NASA to offer $100 billion moon program

Reuters ^ | September 18, 2005

[RWR8189]

With the shuttle fleet grounded and the International Space Station staffed by a skeleton crew, NASA is set to unveil plans on Monday to take people and cargo to the moon.

Even before the official announcement, there is criticism from Capitol Hill over the reported $100 billion cost of the lunar program, given U.S. government commitments to the Iraq war and the recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

"This plan is coming out at a time when the nation is facing significant budgetary challenges," Rep. Bart Gordon, a Tennessee Democrat on the House Science Committee, said in a statement. "Getting agreement to move forward on it is going to be heavy lifting in the current environment, and it's clear that strong presidential leadership will be needed."

To get astronauts back to the moon for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, one team of designers envisioned an Apollo-style capsule sitting atop rockets fashioned from shuttle components, including the shuttle's massive external tank and solid rocket boosters. There would be a separate space vehicle to carry only cargo.

The Space.com Web site reported that this scenario was presented to White House officials last week before its formal unveiling to the public on Monday. The new $100 billion lunar program would begin in 2018 by landing four people on the moon for a seven-day stay, Space.com reported.

NASA officials could not be reached for comment on Sunday.

President's vision for space
President George W. Bush's plan to send Americans back to the moon by 2020 and eventually on to Mars has drawn skepticism since its unveiling in January 2004, less than a year after the Feb. 1, 2003, shuttle Columbia disaster.

Bush's Vision for Space Exploration called for the development of a system to replace the aging shuttles, a goal that appears even more important given problems with the shuttle fleet's return to flight.

The same problems with falling debris that doomed Columbia recurred in July with the launch of Discovery, prompting the grounding of the shuttle fleet even as Discovery continued to fly its mission. A September shuttle mission was delayed until November and then to March.

Some $1.1 billion damage by Hurricane Katrina to NASA facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi could push the launch date back further still.

Bush's plan also mandated the completion of the International Space Station, but without shuttles to do the heavy lifting, that process has been on hold. A pair of Russian vehicles--the space taxi Soyuz and the space delivery van Progress--have been ferrying people and material.

Since the fatal Columbia disaster, only two-person crews, rather than the normal three-person crews, have stayed aboard the station.

With the shuttles slated for retirement in 2010, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has estimated that the number of construction flights to the station could be pared from its earlier estimate of 28 to 15.

[Westlander]

Correct! They can have Nagin & Blanko for the tests.

[gathersnomoss]

I can hear the printing presses from here in Richmond. I thinks we should all invest in trees.

[Names Ash Housewares]

"We'll probably spend close to that on NASA over the next decade or so anyway.
Might as well get back to the moon with that money rather than putzing around in low earth orbit with 20-year old shuttles."


Exactly. NASA is not that big a part of the federal budget as the graph shows. Its not like NASA was going to just go away. Its a big part of who we are as nation. We are nation of explorers. Each one of us is here because someone before looked to the horizon and wondered what if. They did this at cost and risk. We owe those after us the same step up we inherited. Besides if we do not do it. Somone else will.

[Alter Kaker]

It is more than science.

That sentence is inaccurate, because it implies that it is at least partially about science, which it isn't. There is no scientific purpose served by putting astronauts on the Moon. None at all.

Do you want to look up at lights on the moon and know they are Chinese? Or Russian? Or European?

As an Israeli, I really don't care. If Americans and Russians want to waste their money on the moon, you guys can be my guest. It is, I cannot overemphasize, a complete and utter waste of resources.

I hear the same arguments about the F-22 raptor.

If I were an American military planner, I'd seriously question the F-22 program from a cost-benefit perspective, but at least it serves a purpose. Putting a man on the moon serves no purpose.

[Brett66]

"This (medicare drug)plan is coming out at a time when the nation is facing significant budgetary challenges," Rep. Bart Gordon, a Tennessee Democrat on the House Science Committee, said in a statement.

Hey I can dream can't I?

[Coyoteman]

Putting a man on the moon serves no purpose.

Have to disagree with you on that one. It was one of our finest moments.

Just wish we could do it again.

[gathersnomoss]

..."and fewer consumables than men"...

Oh really? Well then why can't I keep a razor blade for over a week anymore? And I don't recall using a Tampon lately.

[Alter Kaker]

Have to disagree with you on that one. It was one of our finest moments. Just wish we could do it again.

Oh it was a great engineering accomplishment. But what purpose would it serve to do it again? Show that America is just as technologically capable as it was in 1969? That's not a particularly good sounding reason to spend a few hundred billion taxpayer dollars.

[RightWhale]

I can hear the printing presses from here

No kidding. Those turbo boosters make quite a racket.

[Coyoteman]

Oh it was a great engineering accomplishment. But what purpose would it serve to do it again? Show that America is just as technologically capable as it was in 1969? That's not a particularly good sounding reason to spend a few hundred billion taxpayer dollars.

You're right. The 1969 program was a stunt. A great stunt, but it built no infrastructure.

A new program would only be useful if it opened a path, like the western movement in the US. Another stunt like 1969 would be the end of this country, but a serious step-at-a-time build and maintain the infrastructure approach would be worth doing. It would lead somewhere!

(Where do I sign up?)

[Names Ash Housewares]

"That's not a particularly good sounding reason to spend a few hundred billion taxpayer dollars."

I am a private pilot. I enjoy a privilage that for the vast existance of humanity simply did not exist nor was even thought to be possible. And only 100 years ago. A blink of an eye. In that blink of an eye we went from the Wright brothers to moon walking. We are preparing for our next more confident baby steps. To return to the moon.

