Bush's New Space Policy - Discussion, reactions, questions...

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-14 15:02:13

Could you provide a link for that, BTW, clark?

clark · 2004-01-14 15:02:52

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0401/14whitehouse/

someone posted this in another thread.

Bill White · 2004-01-14 15:04:27

The best thing coming out of this is that it boosts manned exploration, imho. That's one thing NASA really sorely lacks. But the reason, is that manned exploration is expensive, and I believe that the Bush "Commission on the Implementation of U.S. Space Exploration Policy" will soon find this out in the most painful way possible.

True.

Okay, two good points.

< 1 > Human exploration is a good thing. President Bush said so himself.

< 2 > The space shuttle needs to be retired. President Bush said so himself.

Now, lets run with points 1 & 2 and devise a better plan.

Stu · 2004-01-14 15:05:06

It's *so* encouraging that President Bush thinks Spirit is on Mars "looking for life", don't you think?

Getting a severe case of deja vu here... a pre-election President Bush stands up in front of flags and an audience of old astronauts and politicians, beams for the cameras, semi-quotes Kennedy, promises the Universe, sets up a Commission to look at the cost, sees the bill and then quietly forgets all about it.

Tell you what, let's all just calm down now and enjoy Spirit's egress, and look forward to Opportunity landing safely too, cos this "plan" puts us no nearer to going to Mars than we were yesterday or a year ago, and Spirit is just hours away from rolling onto Gusev's red dirt. I know which I'm more excited about.

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-14 15:07:32

Oh, I thought it was a transcript of his speech. He really didn't mention Mars in any context of that sort in his speech. Obviously the goal after the moon would be Mars, but no where is such a goal even stated briefly. The focus of this whole thing is revamping NASA; finishing the ISS, getting rid of the shuttle, and going back to the moon.

Mars as a manned destination is only mentioned once (vaguely, in retrospect being rather obvious; of course Mars is the next spot) in that link. Pretty disappointing.

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-14 15:09:30

I know which I'm more excited about.

Hell yes my friend (excuse the language). I am far more excited about egress than anything that has happened as of yet!

Stayin' up late tonight.

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-14 15:47:24

One of the presidential candidates should call for retiring the shuttle now. No more working on the Shuttle. It's gone. Take that infrastructure to design shuttle-B/C/Ares (I think their designs are suitable enough to be adaptable to one another). Use Shuttle-B/C to complete the ISS while at the same time sending Mars Direct style supply missions to Mars.

Wouldn't be hard to show Bush up without really making it costly. I personally feel like the $15 billion Zubrin calls for is a bit expensive.

Scott G. Beach · 2004-01-14 20:18:48

Clark:

You wrote, "We have a better chance of experiencing space, as in more people, if we go to the moon. Isn't that worth something?"

I believe that we can further the cause of Martian exploration and settlement if we endorse Bush's proposal AND insist that NASA build a prototype Martian station on Luna. This would reinforce the proposition that Luna is a stepping-stone to Mars. We should insist that any station on Luna shall NOT be referred to as a Lunar station but instead referred to as a prototype Martian station.

Mad Grad Student · 2004-01-14 21:43:25

Here are my thoughts. The new manned space exploration is great, good move on Bush's part (First time for everything, I guess). Sending poeple back to the Moon and establishing permanent residence there will add on to our list of accomplishments in exploration. Additionally, we'll be able to get a phenominal amount of work done on Mars by sending people. I support this plan, even if I don't support the rest of his administration.

However, I'm not sure I like how it will affect unmanned exploration. The truth is, we can get more done in the short-term with robots than with people. It will be a long time before manned exploration of the outer planets, so robotic exploration needs to be supported right now. Unfortunately, I fear that this will take a back seat under the new proposal, thereby losing the public's interest.

In my opinion, we need to balance our space budget. I think we should focus on manned exploration of what we can do and expansion thereof, while also sending probes where we can't go. Wouldn't that be great to get pictures from the Europan ocean on the same day the first humans land on Mars?!

dickbill · 2004-01-14 22:43:35

I believe that we can further the cause of Martian exploration and settlement if we endorse Bush's proposal AND insist that NASA build a prototype Martian station on Luna. This would reinforce the proposition that Luna is a stepping-stone to Mars. We should insist that any station on Luna shall NOT be referred to as a Lunar station but instead referred to as a prototype Martian station.

I disagree that Moon is a good test bed for Mars.

