Obama Space Plan: Return to Moon: "No Go"

You really don't understand the problems with Ares. Go to Nasaspaceflight.com and read what the actual "rocket scientists" think.

 

NASA won't use Chinese spacecraft for the foreseeable future anyway.

Well, it seems they're a bit behind schedule now, but SpaceX’s Dragon capsule is supposed to become operational sometime in 2010. They already have a contract with NASA to ferry personnel and cargo to the ISS. And one thing is sure: The development of the Dragon is at a more advanced stage than Orion's. So why waste more money on the Orion when there's an alternative spacecraft which will be ready much sooner?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Dragon

SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo are unsuitable for NASA's needs anyway. Both are merely capable of conducting suborbital flight.

 

Sooner or later we'll go extinct.

Period, full stop.

Space exploration doesn't hold the answer to a single of our pressing problems - economic, political or even simple survival. It's laughable that people continue to propose that we can use spaceships to deal with population pressures, or the hunt for natural resources to sustain our economic expansion. Even if there's some validity to the latter (and it's negligible) the enormous amount of time and money that will have to be initially devoted to developing the means to locate and make use of such resources way down the line will never justify the effort from the POV of time-bound human beings.

People like human space exploration because it's cool. The idea excites them. If it ever turns out that there's a "there," there it will be many centuries after we've all turned to dust and no one here will ever know about it.

 

Infrastructure. The flexible path option doesn't have any flashy "achievement unlocked" missions in the immediate future, but it allows us to develop our space capabilities one small, realistic step at a time.

Landing on Mars----and more importantly, taking off again----will be steps along the path. We just won't try those steps until we've proven we're competent at getting humans to planetary orbit in the first place.

Once enough infrastructure is in place, it may even serve as a motivation to step up space elevator research a bit.

 

Buzzkill.

 

Oh, it's worse than that...

 

There's no reason to believe we will ever go extinct. With time and technology we could control the universe.

 

That sounds a lot like how Apollo worked. Starting with unmanned orbital tests of the CSM and the LM, via manned tests and lunar orbit to landing approaches and finally hte landing. I don't have the Augustine report handy, but would the flexible path be somewhat similar?

 

It's hard to see how we'd stop the Big Crunch. Short of evolving into pure energy before then, like something out of TOS.

 

You're completely wrong from the get-go.

 

I know SS1 and SS2 cannot reach orbit. My point was today, no commercial vehicle has carried people into Orbit.

If Space X can have their vehicle flight ready by 2014 or sooner, I'm fine with using that to get to and from the ISS.

I still want to move beyond LEO. I would prefer more than a go there and plant a flag mission. Because it is so expensive to go to Mars, I think we should establish a permanent outpost and reusable interplanetary craft to move to and from Earth. We can use a Lunar outpost to test methods for extracting water and long term life support systems while still being relatively close to Earth. It can also extract water to provide fuel for a reusable interplanetary craft. In addition and can be used for testing extraction of raw material from the regolith to be used in manufacturing to build shelter and replacement components instead of shipping them from Earth.

I know many people believe we should use money here on Earth. But the simple fact is we've blown way more money on programs like the Great Society an other social welfare projects and unnecessary conflicts than space exploration. Most of our budget is used for many different social welfare projects. No one wants to address the programs that are real trouble. Medicare in the very near future will become insolvent, if we don't make serious changes now. Social Security is in bad shape. Neither can be fixed until a law barring use of taxes for any other function. Money from the general fund will need to be transferred to SS and Medicare to bring them back into balance.

 

I agree with some of what you've stated, but you still have no valid reason why we *have to* go to Mars. Either Martian women are really beautiful, or the Martians brew some mean alcoholic beverages, because beyond that, I just don't get it.

 

OK, save it for someone who cares, will ya?

It's time to stop blaiming Bush for everything, and for the Savior to own up to his incompetance.

The amount of money this Adminstration wasted on the Stimulus package they could have funded NASA for decades.

And as for speaking properly....Obama can't speak without a teleprompter. Son of bitch needed one for a presentation in a 6th grade classroom for Chrissakes! Dumb son of a bitch looked silly standing there behind a podium flanked by teleprompters in front of 6th graders. Even John Stewart made fun of him for it. For a liberal to lose John Stewart on something like that, you know you're in trouble.

The best health care system in the world isn't worth saving from socialized medicine?

Boy, I'm glad that you're used to ration care. Because we aren't. We get health care when we need it, not when the government gets around to approving it.

I actually agree with that too. But what are we going to do in the meantime...we have a space station to service for a whle yet.

 

Why did people come to the America's? There are various reasons to go. Are any of them necessary right now? No. But, we should always be pushing our boundaries. It gives us purpose. The whole point of Constellation was to work towards a goal that will inspire people. It was going to take decades to complete. People are bored with LEO. Many don't know why we don't go straight to Mars. But I think we need to do more than just get there and plant a flag.

Why do we have outposts in Antarctica?

 

It's the women there...I hear they're all on Nutrisystem weight control programs. Hot mammas!

 

When you can't get health care without going into hock to pay for it, then yeah, I'm sorry, but its a failure on all counts. And if you believe that Canadians or anybody else in the modern world envies your fucked up system, then you're staggeringly wrong, sir. Nobody does, especially after the truth about how shitty it is was exposed to the world in Sicko. And yes, building new transit systems is important, just as important as going into space.

 

No, flexible path encourages developing missions that slowly increase capability in contrast to Apollo which was more straight forward in just "testing" with ever increasing capability. Flexible path is similar to the spiral path from the late 90's.

agreed, we need to get beyond low earth orbit. As for your other comments, I agree on the money aspect and will say it again:

The money for the space program gets spent here on earth. In the U.S. It generates jobs.

 

Here we go again. Are we so full of vitriol that we'll believe anything? His use of a teleprompter was when he was speaking to reporters. He did not use them when he was talking to a 6th grade class.

From the non-partisan Factcheck.org, a website that all sides of the political spectrum uses (including Dick Cheney):

http://factcheck.org/2010/01/school-photo/