I could point to dozens of web pages about the benefits of space exploration, technologies developed and of lives saved because of it, but you can easily find them yourself on google.

Im going to tell you what I think instead, and some comments from others that speak a little more to the heart that I find ring true.

One of my most convincing arguments for space exploration is the analogy that Earth itself is a spacecraft. Everything we learn about how to function and live in space applies directly to our spacehip Earth. How to recycle air, water, how to generate and use power efficiently, how to grow food in closed ecosystems. All of it is important. All of this can benefit mankind in a world with a fast growing population. Understanding other worlds is how we understand OUR world better, to understand how it formed and where it is going. Its our only home for now.

"We must not cease from exploration, and at the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began, and to know it for the first time." T.S. Eliot

Astronaut Story Musgrave thoughts on the matter..................... "Why Space, Why Explore?

We have no choice, Sir. It is the Nature of Humanity, it is the Nature of Life

The Globe was created and Life Evolved, and you look at every single cubic millimeter on this Earth, You can go 30,000 feet down below the Earth surface, You can go 40,000 feet up in the air and Life is There. When you look at the globe down there, you see Teeming Life Everywhere

It is the Power of Life, And maybe I am not just a Human up here, you know. Now Life is Leaping off the Planet. It is heading to other parts of the Solar System, other parts of the Universe

There are those kinds of Pressures. It isn't simply politics, it is not simply technology, it is really not just the essence of humanity, but it is sort of also, you could look at it as maybe the Essence of Life. I think Teilhard de Chardin, in Phenomenon of Man, I believe he put that incredibly well. So those kind of Forces are at Work. It is the nature of humans to be exploratory and to Push On

Yes, it costs resources and it does cost a lot, and there is a risk, there is a penalty, there is a down side, but Exploration and Pioneering, I think those are the critical things, it is the Essence of what Human Beings are, and that is to try to understand their Universe and to try to participate in the entire Universe and not just their little Neighborhood" -Story Musgrave

President Bush at the Columbia memorial at JSC................

"The cause of exploration and discovery is not an option we choose, It is a desire written in the human heart."

And at the announcement of new American space policy...........

"Mankind is drawn to the heavens for the same reason we were once drawn into unknown lands and across the open sea. We choose to explore space because doing so improves our lives, and lifts our national spirit."

WE are all here today because people before us wondered what was beyond the next hill or beyond the horizon. They did this on ships that they new might not return and on imperfect wings.

We OWE those unborn the same advancements we inherited. It does not cost that much, and what it returns is priceless.

[Coyoteman]

Great post and poster!

[Names Ash Housewares]

Thanks. People forget sometimes the wonder of it all. And perhaps the greatest wonder is our insatiable desire to know and explore.

[Alter Kaker]

A new program would only be useful if it opened a path, like the western movement in the US.

To what ends? Settlement of the Western United States had practical purposes -- farming, trading, mining -- what possible purpose does institutionalizing moon landings serve other than being a good way to burn through trillions of dollars, quick?

[Coyoteman]

A new program would only be useful if it opened a path, like the western movement in the US.

=====

To what ends? Settlement of the Western United States had practical purposes -- farming, trading, mining -- what possible purpose does institutionalizing moon landings serve other than being a good way to burn through trillions of dollars, quick?

That's what I had in mind, "practical purposes -- farming, trading, mining" and at some point it will be a one-way trip--colonists, just like the Western United States.

This is the infrastructure I think we need to develop.

Sightseeing trips and honeymoons (pardon the pun) will not be far behind!

This is where humans are headed. I'd hate to have the Chinese selling the tickets.

[Alter Kaker]

I could point to dozens of web pages about the benefits of space exploration, technologies developed and of lives saved because of it, but you can easily find them yourself on google.

Well Tang and TempurePedic matresses are great and all, but you still can't show me a demonstrable benefit, public or private, from a manned moon or Mars landing.

Understanding other worlds is how we understand OUR world better, to understand how it formed and where it is going.

I agree completely. That's one of the reasons why it is essential to send robotic probes to understand other bodies in the solar system. What makes no sense, however, is for NASA to divert funds from planetary research -- as it is currently doing -- to send some clown back to play golf on the moon. There is lots of science to be done in the solar system, it's truly a shame that your government is more interested in relanding men on the moon.

The rest of your post seems more about creating some sort of philosophical necessity to spending incomprehensible sums on manned moon landings and whatnot. I think the reason you have to resort to flowery language is because you're short on actual tangible benefits -- to the public interest, to the private interest, to science, to anybody.

[montag813]

Unless this mission is to load up 1,000's of container ships with Helium-3 to trasport back to earth, it is a complete waste of money and effort.

[Alter Kaker]

That's what I had in mind, "practical purposes -- farming, trading, mining"

So you spend $10 billion per potato grown on the moon. What, precisely, is the benefit? Is the United States short of arable land?

This is the infrastructure I think we need to develop.

That's not infrastructure, that's turning the moon into Oregon, which simultaneously manages to be technically elusive and practically pointless.

[ace2u_in_MD]

Don't forget, that the NASA proposal is the plan that the President requested almost 2 years ago. There have been 2 or 3 high level reviews so far, with the lifting body design being rejected for an Apollo type crew capsule.

The first stepping stones are already in the design and implementation phases, starting with the robotic missions to map and survey the surface of the moon.

[M203M4]

As with Canada, the most sickening thing I see with the spending breakdown is the cost of servicing the debt. To think of how many times over both countries have paid back the principle...ugh.