Manned mission to Luna in 2018

Rxke · 2005-08-02 01:23:48

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&c … 0801185912

I thought this might deserve its own thread...

Manned outpost, living off the land, Mars precursor missionplans...

srmeaney · 2005-08-02 01:49:38

Four Astronauts to the Moon by 2018???

They must be smoking moon cheeze in the Oval office. They need to send ten thousand a year to the moon. Lunar colonization for one million people in an underground city with its own food production and light industry.

Bugger it. If they want to have apollo flashbacks and squander even more resources on foot prints, flags and fools, go right ahead.

John Creighton · 2005-08-02 02:00:26

Four Astronauts to the Moon by 2018???
They must be smoking moon cheeze in the Oval office. They need to send ten thousand a year to the moon. Lunar colonization for one million people in an underground city with its own food production and light industry.
Bugger it. If they want to have apollo flashbacks and squander even more resources on foot prints, flags and fools, go right ahead.

yeah, that is economically viable.

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2005-08-02 02:47:20

It is a bit sad though

NASA 'plan' on doing a heap of stuff, however every year it seems more trouble has come...the Hubble problems, a possibility of Voyager getting cancelled, then its Mars Telecommunications Orbiter (MTO) getting axed. Meanwhile ESA's science is getting stronger, they seem serious about Space and Russia will be launching manned flights from the French Space ports.

Now they say they plan on marking the 50th anniversary of one of Space and mankinds greatest journey, the voyage of Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins with just a single mission that will carry just 4 astronauts ? This is not impressive, so maybe Chinese can beat them to the Moon ? Is NASA even serious about Mars and Space exploration anymore or have they fallen so far since Apollo.

I support the explorations of the Red planet but let's do it right and not make a messy project like they did with Shuttle. ESA and Russians seem to be more serious about exploation with their small budgets. NASA's Mars Sample Return mission has been but 10 years away for over 30 years, manned missions are stuck in another time-warp always 16 years beyond NASA's reach.

SpaceNut · 2005-08-02 05:08:08

Yup the initial story on this was in the orlando sentinel.
[url=http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/custom/space/orl-asec-moon073105,0,3136666.htmlstory?coll=orl-home-promo]NASA outlines plans for moon and Mars
36 years after Apollo 11, the agency proposes new spacecraft and a lunar base to prepare for the next giant leap -- to the Red Planet.[/url]

More of the same details driving the decisions of Nasa are coming from the 60 or 90 day study, that was done to put congress at easy for the cost and archeteture for carrying out the President's anounced vision of space exploration.

NASA's New CEV Launcher to Maximize Use of Space Shuttle Components

cev.28.m.jpg

Now knowing the foam is still falling off of the ET and a need to minimize the expense for getting started for moon missions with the CEV. Which would you feel is the safer design or does risk even play apart in going forward as soon as possible?

I think the date of 2018 is way off the mark being that we could do a mixed build up of missions while still doing the ISS final stages of use.

Palomar · 2005-08-02 05:20:10

*Oh yippy-skippy! We're going back to the Moon! And after all these decades! Wow, I'm so pumped!

Not.

Want to see a manned mission to MARS in 2018.

--Cindy

GCNRevenger · 2005-08-02 08:38:17

It is a bit sad though
NASA 'plan' on doing a heap of stuff, however every year it seems more trouble has come...the Hubble problems, a possibility of Voyager getting cancelled, then its Mars Telecommunications Orbiter (MTO) getting axed. Meanwhile ESA's science is getting stronger, they seem serious about Space and Russia will be launching manned flights from the French Space ports.
Now they say they plan on marking the 50th anniversary of one of Space and mankinds greatest journey, the voyage of Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins with just a single mission that will carry just 4 astronauts ? This is not impressive, so maybe Chinese can beat them to the Moon ? Is NASA even serious about Mars and Space exploration anymore or have they fallen so far since Apollo.
I support the explorations of the Red planet but let's do it right and not make a messy project like they did with Shuttle. ESA and Russians seem to be more serious about exploation with their small budgets. NASA's Mars Sample Return mission has been but 10 years away for over 30 years, manned missions are stuck in another time-warp always 16 years beyond NASA's reach.

