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#1 2018-03-20 15:01:00

EdwardHeisler
Member
Registered: 2017-09-20
Posts: 357

Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

Trump: We're trying to top JFK by looking at Mars mission
By Max Greenwood  - 03/15/18
The Hill

President Trump said Thursday that he wanted to "top" President John F. Kennedy's ambitions to send a man to the moon by pursuing a trip to Mars.

"We're looking at Mars, by the way," Trump said. "Trying to top [Kennedy]. We're going to get there. It's moving along pretty good. A lot of things have happened ... having to do with that subject. Way ahead of schedule."

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat … rs-mission

He doesn't have a clue.

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#2 2018-03-20 15:32:40

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,362

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

From Mr. Greenwood's article:

"The U.S. eventually reached that goal in 1967. The last U.S. moon landing was in 1972."

The person who wrote that article seems to think we went to the moon in 1967, but the first crewed flight occurred on October 11, 1968 and we actually landed on the moon in 1969.  Anyone who bashes President Trump is a good little boy, even if they're too stupid to write an article that accurately reflects what actually happened.

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#3 2018-03-20 16:14:00

louis
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 7,208

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

Where does Trump say "NASA"?

Space X is an American company. If Space X get there "very soon" then the USA has got there.

EdwardHeisler wrote:

Trump: We're trying to top JFK by looking at Mars mission
By Max Greenwood  - 03/15/18
The Hill

President Trump said Thursday that he wanted to "top" President John F. Kennedy's ambitions to send a man to the moon by pursuing a trip to Mars.

"We're looking at Mars, by the way," Trump said. "Trying to top [Kennedy]. We're going to get there. It's moving along pretty good. A lot of things have happened ... having to do with that subject. Way ahead of schedule."

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat … rs-mission

He doesn't have a clue.


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#4 2018-03-20 17:19:23

EdwardHeisler
Member
Registered: 2017-09-20
Posts: 357

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

kbd512 wrote:

From Mr. Greenwood's article:

"The U.S. eventually reached that goal in 1967. The last U.S. moon landing was in 1972."

The person who wrote that article seems to think we went to the moon in 1967, but the first crewed flight occurred on October 11, 1968 and we actually landed on the moon in 1969.  Anyone who bashes President Trump is a good little boy, even if they're too stupid to write an article that accurately reflects what actually happened.

Do you think that Trump was misquoted?   Trump is normally very accurate in his statements and never lies.   Trump clearly knows more about NASA and space travel than the stupid writer.

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#5 2018-03-20 17:25:51

EdwardHeisler
Member
Registered: 2017-09-20
Posts: 357

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

louis wrote:

Where does Trump say "NASA"?

Space X is an American company. If Space X get there "very soon" then the USA has got there.

EdwardHeisler wrote:

Trump: We're trying to top JFK by looking at Mars mission
By Max Greenwood  - 03/15/18
The Hill

President Trump said Thursday that he wanted to "top" President John F. Kennedy's ambitions to send a man to the moon by pursuing a trip to Mars.

"We're looking at Mars, by the way," Trump said. "Trying to top [Kennedy]. We're going to get there. It's moving along pretty good. A lot of things have happened ... having to do with that subject. Way ahead of schedule."

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat … rs-mission

He doesn't have a clue.

Where does Trump say "SpaceX"?    Since he said he would top NASA's moon missions one could assume he believes NASA will top that with human missions to Mars.   And I haven't read anything from anyone in NASA or the entire Trump government indicating they think SpaceX will lead the way to the human exploration of Mars.

Of course, it's entirely possible given Trumps illiteracy on space travel matters that he is confusing SpaceX with NASA.   I'll give him that.

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#6 2018-03-20 17:34:58

Oldfart1939
Member
Registered: 2016-11-26
Posts: 2,366

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

Uh...Elon Musk and Trump are definitely "on speaking terms" with one another. Trump commented on the dual landings by the twin boosters from FH, and subsequently praised SpaceX.

Last edited by Oldfart1939 (2018-03-20 17:36:15)

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#7 2018-03-20 18:22:12

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

Now I see Ireland luncheon.. he was celebrating....

Speaking to members of the military in California on Wednesday, Trump vowed that the U.S. would make it to Mars "very soon."
"You wouldn't be going to Mars if my opponent won, that I can tell you.

So planned to happen in his second term.....

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#8 2018-03-20 18:38:47

EdwardHeisler
Member
Registered: 2017-09-20
Posts: 357

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

SpaceNut wrote:

Now I see Ireland luncheon.. he was celebrating....

