Obama Outlines Bold Space Policy ... But No Moon
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The Bad Astronomer writes "In front of a mostly enthusiastic audience at NASA's Kennedy Space Center today, President Obama outlined a bold, new space policy. It's a change from his previous policy; the Constellation rockets are still dead, but a new heavy-lift rocket system is funded. He specifically talked of manned asteroid and Mars missions, but also stated there would be no return to the Moon. This is a major step in the right direction, but still needs some tweaking."
Color me not impressed (Score:5, Insightful)
$6B for five years? $1.2B a year. Less money than Microsoft is losing on Bing. Less than 5% of the annual revenues of Mars candy [wikipedia.org]. For humans to stretch the limits of the frontier, to go to Mars and the Asteroids this is all? This is bold? What deep commitment.
I honestly liked it better when he didn't care enough to pretend to try. Do it or don't do it. Don't go halfway into it and set everybody up for disappointment. This is important stuff.
Re:Color me not impressed (Score:5, Insightful)
In a time when every other discretionary budget is being cut, any increase is a show of support.
Re:Color me not impressed (Score:5, Insightful)
The military budget is not being cut (significantly). US military spending, regardless of how it is classified, is discretionary in reality.
You could fund a manned Mars mission (pessimistic estimated total cost: $100 billion) with a 3% cut in the US military budget for ten years.
Re:Color me not impressed (Score:5, Insightful)
You could fund a manned Mars mission (pessimistic estimated total cost: $100 billion) with a 3% cut in the US military budget for ten years.
You could pay for massive upgrades to child protective services, social security, medicare, etc. with $100 billion. You could put a million pedophile priests in jail for $100 billion. You could reinvigorate Detroit and create tens of thousands of jobs for $100 billion.
The point is that you could do a LOT of things with "just a small cut in the military budget", but it wouldn't sit well with the electorate. Obama already takes enough shit for being "soft on terrorists" and "elitist". I doubt he'd want to completely botch his re-election with a snooty re-allocation of military funds ("purtecctt amurreriicaa") to the space program ("scieencee and la dee daa").
Re:Color me not impressed (Score:5, Insightful)
He'd be "soft and the terrorists" and "elitist" no matter WHAT he did. Those are talking points that are applied without regard to any facts.
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hehe americans are dumb.
Didnt you learn from history, rome died because of military spending.
Besides, if you spend $100b on nasa, immediately the fed gets 40% back in taxes, the rest of the 60% is spent on subcontractors and they get taxes 40% of that, those workers then buy stuff of pay rent / bills. In the end 90% of that 100b is spent locally. ie self feed back revenue.
And its either $80b going to boeing & corps buying stealth fighters, or $80b going to buy rockets / space ships.
And most of the mili
Re:Too bad Obama doesn't share the American dream (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama isn't truly American. He does not share the American dream. He doesn't see things eye to eye with his fellow Americans. He doesn't even care
Look up his life history - he is living the American dream. I don't know how anyone can claim he doesn't believe in it as that is what made him president. How many other self-made men have become president?
Re:Too bad Obama doesn't share the American dream (Score:5, Insightful)
Recently? There is only one: William Jefferson Clinton [wikipedia.org]. Read the early life section, his father was a traveling salesman who died when he was young, the mother left the kid with the grandparents to study nursing. In college, he worked as an intern, and received a Rhodes scholarship to study his graduate school.
I find it ironic that the conservatives in this country constantly bash the progressives as being elitist, when in actuality, both it's the Republican presidents that we've had who have grown up in a life of privilege and elitism and the Democratic presidents who grew up without the silver spoon in their mouth. It demonstrates just how clueless our society really is, when they believe a some asshole who is saying inflammatory things for the sake of ratings without trying to find out the truth of the matter.
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Re:Too bad Obama doesn't share the American dream (Score:5, Interesting)
Whatever (Score:4, Insightful)
Did he nearly die choking on a pretzel? Is he starting an underfunded, ill conceived war while cutting taxes for the wealthy and destroying a budget surplus? Is he suspending basic rights like habeas corpus and performing searches and seizures without warrants? Is he staffing FEMA with idiots, and then doing nothing while they fuck up a hurricane response? Is he nominating some inexperienced random woman for the Supreme Court? Is he standing on an aircraft carrier during some publicity stunt, claiming mission accomplished and the end of combat operations WEEKS into a war that has now lasted seven years?