The only thing here that is "sad" is your anti-NASA outlook

Well of course Hubble is having problems, because it was built to only operate a few years between servicing, and the thing has already outlived its design life. Duh. And Voyager? Their primary mission has been over for years, the sensors best suited to finding the Helopause don't work anymore, and its strongly questionable if their worn-out Plutonium generators will last much longer. Its a valid issue whether spending tens of millions more on them rather then a dedicated probe like IBEX is a good investment. And who needs the MTO when we have the high-bandwidth uplink from the Mars Recon Orbiter?

"Meanwhile ESA's science is getting stronger"

Haha, yeah right. Now, who's probe needed to hitch a ride to Saturn? Yeah, thought so. They aren't serious at all, I mean, just look at their miniscule budget... with the cost of aerospace technology in Europe, thats a useless sum. And Russia? Come on, their vehicle can't survive reentry from Lunar transit velocities, so it will be stuck in LEO just like Shuttle. Doing what? Why, propping up the ISS to go in circles of course. Maybe a few million from tourists... big deal.

The fact that their budgets are so small, yet they aren't screaming their lungs out about how small it is versus NASA's, proves that they aren't serious. You are just trying to cut NASA down in their time of weakness... kind of petty of you.

And the date to get back to the Moon? A few years longer then I was expecting, but with the cost of the ISS around NASA's neck for the next decade, you can't blame them. It took the 1960's NASA seven years to put two men and basically zero cargo on the Moon for about ~$25Bn a year, and they had a signifigant (several percent) chance of dying. NASA will be starting almost from scratch with only about $8-10Bn a year to spend on it for twice the people or quadruple the payload at a much lower maximum risk. They are doing the best they can with what they have while being forced to make the ISS at least look sucessful.

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2005-08-02 10:30:50

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.

John Creighton · 2005-08-02 12:40:36

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.

Are you by chance paid to argue the party line of china? You post strikes me as propaganda and off topic. As far as budget per capita invested in space I don't think many nations if any compare to the united states. The have and still do launch a plethora of robotic missions in comparison to other nations. Well, other nations are starting to make greater inroads into robotic exploration the united states is taking the steps to develop the infrastructure that will allow them to take people to the moon and mars. Despite all the great contributions of robotic missions robots do not return the science per dollar as people do, and they fall far short of inspiring the imagination of the people.

If other nations are making more inroads into robotic missions and supporting ISS science that is not a failure of the united states. Rather it is a great sign of other nations doing there part to contribute to the field of space science. With other nations are helping to support these other activities it gives the united states the ability to focus on areas of space exploration neglected since Apollo with minimal cost to other areas of space science and exploration.

Londontowner580 · 2005-08-02 12:48:14

To:Yang Liwei Rocket

I'm not going to say that you're anti-NASA -- but you sure seem to feed off pessimism.

You talk of the plans that different world space programmes (including NASA's) are endeavouring to accomplish, yet you quote the word plan ('plan') when referring to NASA's -- as if to mock them.
You then go on to talk about these grand plans of Russia, ESA and China, with no such quotes.

I don't know the answer to this question... But out of all the plans made by all of the space programmes in existance-which agency has made those plans into reality, more?

I presume, or it at least seems to be NASA. But, I could be wrong.

Your pessimism focuses on The Hubble telescope, The MTO, Voyager and News and Organisational reports.

Firstly, The Administrator of NASA has made it clear that he favours a Hubble upgrade mission. Besides, as much as I support a Hubble upgrade to get it through several more years of science -- If it doesn't get the intended upgrade, I'd still consider it's mission complete and an overwhelming success.
The administrator has also said there will be NO Voyager termination!

...Updated on news much?

The MTO appears to be canceled, yes.

