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With the Space Shuttle in its current state, The Mars Society is a unique position to mobilize its popular support to compete for tax payer dollars as a viable alternative to the ISS-centric approach to the Moon / Mars.
Without the Space Shuttle, the ISS can not be completed. Nor, could the Space Shuttle complete the ISS, it is unrealistic to assume that NASA can maintain the shuttle with the launch frequency required to complete the station. Nor, does the ISS present the tax payer with any scientific, economic, or diplomatic incentives to complete it.
With NASA presenting its new "Vision" with a price tag in excess of $100billion to go to the moon by adhering to an antiquated and inferior paradigm of ISS-centric missions, and with other costs being beared by the US taxpayer, the current situation aligns itself for an opportune moment for the Mars Society to completely cut off funding of the ISS-centric Shuttle dependent approach.
The mandate of the US mission in the ISS was to study the longterm effects on human physiology for a future mission to mars. Stays on the ISS have exceeded the time that a mission to Mars would require. Therefore, the ISS no longer has intrinsic value to the American taxpayer. We must mobilize our energies to argue for funding of a new Moon / Mars paradigm free from the burdensome costs of the ISS / Shuttle.
With the currents costs, the US can not afford a wasteful ISS-centric approach to the moon / mars. Proponents of a viable, affordable, faster, better, cheaper approach must take this opportune moment to rally support to achieve the goal of Moon / Mars free from the burdensome costs of the ISS-centric Moon / Mars approach.
One possible selling point on this that could be used, is that an ISS-centric approach would inherently result in US jobs being exported overseas. The US can hardly afford to export valuable 21st Century jobs overseas to support something like an ISS-centric approach to exploring the Solar System. The US should not be wasting valuable resources and expertise training foreign workers to take American jobs at the expense of the American taxpayer. Nor can Americans afford to lose these jobs in the 21st Century by allowing them to be exported overseas.
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You have your facts and preceptions screwed up, orrey
The current VSE plan is not "ISS-centric" in any way. The only thing ISS-related about it is that the ISS is to be finished to a reasonably complete fraction of the original design to satisfy our international comittments, and to use the Lunar capsule design to tend the station after the Shuttle is retired.
Thats all... the aproach to neither the Moon nor Mars is "ISS-centric" as you put it
The only thing "ISS-centric" about the current plan beyond that is where the money goes. NASA, assuming its budget remains roughly constant until 2018, will theoretically be able to spend $104Bn on manned spaceflight. Thats where this figure comes from, and this encompasses all manned spaceflight activities to all destinations for all missions. The ISS program, Shuttle until 2010, and the CEV capsule (needed to tend the ISS) happen to be a large portion of this amount, aproximatly 50-60%.
If you want to call that "ISS-centric," then I suppose it is but the plan to return to the Moon and go on to Mars is, as far as mission arcitecture goes, completly unwedded to the ISS. The current Moon mission arcitecture would have come together if the ISS exsisted or not. And why would following through with the VSE result in jobs going overseas? They wouldn't, since the vast majority of the hardware would be American. But speaking of the ISS, you remind me of a point about it:
The ISS stated bennefit, research into long-term zero-g health effects on humans or testing life support for Mars, has one big gaping flaw: why don't you just build the Mars ship and fly it in circles around Earth to study these things instead? It would cost less to actually build the prototype Mars ship and put it into orbit then it would to finish/prop up the ISS until 2017.
Edit: An additional thought... while I think that NASA will have trouble meeting the goal of 17 flights before retirement, it is not impossible to fly some of them, say 12-14. That might be enough to "call it good" and retire the orbiter.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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GCNRevenger, I think you've proved my point. The fact that the majority of the funding goes towards ISS/STS launches shows that it is ISS centric.
International commitment? What for? What have these nations given us in return for our assistance in helping develop a space station we designed? It seems to me, that the US has shouldered virtually all the costs with little return. We exported valuable jobs overseas which could have gone to our own people, we provided training and experience in a 21st century job market which the US can not afford to give away to foreign powers. Yet, I do not see any benefits which the international partners have provided except in helping build the ISS. Why do we need their help to build a space station which won't even be ours and then say we have an international obligation to help them complete their shuttle when they've provided us with no economic or diplomatic incentives whatsoever?
Sorry GCN, I find the rationale for spending X-dollars on ISS / STS flights as wanting and I don't think any US taxpayer can be convinced that their tax dollars should go towards pork barrel ISS / STS spending to support some State Department internationalist propaganda. Honestly, did the international partners say "Help build this ISS or we'll do something bad to you?" I'd like to see them try it.
