Posted on 03/10/2005 12:18:15 PM PST by ambrose
Posted on Mon, Feb. 21, 2005
• On the Web | NASA: The Vision for Space Exploration
NASA rushes plan to send humans to moon, Mars, despite doubts
By ROBERT S. BOYD
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - NASA is racing to carry out President Bush's costly vision of sending humans back to the moon and then on to Mars - despite the federal budget squeeze and doubts in Congress and the scientific community about the plan's wisdom.
Even some of the project's allies are balking at its price tag and headlong pace.
NASA is "trying to do too much at once," said Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Science Committee, a strong supporter of the space agency. He protested that NASA is "barreling ahead" even though Congress "has never endorsed - in fact, never even discussed - the vision."
"I think NASA is headed for a potential train wreck," warned Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., the committee's senior Democrat, who worried that the Moon-Mars plan is gobbling up funds for other scientific ventures.
Even some space agency officials are expressing concern. The cost and complexities of the Moon-Mars project make this "a time for sobering up," Michael Meyer, NASA's lead scientist for Mars exploration, told a committee of the National Academy of Sciences earlier this month.
It's been a little over a year since Bush announced "The President's Vision for U.S. Space Exploration," but the space agency has already awarded 118 preliminary contracts for the project. It's requesting fresh ideas from industry and universities in order to launch a large new spaceship, called the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), three years from now.
The $15 billion CEV is supposed to take over from today's aging fleet of space shuttles and carry astronauts "to the moon, Mars and beyond," as NASA officials like to say.
By this summer, two aerospace teams will be chosen to construct competing prototypes of the CEV. A final version will by chosen by the end of 2006, and the first unmanned flight is scheduled for 2008.
"To meet the president's timeline, we need to start technology development now," said Craig Steidle, a retired admiral who heads the agency's Exploration Systems Directorate. "There is urgency in the president's agenda."
The administration has asked Congress for $3.2 billion for the second year of the Moon-Mars project. That's a 23 percent increase from its first-year kitty of $2.6 billion. Bush wants total NASA spending to grow just 2 percent to $16.5 billion for the 2006 fiscal year, so other NASA programs are getting cut.
The project enjoys a White House promise of increasing funds, totaling $20.3 billion over the next five years (through fiscal year 2010). Outlays surge thereafter, and NASA estimates that it will spend $100 billion on the project through 2020.
"This is an absolute priority on the part of the president," White House Budget Director Joshua Bolten told congressional budgeteers last year. The project also enjoys the powerful support of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, whose Houston district houses NASA's Johnson Space Flight Center.
Meanwhile, scientists worry about the impact of the huge enterprise on other endeavors, such as astronomy, physics and climate change.
The exploration project has already doomed plans to prolong the life of the successful Hubble Space Telescope. A mission to detect Earth-like planets around other stars has been postponed for two years, until 2012.
Some space science missions have been delayed indefinitely, such as one to explore Jupiter's moon, Europa, which might support life beneath its icy surface, and another to study the mysterious "dark energy," a sort of anti-gravity, which is forcing the universe to expand.
The National Academy of Sciences has called dark energy the most important question in physics and astronomy today. The Europa mission was the top priority of the astronomical community's 10-year plan adopted in 2001.
A panel of academy experts, headed by Yale University astronomer Megan Urry, sent a letter to NASA, dated Feb. 14, stating that "the long-term impact (of the Moon-Mars project) on astronomy and astrophysics is not entirely clear, but short-term changes are already having an effect, and there are community concerns that serious problems lie ahead."
In an analysis of Bush's science budget, the American Association for the Advancement of Science said the president's vision will "require steep cuts in aeronautics and earth science funding and the cancellation of a proposed Hubble servicing mission to pay for NASA's ambitious space exploration plans."
"The goal of sending humans to Mars needs more definition," Meyer, NASA's Mars scientist, told the National Academy committee. "What are humans going to do on Mars? We have to protect Mars. Do we want to send astronauts with all their dead skin cells and bacteria? We don't want to contaminate the planet and replace possible extant life."
The idea of ensuring survival of earthlife by going into space is a side benefit. The main idea is to develop an economy in space to supplement the earthside economy. It will be difficult to survive in space, not to mention thriving.
Here's my proposal:
Meanwhile, scientists worry about the impact of the huge enterprise on other endeavors, such as astronomy, physics and climate change.
