New Mars Forums

Who is PNHP?
Physicians for a National Health Program is a non-profit research and education organization of 20,000 physicians, medical students and health professionals who support single-payer national health insurance.

Beyond the Affordable Care Act
A Physicians’ Proposal for Single-Payer Health Care Reform

Summary

The Physicians’ Proposal for Single-Payer Health Reform was drafted by a working group of 39 physicians and has been endorsed by more than 2,231 other physicians and 149 medical students. The most important feature of the Physicians’ Proposal is the removal of all financial barriers to medical care.
The plan would save enough on administrative overhead to provide comprehensive coverage to the uninsured and to upgrade coverage for everyone else, thus requiring no increase in total health spending. In addition, it would put in place effective mechanisms to control costs, lowering the rate of medical inflation and making the health system sustainable for future generations. Significantly, it would restore free choice of clinician and hospital to all Americans.

Access
Every resident of the U.S., including all immigrants, would be covered for all necessary medical care. Patients would receive a National Health Program (NHP) card entitling them to care at any hospital or doctor’s office. Medical bills for covered services would generally be eliminated, although the NHP might seek reimbursement from other national health insurance systems for care provided to tourists who fall ill while visiting the U.S.

Benefits
Coverage would include outpatient and inpatient medical care as well as rehabilitation, mental health care, long-term care, dental services, and prescription drugs. In effect, the plan improves on traditional Medicare’s benefits and expands coverage to all Americans. It would eliminate premiums, co-pays, deductibles, and co-insurance.

Administration / Administrative Savings

The program would be federally financed (like Medicare) and administered by federal, state and regional boards. Private insurance which duplicates NHP coverage would be prohibited.  Replacing the complex and redundant private insurance bureaucracy with a streamlined single-payer program would greatly simplify administration for doctors and hospitals. Overall, cutting administrative spending to Canadian levels would save about 15 percent of national health expenditures, freeing up nearly $500 billion annually for expanded and improved coverage.

Effective Cost-Controls

The initial increase in government costs would be fully offset by savings in premiums and out-of-pocket costs. According to estimates from the Government Accountability Office, the Congressional Budget Office, and several private consulting firms, the administrative savings possible with a single payer are enough to cover all of the uninsured and to upgrade coverage for the under-insured without any increase in total health spending.
Future costs increases would be contained by the NHP’s ability to set and enforce overall spending limits, negotiate prices, and improve health planning.
Hospitals and other health facilities would be on a budget.  Most hospitals, clinics and nursing homes would remain privately owned and operated, receiving an annual “global” lump sum budget from the NHP to cover all operating costs. Capital funds would be distributed separately on the basis of health planning goals.   
Physicians would be paid based on a simple fee schedule covering all patients or by salary.  Physicians in private practice would continue to practice on a fee-for-service basis with fee levels set in negotiations with the NHP. Physicians working in nonprofit hospitals, clinics, capitated group practices, HMO’s, and integrated health systems would be salaried.
Medications would be purchased wholesale.  The NHP would negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies as other countries around the world do today. The NHP would pay pharmacists wholesale costs plus a reasonable dispensing fee for prescription drugs on the NHP formulary.
Investor ownership would be proscribed.  Investor ownership of the health care delivery system (hospitals, clinics, etc.) would not be allowed because it raises costs and reduces quality. Regionally dominant health systems and Accountable Care Organizations would be publicly controlled to prevent them from exploiting oligopoly market power.

Financing

The program would be paid for by combining current sources of government health spending into a single fund with modest new taxes that would be fully offset by reductions in premiums and out-of-pocket spending.

Further details of the Physicians’ Proposal are offered in an editorial in the June 2016 American Journal of Public Health, “Moving Forward from the Affordable Care Act to a Single-Payer System” by Drs. Adam Gaffney, Steffie Woolhandler, Marcia Angell, and David Himmelstein.
You can read the editorial at http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10 … 015.303157    The full physicians proposal is online at www.pnhp.org/nhi

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The conservative case for single payer

Efficient. Effective. Practical. Make no mistake, there is a strong conservative case to be made for single payer. This is important because, as our health care crisis deepens, we need to make sure we’re speaking to all Americans. Only then can we can build a broad-based movement that pressures Congress to do the right thing.

