President "Bush Delivers Remarks On U.S. Space Program

After China declared they will do this as well. Is this really surprising?

An intergalactic war in space and a political war on Earth about who owns the moon.
Can you say "Star Wars"? :LOL:
 
If space exploration was privitized and at least cis-lunar property rights were granted then the true age of space travel would finally begin. So long as the state holds a monopoly on this innovation will be but a fraction of what it could be.
 
K.I.L.E.R said:
After China declared they will do this as well. Is this really surprising?

An intergalactic war in space and a political war on Earth about who owns the moon.
Can you say "Star Wars"? :LOL:
Yes china and its 1 month old space program, will surely be our galactic nemisis. :rolleyes: ;)

Look the Pres said that we will welcome any nation that wants to contribute. So maybe we can make this a truly global venture.

later,
epic
 
epicstruggle said:
Look the Pres said that we will welcome any nation that wants to contribute. So maybe we can make this a truly global venture.

The problem is Bush doesn't know what he's talking about. The moon station is just a waste of money and resources. It is just undertaken for the prestige of this administration. This money would have been better spent on increasing safety factors of the ISS to the originally planned 2.0-3.0 instead of the now used 1.3 .
 
Oh, a moon base is a waste of resources, but the ISS isn't? Haven't we all seen this argument before, back when the ISS was the enemy, and no purpose or reason for it's bloated existence?

It seems sad that in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, many nations were able to produce truly ambitious engineering designs (hell, the Germans had a B2-like flying wing bomber capable of reaching New York near production, plus a ROTON-like VTOL jet), but in the 80s and 90s, people are bickering over table scraps. Come on, it's 50 years later? Where's my space nuclear power reactor? Where's my VASIMR? Where's my Delta Clipper? Almost no new designs have been flown in the last 20 years. Speaking of which, where's my supercollider, or my fusion reactors? Funding for science and engineering is pitiful these days. You're telling me that the whole of Western civilization with it's multitrillion dollar budgets can't afford $14 billion to perform a scientific experiment (fusion reactor)?


Don't talk to me about economics, rockets weren't economical when they were first invented. They only became "commercially viable" after billions had been poured down the drain doing basic research before there was a demand. Had not the military and governments invested in totally wasteful designs, we wouldn't have our spinoffs of GPS, Satellite TV, etc today. That's why today, you don't see startup companies building new launchers or even new Airliners. If not for Boeing or Airbus (or the Russians), we'd not even have jet travel.


The amount of capital needed to develop space hardware, and the inherent risk, makes it unlikely that even large corporations with deep pockets (e.g. Boeing) will take the plunge. Boeing even canceled the Sonic Cruiser, a modest tech modification, on grounds of risk and economic benefit. There's not going to be a Blended-Wing-Body either. I am a die hard capitalist, but there is some science and engineering work that is too big, and with unknown economic benefit, to rely on profit motive for development. Anyone gonna bother building their own high energy TEv particle accelerators?


If there is nothing to create demand for reusable heavy lifting (e.g. BUILDING SOMETHING OUTTHERE), we are going to be stuck with Arianes and Deltas for the next 50 years lofting a few satellites and rovers.

For the cost of the Iraqi war, we could have built a moon base by now, saved thousands of lives, employed hundreds of thousands of engineers, and learned a hell of a lot.

Instead, people with zero vision grope about how a $1billion increase in NASA's budget can't be tolerated and should be used for Social Security or Medicare.

I guess that's what we're becoming. A society of leisure and retirement.

The total cost of the Apollo program was $25 billion. A figure equal to the budget for operating NASA's manned shuttle program for 5 years. It's pretty sad, but today, we couldn't even send an astronaut to orbit the moon, much less land on it.


The whole thing makes me sick. People in favor of robotic exploration (of which I am one), are left to fight over declining budgets, and thus attack the manned programs. To me, the problem is funding for basic science and engineering, which are a strategic resources, both economically and militarily. If we become of a country of McJobs, with even our science and engineering outsourced to China, the downfall of the American empire will have been complete.

