enough (and have zero experience with manned booster/capsule production). This group is open to alternatives to the current program, just not the (currently non existent) alternatives Obama wants.
We're not going anywhere... (Score:5, Insightful)
... until we come up with a space propulsion system better than the rockets and ion drives that we currently have. Despite the talk, putting humans in a tin can for 3 years 30 million miles from earth is not realistic for medical or psychological reasons. Unless a system can be developed that can get people and materials around the solar system in months rather than years or decades then we can forget about colonising or exploiting it in any realistic manner.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The moon is three days away. We've been there and we should go back.
The reasons aren't just financial and the technology gains we've made in space exploration have more than paid the costs. The US economy has ridden on the shirt tails of the space program for decades and cutting off funding for critical research is myopic and will be detrimental to future economic growth. The problem has been the bureaucracy that is NASA and while I applaud the efforts to privatize most of LEO stuff, there still needs to
NASA - Constellation person here (Score:5, Informative)
It is interesting, to say the least, to see non-NASA people's opinions on this issue, and moreover, to see people's opinions who are technically minded but outside of NASA. As someone working on Constellation at NASA, I am living this issue every day, and have been living it for months now. There is lots of misinformation on this thread, and lots of opinions I disagree with. I won't take the time to really respond to any of them, but in the case of the former, it's entirely understandable considering the poor communication coming out of NASA (both in general and on this specific issue) as well as the poor quality of news reporting as it relates to spaceflight (and by extension, nearly everything technical in nature). In the case of the latter, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Mine is that we need to get society off this rock as soon as possible and establish a permanent self-sustaining settlement on another one as a means of risk mitigation against the various calamities that could destroy human civilization. Second, I feel it should be us (the United States) because someone is going to do it - it will happen eventually. That point should not be up for debate. For us to sit around spending money on things like wars and bailouts instead of continuing the role as the leader in space is, in my humble opinion, short sighted. But I digress.
The one thing I will say is that Constellation is not dead - yet. It's had its head cut off by reassignment of the program manager. It's been dealt a tough blow most recently with HQ telling the prime contractors (Lockheed, ATK, Oceaneering) that they need to put money into reserve for contract termination liability - the costs associated with winding down a contract. Typically this contract clause is never enforced, and especially not at this time of the year. Our fiscal year ends on Sept 30. These contract termination liability costs now represent about 50% of the money left in the budget for this fiscal year, which essentially means that things need to be cut to the bone to get there. Many people feel that enforcing this clause is a pretty shady way of circumventing Congress and the law, because until Congress signs a new budget or specifically tells NASA to stop working on Constellation, NASA is legally obligated to continue working on it as the program of record. By enforcing this clause, it could be construed as circumventing this legal process. If a budget agreement is not found by the end of the fiscal year (and that is looking more and more likely), then NASA gets a continuing resolution - the same money allocated the same way for next year as it was this year. So hypothetically, NASA could pick back up with this "new money" and continue working on Constellation.
That being said, for months now, before this contract termination issue came up, most of the different Constellation projects (Orion, suit, etc) have been working to try to scale back design, remove Lunar content, accelerate the schedule, reduce scope, etc to try to "bridge the gap" between what Congress says they should be doing and what HQ and the executive branch says they should be doing.
Lastly, I think that most people at NASA don't necessarily have a problem with Obama's general plan for NASA - they have a problem with its lack of specificity, lack of a concrete goal, lack of a timeline. I get the feeling that if Obama came back and said he wants to cancel Constellation, come up with a new heavy lifter (both things he has said before) but also that the goal is to establish a human presence on "X" surface "Y" years from now, more people might get on board.
Free market v. Government isn't the issue (Score:4, Interesting)
The first problem with the libertarian argument is that free markets exploit only that which is profitable. Discovering that which is profitable is often a thing done by or for governments. If you look at the history of innovation over the past hundred years, almost all of it would have been impossible without the direct involvement of government. The computer was developed for the defense industry, as were rockets, jet propulsion, modern nuclear physics, refrigeration, microwaves, radio, the list goes on and on.
Lately the profit motive behind going to space has been more or less limited to tourism. A visit to the moon by NASA, especially an extended manned one with the intention of exploiting the moon's natural resources and discovering the problems of long-term hostile-environment extraplanetary colonization could provide the very sort of research that would create a profit motive for private industry to exploit the moon.
The second problem with the libertarian argument is that the companies developing these technologies already are private industry, they are merely funded by the government.
