New Mars Forums

I've just noticed some more grumbling on the whole cost of exploration and more moaning from news sources and NASA people. It seems the MSL Mars laboratory mission may be getting some cutting.  NASA doesn't really have any Mars spacecraft on the books beyond the projected MSL-2009. MSL mast will also hold a unique hybrid optical instrument, never before flown to Mars, but this may see cuts. Newly appointed NASA chief Michael Griffin is looking at what can and can not be done aswell, plus there are Congress and budget questions. MSL is still under review they won't be launching 2 labs or two Rovers now.

Nothing as serious as MTO, but it has some pressure now and budget questions. Phoenix Mars lander and MRO seem to be fine and will get the go-ahead.

MSL due in 2009 might be pushed back to 2010. NASA's cost are staring to rise and  nuclear-powered Mars Science Laboratory, or MSL, might even getting knocked from 2009 to 2011.

Did anyone hear any more news on this

A new mission in the works by Russians

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/ESA_Permane … QWD_0.html

This mission’s objectives are to collect soil samples from Phobos, a satellite of Mars and to bring the samples back to Earth for comprehensive scientific research into Phobos, Mars and Martian space.

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/inde … wtopic=631

Design work has gone on since 1997, and the new design is scaled down to fly an a Soyuz rocket instead of the larger Proton. The main purpose is similar to Phobos-2, with the addition of a sample return.

some more info on it

Launch methods are presently under study.
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMLN5T1VED_index_0.html

scientific objectives
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object … ctid=31350

Here are some links

Russian mission Phobos-Grunt, the main purpose is similar to Phobos-2, with the addition of a sample return.
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/ESA_Permane … QWD_0.html

Japan's next solar physics mission ( Japan - UK - USA ) Solar-B
http://www.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/www_detector/ … b_fpp.html

NASA's TPF search for small rocky Earth like planets
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/TPF/tpf_what_is.cfm

Third M3 of ESA's Horizon 2000 Scientific Programme, and is today part of its Cosmic Vision Programme.planned to launch Planck in the first quarter of 2007
http://www.rssd.esa.int/index.php?project=PLANCK

Firstly I don't know why you people accuse me as such and I find myself constantly going off topic to explain this whole political stuff and I'm not some crazy red-commie China radical that wants to see NASA suddenly turn into a massive spacefireball and start burning flags. I'm a Space fan and if somebody wants to explore, be they Russians, Europeans, Japanese or Amercians then I am happy to see the new efforts in Space science. Mao was a messed up radical he ran China like a dictatorship and his East is red Satellite was nothing but a Propaganda launch. Today China is more open with free trade and recently China's space man visted   Buzz Aldrin and U.S. Senator Bill Nelson talking of joint efforts in Space. A lot of people are watching China but nobody is really watching the progress of Russia, India and ESA.

I too think NASA have done some fantastic work in spaceflights, maybe the best ever done with manned missions of the past and NASA space design. However if you look at their recent great Space efforts most of them have been unmanned or robotic, while manned stuff hasn't gone beyond LEO and Shuttle has been very costly.  MRO is very good, a clever mission - but I have a feeling with ESA and NASA orbiters that we have almost enough of this orbiter imaging and the other design MTO with lazer connection would have been much better. MTO offered laser communication from planet-to-planet this orbiter would have been placed at a much higher orbit than a satellite designed primarily for science and remote sensing is good, a dedicated relay satellite would be eclipsed for only a very small percentage of its orbit by Mars itself. This craft would be able to 'see' both the Sun and the Earth for effectively twice as long as a satellite in a low Mars orbit and it would double the time it can send data home to Earth and doubles the time its solar panels can soak up solar energy, giving it twice as much power to play with as SMART-1 did when it caried out some trials in laser communications. Some of NASA's greatest recent missions have been joint efforts where NASA got some extra help from outside groups

Cassini and the Titan landing was a joint effort,

ISS expensive and badly managed yes but maybe will become the biggest and best science lab in Space

