Posted on 03/06/2006 4:19:31 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
I'll be waiting for the pictures and videos.
I think we should have been there again by now.
NASA is shifting back to exploration and out of the mind-set of searching for life.
When you explore you'll find what's there. Exploration enables science.
Bush's Vision for Space Exploration is beginning.
It took a lot to turn the ship around and head it in the right direction.
Until the next administration gets in office.
Then the funding is either scaled back (or cut altogether) to show they are more fiscally responsible than the last resulting in billions being spent on a pipe dream. Unfortunately, a lot of science will lost due to funding cuts in other areas to promote this boondoggle.
Until the American public is behind this all the way, it is a multi-billion dollar waste of money.
The latest interplanetary mission costs less than a single Shuttle launch.
It cost more to move man in space than it does a machine but it's more than money.
It's nice to see pictures of little rovers tooling around on some other planet but it's the drive to put "man" there that makes us who we are. The need to reach out and really touch another planet.
That's a mission I'll be tracking as much as I can 24/7.
Yea. Sink it right to the bottom.
I've been in the "space biz" for 28 years now. I even worked on the Space Station and Space Shuttle. In my 28 years, I have heard this or variations of this, since they let Skylab burn in.
When you explore you'll find what's there. Exploration enables science.
Robotics mission give a much bigger bang for the buck. You can explore places no human can get to in our lifetimes.
Then do it right. Not step back 30 years. Unfortunately funding nuclear, hypersonic craft, SSTO, and other truly advanced methods of getting off this ball gets cut every time some congress critter yells pork. This will be no different.
It's nice to see pictures of little rovers tooling around on some other planet but it's the drive to put "man" there that makes us who we are. The need to reach out and really touch another planet.
Much more science than pretty pictures result from our interpanetary probes and rovers. I would love to see us in space, however, after 28 years of watching program after program (billions upon billions of dollars) get cut, reality sets in.
It's the manned flight people who embrace robotics and encourge melding the two.
Too bad it's always so one-sided.
Other countries see the value of conquering the Moon and are on the march.
The U.S. is just in the pack and they better stay the course.
And I understand you've been in the business for years. A lot of people have and their opinions differ from yours.
Flapdoodle. The average "Joe" out there could care less IMHO.
It's a large part of the science community that doesn't want their piece of the pie redirected to actually moving off planet.
Not true. Most of the guys I work with love space exploration.
I'm sure you've seen all the whining articles and protests about the "slashing and cutting" of their missions. It's hysteria about THEIR work, not concern for space exploration.
Since I am in the middle of this, I can and do disagree from personal experience.
People like going with humans. No matter how much NASA has packaged and advertised robots, they just don't get the ticker-tape parades and ratings.
Actually, people at the moment don't care.
But then a lot of scientists don't want people in space, all they want is to send probes and be funded for the rest of their working lives.
You slander an entire community and my colleagues. Not a single one I work with falls into your category.
"Resource-rich lunar south pole is seen as perfect area to explore"
Even if the surface were littered with cut diamonds, I doubt that it would be cost effective to obtain "resources" from the moon.
It's not an either/or problem. The amount of money we spend on robotic probes is small compared the the uncertainty in the manned space budget.
If it were an either/or problem, I'd get rid of the manned program, because it has produced so little of value, whereas the returns of the robotic missions have been huge. Even as public entertainment, the robots hold their own against the astronauts. For every poster of the ISS hanging on somebody's wall, there are probably ten from Voyager and a hundred from Hubble.
But here's the kicker: I don't make a dime from any of that. Go figure.
NASA, astronomers, and the establishment of research priorities
***........Moving forward, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate needs to develop a mechanism to integrate the agency’s mission priorities with the community’s science priorities. NASA and the science community have come to depend on one another. The agency cannot return to an Apollo-like posture where the science priorities are driven almost entirely by the needs of the space flight program. On the other hand, the scientific community must realize that a healthy, vibrant exploration program is incomplete without a viable human spaceflight capability. By working together, NASA and the community should be able to maintain the remarkable success of the past decade while successfully implementing a new program of exploration.***
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/572/1
Man, this should have happened 30 years ago! I hope this program goes through, and then, on to Mars! Theres a whole Universe out there... billions of galaxies, with hundreds of billions of stars in them!
The idea is to learn to live off planet and use the resource in space. A lot of technology will evolve and a lot of scientific discoveries will come with this exploration.
Robotic probes are great but moving into space involves people in space.
By building capability on the Moon it can finally happen.
"Administrator Griffin chose to disband NASA’s advisory committees until he could rework how they functioned. Historically, the advisory committees have been the venue in which the agency’s top-down priorities and the community’s bottom-up priorities have been brought together. NASA has reestablished the NASA Advisory Council, but without its previous scientific subcommittees are in place. Without these committees, it is unclear how or whether the scientific community is able to have input into NASA’s decision-making process when decisions need to be made on a short timescale."
Exploration is one thing. Strategy is another. We need to take the highground - the area of the moon with water - before the Chinese do. The nation who owns this spot will eventually own the Solar system.
We should send in the robotic base-builders now.
Believe me the scientific community has a lot of input, in fact they think they should have all the input.
It would seem, Administrator Griffin is working to get some balance inorder to hear everyone's concerns.
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