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Obama aims to ax moon mission

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Sarge

Guest
So we're left with no space program at all. Except to study "climate change". What a joke.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/os-no-moon-for-nasa-20100126,0,6969808.story

NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead. So are the rockets being designed to take them there — that is, if President Barack Obama gets his way.

When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. The troubled and expensive Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for its bigger brother, the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to take humans back to the moon.

There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.

In their place, according to White House insiders, agency officials, industry executives and congressional sources familiar with Obama's long-awaited plans for the space agency, NASA will look at developing a new "heavy-lift" rocket that one day will take humans and robots to explore beyond low Earth orbit. But that day will be years — possibly even a decade or more — away.

In the meantime, the White House will direct NASA to concentrate on Earth-science projects — principally, researching and monitoring climate change — and on a new technology research and development program that will one day make human exploration of asteroids and the inner solar system possible.
 
Well that sucks. It's been 40 years. It shouldn't take us this long to get back to the moon.
 
No, it shouldn't have. Had we listened. at leat partiallyy to Von Braun, after Apollo we would have built low earh orbiting launch platforms instead of the shuttle. That way we could have built craft and launched them from orbit, a much cheaper way to go to the moon and other places in the long run
 
Eh, being an ocean-industry guy, I think we should focus on exploring our own planet before we attempt to branch out to other celestial bodies.



PS - this is NOT a statement affirming or denying global warming. :p
 
Lanky Livingston said:
Eh, being an ocean-industry guy, I think we should focus on exploring our own planet before we attempt to branch out to other celestial bodies.



PS - this is NOT a statement affirming or denying global warming. :p
Click to expand...

I'm all about exploring our own planet, Lanky, and I think oceanography is a very worthwhile persuit (grew up on Jacques Cousteau after all) but I think we have to push the space program. Whether you believe in the global warming stuff or not, we are using the planet and using it hard. We need to be about the process of finding additional resources and somewhere we can colonize. Right, all of humanities eggs are in one basket, so to speak.
 
I read somewhere that for every dollar spent on the space program we get seven in return. So, in a time when jobs are supposedly the new number one priority of the adminstration, they're going to shut down a program that creates jobs in California, Texas, Florida and a few other states and pay the Russians to take us to our own space station?

How does that make sense?
 
I read this on a recent article by one of my favorite scientists-Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog on Discovery.com

For criminy’s sake. What is it with people and all the rending of garments over the impending doom of NASA?
First:
1) The reports of Spirit’s death are greatly exaggerated.
OK, yes, Spirit is now stuck. It looks like even if it survives the Martian winter it may no longer be able to traverse the Red Planet’s landscape. But that doesn’t mean it’s dead. Instead of a rover, it’s now a stationary platform capable of doing a lot of science on the cheap (since most of the cost was getting it there).

If you’d rather not have a lander sitting on the surface of Mars doing science that we simply cannot do from millions of kilometers away on Earth, then fine. But astronomers and scientists and science journalists should know better. Stop saying it’s dead.

[And I can picture Opportunity on the other side of Mars, waving its mast frantically, saying, Hey, remember me? Still moving, still doing cool stuff!]
Next, and more importantly:

2) The reports of the manned spaceflight’s death are greatly exaggerated.

OK, yes, it does look like (assuming the rumors are true) the Obama budget for NASA is cutting out the Constellation rocket program in general and Ares in particular. But that doesn’t mean manned spaceflight is dead.

As I said in that above link, private space companies are still a ways off from putting people in orbit. However, I strongly suspect they’ll be doing it before Ares would’ve been ready to do it anyway. Private companies like Space X may be two years from that, while Ares wouldn’t have been ready for five, assuming NASA could even get Ares ready by the scheduled time and in the assigned budget (which I would give a chance of, oh, say, precisely 0). So it’s possible, perhaps even likely, that after the Shuttle retires later this year (or early next) companies like Space X will be able to reach the International Space Station with rockets before NASA could.

As far as going back to the Moon, we still don’t know exactly what the budget for NASA will be like, but it was made clear in the leaked reports (again, assuming they are true) that money will be spent to look for a better heavy lift vehicle than Ares. No specifics were given (though the Commercial Spaceflight Federation says it may be 6 billion bucks, a huge chunk of change), so let’s wait until we actually see the report, hmmm?