A great mission Hubble with co-operative efforts

NASA has been doing great and wonderful efforts but as some on newmars debated and people on Newsites have wrote NASA may soon face a cross road where it may face needs to make a choice. A lot of people were never terribly enthusiastic about about the STS-Shuttle, many didn't expect the first loss of astronauts to come as soon as Challenger did. Shuttle safety panels could always see where NASA was going, back then Armstrong and Roger's made their reports plus there was talk on how the Russians were already becoming dominant in manned Space light with MIR and how ESA's Space robotics had improved and NASA customers had already defected to French Guiana and Chinese were building their own programs. Yes the Shuttle had problems but it is sad the shuttle will be gone and there is nothing currently or even soon to replace it. US Mars and Jupiter missions have to move fast today or else get chopped during the next budge cycle, NASA may have to make tough choices some day.

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Cutback on its smaller robotic missions, unmanned craft and push its manned Space missions forward again so Chinese, Russia, or India don't own manned flight in the next decade with Energia design, Shenzhou, improved GSLV, Klipper...

or

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NASA may have to cutback on expensive manned flight and Shuttle and concenrate on robotics and un-manned ships like Kepler, Mars Sample Return, IBEX, before Japan, ESA or India start to dominate this sector with their Planck-craft, Solar-B, Venus-Express mission, Chandryaan-1, Gaia, Hayabusa, Corot,...

This is the feeling I get from reading ideas from space workers, NewYorktimes article, political speech on space at Congress, and interviews from former astronauts.

Well for starters I am not anti-NASA and I think the USA has done some of the most incredible and fantastic missions of all time, like the Vikings to Mars, Armstrong and Aldrin's and Collins Apollo and other lunar missions, the Voyagers to the outer Solar system and beyond these were some of the most wonderful missions. However today Russians have been keeping NASA's manned missions to the ISS alive since the accident 2 and a half years ago, and Chinese are gorwing while ESA have good missions like Mars Express and can launch Rosetta from Ariane. You say nobody elese but NASA can go to the Moon, clear you don't seem to have much knowledge of European or Russian space plans. Many people have already said that back in the day of Apollo the Russians may have been able to put people on the Lunar surface, but the USA beat them to it. Luna 17 was a fantastic craft, while the  Lunokhod-II rover sent back thousands of pictures, Ariane-V is to Launch Jules Verne and Ariane 5 ECA, is designed to place payloads weighing up to 10 tonnes into geostationary transfer orbit, China has used the Long March rocket family, CZ3B was a good rocket and could launch about 4,800 Kg while Russian rockets like the Proton have sent the Phobos-2 and Mars6 to the red planet and Russia's Buran Space Shuttle but N-1 was able to lift 90 metric tonnes. The Russian Moon Rovers sent thousands of television pictures and hundreds of television panoramas. Buzz Aldrin has already spoken of the chances of China using Shenzhou to orbit the Moon without landing in the style of the early Apollo missions. The NASA shuttle is to be retired by 2010 and there will be a period 2010-2015 where no manned US rockets will be flown, the last graduating astronaut class have been told not to expect to fly anytime soon.

These are not just my postings, or rants from the likes of Jeff Bell or some crazy UFO theory.  Americans have become too comfortable and 60% of the population (not voters) are in total apathy about the world and economic situation. TV or internet broadcasts from ABC news, comments from people who work or have worked for NASA are not very encouraging, newpaper reports by BBC, Washington post and such don't seem great. Look at the possible big economic, aerospace and industrial players in the near future there are many economies with a large GNP / GDP and big industrial workforce. 1 EU $10,800,200,000,000 and the 2 US $ 10,300,100,000,000 next is 3 China $ 5,800,500,000,000 and then 4 Japan $ 3,350,400,000,000 while the CIA lists China even higher [6 trillion] Measured on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis, China in 2004 stood as the second-largest economy in the world after the US