Dispel common myths

Myth: Single payer is socialized medicine!
Reality: Medicare-for-all applies the principles of the free market to the delivery of health care. Under traditional Medicare, doctors and hospitals compete to attract patients through service, quality, and access - rather than competing to be in the best-reimbursed insurance plans. Medicare-for-all would open up this patient-centered free market to all Americans.

Myth: Single payer would lead to rationing!
Reality: Today's private health insurance is incredibly restrictive, with narrow provider networks, cost-sharing, and a growing list of treatments that simply aren't covered. Private insurance comapnies have a financial incentive to deny care, and they often do. Medicare-for-all would make it much easier for patients to access medically necessary care.

Myth: Single payer would stifle innovation!
Reality: Americans are justifiably proud of our nation's leadership in medical innovation, but may not realize that most of those innovations are paid for using public funds. As pharmaceutical companies engage in trivial research designed to extend patents, our National Institutes of Health funds truly pioneering work. Medicare-for-all would strengthen the alignment of research with our most pressing health needs.

Expose the Canadian boogeyman

Some of the most pervasive myths about single payer relate to Canada’s Medicare program. Many Americans have heard that Canadians suffer long wait times, and flock to the United States to seek medical care. Thankfully, these myths are easily disproven. Consider the following:
•    The 2002 Health Affairs study Phantoms in the Snow found that an exceedingly small number of Canadians seek care in the U.S.
•    Waiting lists in Canada can be primarly attributed to lower health spending. Despite this, Canadians do not have to wait to be treated for life-threatening diseases and report fewer unmet health needs overall (see this NBER paper, Table 12).
•    Former Canadian Medical Association Journal editor-in-chief and one-time market proponent David Woods says single payer is essential to controlling costs.
•    George Mason University law professor Frank Buckley believes Republicans should embrace single payer, and points to the benefits of Medicare in his native Canada.
•    Bottom line? Canadian health outcomes are better than American health outcomes, including longer life expectancy and fewer chronic conditions. These gaps have been growing ever since Canada fully implemented its Medicare program in the early 1970s.

Cutting overhead and bureaucracy

Your conservative representative may agree with you that single payer would provide high-quality care, but they may also also argue that the private sector is more efficient than the federal government, and therefore a better steward of our health care dollars.
However, it is our current, market-oriented system that generates the greatest amount of waste and profiteering. Conservatives who hate bureaucracy should be champing at the bit to do away with private insurance company overhead. A February 2017 estimate published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that single payer would generate $504 billion in administrative savings annually.

Economists and public health experts have consistently shown that single payer is an efficient and effective use of resources. Here are some prominent examples:
•    PNHP co-founders, Drs. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler, argue that single payer would allow for Liberal Benefits, Conservative Spending.
•    Nobel laureate Angus Deaton favors single payer “because it will get this [health care] monster that we’ve created out of the economy and allow the rest of capitalism to flourish.”
•    Nobel laureate and noted health care economist Kenneth Arrow lauds the Canadian system (with its private practitioners) and says single payer is “better than any other system.”

Boosting American business

Conservative members of Congress often voice concern over the global competitiveness of American business, and rising health care costs are harmful in that regard. Under single payer, U.S. firms might contribute as much to health care as they do now via a payroll tax, but they would no longer need to shop for group policies. They would also be spared the outrageous annual cost increases that have become commonplace in the large- and small-group markets.
For workers, single payer would allow those who are not a good fit for their jobs to seek more productive employment elsewhere instead of staying put in order to preserve health benefits. And would-be entrepreneurs would no longer fear striking out on their own due to a lack of health insurance.

