POLL: Is Abandoning NASA's Moon Plan the Right Choice?

[DarkenedOne]

:shock: Wow. Your the first person I have ever heard say that commercializing unmanned space flight was a mistake.

The EELVs that exist to day are significantly cheaper than the space shuttle, less risky than they space shuttle, arguably more reliable than the space shuttle, and have a greater launch rate than the space shuttle.

Neither EELV has to date demonstrated a greater launch rate than Shuttle. Last year Atlas 5 managed to match Shuttle's five launches, but Shuttle has matched or out-launched Atlas 5 or Delta 4 five times in eight years since the EELVs began flying - and that includes the post-Columbia stand down. Since 2002, Shuttle has flown 23 times (even though it flew zero times in 2004 and only once in 2003 and 2005). Atlas 5 has flown 20 times. Delta 4 has flown only 11 times.

Alright I will give you that. The EELV were designed for and are capable of a much higher launch rate, but due to lower than expected demand, which is partly the result of the recession, they are not anywhere near their capacity.

I surely hope that the EELVs cost less than Shuttle! The EELVs, on average, haul much less payload mass than Shuttle, and they obviously don't carry crew. Shuttle is not just a launch vehicle, but also a spacecraft payload. Put an astronaut-carrying spacecraft on top of an EELV Heavy and the entire bit will rival a Shuttle mission in cost.

My bad. Let me clarify.

When I said cost less I meant on a per kg basis. The space shuttle has a far high cost per unit of mass than practically any of the commercial launchers. According to NASA the average shuttle mission cost $450 million not including development and the shuttle has a max LEO payload capacity of 24,400 kg. When you include development the Delta IV cost about $254 million per launch and lifts closer to 26000kg. When you include development and everything else by dividing the entire cost of the Shuttle program over the launches you get $1.3 billion per launch.

http://www.space.com/news/shuttle_cost_050211.html

However you also indicated another two reason why the EELV are superior for unmanned spacecraft. The first being that the EELV are reconfigurable for the mission at hand. The Atlas V is reconfigurable to launch anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000kg. The second being that the Shuttle is manned, which put a great deal more at risk when putting a satellite into space.

Lastly I highly doubt a manned EELV will rival the Shuttle in expense for several reasons I will not go into right now. I will point out that the closest competitor to a manned EELV is Russians Soyuz vehicles which are arguably more reliable and are much cheaper than the Shuttle is.

Yes it is true that have outsourced some of the components, but as I understand it they have not done so for the more important ones.

First stage propulsion, to me, is pretty darn important!

OK so they use a Russian developed engine as the first stage of one of the EELV.

The EELVs cost far more than expected. Some reports have Delta 4 Heavy at more than $500 million per flight compared to an original $150 million goal. The costs are in part forcing the closing of the Delta 2 program, which just happens to be the most reliable launch system in the U.S.. But like Shuttle, it too will soon be gone. (Soon to be gone Shuttle and Delta 2 together accounted for 13 of last year's 24 U.S. launch attempts.)

The EELV cost far more than expected because of the less than anticipated demand. Still cheaper then the shuttle though. As far as the Delta II is concerned the Delta II is simply being replaced. They designed the EELV to replace the Delta II. While Delta II has a great record the EELV have a superior record as of this far.

In the past two years, EELV has launched a grand total of just two commercial satellites. The EELV's aren't really even in the commercial game. That doesn't look like great success to me.

I'm not suggesting putting commercial launch back into NASA's hands, but the current system isn't helping the U.S. keep up with the rest of the world in space launch.

- Ed Kyle

Yes the commercial side for the last two years has been low largely due to the recession. When you look at the entire history of the commercial space launches on the Atlas V, which is the only EELV on the commercial market, you will find that it accounts for a significant percentage of the launches.

Secondly your right about the US being behind in commercial unmanned launch market. Does that mean that it was a mistake to switch unmanned payloads away from the shuttle? No. The switch can be justified on the cost savings and reliability alone to NASA as well as the military. If the shuttle were our only means of getting to space there would be no commercial unmanned launch market at all. Kind of sounds like where we are in commercial human space flight. There has been 8 people who have been launched into space commercially, and I understand it they have all been done by the US based company, Space Adventures. Unfortunately they have to use Russian launchers because there is no commercial human launchers in the US.