GCNRevenger I do not have an anti-NASA outlook, I know some people around the world that worked on various missions, I know a guy who did a Delta and Atlas study, people who did stuff for European craft, Japanese design, NASA's Hubble...I am a fan of space missions. I think some of the greatest missions of all time have come from NASA, the likes of Viking, Apollo and Voyager. Russia have already sent robotic missions to the Moon, ESA are doing Mars Express and the Enhanced Ariane 5 demonstrated heavy-lift capability, Chinese have plans for more manned missions. The ISS stayed functional they had been keeping it manned for over 2 and a half years without the shuttle. Some other possible future developments are the Ariane-M and a Russian Klipper launching from French Guiana. A lot of NASA's efforts are keeping the public informed and the taxpayers happy, everyone was delighted with the HST discovery and all the people around America know what Hubble is.  Fifty-eight percent say they oppose setting aside the money for an attempted manned Mars landing, while 40 percent are in favor. Last month, the Washington, D.C.-based Citizens Against Government Waste also criticized plans to move forward with missions to the Moon and Mars. They cited an impending record deficit, chronic management problems at NASA. Former astronauts and even an offical document now tell that NASA might see almost an entire decade 2010-2018 without human spaceflight. NASA has just said the protruding material could cause dangerous overheating during re-entry and lead to another Columbia-type disaster where all the American crew and one foreign astronaut from Israel died. Today Japanese astronaut Soichi said "I have considered coming home on the Russian Spacecraft (Soyuz)" when asked about the severity of the TPS damage. Perhaps NASA is very cautious on this mission and constantly think of top-safety measures but I think that trying the space walk to fix them is a good idea, in any case.

very good

here's a bit of info
http://www.wilhelm-aerospace.org/Space/ … otated.jpg
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Histo … TO41B4.jpg
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/mapca … /72dpi.jpg

Warning ! large images

more from this great mission

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Expres … l#subhead1

8)

George Stephanopoulos. Topic  will NASA have to rescue the Discovery astronauts ? -  Guests: shuttle commander Eileen Collins and crew, John Glenn, former senator and astronaut; Buzz Aldrin.  John Glenn again had the right stuff in an interview with CNN's Jeff Greenfield. One of the reasons for the rapid rise of the American space program was effective education in the sciences and a commitment to research, In 1998, U.S. students ranked 15th among 16 nations in math and dead last in physics. Issues such as science education, sex education, gay rights and stem cell research cannot be discussed rationally if religious beliefs are put ahead of science. Would you Adam 'n' Eve it with the dinosaurs in Eden ? There is the dinosaur museum which is to take a creationist perspective and already thousands of people have flocked to its top-quality exhibits which mix high science with fundamentalist theology that few serious scientists accept. In general math and science, the United States ranked 19th of 21 nations, ahead of only Cyprus and South Africa. George Stephanopoulos spent the first segment of This Week interviewing astronauts aboard the space shuttle - Steph also interviewed Sen. John Glenn, NASA engineer Don Nelson and Buzz Aldrin. (ABC) talks to the astronauts: Collins, Kelly, and Kamarda on discovery, and Glenn. The Whitehouse has now to keep the Evangelicals happy, some papers refered to it as Bush, Darwin, Stem-Cells and the war on science and now we see that      Mars Telecommunications Orbiter (MTO) has been axed.

Oh, there was this other show - I think it was an American TV show
Babylon-5
http://www.skyvador.com/pbem/b5mars01.jpg
http://www.babylon5.ru/img/Sh_Mars.jpg
http://www.skyvador.com/pbem/b5sinclair12_small.jpg
http://www.mateengreenway.com/b5/s_mars.gif
most of it was in outer space in another part of the Galaxy, but many of the episodes were on Mars

People seem to think 'Red Planet', 'Total-Recall' and 'Mission to Mars' were good

http://www.space.com/news/mars_fun_030824.html
http://www.thespacesite.com/community/i … topic=1252
http://www.rednova.com/news/space/16094 … ture_film/

The dismal failure of the Shuttle RTF effort should signal the end of NASA's suicidal love affair with this fundamentally unworkable spacecraft.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-05zq.html
The only thing we can get in return for the $25-30B now budgeted for Shuttle operations between now and 2010 is more heartache...

from the man who wrote
http://rondam.blogspot.com/2004/11/next … lures.html

who also said Hubble Repair will die

remarked that Mars missions get cut and Sample Return will always be 10 years away  ( but MTO got cut not MSR )

told that NASA would bechopping down JIMO spacecraft

Jeff Bell is so vulgar :evil: he just flames and is bashing NASA all the time