Ultimately, improved Medicare-for-all would ensure a healthier, more financially-secure workforce. Thankfully, employers are starting to take notice:
•    The group Business Leaders Transforming Healthcare "strongly supports legislation to transition the United States to a publicly funded health care system."
•    MCS Industries founder and owner Richard Master has produced a documentary, FIX IT: Health Care at the Tipping Point, that lays out the business case for single payer.
•    Berkshire Hathaway vice-chairman (and longstanding Republican) Charlie Munger says single payer is the solution to America’s health care woes.
•    Micro Trap Corporation CEO and former GOP state legislator David Steil urges Congress to pass single-payer reform in order to “truly enhance American competitiveness.”
•    Marks Group owner and prominent blogger Gene Marks considers himself a “smaller government, fiscally right-of-center guy,” but has concluded that single payer would be best for business.

http://www.pnhp.org/gop

Sorry America, We're Not Going Back To The Moon
Ethan Siegel , Contributor
December 19, 2017
Forbes
Astrophysicist and author Ethan Siegel is the founder and primary writer of Starts With A Bang! His books, Treknology and Beyond The Galaxy

Last week, President Trump signed Space Policy Directive 1, designed to refocus NASA's mission on human exploration and spaceflight. Proclaiming, "This time, we will not only plant our flag and leave our footprint, we will establish a foundation for an eventual mission to Mars and, perhaps someday, to many worlds beyond," Trump made a promise that should sound familiar to American citizens, as many incoming presidents (including Obama and both Bushes) have made similar plans and proclamations. Like all plans, to bring this one to fruition will require a tremendous investment of resources: in people, in equipment and facilities, in research and development, and in terms of money as well. With no plans for adequate, additional funding to support these ambitions, these dreams will simply evaporate, as they have so many times before.

If you look at the percent of the federal budget currently being invested in NASA, you'll find that you have to go all the way back to 1959, the first full year of NASA's existence, to encounter a time where we invested less in the agency than we do today. When we chose to go to the Moon, it was accompanied by a tremendous increase in the resources we devoted to the endeavor: up to nearly 5% of the federal budget. Today, that figure sits at just 0.4% of the budget (0.11% of our GDP), or less than one-tenth of what we invested in NASA the last time we sent humans to the Moon.

NASA's crewed spaceflight missions since the end of Apollo have focused on low-Earth orbit. But if the goal is to explore the Universe, and to take humanity deeper and farther into the cosmic sea than we've ever gone, a return to the Moon won't accomplish that. The vision of the Trump administration, laid out earlier this year, involves a shocking proposal, to build a lunar space station orbiting the Moon. In no way, shape, or form does a lunar space station prepare us or aid us in going to either the Moon or Mars. Instead, it's a project that merely serves to:

provide a use for the Space Launch System (SLS) that's already developed,

provide a potential application of the Orion capsule system,

and provide potential partnership opportunities with Russia on an orbiter and Europe/Japan on the habitation modules.

It's a proposal that should make you furious. If you want to go to the Moon, you design a system to put humans on the Moon. If you want to go to a different world, you design a system to put human beings on that world. If you want to go to deep space, you figure out what you need to go to deep space — and you go. Instead, the plan will spend a great deal of money without yielding appreciable results. If you want to accomplish something great, you don't look at the technology you've already developed and ask, "what can we do with it?" Instead, you must look at the goal you want to achieve and ask, "what will it take to accomplish this?" You also have to provide funding for it, and plan it on a realistically short timescale.

If the goal is to go to Mars, we've already done extensive research into how much it would cost and what type of technological development it would require. To do it safely and responsibly, it would take a sustained investment totaling somewhere in the ballpark of $50-$150 billion, spread out over the course of approximately 10 years. The plan would involve landing a slew of equipment on the Martian surface, along with robots and rovers designed to self-assemble stations and habitats, and then a crew of human beings, who would stay for anywhere from 6 to 18 months before returning home. The largest and heaviest things ever landed on the Martian surface are far lighter than what a crewed mission would require, and the only way you ensure the safety of the crew on such an endeavor is through practice.