But why not talk about the magnitude of success's?

The MRO (Mars Reconnaissance Orbitor) is going to launch very soon! It will examine the red planet in unprecedented detail from low orbit and provide more data about the intriguing planet than all previous missions combined!

The New Horizons craft is going through it's pre-launch testing now, and will launch next year -- to Pluto!

The Mars rovers are doing fabulous! Way beyond expectation!

Cassini is doing a magnificent job at the Saturnian System (As did Europe's joined probe, Huygens!)

And of course the recent Deep Impact mission.

And many other science and exploration mission successes I'm sure, but I'll stop here.

When it comes to public support and in particular the Poll you mentioned, Mike Griffin said it best when asked about it, Sunday ....

Question: MR. RUSSERT: Mars and the moon--Gallup pollsters asked the American people about Mars and would they favor or oppose the United States setting aside money for such a project. Funding a manned mission to Mars? Favor, 40 percent, and opposed, 58 percent. It's now estimated it will cost over $200 billion between now and 2025. Fifty-eight percent of the Americans opposed. NASA has a large job ahead of itself to try to convince the American people that it is in their financial and fiscal interest to pursue Mars.

Answer: DR. GRIFFIN: Well, when you poll and ask the question that way, you can get almost any answer you like. It's very close to those, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" questions. If I ask the question in a different way, I might get a very different answer. The way I would ask it is, "NASA will spend about 5 percent or less of the money which is spent on national defense each year for the next 20 years. What would you like to see done with that money. Given that we're going to spend that money on the American space program, what would you like to see done with it?" and then list various options. "Returning to the moon, eventually going to Mars, exploring the asteroids and other planets, or would you rather that the United States space program be confined to lower-Earth orbit as we have been for the last 30 years?" And I strongly suspect that if confronted with choices, if confronted with the knowledge that we're going to be spending money on space and confronted with choices about where we should spend that money, that those poll results would change dramatically.

^Indeed

Okay, I'm done with my rant.

Cheers!

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2005-08-02 13:26:54

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.

1
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

2
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.

John Creighton · 2005-08-02 14:00:04

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.

1
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
2
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, that post was quite a bit different then your last post. The post you just gave really just says a lot of stuff I already new with the exception of some stuff about specific probes. Perhaps we don’t need MTO yet. Nasa has lists of robotic mission proposals to choose from. The probe sounds worthwhile and as the comunitcation need grows between mars and earth I suspect it will be launched. Anyway, one failed mission does not make a failed program.

Anyway, I was joking about you being paid to argue the Chinese party line but the fact remains that China does pay people to go in chat rooms and message boards to argue the party line. Chine has made great leaps in terms of personal freedoms and openness but they still do not where the same freedoms in terms of free speech that we do. China, has in fact worked with search engineers to block out sites from people viewing with Chinese ip addresses that they feel are subversive to the government position. And BTW Moa is not in power any more so I would assume that you could argue against some of Moa’s ideas without going against the Chinese party line.

edit: And P.S. you were the one that went offtopic with politics when you started bringing all the opinion poll stuff into the discussion.

Grypd · 2005-08-02 14:45:23

If its all opinions heres mine.

Great at least we have a date and a plan to get somewhere further than LEO and with the intention of actually using what we find so that we can stay.

There is of course my wish that the schedule could have been a lot closer and a lot more grander but if wishes where fishes and NASA can only go with what it can afford.

Josh Cryer · 2005-08-02 15:03:06

Yang Liwei Rocket can only be described as a fan of Chinese space advocacy, I think it's really insulting for members here to call him out for that. I've found his posts a valuable asset to NewMars, and really, the petty insults can surely go.

Stay on topic, let's drop the ad homs. Thanks guys.

Rxke · 2005-08-02 16:15:25

Phew. Wazzappening?

Peeps, take a chocolate!

While 99% of topics go astray within the first 10 posts, I for once willingly add to the chaos, heehee.