Give me a fucking break. I have my issues with Obama, but you're comparing the former editor of the Harvard Law review with a guy who would've flunked out of college if his father wasn't running the CIA.
Re:Whatever (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, there's this theme that runs through some (I want to be very careful here) of the anti-Obama rhetoric that paints him as a creation of affirmative action, or the media or something like that. The common thread is that he does not have the ability to bring himself to where he is today, that somebody else must be orchestrating his career.
This, more than anything else I've seen in the last ten years, convinces me that racism is still alive in the US today. It's not that opposing Obama means you're a racist. It's the iron clad, unassailable assumption that he doesn't have the intelligence or talent to be in the political elite of this country by his own merits.
Listen to the guy in interviews and debates. He not only can think on his feet, he thinks on his feet *faster than the other guy*. Watch him. If someone is caught off guard it is almost never him. Part of that is self-composure, but he's usually a step ahead of the other guy. At the "health care summit" with the Republicans, a few of them may have scored some points, but he easily held his own against the entire Republican caucus. Part of that was his being the moderator, but a lot of it was an ability to command the details while shaping the thread of the debate. That takes an impressive working memory and fluid intelligence. I can't think of an recent president who could have done that.
Now if you're a racist, a brain like that wrapped in a black skin must be terrifying.
You might not agree with all of his positions -- I certainly don't. But you have to admit the guy is very, very smart. Intelligence doesn't always lead you to the right conclusion, but it sure helps you get ahead in life.
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Did he nearly die choking on a pretzel?
Is choking a sign of missing intelligence? Are you saying that no one smart has ever choked on food? Sounds like you are trying to make a personal attack for political gain. That means you are a dick.
Is he starting an underfunded, ill conceived war while cutting taxes for the wealthy and destroying a budget surplus?
A quick glance at the Constitution will show you that Congress controls funding.
Is he suspending basic rights like habeas corpus and performing searches and seizures without warrants?
Are you trying to compare Obama to Lincoln? Do you know anyone that has their habeas corpus rights violated? Have the Feds kicked in your door and searched your house? Has this happened to anyone you know? No? The STFU!
Is he staffing FEMA with idiots, and then doing nothing while they fuck up a hurricane response?
Don't
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You mean like how a local plumber embarrassed him and caused him political grief for years by making him admit things that were politically damaging?
I know. It damaged him so badly that he won the election.
Or are you talking about how he sends world leaders DVDs that they can't play in their home countries? Wait, you must mean the iPod gift of his speeches that he gives to dignitaries, right? Or does bringing any of this up make me a racist?
No, what makes you a racist is that you bring up what is literally gossip in comparison with Bush starting an unwinnable war, illegally suspending constitutional rights, and staffing the federal government with his cronies. Remember the the guy who ran FEMA? Who's job before that was judging ponies? A job from which he was fired?
Your basis of judgement has no correlation to reality, no clear value structure, but does a great job of providing transpare
Re:Whatever (Score:5, Interesting)
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A quick glance at the Constitution will show you that Congress controls funding.
Yeah, the Bush White House had no involvement in requesting bad intelligence, leaking the stories to newspapers, and then going on Sunday talk shows holding up the newspapers as evidence. It was all the Republican controlled congress!
as this happened to anyone you know? No? The STFU!
Weee! Let's take a trip down anecdote lane, and throw the constitution out the window on the way there!
As for Katrina itself, that was a major failure of the Governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans
The head of FEMA was appointed by Bush. The guy he appointed - Mike Brown - judged horsies in preparation for running one of the largest and most critical federal agencies in
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"A quick glance at the Constitution will show you that Congress controls funding."
Except when the President line item vetoes the parts the were put there as part of a negotiation. It' also does nothing to counter the point about the war, but since you can't counter that you lumped it in with another point..and did so poorly.
"Are you trying to compare Obama to Lincoln? Do you know anyone that has their habeas corpus rights violated? Have the Feds kicked in your door and searched your house? Has this happened
Re:Too bad Obama doesn't share the American dream (Score:5, Insightful)
Also what is a true American? I live in the United States and I don't even know what the definition of a true American is.
Is being a true American standing up for your rights when their trampled on? Is it serving in the military? Is it pushing yourself everyday all day to be a self made individual?
