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For those that may have not found this article. Probe maps water vapour on Mars, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3927041.stm
"Mars Express has detected an area of high water vapour over a region of the Red Planet called Arabia Terra."
So we now know for sure of water. So lets move on to something more interesting for the mars rovers to do.
So why did we move from the first stage saturn rocket engine use of LOX and Kerosene, to Hydrogen and Lox for the Shuttle. Is it safer to use or more environmentally friendly.
That is where the problem of funding a clean slate approach will not make it in this climate of under-funding of Nasa.
So one must look at altering what we already make. Probably kludging the first attempts just to get us heading in the right direction again. While we look to what is really needed to accomplish the goal. But lets not wait to long to get going again.
Like everything else funding of the space program is under the wrong committee (VA-HUD). Space has nothing to due with human resource survival of the poor, VA, or anything else under welfare assistance housing or otherwise.
The only problem is that this same issue will still be in place at any lunar or Mars base of the future. We must learn how to do things without relying on the Earth as much once we are there.
Most of the problem is under VA-HUD. What does that have to do with space? Human resources...
The ESA sure looks like a reusable shuttle, of course slightly improved.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/rocketscience-04g.html
The Phoenix EADS SPACE Transportation is simular in concept.
I agree with you BWhite, the silence has been deafening with regards to the vision that Bush spoke of in January of this year. Not only from the stand point of content but also from that of providing adequate funding to even start. A shell game never works with shuffling of funds for long term goals.
Why not get the much needed opinions of the voters onto the constitutional ballots some how as to the direction that the people want the space exploration to take and how fast.
All the more reason to start making things aboard the ISS, including recycling of what some would earmark as garbage(plastics,foils ect..).
The needed skills to do so in a near zero gravity environment is a must. Also developing the needed smelting furnaces, mining equipment and other tools that work off from alternative power sources is also a must.
These would only help on lunar or mars return flights for saving of water mined fuels not meant for Earth to orbit use.
Water has a higher priority for the colonist or for Base functions than for fuels.
Problem is that Nasa just does not have the budget for the Prometheus size reactor and may not get it back until later years. I think different chemical fueled engines are what will aid in lunar launches.
Martian Jet Engine Burns Carbon Dioxide or other non water based fuels.
http://www.space-rockets.com/marsjet.html
Now if we can only find a nation who's people are not p'ed at Americans and would be willing to give up enough property to build the necessary launch site, we could be in business in only a short while.
Probably not going to happen but maybe you are onto something...
Unless rights to property ownership can be answered and a new governing body for space issues can be created space will only be for the elite unfortunately.
That also assumed that the unit was still functional while doing the drag to cause the appropriate de-orbit slope. Which may not be the case for Hubble due to the gryo failure and battery condition of expected life remaining.
I agree that a controlled drag will satisfy the condition for safe return.
why is it that the only solution to satelite decommissioning is to allow it to burn up in the atmosphere. An article on spacedaily says that Japan agrees to end TRMM mission, Scientists have argued against the plan, noting that the spacecraft is healthy and has enough propellant onboard to continue operations for up to two more years and still permit a controlled reentry.
I guess the question I have would be can it be put with a controled burn on a path to orbit the moon. I am sure even though the crafts available instruments are not ideal for lunar exploration, that they still could be of some value.
Sending the TRMM gets the mapping ability to the moon long before the 2008 date of the LRO.
Granted it won't be as capable as the one probe does all but it is a start. This probably qualifies more for the robotic booster attachment than does hubble if it would be capable of the mapping mission.
News release from Nasa http://www.msfc.nasa.gov/news/news/rele … 4-192.html
"NASA will officially open its Propulsion Research Laboratory July 29 at the Marshall Center with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The facility is a state-of-the-art laboratory for cutting-edge research into advanced propulsion systems — systems that could enable more ambitious exploration of our Solar System. The 108,000-square-foot facility has 26 labs for large- and small-scale experiments."
I wonder if they will be working on Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket propulsion or some other nuclear based system.
I agree that Bush needs to step up to the plate but he also must be more vocal to the vision so as to end the speculation of where this is a political stunt or for real.
Nasa also must do some belt tightening in order to ring in the budget requirements for operation some how.
That would all depend on if in orbit assembly of smaller pieces are ruled out. If in orbit assembly is done it would be better to have a new place to do this at. I feel that the Iss is the wrong place to do this subassembly at.
The funding is not the only problem though it is a huge one for space exploration. The bigger problem is all of the regulatory hurtles that anyone but Nasa and the Military must jump though in order to achieve space flight. That is the fence that must come down if private industry is going to prosper and grow.
Changing the height to diameter of a stage such that you increase the diameter and decrease the over height would this not be better for reducing the mass of a given stage.
I agree that settlement is preferable more so than to exploration by a select few. You are also right about size does matter when it comes to a colony of people.
The problem with size is that it will require heavy lift capability if it is done in a one shot mode rather than in small pieces that are later assembled.
The biggest problem with Hubble is not the repair but is when. The actual reason that anything is being done in the first place is that it will come down on our little heads if nothing is done. Building a Hubble 2 does not fix this problem.
With Nasa's budget constantly being stripped or lowered it makes it very hard to do anything but to maintain those programs that are already in the pipe line.
Hubble is definitely worth saving but there must be a limit to the cost probably no more than a shuttles cost. Also Nasa must always design into any probe that circles where ever. The ability for a clean deorbit if it wishes to have safety, or no contamination to the environments that these probes circle to not be impacted.
Further more there are limits to any robotic mission and to what it can or can not do. This still means a manned mission sometime in the future to finish the job that a robotic mission can not do.
As far as reusing the ISS at the L1 or L2 or even in lunar orbit. It makes more sense to break it apart and move pieces rather than the whole station at one time. Rockets then used to change and to reposition it to any of those point then would be smaller.
Besides using lunar mined water, we must think outside of the box in ways to save this precious comodity. Launching vehicles by other means from the lunar surface is a must. Ideas such as the space elevator and magnetic pulsed rail gun system that are solar powered are a few that come to mind.
Great Idea for reuse of the shuttle only need a smooth landing strip at the end of the flight to Mars.