 

[edkyle99]

Yes the commercial side for the last two years has been low largely due to the recession. When you look at the entire history of the commercial space launches on the Atlas V, which is the only EELV on the commercial market, you will find that it accounts for a significant percentage of the launches.

Worldwide commercial launches have increased during the past two years, mostly to the benefit of Arianespace and Krunichev's Proton. Like I said, the EELVs aren't even in the game.

Secondly your right about the US being behind in commercial unmanned launch market. Does that mean that it was a mistake to switch unmanned payloads away from the shuttle? No. The switch can be justified on the cost savings and reliability alone to NASA as well as the military.

Launches weren't just switched from Shuttle to commercial EELVs, NASA also gave up control of Delta and Atlas Centaur during the same period. From then on, launch services were contracted out commercially, but de-facto control of the systems merely shifted from NASA to the U.S. Air Force. The Air Force now essentially controls the EELV program (via. massive funding) as well. (Or is it the EELV program that controls the Air Force?)

"Commercial" it is in name only. True commercial would thrive without depending on government money.

- Ed Kyle

 

[nimbus]

Gotta start somewhere.

 

[vulture4]

>>But Shuttle is a system that will soon be gone, so lets not waste time talking about it here.

On the contrary, it is essential to talk about it. Shuttle is a system that actually works, that puts people, and cargo, and the RMS in space, everything needed to do a job. After the Columbia loss seven years ago, the Shuttle was modified to eliminate the problem and returned to flight. It will be appropriate to retire it when we have a better vehicle in service, not in development. At this point in time we don't.

Shuttle was canceled not because it was unsafe but because Bush wanted to go to the moon while simultaneously cutting taxes. To get the money, ee wanted to abandon ISS this year as well as Shuttle. After it became clear that Constellation was a poorly conceived and managed program and was failing, its supporters started pushing the claims that "the shuttle is becoming old and unsafe" and "we always knew shuttle was going to be retired". This was a false statement, an attempt to create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Obama administration would have been happy to extend the Shuttle program. Norm Augustine himself said Shuttle could keep flying safely. NASA killed it, apparently the work of die-hard Constellation lobbyists who wanted to make their white elephant the only choice. They could still reverse the decision, but now they have convinced the administrator that the shuttles can safely fly four more times, and will then fall apart. Bolden's statement that flying the shuttle was like playing Russian roulette was absurd; if the vehicle is unsafe the next mission should and must be canceled; if it is safe it can fly as long as needed. From a reliability standpoint, each flight is actually safer than the last.

The absence of any real understanding of the basics of reliability engineering on the part of NASA management is painfully evident. Decisions are made on the basis of organizational politics and gut instinct. In the future this decision will be considered astonishingly wasteful and shortsighted. This is a mistake. Forgetting that it is a mistake will condemn us to repeat it.

 

[TheNative]

It would be awesome if we had the budget to go to the moon, build a moon base & colony, fly the space shuttles, participate in the ISS, fund commercial manned space flight, build new orion and constellation launch vehicles, develop new space faring technology, launch 100's of new telescopes & other science orbiters, and still go to Mars.
Seeing as how we don't have that kind of budget, I'd be happy with just creating new technology and going to Mars. Whether or not this new plan will get us to Mars, only time will tell. It won't unless they spend the money needed on it.
Personally I would love to see a mission to Mars be almost entirely the focus of NASA. The moon is a desolate place. Mars may be harsh, but it humans inhabit some harsh environments here on earth. We probably won't thrive on Mars, but maybe we can learn to live on Mars.

 

[CoreDave]

I honestly don't understand the aversion to LEO people have. Sure going to Mars would be cool and in the long term setting up off world bases and colonies is of course a very sensible precaution against catastrophic events on earth. But this is all utterly impossible with our current economic and engineering reality.