They called John McCain a true American hero during the 2008 election but all I saw was an old generation of ideas and values that didn't work in the modern world.
George W. Bush was called a real American because he defended us against terrorists at all costs. Does blowing billions of dollars on something that has no return on investment make someone a true American?
And whats this American Dream? I recall it being that if you worked hard and played by the rules you can do whatever you want. Well it feels like the only way to make money in this country is break all the rules and let others do the hard work while taking all the credit. Is this the new American Dream? Is this a true American?
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We have a two party system. There is no third option. The country had a choice of sticking with the party that ran the country for 8 years or going with the other party. There was nothing else. Sure there are third party candidates here and there but none of them have any real support of the population to put them as front runners or even on a ballet. That is why we have President Obama
That's also why we had President Bush. Twice. Well, three times actually.
So yeah, good luck with that.
Re:Too bad Obama doesn't share the American dream (Score:5, Insightful)
We have a two party system. There is no third option.
No, you won't find any reference to a "two party system" in the constitution or anywhere in U.S. law. We have a defacto two party system only because too many Americans have been brainwashed to believe there is no third (or 4th-nth) option.
As for the moon; it's so close and so big that an unbiased observer might call our system a double planet. You won't find anything like this in the solar system and even though we're towards the small end of the planets, we have one of the biggest moons. There are some good things in Obama's plan, but the fact that his plan avoids the stepping stone God dropped in fron of us just because we've stepped there before is absolutely insane. Don't be surprised if India or China or Samsung gets man on Mars first by not avoiding the obvious. Yes we can explore space without using the moon but, did the polynesian's discover Hawaii without exploring neighboring Polynesian islands? Did the Europeans venture to the New World without exploring the Mediterranean?
Re:Too bad Obama doesn't share the American dream (Score:4, Insightful)
The two party system is defacto because of the rules of the election where winner takes it all. Different election mechanisms produce radically different outcomes. It's not the voters fault if they behave rationally.
Moon mission on the other hand is clear business decision where derailed project had to be killed and easiest way to justify the cancellation is to abandon that goal. Eventually when dust settles moon will be back on the agenda.
Not brainwashing (Score:3, Insightful)
No, you won't find any reference to a "two party system" in the constitution or anywhere in U.S. law. We have a defacto two party system only because too many Americans have been brainwashed to believe there is no third (or 4th-nth) option.
In a sense, it is in the Constitution. It is the natural result of a winner-take-all voting system where voters' preferences are distributed like a bell curve.
Having three (or more) parties is inherently unstable. It will always be in the interest of any party to capture more of the moderate vote (the middle of the bell curve) since that's where most of the voters are. Therefore, the party will move towards the middle. This can quite easily be seen in the change the parties make from primary season to elect
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We have a two party system. There is no third option
There were six Presidential candidates on my ballot, and five of them were on the ballot in enough states for it to be possible for them to win; Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Greens, Socialists, and the Constitution Party.
You only think you have a two party system because the corporate media says so, and refuses to cover the other three big parties. The reason? It's legal to contribute to more than one candidate in any race, and for the corporates
Re:Too bad Obama doesn't share the American dream (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm one of them. "Old McCain" was pretty much my ideal candidate. "New McCain" as spun for the presidency with new and improved(!) opinions on all issues was not. In fact, I believe Obama is a lot closer to old McCain than new McCain is. And Palin hit the Peter Principle as soon as she left local governance. I very nearly bought a "Republicans for Obama" bumper sticker after that announcement.
And I still support this prez. Not his owned-by-wall-street dithering, but his practical efforts to keep the country from running off the rails, which, Fox News yellow journalism invented terrors aside, he's doing a pretty darn good job of. I was especially impressed with his handling of the Stupak amendment, and the revelation that during all the healthcare debacle he was quietly putting together the largest nuclear summit in decades. Who knew?
Re:Too bad Obama doesn't share the American dream (Score:5, Insightful)
...To be a true American one must feel proud every single time...America is the first (and so far) only country in the world ...Obama isn't truly American. ...
That pretty much sums it up I think. I am an American and I am NOT proud of everything my country does. The fact is, I'm an American, really and truly; Obama is a real, true American, and the fact that we can disagree with you (or that you are allowed to disagree with us) is one of the the few accomplishments Americans actually can be proud of.
