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Once there was talk of NASA going back to the moon. That was under the previous president.
I specifically remember Obma saying that that was a bad idea because "we have already been there".
What do people think? Is the current path NASA is heading the right one? I kind of remember hearing that Neil Armstrong did not like it but Buzz Aldren did. What do you think?
Last edited by pzkpfw; 2012-Jan-21 at 05:20 AM. Reason: Restore text
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I'm not sure how many hundereds of trillions of dollars that the USA has spent in space travel and the like, but i don't see how the planet or the people on it have benefited from all that time and money. I mean sure, wd-40 is nice but was it worth all that?
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The effort to pen that was the bigger waste of time.Originally Posted by rebel
Order of Kilopi
This topic is fine, as long as it stays well within the confines of rule #12: "... {exception} A) Political impact upon space programs, exploration, and science. ..."
For example, we don't go "blaming" any particular president or party (that's "partisan"). But we can talk of political will for space travel, in general.
Get up, a get-get, get down.
Order of Kilopi
More than once, under several presidents. The trouble is, all that came of it was talk. No money, no tickey.
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
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Yes, exactly.
First, let's start with the fact that NASA doesn't have a single "focus". It is (supposed to be) doing a lot of things and human spaceflight is only one of them.
At the moment, NASA's human spaceflight program is a bit bogged down due to several factors. The main one is a lack of political support, which in practice means a lack of financial support. No bucks, no Buck Rogers. Note that NASA's funding is not controlled by the president - the president may direct NASA to land on Mars next Thursday, but if the Congress doesn't approve the proposed budget, NASA isn't going anywhere.
Here's a brief summary of what was proposed and why it was cancelled:
Bush announced the Vision for Space Exploration in 2004. NASA came up with the Constellation program. Said program went over budget and behind schedule, and it might have been underfunded from the very beginning. In 2009, the Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee (a.k.a. the Augustine Committee) issued its report. It said that to reach its stated targets, the Constellation program would need a few more billion dollars per year, something that was not viable then and it's not viable in the current financial (and political climate) either. I suggest reading the report, its full text is available as a PDF download on the page I linked.
As a result, Obama cancelled the Constellation program. After some politicking, the Orion spacecraft survived and may be used for a beyond-Earth orbit exploration mission when (if?) it is finished. Congress also ordered NASA to build a heavy launch rocket, the Space Launch System. At the same time, NASA's budget has been either cut, or not updated for inflation. I don't know what they expect to accomplish with SLS, except maybe delaying the loss of jobs from their districts.
At the moment, there is some talk about going to a near-Earth asteroid. In the near future, NASA's finances can support only brief sortie missions ("flags and footprints"), if they can support any at all. So an asteroid is at least a more novel destination than leaving yet another flag on the Moon. "Been there, done that" indeed. And for a mission to an asteroid, you don't have to pay for a lander. (While the Orion spacecraft survived, Constellation's Altair lander did not, AFAIK.)
NASA's human spaceflight also has a more immediate problem than going to the Moon or Mars: restoring US-based access the International Space Station. The hopes are that the Commercial Crew Development program will take care of that.
(English is not my first language, so please excuse any mistakes and unintended ambiguities.)
Order of Kilopi
"Here's a brief summary of what was proposed and why it was cancelled"
I questioned the folks who made up that committe--the fix was in that review in my opinion.
"Congress also ordered NASA to build a heavy launch rocket, the Space Launch System. At the same time, NASA's budget has been either cut, or not updated for inflation. I don't know what they expect to accomplish with SLS." Going beyond LEO for one. Europa landers are now possible.
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What Middenrat said.
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"We've already been there" isn't a valid reason to NOT go. But I do think we have to have a clear goal. A repeat of flag planting is definitely not a good reason, nor is one of nostalgia.
A better question is whether or not the Moon is the best major goal right now. I think it's more reasonable than Mars, simply because of the costs and scale. I don't think it's sellable to the public though, given everything else in the world right now.
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I suggest you do a little research before throwing out numbers or even estimates of numbers.
It's less than 1 trillion (in 2007 dollars) since 1958 and a large portion is not spent on space travel. (the first A in NASA)
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Rebel: WD-40 is useful. So are weather satellites, communications satellites, navigational satellites, satellites that look for signs of mineable metals, satellites that track pollution, satellites that track agricultural use, satellites that monitor ocean currents, satellites that provide images of disaster areas, satellites that do astronomy that’s difficult or impossible from the ground (I'll admit this is more esoteric but it improves our understanding of physics which in turn feeds back into new technologies), satellites that provide time synchronization worldwide, satellites that spy on other countries, and that’s not even an exhaustive list. Lots of satellites perform several of these functions.