Speaking to members of the military in California on Wednesday, Trump vowed that the U.S. would make it to Mars "very soon."
"You wouldn't be going to Mars if my opponent won, that I can tell you.


Fact Checker Analysis 
President Trump’s false claim that Clinton wouldn’t have sent humans to Mars
By Salvador Rizzo 
March 18
Washington Post

“Very soon we are going to Mars. You wouldn’t have been going to Mars if my opponent won, that I can tell you. You wouldn’t even be thinking about it.”
— President Trump, in remarks at the Marine Corps Air Station, Miramar, Calif., March 13, 2018

So what does Clinton have to say about all this?

Fact Checker Meg Kelly unearthed a video clip showing that Clinton has been talking about getting humans on Mars since at least 1999. As first lady, Clinton helped launch the “Mars Millennium Project,” an educational campaign “to imagine a new life on the red planet.”

In a 1999 speech to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Clinton said this project was “challenging schoolchildren around the nation in conjunction with NASA to design a community that they would want to live on the planet Mars in the year 2030.”

More recently, during the 2016 race, Clinton’s campaign submitted written responses to questions about space travel from ScienceDebate.org. She said one of her goals would have been to “advance our ability to make human exploration of Mars a reality.” (In response to the same questions, “Trump did not formally support a human Mars exploration program or other specific initiatives,” Space News noted.)

Today, thanks to a series of successful American robotic explorers, we know more about the Red Planet than ever before,” Clinton said. “A goal of my administration will be to expand this knowledge even further and advance our ability to make human exploration of Mars a reality.”

Space, the final frontier, was very much on Clinton’s mind in 2016. Unlike Trump, Clinton was on the record during the campaign supporting efforts to get humans to Mars one day.

It’s not clear that the American plan for Martian colonization would be unfolding any differently had Clinton won the presidency, since NASA’s “Journey to Mars” initiative predates Trump and builds on what Obama did. And in any case, Americans are not expected to be walking on Mars during the four or eight years of the current administration.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to get this right, so the president earns Four Pinocchios.

pinocchio_4.jpg

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fac … 58e338e5b4

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#9 2018-03-20 20:36:03

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,362

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

EdwardHeisler wrote:

Do you think that Trump was misquoted?   Trump is normally very accurate in his statements and never lies.   Trump clearly knows more about NASA and space travel than the stupid writer.

EdwardHeisler,

You seem to have a very immature need to criticize anything and everything President Trump says, even when he's busy promoting the agenda that most of us here want, which is to go to Mars.  Whether or not he's not using whatever exact wording you find most pleasing or understands every conceivable technical detail regarding what he says is another matter.  If President Trump said the sky was blue, then someone from the media would write an article attacking that assertion, perhaps with some reference to racism or xenophobia, simultaneously proving that they're no more intelligent than he is.  I'm dying to know what you get out of attacking someone who is, presumably, promoting one of your agenda items of sending humans to Mars and is uniquely positioned to affect the outcome of that goal.

If President Trump really could get humans to Mars, would you then sabotage that effort merely because President Trump was the one who attempted to do it, or is the prospect of actually going to Mars a lot more interesting than whatever political party happens to be in the White House at the time?

If Hillary Clinton had won the election, I wouldn't be here posting a daily "I hate President Clinton" screed.  Such behavior would be so mind numbingly boring to me as to be an utter waste of my time.  I've been indulging you and SpaceNut, here and there, by posting responses to your attacks on President Trump to both explain a different point of view, whether you agree with it or not, and out of sheer morbid curiosity to see just how far you'll take this silliness.  I'm a cat and this is yarn to me, so I'm going to play with it.

It's pretty clear that your belief system is agenda driven, but to what end?

Example:

I keep asking you what solutions you have to resolve your climate change agenda and you've never responded.  If you don't have any answers, then you're not stating anything that hasn't been stated at least a million times before.  For those of us who haven't been convinced that we need to pour our money into that agenda, you should at least attempt to come up with better ideas regarding why we should spend our time and money on it.

Incidentally, the Clintons never did a thing for NASA when former President Clinton was in office, nor did the rest of the Democrat or Republican parties.  NASA has tried at least once, if not two or three times, per decade to rebuild its human space exploration program.  Every single time, no matter who was in office, they had the funding rug pulled out from underneath them the moment their efforts started to bear fruit.  You'd know that if you weren't grossly ignorant of the agency's history.  If you believe otherwise, then tell the rest of us what the "Mars Millennium Project" did for Mars exploration.