The third problem is the cost. If you compare government spending in any given year, 3bn is a drop in the bucket, but it's a drop in the bucket that could result in MEN WALKING ON THE FREAKIN' MOON. What part about MEN WALKING ON THE MOON did you miss?
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Re:Look for the upside (Score:5, Insightful)
> If the return on the investment was actually knowable...
I know the US was the undisputed tech leader during the NASA era. We aren't anymore. Correlation doesn't always mean causation but in this case it almost certainly does.
> Discovery is not going anywhere. In the meantime, the neighbors' kids are hungry and sick.
Uh huh. By that 'logic' we wouldn't spend a dime on any R&D until we had made the world a utopia where nobody was ever wanting for anything. But of course we don't have the wealth to even attempt such a thing and the sort of socialism needed to try would destroy the world's productive economies. R&D is the way out you fool. We can argue whether we should be spending our R&D on space, safe nuke plants, green bullshit or whatever but saying R&D can't happen until we have heaven on Earth is a sign of a unserious person.
> Yes, that is EVERYONE'S responsibility. If you disagree, save up your cash, and please go live on the Moon.
No it isn't everyone's responsibility. First off, care to explain why society shouldn't be telling prospective parents "If you can't feed em, don't breed em!" I don't object to private charity to help those who have the unusual/unexpected happen to them but I do object when the State trys to do it. For they always make things worse, creating an entitlement mentality such as you exhibit.
And if we could, many of us WOULD go to the moon to escape the sort of civilizational suicide folks such as yourself represent. But we can't. After all, even Columbus's three ships (fully equiped and manned) represented the sort of inventment few private sources could have managed and space, for now, is a lot bigger job. Of course the potential rewards are equally greater if we but had the imagination to seize it.
Going to the moon and then losing the will to plant a colony will almost certainly be remembered as the moment our civilization failed. It would be like Moses leading his people to the Promised Land, them looking over the mountain and saying, "Nah, too hard we are going back to Egypt."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh huh. By that 'logic' we wouldn't spend a dime on any R&D until we had made the world a utopia where nobody was ever
No, just the R&D that costs trillions with no foreseeable return. There is nothing even remotely as expensive as space exploration. It's not the same as spending $500 million curing a disease. That's a bargain. There are no bargains in space... it's all retail x1000.
No it isn't everybody's responsibility.
Yeah, it is. And you agree or you would stop paying Social Security. Unless you're a hypocrite. Or a coward.
And if we could, many of us WOULD
Buuuuuut this is reality, and you can't. And even if you could, trust me, it would suck. Space really sucks. A Moon colony would on
Re:Look for the upside (Score:5, Insightful)
No, just the R&D that costs trillions with no foreseeable return.
There are plenty of returns [thespaceplace.com] for all the R&D even ignoring our eventual need to expand beyond this planet.
Re:Look for the upside (Score:4, Insightful)
There are definitely some things we learned from the space race we probably wouldn't have learned nearly as quickly other wise. But we are past that. There should be diminishing returns technically from near earth limited space exploration like any other technology. The automatic justification should be revoked and hard ROI criteria should be set for any future programs of significant costs.
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43+% of the people in the US pay no income taxes, over 50 million of them are families that make over $50,000 a year.
If you're worried about people being sick, reform the FDA and USDA to better regulate what we put into our bodies. Pass laws to reform how much drug companies can overcharge for those antibiotics to recover research costs before they become generics. Pass laws to contain healthcare costs like they do in Canada and the UK who pay much less for the same drugs that we use.
Pass laws that forbid h
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My point is the rather severe problems we have should be attended to before we shoot the Moon. If it was as simple as walking out of a cave, that'd be another story. but it's not like that at all, and your metaphor is not well received.. If you can't imagine yourself in a less fortunate position, there is something wrong.
Re:Look for the upside (Score:5, Insightful)
My point is the rather severe problems we have should be attended to before we shoot the Moon.
The problem with that otherwise insightful meme is that there is a finite sum of money available for all projects and it is suggested that at some point in our future the Earth will be so densely populated that it will take ALL the money just to keep people alive and there will be no spare cash for space exploration. It will also be political suicide to pull the plug on "worthwhile" Earth-bound projects to fund space programs because people will die. At that point we are doomed as a species because we have to get off this rock.
That point may not have arrived yet, but at this point in time we DO have sufficient spare cash to decide to build a base on the moon, and from that experience perhaps Mars next, and we can do that without robbing the money from projects that keep people alive.
