Can We Do This?

[qso1]

halman:<br />Of course, we could spend that on solving problems here at home, which we are currently doing with several hundred billion every year. That extra 4 billion would certainly turn the tide in eliminating poverty, wiping out AIDS, and fighting illiteracy.<br /><br />Me:<br />Your right, it could go to all those worthy causes...but it won't. After all, what happened to the untold billions left from the NASA cuts of the early 1970s? NASA budgets were 2 to 4% GDP until 1973-74 when they were hacked to the present level of about 1% GDP. Where did the savings go?<br /><br />If I were askold and Nyarlathotep or anyone else who is against NASA human spaceflight spending. I'd be asking the government to guarantee that NASA cuts would be directed towards the fixing of earthly problems seeing how that didn't happen on the first round of cuts spanning what...three plus decades? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[halman]

qso1,<br /><br />The later part of that post was dripping so heavily with sarcasm that I could not imagine anyone taking it seriously. Of course a few billion more will have no effect on problems that we are throwing a hundred billion at already.<br /><br />Conversely, a few billion more for space exploration would have a huge impact, allowing more science to be done alongside expanded manned missions. I get pretty riled up over this subject, because I believe that space exploration is critical to both the near-term economic health of the United States and the long term survival of our species. We are throwing billions of dollars around trying to influence the course of events, when spending that money on the high frontier would result in people following our lead willingly. We can point the way to a better future, but not with a gun. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[qso1]

halman:<br />The later part of that post was dripping so heavily with sarcasm that I could not imagine anyone taking it seriously.<br /><br />Me:<br />Your right about that. Although that was not the intended effect. I get sarcastic sometimes without realizing it and the reason here is that I'm just an average guy. If I have figured out the government won't properly redired any money saved in NASA cuts, why can't other folks see that?<br /><br />BTW, you raised some excellent points for human spaceflight. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[djtt]

Another contributing factor is the media generated perception that space exploration is somehow unaffordable.<br /><br />that sums the economic part up mostly<br />politicians dont seem unhappy to follow up on it so they can promise more funds towards the usual stuff that catches the general publics attention <br /><br />slash defense over space programme? <br />sadly unthinkable right now

 

[qso1]

djtt:<br />Another contributing factor is the media generated perception that space exploration is somehow unaffordable.<br /><br />Me:<br />Thats certainly true. NASA is one of the few government agencies for which budget data is readily available in part because the media almost always mentions cost in any human spaceflight coverage.<br /><br />IMO, NASA could get a modest increase in its budget. An increase beyond the effects of inflation. If America can afford $100-200 billion annually in Iraq, we can afford NASA. Critics ought to note that politicians would say we cannot afford HSF before the war on terrorism. Now all of a sudden we can afford rebuilding another country when ours is said to need such help from HSF critics? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[askold]

I'm not under the illusion that if we take money out of NASA then it will be spent on improving our schools or some other useful thing. I'm not saying that the manned program is "too expensive" in some absolute sense.<br /><br />My gripe is that the manned program does not produce useful results and isn't likely to any time soon. The science programs are launched with specific goals and objectives in mind; the manned program seems to be oriented to just going where no man has gone before.<br />

 

[qso1]

If you look back at the origins of the shuttle and why it came to be, you'll find it was for the purpose of making access to space less expensive than it was at the time of its inception. In fact, shuttle and skylab were touted as bringing benefits to the man in the street back in the early 1970s. The shuttle was to be the DC-3 of space. The shuttle failed to live up to its economic promise but has done many useful things. Unfortunately, the shuttle became the DC-2 of space. But the DC-2 of aviation did lead to the DC-3. I would also agree to a point that economic returns are not likely anytime soon. But thats the nature of research and as a nation, IMO we can afford to do that sort of research. Few other nations can. Ultimately the benefits may exceed what would have been possible by just cutting NASA budgets.<br /><br />Some of the criticism I have seen (Not necessarily yours) indicates that critics could care less what justification is made for going to the moon. The old "Bringing back useless rocks" example. This type of criticism cannot be satisfied until spaceflight is as easy as hopping on the city bus. But we can never achieve that ease without putting in the hard work first.<br /><br />Another factor to consider. It may be that NASA and government methods for exploring space have reached their limits. I kind of tend to think government run space programs by their very nature are not condusive to economical exploration. This is where private industry/enterprise may play a role, at least for gaining economical access to space.<br /><br />I gripe about the cutting NASA budgets because I happen to agree that we ought to fix social ills. But there are much larger targets to go after if one wants to take wasted money and use it to remedy social problems. If government announced they were going to cut NASA to help the homeless and cure disease...and they showed and guaranteed that they would actually do that...I'd be the first in line to sign up. I would however be conc <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[askold]

DC2? Actually, I think the shuttle is more like the Concorde of space - built more for national pride and as a demonstration of technical prowess (and job creation) than for any real economic benefit.<br /><br />Real sexy but deeply flawed. A solution looking for a problem.