Who knows? Maybe our ability to build a moon base and go to mars will make building other space based projects cheaper, such as an effective NEO asteroid/comet defense system. (e.g. being able to build a VASIMR engine, or a Nuclear Salt Water Rocket)

We'll never know if think $1billion is a lot of money, and NASA should stick to launching microprobes on delta rockets.
 
hupfinsgack said:
The problem is Bush doesn't know what he's talking about. The moon station is just a waste of money and resources. It is just undertaken for the prestige of this administration. This money would have been better spent on increasing safety factors of the ISS to the originally planned 2.0-3.0 instead of the now used 1.3 .
Actually the problem is people who cant see past their noses. There were many critics to JFK/Eisenhower's plan for space exploration. What came of it:
-gps
-satelities for telecomunication
-new technologies
-hundreds of other benefits

We must look forward. His plan might bring about space elevators, mining of asteroids (or the moon), new advances in engineering. Plus this is a good use of money for good paying jobs(in the US :)). Look the ISS is the past, not the future. ISS will play a key role in analyzing what prolongued stays in space. So for the next decade we will be using the ISS. So not sure where the big beef is.

later,
epic
 
DemoCoder said:
Oh, a moon base is a waste of resources, but the ISS isn't? Haven't we all seen this argument before, back when the ISS was the enemy, and no purpose or reason for it's bloated existence?

Democoder & epicstruggle, you completely misunderstood my comment. Maybe it is because you never have worked in that industrial field. There's nothing wrong with funding scientific research. I don't have anything against planing a Mars mission. The problem starts when people start building a moon base with no purpose.

Bush mentions he wants a moon base to build future space crafts. That is pure nonsense. To build a space craft you'll need to put together complete modules which are manufactured on EARTH. Waste an enormous amount of money to transport them to the moon where you put them together (check rocket equation for a small estimate).

1) The modules can be put together on ISS with less costs in the same timeframe.
2) You can't launch electrical space propulsion systems from the surface of the moon, but you can launch them from ISS
3)So we're stuck on the moon now and we have our spacecraft assembled already. Then we're launching it again against gravity (another waste of resources and money)
...

Sor far all manned Mars missions using non conventional propulsion where planned to be launched from ISS. That did happen for a reason.

I support going to Mars, but not by wasting money that is in fact needed somewhere else...

EDIT: epicstruggle, the first satellite was Russian...
 
Maybe I didn't make it clear.

China will do this as well.

Since when have China and America ever got along with each other when it came to space programs? Not to mention that the USA banned China from using it's electronics.

China is very fast, thier 1 month space program (which started before 1960. 1 month? WTF?? Google it.) is advancing very fast. I wouldn't be surprised if China has a moon base before the USA has one.


epicstruggle said:
K.I.L.E.R said:
After China declared they will do this as well. Is this really surprising?

An intergalactic war in space and a political war on Earth about who owns the moon.
Can you say "Star Wars"? :LOL:
Yes china and its 1 month old space program, will surely be our galactic nemisis. :rolleyes: ;)

Look the Pres said that we will welcome any nation that wants to contribute. So maybe we can make this a truly global venture.

later,
epic
 
What's the point of going to Mars? Seems to me, if there is a reason to build a base on Mars, there's a reason to have one on the Moon to. Likewise for Asteroid missions.

You say the Moon base has "no purpose" Well, what "purpose" does the Mars base have?

You claim that the ISS has an advantage in that it doesn't have a gravity well to climb out of (well, the moon's gravity well is 1/5 of earth, so it's not as large a problem). But I'd claim that no Mars mission is going to use an ion-drive due to the pathetic thrust, and that ISS, unless it is redesigned as a "gas station" is a pretty poor platform to launch a Mars mission. Any Mars mission is likely to be multiple ships launched from Earth, not ISS.

The reason for building a Moon base first is simple: experience. It is far easier for us to get the needed components to the moon, the astronauts only need a 3 day journey, the requirements for radiation shielding, food, etc are less on the Moon journey, and the moon has local resources which can be used to manufacture some of the habitat (for example, as simple as using lunar regolith as a radiation shield) Not to mention, the moon's gravity is a blessing, since a permanently manned base on the moon won't have as deleterious effects on the people living there as on ISS, and building stuff, going to the bathroom, sleeping, etc will be easier.

Communications won't have a 10 minute turnaround time either. Can you say, Moon internet node?