It's now or never (for some values of "now").
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at some point in our future the Earth will be so densely populated
I used to be concerned about this when I was in school. I actually attempted to start a movement I called "Get Off the Planet." But then, er, later, I drove across the country a few times. Right now, there is miles and miles, thousands of miles of room. And places like India, and parts of China, where the population is denser than anywhere, we do not see people eating their young. The one possible future of overpopulation is not so bleak as you describe.
When it becomes a real problem, we deal with it. Let
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And libertarians wonder why people think they're crazy.
Re:Look for the upside (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not much into society working towards a common good,
So, you're stuck in the Cro-Magnon, every-man-for-himself era, and completely believe that everyone who ends up on hard times should just be left to rot? I call that being a selfish bastard myself. It's particularly amazing, given this attitude, that your offspring lived to their teens and twenties; from your statements so far, I'd figure you for the sort to let them figure it out after they left the teat.
especially when 1/2 or more of society are worthless shits anyway.
This, I have a hard time figuring out what kind of statistic makes this anywhere near a half-reasonable argument; I can't recall a time where unemployment got anywhere near 50%, or the homeless rate for that matter; and if you go by wages alone, that's not a matter of choice for most anyone who isn't a professional athlete, who can hold out for an extra few million a year. Minimum wage is minimum wage, and if an employer sticks to that as the entry wage regardless, the people are pretty well stuck. This is why labor unions exist, a group of people in a common trade working for the common good, so that people with their skillset don't become the aforementioned worthless shits. Taking the other extreme, the number of people who make significant advances in anything useful, that's been in the range of 0.001% of people, and certainly nowhere near 50% of all those even living now.
That business of society working towards a common good mostly means that hard working people are supporting lazy asses
You mean the undertaxed executives, directors, and the like, who directed needless layoffs to justify employing people in 3rd world countries (by their arguments, to support the people in those countries and the economies there, which by your arguments, is something that is un-Darwinian), or otherwise unjustifiably firing employees just to save a few bucks? Those are hard-working people? Or do you count corporations who rape their employees as people now, since the Supreme Court gave them pretty much the same leeway as you or I would in campaign contributions? Even so, they would be in the minority, and they significantly take advantage of tax breaks issued by the government; I would posit these as in the same class as single mothers taking advantage of tax breaks, who would probably fit in your class of the aforementioned worthless shits of this country, ultimately rendering that argument invalid.
This isn't to say that there aren't those taking advantage of the system; in fact, those that are make a pretty good argument for their inclusion in the species ongoing; they've adapted and survived. But the fact that those people exist does not, by any means, indicate that programs in support of (intentionally or otherwise) disenfranchised people is inherently wrong; and the unsupported figures you present in support of that argument are bigoted and wrong.
Re:Look for the upside (Score:5, Insightful)
federal income taxes != taxes
gas, state and local sales, state income, property, &c
thanks for playing
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federal income taxes != taxes gas, state and local sales, state income, property, &c thanks for playing
Good point. Rich people don't own houses or cars, they don't buy gas, and they never, ever buy anything at stores.
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Virg
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Re:Look for the upside (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Look for the upside (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Look for the upside (Score:5, Insightful)
Social insurance and spaceflight are not mutually exclusive.
I imagine if you swap two wars for a space program, we could be halfway to Mars by now (at least).
Re:Look for the upside (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Look for the upside (Score:5, Informative)
Only if they are defensive wars against other nation states who attacked you. The problem with the US policy is that it attacks others "preemptively" (the very same official reason given by Hitler when he attacked Poland and by Japan when it struck at Pearl Harbor) or attacks nations in pursuit of amorphous non-state entities and on other, flimsiest of excuses all the while pursuing a thinly-veiled strategy of global domination.
In this context "gotta" apparently is a result of a supremacist attitude and total disregard for anything but greed and thirst for power, very like that of a typical citizen of Ancient Rome who too would believe that the Empire just "gotta" expand into those "barbarian" lands to bring "civilization" in exchange for a slight payment of loot and slaves.
In modern times the US exacts a different kind of payment for exporting of its "civilization" but on the altar of its self-declared superiority, the dead just keep piling up all the same.
Re:Look for the upside (Score:4, Insightful)
Gotta fight wars?
