Moon or space station? Budget means NASA must pick, panel says

Moon or space station? Budget means NASA must pick, panel says
Under current projections, space agency won't get back to moon for 2 decades

Nasa must chose the Moon or SpaceStation, how about they do what Aldrin said: Go to Mars, the Final Frontier etc.
Im thinking maybe they cant get past the van allan belt. ??

Source Link
Former astronaut Sally Ride says NASA's budget of $18B a year is insufficient to pursue the goals of both returning to the moon and keeping the space station going. (NASA FILE)

(Picture from the site of the Earth from the Moon.)

WASHINGTON - NASA's Constellation program, conceived four years ago to return Americans to the moon by 2020, can't afford to do that -- and the agency's budget won't allow humans to explore beyond the international space station for two decades, a presidential panel has concluded.

NASA's annual budget of about $18 billion will pay to keep astronauts flying -- albeit aboard Russian rockets -- to the space station through 2020, the panel said Wednesday. But that would leave no money for the moon, Mars or exploring other parts of the solar system for at least two decades.

"We haven't found a scenario that includes exploration that's viable," said former astronaut Sally Ride, one of 10 committee members who have until Aug. 31 to present President Barack Obama with future options for NASA.

Panel chairman Norm Augustine, the retired CEO of Lockheed Martin, said NASA is the victim of budget cuts and technical problems with its Constellation program of new rockets and capsules that are supposed to return humans to the moon.

"The money available has declined considerably since the program began," he said. "On the other hand, the Constellation program has proven to be more difficult than it was thought to be."

Augustine added, "It will be difficult with the current budget to do anything that's terribly inspiring in the human spaceflight area. On the other hand, there are things you can do to prepare. ... It just won't come as soon."

The panel said it would take at least $3 billion more per year for NASA to have a "reasonable chance" of getting to the moon or elsewhere in the solar system before 2030. And though committee members seemed to support more money, it's not clear where, in a time of trillion-dollar-plus federal deficits, the cash would come from.

Maybe Mr.Obama chose Cars ? since Nasa must Choose Moon or SpaceStation.

Obama Must Choose Between Cars And Rockets.
Detroit's automotive industry is like a bad horror film, they are truly the walking dead. As a country do we continue to throw billions of dollars at the mummified corporate zombies.

Should we spend our time, resources, and attention bandwidth on automotive industry life support, or would the country be better off focusing on those industries such as space technologies that represent the future of this country and all of mankind.

It is ironic that while the mission of NASA is inspiring and noble, unfortunately NASA, like the Detroit automakers, is plagued by some basic and fundamental organization issues. NASA has had many successes, but is rightly criticized for being slow, wasteful and unimaginative.

Meanwhile, the space programs in other countries such as China, have caught up, and in some ways, surpassed our programs. The problems facing the U.S. space program are not budget or technology but a woeful lack of leadership and pervasive political and bureaucratic dysfunction.

[edit on 13/8/2009 by ChemBreather]

Not intresting news ??

They must chose one agenda, I think they should chose the moon if that is the only two choises, after all, they have been there before, so it should be much easier this time around...

reply to post by ChemBreather


lol Isn't funny that you post serious stuff and nobody comments. Yet the guy with half the intelligence makes a post that is titled "OMFG LOL HOLY SH%& U R GONNA DYE!!!!" Gets like 100 flags and 300 comments.

I've made it a point lately to give flags to well articulated posts, rather than posts that everyone seems compelled to comment on.

S&F...the information is interesting to me thank you for sharing.

Originally posted by ExPostFacto
reply to post by ChemBreather

 

lol Isn't funny that you post serious stuff and nobody comments. Yet the guy with half the intelligence makes a post that is titled "OMFG LOL HOLY SH%& U R GONNA DYE!!!!" Gets like 100 flags and 300 comments.

I've made it a point lately to give flags to well articulated posts, rather than posts that everyone seems compelled to comment on.

S&F...the information is interesting to me thank you for sharing.

Congrats, you are the first who made me laugh today !
Just prolonged my life by a second or some thing !

