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Not according to the Smithsonian Book of Mars, dicktice.
Regardless, Phobos is 3,000 km above geosynchronous orbit.
The approach we should take to space should be capitalistic-capitalism drives innovation. But it should be done through the ever achieving private sector. This is what the X Prize aims.
Capitalism isn't about domination-we have government regulations to make sure the little guy gets paid a reasonable amount of money (yes, it's too little, but if the minimum wage is too high, the economy goes down the drain). Europe, for example, cannot outproduce America because people work too short of a work week and receive immense benefits for doing so.
Pure capitalism may be about domination, but that's why real world capitalism is regulated. For every Bill Gates, there are millions of middle class entrepreneurs, making a good living.
Government shouldn't be the only means of space access, and if space is only about militarization, we won't get there. But we won't get there if there is nothing to be gained-and I honestly don't believe that people care enough about the human "spirit."
BTW, soph, that definition of pork doesn't really fit. I mean, for example, hundreds of millions of dollars of NASAs budget goes to building schools and observatories, and things of that nature. How can you conclusively prove that this isn't inherent to NASAs duties? Some would claim it was pork, others would claim that it was legitimate spendature (I'm in the latter for most things people would call pork, there are obviously exemptions though).
But that does not fit my definition of pork. Schools and observatories fall within the realm of NASA. A farm bill has nothing to do with oil in Canada, for example.
Trent Lott (among others) likes to throw in pork projects for his state in completely unrelated bills, even if the projects are useless. For example, as I mentioned before, he threw into some bill (I can't remember) a contract for his state to build naval vessels, which the Navy told him they wouldn't use. But he built them anyway, so he could tell his constituents, "Look, I've gotten you this contract."
And yes, public works are often inefficient. But this doesn't mean that government is inherently inefficient. This means that in government, certain regulations and laws are needed that limit this inefficieny. This doesn't mean we have to throw away a federal government, no, not at all. It means that we need a more intelligently planned federal government, using what we have learned from the governments of today.
I love how leftists throw out 1984 whenever people support the government, regardless of the person's reasons for doing so. I've seen it on other forums, too.
I don't like Bush, yet I often get accused of being propogandized by the government (which again, I don't like), because I support the war, and I back my position.
All extremists, on both sides, bash any moderate sources, while throwing out completely ludicrous sources of their own, claiming to be "free-thinkers." It gets very amusing.
Phobos is some 9,000 km up.
They should never hit the elevator. Both orbit at an angle of over a degree (at closest, .89 degrees) to the Martian equator. The elevator would be on the equator. They stay in their happy orbit.
Now, now Josh, delegating everything to the local level would be stepping back 1500 years, and wouldn't work for an advanced, integrated society.
However, I think if we used a 15% tax from the beginning, and put a constitutional cap on the highest tax (and a law making the flat tax the only form of taxation), it would create a more economically responsible government from the start.
We could also include laws that require all laws to be written in plain language, that anybody can read. And, illegalize pork, which cuts out a lot of expense in the government. By pork, I mean completely unrelated parts of a bill (i.e. Mississippi naval ship contracts in an agriculture bill).
clark, spray material may sound easy enough, but it can add up to quite a bit of weight in a launch, which means a lot of extra money, and less mass that can reach orbit.
This had been discussed at space.com, and i believe at one time spray material had been used on the SRBs.
dicktice, you factored out the space elevator, Highlift is actually picking up steam very well. And so are other ocean based companies, like Sea Launch.
The cable would weigh virtually nothing. CNT is ridiculously light, strong, and thin. If the cable were hit, it could easily be replaced. The base is the real cost, and that doesn't just come down.
But mountain launches making the elevator redundant? The elevator could be used to bring its payload capsules back down, and send them back up, for $100/kg. There's no way vehicles that actually have to be launched will replace the elevator, more likely they will be used for different purposes (i.e. space elevator cargo, mountain and other launch types for people.)
Routine? The elevator would use lasers and capsules-you can launch every day or two, for the same $100/kg. Just load your capsule, and send up. Two elevators could get up to 1.4 kilotonnes to orbit a week for $140 million.