 

[qso1]

It became the Concorde of space but back in 1970-72 time period, the search was on for a more economical space truck than the Saturn-V would have been. All those things are factored in...a little bit of it was pride, a little a demonstration of our technology. The overriding factor was economical access to space. A system that could do it all. NASA knew by 1970 it wasn't going to enjoy the budgets of Apollo. The Nixon Administration and public outcry then assured them they wouldn't. The budget realities forced NASA to start justifying human spaceflight on the grounds of direct benefits to the man on the street.<br /><br />By 1974...the critics call for NASA cuts that could be applied elswhere had been answered. Yet they still bemoaned human spaceflight. All while not considering that the budget cuts didn't go to the noble causes they should have gone to. In effect, critics trusting a government that gave them Watergate to do the right thing with NASAs budget.<br /><br />If we spent on NASA today what we spent in 1965. The NASA budget would be just over double its current value after factoring inflation. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[nyarlathotep]

>"Do you begrudge the workers on an off-shore oil platform their drinking water? I would imagine not, because you perceive what they are doing to be important. We will not be going back to the Moon to collect more rocks, but to figure out where the titanium is, and how to get to it. We will be learning how to survive without an atmosphere to interdict for us the raw power of the Sun, and the dust and debris which is found everywhere in space. We will be learning how to extract oxygen from regolith, how to recycle our wastes into drinking water and food, just like as happens here on Earth. "<br /><br />Ofcourse I don't begrudge oil workers, their water is being provided at minimum cost by oil companies who are using the platform to extract an economic resource. <br /><br />Apart from waste reclaimation and environmental systems, all of this technology placed on the moon has ****** all economic benefit. For science, LEO, L1 and the NEA's are massively cheaper to get to and orders of magnitude more useful. If we need 1/6th of a gravity for manufacturing, put a space station and counterweight in LEO.<br /><br />The moon is a dead, desolate, useless rock inside a huge gravity well which turns the hundreds of tonnes of meteoroids it sweeps up every day into deadly projectiles. Anything large you place on the surface is going to last months at best. Further, apart from tiny amounts of PGM from asteroid impacts which will take decades and thousands of rovers to find, there is absolutely nothing there of economic interest.<br /><br /> />"If I were askold and Nyarlathotep or anyone else who is against NASA human spaceflight spending. "<br /><br />I've never been against NASA human spaceflight spending. I'm against massive boondoggles with no economic or scientific justification. Why are we going to the moon?

 

[halman]

qso1,<br /><br />In 1965, NASA had one mission: Get to the Moon. Nearly all of the budget went into manned space flight. Today, NASA is involved in thousands of projects, and the majority of it's budget goes to things other than the space shuttle. Some of it is going to the International Space Station, but it still totals out to less than 1/2 of NASA's budget. Realisticly, if we are to commit to returning to space for interplanetary exploration, NASA needs a budget of about 50 billion a year, to cover the expanded science projects as well as building new space craft, which at some point in time should be modeled after the original NASA proposal for the space shuttle, which is a much smaller vehicle, with no external tank, and liquid fueled, fly-back boosters. What NASA wanted back then got distorted beyond recognition in accomadating the demands of the U. S. Air Force for payload capacity. If NASA begins flying expendable rockets heavily, there almost certainly will be an echo of the public outcry over the wastefulness of throwing away a big rocket every mission. <br /><br />This is what forced them to consider the reusable spaceplane as the primary crew transportation vehicle. They still expected, back in the early 1970's, to be able to get some big rockets, along the lines of the Saturn 5, built to support building a space station and developing the Moon. When it became clear that such rockets were a thing of the past, the Air Force had a tizzy fit, which resulted in NASA being forced into a partnership with them. NASA still could have succeded in acheiving economical space flight if Congress had granted them the 7 orbiters they needed to make the economies of scale work in their favor. This also would have allowed the very high launch rates that NASA had promised if the shuttle was built.<br /><br />Personally, I think that the shuttle was designed without any fancy bells and whistles, because the budget during those years was grim. It just so happend tha <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[halman]