Mastering access to LEO and exploiting the near space environment is a much better "destination" than a pointless and immensly expensive endevour to setup an unsustainable base on the moon right now, let alone Mars. People in the US keep going on about NASA needing a mission. NASA has a mission, the same one it has always had. To reseach and develop air and space techologies. Yet again Obama has simply pointed out the truth of the situation and come up with a sensible realistic plan for moving forward. If the US develops commercial companies with human rated space launch services these can be sold to many other countries, organisations and ultimatly individuals around the world. That is what market domination is all about people. You want to lead in space? Well then thats the path to take.

Untill we as a species (never mind an individual nation) can sustain a large presence in orbit going else where for anything other than a one off research mission is never going to happen. You guys need to stop listening to all the lobby groups and think this one through for yourselves. Leave aside the dreams of being able to go and live on the moon in your lifetime for a second and think about what it will really take for mankind to master LEO, once we hvae that the rest of the solar system will open up to us. *Edit* And until we have mastered LEO by definition the rest of the solar system is effectivly closed off to us. And NO the shuttle did not master LEO, failiure rate, launch rate and cost all utterly fail to pass the grade (amazing vehical though it is).

 

[spacedengr]

... going to Mars ... utterly impossible with our current economic and engineering reality.

Obama has ... come up with a sensible realistic plan for moving forward. If the US develops commercial companies with human rated space launch services these can be sold to many other countries, organisations and ultimatly individuals around the world.

... until we have mastered LEO by definition the rest of the solar system is effectivly closed off to us.

1. Simply not true. What is lacking is vision and political will. Nuclear space propulsion could take us to Mars in 3 months. You need to review the long, sad history of nuclear space power programs in the US. We even sort of bought some space reactors from the Russians. Without the will, the $, and multi-administration commitment it will not happen. It is not an engineering limitation.

2. What plan? Maybe something, maybe sometime. That is not a plan. We have a plan now that will produce an actual vehicle on an actual schedule. The Road To Nowhere is paved with "technology demonstration" programs. We need a REAL program with a REAL vehicle going to a REAL destination.

3. What market for commercial manned spacefilight are you referring to? Virgin Galactic is the world's most expensive amusement park ride. There is too much risk and not enough payback for the huge capital investment required. That is where governments have to operate. That is where Airmail came from. It took 20+ years to go from crashing every 50 miles to the DC-4 and Connies of the postwar era. We can't wait that long for the guys with the leather helmets and goggles to maybe get their act together. We need a robust national capability WHILE bring the kids up to speed, not INSTEAD OF.

4. "Mastering" LEO is on the path. But we need to figure out how to get people to other worlds and sustain them once they are there. You can practice that on the moon. Then on to Mars. Without a real plan, with real goals, we will just watch others do it.

 

[cyberdog501]

these resourses of nasa should be partnered with private industry as safety overseers and technical assistance with getting into the moon asap!drilling into the moon offers protection from space,instant profit by selling the ore,and because of major abvances in drilling,lots of room,fast!coated or sprayed with suitable membrane, seals and protects for next to nothing compared to trying to live on the surface in modules that will bear the full brunt of this hostile place!
also,with the finding of water at the poles we would have instant habitat,again,for very little investment compared to profit potential for the first to get there

 

[CoreDave]

spacedengr, let me address each of your points here.

1) Space nuclear power for getting around the solar system may indeed by useful at some point, but you need regular easy access to LEO before you can do that stuff. Look at how much it has cost to build and maintain a single 6 person station in LEO. Yet you want to fund and maintain long term bases on other worlds? That is trying to run before you can crawl. A parent doesn't set his baby the goal of driving to college before it can even walk across the room. We need to be realistic in our goals. Yes with unlimited funds we could launch and build vehicals capable of supporting colonies on other worlds but funds are not unlimited so the reality of our economy means we can not afford to do it with our present engineering know how.