"In the interdisciplinary program, the students will work in teams with teachers, artists, scientists, engineers, and community groups. They will explore the culture, history, and traditions of their communities, along with local artistic, cultural, scientific, and social characteristics that might be exported to another planet. Drawing from known facts about environmental and scientific factors affecting living conditions on Mars, they will create a scientifically sound, livable, and aesthetic environment for a colony of 100 people there in the year 2030. They will develop the artistic and cultural aspects of the new community, including symbols, images, and cultural qualities that would distinguish and reflect it."

In other words, the Mars Millennium Project was another boring social engineering experiment with zero scientific applicability to any real world technical problems associated with living on Mars.  Apart from playing psychological games with the developing minds of school children too dumbed down by our non-educational system to be of any significant value to themselves or anyone else, what else did that do for us?

For the future of America, I really hope the people who are imprisoned in their three pound universe can learn to accept that everyone has different ideas about the best way to go about doing something.  I've seen enough lately to begrudgingly accept that the chance of that thought passing through the mind of the average American is pretty slim.

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#10 2018-03-20 23:55:01

Oldfart1939
Member
Registered: 2016-11-26
Posts: 2,366

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

KBD512--

BRAVO. I hang out here at this website for the actual scientific discussions, and become extremely bored when anyone tries to inflict political views in these discussion threads. The hypothesis that Trump is "stupid" is incorrect, as his IQ is somewhere in the upper 150 range, as well as his education at Wharton School of Business. I consider Wharton to be THE top business school in the USA, since Elon Musk is also a Wharton graduate.

Now, to EdwardHeisler, and to a lesser degree SpaceNut; let's drop the politics on this thread. I like to think of this as a friendly discussion group, not a political mud slinging contest.

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#11 2018-03-21 04:26:43

elderflower
Member
Registered: 2016-06-19
Posts: 1,262

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

Agreed. We do have a set of threads for politics and so on in the "Not so free chat" section. Please put political wrangling there.

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#12 2018-03-21 07:51:38

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,362

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

Oldfart1939,

I'm simply pleased that someone in power is talking about going to Mars right now, rather than decades from now, and that they have some ability to influence decisions made to that end, provided that everyone else in power doesn't do everything conceivable to prevent that person from exercising their authority as an elected official.  I don't even care if they do it for selfish reasons or they don't really know what they're talking about.  You won't find a single President who knows half as much about NASA or space exploration as most people here do.  In the end, none of that matters if we never go anywhere new and don't do things we've never done before.

In 1969, humanity had a new perspective on what being human and living on Earth meant, looking back at Earth from the moon.  I believe that going to Mars would raise that new perspective to a new level, perhaps making everyone realize just how unique Earth truly is.  Who knows, maybe they'll even do more to ensure that future generations enjoy the prosperity that we have by taking better care of their home.  Until we can capture their collective attention for a few precious moments to show them what they have by having another human show them what life would be like elsewhere, we'll never know.  We'll always have our human problems, here on Earth or anywhere else, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for something better than what we have now.

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#13 2018-03-21 17:13:18

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

Guilty, Sorry guy's

Funds will need to be appropriated no matter whom is able to create what we need and is a budgetting issue as well as taxation problem.
One which is still on the rocks 3/23/18 for the next impending shutdown of the Federal Government.....

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#14 2018-03-21 18:43:15

EdwardHeisler
Member
Registered: 2017-09-20
Posts: 357

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

kbd512 wrote:
EdwardHeisler wrote:

Do you think that Trump was misquoted?   Trump is normally very accurate in his statements and never lies.   Trump clearly knows more about NASA and space travel than the stupid writer.

EdwardHeisler,

You seem to have a very immature need to criticize anything and everything President Trump says, even when he's busy promoting the agenda that most of us here want, which is to go to Mars.

How is Trump promoting the human exploration of Mars?    Unless it's just Trump once again blurting out non-fact based rhetoric and b.s., please provide links indicating Trump's timeline, budget and plan for sending human explorers to Mars.

Deal with reality, not what you wish Trump understood and is doing about space exploration.    While it's true he learned how to be a real estate shark, he continues to demonstrate his illiteracy when it involves space exploration.   I'm not picking on poor little defenseless Trump, just stating the facts about someone who is not an informed supporter of space exploration.   He is not our friend.   He does not support us. In fact, I see Trump as an enemy of peaceful space exploration, our Constitution, our freedoms and our democratic rights.

