New Mars Forums

I don't think there's enough support for this act, and I personally think your probably off by about 8 years.

I believe the Us plan is to use it for limited micro gravity and space medicine research, and to "assist" the other partners in whatever research they do.
Access would be through assests of the partners, until a cev system is in place.

Congress is likely to buy into the cev because the alternative is to recertify the shuttle, very costly and unpopular.

Congress is also not likely to merit the idea of relying on foriegn assests for servicing capability so given a viable proposal for a cev, which may already exist , a couple years down the line they might push for an acelertated cev program.

If I had to envision a design.

It would probably be a resusable capsule , not a mini shuttle but designed for land vs. sea landings. it would be module and configurable for both leo and cislunar type operations.

I would not be surprised if the James Wood telescope was scrapped and as a compromise to the astronomy community a cev hubble servicing mission was devised, and the lifespan of the hubble increased for another decade.

This plan is both a way-out and a trap for congress. If this is just an election year ploy its well conceived.

This plan is a buyin for congress, ok congress you said nasa has no focus, ol here's the plan , we're not asking for a lot of extra funding initially, if you dismiss this than its not "my administration" thats at fault its you folks.

Much like the iss was able to survive because of its ties to international commitments, this one will be tied to the legacy of Columbia, the caib recommedations , and talent recruitment at nasa.

Short of another space race you need to find domestic reasons for continuing the program. The plans not brilliant no, but its pushing congress in a direction .. now is it sustainable...depends on a lot variables.

The reason that The president is not in a hurry for Mars could be because he's serious about the plan, not just an election year tactic.

A commitment to Mars in this political environment would be Dead on Arrival. No matter how technically sound and cost effective.

Not when your audience, congress, the media, the general public (some) has the technical prowness of a gerbal!

When I listened to Okeaf, I did get the impression that they were at least thinking in that direction. it would make sense. I also found it interesting that when asked about what would happen to the launch centers during the period between shuttle retirement and the cev, He kind of hinted they would be testing the cev. So when they say that the cev won't be ready for human flight until 2014. do they mean as an operational vehicle or a test vehicle. I get the impression that manned flights to leo would probably start much earlier. I doubt its going to be an automonous vehicle which means piloted test flights. I would not be real surprised if the first big test of the cev  is a hubble servicing mission. It would make sense now to not spend funds on a new generation of telescopes but the astronmy community then would push to extend the hubble lifetime.
I don't agree with President  Bush on many things but I think he purposely taking this slow to avoid the program being killed by congress.

First if Congress doesn't give the program a chance than all the stuff about nasa not having goals, coherent plans that came about out of the CAIB is going to fall back on Congress. They will deservely get the egg on their face.

Secondly the plan retires the shuttle, no costly recertification.
It fullfills our international obligation, but places the space station in the proper perspective.

Does this plan  have a chance of surviving administrations , why not the shuttle and ISS did. I think the public may be more willing to spend the money if they have more cofindence in Nasa, if Nasa can rebuild its image, this is the best chance they have at doing that. This is not a billiant plan by any means but its by no means the work of some nieve child space cadet (as the president has been labeled). This is a plan designed by politicians for politicians.

Technology isn't going to get us to Mars, presentation and image building will get us there more than 99% of the way.

Just an opinion.

I don't believe any of the inital cost mention anything about a moon base, its just seed money to get the program going. And start basic design studies. reorientating the osp to more like something like a crew exploration vehicle.

Chinia thinks it can do it for less.

I think people fail to seem the significance of all this, for a long time now Mars has been a dirty word with the space agency.

I can imagine that in many nasa center around the country, there were little research groups looking at mars/moon related activity. The bring your own coffee donuts , kind of unofficial projects. Now they can all come together, in the open. (Thier employees can expense the donuts) .

Now the Nasa web page can actually feature info on Mars moon iformation.

Now when you go to mission space in florida, they anouncer can say in about 15 or 20 years, rather than "some indetermined " time in the future.

This is mearly setting a direction, a project plan if you will to start developing the technical designs.

Such things sometimes lead to paradym shifts in peoples attitudes, to early to say if thats what happening.

I think a lot of us are hoping that once the infrastruture is being developed a future administration might take a look a the dates again and put the program on a more fasttrak. I think the timeline is more for political consumption than technical. You know the program will span several administrations.

Wishful thinkng, who knows

Hey I'm back, hope to be posting a lot more lately, been working on several different things, including my novel Sol3:Darkside.

Now that there's at least a framework in place, a new direction  I think we need to try to tailor that iniative to ultimately achieve our goals.

One big issue I see I'd like to bring to your attention that I think we as Mars Society members can do is to try to minimize the amount of false information being put out by the press.

I've seen numbers in the press from 1 trillion to several 100 billion dollars. And almost every article states that the country will need to start over again and build a Saturn V type vehicle.

There was nothing to that extent in the Nasa's director's comments, and from what I can tell the Shuttle C and Shuttle V proposals are still viable and on the table for consideration.

Whats even more troublesome are certain remarks by so called "Space Experts", clearly motivated not by true analysis but by the fact that their own preferences for robotic missions isn't beging embraced.

The media is fair game for these so "Called Experts".

I suggest other members do what I am doing, when I see things in the press that aren't exaclly correct I use the feedback feature to tactfully give my opinion.

With all the posts I've been putting out, I don't want anyone to get the impression I'm anti Mars, I'd rather see us go to Mars than the moon. However I do believe somewhere down the line the country needs to go back to the moon.
Either its going to be the moon as the offshoot of a mars program or mars as the offshoot of a lunar program. Doesn't make since to have a space program which doesn't have a means to reach your own satellite .. does it.

I'd like to thank the folks at newsMars for indirectly leading me to typepad and movabletype. I'm attempting to write a novel about moon/mars exploration and I was looking for a nice platform. I have a test site at sol3.typepad.com and secured the domain www.sol-3.org, I plan to have my own messageboard also. This kind of web activity can only help our cause I hope, anyone ever thought of starting an on-line Marssociety charter, based on a weblog that members could update. Just an idea.

By the way how to you become anything other than a junoir member in this forum, is it average number of post daily or do you have to bribe someone.

Positive or negative, If some candidate lost because they took a positive position on space It must not of been very publicly reported. Please name one??

I like this idea a lot, but how do we get started. I think making it clear to the politicians out there that we are going to make space an election issue would be a good start.

If we stood outside voting places and passed out literature, if come election time we put out banner adds supporting our position.

If just one senator/representative lost an election, and it could be traced to how they voted on the space issues, the climate would change.

Also

Technical revolutions are not always continuous they somethime require paradyme shifts.