an = any
“Some of the most influential leaders of the space community are quietly working to offer the next U.S. president an alternative to President Bush’s “vision for space exploration”—one that would delete a lunar base and move instead toward manned missions to asteroids along with a renewed emphasis on Earth environmental spacecraft.”
I read that the moon base was logistically a better solution to future manned flights to MArs, etc because the cost of launching from the moon would be far cheaper. So, invest up front to save money down the line.
Thats by design. The moon could be done in the relative short term with existing technologies. Mars is a tougher nut to crack. So if you abandon Moon missions in favor of supposed Mars missions, what you really do is kick the rock down the road, without admitting it.
My theory is this is mostly demorcrats, knowing their candidates SUCK on NASA stuff, and WILL cancel return to the moon plans for lots of global warming crap. So this is their way of trying to save the vision for space exploration from their own visionless political candidates.
ping
1000 unmanned missions will learn more, and advance technology farther than will one manned mission with a 50% probability of failure/tragedy.
The entire program will change with the new administration. Suggestions are already flooding in such as going to asteroids rather than the moon. In the meantime, this is National Squirrel Appreciation Day so perhaps we should send a colony of squirrels to Mars and forget trying to pretend we are doing science in space with these manned bases.
The Moon not only makes sense as a colony, for science but militarily...IT IS the High Ground.
Having read the entire thing ... these guys are pie-in-the-sky types who are doing their best to ensure that nothing gets done at all.
You can’t drive across a river without a bridge.
We’re going to need moon bases and orbital bases if we’re going to be sending people all over the solar system.
Unless we’re preparing to build some really big launch vehicles.
From the front lines.
I work at Marshal Space Flight Center in Huntsville. Right now we are working feverishly on getting a preliminary design engineered and ready for construction. The feeling is that the quicker we get “in-process” the harder it will be to cancel the entire project.
We MUST develop craft and return to the moon. It has been 30+ years since we heavy launched astronauts into space. Contrary to popular opinion, we can’t just “rebuild” the Apollo launchers.
The Saturn 5 rockets do not lift enough payload for the equipment needed to go to Mars.
Also, people don’t realize just how primitive the Saturn/Apollo craft were. Folks, they were all designed with slide rules and paper. Yes, they worked. BUt they are NOT sufficent for the heavier loads that we need to lift in order to go to Mars.
Changing gears: Obama has been on record as saying that he would cancel the entire Constellation (return to the moon) effort. Look for NASA administrators to play the environmental card HEAVILY as a means of agency survival.
We have proved that 0’g construction is possible but very slow and difficult as well as dangerous. We need micro gravity to help with a number of problems.
It would be stupid to attempt to launch a such a massive space craft from Earth and if you did and lost it, the space program would dissapear.
Much better to build a space dock on the moon where the environment can be created to build most anything we need and launch it.