When we decided to first go to the Moon in 1961, this was the vision and the rationale laid bare before the American people:

The spinoff technologies alone have benefitted American society in far more ways than giving us teflon and a space pen; advances in cooling suits, kidney dialysis, physical therapy, athletic shoes, home insulation, water filtration, freeze drying, pipeline protection, gear for firefighters, and so much more have come about directly from the Apollo program on its own. No one can promise what the returns will look like on a mission to Mars, but there are two things we can be certain about.

1. Going back to the Moon won't get us any closer to Mars. If we want to go to Mars, we should make that our goal and invest in it; if we want to go to the Moon, we should make that our goal and invest in it. Pretending that one has anything to do with the other is a delusion.

2.Unless we increase our funding to achieve whatever goal we set our sights on, we'll continue to have our crewed spaceflight program stagnate, while China, India, Japan, Russia, and more all continue to grow theirs.

America is home to some of the greatest scientists, engineers, astronauts, administrators, and organizations in the entire world. With the people and facilities we have today, we could put a human on the Moon or even on Mars within the next 10 years, if only we invest in it. But grandstanding, lofty promises, and a dearth of funding will yield the same results they always have: a nation whose greatest dreams go unfulfilled. What we can accomplish as a species is limited only by what's physically possible and what we invest in it. Our ambitions to venture beyond low-Earth orbit are achievable, but only if we make it so. Unless there's a plan to increase NASA's funding to sufficient levels to send humans to worlds beyond our own, America is never going to get there.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswith … 082e162a5c

Federation of American Scientists
A New Category of Presidential Directives
by Steven Aftergood
December 14, 2017

President Trump created an entire new category of presidential directives to present his guidance for the U.S. space program. The new Space Policy Directive 1 was signed on December 11 and published in the Federal Register today.

“President Donald Trump is sending astronauts back to the Moon,” enthused NASA public affairs in a news release.

But the directive itself does no such thing. Instead, it makes modest editorial adjustments to the 2010 National Space Policy that was issued by President Obama and adopted in Presidential Decision Directive 4.

Obama’s policy had stated:

“Set far-reaching exploration milestones. By 2025, begin crewed missions beyond the moon, including sending humans to an asteroid. By the mid-2030s, send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth;”

Trump’s new SPD-1 orders the deletion and replacement of that one paragraph with the following text:

“Lead an innovative and sustainable program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system and to bring back to Earth new knowledge and opportunities. Beginning with missions beyond low-Earth orbit, the United States will lead the return of humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations;”

And that’s it. At a White House signing ceremony on December 11, President Trump said grandly that “This directive will ensure America’s space program once again leads and inspires all of humanity.”

But it’s hard to see how that could be so. The Trump directive does not (and cannot) allocate any new resources to support a return to the Moon, and it does not modify existing authorities or current legislative proposals.

Interestingly, it also does not modify the many other provisions of Obama’s 14-page space policy, including requirements “to enhance U.S. global climate change research” and “climate monitoring.” Unless and until they are modified or revoked, those provisions remain in effect.

https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2017/12/s … directive/

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So the Trump government is dropping Obama's timeline for sending humans beyond the Moon in 2025 and around Mars in the 2030's.
No new timelines and architecture were provided in Trump's "Space Directive", just general "sustainable" ideas that won't require major funding.

[Excerpt]

Space News
President to sign space policy directive Monday
by Jeff Foust — December 11, 2017

Congress has already offered its view of NASA exploration priorities in the form of NASA authorization legislation. The latest NASA authorization, signed into law in March, endorses a “stepping stone approach to exploration” with “missions to intermediate destinations in sustainable steps” while maintaining a long-term goal of human missions to Mars.

