Posted on 02/03/2004 3:36:36 PM PST by vannrox
Edited on 06/29/2004 7:10:18 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
President Bush's plan to go to the moon and to Mars without much additional funding will force NASA and Congress to make hard choices -- particularly regarding the space shuttle and the hugely expensive International Space Station, observers said.
The Bush plan increases NASA's budget by just $1 billion over the next five years. That means the space agency has to figure out how to carry out the mission -- first a return to the moon and later a trip to Mars -- without a lot of additional money in its budget.
(Excerpt) Read more at wired.com ...
Yes, assuming kerosene/lox. Hydrogen/lox is a bit more expensive, but not exhorbitantly so, about $25/lb of payload.
Airline ticket prices are typically 3X fuel cost, and technically that sort of operation is more or less possible with launchers with existing technology.
The biggest problem is that we do so little in space no one wants drastically lower launch costs. The big aerospace companies want, even need to sell a vehicle for every launch to stay in business. NASA wants to spend a lot of money for every launch to justify their funding.
The customers would like to spend less per launch, but they won't commit to spending the same amount for more launches.
What do you have against stray dogs?
What do you have against stray dogs?
Actually, I like their style in scraping it on the concrete.
So9
Unfortunately, I think you just came up with the probable scenario - build it all here and then pack it up in pieces. It would be nice if they kept things simple. The Shuttle started out as a simple spacecraft though, and we know where that ended up once the bean counters and politicians got a hold of it.
If they can cross 90 or more miles of open water/ocean in an old Buick, I think they could probably contribute a bit to our Lunar/Mars missions :-)
The first thing I thought of was: Simple. Toss a tent over the area and pressurize it, so you can take the suit off and breathe while you work.
But oxygen is highly corrosive, and there hasn't been much of it around the stuff you want to study for a very long time. That means there could be completely unexpected chemical reactions to introducing it into that environment. (which we'll be doing over the long term, when we terra-form Mars)
So my "simple" solution is really very bad.
Interesting problem, and one we'll be facing shortly. You see, even if you assume there are no aliens, it won't take more than a couple decades before somebody decides to dig up and study the remains of our first settlements up there.
How do you do archaeology in space?
What are the military benefits of a lunar mission, so the expenditure can be justified inside the Constitution?
They are immense. Not only do you have the "eggs" among more than one basket, you can electromagnetically launch kinetic weapons from the moon to earth with impunity and smoke anything trying to get there. You could probably completely dispense with the land and air legs of the nuclear triad in exchange for a moon based deterrent platform.
I don't even think he needs to privatize it, I think commercial interests, by 2010, will be launching people into space on their own (unless the government tries to regulate space travel, which wouldn't suprise me). I read that 2015 will be the earliest we have people on the moon, so who knows. I think some didn't read Bush's speech and think he's going to have people on the moon by the time he's out of office.
As far as faster than light, well, not quite as fast, but NASA, both in the past, and even recently, has looked at some kind of nuclear propulsion (I'm not a physics/nuclear engineering guy, but maybe somebody else can explain). The enviro-whackos will do everything they can to stop that though, and so that engine branch is going nowhere.
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