Nyarlathotep,<br /><br />Even if the Moon is dead, desolate, useless rock, I think that we still need to go there. Not for resources, but for psychological reasons. Somehow, we have to convince people who know nothing about outer space that it is worthwhile to invest in it. We only need their co-operation for a little while, and then it won't matter what the electorate thinks, because space will have become an arena for Big Business, and acess to that environment will be assured. Right now, access to space is not assured, even with all of the private efforts that are trying to reach Low Earth Orbit.<br /><br />Government has a very necessary role in opening up frontiers, and this frontier is still very much in the governments area of responsibility. Until a cheap, reliable, and safe means of accessing space is developed, government is still needed to experiment and test, spending large sums of money in the process. If we say that we are going to our nearest neighbor with that money, people who have not a clue what a Near Earth Asteroid is will feel like they understand what the government is doing with their money. They will know where we are going, without having to have some long haired professor type lecture them because of their ignorance. And that is what I consider essential; that the man on the street be involved and aware of the effort to overcome these obstacles between us and the rest of the Cosmos. Because, without the support of the man on the street, the government is likely to abandon space exploration, as it nearly has in the past. Certainly, a private effort will eventually succede in reaching space, but not any time soon, from what I have been seeing.<br /><br />But we don't need the public's undinting support forever, because there is wealth to be made in space, and it won't be long before some large outfit is going to start spending a lot of money to get in on that wealth. Once we reach that point, things will build upon themselves, and mon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[qso1]

NASA was far more focused on getting to the moon in 65 but NASA budgets also covered aerospace research programs such as the X-15. Unmanned probes like the Mariners to Mars and in support of Apollo, lunar orbiter and Surveyor. I doubt will ever see a $50B dollar NASA budget. I just hope private enterprise/industry can get a handle on LEO so NASA can focus on the VSE and Mars if these actually come about.<br /><br />Your also right about the AF shuttle involvment. The AF drove the huge size of the orbiter with its 65,000 lb payload capacity requirement. In 1970, NASA was fully expecting to build a smaller, fully reusable shuttle for operations beginning in 1975-76. A space station derived from Saturn-V hardware. The Saturn-V would have continued production under the 1970 plan for heavy lift purposes. By 1972, the shuttle compromise had taken over, Saturn-V production ended and a mid 1970s station went with it.<br /><br />The 7 orbiter scenario would have been better. By 1980, NASA had whittled down their estimates to 24 shuttle flights a year. This flight rate was actually demonstrated by shuttle Discovery when it made 6 flights from its first flight in 1984, to its 6th flight in 1985. All 6 missions just inside 1 year. So if all orbiters had flown at that rate, 24 missions per year could have been achieved. But each orbiter would require a dedicated ground crew to maintain this flight rate.<br /><br />Shuttle is pretty basic but as you pointed out, it was simply quite large which in turn made it more complex. The best info I was able to obtain on the old HEW budgets were on the order of $400 B annually back in the early 1970s, much larger than NASA budgets and about where you put it by comparison. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[willpittenger]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>By 1980, NASA had whittled down their estimates to 24 shuttle flights a year. This flight rate was actually demonstrated by shuttle Discovery when it made 6 flights from its first flight in 1984, to its 6th flight in 1985. All 6 missions just inside 1 year. So if all orbiters had flown at that rate, 24 missions per year could have been achieved. But each orbiter would require a dedicated ground crew to maintain this flight rate.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />With only 4 orbiters in service at once (we had 5 serve but only 4 at the same time), it would be tough to achieve 24 missions if we always stand one down for major servicing. That is typically what happens. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[qso1]

Correct, and one reason I mentioned each orbiter would have to have a dedicated maintenance crew which they currently do not have. But you mentioned major servicing which would also affect the flight rate. But even if 12 to 15 flights could have been pulled off, maybe the shuttle wouldn't have gotten so much criticism...who knows. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[nyarlathotep]

>"Somehow, we have to convince people who know nothing about outer space that it is worthwhile to invest in it."<br /><br />Prancing around a minefield in fragile suits looking at rock strata is all well and good, but how about convincing them by showing a return on capital employed? I'm led to believe that investors like that sort of thing.

 

[alokmohan]

I think one has to convince then of National prestige like Kennedy did in 1961.But there was enough politicl compulsion.