That bill directed NASA to develop an “initial exploration roadmap” that outlined its plans, to be delivered to Congress by Dec. 1. A separate provision instructed NASA to perform an independent assessment of the feasibility of a human mission to Mars specifically in 2033, due 180 days after the bill’s enactment in March . NASA has not announced the status of either report.

http://spacenews.com/president-to-sign- … ve-monday/

[Excerpt]

China Starts Cutting Edge Space Science Projects After Declaring First Missions Successful
Chinese Academy of Sciences
November 24, 2017

China has declared its dark matter, x-ray observatory, microgravity and quantum space science missions successful, and is turning attention to a new batch of cutting edge projects.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) last Tuesday declared that the four missions making up its pioneering Strategic Priority Program on Space Science have been successful in terms of science, management and execution.

The missions, launched between December 2015 and June 2017, are the 'Wukong' (or DAMPE) dark matter probe, the Shijian-10 retrievable satellite, the Quantum Science Satellite 'Mozi', and the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT), also known as 'Insight'.
CAS sees the missions as having improved China's global standing in space science and beyond, but looking to the future the next batch of missions were officially opened on Tuesday.

The next phase of missions are already under development and will be launched around 2021, as part of a wider, long-term vision for space science.

These are SMILE, a space-weather observatory mission being developed in collaboration with the European Space Agency, a global water cycle observation mission (WCOM), the Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and Thermosphere coupling exploration mission (MIT), the Einstein Probe (EP), and the Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory (ASO-S).

Operating in the new field of transient astronomy, the Einstein Probe will survey large portions of the universe for exotic space phenomena using very sensitive wide-filed X-ray camera and telescope.

EP will also aim to locate the electromagnetic wave counterparts of gravitational wave events, and survey the skies for phenomena including supernovae, neutron stars and transient activity in galactic centres.

WCOM will further understanding of the global water cycle and its variations, while SMILE will investigate how charged particles coming from the sun interact with the Earth’s magnetosphere. MIT will involve sending four spacecraft to various altitudes to simultaneously investigate the magneto-, iono-, and themospheres at the Earth’s polar regions.

ASO-S will study the connections between the solar magnetic field, solar flares and coronal mass ejections.

Also launching around this time will be the Space Variable Objects Monitor (SVOM), a collaboration between CNES, the French space agency and China National Space Agency (CNSA).

The SVOM spacecraft aims to study Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) - the most powerful explosions in the universe - emanating from the era of the first generation of stars. The phenomena are triggered by the deaths of massive stars or merger of two smaller stars.

http://english.cas.ac.cn/newsroom/news/ … 6544.shtml

Keeping the Focus on Mars
by Hubbard Scott
Editor-in-Chief
New Space. November 2017

My purpose in this editorial is to explain as clearly as I can why I think human exploration as well as robotic science and the space entrepreneur must maintain a focus on the exploration of Mars.

In my lifetime, I have heard four Administrations present a major space exploration initiative. Vice President Pence's recent statements are the latest. To date, the only promise that has become reality was President Kennedy's speech in 1961, where he committed the nation to sending a man to the Moon before the end of the decade and returning him safely.1,2 It is well worth noting that to achieve JFK's vision required about $200 billion (in today's money) and a budget profile that peaked at 4% of the Federal budget.*

Then there came George H.W. Bush in 1989 and his Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) that promised a return to the Moon (with human astronauts) and then on to Mars. After a now infamous 90-day study, Bush 41's plan was pronounced dead on arrival at the Congress due to a rumored (but never published) ∼$500 billion price tag.

George W. Bush made a Kennedy-like proclamation with his talk at NASA headquarters in 2004 that unveiled the so-called Constellation program that would, yes, return U.S. astronauts to the Moon and then on to Mars. (I was in the room as a NASA Center Director for that talk. When a group of us senior folks took a look at the budget assumptions, we were dumbfounded by the math. The plan did not look executable even in 2004.)

