I think the ISS will stay operational for as long as it is viable, even beyond 2020 is possible. This is because of the international partners and because we got nothing better to do. Therefore I think its a pity that Ares 1 is getting canceled. The constellation family of vehicles was to reset the space program to what would have happened if the shuttle wasn't built, its a good starting point I say.
- Status
Remember, within about 6 years of announcing the goal to go to the Moon, the public was no longer in support of paying for Apollo. And I suspect had it not been for Sputnik, Yuri Gagarin, and the Cold War, there would have been no Space Race and thus probably even far less support for Apollo. Apollo was motivated almost exclusively to beat the Soviets, but Apollo was not sustainable politically or financially, so using it as an ideal exemplar is probably not a good idea.neutrino78x":2p7g10e0 said:
And as important as Mars is and will be, there are other goals that should not be ignored. I think one is building a viable human space flight economy in addition to the NASA programs will be an important enabler for all future human space programs. The Moon, being a time capsule for this solar system, can probably teach us a great deal. And Near Earth Objects can also teach us about the solar system, help us understand a potentially great threat to life here on Earth, and may eventually be enablers of other capabilities.
tanstaafl76":3kd00c3o said:
I think the other implied reason is, "since you haven't even committed to spending enough to extend the existing manifest into 2011, you better be damn sure if you want to extend it further, you fund it appropriately". Or something like that.
I just rewatched Burt Rutan's speech at TED and what he said then still applies. The advances in flight technology come from the private sector, not government projects. He also makes some interesting points about generational cycles and what motivates people.
Burt at TED
Burt at TED
I guess what I'm saying is, this report seems to suggest "continue the ISS until our international obligations are met, and NASA is not expected to do anything else until that is done". That, in my opinion, is not correct.
The goal can be small and not ambitious, but there has to be a goal. For any given Presidential term, in my opinion, NASA should have a distinct goal. Maybe the first goal is, go back to the Moon, and actually land humans there in order to establish a scientific research base. Fine. But it can't be "eventually go back to the Moon, as a future exploration goal beyond LEO"; rather, it has to be "land humans on the Moon in the next 4 years."
Then, maybe in the next Presidential term, you say "land humans on a NEO in the next 4 years."
NASA's ability to meet deadlines and goals has been clearly demonstrated. But since the Space Shuttle program started, there hasn't been a goal.
Stimulating the private space industry and lowering the cost of going into space are not goals, but long term policies. I support them, but they don't get anything actually done.
Having said that, this President has a lot of other things to worry about right now than the human space program. He has to finish ending the war in Iraq, end the war in Afghanistan, deal with healthcare in one way or another, etc. We may have to wait until he is reelected before he can pay proper attention to human spaceflight at NASA.
--Brian
The goal can be small and not ambitious, but there has to be a goal. For any given Presidential term, in my opinion, NASA should have a distinct goal. Maybe the first goal is, go back to the Moon, and actually land humans there in order to establish a scientific research base. Fine. But it can't be "eventually go back to the Moon, as a future exploration goal beyond LEO"; rather, it has to be "land humans on the Moon in the next 4 years."
Then, maybe in the next Presidential term, you say "land humans on a NEO in the next 4 years."
NASA's ability to meet deadlines and goals has been clearly demonstrated. But since the Space Shuttle program started, there hasn't been a goal.
Stimulating the private space industry and lowering the cost of going into space are not goals, but long term policies. I support them, but they don't get anything actually done.
Having said that, this President has a lot of other things to worry about right now than the human space program. He has to finish ending the war in Iraq, end the war in Afghanistan, deal with healthcare in one way or another, etc. We may have to wait until he is reelected before he can pay proper attention to human spaceflight at NASA.
--Brian
neutrino78x":2ui7zrpl said:
I wouldn't hold your breath on that one. Obama is not only indifferent to the space program, he is against it altogether. He mentioned the word NASA one time since his election, in his ever so cryptic language. Face the facts, he is comfortable with aborting the Constellation program altogether and regressing in the space frontier. I think future generations will look back on Obama and wonder why he was so obsessed with giving corrupt CEOs money while NASA cedes what once was a commanding lead in space technology.
Right now, unfortunately, I feel like we are a country collapsing under the weight of it's own incompetence and beaurocracy. We have no space goals and are completely risk averse with our space program. This is very indicative of where we are collectively heading.
Also, I don't buy the argument that we should give Obama excuses because he has other things on his plate. How many other administrations have gone through worse? Heck, look at the wars and crisis in the 60s that we went through. Yet we still managed to accomplish great feats in the space program. Compared to the Vietnam and Cuban Missiles crisis, the Obama adminstration has it easy, comparatively speaking.