2) The plan is to get back to basic research while stimulating private enterprise to try and bring down the costs of the systems we already know how to build. It is a plan, just because it doesn't state a place to try and get to doesn't make it any less of a plan. The truth is that the old destination driven plans have failed to deliver any meaningful developments in the technology needed to advance mankind in space. Because you say we are going here and then people work out how to do it with proven technology. Rather than saying right lets develop new technologies to enable new destinations in the future. People need to accept that going somewhere for the sake of it is not a good enough reason to spend billions of dollars. Developing technologies to bring down the cost of such an expadition to a managable level IS worth spending billions however because in the long run it enables expansion.

3) The commercial market is currently going to be driven by government customers. The advantage of doing it via private companies for the US is that they can sell those services to other countries. You can make access to space an export. Thus bringing much needed capital into the economy. In the future as costs come down the market will open up to include large buisnesses who can afford the price tag for doing research in space, then manufacturing, eventutally space tourism will become feasible but I agree without a major techological or engineering break through this is not likely to be seen in the short term. In addition to all that the US political model is simply not condusive to developing, building and operating cost effective launch systems, as evidenced in the nemerous cancelled programs and horribly over priced systems like STS.

4) Why do we need to figure out how to get to other worlds? What do you want to do when you get there? Why go now when the cost of supporting the endevour is so huge and impractical. Wait, build up the infrastructure in earth orbit and bring down the costs of accessing earth orbit then do it for a fraction of the cost. That is what Obamas plan is all about. Get NASA back to its original goal of developing technologies to anable future exploration.

 

[voyager4d]

...
2) The plan is to get back to basic research while stimulating private enterprise to try and bring down the costs of the systems we already know how to build. It is a plan, just because it doesn't state a place to try and get to doesn't make it any less of a plan. The truth is that the old destination driven plans have failed to deliver any meaningful developments in the technology needed to advance mankind in space. Because you say we are going here and then people work out how to do it with proven technology. Rather than saying right lets develop new technologies to enable new destinations in the future. People need to accept that going somewhere for the sake of it is not a good enough reason to spend billions of dollars. Developing technologies to bring down the cost of such an expadition to a managable level IS worth spending billions however because in the long run it enables expansion.

I couldn't agree more.
To put it in other terms, we know we don't have enough money to do it the Apollo way.
So we need to find a way to get more done for less money.
First thing is of course to make access to LEO cheaper, and there are a lot of ways doing that, just look at how SpaceX has been doing it (in house production, mass produce same rocket engine, fast turn around time, low number of staff/maintenance).
Second thing is technology:
- Better in-space propulsion (VASMIR etc.)
- High longevity rocket engines.
- On-orbit propellant transfer.
- Long-term on-orbit propellant storage.
- Space tugs
- In-Situ Resource Utilization
- etc.

 

[spacedengr]

spacedengr, let me address each of your points here.

1) ...A parent doesn't set his baby the goal of driving to college before it can even walk across the room.

2) The plan is to get back to basic research ... Rather than saying right lets develop new technologies to enable new destinations in the future.

3) The commercial market is currently going to be driven by government customers. The advantage of doing it via private companies for the US is that they can sell those services to other countries.

4) Why do we need to figure out how to get to other worlds? What do you want to do when you get there? Why go now when the cost of supporting the endevour is so huge and impractical. Wait, build up the infrastructure in earth orbit ...

1) Exactly. We are telling these startups to "drive to college" when they cannot even crawl. SpaceX is now 2 for 6. Are you signed up yet? We need something that works while they figure out how to walk. There is no plan that says how and when this is supposed to happen. We cannot wait 20 years.

2) NASA always does basic research. There have been thousands of paper studies and hundreds of Technology Demonstrations for new methods. None of these will ever produce any flight hardware. You must have a real Full Scale Development program to have hope of actually flying anything.

3) Who is going to buy "commercial" manned spaceflight services? At what price? If the govt. puts up the capital, who keeps the fees? What is the business model that makes these startups self-sustaining? We are buying from the Russians only because we screwed up and Ares 1 was a late start and underfunded. China, India, Japan, Brazil, etc. have their own programs.

