Doubts grow about NASA moon return

A senior NASA official expressed doubt on Wednesday that the agency could send astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit without extra money or using vehicles radically different form those it is currently working on.

NASA's space shuttle programme manager John Shannon made the remarks in a presentation to a committee reviewing NASA's human spaceflight plans at the request of the White House and chaired by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine.

Shannon said the space vehicles designed by NASA's Constellation Program to replace the space shuttle and ferry astronauts to the moon were "well thought out", but that the agency does not have enough money to make them a reality.

The White House budget request for NASA released in May proposes to freeze the agency's spending between 2011 and 2014 – eliminating billions of dollars of growth envisioned for those years in previous requests.

New Scientist - Full Article

Should we really believe this, or is it just another attempt to avoid going where many have criticized we never went there at all?


[edit on 18-6-2009 by Scooby Doo]

Well i'm sure they not going to make any new Vehicles for them. I heard that after 2012 they not flying any more space missions. So in my book why do they want new vehicles to fly outside of low Orbit?

Maybe they not flying any more missions after 2012 because they will reveal their hidden anti gravity aircraft that can exit our world like a small plane takes off and flies around.

It really makes me think that something is going on, regardless of the current climate there should be plans to develop new craft, as the previous poster says maybe the anti grav ships will be rolled out, along with disclosure and a big apology from the Fed Reserve

I was just going to bring this up once I got home! It seems that NASA has lost all it's past grandeur

On a related note, you can check out my thread on NASA's recent Human Space Flight Panel, along with some info on their current budget.

Good find OP!

Wow! Talk about backtracking. . ? I thought the next generation of space vehicles, I think they were called Orion, were already well into the testing phase considering NASA were talking about going back (yes, BACK ) to the moon around 2018. A mere couple of weeks ago America, Russia, India and China were racing to get back to the moon first and suddenly America drops out! I smell something fishy and I'm not talking about the contents of Baldricks apple crumble..!

Word must of come down from the top and that word must be, well America is broke start building escape pods.

The only thing fishy about this article is the fact that it's saying America is scroomed.

reply to post by Mintwithahole.


it was easy for bush to commit to something he would never have to follow through on becuae he would be years out of office.

Did you hear the crap he came out with about mars? robots building habitats for humans etc yeah sure george in 2090 or something. It was pure political propoganda .

Personally i would scrap all human spaceflight for the next 20 years. waste of money.



[edit on 19-6-2009 by yeti101]

It's funny how they still have all this cash to do useless things like crashing crap into the moon to see if there's any water in the plume.

NASA need to be disbanded and replaced by a serious Space Agency.

IRM

maybe they should design the tecnology , then sell it to China , India and so on - this way NASA cound finance themself while progressing the technology.

Originally posted by SharkBait
Well i'm sure they not going to make any new Vehicles for them. I heard that after 2012 they not flying any more space missions. So in my book why do they want new vehicles to fly outside of low Orbit?

Maybe they not flying any more missions after 2012 because they will reveal their hidden anti gravity aircraft that can exit our world like a small plane takes off and flies around.

you mean thsi oen they say that dosent excist and still there is real life photo of it ?? i do hope its a real pic i once found and did keep it ....its up to you what ya think

reply to post by Watchdog-Finland


It's a CGI model mate. Sorry!

IRM

reply to post by InfaRedMan
ah ok , i wasnt sure i found it years back, and keept it only source back then was X-Shuttle Nasa, so i thought it was real...and besides how do u make an CGI , im crap with lots of software to be honest



[edit on 19-6-2009 by Watchdog-Finland]

So 40 years later, they want to do exploratory missions and crash rockets into the moon

Why can't they dust off the old lunar modules which had the same computing power as a modern day pocket calculator, bring Buzz out of retirement and get the astro-nots to dig the moon with a shovel.

Oh yeah, that's right...they never went there in the first place.

Originally posted by PrisonerOfSociety
So 40 years later, they want to do exploratory missions and crash rockets into the moon

Why can't they dust off the old lunar modules which had the same computing power as a modern day pocket calculator, bring Buzz out of retirement and get the astro-nots to dig the moon with a shovel.

Yeah, it's all rather odd and counter logical... but as unquestioning automatons, were not meant to be asking such taboo questions. Shame on you!

IRM

Originally posted by InfaRedMan
Yeah, it's all rather odd and counter logical... but as unquestioning automatons, were not meant to be asking such taboo questions. Shame on you!

I haven't quite being assimilated yet IRM

I just question the fact this was all meant to have been done 40 years ago, before i was born

The BBC are doing an HD moon programme soon, it should make Zorgon weak at the knees to see their studio footage, *cough* i mean lunar landings.

reply to post by PrisonerOfSociety


this sums it up for me. Young people just cant believe they could do it 40 years ago i mean they never even had ipods did they?

the reason they dont "dust off the old modules" is becuase that would be like saying , "why dont boeing use the same designs as the wright brothers used?"

im sure you would agree that would be frickin retarded

not to mention you cant get that equipment anymore nobody makes it and nobody would support it. Another goal is to make it 10x safer. You wont do that using the same equipment.

[edit on 19-6-2009 by yeti101]

This is a good development. Now begin use of Area 51 anti-gravity/hyperspace 'flying saucers' for space exploration - too the Moon, and to other star systems.

reply to post by yeti101


I was been sarcastic yeti101

Although using iPod computing power sounds good, that would save some monies. Just tape a few pods onto a rocket, strap in a criminal on death row (they are expendable) and off you go.

Edit: [/sarcasm], just in case someone comments on the viability of such a proposal.

[edit on 19-6-2009 by PrisonerOfSociety]

Originally posted by InfaRedMan
It's funny how they still have all this cash to do useless things like crashing crap into the moon to see if there's any water in the plume.

NASA need to be disbanded and replaced by a serious Space Agency.

IRM

here here! totally agree with that.

i'm 25. for the last 15 years, the only really interesting stuff they've done with aaaaallll that money is send some rovers to mars and some satellites into the solar system to photo other planets. oh...and hubble( i love hubble's pictures).And to me, that's really disappointing.

spaceship one, that won the xprize cost somewhere over 20 million dollars to build. from scratch. the annual budget of nasa is around 17 billion dollars.
NASA, the publicly owned(through our tax dollars) institute , full of highly educated people of multitudinous backgrounds, can't design and implement a safe cheap alternative to the shuttles???

sure we've learned some interesting stuff from the ISS...but as I recall, the only times we've really lept in tech are when we've pushed the envelope( like going to the moon, manned that is). Then we just kinda skidded to a halt. and now this whole not sure they can make it back to the moon business?

I always wanted to explore space, be a solar frontiersman. But about five years ago i thought "what's the point, doesn't even seem like they like exploring anymore". and with news like this, sure doesn't contradict that. maybe if they're lucky my great grandkids will be able to take part, or watch mars manned exploration. cause it sure isn't happening anytime soon. which is ultimately very very sad.

i hope we go back, it would be very exciting, not to mention we could (possibly) put to rest the controversy over whether or not we actually went there in the first place.

if NASA doesn't go, i at least hope other country's get there, i am not so patriotic that i couldn't be happy for another country reaching for the stars.