The fact is, one doesn't have to feel an overwhelming sense of stunning self-satisfaction for simply having been born into this great nation; America -isn't- the only nation on earth and never has been, and like it or not you've got a lot more fellow Americans than you think you do.
It's crap like this that makes me sick of my fellow Americans and, in many cases, their smug, self-satisfied pride at being born into such a great heritage.
That said, I think Obama has bigger fish to fry (yes, bigger than another trip to the moon). For one thing, I'd like some form of profitable employment and so would thirty percent of other voting age Americans who are unemployed or working part time at Wal Mart (or whatever the number is this week). I'd like to see America claw its way back to the top of the world powers, a position nobody thinks it still has. And I'd like to see America stop bleeding its jobs to its enemies in China, India, and Mexico.
Once we do that, and we're in a position to afford such frills as a moon trip again, I'm all for it.
Re:Too bad Obama doesn't share the American dream (Score:5, Insightful)
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You know, the American Dream is a lie. It's clever propaganda that is deeply ingrained in your life. Because of the American Dream, droves of poor people blame themselves for not making it, since, you know, anything is possible if you just work hard, according to the American lie. Suckers.
Re:Too bad Obama doesn't share the American dream (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry you got troll rated, because "the American Dream" is what students of propaganda call a "glittering generality".
It's not so much *clever* as *unassailable*, because it means whatever the hearer choses to project on it, at least as far as specifics are concerned.
We associate certain broad values with the phrase, of course. Freedom of conscience and individual autonomy, for example. That makes the accusation that "so and so does not *share the American Dream*" ironic, because the implication is that the American Dream is *compulsory*. If the best you can do when attacking somebody is to say he "doesn't share the American dream",
I'd say that *you* don't *want him* to share the American dream. You don't think he's entitled to freedom. It amounts to calling him out for his lack of *conformity*.
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I guess people are a bit disappointed that Obama didn't turn out to be the reincarnation of Lincoln and FDR, as he was made out to be at some point, but he's by no means as awful as the previous guy.
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Unless he pulls a miracle from his ass, he's not going to get re-election. As of now, he and every congresscritter is in damage control mode saving themselves, their legacy, and the party. ....and yet his approval rating is still 50/50, pretty much exactly where its been holding steady since july of last year, and only 15 percentage points lower than when he was elected.
Despite disagreement over his policies it is widely known that he enjoys a lot of respect from both sides.
Oh, AND the economy is already sh
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Yes, and I'm sure you could cut veteran's benefits to fund a Mars mission too... or neighborhood watch programs. (Both of which have been in direct competition with NASA funds in the past). But over here in the *real* world, that's not gunna happen.
NASA is not discretionary budget (Score:2, Insightful)
Quite apart from the national security issues, there's a lot of science to learn out there or on the way. As Kennedy put it: "we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
But no, what we need now
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Yes, it is. Congress could cut it to zero tomorrow if they felt the need.
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ummm.. you're aware that the bulk of the money of the commercial crew program will be going to the same old contractors that have been sucking of the NASA teat since it was begun right? It's not like pork is a new thing.. the difference is that this time NASA might actually get their money worth (maybe). In the mean time, the COTS program continues (it was started under the previous administration) and, if successful, will be some of the most efficient money NASA have ever spent.
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I still don't understand why we're building a new heavy lifter when we have a heavy lifter we've spent several billion already over the past 6 years. How close was Ares V to being done? was it really THAT mismanaged that it's cheaper and more efficient to start from scratch?
Re:Color me not impressed (Score:5, Interesting)
Ares V development hasn't even started.. and ask Jeff Greason said "even if Santa Claus brought us the new program for xmas, we'd have to shut it down because we don't have the budget to operate it". The research is for *affordable* heavy lift. If you can't make heavy lift affordable (or as the codeword goes "sustainable") you have to do without it.. which is where the propellant depots and in-situ resource utilization comes in.
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The only Ares V that will fly in the next decade will be miniature hobby rockets. The Ares V exists only on paper at this point. Worse it doesn't even have a real design specced out at this point so if you said "build an Ares V starting tomorrow" it couldn't be done.