To me, if Mars is worth going to, so is the moon. Mar's only benefit is the hope that water, oxygen, and fuel will be marginally easier to extract. Either way, the place is inhospitible to humans.

Human beings need to start experimenting with reasonably large offworld colonies. Something atleast on the scale of Antarctic bases. ISS isn't it. The experience gained will be invaluable and won't be lost when we try to go build bases on near earth asteroids, or on Mars.
 
This isn't going to happen. What he said was very carefully worded. He's basically announced a small increase in NASA funding, which may (or may not) be used to develop technologies for some hypothetical mission to the Moon/Mars/wherever which may (or may not) happen.

What he didn't announce was the $400 billion or so that would be required to actually achieve such a mission. The billion or so dollars actually commited won't get NASA anywhere.

It's genius really. He's got all the press that he would have had it he'd committed to a Moon/Mars mission, and waffled all that nonsense about the Vision Thing, but with a very small increase in funding.

You can bet the bit about the Shuttle being retired will happen, though the thing to replace it is less certain.
 
nutball said:
This isn't going to happen. What he said was very carefully worded. He's basically announced a small increase in NASA funding, which may (or may not) be used to develop technologies for some hypothetical mission to the Moon/Mars/wherever which may (or may not) happen.

What he didn't announce was the $400 billion or so that would be required to actually achieve such a mission. The billion or so dollars actually commited won't get NASA anywhere.

It's genius really. He's got all the press that he would have had it he'd committed to a Moon/Mars mission, and waffled all that nonsense about the Vision Thing, but with a very small increase in funding.

You can bet the bit about the Shuttle being retired will happen, though the thing to replace it is less certain.


Actually it's 540 Billions, to which Bush contributed with a tiny fraction (540 Million), and it's common knowledge to anyone who reads papers. Not sure what kind of stories you get there where you are, but here the papers said it all this morning...

Still, i'm amazed at the priorities of the goverments around the world. As Democoder said, with the money spent for the war on Iraq, there could be 2 or 3 Tev particle accellerators, which in time will help researchers produce technmology that in the long term will make much more money than the original investment. Same thing for space missions. Saying this kind of science is useless is just plain idiotic. The short term investment must be huge in order to progress society in the long term. It's not like a coalition of western countries couldn't afford it. Politics makes me sick.
 
Wanna see something real sad? Read the BBC's talkback on this issue at news.bbc.co.uk. Over half the respondants said something akin to "all spending on space is worthless, spend money on poverty and environment". I wonder how many of these critics most of their disposable income on "worthless" entertainment for themselves instead of giving to charity.

One guy even claimed that the entire history of space funding only gave one improvement: Teflon non-stick pans. Talk about blindness!
 
Most people out there do not have long term vision. Among those who have it, few can actually vision ways to progress in the long term through sacrifices in the short term.

Yes, there are issues to be solved here on earth, yes there is money to be pumped into other issues. However the long term returns on space travel (and by long term, i mean VERY long term) will be so amazing i fail to see a limit to them.

Most people just do not care what the world will be like in 50 years time.
 
Id see 3 priorities for the space program: Better space telescopes and interferometry asap. Robotic exploration. Developpment of new propulsion systems. But man a lousy billion a year extra Bush is more than just day dreaming here...

Id def see manned space flight take a backseat. As for privatising space exploration whats keeping corporations or investors from doing that now... Also isnt nasa using all private contractors for virtually all its equipement and material needs? Whats left to privatise?

I think nasa could save a bundle now if it bought a bunch of cheap russian boosters and shelved the shuttle...

I also dont see a purely private sector space propgram doing hard science. And what science it would do itd keep secret as patents and such...
 
K.I.L.E.R said:
Space race = rush to develop new technology = breakthroughs = progress. :D
Finally something i can agree with kiler. almost anyways. I dont think its really a space race. Lets try to get other involved share the costs. Maybe we can use some of that british know-how used on the beagle2 and then avoid doing what they did. ;) Just joking. I mean lets get many nations to help out.

Both the base on the moon and on mars will have many side benefits, such as encouraging/inspiring the youth of today and tomorrow, and all the new tech that will be needed to achive this. God I hope that small minded people dont stop this from going forward.

