New Mars Forums

Its not so rare to look so far ahead, or predict so far into the future. People are already looking ahead to Rosetta, NASA's IBEX, the Mercury craft Messenger and ESA's solar orbiter.  George W. Bush announced an initiative of manned space exploration, includes a manned return to the moon by 2015 at the earliest and sending astronauts to Mars to build a Mars base sometime in the future. Bush said let's go to the Moon and Mars but NASA had told the American people most of the requested $866 million budget increase for 2005 would be used to get the shuttles back in the air.NASA will get the shuttle up and flying again, and it is sad to see media feeding frenzy that has started over the Discovery near miss. In the year 2011 we have the Mars Scout Mission, and other very important events will be taking place. Others like Russia have robotic ideas and a Russian Shuttle, while the European Space Agency has the long-term vision of sending a human mission to Mars using the ESA Aurora Programme.

NASA could buy Soyuz rides commercially for its other manned space flight plans when the Shuttle is put to rest. Launch windows occur to the Red Planet at intervals of about 2.1 years or about 779 however manned flights may already be in trouble. The gap of even 5 years in some sort of shuttle operations does not bode well for ISS, and the days of last graduating astronaut class have been told not to expect to fly anytime soon. However NASA plans to spend nearly a quarter of a Trillion dollars developing the capability to send astronauts to the moon in tiny little capsules on  sight-seeing voyages to the moon. By 2013 NASA's CEV will be absorbing maximum funding with an operational vehicle or not NASA might be expecting too much from the CEV program and some have asked is the younger-Bush vision dimming like the other plans for landing on Mars, I've heard NASA cost going from 13.5 billion to 19 B dollars which would be 13,500 million to 19,000 million budget.. In the year 2011 we will see some good news with the Mars Science Laboratory. The shuttle is to be retired by 2010 and there will be a period 2010-2015 where no manned US rockets will be flown. Maybe ESA or JPAX, Russians or the Chinese will step up, so the Nasa space gap will be filled by the Russians ? :?

If you don't think the 2011 time is the most vital, then what year do you think is most important for manned missions to Mars and building a base on the Moon, 2007, 2018, 2005, 2015 ? and explain you reason please !!

its good news !!

but when are they going to take more photos ?? - ESA PR is a mess

UPDATE
End of Electric Propulsion Operations
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object … ctid=38067

MP3 audio: SMART-1 in new orbit
www.esa.int/spacecraftops/ESOC-Article-fullArticle_par-40_1123749852240.html

http://esamultimedia.esa.int/multimedia … ean005.mp3
MP3 Audio, 5.2MB

Solar Flare Interacts with Rosetta
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object … ctid=37921
Report

lander goal for Mars
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4423883.stm
bed rest study
http://www.esa.int/esaHS/SEMZZ4808BE_research_0.html
Russians and ESA are going to work together
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4286086.stm

Current climate models forecast that the impact of global warming will increase the further a region is from the equator. Ice thickness results from ESA's CryoSat will shortly indicate whether these predictions are on the right lines.
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cryosat/SEMA0R4Y3EE_0.html

ESA's Envisat satellite has been continuously observing the Earth with a suite of ten instruments for the last three and a half years. A major workshop is about to bring together users of Envisat's two most complementary sensors: MERIS, which acquires multispectral imagery of the planet's ocean, land and atmosphere, and AATSR, a radiometer measuring global surface and cloud temperatures down to a fraction of a degree.
http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMPPQ7X9DE_index_0.html

This season's Antarctic ozone hole has swollen to an area of ten million square kilometres from mid-August - approximately the same size as Europe and still expanding. It is expected to reach maximum extent during September, and ESA satellites are vital for monitoring its development.
This year's hole is large for this time of year, based on results from the last decade: only the ozone holes of 1996 and 2000 had a larger area at this point in their development.
http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEM712A5QCE_environment_0.html

A bilateral agreement between Russia and South Korea was signed Tuesday authorizing the building of a space center in South Korea and the training of a Korean astronaut for a mission at the International Space Station, reports RIA Novosti.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/russia-05zn.html
Moscow, Seoul To Cooperate In Space Exploration

The European Space Agency is set to launch a spacecraft to Venus. It will be the first mission to the swelteringly hot and corrosive planet in 15 years. Called Venus Express, it is scheduled to lift off aboard a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on 26 October. When it arrives at Venus in April 2006, it will study the planet from a polar orbit stretching from an altitude of 250 to 60,000 kilometres. Seven instruments will scrutinise the planet at a range of wavelengths. Astronomers hope to understand how a planet that has more in common with Earth than any other in terms of distance from the Sun, size and mass could have evolved into such an inhospitable world.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8066
ESA’s new deep space radio antenna in Cebreros (Ávila, Spain) will be officially inaugurated on 28 September. The new 35-metre antenna is ESA’s second facility devoted to communications with spacecraft on interplanetary missions or placed in very distant orbits. Cebreros’ first task will be that of tracking ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft, due for launch in October.
http://www.noticias.info/asp/aspComunic … 9151&src=0
New Deep Space Antenna Comes Online
Cebreros’ first task will be that of tracking ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft,
http://www.rednova.com/news/space/24056 … es_online/

status report
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object … ctid=38057
Overall Mission and Payload Status

Two space observatories, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, have teamed up to weigh the stars in several very distant galaxies. One of these galaxies is not only amongst the most distant ever seen, but it appears to be unusually massive and mature for its place in the young Universe.
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object … ctid=37985
Spitzer and Hubble find a 'big baby' galaxy in the newborn Universe
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMP8T4Y3EE_index_0.html

the Russian spacecraft at Europe's South America space port
maybe the Europeans are getting serious about manned missions now

it would be a waste of resources and money

we ( international community of Americans, Russians, Chinese, Europeans... ) only need a few more missions and a few extra projects to be able to get the final bits of info on our Solar system and start moving on to building a Lunar colony and a manned Mars base.

but maybe he's more of an expert about GW's vision - than Bush himself is