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Re:Color me not impressed (Score:5, Insightful)
Ares was not going to create new technology. It would use rehashed technologies from Saturn and the Space Shuttle. This was expected to create a better program because the technology would be flight-tested and well-known. However, it would also obviously stop innovation into new motors and technologies. Ares fell behind schedule and went over-budget almost immediately. The escape mechanism was shown not to be effective. Ares I-X severely damaged the launch pad, didn't separate cleanly, and had a problem with the parachutes. You can argue that these problems would get fixed in due time, but if you weren't getting the benefit of a faster program, then there is less reason to abandon the development of new technologies.
Furthermore, the problems associated with the use of solid fuel propellants with manned flights has been pretty clear. They do not give as much performance as liquid-fueled rockets. This has lead to ARES V being so big that the launch infrastructure would have to be upgraded to deal with its girth. Solid fuels cannot be shut off in case of emergency. And when they explode, they explode. Liquid-fueled rockets may come apart, but cryogenic fuels such as LOx and LH2 do not explode when combined; it needs to be heated or otherwise ignited. For proof, look at the Challenger disaster. When the SRBs ran away and the fuel tank came apart, there was no explosion; the huge cloud was cryogenic fuel being mixed together. In fact, the crew cabin survived the separation even when detached from the rest of the Shuttle; a few astronauts survived until they hit the water.
Also, Ares was going to develop the Ares I for manned vehicles and Ares V heavy lift for cargo. Ares V never really got developed because Ares I fell behind schedule and ate up all the money. A better way would be to develop two medium-lift vehicles to simplify the development. Cargo heavy lift can be provided by industry or by scaling up a medium-lift design with SRBs like other designs.
The new program will focus on the development of lift technologies and boosters without a specific goal. The problem with specific goals and insufficient budgets is that you get rush jobs. If NASA had to put a man on the moon by 2020 but didn't have the money to do it, then we'd have an unwieldy mess that never gets anywhere. Moving the focus to getting the work done would be more productive. Then we can work on getting orbiters and interplanetary spacecraft together once all the heavy-lift has been done.
Is it controversial? Hell yes. Is it a good idea? I dunna; it's risky. But is an end to the US manned space program? No. It's a daring move that throws in all the marbles in the hopes that we trade a bad program to a better future.
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[sigh] This urban myth again.
The US Navy would be surprised to learn that solids can't be shut off - after all, they only operated rockets using thrust termination (SUBROC, Polaris A-1, Polaris A-2, and Poseidon) for over thirty years. Solids *can* be shut off, and the technology is well known. NASA chose to omit thrust termination systems from the Shuttle because of weight and because the piggyback configuration meant that shutdown transients w
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It is better than getting cut. Unfortunately many people just don't see the purpose and reason for NASA and why it is vital that we keep our LEO ability. Until the private sector INSIDE the US can do LEO it has to remain in NASA's portfolio.
The longer we remain solely on this planet the higher probability that we will no longer remain.
New space policy: (Score:2, Funny)
To boldy not go where man has gone before.
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he's got plenty of other priorities he's trying to juggle, i'd say NASA did pretty well out of this.
"No Moon" (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, I sighed. It's a shame that this concept is so hard to explain.
To go to the Moon you need a booster, a capsule and a lander. Without an Apollo sized budget its too expensive to build all three at once. So the question becomes: what can we do with just the booster and the capsule while the lander is being built?
There's lots of things of value. Developing cis-lunar space. Going to asteroids, to learn how to divert one that may threaten the Earth. To the Moons of Mars to learn how to do long duration deep space flights.
Eventually, the lander will be ready and NASA will try it out on the Moon, and then onto a Mars landing.
But that's not the kind of argument you can put on a bumpersticker or insert into a presidential speech.
Re:"No Moon" (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to disagree. The best way to "learn" how to do long duration deep-space flights is a moonbase, don't you think, not a first-try, no-exit-strategy, let's hope everything works shoot-'em-to-Demos one shot.
Bush was going to Mars too, so my concern is not alleviated that we're still talking fantasy appeasements while starving the program.
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Umm, no. To learn how to fly deep space missions (which, by definition are beyond the orbit of the Moon), you have to go further than the Moon. Sorry, that's just the way the real world works.. you can't learn how to ride a bike by buying a skateboard.
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But riding the skateboard teaches you a bit about balance and how wheels work, and teaches you that your bike can't have those little wheels if you want to ride on gravel.
Plus, free skateboard.
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Bad analogy.
When riding a bike you take it step by step. You don't sit your daughter on a bike and after the first few attempts go to the next biggest mountain and push her down the steepest slope.