Strange that Yang liwei gets all that flak, I've seen countless other people say the same stuff and never gotten a rap for it... Loosen up guys, He was probably venting frustration, like we ALL do sometimes, I know I do...

All the big dreams (me being 35, they are from the late 70's, mid 80's when the russians were going to go to Mars in a MIR-II, and everyone believed it would happen, soon...NASA was going to build a station in GEO...Etc.) that seem to go nowhere fast...

Heck, isn't there a recent thread called "I've got no patience left with NASA"?

NASA did, and is doing great stuff, but they're doing 'bad' stuff too, probably because a combination of being a Behemoth, hence the less-than-optimal economies of size, and well... Funding.

NASA hast to do *everything* manned, unmanned, comms, building launchers infrastructure etc...

So of course stuff goes wrong, gets axxed, and there's allways one name that comes up: NASA.

While it can be either Boeing, LockMart, SpaceHab etc etc who's to blame...
DC-X, X-33, Shuttle, Voyager, Hubble, all operated/built by different orgs, but you remember only one name when things go wrong: NASA.

Anyone knows who built Hubble? Voyager? Thought not.

Then you have the Chinese, you only see successes. Russians, likewise, because, well... Chinese are good at keeping mum, and the Russians... they don't do much anymore, except slowly crawl out of the mess the fall of the USSR caused. And anyone who likes spaceflight hopes, cheers them on...

(wow rambleramble... What's my point...?)

Errr... Oh, jea, Yanlg Liiwei. Check his other posts, he's not a China fanboy, I've seen him posting about lots of other agencies too.

I guess he's just cheering for the underdogs.
And that's ALL agencies that are not NASA.
They're the top players. High trees and all that.

Heck, even Griffin isn't a fan of how NASA functions right now, isn't he?

yeayea Happy new Year, blablabla...

On-topic: astronauts saiid they're nervous about the upcoming repair.

Wonder how much cobverage *that* will get...

PR people probably doing extra hours, right now... Like it or not, this is pretty exciting stuff...

EDIT: Fsk that, off topic it is... wrong thread!

RobertDyck · 2005-08-02 17:53:06

I'm with Cindy, I want a manned mission to Mars in 2018. We can do it too, just have to get off our collective ass and go! Actually, if NASA gets its act together it could send an unmanned sample return mission in 2011, get the sample back early 2014. Should be able to launch a manned mission to Mars in 2016, and that includes 2 years of detailed preparation using results from the returned sample. Mars in 2018 is 4 years after the sample, that's a leasurely slow pace. But the Moon in 2018? When do we go to Mars, the 22nd century?

GCNRevenger · 2005-08-02 19:20:34

Mars by 2020? That would be hard, though possible perhaps......

.......but not while we are keeping the ISS propped up for another decade, which will surely become more expensive, and pouring buckets and bushels and truckloads of money into Shuttle for another half.

ISS: $2-3Bn anually and gradually increasing, $4Bn with crew/cargo ferries

Shuttle: $4.5Bn anually, maybe down to $3-4Bn at program's end

Total realistic NASA budget for manned spaceflight: ~$10.0-10.5Bn or so out of the $16.0-16.5Bn budget. So, NASA will be stuck for the next four years spending $6.5Bn a year - sixty five percent - of their budget on Shuttle/ISS. And thats best-case senario if Griffin can squeeze $10Bn out of NASA's budget somehow and ISS costs don't climb any more.

And then, after Shuttle is gone, we'll then be spending about $4Bn a year, forty percent of the theoretical ideal budget, on keeping the ISS proped up until when?

2017, the year before the first manned moon landing is planned. NASA is having to do VSE with one hand tied behind its back, of course its going to take a long time. 2018 is not unreasonable given what NASA has to accomplish to get there.

Edit: Adjusting for inflation, $6Bn a year is like 1/5th of the Apollo budget back in the NASA heyday, or something like that, right? By comparison, peanuts. When I said that the ISS was a millstone around NASA's neck, I think that the comparison is the perfect archtype for the analogy.