I think that it'll all end up with Aares I and EELV super heavy options (Either Delta IV super heavy in 100 ton class on Altas V super heavy). The ISS gets prolonged for additional 5 years with the help of international partners. Shuttle termination is a fact now (fortunately). COTS is going to get funded. Lunar and mars missions will get pushed a little more in to the future. In order to accomplish those with the 100 ton class rockets some orbital refueling has to be developed. I believe that it'll be more like orbital assembly than like tanking gas.
All that depends on US getting it's act together and getting the economy fixed.
All that depends on US getting it's act together and getting the economy fixed.
I'm pretty sure I know where some of the money will come from for the new heath care plan... NASA!
The sad part is NASA's meager budget will be a tiny drop in the bucket compared to what nationalized health care will cost us.
Here some pretty staggering numbers that definitely shows how much NASA is appreciated… NOT AT ALL!
All it will take is China flying around the Moon and Obama will have some real splainin to do… Big time!
History tells all and we just have to look back at how the public took the launch of Sputnik and the butt kicking Eisenhower took!
It’s too bad Obama doesn’t look to history for guidance; he’s got a very rude awakening ahead of him! The American people are not so forgiving especially when it comes to losing our technical prowess!
Financial Rescue Nears GDP as Pledges Top $12.8 Trillion (Update1)
From Bloomberg.com and By Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry
March 31 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or committed $12.8 trillion, an amount that approaches the value of everything produced in the country last year, to stem the longest recession since the 1930s.
New pledges from the Fed, the Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. include $1 trillion for the Public-Private Investment Program, designed to help investors buy distressed loans and other assets from U.S. banks. The money works out to $42,105 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. and 14 times the $899.8 billion of currency in circulation. The nation’s gross domestic product was $14.2 trillion in 2008.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... =worldwide
All it will take is China flying around the Moon and Obama will have some real splainin to do… Big time!
History tells all and we just have to look back at how the public took the launch of Sputnik and the butt kicking Eisenhower took!
It’s too bad Obama doesn’t look to history for guidance; he’s got a very rude awakening ahead of him! The American people are not so forgiving especially when it comes to losing our technical prowess!
Financial Rescue Nears GDP as Pledges Top $12.8 Trillion (Update1)
From Bloomberg.com and By Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry
March 31 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or committed $12.8 trillion, an amount that approaches the value of everything produced in the country last year, to stem the longest recession since the 1930s.
New pledges from the Fed, the Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. include $1 trillion for the Public-Private Investment Program, designed to help investors buy distressed loans and other assets from U.S. banks. The money works out to $42,105 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. and 14 times the $899.8 billion of currency in circulation. The nation’s gross domestic product was $14.2 trillion in 2008.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... =worldwide
I see no evidence in support of that. Our roads are crumbling, and our cellphone and internet infrastructures are decidedly second rate compared to Europe and Japan. All of our major auto companies teeter on collapse and the fuel economy of their products lag those of other countries. I see no uproar about those much more visible areas.
ThereIWas2":1ge7tzkw said:
There are more than 4,209,835 km of paved roads in the U.S., and the United Kingdom only has 344,000 km of paved roads, or more than 12 times less than the U.S.
The U.S. has more paved roads than any other country in the world with China coming in at second.
So your example of Europe roads is a bad one indeed.
I need only say one word as far as the desire, commitment and technical prowess of the U.S. and the American people... APOLLO! I easily rest my case!
So, if you think Europe or Japan is so much better than the U.S... move there!
That was not a very clever post jake, Im sorry.
I don't have the numbers like you, but it hardly makes sense to compare US (pop 300mil?) to UKs (pop mucho less) roads and then say this is a valid comparison to European roads, of which UK is just a small part (California perhaps?).
Have you been over seas? I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to the US, but if you ever get a glimpse of some of these Asian Tiger economies, you may want to move there yourself. I can't explain it, you won't believe it, but it's true, they have a better standard of living than the US or Europe.
I don't have the numbers like you, but it hardly makes sense to compare US (pop 300mil?) to UKs (pop mucho less) roads and then say this is a valid comparison to European roads, of which UK is just a small part (California perhaps?).
Have you been over seas? I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to the US, but if you ever get a glimpse of some of these Asian Tiger economies, you may want to move there yourself. I can't explain it, you won't believe it, but it's true, they have a better standard of living than the US or Europe.
Booban,
I think the amount of roads is solid, especially when you consider the amount of interstate highway there are in the U.S..
Size most definitely matters!
I think the amount of roads is solid, especially when you consider the amount of interstate highway there are in the U.S..
Size most definitely matters!