Ok on the money thing. If you listen carefully there will be money coming from existing nasa funding that will be used for this and new money appropriated for it. So its more than the 500 million mentioned earlier which is the new money coming in. Anyways, i heard about 12 billion over 5 years as just the downpayment. Yes lots more money will be needed, but maybe we can streamline the costs and come up with better solutions to get us into space in the first place. Nuclear propolsion anyone. ;)

later,
epic
 
epicstruggle said:
Maybe we can use some of that british know-how used on the beagle2 and then avoid doing what they did. ;) Just joking. I mean lets get many nations to help out.
[...]
Nuclear propolsion anyone. ;)

later,
epic


Now now!! :LOL:
The Beagle2 mission had a budget of a miserable, embarrassing 50 Million pounds. Which is NOTHING. Personally i wasn't expecting it to succeed, and i wasn't surprised in the least to see it failing. ;)

Also, nuclear propulsion? Yeah, so that if something goes wrong, not only the crew dies, but also around 100.000 other people around the globe, either immediately or as an aftermath of exposition to radiation (cancer, leukemia etc)... With today's technology and instability, nuclear propulsion is a no-no. Maybe in the future...
 
london-boy wrote:
Also, nuclear propulsion? Yeah, so that if something goes wrong, not only the crew dies, but also around 100.000 other people around the globe, either immediately or as an aftermath of exposition to radiation (cancer, leukemia etc)... With today's technology and instability, nuclear propulsion is a no-no. Maybe in the future...
Oh dear! :oops: Your not listening to people like tese are you?:
http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk/articles/prometheus_jimo.htm
As many as 1 in 10 rocket launches still fail, opening the possibility of a nuclear reactor exploding high in the atmosphere and dispersing radioactive material. "As you introduce more nuclear power into space missions, you're looking for trouble," said Bruce K. Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.

A space probe like Jimo would also be "an icebreaker to institutionalize nuclear power in space," Mr. Gagnon said. "Later it would be used for military purposes" like powering space-based lasers, he said.

.....while the reality is much more like this....
http://www.redcolony.com/articles/030305.html
Public disfavor with anything nuclear has extended itself into space. When the Cassini probe launched in 1997, its 73 pounds of plutonium sparked protests that called into question any future nuclear project in space. Protesters contended that an error in launch or an encounter with Earth later on in the voyage could result in dangerous radioactivity raining down from the sky. What the protestors failed to realize was the actual risk involved: the increase in radioactivity that would result from the destruction of Cassini would have been equivalent to a 15,000th of a normal lifetime absorption of radioactivity. There is most likely more radioactivity in a tanning booth or dental X-ray.
 
DemoCoder said:
What's the point of going to Mars? Seems to me, if there is a reason to build a base on Mars, there's a reason to have one on the Moon to. Likewise for Asteroid missions.

The reason the moonstation is built is according to Bush to go to Mars.

You claim that the ISS has an advantage in that it doesn't have a gravity well to climb out of (well, the moon's gravity well is 1/5 of earth, so it's not as large a problem). But I'd claim that no Mars mission is going to use an ion-drive due to the pathetic thrust, and that ISS, unless it is redesigned as a "gas station" is a pretty poor platform to launch a Mars mission. Any Mars mission is likely to be multiple ships launched from Earth, not ISS.

Firstly I mentioned a lot more than just the gravity well. Have another look...
Secondly, the sole purpose to build S/Cs in space or moon is that you're going to use non-chemical propulsion, which in the case of a manned mission will be either fission or fusion propulsion, so you don't need your gas station. Which was already mentioned in some Mars mission designs.


The reason for building a Moon base first is simple: experience. It is far easier for us to get the needed components to the moon, the astronauts only need a 3 day journey, the requirements for radiation shielding, food, etc are less on the Moon journey, and the moon has local resources which can be used to manufacture some of the habitat (for example, as simple as using lunar regolith as a radiation shield) Not to mention, the moon's gravity is a blessing, since a permanently manned base on the moon won't have as deleterious effects on the people living there as on ISS, and building stuff, going to the bathroom, sleeping, etc will be easier.

That's all true but you won't have gravity on the journey to other planets. Plus, side effect can be better studied in zero gravity.

What I'd like to point out as well is that a large part of the money is relocated from other NASA projects, so there's not going to be a happy land for R&D...

EDIT: typos
 
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