Constellation was reviewed by a blue-ribbon committee in 2009, which found the program would require multi-year increases adding about $3B to NASA's annual budget.3 That path was declared unsustainable and replaced by a much more modest NASA in-house program (Space Launch System plus the Orion capsule) and the beginning of what became the Commercial Cargo and Crew Programs.
President Obama tried his hand at a presidential space statement in 2010 in a speech at the Kennedy Space Center. (I was also present for that talk but now as a Stanford faculty member.) This time the Administration avoided the Moon and proclaimed that U.S. astronauts would dock with an asteroid and then eventually go on to Mars. Obama's speech caused NASA to produce two outcomes: one was the ill-fated Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) that never enjoyed the support of Congress, the science community, or even NASA's own Advisory Council.4 The other result was a NASA Journey to Mars that was constructed in a series of phases that would retire risk and eventually get humans to Mars in the 2030s. The most recent Journey to Mars approach adopted an approach to orbit Mars with humans first, then land in a subsequent mission. That plan was championed by a paper published in this journal5 and a workshop I co-chaired.6 While NASA's Journey was not highly detailed, most of us in the Mars community thought it built on a reasonable set of assumptions and might be contained within a plausible budget if appetites were limited.

Very recently, in October 2017, the new Administration, through Vice President Pence, has announced both to the resurrected Space Council and in an Op-Ed that NASA should study a plan for “human missions to the moon” as a “stepping-stone” for later human missions to Mars.7,8 Pence also called for a “full review” of commercial space regulations to identify areas that can be streamlined.
In the narrative thus far, you should have noticed a trend: these human space-flight initiatives ultimately required large amounts of funding to be successful, but except for Apollo, that funding never appeared and the program was canceled. So, we must ask, what are the risks and rewards of Pence's proposed path?

During the Augustine review, one of the “budget busters” of the Constellation plan was the cost of developing a full human-rated lunar landing system plus infrastructure in addition to new launch vehicles.† Clearly, a major cost risk in Pence's plan will be the same. By adding human surface lunar missions, one of two things will likely happen: the new costs will push back the Journey to Mars to some date much further in the future than 2033 or some other part of NASA will be cut to make up the difference.

There may be other ways to mitigate the cost risk: adding international partners, adopting a minimum lunar plan such as the minimum Mars approach, or perhaps using some acquisition strategy such as the Commercial Cargo Program. Pence's statements did not explicitly suggest these possibilities, although a subsequent message from Acting Administrator Lightfoot clarifies: “Specifically, NASA has been directed to develop a plan for an innovative and sustainable program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system, returning humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations.”9 In my opinion, asking for a realistic cost assessment of this new plan should be clearly demanded by all stakeholders, including the public.

What are the benefits of making lunar surface exploration part of the future NASA plan? In my view, the only unambiguous value is perceived U.S. leadership. The European Space Agency (ESA), as articulated by Jan Woener, the Director of ESA, has for several years been calling for a “Moon Village.”10 The Chinese have publicized plans to send humans to the Moon and have already landed a robotic mission in 2013. I can imagine a politically sensitive Administration desiring to counter the claims of the Chinese, even at the expense of delaying the real prize—exploring Mars.

The Moon is scientifically much less diverse and interesting than Mars. For example, no one claims that life could have originated on the Moon—unlike Mars. The technologies needed for landing and living on an airless body like the Moon are quite different from Mars. Lunar technologies will have limited benefit to future Mars exploration. Finally, some claim that the Moon's resources, especially water ice, can be exploited for future exploration. In general, the Moon is extremely dry. There are data from previous missions to suggest that there may be more abundant water ice trapped at the poles of the Moon, but getting there and mining in temperatures nearing absolute zero will prove very challenging and expensive. By comparison, Mars has water in much greater concentrations distributed more broadly across the planet.

In the meantime, NASA's science organization is moving ahead with planning for what some have long considered the Holy Grail of planetary science: a Mars Sample Return mission. The first leg of the Mars Sample Return campaign is well into development: the Mars 2020 mission with its sample caching hardware. The other two elements of the return—collecting the sample tubes and sending them back to Earth—are now being openly discussed.11 These carefully selected samples hold the promise of giving us an answer to whether life ever emerged on Mars. This is a truly profound question.

