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

Unless you have plenty of money, the U.S. health care system is not among the best in the world. Sorry.

 

Aren't we actually 37th in the world?

 

I agree. But somehow opponents don't see how it benefits anyone but the people working on the project. They don't seem to realize that most technological innovation comes along when there is a need for something new. Pushing the envelope with Space exploration and defense needs, we innovate at greater rate before the commercial markets need it.

 

I agree. The US needs to strategically position cannons on the Moon to shoot down any and all spacecraft other countries might attempt to land there.

 

On the one hand, that's silly. On the other.....it might just be awesome enough to be worthwhile.....

 

The problem is humanity is too stupid to come up with anything better than chemical propulsion systems. Ergo travelling around a small patch of our solar backyard is kinda demoralizing and pointless. We're never going to see the sci fi goodies. Hence we wait for some afroed genius like Alcubierre to build a proper ftl drive that works. Then a 3 day trip to moon becomes instantaneuos thereabouts.

If ftl isn't possible then we cut welfare and incentivize people to support and get into the aeronautics industry. Incentivization can take the form of curtailing civil rights if people don't want to build spaceships. We have the tech, we just don't have the willpower and this can come from making America leaner and meaner, by taking away rights.

 

^please don't get this thread closed.

 

Why would it be pointless? Some of my favorite SciFi concerns early exploration and colonization of Mars. Clarkes 2010 - 3001 are exciting when you consider Europa may have an ocean under all that ice. Personally I think the next mission to Jupiter should have a lander and submersable for Europa to explore under the ice.

Sojourner, why is NASA funding Space X's Falcon 9 and Dragon? I did not know Dragon was a multipurpose orbital system. It makes no sense to develop it and still pursue Ares I and Orion. They should use Space X to send men to LEO. Orion or something else should be created for a trans-lunar and near earth object shuttle. Once we develop long term and reliable technology for extended travel and staying on the Moon, we would be ready to move on to Mars.

Space X is farther along, so maybe President Obama is right to cancel Ares I and Orion. Still seems like a waste of money, but that is NASA's fault. He should still continue the push for creating reusable methods to gradually expand out into the Solar System. I hope they will be ready before 2014.

 

Only if you count homicides and accidental deaths (auto accidents, fire, etc.) in that calculation.

Other countries only include figures from within the health care system. The US gets that relatively low rating because we include the above mentioned figures.

Take the number of deaths just within the health care system alone and we are probably in the top 3.

 

Actually here's the low down on this decision on cutting NASA's funding for the Constellation program.

So instead of being like JFK and looking outward, exploring the final final frontier, Obama is going to turn NASA into an inward looking agency spying on the polar bears checking for signs of global hoaxing...er, I mean warming.

All the while relying on the Chinese, Indians and the Russians getting to the space station. Wonderful!!!! Fucking Brilliant!!! Way to go Messiah! USA! USA! We're #4!

 

Are you fucking serious???? You're comparing the Cuban system as explained in a Michael Moore film to the reality of the situation?

Please....why don't you go watch Fahrenheit 9/11 again...and quit wasting my time.

What you don't undertsand is that 90% of Americans already have health care of some sort of fashion, and 80% of those are happy with what they got. So to convince 90% of the country that we need a TOTAL overhaul of the system just to cover 10% of the people, then maybe you can see why the majority of the American people are against ObamaCare. It's the same reason why Same Sex Marriage fails everytime it comes up for a vote. If only 2-3% of the population is gay, there's a pretty good chance that the majority of the people are not going to be for changing a 5000 year old tradition just to placate such a small minority.

New transit line? Oh yeah...because Miamians are busting down the door to get to Tallahassee.

The problem is that it's all inward looking. Been there, done that, kind of stuff. We had rail travel in this country before. Didn't quite work out in the long run. The problem is that the youth of today are not interested in space, because they've got their heads too buried in their fucking iPhones to even look up, much less look up into space at the stars.

 

Actually, NASA is going to continue exploring space in the most effective way known... through unmanned probes.

The Apollo program didn't do that much of exploring back then. Especially the early lunar landings were mostly about getting there - taking nice pictures - getting back. For the most part, Apollo 11 was perhaps the most expensive publicity stunt in the history of mankind.

Well, NASA will rely on Russia and on private companies... especially SpaceX and the Orbital Sciences Corporation. I don't know where this stuff about China or India comes from. China was never a part of the ISS and it never will be.