It's roughly the same as the NASA budget now.
Wouldn't work-skipping creates a lot of stress. The best bet is to slow down in orbit, and then glide down.
15% flat tax->people aren't punished for making more money.
Well, Robert, unless they are there to lose money, it's pretty obvious that they are there to make money.
My point was that they aren't the big 3 of the auto industry, killing all competition. They have an interest, but they aren't really doing anything to keep anybody out, they simply are the only companies with the funds to maintain a solid presence in the market.
We aren't likely to see Boeing investing in anything new because it's going through rough times, and the likeliest innovation from Boeing will be in commercial and military aircraft, to beat airbus commercially, and Lockheed militarily. Lockheed is a military-based company, and that's where they'll stay, IMHO.
NASA has to shift from a contracting and launch agency to an R&D agency, developing new systems, that can be applied by private companies in vehicles. This would save vast amounts of money-one agency can do most of the R&D for all vehicle systems, including certification, which means that these resources are saved by each company that wants to use these systems.
Perhaps $500 million-$1 billion in grants to private businesses for developing systems, in addition to the R&D money can be allotted. So, my idea of NASA's budget is something like this (assuming Congress would approve, which is another story):
1) $10 billion for systems R&D (propulsion, life support, etc.)
2) $2 billion for unmanned probes, rovers, etc.
3) $1 billion for spaceport development (i.e. new spaceports)
4) $3 billion for research grants
5) $1 billion for grants to private companies developing vehicles.
No, we don't fake surrender. Yet, if our countrhy was invaded by a vastly superior foe, I am less inclined to believe that we might not try things like this. And this isn't really happening with the Regular Iraq army, it occurs with their paramilitary.
If it ever got to that point, it would probably be a nuclear war, and secondly, the American public is so well armed with weapons as a whole that the civilians themselves could fight a guerrila war for literally decades.
So, if we had cancelled that flight and another one, we would have had almost enough money, just from that, to launch a new Hubble.
Actually, the Hubble cost, all in all, somewhere around $2.5 billion.
And I am pretty sure that they are going to finish the ISS for a 7 man crew.
Congress hires the administrators, so it is logical to expect that they won't disagree much with Congress.
The president hires them, Congress simply says ok. They don't know enough to really say no anyway. Congress has made it a mission to keep NASA's budget down.
Nevertheless, they make some money.
What, 10% a booster? $6-$7 million per Delta IV? Pennies.
This thread is getting pointless fast. Lock or move, please?
No, no, no. It's not up to NASA-it's up to Congress! Congress approves the budget, and they slice and dice where they want. The Shuttle program lives because Congress sees it as a political boon, not because of NASA bureaucracy!
And the ISS is nearly complete. There are very few additions left-most work has been finished.
And if the funding to the Shuttle is cut, it's gone-it's been approved for a specific purpose by Congress, and can't be shifted to another purpose without the express approval of Congress, who are not likely to give most of the money back for a down-the-line "maybe" replacement.
The Shuttle is very useful. Without it, the Hubble would be seeing fog. And our manned program would nearly cease to exist.
Look, I hate corporate and political pork, but it's not NASA to blame, it's the Congresspeople who create the pork-not the Sean O'Keefes.
A fully staffed ISS will be very beneficial to our space program and space sciences. We just have to get there. America needs its own Soyuz, Russia is not dependable financially.
Like I said, and I have a background in the area (family), Lockheed and Boeing...don't make their money on space. Lockheed has the contract for the JSF, and Boeing has the F-22 and the unmanned Predator planes, a huge financial success, and possibly the future of the company. They don't need the Deltas and the Atlases. $60 million, $70 million apiece? That's nothing to them, they make more on commercial aircraft, and military aircraft.
If you were to see a real effort by Congress to revamp NASA into it's state of R&D, and incentivize the private sector, then we would see some real change.
And we will probably be footing a good part of that cost, too. The Soyuz and Progress are temporary, by the end of the year, or early next, the Shuttle should be flying again.
Without the Shuttle, the ISS wouldn't have been built--Soyuz and Progress could not have done it.