Personally, I think the 'enterprise' will be very good for all those things.
Who knows, somewhere down the line it could even save the whales!
> we'll all be dead and gone by the time anything like that happens
Not at all certain. Around Christmas there was an asteroid on the scopes that looked likely to hit in 2028; I plan on being alive then. As it turns out that asteroid is going to miss us, but that doesn't mean we won't get smacked tomorrow.
Plus there's the ever-entertaining notion of an extra-smart Al Queda type genetically modifiying AIDS into an airborne strain, or making an improved ebola, springing a souped-up smallpox on us, etc.
A crash program could have Martian colonies (admittedly crappy ones) running in less than ten years.
but the point stands... it doesn't matter if WE benefit. it is enough that it will benefit future generations. Imagine if the Emperor who set out to build the Great Wall of China figured "why bother, I'll be dead by the time it is completed"?
I'm actually bothered more by the prospect of Art Bell losing his nutball fan base. Which is to say, not at all.
How does domination by Islamists or Communists grab you?
Ditto. If that happens, it won't be because we didn't put a man on Mars.
How about losing out on the most lucrative markets since the invention of markets?
Ah, now you're talking. Private investors can pursue those markets to their hearts' content. Burt Rutan is the man!
No. Too much time in reality.
One can never spend too much time in Reality.
> it is enough that it will benefit future generations.
Sadly, too few people grasp that. The same econuts who scream about the tiny amonut of plutonium on Cassini don't seem to realize that successful planetary colonization means that every form of life we take with us an establish will be basically made immortal.
Once we start farming the Kuiper Belt, damn near nothing short of the galaxy exploding will threaten humanity.
Ahead, warp factor seven! To infinity and beyond!
> Private investors can pursue those markets to their hearts' content.
Like they do in defense, yes?
> If that happens, it won't be because we didn't put a man on Mars.
If we put a man on Mars, and can keep thim there and prosperous... domination by other will NEVER happen. He who controls the high ground controls the battle.
Like they do in defense, yes?
Absolutely. Private investors have made a killing in defense. I've personally done very well since 9/11.
(Two can play your game.)
1. Environmentally unfriendly (as if it mattered)
2. Not efficient enough
3. Need to cool off the atmosphere first.
Next question ?
I was thining that painting the planet white, might not help since tha atmosphere is so think so before painting, one woould have to build huge storage tanks to pump the atmosphere into so that the suns rays could bounce off the white paint. I don't think it is possible to do something unfriendly to the environment on Venus. My reading suggests that Venus is pretty unfriendly right now.
This might take a few thousand years and the end result might just be a tad different from his armchair predictions. Cheap and easy though.
When hearing about discussions on terraforming Venus, I hear of these centuries-long schemes with enourmous economic resources and tremendous amounts of energy involved. I wonder if simply moving the planet to another orbit, perhaps midway between Earth and Mars might actually be easier. All of the technical hurdles would be no greater than the other schemes I've heard.
If a space elevator is possible, then building a tower that extends 200-300 km above the surface of Venus would be no problem, then it's simply a matter of in-sutu propellant production. We could build a large nuclear reactor at the top of the tower, it would pump large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere and perhaps cool and condense it to a liquid and then be injected into the nuclear core to provide thrust into space.
Simply time the the thrust from the nuclear thermal rocket at the right point of the planet's rotation and slowly-but-surely the orbit would expand and the planet would move to a more distant orbit. In less than 30-40 years perhaps, such a thing could be accomplished, much better than the centuries or millenium-long projects so far proposed and it would be in a more convenient orbit for access to Earth.
We could even push into a Lagarange orbit that's outside Earth's orbit but within 10 million miles of Earth.
When we get to the point technologically to start Terraforming planets, then such planetary engineering would be a simple matter for a civilization that has the technology and resources to expend on such a project.
I say we ignite Jupiter then we can vacation on Titan.
Opps, Titan belongs to Saturn OK ignite Saturn, might have to push Jupiter into Saturn first. Man the environmental wackos will have a **** fit. What fun.
Ooooooo
A luddite science reporter! They're special!
Oh, wait, he's only opposed to REPUBLICAN science or anything that might actually rebound to the benefit of the United States.
The goal ? TERRAFORM IT. The life there will just have to adapt to changing conditions, like all life must in the universe.
Today's environmentalists will be the Preservationists of Mars tomorrow. Why? They hate humans and themselves.
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