If you want to test a biosphere for Mars, just set up a demo on the highest submits on Earth, like the Everest. Conditions there are not so far than martian conditions, closer than antarctica IMO, and much much cheaper than a base on the moon.
If you want to test life at 0.38g, use a centrifuge with mice on the ISS, at least then, the ISS will be useful. But the MS has already its own project for that purpose anyway.
If you want to test in situ ressources utilisation technologies, like how to use the CO2 in the atmosphere, how to electrolyse the permasfrost-water, then the moon is not the best place (compress the vacuum of the moon atmosphere, compress compress, it's still vacuum !)

Mining the minerals on the moon, yeah right, I read that in newspaper. Really, nothing as a test simulation for Mars make sense on the moon. Everything could be tested on earth for 1000X cheaper. With the money saved by not setting a lunar base, a real, reallistically focused project for a Mars manned mission could be set up faster and cheaper.

I am not against lunar scientific-oriented missions, I am against a permanent lunar base. It will suck the money of NASA, that's it.
Even an interferometric telescope on the moon, once it has been set up by men, could be controled from earth.

realmacaw · 2004-01-15 01:36:04

I agree. If we go to the Moon I believe it will delay going to Mars by at least 20 years. It'd be nice to do everything but it all takes money and we can't afford it all. Priorities must be set. For this same reason, I was against building the International Space Station. And I was right, so far it has proved to be a huge waste of money. It is the most expensive thing ever built by humans. I think the finished price of it will be $100 billion. They are doing very little research on it. And the projects are junior high and high school type experiments. The same for the shuttle.

We got saddled with the dangerous expensive shuttle because NASA gave a price for a good system and the government balked and said can you do it for half that much. That's what the shuttle is, the cheap system. But if you look at what it has actually cost to operate, it has been enormously expensive. I am sorry the astronauts died but we are better off that two shuttle exploded. That is what it takes for a wake up call.

The best thing that could happen to NASA is if the ISS was destroyed. They wouldn't build another one nor would it be around to sink money into it.

If most of us are going to live long enough to see man go to Mars, the Moon has to be scrapped, Mars has to be the primary objective of NASA. Right now it sounds like everything is just talk from the government. That is better than nothing but still close to nothing.

Brian.

Shaun Barrett · 2004-01-15 07:29:16

As usual, Dickbill hits the nail directly on the head. (I'm not sure I'll ever understand his politics but his space exploration logic is impeccable! )
It is patently clear to anyone with half a brain that shipping massive infrastructure to the Moon in order to construct a launching pad for Mars missions is absurd; there can be no justification for the cost. And although there are doubtless many small details of lunar research which remain to be cleared up, the Moon is of little interest to science in comparison with Mars. In addition, as Dickbill points out, there's almost nothing about living on the Moon which will be of any use to Mars explorers or colonists at all because it's a completely different environment. In any event, how in the name of God can it possibly take 10 - 15 years to land a human on Luna?!!! Burt Rutan'll be there before then!

I hate to say it but I fear my worst nightmare has come to pass. This is a thinly disguised means of subsuming NASA into the military complex and beating China to the Moon for strategic reasons. This is about the militarisation of cis-lunar space.
The word "Mars" has been thrown in as a mesmerising sweetener which, it is hoped, will take people's minds off the rest of the package. Whether or not it can be seen as an electoral device also, I'll leave to the legions of left-wing cynics here who are far better qualified than I at that sort of analysis!

Unless something drastic happens to change the whole scenario, most of us here now will be old or dead before a human stands on Mars, if ever. To say I'm disappointed would be an understatement of epic proportions. We're going back to the Moon 45 years after Apollo 11 !!! (Break out the champagne ... I don't think.)

We need either the discovery of something remarkable on Mars or the development of space elevators in the next 15 years, or I'm afraid Luna will become the graveyard of all our hopes - sacrificed on the altar of military expedience.

dickbill · 2004-01-15 07:52:29

As usual, Dickbill hits the nail directly on the head.

ouch ! painful

We need either the discovery of something remarkable on Mars or the development of space elevators in the next 15 years, or I'm afraid Luna will become the graveyard of all our hopes - sacrificed on the altar of military expedience.

space elevator, I don't think it's realistic, Shaun. But I wonder, how NASA is going to interpret the president "mandate " to use the Moon as as test bed for Mars ?
Everything, the HAb, the return vehicle, the first base, the in-situ propellant production unit, has to be installed and tested on the moon ?
No, I am confident that NASA's gonna be smart enough to take and interpret the president' s word, not at the letter, but in spirit.