Dude, I'm unpopular with a lot of slashdotters for defending the troops. But, really, Iraq wasn't a "gotta fight" war. Afghanistan was, but we've done it all wrong. We should have just done a punitive expedition into Afghanistan, punished the Taliban for harboring Al Queda, then got the hell out. But, nooooo, we have to play some silly game of "nation building".
Aren't we the morons? Those Afghanis have been right there, in the same place, for thousands of years, defying any and all comers - most recently the Soviet. When the invaders go home, those Afghanis just go back to growing poppies, herding goats, and whatever else they do in those hills of theirs.
Gotta fight wars. Crap, I could have fought that Afghan war for less than pennies on the dollar, and avoided the Iraq war altogether.
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But, nooooo, we have to play some silly game of "nation building".
Nation-building isn't a silly game at all, unless you like dealing with unaccountable non-state actors.
Re:Look for the upside (Score:4, Insightful)
Morons like you traded all that for a welfare state
Yes, because you have to be moron to prefer taking care of actual people rather than making big, symbolic, and above all, expensive gestures.
Going to the moon was never more than President Kennedy's dick waving; he wanted to show the world that his testicles were bigger than those of the Soviet leaders, so the US spent huge amounts and took appalling risks with the lives of astronauts in order to plant a flag, using what now seems to be stone-age tools. Big achievement, but not hugely useful in itself; unlike the modest Sputnik, which ushered in the era of satelite communication and all the blessings of Sky TV (oops, there we go on the sarcasm again, sorry about that).
Having a proper, well equipped and well-funded space station would be useful, and a base on the Moon might in time become useful too. I would vote for going to Mars as well, but not in the haphazard way we went to the Moon, and it should ideally involve all nations capable of contributing to the project: the US, China, Russia, India, countries in Europe, and who knows, in South America and Africa as well - it will take many years before we are ready to go to Mars, and hopefully both Africa and S.Am. will have overcome their current struggles by then.
Re:Look for the upside (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason why we can't put men on the Moon is that we never really had that capacity. Yes, we managed to put a few people there at enormous expense, but that was simply not sustainable; technology is only now starting to near the point where maintaining a presence in the Low-Earth Orbit might be.
But, rather than look at the problem and even trying to understand the reasons, you blame it all on the poor not starving as they should, like a right-wing tool you are. Moron.
No, we traded it for walstreet (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry, the money didn't go to welfare, it went to the banks and car companies.
The can-do attitude was replaced with the "can we make a profit on it by swapping stocks around".
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It looks like the U.S. will never get back to the space. I just wonder why they waste so much money on projects they abort soon.
Re:The U.S. then cedes space dominance then? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. All the money is now focused on things to serve the Earth (like a TV relays, spy pictures, or weather data) or serving wealthy earthlings who want to go into something almost zero gravity for a short stay. There's nobody interested in paying for Moon or Mars projects anymore it seems.
Re:The U.S. then cedes space dominance then? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's nobody interested in paying for Moon or Mars projects anymore it seems.
Why be interested in that, when you can keep fighting in silly wars that no-one can win, when you can keep bailing out finance sectors and car manufacturers even though their business models clearly got them into trouble in the first place.
Sorry, my rant toggle must have been on, and I didn't notice.
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Re:The U.S. then cedes space dominance then? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think your rant may have been well placed. With the international treaties against nations laying claim to space objects, and agreements not to send any armed space vehicles, it doesn't allow for war there. On the other hand, if a nation were to do exactly that, they would have the upper hand.
Imagine some rogue nation develops a significant space program, *AND* arms it. There would be no way to defend against it, or for other nations to fight against it. Of course, with the way things usually go, the rogue nation would be the US, swearing to defend the neutrality of space through superior force, and in such stop evil nations from having a space program.
Since we can't militarize space, there's no incentive for military involvement in space, except for spy and communication satellites, which are run happily from the ground.
I've argued quite a bit, if nations of Earth were to stop wasting their resources on crap they are now, we could have a significant space presence, with a strong step towards deep space exploration. We will never learn how to do it unless we work at it. ... and for a car analogy. If we had looked at the M. Brezin car 1769, which could do a whopping 2mph, and said "this is too slow, it will never be worth pursuing", we would still be traveling on foot, horseback, and by horse drawn carriage. Today, we look at space travel and say "it will take too long to get anywhere", so we don't try. 6 months to Mars? Of course it is, we're still in the Bronze Age of space travel. We've discovered a little, but we have an awful long way to go.
