Posted on 09/20/2005 2:35:00 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
After a decade of waiting, young space enthusiasts across the country are celebrating a new plan that will take them and their colleagues to the Moon and on to Mars.
"I have been waiting a long time for NASA to go beyond low Earth orbit!" said 26-year-old aerospace engineer Alicia Evans, "If they need volunteers, I am there."
The new plan is set to fit within the current NASA budget, a major change from space exploration programs of the past. Loretta Hidalgo, 31-year-old president of the Space Generation Foundation, says, "What it will give us is more bang for our space buck."
NASA has also built the next generation of space entrepreneurs into the plan, showing an unprecedented level of support for new space players like 30-something Elon Musk. (Musk founded and sold the popular internet payment site PayPal before beginning his latest venture, launch company Space Exploration Technologies). The new plan will provide contracting opportunities to stimulate a healthy entrepreneurial space sector in low Earth orbit while NASA focuses on the next frontier.
The Next Gen spacers see the new Moon missions as a giant leap forward from Apollo. The lunar crews will be able to stay for seven days instead of just three, while benefiting from 40 years of advances in materials science and computing. They will able to land anywhere on the Moon -- including the polar craters, thought to be a possible hiding place for water. There's even a plan for a lunar outpost in the works, capable of stays measured in months, not days.
The overall goal is to pave the way for outposts and human missions in a sustainable way so that the exploration will continue indefinitely. This is important to a generation who grew up seeing the Earth as a fragile blue marble, and who have felt the disappointment of space programs being cancelled just as they were reading about them in their copies of Ranger Rick.
The plan is designed with future Mars missions in mind. The launch vehicle, the number of crew the CEV can carry and even the type of fuel the Lunar Ascent Vehicle uses are all consistent with what is needed for the next step in exploration: sending humans on to Mars. That is the opportunity many of the next generation have been waiting for their whole lives.
"We now have an opportunity for our generation to make our mark on human history," said George Whitesides, Executive Director of the National Space Society, age 31. "Our parents and grandparents took us to the Moon the first time. Now it's time for us to go back to the Moon to stay, and then head straight for Mars."
NASA Administrator Mike Griffin said that science will dictate where to land and what to do while we are there. "Now is the time to be in school for a science degree," added Evans, "because it will be our generation out there exploring the Moon." With the first missions to the lunar surface set to begin in 2018, it won't just be Shuttle-era astronauts getting moon dust on their boots. The under-40 engineers now working on tough science questions will be the core of the NASA workforce in 13 years. This means jobs as mission controllers, vehicle support specialists, and, yes, lunar and martian astronauts.
As John F. Kennedy said 43 years ago, it will not be easy to go to the moon, but the goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills. Generation X-plorers are chomping at the bit to test themselves against the challenge of their lives. Ad Astra!
No one's stopping him.
Have him bring some ideas and investment to the table and NASA will listen.
Sorry to be dense. That's not my point. I have 15 years experience in manned space flight development (shuttle). The bureaucrats will make a jobs program out of what should be a technical project. The gov should offer prizes and let the private sector do the rest. Having government employee astronauts and engineers is a waste.
We're never going to get the materials and equipment to the moon required to colonize and industrialize it until we can get stuff out of our gravity well in a cost effective manner. I guess I was a bit harsh when I said that a trip back to the Moon was pointless - it isn't. But it is really nothing more than a big publicity stunt that might get a real space program going again - which is a good thing. I guess my sights are set just a tad higher than landing a man on Mars. I'm thinking on the scale of Dyson Spheres, Von Neumann probes, etc.
The guy built a fancy plane that barely kissed what is technically defined as "space". He's never achieved orbit, which is an order of magnitude more difficult, and you're ready to say he can make it to Mars? I'm not arguing that NASA is efficient or anything, but they actually have a proven track record beyond Rutan's solitary stunt.
That being said, I do want private enterprise heavily involved in our space exploration. I'm just have not seen enough evidence to tell me that Rutan can even achieve orbit, let alone lead us to Mars.
Do we get to pick the ones that go to the moon?