As retired four-star Gen. Barry McCaffrey said " Reluctantly I have concluded that President Trump is a serious threat to US national security. He is refusing to protect vital US interests."

Trump is not a "normal" conservative Republican president like Reagan or the Bush's.   He's not even a Republican.   He's a Trumpite building a dangerous racist, zenophobic and  authoritarian cult-like following.   This is different.   

To preserve our way of life Trump will need to be removed from his position of power before this year is out.   While I hardly like Pence, the clear and present danger to our Republic would end if Pence takes charge. 

Hopefully Musk can continue to squeeze money out of the DOD and NASA to help fund his Mars objectives without interference from Trumpy.

And no, I did not campaign for or vote for Hillary Clinton.   The worst candidates the Democratic Party and Republican Party could run for President were nominated.    So which was the lesser evil?  Clinton or Trump?  Flip a coin.

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#15 2018-03-21 20:05:07

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

Trump has done one thing to start Nasa hopefully on the path with the National Space council but there is still only an acting administrator and I think it just changed again....

The revived National Space Council consists of the following members:
    Vice President of the United States, chair  Mike Pence
    Secretary of State is Rex Tillerson. On March 13, 2018
    Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis since January 20, 2017
    Secretary of Commerce Wilbur L. Ross since February 28, 2017
    Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao since January 31, 2017
    Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen since December 6, 2017
    Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats since March 16, 2017
    Director of the Office of Budget and Management OMB Director is Mick Mulvaney.
    National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster since February 20, 2017
    Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Robert M. Lightfoot Jr. Acting since January 20, 2017
    Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert since January 20, 2017
    Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford, USMC since October 1, 2015


From the list it looks to be real stagnant and not saying or putting it out to the public.....

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#16 2018-03-21 20:25:45

Oldfart1939
Member
Registered: 2016-11-26
Posts: 2,366

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

The only thing that will get things moving is the confirmation of a real NASA administrator. Trump actually appointed someone other than a bureaucrat--a naval aviator--in the person of Mr. Bridenstine. This is the sort of appointment that can be a game changer, and Dr. Zubrin has enthusiastically endorsed the move.

In the last above posted by SpaceNut, I expect that H.R. McMaster will soon be replaced by a more competent voice. And no, Mr. Heisler; I do not call for Trump's replacement; I would prefer to see his appointments be confirmed and then OBSERVE for a while before criticizing his only partly staffed administration. In addition to the anticipated firing of H.R. McMaster, Rex Tillerson has already been fired.

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#17 2018-03-21 20:43:45

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,362

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

EdwardHeisler,

President Trump tasked Vice President Pence with the reformation of the Space Council to provide policy guidance to NASA and signed the first funding authorization for NASA in the past seven years.  Consistent and predictable funding is kinda important for development of the technologies required for space exploration.  Shocking, but true.  The same bill provides health care for our astronauts for life and kills that Asteroid Redirect Mission that had nothing to do with going to Mars.  That was according to WaPo, and they're not overly enamored with President Trump.

Securing funding for NASA to develop the technologies required for real space exploration is dealing with reality.  The reality is that going to Mars requires consistent and predictable funding and clearly defined policy to guide technology development.  If President Trump is not informed about space exploration, could you cite some examples of other Presidential candidates who were informed about space exploration?  If President Trump doesn't support us, then who does?

Could you define what a "normal" conservative is for the rest of us conservatives?  If we can't all be neatly pigeon-holed into your idea of what a conservative should be, does that make you nervous?

Could you explain to the rest of us how he's built a racist, xenophobic, and authoritarian cult-like following?

If his supporters are a cult, whereas his opposition was not, then why was the opposition destroying businesses that didn't support him, setting fire to peoples' cars, and beating people in the streets?  I must have missed the part where Trump voters were looting convenience stores after the election.

Since President Trump is married to a first generation immigrant to America, what type of xenophobia could he possibly have?

I'm married to a first generation immigrant to America, too.  My wife was born in Saigon, Viet Nam.  She voted for President Trump.  Is she xenophobic, too?  Is she concerned that people like her will come to America?

I promise you that our way of life will continue, whether President Trump remains in office or not.  People who believe otherwise need to take a chill pill and stop eating up all the bovine excrement that our media likes to feed its viewership.