It is, after all, an international space station. It's becoming an increasingly American expense. It shouldn't be such a major issue that the Russians are supporting it now, after all, they are a partner! It was mostly produced by America, built by America, and until the Columbia disaster, serviced by America. This temporary aberration is being made out to be a bit too important that it really should be.
Edit: That's not to say I think this expectation of American funding and effort is unreasonable or unexpected, or that it makes the ISS any less worthwhile. What it means is that the world should be a little less ready to jump at America's temporary lapse in capacity.
Getting back on topic, $74 billion is a lot of money, but it depends on how it's appropriated. People are more willing to see it go to war against a brutal dictator than towards the space program, or to handing homes to the homeless (people would rather upgrade their own conditions).
The funding really has to come through the private sector. Government money can only do so much. The transcontinental railroad is a great example, government aid and incentives led private industry to achieve great feats, which live on today.
We don't fake surrender, though. And we don't do this with our regular fighters. Our special ops forces, the ones that do the fighting, are clearly military troops, as well as the troops that do the heavier fighting.
The soldiers that rescued PFC Lynch were in obvious fighting gear.
Sanctions didn't cause starvation, Saddam did. Oil for food was unlimited until Saddam bought military equipment with the money.
And we have found huge storehouses of the food we sent for the people, going to the military. The food is there, the people don't have to starve, Saddam just wants to feed his military instead of his people. There is more than enough food there.
You mean in 1988, when tens of thousands of Kurds were killed, and chemical weapons were used, it wasn't that bad? Oh, I see.
I think all of this is good evidence for the conclusion that right now the central purpose of NASA is not to explore or do science, but rather to funnel cash into the pockets of huge corporations, the front runners Boeing and Lockheed Martin. This idea is also backed up by the realities of election spending: buisness, as a bloc, funds almost three quarters of election money in the United States. I would expect big buisness to be a large proportion of that, with results which are not very suprising.
I don't think this is fair at all. You and I are to blame for the Shuttle. The government approves NASA's funding, and they only approve what they like. They like the Shuttle, because people like the Shuttle. People will cry about it when it blows up, but a few weeks later, it's okay again.
People like the ISS. It's very nice, and will be a very useful science post. It is not a waste at all, in fact, it is really the only thing keeping the private sector alive--it is really the only demand for a manned/cargo vehicle right now (which companies like the X-Prize competitors will desperately need).
If you take the Shuttle and ISS money away, maybe 1/4 of it may find its way to the OSP, and the rest, will mostly vanish. Robotic missions are relatively cheap, from $60-$250 million each, probably between 10% and 25% of NASA's budget.
Boeing and Lockheed, really don't make that much off of NASA. Nothing is really built for the Shuttle, and the Deltas and Atlases...these are really pennies for Boeing and Lockheed. A single Boeing F-22 is tremendously expensive compared to a Delta IV (I believe 4x the cost), and the government has tentative plans to buy over 300 of them (which are in limbo right now).
The real need is private sector involvement. My real ideal is for NASA to stop building vehicles, and go back to their past R&D work. Develop the systems-let the private sector use them. Give grants to entrepreneurships (ala X Prize), and so on. Let the private sector build our fleets and vehicles, with a little help.
And our expenses on the ISS were nowhere near $60 billion. Most of our costs were incurred due to Russian defaults on their contracts, which American contractors and subcontractors were forced to take up, in a very short time. And Russia will never repay us for that (hard to blame them, their economy was extremely weak at the time).
Eh, using a NERVA engine, it would be a 12 week round trip to Mars. If you want me to do the math, I can. It's pretty simple, really.
In any case, this really doesn't help Orion. In fact, Project Prometheus is more likely to help NTRs, because it is more legally and politically viable. Orion is still strapped by the Test Ban Treaty, and it still doesn't have much of an advantage overall (if at all) technically over NERVA.
Go ahead, since you brought it up.
But we don't, and wouldn't do that. There's no real double standard if it's really not done. If an American bombed a mosque, the world would go into an outrage.
The double standard is how gentle we have to be in tendering to everybody's feelings around the world. Training terrorists is okay, but pointing it out, well that isn't!