4) Expensive means you spread the cost over enough years to make it doable. ISS has nothing to do with this (for one thing, it's in completely the wrong orbit). No in-orbit infrastructure is required. You need a human-rated vehicle for the crew (Ares 1) and a heavy-lifter (Ares 5). But what you MUST have is a multi-year plan with schedule and budgets that result in actual flight systems. Right now there is nothing from the administration but "somehow sometime".

 

[voyager4d]

3) Who is going to buy "commercial" manned spaceflight services? At what price? If the govt. puts up the capital, who keeps the fees? What is the business model that makes these startups self-sustaining? We are buying from the Russians only because we screwed up and Ares 1 was a late start and underfunded. China, India, Japan, Brazil, etc. have their own programs.

Who: Astronautes from NASA, ESA, Japan & of course space turists going to ISS and Bigelow space hotels (starting 2014).
Price: Cheaper than the $50 mill, witch is the current Russian pricepoint.

4) Expensive means you spread the cost over enough years to make it doable. ISS has nothing to do with this (for one thing, it's in completely the wrong orbit). No in-orbit infrastructure is required. You need a human-rated vehicle for the crew (Ares 1) and a heavy-lifter (Ares 5). But what you MUST have is a multi-year plan with schedule and budgets that result in actual flight systems. Right now there is nothing from the administration but "somehow sometime".

Maybe you need a big dump booster, I for one, don’t need one, especially if the price-to-weight-ratio is much higher than it is on commercial rockets. We need cheap access to space, not a huge and overpriced rocket. If we use all money on the rocket, we don’t have any money left to do stuff with it.
We don’t need heavy lift to the moon beyond, it is easier yes.
But it is not cost effective.
The holly grail is to first make LEO access cheaper, and it is not even that hard.

 

[DarkenedOne]

1) Exactly. We are telling these startups to "drive to college" when they cannot even crawl. SpaceX is now 2 for 6. Are you signed up yet? We need something that works while they figure out how to walk. There is no plan that says how and when this is supposed to happen. We cannot wait 20 years.

The problem is that Constellation would not bring us a vehicle until 2018 anyway. At the same time it costs so much that in order to complete it within that time frame we would have to get rid of the space station. It would also cost 3 billion extra a year that NASA simply does not have and will not get.

Your right that SpaceX and other commercial alternatives are less experienced, but they are closer to being ready and will cost less than Constellation even if they have a few failures.

I agree though that there is a risk involved and I think that it can be greatly reduced if NASA decides to build something like the Orion Lite on an EELV.

2) NASA always does basic research. There have been thousands of paper studies and hundreds of Technology Demonstrations for new methods. None of these will ever produce any flight hardware. You must have a real Full Scale Development program to have hope of actually flying anything.

Your right you have to have a full scale development program. That is NASA's problem. Much of the funding for advanced technology got gutted because of the Shuttle and now Constellation. The New Millenium Program was started to develop advanced space technologies was cancelled to fund Constellation. The Institute for Advanced Concepts, which was established to develop revolutionary concepts and technologies was also shut down.

Many of the most promising short term technologies including VASIMR and inflatable space stations started as research projects at NASA, but then lost their money to Constellation. That is when the people working on them decided continue the development privately.

Problem is that in order to push the bounds in space we need to push the bound in technology. There are dozens of potentially game changing technologies that need to be explored. Problem is that if we have a program like Constellation vacuuming up all of the development budget.

3) Who is going to buy "commercial" manned spaceflight services? At what price? If the govt. puts up the capital, who keeps the fees? What is the business model that makes these startups self-sustaining? We are buying from the Russians only because we screwed up and Ares 1 was a late start and underfunded. China, India, Japan, Brazil, etc. have their own programs.

Well as far as who is going to buy the first obvious customer would be NASA to get to and from the ISS assuming we keep it until 2020. That will be the case regardless of whether Ares I is ready or not because Orion is simply overkill for simply getting to and from the station. Then of course if there are commercial manned rockets than that would negate the need for Ares I all together.