 

The NASA budget really is peanuts. I think it's a mistake to cut a program that can actually contribute so much to society, whether is be technology, science, and education. You give up the space race, like Obama is clearly doing, and you allow China to fill the void. America has to remain at the center of everything. We shouldn't be outscoring jobs to the Russians.

I do like the idea of encouraging private companies to create "space taxis." Buzz Aldrain once said he supported the idea of partially privitizing NASA and I've always thought that would be a great idea. This might not be the right economic climate for it but companies would throw tons of money at it eventually and would be a lot more effective at running it than the government.

 

I'm comparing the Canadian, British, French, and other European ones to the American ones in addition to the Cuban. Moore was just making a point, and a good one which you didn't get, of course.

Both are a basic human right which America is failing to deliver. Your choice on how this will be viewed by the rest of the world, of course.

No, because the oil that planes use are getting scarce, and trains are just as fast as planes.

The youth of today do need something to shoot for than just what their parents and grandparents did, that's for sure, and space travel is the path. But even I have to admit, not right now.

 

Most of them aren't real sick at the time they're polled.

 

Their not. NASA is contracting them for services. Unlike most NASA programs, SpaceX only gets paid when it achieves goals.

Why does everyone here think Obama is killing the space program when he is trying to get more money for it and only killing a program even NASA's own engineers don't like? The only people that support Ares/Constellation is NASA management and pork barrel politicians.

 

Basically, if we move the goal posts, then we shoot up 34 spots. As if no other countries have homicides and accidental deaths? As if catastrophic injuries couldn't be saved in an ER, or the wrong prescription never leads to a fatal allergic reaction?

http://www.who.int/whr/2000/media_centre/press_release/en/index.html

Because every time Obama does anything, the terrorists win. I swear, if he pumped NASA full of stimulus funds, we'd get the same people saying we need that money for defense spending instead.

I'm actually quite surprised by all this uproar. We can outsource jobs overseas and hire military contractors instead of relying on our tried-and-true honorable armed services and that all gets our support because it's capitalism , but when it comes to NASA and those tactics, suddenly Obama's trying to revert us to the Stone Age.

 

IIRC, SpaceX was already awarded almost 300 million dollars in government funds and they have yet to conduct a test flight with the Dragon (according to SpaceX's website, the first unmanned tests are still scheduled for 2010, so they seem to be very close).

It is correct though that the private companies which are cooperating with the U.S. government through NASA's "Commercial Orbital Transportation Services" program are constantly re-evaluated. For example, the contract with Rocketplane Kistler was terminated by NASA in 2007 after it became clear that they couldn't possibly deliver what they had promised.

The debate over the Obama administration's space program is often a bizarre one though. At least some American conservatives seem to be vehemently opposed to these plans. Strangely, these plans happen to include the termination of the government-run space program and an outsourcing of manned spaceflight to private companies. So basically it's the reverse-logic of the healthcare debate. And I thought conservatism was all about "small government" and cutting expenses. But maybe conservatism is more about maintaining the status quo after all. And the status quo is that the government runs the manned space program.

 

Can commercial operators get us out of LEO yet? Dont see them doing it so would like NASA to continue with a Heavy Lift without that it is a set back.

 

As a conservative who is coming around, I would not say all or even most conservatives are against Obama on this issue just to be partisan. I suspect most of us are just not aware that Space X is so far along. I had heard about them, but always thought they were only capable of delivering cargo. As for Ares and Orion, I was not happy with reverting to an Apollo type program using capsules. But I liked the fact that it was moving us on a path to colonize the moon and explore Mars.
I'm still not happy NASA has wasted so much money on the program with not much to show for it. We have used these SRB's for the last 29 years. You would think they would know how to quickly design and build a capsule.
NASA needs to stop trying to create one size fits all systems. We need to build craft dedicated to traveling to the moon and NEO. Other craft for going to MARS. And landers for the Moon and Mars. Since it costs so much to get them to orbit, they should be mostly reusable.
I don't agree with the Obama administration on scrapping returning to the moon and establishing a base there. We need it to gain experience on how to live off the land, if we're going to goto Mars for something more than planting a flag.
And as other's have said, the moon is rich in He3. You would think Mr. "Green jobs" would want to get this resource ASAP.