Or you could say that after you have swam across the Hudson, you just skip crossing one of the Great Lakes and go for an Atlantic crossing.
You just don't throw a crap load of money and time out the window on a mission you know has a high chance of failing.
Especially not when people's lives are on the line!
So we ca
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The Moon has more water than we could use for the next 100 years. 600 million metric tons [airspacemag.com] at the opposite pole to the one LCROSS crashed into.. probably similar amounts at the south pole too.
My argument would be that if we're going to the Moon to get resources to go somewhere else, which is what Dr Paul Spudis, the foremost expert (and jackass, but that's a personality trait, his ideas are great) on the Moon says we should, that's a great idea, but why would you do that with humans? Paul regularly talks a
Re:"No Moon" (Score:5, Informative)
I can only assume that you are a moron.. but let's try to educate you a little here. That 600 million metric tons that I said? That's approximately 1/100,000,000th of 1% of the mass of the Moon. So even if, over the period of hundreds of years, we cleared out the entire mass of the water ice that is expected to be at the north pole of the Moon, you next have to divide that by the square of the distance between the center of the Moon and the center of the Earth to get the effect of the change of the gravitational pull of the Moon on the Earth. It's less than the fluctuation of the solar output has on light pressure on the atmosphere. And, just for shits and giggles, you said "and brought it back to earth", which isn't the intention, there's plenty of water on Earth, there's no sense in bringing it back here.
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Did you completely miss what I said or what? No-one is "shooting for Mars first". Every suggestion of the milestones required to get to Mars, of a plan that has even has milestones (I'm looking at you Zubrin) has included a return to the Moon. The speech writer for Obama was simply trying to make the point that the surface of the Moon isn't the *next* place to go.. there's plenty of other places to go first.
Re:"No Moon" (Score:5, Insightful)
Bumper sticker, no. Speech, well, you need the right president.
Where Bush had a space program that made him look good but would never accomplish anything, Obama has one that has folks scratching their heads but which might just take space travel out of its 40-year coma.
And no, I'm not blaming W for the mess that is NASA. Every President since JFK has put politics over real accomplishments in this area, though Bush was just a little more cold-blooded about it.
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Overall, NASA's PR has been more horrid this year than I ever remember :) This budget rollout was broken. The President's speech was "ho hum", at least to me and other space cadets, I don't know how people who were completely unprepared received what he said. But he at least managed to give some people what they wanted: destinations and dates. Most likely not the ones they wanted, but at least the Apollo cargo cult can't moan about that tickbox being unchecked anymore. So now we wait to see how much C
Re:"No Moon" (Score:5, Informative)
Had space travel been in a coma, you'd have a point. But it hasn't. Instead we've actually had what all the space fans claim to have wanted for years - a routine workaday program. Turns out they were lying, what they want is stunts and spectaculars and big penile substitutes.
And really, Obama's program is something of a bust - a modest amount of money, a booster with no mission (I smell pork), and a capsule that might be adapted to have a mission at some date in the misty future. No clear goals, no timetables, no roadmaps nothing but warm fuzzy rhetoric.
I hope you're not referring to the Apollo program, because that was pure politics through and through.
Re:"No Moon" (Score:4, Insightful)
You are calling 4 manned trips a year to LEO a "workaday" program? Where it takes 12 years to get a space station completed? The shuttle directly limited spaceflight development by being dangerous, expensive and overly complex - leading to the 4 trip per year limit. Keeping up our presence in LEO going is important, absolutely, but spending 1 billion per launch to do so is not.
Commercial companies are developing the tech for manned LEO, so we really shouldn't be designing our own. To do better missions further out, we need a heavy lifter - exactly what Obama is proposing. By requiring the design to be finalized by 2015, it gives a deadline so that it is not just "pork barrel funding" - but still enough time to include some new tech like on orbit refueling (could greatly expand our working distance from earth). It has timeframes, goals, and roadmaps - it just isn't based on old, already-used tech, so he can't say exactly what the booster will be like. I think it is significantly better than the Constellation program - less expensive, same goals, better tech, more likely to actually happen.
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Yeah, "Asteroids" is easier for the public to understand.. barely. But whether it is an asteroid or a comet is a completely flexible decision. The NASA studies all refer to "Near Earth Objects" as you do.