Palomar · 2004-01-15 07:59:30

I hate to say it but I fear my worst nightmare has come to pass. This is a thinly disguised means of subsuming NASA into the military complex and beating China to the Moon for strategic reasons. This is about the militarisation of cis-lunar space.
The word "Mars" has been thrown in as a mesmerising sweetener which, it is hoped, will take people's minds off the rest of the package. Whether or not it can be seen as an electoral device also, I'll leave to the legions of left-wing cynics here who are far better qualified than I at that sort of analysis!
Unless something drastic happens to change the whole scenario, most of us here now will be old or dead before a human stands on Mars, if ever. To say I'm disappointed would be an understatement of epic proportions. We're going back to the Moon 45 years after Apollo 11 !!! (Break out the champagne ... I don't think.)
We need either the discovery of something remarkable on Mars or the development of space elevators in the next 15 years, or I'm afraid Luna will become the graveyard of all our hopes - sacrificed on the altar of military expedience.

*I agree 100%.

Predicating missions on what China might do...that's my impression as well, and has been for months now.

It's very sad to realize that exploration and discovery for its own sake seems very rare. Militarization, playing King of the Hill, chest-pounding and posturing...that's the impetus, huh?

Sad.

"To Boldly Go Where We Have Been Before (Decades Ago)..." what a joke.

I hope that despite our mutual disappointment, Shaun, you'll still be a regular visitor and participant here at New Mars.

--Cindy

dickbill · 2004-01-15 09:36:57

We need either the discovery of something remarkable on Mars

About something remarkable, I don't think that life will be discovered so easily on Mars, if ever. So you might have to wait too long for something "spectacular" that is capable to catch the public interest more than 3 months, if you rely only on science.
I then suggest (again) a mission, with all the mediatic show, not just the science. Something which shows spectacular vistas, even if not of primary scientific interest, or caves with crystals or whatever, you see what I mean.
Also, a mini green house, built as a minuscule biosphere model, with an mini bonzai/olive tree, the oliver branch is symbole of peace, might be spectacular with a camera with a mars lansdcape in the background.
People would watch that tiny green spot of life ever and ever and the public might really be "passionated" by what happen to it. Then the ideas of terraforming and colonization would spread into the public.

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-15 15:23:36

Holy crap Shaun! I totally agree with you for once! Think about that for a bit. Whoa. It's like. Taking the blue pill or something.

A.J.Armitage · 2004-01-15 15:40:15

Is anyone really surprised? Of course it's nationalist competition. The alternatives are private business (and a lot of you hate capitalism even more than you hate Yankee imperialism) and orbiting-UN moneyholes like the ISS, which pretty much by definition accomplish nothing.

A prediction: seeing the Moon already taken, China will aim for Mars, forcing the US to use a Mars Direct style plan to beat them out. The first man on Mars will be an American. Unless the Chinese decide to try for colonization even though they missed the first landing, Mars exploration will go the way of the first Moon landings.

The real wildcard is domestic political developments within China. The US is probably in for a bitch of a time when Social Security hits the fan, but our political system is fundamentally stable. China's isn't.

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-15 16:27:30

Who said anything about nationalist competition? Bush even calls for "international support." The US could use it, too. Look at our ISS problems; if it wasn't for Russia giving us a free ride (and yes, Russia is giving us a free and clear ride; we can pay them nothing for their Soyuz launches due to the Iran non-poliferation treaty).

This isn't nationalist competition, this is election year smoke blowing. That plain and simple.

China will not head to Mars, because they have already said they're going to the moon. They might even jump Bush's "international" bandwagon, and join up helping with our moon base; allowing them to get their legs more into space on our backs. It would be great if China says they want to go to Mars (because logically, it would start a space race), but I don't see it happening.

Martian Apollo · 2004-01-15 16:40:42

We may have been to the Moon, the technology to get there and back has been proven, but the infrastructure has been dismantled for the Shuttle program. It needs to be rebuilt to make it to Mars.

Just as it took Mercury and Gemini to test out various ideas such as docking and undocking and many test flights of the Saturn/Apollo systems and a fly-by on Apollo 8, you need to see if you can efficiently put resources onto another body and assemble them into a living environment.

Agreed that the environments on the Moon and Mars are vastly different, but you can't send landers to Everest from Space and assemble them in the same manner as you can on the Moon.

Some may say going to the Moon is pointless, it holds little to no value to Humanity. The same argument can be made for Mars. Going to Mars isn't going to end famine and tyranny.

The reason you go is to gain knowledge, and to say the knowledge that we have already acquired from the Moon is basically all that is needed is naive.

The experience of long distance travel, and a successful program to the Moon is invaluable to us getting to Mars.

Many of the people involved with Apollo are gone, we need to get the program back to doing something else outside of low earth orbit. Going to the Moon is a good place to start.

jadeheart · 2004-01-15 17:06:04

Another thing about the moon. I saw in some mainstream media nozzle a discussion of how the moon will be a better place from which to launch other space missions since it's gravity well isn't as deep as Earth's. As if there were all kinds of infrastructure in place already on the moon to manufacture rockets, fuel & provisions out of vacuum. What're these people thinking? Most of any mission has to come from Earth anyway. Why have it detour to the moon?