It is probably true that the US has more roads, but that is just one sign of infrastructure, but I don't think anything to boast about, they are a sign of pollution.
How many high speed trains are there in America? Besides being more compact, perhaps there are other reasons why Europe makes do with less roads when the entire European population and GDP are comparable to the US.
There is no point to degrade into a nationalistic quibble, the US is absolutely huge and has many parts, some places with fewer roads, some with more. All the same, some areas of Asia, China truly surpass most cities in the western world, partially because they are all new, completely planned and modern.
How many high speed trains are there in America? Besides being more compact, perhaps there are other reasons why Europe makes do with less roads when the entire European population and GDP are comparable to the US.
There is no point to degrade into a nationalistic quibble, the US is absolutely huge and has many parts, some places with fewer roads, some with more. All the same, some areas of Asia, China truly surpass most cities in the western world, partially because they are all new, completely planned and modern.
If I could, I would. Have you looked at their immigration restrictions? But that has no bearing on my point.
Neither does how many miles of road we have in the US. We build roads we don't take care of. Have you driven I-95 through South Carolina, before they repaved it last year? Other countries have rail systems we don't have. Where is the uproar over these much more obvious day-to-day problems? NASA is relatively invisible.
Folks, I don't think the nation/continent bashing is appropriate to this topic. Lete's just stick to the subject of the report, which bashes neither nations or continents, OK.
Nation and Continent bashing belongs in Free Space.
Moderator Meteor Wayne
Nation and Continent bashing belongs in Free Space.
Moderator Meteor Wayne
MeteorWayne":2sdu8t4w said:
Well it is called "Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee" after all.
I saw one tiny indirect mention (about the 'Indirect path"):
"Most interestingly, humans could rendezvous with a moon of Mars, then coordinate with or control
robots on the Martian surface."
kelvinzero":24o24vxp said:
Now that sounds crazy. Whatever the benefits they can't possibly justify the cost when robots in fact can be controlled from Earth.
Booban":36wging5 said:
Bear in mind that the phrase "that sounds crazy" is actually shorthand for "that sounds crazy to me, based on my current knowledge".
Given that this panel is a collection of people selected for their knowledge on the subject, a statement like this, that sounds crazy to you, should make you intensely curious about exactly what it is they know that you do not.
In this case the answer is not rocket science. If you look at the actual distance traveled by the mars rovers it is actually quite small. (10 or 10s of km?) The performance of a teleoperated robot on mars could be fantastically improved by reducing the time lag from up to 40ish minutes to a fraction of a second.
Someone should check my numbers but I think Phobos is very close to mars, eg under 10,000km. so the response time for video to arrive from a rover and a command to be sent back would be around 0.06 of a second.
In any case, just reducing it to the say 3 seconds to the moon and back would be a fantasic improvement in effectiveness.
There are of course some other motivations for a trip to phobos.
*Phobos is interesting in its own right.
*Getting to phobos would get us much closer to a manned mars mission, in smaller steps.
*To colonization freaks like me, Phobos is interesting in probably having much more useful materials than the moon: Carbon, hydrogen (possibly as easily accessible ice)
*And then of course there is the view
*Phobos is interesting in its own right.
*Getting to phobos would get us much closer to a manned mars mission, in smaller steps.
*To colonization freaks like me, Phobos is interesting in probably having much more useful materials than the moon: Carbon, hydrogen (possibly as easily accessible ice)
*And then of course there is the view
I said it sounds crazy and have no illusions of my knowledge of the subject.
But you don't have to over dose the brain power either, plenty of smart people make dumb decisions like the rest of us normals. It doesn't take a genius to know that there are benefits, but everything has to be weighed to the costs, and not just money, we are talking also of the risk of lives.
But you don't have to over dose the brain power either, plenty of smart people make dumb decisions like the rest of us normals. It doesn't take a genius to know that there are benefits, but everything has to be weighed to the costs, and not just money, we are talking also of the risk of lives.
Back to on topic…
Two interesting pieces of news have recently arisen that should have some bearing on the Agustine Report:
1st
First Ares test sends only good vibrations
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/200 ... vibrations
The vibrations generated during the test were eight to 10 times less than design limits, and extra dampers or shock absorbers -- which could add millions of dollars to the final cost -- might not be needed, the official said.
This is preliminary -- less than 24 hours after the test. So the truth is more tests will help us verify this. But, boy, it looks like a nice path we're headed down, said former NASA Chief Astronaut Kent Rominger, vice president of test and research operations for ATK Space Systems. The real bottom line is we're very excited, based on what happened yesterday.