 

[halman]

Nyarlathotep,<br /><br />From what I have learned about political science, history, and economics, it is the role of government to sponser the initial development of a new technology or frontier. Once the government has proven technologies are viable, or that a frontier has valuable resources, then the private sector moves in, and the government moves on. A launch system with a high flight rate, low costs, and good safety features is similiar to a bridge, in certain respects, a bridge between the surface of the Earth and the rest of the Cosmos. Once that launch system is in place, the private sector will use it to get to places where resources can be extracted, or processed, and the government will move on to the next challenge which the private sector does not want to take on by itself.<br /><br />This is the point where access to space is assured, irregardless of what the government does, because business will be operating the system to access space, and will continue to invest in it until it is working efficiently. But to get to that point, the government has to have the public's support for spending their money. Keeping focused on one, highly visible, easy to understand goal is the best way that I can think of for the government to maintain support for space exploration. This goal also needs to be atainable in a relaively short period of time, so that the public will keep interested in the goal. This goal also needs to be large enough to warrant spending the government's money to examine different methods of putting mass into orbit, so that a Cheap Access To Space launch system can be identified.<br /><br />My goal is not the colonization of this planet or that moon, it is to assure that there is enough demand for launch capability that funding for developing better launch technologies will be available and plentiful. Once those technologies are proven, and have been integrated into routine usage, it doesn't matter to me if we put a colony on one of the moons <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[PistolPete]

It's like Lewis and Clark. They explored the Louisiana Purchase on a govornment commision. Without a govornment sponsored expidition, I doubt that many people would have put forth their own money to go settle a completely unknown territory. With the Lewis and Clark Expidition, settelers had at least some idea what lied beyond, therefore they could prepare for it and exploit it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><em>So, again we are defeated. This victory belongs to the farmers, not us.</em></p><p><strong>-Kambei Shimada from the movie Seven Samurai</strong></p> </div>

 

[ahook12]

What we all fail to realize is that space is already paying for itself many times over in communication satelites. Think how much money you save every time you make a long distance or overseas phone call. This alone more than pays for all the money NASA spends on space research.<br /><br />For those with no imagination, the future benifits will greatly exceed the savings in communications. For example it is very possible with the expertise we are getting building the space station, to be able to construct huge solar power stations to beam millions of megawatts of clean non-polluting power back to earth. This can be used to make hydrogen to power our cars, buses etc. This can greatly reduce greenhouse gases and possibly reduce or stop globel warming..There also is the astroid belt which contains billions of tons of gold, silver, platinum and other very useful minerals. <br /><br />We must continue to promote space travel for the good of all mankind. this is the most exciting and productive endeaver in the history of the human race...<br /><br />Love you all, Allen

 

[halman]

PistolPete,<br /><br />Instead of Lewis and Clark, I prefer to use the development of aviation, and the first transcontinental railway, as well as the Rural Electrification Act of 1915. The government subsidized the development of aircraft by creating air mail, and paying to have such mail moved, so that the sticker price to the purchaser was far below cost. Later, the predecessor of NASA spent government money to build experimental aircraft, and study their performance to allow the new technolgy to be adapted to commercial and private aircraft.<br /><br />The first, and a number of succeding, transcontinental railroads were built with governmant guarenteed loans, and grants of land for 5 miles on either side of the right of way. That land was sold off to settlers, and (theoretically,) used to pay off the loans. So the government made money available to the private sector in such a way that the private sector would not have to repay it out of the profits from the development.<br /><br />By 1910, most cities had been wired for electricity. But a few miles out of town, the power companies demanded that the customer pay to have the poles put in to bring power to remote farmhouses, barns, milking parlors, and feed mills. So the government decided to intervene for the sake of economic growth, by creating a market for electrical appliences. The government hired pole crews and ran strings of poles all over the nation, bringing power to places that still would not have it if this act had not passed.<br /><br />So, now the government has to justify spending a large sum of money to have better means of putting mass in orbit examined and tested. We need somewhere to send the payloads that these experimental launch vehicles will carry, so we should build another space station, speciffically to be the base and hanger for a vehicle which can move several hundred ton payloads from Low Earth Orbit all the way out to solar orbit, somewhere near the Earth, but which receives sunlight <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[nyarlathotep]

>"What we all fail to realize is that space is already paying for itself many times over in communication satelites. Think how much money you save every time you make a long distance or overseas phone call."<br /><br />Yes, and it's all thanks to the miracle of fibre optic submarine cables. Globalstar and Inmarsat still charge though the nose.

 

[j05h]

> It's like Lewis and Clark. They explored the Louisiana Purchase on a govornment commision.<br /><br />And Alexander MacKenzie travelled to the Pacific before them as a private businessman. Before either of those parties, French and English speaking fur trappers had been all over western North America but were generally not in a position to write about it. I dispute your analogy.<br /><br />http://www.lewis-clark.org/content/content-article.asp?ArticleID=1104<br /><br />Earlier than any of that, privately sponsored Portugeuse expeditions were sailing to the Americas from the Azores. Well, sort of private, as the adventurer-turned-governor of those islands sent crews including his sons to explore the New Lands. <br /><br />All of this is water under the bridge - every frontier is different.<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>