Elon Musk isn't "squeezing money" out of NASA and DoD.  He's providing an invaluable service to his country at a fraction of the price of his competitors while constantly improving the service he provides.  I think he's doing a fantastic job.  SpaceX was one of the best investments NASA ever made.  DoD was a little skeptical at first, but even they've come around.  ULA may have a near perfect track record of success, but at jaw-dropping prices.  Now they're being forced to innovate and competitively bid launches because they have real competitors in the form of Blue Origin, and Orbital ATK, and SpaceX.  Necessity is the mother of invention.  That's a very good thing, to my way of thinking.

I never asked you about your political proclivities because I simply don't care.  I argue ideas on their merits.  You make broad sweeping statements, but never provide any evidence to support your reasoning for doing so.  If your reasoning is sound, then it should withstand a little scrutiny.  Put your ideas out there.  Form your own opinions based on verifiable evidence and then defend your position.

Lastly, I see you still haven't responded to my question regarding what we should do about "climate change".

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#18 2018-03-22 07:59:47

clark
Member
Registered: 2001-09-20
Posts: 6,362

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

If you want to know if NASA or any administration is serious about humans to Mars, monitor their policy and investments in regards to nuclear power in space. Everything else is window dressing.

You guys should know this.

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#19 2018-03-22 08:07:15

louis
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 7,208

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

So why isn't Musk, who is supremely serious about getting to Mars, not interested in nuclear power in space?

clark wrote:

If you want to know if NASA or any administration is serious about humans to Mars, monitor their policy and investments in regards to nuclear power in space. Everything else is window dressing.

You guys should know this.


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#20 2018-03-22 09:16:52

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

Louis:

To answer your question in post #19 just above:  here in the US,  only certain government entities may posses nuclear materials at all,  such as DOD or NASA.  Private entities must by licensed by the government to possess any of the nuclear technology,  and the licensing process is deliberately brutal,  expensive,  and long,  so that few apply.  (This is in part why nuclear power plants are so expensive.)

Another facet to the picture:  here is the US,  Musk is viewed as foreign-born,  even though his company Spacex is headquartered here.  Space application of nuclear technology trips the ITAR rules regarding that nuclear technology. 

Those two facets are enough to understand why Musk can be enthusiastic about going to Mars,  puts his money where his mouth is (unlike so many others),  and yet is uninterested in applying nuclear power to any of his plans and designs.  In the long run,  nuclear power enables real space travel,  but you don't have to have it just to get started. 

All that being said,  if Musk brings his BFR/BFS system to operational status,  and actually begins flights to Mars with it,  then down the road somewhere,  nclear power will have to be introduced into the mix.  Not for the spaceship,  for the base,  or city,  or whatever you want to call it.  Note also that Musk will not build all of this by himself,  "others" will build the base/city/colony.  He is just providing the means of transport.   

The Rest of You:

I think it very unwise to inject politics into this thread.  For one thing,  that's a violation of forum rules.  There actually is a place for that in the "not so free chat" arena.  We probably should keep it confined there.  And I believe the moderators would agree with that. 

That being said,  what I understand from the mainstream news is that Mr. Trump supports going back to the moon,  then later going to Mars.  Why he said "we are ahead of schedule" regarding going to Mars is unknown:  as far as I can tell,  there is as yet no NASA schedule for going to Mars.  Musk has one,  but as we have seen,  his estimates for "how long it will take" have been unreliable. 

It is obviously better to have a stated goal and schedule than not:  that is part of why it now appears Musk could put men on Mars long before NASA ever could.  Another part is actually working on the enabling pieces:  he is (for only the BFR/BFS transport system),  NASA is not,  to any significant extent (the exception here is JPL,  but they are focused on robot probes,  not men). 

I think you have to be clear-eyed and clear-headed in your evaluations of what is,  and is not,  going on.

NASA would do better with an Administrator than without one.  Although,  getting a really good one has better outcomes than getting a poor one.  Bridenstine was chosen to have attractive credentials,  yes,  but he was chosen also to implement the policy of climate change denial,  as has already happened at EPA. 

The three centers of climate change research and information within the US government were NASA,  NOAA,  and EPA (from a regulation standpoint).  I think that climate change denial is a very bad policy,  but regardless of what I think,  it's still a subject worthy of determining the truth and then disseminating it. 

As for any sort of space exploration goal that is supported by a president,  VP,  or advisory committee,  consider that we haven't had such since LBJ.  That's how Nixon killed Apollo in the middle of the landings,  and mostly bad things have happened ever since.  I don't see any LBJ-like champions of a manned space program out there. 