Also, a lot of folks thought Ares was a waste of time, money, and with little or no chance of working well. Heck, the Space Frontier Foundation praises the killing of Ares! So not only is it unfair to lament the death of manned spaceflight, some people think — with some evidence, mind you — this will spur it on even more.

That last sentiment rings true to me. NASA’s manned program has been endlessly circling the Earth for almost 40 years now, with no real end in sight. I don’t have a lot of faith, so to speak, that Ares can do the job in breaking this cycle. I suspect a lot of the same folks who are decrying this move by Obama are the same ones who would be first in line to say that NASA has had its wings cut for decades now, making one bad decision after another when it comes to space exploration. Maybe it’s time — maybe it’s long after time — that we let someone else have a stab at this.

When I look at the Moon, I see a place where people will one day work, live, breathe, play, and explore. I also see that future receding two years for every year NASA doesn’t have a rocket to go there, and I’ve been watching that movie play for many years now.

I’m tired of it. When I look out my window now I see a future I’ve been dreaming of my whole life, a future that seems just out of my reach. When my children, my grandchildren, look out their windows in that future, y’know what I want them to see?

The blue-green crescent Earth hanging in a pitch black sky over a cratered horizon.

Let’s give space a chance.
Click to expand...

Article link:http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/01/30/give-space-a-chance/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+BadAstronomyBlog+(Bad+Astronomy)
 
We can't afford any indepth lunar missions because of the economy. However, there should be a high priority on lunar missions once the economy improves. Lunar missions are crucial for the research into advanced nuclear fusion reactor technologies because it is the only place where the fuel for such reactors (H3) is found in abundance.
 
Well, maybe some people in the government aren't as stupid as others

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/ne...lights-would-continue-under-new-proposal.html

WASHINGTON — The space shuttle era could get a new lease on life under a bill filed today by U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

The measure would delay the shuttle’s planned retirement in 2010 until NASA is confident that a replacement spacecraft is ready or that the shuttle and its massive payload bay is no longer needed to keep the International Space Station afloat through 2020.
 
The rumors of the collapse of the space program are greatly exaggerated. They're just looking to spend their money to generate better technology so they can have a manned mission to Mars.

Scientist eyes 39-day voyage to Mars

A journey from Earth to Mars could soon take just 39 days, cutting current travel time nearly six times, a rocket scientist who has the ear of the US space agency NASA has said.

Former astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says reaching the Red Planet could be dramatically quicker using his high-tech VASIMR rocket -- now on track for lift-off after decades of development.

The Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket -- to give its full name -- is quick becoming a centerpiece of NASA's future strategy as it looks to private firms to help meet the astronomical costs of space exploration.

Click on the link for the full article
 
China said:
The rumors of the collapse of the space program are greatly exaggerated. They're just looking to spend their money to generate better technology so they can have a manned mission to Mars.

Scientist eyes 39-day voyage to Mars

A journey from Earth to Mars could soon take just 39 days, cutting current travel time nearly six times, a rocket scientist who has the ear of the US space agency NASA has said.

Former astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says reaching the Red Planet could be dramatically quicker using his high-tech VASIMR rocket -- now on track for lift-off after decades of development.

The Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket -- to give its full name -- is quick becoming a centerpiece of NASA's future strategy as it looks to private firms to help meet the astronomical costs of space exploration.

Click on the link for the full article
Click to expand...

I saw that. It'd be great to get it up and running. But to me it's just the height of stupidity to have put all that time and money into the ISS and then shut down out only means of getting there to use it, aside from paying Putin to give us a lift
 
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36476183/ns/technology_and_science-space/

The first man to walk on the moon blasted President Barack Obama’s decision to cancel NASA’s back-to-the-moon program on Tuesday, saying that the move is “devastating” to America’s space effort.

Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong’s open letter was also signed by Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon; and Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell, who is marking the 40th anniversary of his famous lunar non-landing this week.

The letter was released to NBC News just two days in advance of Obama’s trip to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a space policy summit. Obama is expected to flesh out his vision for the space agency's future during his speech at the summit.
 