Civilian space flight alone (bear in mind that Britain has no manned spaceflight program and is not a part of the ESA contribution to manned spaceflight) contributes nearly £7 billion a year to my countries economy.
It's not flags 'n footprints national Ego (as this is a family forum) waving, space (great height, stability, perfect clarity of view as far as the cloud layer) is a resource, and a 200 billion dollar per year business that benefits the world greatly. How many lives have been saved over the lat 30 years in tornado alley, or in the north Atlantic by the improved forecasting afforded by weather satellites?
Edit: I can add satellites that do research into basic physics or biology using microgravity (look up gravity probe B as an example).
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WRT the actual topic: NASA needs grand money to execute grand plans, which means solid political and public support. A lot of people (like rebel) quite understandably think of space as a national ego waving contest ( probably because Apollo is what pops into their heads when they think of space) and in cash strapped times wrongly assume America can do without. So there is little public support, little political support and not enough money. As a result of this, and as a result of NASA waiting to see if it's transition to (brilliant but unproven) 'commercial' providers will work, NASA does not seem to have a strong focus. A strong focus would need assurances that everything won't change with the next US administration. It would need, I think, for NASA's budget to be guaranteed under law and its aims to be protected by law from political interference once set. And Ego waving isn't seen as that important at the moment, making sure there’s still food on the table in 18 months is.
JTBC: waving Ego is a useful political tool that can prevent world war 3 IMHO, I'm not knocking it when its in its appropriate place.
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It's important to remember - there isn't a change of focus by NASA. It's a change of focus by politicians. Indeed, over the last 40 years, politicians have treated NASA like an angry kitten playing with a tapestry.
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It's also nice to know that if one day, when there happens to be a big rock heading our way, we have the expertise in space operations, to save our planetary necks. Without that expertise fully functioning, we may not have time to re-develop the needed technologies and experience to save ourselves. All the missions to the asteroids and comets, teach us something about the types of rocks that may impact us. With every mission, we learn a little more about the objects and how we might deal with them, in case of an impending impact on Earth.
It's also nice to learn about our planet, our solar system, and our place in the Universe. Knowledge and how we use it, is what seperates us from the other animals on this planet.
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dido
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where's your research? the challenger itself cost $1.7 billion. The average cost per space mission was $450 million. There were 6 spacecraft that landed on the moon (or missions), Appollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17. That's not to mention the three (missions) that only orbitted to moon Apollo 8, 10, and 13. Oh hey, and don't forget the 19 probes that were either sent to land on or orbit the moon in which 14 of them crashed (I'm sure those weren't cheap). You do the math. Once again these were only pertaining to the moon, which this post is about, not space exploration the launching of satalites or space telescopes.
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Yeah, I saw the movie Armegedon also. The odds are better for the Earth to have its sixth ice-age than for a large rock to hit the Earth. Personally I don't feel that we humans know enough about the planet we live on, so the $ could be more useful here than going back to the moon.
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Did you click on the link in his post?
So, to get to a hundred trillion dollars, it would take about 220 thousand missions at $450 million. That hasn't happened on this planet.the challenger itself cost $1.7 billion. The average cost per space mission was $450 million.
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
The Leif Ericson Cruiser
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But that might be close to California's new High Speed rail project. Kidding of course--but only just a tad.
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Don't feed the trolls.
Et tu BAUT? Quantum mutatus ab illo.
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Okay my post should say that wd-40 and tang wern't worth the trillions (not 100's of trillions) of dollars that were spent to go to the moon. My bad, but the point is still there. What are the benifits of today from going to the moon in the past? So why should we spend more $ to go back?
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Van Rijn, yes I did see the wiki website that was used in his post. Unfortuneatly that website's numbers don't matchup with the numbers that I quoted in my post. I don't use wiki anymore because to many people disregarded in the past what I showed from those websites. Now I see why.
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IMHO--it is an unfortunate turn of events that has hinged upon a dismal economic climate. . . . I can only hope that within the next five years-- our science jobs and research opportunities cycle into a better frame of light.