That puts us back to the likes of Musk.  I hope he can do something.  I don't believe the government will.  And when "they" talk the talk,  look to see if they walk the walk.  No one has walked,  not in decades.  Talk is cheap. 

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-03-22 09:52:37)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#21 2018-03-22 09:16:54

clark
Member
Registered: 2001-09-20
Posts: 6,362

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

Because there is zero commercial advantage.

What's that? A CEO who sells rockets plays up a vision that, by the way, involves selling more of his rockets? His interest in Mars is self-serving; great for Human to Mars advocates as a means to an end, but he is not a serious mars nutter.

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#22 2018-03-22 09:50:35

clark
Member
Registered: 2001-09-20
Posts: 6,362

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

GW, NASA has had a long term target of 2030's for human to Mars for a while now. Various administrations from Bush 1 on have had various iterations of what that meant, but the target window has been pretty consistent.

Musk can get some meat bags orbiting Mars, but boots on the ground and back requires technology and expertise outside of his current vertical. NASA isn't even ready with solutions for the biological challenges inherent in a chemical trip. And if power is solely solar, then there is almost zero margin for error and limited to no science value since duration would be exceedingly short.

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#23 2018-03-22 10:10:45

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

Clark:

When I was a teen,  we were trying to land on the moon before 1970.  Mars was scheduled for the 1983 opposition.  The mission to Mars looked rather like Apollo,  just a bigger set of propulsion.  For one thing,  NERVA was to be an alternate third stage for Saturn-5. 

By the time we were mid-way through the moon landings in 1972 (and Nixon killed it because LBJ was out of the picture),  the Mars mission had been pushed back to the 1987 opposition.  Military manned space had also been killed,  and those assets turned over to NASA,  one asset being a slew of military astronauts who later flew as Space Shuttle astronauts. 

With the killing of Apollo,  NASA manned space had no objective,  and NASA let NERVA die by 1974,  because "who needs the rocket if we're not going to go?"  NASA had already killed nuclear pulse propulsion as a competitor to NERVA (when it was really complementary),  so that was dead,  too.  And that more than anything else is why we have only had chemical rockets in all the decades since,  until the recent introduction of some electric thrusters.

Nixon let NASA manned space have the Space Shuttle,  even though there was no place to go or anything to do when you go there,  with the exception of the "space telescope" effort that became Hubble,  and launching military spy satellites (which are what sized the payload and payload bay dimensions). 

Reagan gave them the space station program so that Shuttle would have a place to go and a job to do.  That was the genesis of ISS.

The one smart move in all of this history was doing the commercial cargo and orbital astronaut taxi programs,  since with retirement of Shuttle,  we had no means to send astronauts to their one and only job to do:  manning the ISS.  We've since seen how the commercial launch people,  driven by Spacex,  have made NASA look incompetent at developing practical rockets. 

While this was going on,  NASA's schedule for men on Mars has slipped steadily from "around 2030" to "shortly after 2040".  And they're still not working seriously on many of the things needed to get a crew there and back again,  in good health.  As I said,  do they walk the walk?  Talking the talk is not enough.  "Trust but verify".

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-03-22 10:12:37)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#24 2018-03-22 10:31:49

clark
Member
Registered: 2001-09-20
Posts: 6,362

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2018/03/21/ … lion-nasa/

$75M for NTP.

Check our some of the tech they are investing in; if this proves out and additional funds are allocated, then we can have a higher confidence level in commitments to human to mars plans.

https://gameon.nasa.gov/projects/nuclea … ropulsion/

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#25 2018-03-22 11:01:22

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: Trump says NASA is "way ahead of schedule" in getting humans to Mars!!

$75M for studies to answer the question "can we build an analog to NERVA that uses LEU instead of HEU or mixed HEU/Pu fuels?". 

I'm not sure (because I'm not a nuclear engineer) why an LEU NERVA would be attractive.  My imperfect knowledge suggests that reactor cores that use LEU are far larger and more massive than reactor cores that use HEU.  Zubrin would know better,  he really is a nuclear engineer.

Instead of spending that $75M on answering what seems to be a nonsensical question,  why not spend it (and more besides) resurrecting and then updating the old NERVA technology?  That technology was within about a year of its first flight test when everything was shut down following Nixon killing Apollo.  Would that not be the fastest,  surest strategy to get nuclear rockets flying?

If I seem very disenchanted with governmental decision-making,  it's because I am.  And I have reason to be. 

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-03-22 11:01:45)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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