Here's what the Bad Astronomer says about it (Score:3, Interesting)
Phil Plait offers his comments on Obama's new space policy: Obama lays out bold and visionary revised space policy [discovermagazine.com].
Shit (Score:5, Funny)
I should have checked the link before posting the above.
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I did read the summary. It's just that I rarely look at the submitter's name and I was so eager to share Phil Plait's post that I didn't follow the link first.
Re:Here's what the Bad Astronomer says about it (Score:5, Funny)
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Phil Plait offers his comments on Obama's new space policy: Obama lays out bold and visionary revised space policy [discovermagazine.com].
People also might want to read these comments about Obama's bold, new space policy [discovermagazine.com].
The purpose of government research (Score:5, Insightful)
I think he's probably right in terms of what a government research program should have as its goals. IMO, the purpose of government research on this scale is to drive forward technological development and give the private sector a kick in the pants.
We've already been to the Moon, that technology was developed during the 1960s. We could probably do it better now, but the advancements wouldn't be nearly as significant as what is required for a manned mission to Mars. Leave the moon to the private sector, we should expect to see a private company touching down there within a decade or maybe two. Mars is still a pie-in-the-sky target, let's point NASA at that.
Re:The purpose of government research (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you really want private companies going to the Moon and commercializing it?
Re:The purpose of government research (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The purpose of government research (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. Why not?
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Because when I take a girl for a walk on the beach at night I want to see the moon, not a Pepsi logo.
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Because when I take a girl for a walk on the beach at night I want to see the moon, not a Pepsi logo.
Ahh, there's your problem. You should concentrate on looking at the girl, not the Moon.
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Re:The purpose of government research (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you really want private companies going to the Moon and commercializing it?
Yes please, as rapidly as possible. Coincidentally, a couple days ago space.com had an interview with construction billionaire Robert Bigelow (who currently has two prototype space stations in orbit, which he launched on his own dime). In the interview he discussed his plans for a private lunar base, which would be assembled from three of his space station modules in lunar orbit or a Lagrangian point, then land assembled on the lunar surface:
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/private-moon-bases-bigelow-aerospace-100414.html [space.com]
After launching two prototype space stations into orbit, space entrepreneur and pioneer Robert Bigelow is now setting his sights a bit higher. His latest vision: A quick-deploy moon base capable of housing up to 18 astronauts in inflatable modules on the lunar surface.
The base itself would be fabricated in space, with consideration being given to crewmembers piloting the entire base directly onto the moon's surface. ...
"We need to make low-Earth orbit work first before we go beyond . . . but I believe we will," Gold told SPACE.com. "Once we've established a robust infrastructure in Earth orbit, created the economies of scale necessary to produce facilities in low Earth orbit . . . at that point, we've really enabled ourselves to look at a variety of options."
Bigelow's main limiting factor has been the lack of a commercial crew vehicle to transfer customers to his space stations, and NASA's newly-announced commercial crew initiative will solve that problem. Once Bigelow's LEO bases have proven themselves, a private lunar base will be able to take advantage of the propellant depots in LEO and Lagrangian points foreseen under the new NASA plans.
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As if the commercialization won't happen once we actually establish any sort of presence there? Come on.
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Leave the moon to the private sector, we should expect to see a private company touching down there within a decade or maybe two.
If by "the private sector" you actually mean "India or China" then yea, they'll be there within a decade or two.
Why would the private sector even want to go to the moon?
We can't even convince our domestic aerospace giants that building heavy lift rockets is a viable commercial interest.
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The moon missions were a long time ago - but its not clear that we have progressed much with technology needed for aerospace. The basic technology hasn't changed, launch costs aren't that different. It was hard then, and its still hard now. Mars is a lot harder. We could do it if we wanted to, but we aren't willing to put in the require effort, or take the required risks. Its not that I think Obama's plan is fundamentally flawed, but when he talks about a mars mission in the 2030s, it sounds like another o
In 2 and a half years (Score:3, Insightful)
In 2 and a half years when Obama is replaced by the next guy we can recycle this whole thing over again. Each administration takes over and points NASA in yet another direction killing off whatever the current direction is. Next administration will probably kill the heavy lifter project and replace that with a direct shot to mars.
NAHHH! If Palin is elected president . . . (Score:5, Funny)
. . . you can expect BIG CHANGES in NASA policy:
* NUKE MARS! Eliminate alien threats before they start. And incidentally destroy any pesky bible-insulting fossils.