I have no words for this stupidity

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/05/nasa-chief-frontier-better-relations-muslims/


NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a recent interview that his "foremost" mission as the head of America's space exploration
agency is to improve relations with the Muslim world.

Though international diplomacy would seem well outside NASA's orbit, Bolden said in an interview with Al Jazeera that strengthening those ties was among the top tasks President Obama assigned him. He said better interaction with the Muslim world would ultimately advance space travel.
 
Sarge said:
I read somewhere that for every dollar spent on the space program we get seven in return. So, in a time when jobs are supposedly the new number one priority of the adminstration, they're going to shut down a program that creates jobs in California, Texas, Florida and a few other states and pay the Russians to take us to our own space station?

How does that make sense?
Click to expand...

quit your belly-aching. the money has to come from someplace to make up for the 49% who don't pay taxes.
 
"perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering," Bolden said in the interview."


You get this kind of stuff when you try to apply "self-esteem” education theory to International diplomacy.

However, the Muslim world doesn’t even warrant a “participant trophy.”

Patents Granted by Country http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_pat_gra-economy-patents-granted
 
There are pundits that talk about how Obama wants America to be just like the rest of the world, and is doing stuff to see that that happens.

I wasn't buying it so much, but with this I can see it. No wonder we're stuck on the ground after two more shuttle flights. No vision and a NASA adminstrator that espouses the idea that we can no longer go beyond low earth orbit without help form other countries

Bull****

We're Americans. We're supposed to lead in things like space. As long as we have someone running NASA that thinks we can't do certain things, we won't. And I don't know how he can find the time to do space stuff when he's been directed to reach out to countires that have no space experience at all in order to make them "feel good"
 
Johnny Punani said:
We can't afford any indepth lunar missions because of the economy. However, there should be a high priority on lunar missions once the economy improves. Lunar missions are crucial for the research into advanced nuclear fusion reactor technologies because it is the only place where the fuel for such reactors (H3) is found in abundance.
Click to expand...
This is pretty much where I am with this. Quite frankly, I wouldn't have a problem with paring NASA's mission/vision back massively until such time as we can actually afford it. IMHO much of the savings could come in the manned program. The cost of putting human beings into space when robotic technology could do perhaps 99% of the same missions at much lower cost makes little sense to me....other than the political considerations of losing large numbers of electoral votes from certain key states. Yet another argument for proportional allocation of electoral votes...but I digress.

Yes, I know what kind of innovation has come out of the space program along with the other very valid arguments for its continuance. However, who's to say that NASA won't be able to accomplish just as much with less $$$ or that cutting much of the manned program wouldn't result in large gains in robotic and other technologies that would also make their way into the economy at large?

Besides Sarge, I thought you were all about ways to decrease the size of government? Why should NASA be exempt?
 
Yusuf06 said:
This is pretty much where I am with this. Quite frankly, I wouldn't have a problem with paring NASA's mission/vision back massively until such time as we can actually afford it. IMHO much of the savings could come in the manned program. The cost of putting human beings into space when robotic technology could do perhaps 99% of the same missions at much lower cost makes little sense to me....other than the political considerations of losing large numbers of electoral votes from certain key states. Yet another argument for proportional allocation of electoral votes...but I digress.

Yes, I know what kind of innovation has come out of the space program along with the other very valid arguments for its continuance. However, who's to say that NASA won't be able to accomplish just as much with less $$$ or that cutting much of the manned program wouldn't result in large gains in robotic and other technologies that would also make their way into the economy at large?

Besides Sarge, I thought you were all about ways to decrease the size of government? Why should NASA be exempt?
Click to expand...

except that the Obama plan isn't to pare back government spending. it's to increase entitlements/income transfers.....that much should be obvious by now.
 
Yusuf06 said:
Besides Sarge, I thought you were all about ways to decrease the size of government? Why should NASA be exempt?
Click to expand...

Because it's one of the few government programs that actually produces some benefits.

But like in so many other areas right now, we have no leadership. No vision.

Pick a target and go. Maybe we can't afford it right now, but we can at least set some goals and do some R&D and testing.
 
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