Re:The U.S. then cedes space dominance then? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The U.S. then cedes space dominance then? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. All the money is now focused on things to serve the Earth (like a TV relays, spy pictures, or weather data) or serving wealthy earthlings who want to go into something almost zero gravity for a short stay. There's nobody interested in paying for Moon or Mars projects anymore it seems.
No one is interested in the Moon unless we'll build a base there. No one wants to pay for another trip back to the Moon if we're just going to plant the flag and come home again. Been there, done that.
Do something new and different, or don't go at all.
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Re:The U.S. then cedes space dominance then? (Score:4, Interesting)
Besides, there's that whole outer space treaty that makes the moon a neutral zone like Antarctica. Hasn't been too many wars on that continent, and it's a lot nicer than the moon.
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This is fine, until someone else puts a permanent base there.
It should be us who put a permanent base there.
Constellation is not the first step in the process of doing so. It does nothing to help us towards that goal.
The R&D into automated factories and robotic assembly, in-space refuel, cheaper propulsion systems once outside earth's atmosphere, and so on are the first necessary steps.
We should not go back to the moon for a stupid boots-and-flag mission. We already did that; the flag and bootprints
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Repeat the feat? That would just be another waste. If we go back to the mooon at all (and I hope we do) I want to see a BASE STATION built, with personnel stationed there permanently. Hydroponics, mining, extraction of atmospheric gases, as well as water - you know, built a habitat for a few thousand people, then grow it to a few million people.
But, what I REALLY want to see, are manned missions to the Mars and the various moons that might be made habitable with a minimal effort. (Minimal effort, meanin
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Re:The U.S. then cedes space dominance then? (Score:4, Insightful)
It looks like the U.S. will never get back to the space.
I don't quite understand how "Not going to the moon" translates to "Not going to space."
Space is a lot bigger than just the moon. Also wasting money and time trying for human transport to the moon is...a waste. It would be much better used trying to, I dunno, try different things?
I just wonder why they waste so much money on projects they abort soon.
See, I don't get this. It's like saying "Well, we've tossed in billions upon billions of dollars down a hole with no end in sight already, why don't we just toss a few billion more in there?"
They're stopping the program since it's a *waste of money* that's taking away from other viable programs. I don't understand why people want the government to keep throwing money at the same outdated plan in the vain hope that, somehow, with enough money, you'll hit some magic point where the money spent actually becomes economically sound.
Man, shit. Give me 10 million dollars ever year and I'll show you a productive space program. Trust me. I'll always project completion 5 years in the future.
Re:The U.S. then cedes space dominance then? (Score:5, Informative)
It looks like the U.S. will never get back to the space. I just wonder why they waste so much money on projects they abort soon.
Contrary to the prevailing public relations blitz that is being put on by ATK and certain entrenched interests within the D.C. beltway, The United States of America is not ceeding leadership in space to other countries. Instead, the paradigm is changing from that of a central government bureaucracy that is responsible for the financing, acquisition, and planning of such an endeavor to something that is more de-centralized, mostly privately led, and allowing freedom to ordinary individuals to try and get into space.
For commercial spaceflight companies, America simply dominates the rest of the world combined. When I hear of things happening in spaceflight and can compare stuff that is happening elsewhere, there are about two to three times as many companies formed and activities like the creation of a new spaceport than anything happening in the rest of the world. No, I'm not saying that private companies aren't being set up elsewhere and there certainly is something afoot in the European Union too in terms of private efforts for getting into space, but if you want to get into the action and see where the hot activity is taking place, it is currently in America. South-western USA to be exact if you want to know where the bulk of these companies are working at.
Never get into space? I suppose that this flight [spacex.com] was a figment of my imagination. This is hardly the only company going into space, and I don't see vehicle production lines necessarily getting shut down.... except in Utah. I call that simply ATK having a singular problem trying to figure out how to make a profit in the current market rather than a national crisis. Sometimes dinosaurs go extinct too.
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Sending people into space quickly isn't necessary, merely entertaining. It is emphatically NOT exploration.
We REQUIRE robots and remote-operated systems to interact with everything out there anyway, and those are useful on Earth too. We can EXPLORE space and learn at a much better ROI by developing remote-manned systems that don't need life support and won't need to return. Space exploration not being a mission of US conquest, let some other countries spend the money to put humans up. We can do to them what
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the idea of humanity continuing on the moon or Mars is gaining popularity
Really? Maybe if enough people BELIEVE...