Rxke · 2005-08-03 02:19:31

Yup.

That's it: budget.

It's like scientists saying fusion is 10 years in the future, but they kept saying that the last 30 years.
When you read stuff like that, one has to add "... with sufficient funding"

NASA can probably start building an ISRU sample/return lander tomorrow, if they got the carte blanche and a bood budget.

Aah, if only zero-g manufacturing had proved to deliver some truly groundbreaking stuff, we could be seeing private enterprize taking ISS off NASA's shoulders in a mad dash to world economic domination , heh.

Of course, if congress can't see a return of investment, either economically or politically, they won't increase spending, that's a given. :cry:

No Buck, no Buck Rogers. If God wanted us to be a space-faring species... He would've given us more money.

Josh Cryer · 2005-08-03 02:41:29

Hmm, as much as I hate to say it, it looks like private industries are the only way we are going to get to Mars in the short term.

GCNRevenger · 2005-08-03 08:12:29

Oh I doubt that Josh. Private industry doesn't have a prayer of being NASA's salvation because they can't radically reduce the cost of what NASA needs. Sure they could save some hundreds of millions off ISS ferry duty, or a few hundred million off Moon/Mars stuff, but those aren't going to save enough money to really be a paradiegm shift or anything that would speed up a Mars trip signifigantly.

NASA is still the only outfit in town that will go to Moon/Mars without a clear and safe financial payback.

C M Edwards · 2005-08-03 12:44:56

Now that I think about it, I could be convinced to support a lunar base rather than a manned mars mission...

If I were personally going.

srmeaney's plan doesn't seem to be materializing, though.

GregM · 2005-08-03 18:50:28

You guys crack me up! Never good enough, those NASA folks, are they? Never smart enough, never ambitious enough, never doing the right program, or doing it the right way.

So the United States Government announces that they will start expeditions to the Moon in 2018. Notice that I said United States Government, not NASA. A lot of you guys still think that NASA is some sort of stand alone organization that decides how much money to spend and what to spend it on. Get it through your heads: NASA is just one of the many, many arms of the U.S. federal government. How much money is spent on spaceflight, and what type of spaceflight it is spent on is the decision of politicians! You then criticize the hell out of NASA folks for not being ambitious enough, or doing the wrong program, or some other such thing. If the date for the moon is 2018, and the expeditions are a week or two in length twice a year, it’s because that’s what the government is prepared to spend on the endeavor! If you don’t like it, lobby your representative or senator, or the President. Tell them you want them to spend more tax dollars (or more borrowed money) on spaceflight – specifically on getting a permanent lunar base up and running by say, oh, 2014. Maybe while you are at it, how about humans on Mars by say…. 2020.? Colonists on Mars by 2035? It can all be done with enough cash. If public opinion supports it – it will happen. If they do not, it will not happen.

It is all about national priorities guys. If spaceflight were higher up on the list of those priorities, the U.S. would get to the moon faster, would get to Mars faster, would have a Hubble replacement faster, etc, etc. They do what they can with the funding they are allocated. Period.

EDIT: A last point associated with this. Since many feel that there isn't the political-national will in the United States (as reflected in their spaceflight budget allocations) to do more (or possibly even the desire to do less and less) in the arena of spaceflight (NASA is only the tool of that will), you all might do better to ask the question of "why?". Has the United States peaked as an empire, and no longer has the national will - or ability - to lead in space exploration in the future? Has it become too lazy and decadent - being far more interested in whom Tom Cruise is boinking this month, or what Britteny Spears is doing? The United States as a nation would rather spend more rescources on video games than space flight. Is this apathy symptomatic of a nation in societal and economic decline - just as happend to other past exploring nations such as Portugal, Spain, France, the United Kindgom, and the Soviet Union?

