I'm not saying space tourism won't happen--I hope it does; but I don't see it happening in 5-10 years. The cost to going to the moon will be prohibitive.--Look what happened to Pan Am!
Posted on 04/10/2009 5:00:24 PM PDT by zaphod3000
The U.S. and major foreign partners on the International Space Station have agreed in principle to keep it operating through 2020, at least five years beyond the current deadline, according to government and industry officials.
There had been looming questions about the future of the space station -- which took nearly two decades and more than $100 billion to design and build -- because until now, the major partners hadn't committed to keeping it going past 2015. An extension could give new momentum to the scientific research conducted there, which initially was delayed by false starts and problems finishing assembly of the station.
But prolonging the facility's life, particularly in the midst of the current global economic turmoil, could also force some tough question within the U.S. space program. Washington could have to spend $10 billion or more between 2015 and 2020 to continue using the space station -- potentially siphoning dollars from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's annual budget of more than $18 billion, primarily from projects intended to return U.S. astronauts to the moon by 2020.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Once private firms can charge people $5,000 to see space, you won’t need to worry about it anymore. Soon they’ll be charging people $10,000 to stay a week in space. Give them 5-10 years and for $20,000 people will have a week on the moon.
All it takes it entreprenuers to do the job that government is too foolish to do.
I kinda agree, but the space station has given us a lot of insight into low earth orbit construction, which I’m sure will be vital to any serious mars mission. I suppose you have to look at the last half of the shuttle program as a prolonged modern day Gemini program.
You do not think people living continuously in space for 10 years is a feat worth doing?
....Bob
I'm not saying space tourism won't happen--I hope it does; but I don't see it happening in 5-10 years. The cost to going to the moon will be prohibitive.--Look what happened to Pan Am!
Pan Am went bankrupt because they built that shuttle for a hundred people, but flew to earth orbit with only one passenger.
My gripe is that the ISS will continue to overwhelm any other NASA program. As the article states, extending the ISS will draw funds away from the manned Moon/Mars missions as well as the unmanned program. To me, circling the Earth every 90 minutes isn’t that exciting. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge space buff (I have about 50 books on the subject and as a kid woke up in the middle of the night to see the moonwalks).
I am afraid that the lack of visible exploration by man (to go where no man has gone before!) will doom the space program as a whole, and will make it easier to cancel completely.
“Personally, I would have killed the Space Station following the Challenger accident, and placed the savings into the return to the moon and on to Mars.”
...but do you really think that the same Congress that would have killed the Station would give a rat’s boutruss about going to the Moon and Mars?
In other words, the money would have simply gone into Section 8 (see Google).
Not since the close of Apollo has NASA had a goal, and the lack of direction shows. The shuttle was a waste, the ISS was a waste, all the other programs that never went anywhere before being canceled early *cough, Venture Star* were also a waste.
For $100 billion, the thing better last a century.
“give new momentum to the scientific research conducted there”
I kinda missed that - any new drugs? zillion watt batteries for cars? ANYTHING?
(crickets)
Ya, wudda waste of dough. COuld have been back to the moon by now...maybe a small baase even. At least the tolet would flush.....
It should have been killed when it stopped being Space Station Freedom.
As for uses for the money, I'd have told the NASA geeks to do something cool and left it at that.
Really, I know what you mean by Section 8 . . . I just kept thinking of Cpl. Klinger in MASH.
Setting a goal of missions to the Moon and Mars would have (hopefully) re-caught the imagination of the public. Unfortunatly, with all the distractions of contemporary society, I don't think that will happen (unless they turn the space program into a reality show).
Of course, with creeps like Barney Frank in Congress, the one and only space exploration they’d vote to fund is a mission to Uranus.
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