As far as self sustaining HSF commercial industry I think the best example of that would be Space Adventures. They have sent out about 8 paying customers to the space station. Unfortunately they have to use Russian rockets to because NASA manned vehicles are to expensive. That brings me to another point which is that no commercial HSF industry will ever develop if there are no commercial manned rockets. It is just like no satellite communications companies could develop without commercial unmanned launchers. Companies like Bigeloew airospace, Space Adventures, Virgin Galactic, as well as others are looking to explore HSF markets, and they need access to space through commercial space flight.

4) Expensive means you spread the cost over enough years to make it doable. ISS has nothing to do with this (for one thing, it's in completely the wrong orbit). No in-orbit infrastructure is required. You need a human-rated vehicle for the crew (Ares 1) and a heavy-lifter (Ares 5). But what you MUST have is a multi-year plan with schedule and budgets that result in actual flight systems. Right now there is nothing from the administration but "somehow sometime".

Look at I not really disagreeing with you. However I realize that Constellation is just not economically viable. What we need is a better plan.


Secondly it is not just about spreading the costs of many years, because systems like the Ares V require armies of workers representing fixed costs. That is what did in the shuttle.

 

[neutrino78x]

See this article from Robert Zubrin, the rocket engineer who wrote the book The Case for Mars, pioneering the concept of Mars Direct, on Obama's space plan:

NASA Needs a Destination

--Brian

 

[halman]

If I understand the proposed NASA budget, they will have more money to work with than before, and will not have the expense of completing the Ares rockets to deal with. Given that level of funding, does anyone think that maybe the engineers at the agency might propose some goals, ones that they believe in, and that they think are doable?

If NASA had a budget that it could rely on, I am certain that it could develop a new system of reaching Low Earth Orbit in 5 years, if it could do it without having people tell it what to do. What took so long in developing the space shuttle was the budget constraints, which forced construction to be spread out over several years.

We simply are not going to see rapid advancement in our off-planet abilities as long as we can only put 3 or 4 or 5 people into space at one time. We need something that can carry at least 10, and be able to fly frequently, in all kinds of weather. We need something different than rockets which take off straight up. When space flight began, vertically launched step rockets were the only possible way of reaching orbit, but that is no longer true. We now have the capability, if we so desire, to build an aircraft large enough to carry a rocket to a high enough altitude to where the rocket can launch horizontally, instead of vertically.

See "A cheap and easy way into space".

 

[EarthlingX]

See this article from Robert Zubrin, the rocket engineer who wrote the book The Case for Mars, pioneering the concept of Mars Direct, on Obama's space plan:

NASA Needs a Destination

--Brian

Better check Hollywood for that, NASA has lots of work on capabilities.

 

[veryclaire]

It seems that 60% of voters haven't done enough homework to make an intelligent decision? I suspect these folks may have come from Texas? Beats me, but I'm glad I have an intelligent President for a change. Stick that on the moon.

 

[waynejames]

ONE HAS TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN SENDING MALE EGOS WITH THE COST OF INCLUDING OXYGEN, FOOD, WATER, WASTE MANAGEMENT, ETC.............. OR MACHINES WHICH WILL REQUIRE LITTLE MORE THAN THE ROOM THEY OCCUPY ON THE ROCKET.......WHICH MEANS MANY MORE ROBOTS DOING MANY MORE OTHER EXPLORATIONS IN SPACE......GAINING MORE INFORMATION AT MUCH LESS COST.

 

[nimbus]

OR BETTER YET FEMBOTS WITH ONLY .MIL RATIONS STUFFED IN MICRO PURSES THEMSELVES STUFFED IN TINY SPACE CAPSULES SO ALL THE DATA IS TOTALLY READY TO BE PIPED DOWN STRAIGHT THRU MAINSTREAM PUBLIC NEWS MEDIA.. LIVE.......

 

[MeteorWayne]

ONE SHOULD NOT POST IN ALL CAPS. IT MAKES YOU LOOK FOOLISH!

ALSO THE CONTENT OF YOUR POSTS DOES TOO, SO IT FITS WELL!!!!!!!!