* Spaceport Wasilla: Because Alaska is already halfway to heaven!
* Drill Baby Drill through the crystal sphere separating us from the stars!
Re:NAHHH! If Palin is elected president . . . (Score:5, Funny)
Don't worry, I'm sure she's an expert at interplanetary relations. After all, she can see the moon from her house.
No Moon? (Score:5, Funny)
So if it's not a moon, then I guess it's a.....Space Station?
major step in the WRONG direction (Score:5, Insightful)
what is the point of going to Mars if we have no capability of setting up a base there? No capability of any rescue? The moon is our kindergarten - a place to learn about how to live for long periods of time in extremely harsh environments. It is close enough that rescue or other aid may be possible. It is close enough that there is greater flexibility in the mission. The sad thing is that what we did in a handful of years in the 1960s is going to take us a decade or more 50 years later.
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Sorry, how can you study the moon by avoiding it? That is like saying you will study Africa by sailing to South America.
Plus I get the feeling this is ONLY about being able to say you did something f1rst.
I agree that manned missions are needed in the long run, but we should use the possibility of unmanned missions to collect as much data as possible before risking not only the massively more amount of money but also the lives of people.
Learn to walk before you can run. We are still crawling on mommy's lap.
Chinese (Score:4, Insightful)
You can bet that when the Chinese land on the moon and start talking about setting up bases there'll be a renewed call for the US to end up on the moon again post haste. I can tell its going to be like toddlers and toys. One wont play with a toy until he sees someone else enjoying it and wants in on the action.
Re:Chinese (Score:4, Informative)
The Chinese have no interest in going to the Moon. They are planning a manned space station, to be completed by 2022 [spacepolitics.com].
No amount of screaming "the reds are under the beds!!" is going to bring back the unique set of cold war circumstances that made Apollo a success.
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No amount of screaming "the reds are under the beds!!" is going to bring back the unique set of cold war circumstances that made Apollo a success.
They certainly try, though. In fact, Congressman Todd Arkin (R-Missouri) made the absurd claim today that NASA's new plan would force the US to become reliant on the Soviet Union:
http://www.goodporkbadpork.com/2010/04/missouri-congressman-mistakenly-refers-to-soviet-union-in-anti-obama-space-policy-press-release/ [goodporkbadpork.com]
A giant telescope on the moon (Score:3, Informative)
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One acronym: VLBI [wikipedia.org]. He didn't say optical telescope. The other reason to put a radio 'scope on the far side of the moon is that the far side is shielded from all of the RF noise that we generate - since the moon is tidally locked, we have a perfect Earth-radio-quiet place to do research that would be impossible on Earth or in LEO.
The west will go to the moon by 2020 (Score:4, Informative)
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[citation needed]
No moon? (Score:3, Funny)
No moon? That's a space station?
(Millions of geeks suddenly sighed at the pun and were silenced.)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
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"What can human beings do in space that robots can't?"
Not get stuck in two inches of sand on Mars.
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Yeah, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what "backers of using private space companies" are talking about. It's not *heavy* cargo transport, it's not even about fundamental advancement. It's about *routine* transport (of both cargo and humans). It's been there, done that, got the t-shirt stuff.
The point is that we know how to do it, and it's time for robust, competitive private industry to make it cheap. Then NASA can focus on the next step instead of worrying about how to maintain and resupply the
Re:Sure OhBlahBlah. Fly before you can crawl! (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude you do not know what you are talking about.
The moon is not a stepping stone, it is a hole. More specifically, it is a gravity hole that will require more fuel to get out of. It would be much easier to completely bypass the moon.
If one could make fuel on the moon, then it would be a good idea to build a base over there and use it as a stepping stone. But although this has been researched to death, nobody has figured out a practical way to make fuel on the moon. So as things stand currently, there is nothing on the moon that is at all useful for a Mars mission.
So the logical thing is to go straight to mars. Or if assembly is required, to assemble everything in earth orbit and go straight to mars.
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Actually, it doesn't make sense to stop to refuel on the moon even if we could manufacture fuel there. It requires considerably more delta V to take off from Earth, land on the moon, take off again and fly to Mars than it does to just take off from Earth and fly to Mars. Even if the fuel was free (delivered by aliens or God) and just sitting in tanks on the moon ready to use, it would make no sense to land there to pick it up.