And the Helium-3 argument. I think Bush himself brought this up. A classic case of putting the cart before the horse.

So of course I add my voice to the chorus of those who are calling this plan what it seems mostly to be: Election year rhetoric. We'll at least get rid of the shuttle, which has been a huge albatross around NASA's neck. But I'd like a little more silver lining and a lot less cloud here.

Maybe the political BS side of things will fade after the election but NASA will retain the momentum gained and experience a renaissance of sorts. Maybe the moon will be seen for the distracting pitfall it is.

Dickbill is right to question the value of the moon as a testbed for Mars. Ironically, any spacecraft designed to land on Mars cold just as easily land on the moon, but the converse is not necessarily true. So Mars first. We can do it. THEN the moon if we want.

Bill White · 2004-01-15 17:08:34

We may have been to the Moon, the technology to get there and back has been proven, but the infrastructure has been dismantled for the Shuttle program. It needs to be rebuilt to make it to Mars.

Doing Mars needs a large booster rocket. Since it would be very expensive to design a new heavy lifter "from the drawing board" it is very important that America's new space direction not dismantle those portions of the shuttle program which can be used in a future Mars program (or even a return to the Moon).

In particular, deploy a shuttle derived launch system to incorporate the fuel tank (and keep Michoud Lousiana in business); the SRBs (or larger SRBs); and the Kennedy Space Center infrastructure (Pad 39 - the crawler - the VAB) and avoid scrapping those portions of Apollo and the Shuttle programs which will indeed be useful for future lunar and Mars missions.

Stand down the orbiter TODAY - - not in 2010 - - and use those funds to develop and deploy shuttle B/C or Ares and then in 2010 America will have a genuine launch system capable of getting us back to the Moon with significant payload and on to Mars.

Allow that infrastruture to decay (as was done with Apollo) and come 2020 it will be far more expensive to start a Mars program.

clark · 2004-01-15 17:12:43

Umm, standing down the Shuttle now means we don't complete ISS.

Sorry guys, jadeheart has the right point of view here.

Mars does nothing for Earth. It improves nothing. It gives us no new capabilities upon which to build. Mars is exploration for explorations sake. Mars is a challenge. But Mars is not practical.

Bill White · 2004-01-15 17:17:32

Umm, standing down the Shuttle now means we don't complete ISS.
Sorry guys, jadeheart has the right point of view here.
Mars does nothing for Earth. It improves nothing. It gives us no new capabilities upon which to build. Mars is exploration for explorations sake. Mars is a challenge. But Mars is not practical.

Will shuttle fly before December 2004 anyways?

Has anyone done serious timelines for shuttle B?

Or is such discussion simply off the table for political reasons?

Can we buy Proton/Energia launches for less than the cost to make the orbiter safe, only to scrap it in 2010?

Should we buy new tires for a car headed to the junkyard?

= = =

PS - - The Moon first is fine so long as we get there with gear that can later reach Mars.

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-15 18:03:59

I'd be all for a moon base if it used real robotic technology. Robots capable of self replication so that we could build stuff on the moon remotely and launch it anywhere we wanted.

But setting up facilities for humans to live, mind you humans are fragile little creatures and need a lot of crap to keep them alive in space, is going to be orders of magnitudes harder on the moon than it would be Mars, this is just a simple fact. The moon does inarguably offer us a place to build a base and do low gravity stuff, that's all well and good, but it doesn't offer anything in the way of getting people into space; everything that humans on the moon would provide would be unused as far as going to Mars is concerned. At most we'd get more understanding of how the body acts in low G, but we've already worked out most of those kinks; and we still wouldn't have determined how the body reacts in MarsG; we won't know that until we get there. My suspicion, however, is that the body will be just fine.

And Bill, good damn point. We're going to finish the ISS (which will take at least two years), only to scrap it in 5 years (3 years after we've completed it)? Is that insane or what? It makes absolutely no sense. Hell, take the ISS apart and land it on the moon!

A.J.Armitage · 2004-01-15 18:17:50

To answer a certain fellow who replied to me, I'll quote Shaun Barrett.

I hate to say it but I fear my worst nightmare has come to pass. This is a thinly disguised means of subsuming NASA into the military complex and beating China to the Moon for strategic reasons. This is about the militarisation of cis-lunar space.

Even if they're beaten to the strategic prize, there's always the PR prize, which is Mars. Hence, my predictions.

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