As described above, there are now the beginnings of some well thought out affordable humans to Mars plans. And last but certainly not least, the door appears open for commercial and entrepreneurial entities to engage in the deep space program. Elon Musk's vision for going to Mars first stated in 2016 and recently updated12,13 holds out the potential for drastically reducing the cost of transport to Mars. This issue of New Space contains the details of how Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMCO) would create a Mars Base Camp.

I strongly advocate completing the Mars Sample Return. That initiative alone will show continued U.S. leadership and perhaps provide answers to the most fundamental questions humans ask: “Are we alone?” I also believe that any future human exploration plan must keep moving toward Mars for all the reasons described earlier. And if even part of the SpaceX or LMCO Mars plans are executable, these innovators can play a critical role as well.

To end up where I began: from almost any perspective, Mars is the goal for human and scientific exploration. As taxpayers and citizens, we must challenge this Administration to demonstrate how including a human lunar surface program and in parallel continuing the Journey to Mars will be affordable and sustainable. These are very exciting times for space exploration and must not be derailed by an abrupt shift in direction.

REFERENCES

1. JM Logsdon. 2011. John F. Kennedy and The Race to the Moon. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
2. JM Logsdon. 2015. After Apollo? Richard Nixon and the American Space Program. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
3. NR Augustine, WM Austin, C. Chyba et al. 2009. Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee: Seeking A Human Spaceflight Program Worthy of A Great Nation. Washington, D.C.: NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/396093main_HSF … Report.pdf Accessed October 8, 2017.
4. R Lightfoot. 2013. Asteroid Redirect Mission. Mission Formulation Review Results and Status. https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/file … AGGED2.pdf Accessed October 8, 2017.
5. H Price, J Baker, F Naderi. 2015. A Minimal Architecture for Human Journeys to Mars. New Space 3(2): 73–81.
6. The Humans Orbiting Mars Workshop. www.planetary.org/multimedia/video/the-space-advocate/the-humans-orbiting-mars-workshop.html Accessed October 8, 2017.
7. M. Pence America Will Return to the Moon—and Go Beyond. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-wi … 1507158341 Accessed October 8, 2017.
8. K Chang. Space Council Chooses the Moon as Trump Administration Priority. The New York Times. October 5, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/scie … pence.html Accessed October 8, 2017.
9. NASA Statement on National Space Council Policy for Future American Leadership in Space. October 5, 2017. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa … dership-in Accessed October 8, 2017.
10. J Foust. Space Agency Heads See the Moon on the Path to Mars. Space News. April 5, 2017. http://spacenews.com/space-agency-heads … h-to-mars/ Accessed October 8, 2017.
11. TH Zurbuchen. Presentation August 28–30, 2017. Review of Progress Toward Implementing the Decadal Survey Vision and Voyages for Planetary Sciences. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. http://sites.nationalacademies.org/ssb/ … ssb_177619 Accessed October 8, 2017.
12. E Musk. 2017. Making Humans a Multi-Planetary Species. New Space 5(2): 46–61.
13. E Musk. Becoming a Multiplanet Species. International Astronautical Conference. September 29, 2017. Adelaide, Australia.

http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/1 … .29012.gsh

Time for a little comic relief.  Edward Heisler

What in the World? Flat-Earthers Gather at First Conference
By Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor |  November 17, 2017

A conference aimed at disputing the idea that the world is round just wrapped up in North Carolina.

The first-ever 2017 Flat Earth International Conference (FEIC) was held in Raleigh on Nov. 9 and 10, featuring some of the big names in round-Earth denial. Among the speakers were Darryle Marble, who once took a level on a plane to "prove" the Earth doesn't curve; Mark Sargent, the creator of the Flat Earth Clues YouTube Series, who believes all life is enclosed in a "Truman Show"-like dome structure; and Jeran Campanella, a YouTube and online radio personality, who makes flat-Earth, 9/11 Truther and other conspiracy theory videos.