Spiff, Excuse me for asking, but how much experience do you have in manned spaceflight or aerospace? Me I was in for 15 years - for calibration. I have seen personally what gold plated requirements do to program cost and schedule. Yeah, its early days for Rutan. He also has a proven track record of getting a lot done for minimal money. We need much more like that and a lot less like what I saw when I worked on NASA and DOD spaceflight/satellite programs.
Your fifteen years of experience should have told you what I told you. Rutan got a fancy plane to kiss the technical boundary of space for a moment - twice. Yes, we need much more of the Rutan-type effort and thinking, but until he achieves orbit he's got as much chance as anyone else in making it to Mars. We're talking about orders of magnitude more complex and difficult than what he's done so far. Could he do it? It is within the realm of possibility. Do I think he will do it. No. Check back with me in 20 years and we'll settle up.
So lets see here Spiff, I should take the advice of the guy with no experience over what I saw with my own eyes just because its coming from you? Right.
"The arching sky is calling
Spacemen back to their trade.
ALL HANDS! STAND BY! FREE FALLING!
And the lights below us fade.
Out ride the sons of Terra,
Far drives the thundering jet,
Up leaps a race of Earthmen,
Out, far, and onward yet"
From the poem "The Green Hills of Earth"
-Robert A. Heinlein
I'm not defending NASA and their gold-plated programs. Their bureaucracy and fat budgets have stifled space exploration for decades. I'm not even talking about NASA, I'm talking about Rutan and your claim that he could get to Mars at a 10th of NASA's cost. I just don't think he can even get to Mars. I'm not convinced that Rutan can even achieve orbit, let alone achieve interplanetary travel. Look at the evidence objectively.
I like Rutan, I like what he's been able to do, but face facts. He's only taken a tiny microscopic step compared to launching a manned mission to Mars. Everybody is hanging their hats on Rutan like he's going to single-handedly finally launch human civilization into regular space travel. Given the evidence and the odds, I'm quite skeptical. Rutan got SpaceShipOne to go 1,890 mph to an altitude of 71.5 miles above the earth's surface. To achieve orbit he will have to escape earth's gravity and get a ship to go 17,480 miles per hour and achieve an altitude of at least 310 miles. To just get to the Moon, he'll have to go much faster and get his ship 238,606 miles and back. To go to Mars he'll have to go even faster and get his ship to go from 36 million to 250 million miles and back. Yet, because he built a fancy plane that barely touched the technical boundary of space for a moment on two occasions, you're ready to say that Rutan is going to lead us to Mars. I'm sorry if I just don't see it.
"you're ready to say that Rutan is going to lead us to Mars. I'm sorry if I just don't see it."
I agree with this. And all I can pony up as my expertise is my Private Pilot license for whats thats worth. And a lifetime of passion for aerospace.
I am an X-Prize member. I strongly support Rutan and his endeavours. But no way is he going to be competing with what NASA can do in the same time frame.
Im tired of NASA getting beat up for decisions made 30 years ago. Its time for people to move on from that.
Another generation is going to make the dream happen again and then go beyond it.
There is room enough for different kinds of goals by different people.
Civilian/private industry human spaceflight is a goal different from NASA Moon/Mars.
I support both goals strongly.
Spiff, the guys who got us into space at NASA are pretty much retired now. The ones who are left are the managers and bureaucrats. Yeah, there's lots of folks on the payroll with engineering degrees. Its just that they don't make the decisions. The management has been doing it wrong for so long that they have forgotten what right looks like. I have looked the the evidence - Rutan and his team have come up the learning curve at a rapid pace. Please note their success in other areas of fight. OTOH NASA doesn't seem to be able to do much in manned space flight, the science missions do seem to perk along, but they cost way too much.
NASA has orbited and constructed a Space Station and it has been crewed non-stop. We may live in an age where we never know a time when there is not a human presence in space again.
That is no small accomplishment. To say that they have "not done much" does not make sense at all. Who has done more?
And bear it mind that Rutan can use all of the research and data from NASA that cost blood and money to get for free.
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I want to be the first historian on the Moon. Seriously, it would be a good idea to have a few non-scientists on the trip and in the proposed moonbase.
That's a pic of me just as I vaporized a liberal.
It never was. With all my years in NASA, I never once saw Carl in charge.
And yes I knew Carl and even was on one of the same shows (about radio astronomy) with him on the Discovery Channel.
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