And still no additional comments.

i am still puzlled with shuttles.

is NASA in really depressing state and they must ask Russia to fly their atronauts up or there is some black project with "supermegaturboputwhatyouwant" abilities.

and if they really have to choose between station and moon - i would go for the moon. they went there decades ago so it shouldnt be a problem.

The moon of course. It has the potential to be profitable. You could launch nuke based space craft from there, without worry of it contaminating earth. There are already vast resources of one of the most efficient fuels available (Helium 3). It can be a life boat for survivors of an earth catastrophic event.

Solar cells are extremely efficient there and could beam energy back to earth.

Who knows of other exotic materials we might find there that never make it to earth because of our atmosphere.

You can build and launch spacecraft there at a fraction of the cost as from earth.

Telescopes there would be more powerful than Hubble since you could make them very large and not have the atmosphere of earth messing up the view.

In emergencies you do not have to find a way to land you just have to find alternative shelter unlike the Space Station. You could launch craft from the moons surface on a daily basis very cheap to do in orbit type science.

I think it's sad that there has to be a choice of one or the other. Why is it so hard for the US Gov't to give NASA proper funding? I mean they'll spend trillions on failing companies, spending hundreds of billions on defence every year. Last time I checked, what they spent in Iraq every 2 weeks equalled NASA's annual budget. At least it was like that a few years ago, I'm sure it's still pretty close to that.

I'll admit that I'm biased towards funding space exploration, but looking at the overall US budget and the things they're willing to waste money on. $3 billion more per year for NASA doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

To get to the moon faster someone must come up with a reason that the moon could be used as an ultimate military weapon. Once this happens the DOD will get on board and the moon will have all the $$$ it could ever need.

Any ideas? I could see them using lasers from the moon using helium 3 as a power source. You could really build a large laser up there that could be used to destroy ICBM's. You would not be restricted by size there as you are with satellite systems.

reply to post by ChemBreather

Moon or space station? Budget means NASA must pick, panel says

We are a short sighted people. The lesson here was offered over 500 years ago as the New World was eventually colonized by those nations that invested in exploration. Space is the next, great frontier and those nations that have the political courage to make tough decisions, despite the bureaucratic beancounters, will be the ones who plant flags and hold the awe and attention of the world.

For the US to neglect this opportunity and allow those same petty bureaucrats to hold the future hostage, is a betrayal of of the people and her own future.

...

personally im not a fan of manned spaceflight. Cant see the point when we can do the same things with robot probes at a fraction of the cost.

cost/science return ratio from manned spaceflight is so bad its not worth doing it. Science missions are getting canned left , right & center so nasa can follow its infantile obsession with sending humans into space.

4 missions which would advance our understanding of the laws of physics have been canned. TPF & TPF-C planet finding missions have been shelved indefinitley becuase of constellation. The list goes on I say dump the moon program and instead further our understanding of the universe and our place in it.

[edit on 14-8-2009 by yeti101]

Originally posted by yeti101
personally im not a fan of manned spaceflight. Cant see the point when we can do the same things with robot probes at a fraction of the cost.

cost/science return ratio from manned spaceflight is so bad its not worth doing it. Science missions are getting canned left , right & center so nasa can follow its infantile obsession with sending humans into space.

4 missions which would advance our understanding of the laws of physics have been canned. TPF & TPF-C planet finding missions have been shelved indefinitley becuase of constellation. The list goes on I say dump the moon program and instead further our understanding of the universe and our place in it.

[edit on 14-8-2009 by yeti101]

The main reason for manned spaceflight is so that we learn to live in space and eventually learn to colonize asteroids, moons and other planets. There is 100% chance of an human extinction event on earth at some point. We cannot accurately predict when but it will happen. It may already be to late or it may not happen for 1000 years. We just do not know.

The facts as they are right now is that humans are the only intelligent life in the Universe. I am not saying we are I am saying that is what the facts are at this moment. Given that fact, it is well worth doing the things necessary to ensure the survival of humanity.

If we skip learning how to live and operate in space then when something happens to threaten our survival it may be to late to learn those lessons.

I am not going to list all the things that could happen on earth to end us because this site is full of that stuff. Unless the universe protects us history shows that Earth has and will continue to change and it has and will continue to have extinction events.

We gota get some people off this rock.