New Mars Forums

Shay Guy

Banned

From: Houston, TX

Registered: 2005-10-16

Posts: 4

Re: If you were in charge . . .

. . . what would you do with NASA? Fairly simple, straightforward topic; I don't really have enough knowledge to argue in most of the other threads, being but a Geek Third Class . . .

Hopefully, this'll lead to some good discussion. *crosses fingers*

SpaceBull

Member

Registered: 2005-09-26

Posts: 45

Re: If you were in charge . . .

Current NASA hardware is not optimized to be mass-produced efficiently. The first thing I would do as the big boss of NASA is therefore to introduce ease of mass-production as an important criteria when making spaceships and rockets. This would include cheaper rocket fuels. NASA does not have that much experience with mass-production, but I am sure that companies like Toyota and Airbus would be happy to help. All new designs optimized for mass-production and cost-efficiency would be published under an OpenSource (GNU) lisence on the internet, so that both private companies and other countries could reap the benefits.

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[url=http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3941]Martian Settlement 2035?[/url]

Dook

Banned

From: USA

Registered: 2004-01-09

Posts: 1,409

Re: If you were in charge . . .

I think NASA has finally learned that nothing we do in space is so important that we take unnecessary risks with human life.  As far as the course of it's future I think NASA should stop funding space museums and university science departments and get back to using that money for space exploration equipment.  Half of NASA's budget of $16 billion a year goes to these projects. 

Also I think we should retire the space shuttle immediately and buy out our ISS commitments (our time for conducting experiments aboard the ISS can actually be sold to other countries).  Then we should sell two crew positions (for $500 million each) aboard our mission to mars.

Just think of what NASA could do with all the money:
-New Hubble telescope, $4 billion one time cost
-Giant spinning space station with a hangar at the center, $5 billion a year until built, use mars mission heavy launch vehicle
-Mars mission/base, $5 billion a year
-misc. rovers/planetary exploration, $2 billion a year

Once the new hubble is put in place we could then use that $4 billion for a small lunar base that would collect platinum and set up a giant lunar interferometer.

Martian Republic

Member

From: Haltom City- Dallas/Fort Worth

Registered: 2004-06-13

Posts: 855

Re: If you were in charge . . .

. . . what would you do with NASA? Fairly simple, straightforward topic; I don't really have enough knowledge to argue in most of the other threads, being but a Geek Third Class . . .

Hopefully, this'll lead to some good discussion. *crosses fingers*

We can't just talk about NASA, but have to deal with the rest of the United States too. We have to have new economic polices for the United States and then off of that we have new NASA policy. Without dealing United States too, we don't have a serious space program with NASA. I mean, that just the way it is. Most of the people on this board want to colonize space and even Mars, but in the present economic system that can't happen. So NASA is going have rely on a thriving growing American economy and not one that collapsing like what we have right as GM, Ford and Delphie bankruptcy show the true nature of the US Economy.

So if I'm going to answer your question, I'm going to have to open up your question a little bit by salvaging the US economy at the same time that I'm telling you what I would do with NASA. I'm assuming that I'm President of the United States when we started this process. I would call a worldwide economic summit to put the current economic system into bankruptcy re-organization. Nationalize the Federal reserve system. Then I would finance large scale infrastructural projects down here to rebuild American. I'm going to cut is short, but anything that I am going with NASA is going to be as a result of and predicated on us doing things like this down here.

I would change Charter and have them play the rolls that the Army Corps of Engineers played for the United States by engineering the infrastructure that built the United States up as a nation. I would also give NASA a Charter to build base or small city on the moon with all the trimmings of what it takes to build a city with. I would give NASA a second Charter to build city on Mars. Things like power plants, water plans and main part of those complexes would not be privatized, but any manufacturing section would be private owned and operated. To restart the US economy, the United States Government is going to have to generate about one trillion dollars of fresh long term credit to finance building that new infrastructure inside the United States. So we will authorize NASA hundred billion dollars of long term credit per year finance there new mission goals. Toss the problem to the Current NASA administrator and have come up with a plan to make it happen and submit it to my desk to be signed. Actually the current NASA Administration would look more like a governor that running a state, rather than what it is right now. With the bases on both the Moon and Mars being under his direction and administration. But, within this context, there would still be exploring and other space activities too.

There still plenty of room for private ventures or individual efforts, but they may also have access to government financing too, depending on what there doing and even government contract also.

Larry,

Mundaka

Banned

Registered: 2004-01-11

Posts: 322

Re: If you were in charge . . .

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Macte nova virtute, sic itur ad astra

Dook

Banned

From: USA

Registered: 2004-01-09

Posts: 1,409

Re: If you were in charge . . .

Martian Republic has been pushing his "print and spend" idea for years.  Anyone who has taken a college economics class knows it would ruin a country.  Any government that prints money and uses it instantly devalues it's currency.  Do some research on Germany just before world war two.  Your money becomes worthless as inflation soars.  Everyone becomes poor. 

Mundaka: 
-Refurbish the old Hubble telescope?  You obviously missed the discussion on that.  It's cheaper to build and launch a new better one than to fix the current one.
-The moon is a distraction with little benefit.  Any base there steals money for other uses.  It's definately not a waypoint to the rest of the universe, more likely a money pit.  I would only support a small lunar base that maintains an interferometer and perhaps a platinum mining operation if we can do it without it costing too much. 
- A spinning station in orbit may be a necessary fixture for a space elevator.

publiusr

Banned

From: Alabama

Registered: 2005-02-24

Posts: 682

Re: If you were in charge . . .

If I had my way? I would cancel JSF for the time being, and DDX as well. A future President can hold the Air Forces hand.

If I were President, I'd make Pete Worden head of the Air Force, and bust the fighter jocks who run the joint down to privates. The B-52 drivers and other pilots would fly some Project Stormfury missions and ern their pay. Foreign aid money would be suspended for one yr., as would a hunk of missile defense moeny to go into immediate construction of heavy lift. Once that is fielded, I would fly joint Shuttle/HLLV missions for awhile and finish ISS quickly. I would then shut shuttle down and go to production of the stick while flying on Soyuz on the time being.

Once complete, existing NASA budgets should cover the flight rates. The HLLV itself is the hardest sell. Once that is fielded and has the same institutional inertia behind it that STS enjoys now, our ability to move beyond LEO will be unassailable due to political pressure that will support HLLV same as it supports STS.

Once the stick flys, I would shut down one of the EELV lines.