I would appreciate input on how to better present an argument for winning further support for non-ISS alternatives to how we spend our space program tax dollars for the next decade. ISS/STS seems like an unjustifiable expense and I can't think of any international obligations we have in completing the ISS. It profits the US in no way, shape, form or fashion whatsoever.
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It sounded like the "ISS-centric" was concerning the mission arcitecture, like missions to the Moon or Mars involve construction at the ISS or something.
I don't agree with your view of the job issue however. Without the other countries in the ISS program, there would be no perminant manned station of any kind. The only real contributors at this point are Russia and the ESA, with the former being vetern Soviet-era rocket engineers: this was part of the reason Clinton put the ISS plan into motion, to prevent experienced Russian rocket builders from being laid off... where they would sell their expertise to build missiles to rouge states. It didn't work very well, with both North Korea and Iran having IRBMs, with the former even selling late-model copies of the Scud for profit. The ESA doesn't employ enough people to be much of a job drain on US aerospace, with many of them pre-exsisting before the ISS too.
Of course, the ISS has produced essentially no material bennefits whatsoever for America other then to keep NASA in business... Which is of itself a pretty dubious use of money. Economically the ISS has been, by far, one of the worst investments in the history of mankind. Its cost, including Shuttle to build it, may even reach $200,000,000,000... more then any other public works project, and would pay to rebuild the damage inflicted by Katrina in full.
Politically, it has been a huge net cost except for state governments in Florida, Texas, Lousiana, and Utah (Thiokol), and definatly an overall cost nationally... Here we are with our national space interest being dictated by other countries, countries who (except maybe Italy and Japan, maybe UK) largely base their position of leadership by being the "Anti-America." A little dinky gesture like the ISS isn't going to make France, Germany, or Russia our friends, and its plainly obvious they never really were. The Russians too, after stabbing us in the back over the cost of Zarya-I & FGB, have the haughty nerve to charge NASA for Soyuz seats, which is a double strike against NASA for sheer embarrasment.
Sorry? Huh? I agree that the ISS has been and will continue to be a stupifying waste of money, will, and political capital. The last paragraph in my last post was merely noting that it was POSSIBLE for Shuttle to more-or-less "finish" the ISS, not that it was a good or bad idea.
There is supposedly a written agreement signed between the ISS partner nations that details what we are supposed to contribute: this is the last leg that the ISS has to stand on, the TX/FL/LA/UT states don't care if their NASA centers are working on the ISS or Moon/Mars ships, or at least not enough to convince the rest of Congress to continue Shuttle/ISS on its tangible merits alone. Congress would almost certainly cancel Shuttle/ISS after Columbia if not for the international politics, and so that is the key.
I have two main arguments against the "international justification:" the first is that the agreement costs America so much compared to the rest of our partners, that America cannot be faulted for unilaterally abandoning the agreement given how we get so little in return, tangible or intangible. Second, is that all the partner states (except Italy and Japan, maybe UK) are not really our friends, and that a project with one of the bennefits of improved relations is a futile fraud. Russia has used the ISS as a financial and political weapon against the US, it has hurt the war on terror by emboldening Iran via the INA waiver, and any notion of a worthless space station making France & Germany our friends is a fairy tale.
Edit: Upon further thought... I have to wonder though, us looking at the situation through the prism of (often nationalist) space advocates, maybe we assume Senators and Congressmen from TX/FL/LA/UT are not as cynical as they really are. Maybe they are so entrenched with the federal money for Shuttle/ISS, that the possibility of canceling them and then Moon/Mars gets canceld later is too much for them. They might rather stick with the money from Shuttle/ISS for another twelve years even if that dooms the Moon/Mars initiative.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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I believe part of why Griffin wants CEV to fly as soon as possible is that if the American public gets use to the idea that we no longer have the ability to send people to LEO, some may say "Hey, this aint so bad."
The original four year hiatus between 2010 and 2014 opened up a huge window of opportunity (IMHO) for those who might wish to terminate human spaceflight entirely.
My intuition tells me Griffin is deeply pained that CEV won't carry crew to orbit before 2010.
Give someone a sufficient [b][i]why[/i][/b] and they can endure just about any [b][i]how[/i][/b]
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Its a risk, yeah, but I bet that the "space caucas" would not let the dollars going to manned spaceflight go easily.
The 2010 date might be bumped up a bit if Shuttle were to suddenly go away.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Right now, some 'fiscal conservatives' want to gut NASA in Operation Offset.
Do a search, and get out the knives.
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