Case in point:

Remember that China graduates more engineers in a month than the United States does in a whole year, but the United States produces more pop music in a month than China does in a year. Who has the national will to lay out the groundwork for leading the way in the future? I'm hardly saying that the U.S.A. is on the verge of collapse or anything, but rather looking at trends and the long-term future. The fall of a great empire starts showing when it no longer has the will/ability to do the really difficult and expensive things. I would ask those who are unsatisfied with the American space program and its direction: do you feel that the inability/unwillingness of the U.S.A. to carry out the VSE as expeditiously as you feel it should, or could, symptomatic of that decline?

Remember that the next time that you watch "Star Trek". The captian in real life may not be a fellow named James T. Kirk from Iowa, but maybe rather in 200 years from now it may well be Hong Li from Shanghai.

John Creighton · 2005-08-03 20:00:10

EDIT: A a last point associated with this. Since many feel that there isn't the political-national will in the United States (as reflected in their spaceflight budget allocations) to do more (or possibly even the desire to do less and less) in the arena of spaceflight (NASA is only the tool of that will), you all might do better to ask the question of "why?". Has the United States peaked as an empire, and no longer has the national will - or ability - to lead in space exploration in the future? Has it become too lazy and decident - being far more interested in whom Tom Cruise is boinking this month, or what Britteny Spears is doing? The United States as a nation would rather spend more rescources on video games than space flight. Is this apathy symptomatic of a nation in decline - just as happend to other past exploring nations such as Portugal, Spain, France, the United Kindgom, and the Soviet Union?

Has it every been any different. When in history has the vast majority of people taken a great interest in there own personal education and self betterment. And have the people that taken the interest had the means? Go back a few hundred years and only a small percentage of the people had university degrees.

Remember that China graduates more engineers in a month than the United States does in a whole year, but the United States produces more pop music in a month than China does in a year. Who has the national will to lead to lay out the groundwork for leading in the future?
Remember that the next time that you watch "Star Trek". The captian is not liklley a fellow named James T. Kirk from Iowa, but rather in real life it may well be Hong Li from Shanghai.

China has potential to do great things like any other nation or group of nation. China will also face many of the challenges others face. However, china is not going to pas the united states over night in space or economic strength.

GCNRevenger · 2005-08-03 20:45:27

NASA ultimatly doesn't control how much money it recieves, but they do have a major say in where it goes, they are after all the ones going to spend it. Bush said "finish ISS, then Moon and Mars," and Congress said "don't whack the Shuttle Army," but beyond the meddling with Hubble and "concerns" about ISS, NASA spends its money as it wishes. And how NASA spends the money they do have is what is most often debated. Imparticularly, is the money going to fund Shuttle, its "Return to Flight," and what is to be done with ISS versus other programs.

Space travel has NEVER been a "national priority" for the citizenry of any country ever, and it is has actually never been a priority for any government either. The one time that space was "important" was as a political stunt to show up the Commies' when they were waging a (fairly sucessful) campaign against Capitalism and Democracy. You whining about "national apathy" about spaceflight is ludicrous in context.

"Case in point: Remember that China graduates more engineers in a month than the United States does in a whole year"

Blah blah blah, anti-American propoganda... I have not been that impressed with the product of Chinese schools by comparison... then there is the wildly out-of-control disparity in wealth combined with the fair trade reallignment of the Yuan/Dollar ratio, Chinese infrastructure (energy imparticular) racing to the breaking point, environmental problems (affecting health), poor worker conditions and general civil unrest... Ah and the state control of the economy, which has never worked, and the general institutionalized graft & bribery... Oh no, things are no where near rosy and gay in the PRC as you see in the America-hating Newsweek with glossies of Shanghi and Hong Kong.

SpaceNut · 2005-08-03 21:06:41

While the political statements are all part of why such a long way off for the launches going back to the moon.

There are those that would say why go, why try to set up a base and why try to be self sufficient to help in lowering costs.

Well here is one reason why the moon rather than mars might be first to tackle developing these skills of feeding any crew that may stay to man such a base.

Moon’s nitrogen may have blown from Earth

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