The conference was hosted by Kryptoz Media, which produces DVDs and other media arguing that "scientism" is an agenda designed to keep people from God, and the Creation Cosmology Institute, an organization with little online footprint except a now-deleted YouTube channel.   

The conference featured talks such as "NASA and Other Space Lies," "Flat Earth with the Scientific Method," "Waking Up to Mainstream Science Lies" and "Testing the Globe." The conference organizer, Kryptoz Media's Robbie Davidson, is a Christian creationist, and that philosophy emerged in sessions such as "Flat Earth & The Bible" and "Exposing Scientism," the latter of which decried evolution and the Big Bang theory of the universe's origin.

Flat-Earthers believe that Earth is not a globe, but a flat plane. Beliefs on how the "true" globe is laid out vary, but many YouTube personalities who push the conspiracy theory say that the planet is a disc surrounded by an ice wall. Flat-Earthers argue that NASA and other scientific agencies digitally fake pictures of the globe from space and that there is a vast conspiracy to keep the truth of the flat Earth from the public.

No one knows how many people really subscribe to flat-Earth beliefs. The Flat Earth Society, the oldest organization devoted to the belief, claims 555 members. Marble boasts 22,954 subscribers to his YouTube channel. About 500 people attended the conference in Raleigh, Davidson told Live Science via email.

The next annual Flat Earth International Conference will be held in Denver, from Nov. 15 -16, in 2018. Davidson said he expects up to 1,500 attendees.

https://www.livescience.com/60972-flat- … rence.html

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Excerpt from my Mars Paper sent to the archives.

TRUMP MADE AN HONORARY MEMBER OF AN EARTH STUDY SOCIETY!

In recognition of Trumps understanding of and appreciation of scientific endeavors an organization involved in the study of our planet granted Trump honorary membership in their society earlier this year. 

John Davis, the Secretary of the Society publicly announced:   “Universities have a history of granting honorary degrees to men of great significance.   Therefore I’m suggesting that this Society make Donald J. Trump a lifetime honorary member of the Zetetic Council of the Flat Earth Society."

In response a member of the Flat Earth Society commented on their discussion board:   “I totally agree.   I think that Trump has the qualities needed to be a flattie.”   Another Flat Earth member chimed in:   “Perhaps someone should propose a flat Earth curriculum be taught at Trump University”.

China, Russia agree cooperation on lunar and deep space exploration, other sectors
by GBTIMES
Nov 02, 2017

China and Russia agreed to a deal on Wednesday committing the countries to cooperation in six space-related areas for the period 2018-2022.

The deal was one of around 20 agreements signed by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in Beijing at the 22nd regular meeting between the heads of government of China and Russia.

A press release from Roscosmos space agency states that the cooperation between Russia and China in the field of space consists of six sectors, including lunar and deep space, joint spacecraft development, space electronics, Earth remote sensing data, and space debris monitoring.

The programme had been agreed between Igor Komarov, head of Roscosmos, and Tang Dengjie, administrator of the China National Space Agency (CNSA).

Both countries are developing new launch vehicles, including China's Long March 8 and super heavy-lift Long March 9, and Russian Angara rocket family, and each has Moon exploration programmes, CLEP and Luna-Glob.

Roscosmos public communications had not replied to a request for further information on the specifics at time of publishing.

https://gbtimes.com/china-russia-agree- … er-sectors

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Russia, China sign rocket engine cooperation agreement
Science & Tech
June 27, 2016
Interfax

The governments of Russia and China have signed an agreement aimed at providing legislation governing cooperation in the development of rocket engines and launch vehicles, Roscosmos said.

“An agreement was signed between the Russian government and the Chinese government on measures to protect technologies in connection with cooperation in the sphere of exploration and use of space for peaceful purposes and in the creation and operation of launch vehicles and ground-based space infrastructure in Beijing during the official visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin,” a report posted on the Roscosmos website said.

According to the report, the agreement was signed by Roscosmos Chief Executive Igor Komarov and Xu Dazhe, who represented the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

https://www.rbth.com/news/2016/06/27/ru … ent_606453