BY TODD HALVORSON • FLORIDA TODAY • September 12, 2009
2nd
Griffin objects to space report
This week, the panel released an executive summary of findings it sent the White House. The suggestions strongly recommended extending the life of the International Space Station until 2020, retiring the shuttle after it has completed the next six missions and setting Mars as the ultimate goal for exploration.
The report made little mention of the Marshall Space Flight Center-managed Ares I crew rocket - saying only that once it is complete under the present schedule, it would be of little value to use as a crew ferry to the space station. The panel suggested NASA should look to an improved space shuttle rocket, commercial launch vehicles or use the larger Ares V for future missions.
Using commercial rockets, such as the Decatur-built Delta IV or SpaceX's planned Falcon 9 rocket, to send supplies or crews to the space station is not possible, Griffin wrote.
What commercial sector? At present, the only clearly available commercial' option is (Europe's) Ariane 5, Griffin questioned in his memo first published in the Orlando Sentinel.
Griffin criticized the panel's suggestion that NASA needs more money, that the space agency can rely on commercial rockets or that NASA intended to splash the International Space Station into the Pacific Ocean in 2015.
It is clarifying to see a formal recognition by the commission that, based upon budgetary considerations, the human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory, Griffin wrote. Given that the Constellation program was designed in accordance with the budget profile specified in 2005, yet has since suffered some $30 billion of reductions to the amount allocated to human lunar return (including almost $12 billion in just the last five fiscal years) this is an unsurprising conclusion, but one which provides the necessary grounding for all subsequent discussions.
Griffin, who led NASA from 2005 until he stepped down in January, writes that the plan was never to walk away totally from the station or to abandon it for reentry.
While it is certainly true that Bush Administration budgets did not show any funding for ISS past 2015, it was always quite clear that the decision to cancel or fund the ISS in 2016 and beyond was never within the purview of the Bush Administration to make, Griffin wrote.
The future of the space station would be decided in conjunction with the input of the international partners, Griffin wrote.
Saturday, September 12, 2009 From staff reportsHuntsville Times
Two interesting pieces of news have recently arisen that should have some bearing on the Agustine Report:
1st
First Ares test sends only good vibrations
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/200 ... vibrations
The vibrations generated during the test were eight to 10 times less than design limits, and extra dampers or shock absorbers -- which could add millions of dollars to the final cost -- might not be needed, the official said.
This is preliminary -- less than 24 hours after the test. So the truth is more tests will help us verify this. But, boy, it looks like a nice path we're headed down, said former NASA Chief Astronaut Kent Rominger, vice president of test and research operations for ATK Space Systems. The real bottom line is we're very excited, based on what happened yesterday.
BY TODD HALVORSON • FLORIDA TODAY • September 12, 2009
2nd
Griffin objects to space report
This week, the panel released an executive summary of findings it sent the White House. The suggestions strongly recommended extending the life of the International Space Station until 2020, retiring the shuttle after it has completed the next six missions and setting Mars as the ultimate goal for exploration.
The report made little mention of the Marshall Space Flight Center-managed Ares I crew rocket - saying only that once it is complete under the present schedule, it would be of little value to use as a crew ferry to the space station. The panel suggested NASA should look to an improved space shuttle rocket, commercial launch vehicles or use the larger Ares V for future missions.
Using commercial rockets, such as the Decatur-built Delta IV or SpaceX's planned Falcon 9 rocket, to send supplies or crews to the space station is not possible, Griffin wrote.
What commercial sector? At present, the only clearly available commercial' option is (Europe's) Ariane 5, Griffin questioned in his memo first published in the Orlando Sentinel.
Griffin criticized the panel's suggestion that NASA needs more money, that the space agency can rely on commercial rockets or that NASA intended to splash the International Space Station into the Pacific Ocean in 2015.
It is clarifying to see a formal recognition by the commission that, based upon budgetary considerations, the human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory, Griffin wrote. Given that the Constellation program was designed in accordance with the budget profile specified in 2005, yet has since suffered some $30 billion of reductions to the amount allocated to human lunar return (including almost $12 billion in just the last five fiscal years) this is an unsurprising conclusion, but one which provides the necessary grounding for all subsequent discussions.
Griffin, who led NASA from 2005 until he stepped down in January, writes that the plan was never to walk away totally from the station or to abandon it for reentry.
While it is certainly true that Bush Administration budgets did not show any funding for ISS past 2015, it was always quite clear that the decision to cancel or fund the ISS in 2016 and beyond was never within the purview of the Bush Administration to make, Griffin wrote.
The future of the space station would be decided in conjunction with the input of the international partners, Griffin wrote.
Saturday, September 12, 2009 From staff reportsHuntsville Times
- Status
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