Seriously, there is no place on Earth as deadly as the surface of the Moon or Mars. There is no place on Earth that costs as much as a hundredth, maybe a thousandth of the cost of just getting to the Moon, much less Mars, much less staying for any period of time.
These people you speak of... you really think they have any idea of what they're proposing? I'm all for fantasy and imagination, but at the end of the day, no matter how bad the Earth gets, it's exponential
Re:Are we smarter or stupider? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, there is no place on Earth as deadly as the surface of the Moon or Mars. There is no place on Earth that costs as much as a hundredth, maybe a thousandth of the cost of just getting to the Moon, much less Mars, much less staying for any period of time.
The same could have been said of America or Australia from the perspective of Europe, before colonisation.
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The same could have been said of America or Australia from the perspective of Europe, before colonisation.
It could be said, but only incorrectly, since the Europeans were well aware that those places were inhabitable before colonising them. Also, in both cases, there was specific reasons why humans were sent (or went of their own accord). In those days, infections often meant amputation. These days, we are able to cure most infections using penicillin. Similarly, in those days, exploring or exploiting remote, inhospitable locations meant sending humans. These days, we no longer need to send humans to exploit or
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> but at the end of the day, no matter how bad the Earth gets, it's exponentially more comfortable and practical than any other place in the Solar System.
While you are correct as far as your limited imagination goes, ponder these notions:
1. One medium size nickel-iron asteroid has more metal content than pretty much everything we will need for decades. Space has a LOT of resources and there isn't any sort of ecology to worry about despoiling. So do YOU care about the environment? Or are you a poser i
Re:Are we smarter or stupider? (Score:4, Interesting)
2. There's lots of space at the bottom of the ocean. It's a lot less dangerous, and a lot cheaper, too. See my point? Space is a barren hell hole that makes the barren hell holes on Earth a paradise. I don't know what you've heard, but... Space... it's not a nice place.
3. You are mistaken... wrong headed here... it's humanity that is doomed sooner or later, not Earth. Earth is a rock. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Even after the Sun novas, there will still be Earth... just quite a but different than it is now... maybe not all in one place either. People are what matters about Earth, and little else (my cats, too!).
4. The point of housing those that can't afford it is not about economic advancement. It's about being human. You should try it.
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I would guess the deep abyss of certain places in the ocean are more deadly. You have vast amounts of pressure, I'm no rocket surgeon or brain scientist, but I think that's a lot harder to deal with then the vacuum of space. Actually if you were exposed to those pressures you would be crushed and dead instantly, where you could survive at least 20-30 seconds in space and live. Plus there are giant squid.
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Humans aren't fit for space
Humans aren't fit to fly from Australia to Europe in 20 hours at mach 0.8 but somehow we manage to make it routine and safe.
(the satay sticks with peanut sauce in MAS business class are absolutely FTW).
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Re:beginning of the end (Score:4, Interesting)
Absolutely! Particularly enslaved are those unable to work due to, say, debilitating diseases! If only you could convince them to die of starvation quietly, they would truly cast off their yokes of slavery and croak totally free! No?
And then there are those poor over taxed "innovators" like, say, Bill Gates, who wouldn't know innovation if he tripped over it, fell down the stairs pulling it behind him and if it landed on his face with a bone crunching impact. Poor tax molested Billy and his bunch of jolly henchmen! I mean just think how many more poorly thought-out rehashes of technologies and ideas invented in 1960s could we have if he paid less then zero in taxes (since near $0 is what Microsoft and many other pan-national conglomerates already manage quite handsomely as it is)! The mind boggles!
Re:beginning of the end (Score:4, Interesting)
Ya it's too bad that guys that work hard and innovate like Sergey Brin are not in any way financially rewarded in America.
OTOH when a kid can inherit 9 billion bucks tax free when his dad dies in 2010, I agree that kinda kills any financial incentive that kid had to contribute anything to humanity and he'll probably just spend the rest of his life consuming rather than producing.
I think you have this backward (Score:3, Insightful)
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In fact, the US is the ONLY superpower in the world today.
Go grab some statistics about the nation today, and X years ago. With any measure you can come up with, you'll find the US is just as well off today as it was X years ago.
Look up some numbers, and you'll find the US has lower taxes now, than we have through much of the nation's
Re:Probably for the best (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think the case for visiting the moon (and Mars) is compelling enough for the current economic climate [crooksandliars.com].
There will never be a good economic climate to fund space exploration.
Re:So whats the point of NASA then (Score:4, Insightful)