Bush space plan is opportunistic, timid

OC Register ^ | 1/15/04 | Op/Ed

[NormsRevenge]

President Bush's proposal to set up a research base on the moon as a first step to traveling to Mars and beyond is a perplexing mixture of necessary and hardheaded rethinking of government's role in space - and empty opportunism. Unfortunately, the proposal doesn't move beyond an attempt to give the National Aeronautics and Space Administration the real sense of purpose it has lacked for upwards of 30 years to serious thinking about what could make space exploration a sustainable activity.

[SunStar]

Bush space plan is opportunistic, timid

[r9etb]

Yawn. This is a pretty dim-witted and agenda-driven editorial.

The evidence is here: Mr. Bush apparently still sees space as a government project rather than understanding that - like airplanes and computers - space travel will become a reality when it becomes a commercial endeavor from which people can see a way to make money to invest in more ambitious future endeavors.

The OC register doesn't seem to recognize the fact that the current commercial success in satellite communications is possible ONLY because the just about all of the basic capabilities were developed as part of government projects.

[RightWhale]

It has the appearance of using the taxpayers' money to create the illusion of a president with a cosmic sense of vision and human possibilities - and to give a few selected people some really excellent adventures.

Sort of. It has the appearance of a president doing the minimum to keep NASA functional for the next 5 years. We need to see artists' renderings of spaceships very soon. We need to see realistic spaceflight simulators on our PCs. We need to see the man on the street debating whether it is better to go single launch to the moon or multiple launch with orbital docking. Everybody knew the difference during Apollo. Now, nobody knows anything. Thanks to light pollution, most cannot identify Mars in the night sky.

[taxcontrol]

My plan on how to get a base on the moon:

Build a fusion reactor that runs off of Helium-3.

Spend $10 Billion on updating or adding to the space shuttle fleet so that at least 2 are able to reach the moon and return or via a space station transfer from the shuttle to a moon and return shuttle.

Offer $ 1 Billion for the first ton of Helium-3 brought back to earth for the fusion reactor. Subsequent tonnage should have a decreasing amount per ton.

Sell cargo / tonnage space on the shuttles to help recover the cost of the fleet.

Build more reactors that use Helium-3.

Let market forces take over.

[WOSG]

The good news is that Bush recognized that NASA is disfunctional today.

The bad news is that any mission bold enough to 'capture the imagination' will invariably be extravagant enough to almost certainly be worth it.

A mundane mission like sending robots to the moon to lay the groundwork for future more permanent settlement is the best compromise between the two imho.

But I'm of half a mind to suggest us scaling back dramatically and just have nasa do unmanned space probes.

[RightWhale]

Better NASA do this than the Air Force Space Command. When you see stuff on the moon you can say: 'There goes NASA! It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.'