 

[Jeff9999]

For thousands of years, the Egyptians ruled a vast economy, driven by the seemingly useless pursuit of monument building. Today, these monuments still stand as a testament to the work of the craftsmen employed in this Keynsian effort to squeeze prosperity from the desert. Imagine if they made something as lasting as the pyramids, but useful to all of humanity.

Our current economic malaise is a result of the dispersion of finite resources across a growing population and, ironically, the increased productivity of our workers. Less work is required to fashion less material into fewer goods to be distributed to more people. If the future is going to be, for our children, better than the present, we need, not only to expand the base of exploitable resources beyond the planet, but to choose a difficult goal which is appropriate for the most technologically advanced society in the history of the Earth, invest in that goal, and do it.

That goal should be the expansion of the human species beyond the planet, including the exploitation of mineral and energy resources which are not destructive to our ecosystem, as current technology has proven to be. We should invest in NASA, as well as private companies. We should create the Nerva rockets, the space-based power stations, the mining operations, and all of the other things which we know can be done. People may say that this effort will not be profitable. They are wrong. All of the other alternatives are not really alternatives at all, they will doom us, or allow others, with their values and their culture, to do what we failed to do and thus drive the future of the human race, a future without America.

We can chase after a "standard of living," forever frustrated, like those who live their lives seeking "happiness." Or we can get to work on our pyramid.

 

[vykkdraco]

First I did not bother with the poll. Silly leading questions of no value. Like having an argument with my wife and here are the choices.

What we get to do is sit back and watch Russia, China and India "go broke" trying. We are broke make no mistake on that. I always wanted the space program to have lofty goals. But unlike televisions Star Trek there is no Federation to pool our money with. And we all know that the moon is barely attainable for one country. No single country on earth is going to have a manned landing on Mars within the next 30 years and maybe not this century.

Yes we maybe missing out on some science but the United States is never into exploration for the sake of exploration. The moon would have to be expoitable and perhaps profitiable.

You all know it, so perhaps you should cut entitlements, raise taxes, stop driving your cars, walk more, get healther, put more students into the STEM programs and let them solve our current problems.

Then we get to go into space in a big way.

I hate to break it to you but we will probably get a station on the moon either way...two major companies have done the math and found the moon to be a very profitable place to mine. And for space fuel and cheap powerful energy at that....check out helium3 for information.

 

[vulture4]

We need to be realistic. We don't even have D-T fusion or know if it has advantages over other energy sources. 3He fusion is much more difficult and provides only marginal advantages. If we really needed aneutronic fusion the
p+11B -> 3(4He) is possible with common reactants. If we really need 3He it can be, and is, produced on earth by the decay of tritium. If inexpensive lunar travel were available it is possible that private capital would be available for investment in experimentaiton with 3He, but the risk is much too high for venture capital to be interested in going to the moon with the current, extremely expensive technology.

The taxpayers might reasonably be persuaded to invest in technology to lower the cost of spaceflight, if the space community asked with a unified voice. That could open numerous possibilities. But until that cost is substantially lowered (i.e. by a factor of ten) there are no commercially viable applications of human spaceflight beyond a very small tourist market at $20M to LEO, and certainly not in manned lunar flight.

 

[neutrino78x]

That goal should be the expansion of the human species beyond the planet, including the exploitation of mineral and energy resources which are not destructive to our ecosystem, as current technology has proven to be. We should invest in NASA, as well as private companies.

This is what the President is doing, with emphasis on private companies. This was a good post, but I think the President's plan accomplishes it.

--Brian

 

[ApoloProjectWorker]

Stopping the maned space program with the idea that new technology can be developed ONLY by doing so makes no sense. We have not stopped selling cars until better technology can be developed, the same should idea should apply to the space program. Reinstate the Moon and Mars programs AND develop new technologies at the same time. Keep our country a leader in space, do not retreat while other countries continue to pursue maned space flight. To little is known about the proposed space engines to know if the can even be developed for use within 10 years. Do we as a country want to sit back and let space leadership go to another country? I say keep scientific discoveries in space as a part of our nations goals.