Last edited by John Jaksich; 2012-Feb-12 at 05:02 AM. Reason: Semantics and meaning
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OK -so Tang and WD40 were NOT invented for NASA. Nor did the Apollo program cost 'trillions' - it 2005 dollars - it was about $170 billion. So everything in your first sentence is wrong. Everything.
Secondly - if you really cared to find out what the benefits of the Apollo program were - you could so very very easily find them with a 5 second google...that I'm nto sure you actually care at all.
Just in case you do:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/pdf...n_ApolloFS.pdf
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/apollo.htm
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/pdf/Apollo_Flyer.pdf
And if direct spinoffs are not enough - then how about this. It employed 400,000 people in high-tech science and engineering jobs. It gave business to 20,000 contractors and universities. From the Wiki page on Apollo:
"The Apollo program, specifically the lunar landings, has been called the greatest technological achievement in human history.[44][45] The program stimulated many areas of technology. The flight computer design used in both the lunar and command modules was, along with the Minuteman Missile System, the driving force behind early research into integrated circuits. The fuel cell developed for this program was the first practical fuel cell. Computer-controlled machining (CNC) was pioneered in fabricating Apollo structural components."
Or how about http://www.astrosociology.com/Librar...acts_Sadeh.pdf
"Macroeconomic studies that assessed productivity impacts, which can be attributed in large part to R&D expenditures with NASA’s Apollo program, concluded that there is anywhere from 7 to 1, to a 14 to 1 cost ratio benefit. Longer-term assessments placed the benefit at 9 to 1 over a twenty-year period (1974-1994). These studies tended to indicate significant impacts on economic productivity as a result of civil space R&D."
And if direct fiscal benefits are not enough - then about about this......
For one moment, the entire world was unified - amazed and inspired by the achievements of mankind.
As humans - as a species...we deserve that to ourselves. Period.
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I could not have said it any better.
Otherwise--if and when we start any type of commercialization of the Solar System or getting people off the planet---getting to the moon has been done and the logistics have partially been done. It is always safer to go in a conservative direction--both humanly and cost effectively
Order of Kilopi
Not exactly an apology is it?
And you are still wrong... Don't accuse me of not doing research until you do some of your own.
Total cost of piloted programs from 1959 to 2015 in 2010 dollars was less then 1/2 Trillion.
Shuttle: $196B (2011$)
ISS: $50B (the US portion of the $100B)
Apollo: $170B (2005$)
I can't fault you for asking the question though. Yes; at the surface, there does not seem to be a lot of benefits, but if you dig deeper, there are plenty. Whether you value them or not, there's a lot more to consider than just end products. There's research/knowledge value, and there are political values (Jobs, technology, national prestige, etc)
There's plenty of past threads around here that may show you what some of this is. Being that I did enough research for this post, I'm not going to do more work for you.
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The odds are 100% that at some future point, the Earth will be impacted by a comet or asteroid. It may not happen for thousands of years or it may happen this year. One of the good things about having a space program, is keeping track of space rocks that we know of and monitoring any new ones that come into our view. All of our space missions give us valuable expertise when sending out spacecraft and conducting operations in space. This expertise is what we will need, if the time comes and we are the target of a space rock. If we are unprepared when that time is upon us, we may be looking at the extinction of the Human race on this planet. Just consider our Space Progam as a type of insurance policy for our planet. An insurance policy that the dinosaurs and other animals at different times in the Earth's history, didn't have.
Learning about the Earth is good; the Earth is our home. But some people feel that it's also important to learn about our neighborhood as well - that would be our Solar System. I don't think it's a good idea to never leave your home and to know nothing about the other homes and structures in your neighborhood. It's also nice to learn about the city that we live in - our Milky Way Galaxy.
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What a nice way of putting it, I agree and couldnt have said it with such nice imagry.
Well said
Vons
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Hey High Jackers,
"Once there was talk of NASA going back to the moon. That was under the previous president.
What do people think? Is the current path NASA is heading the right one? I kind of remember hearing that Neil Armstrong did not like it but Buzz Aldren did. What do you think?"
Order of Kilopi
The right path?
I doubt that we* can ever come anywhere close to agreeing on a right path.
Right now, with all the political garbage going on, I just want to see any forward movement even if some of that movement may be futile in the end. At least it would spark some interest, and possibly some offshoot benefits.
*Not personally. More of a general "we".
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