Posted on 09/18/2005 4:50:22 PM PDT by 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.
We already did it once in less than 10 years, why will it take 15 years this time?
Precicely So.
Contrary to Those who believe that we should "KowTow" to economic considerations, or await the Next "Fanciful Technological Breakthroughs," I (& a few others of us) believe that we should "GO FOR IT!!"
We HAVE the "Technology!"
& you Know What??--if "W" Lands a Viable Base on the Moon; the Legacy of his Presidency will be Forever established.
WHATEVER we face over the next few decades, our effort to explore Space will be the Criterion by which our Culture is judged!
We should Go to the Moon NOW,set up a viable Base, & THEN worry about re-supply. ( ALL of This has LONG been established!)
I'm ASKING for "W" to "PULL the Trigger, NOW!!"
I CANNOT IMAGINE a BETTER TIME in our Nation's History for us to take such action!
We NEED a "BOOST!"-- LET's GO To the Moon--NOW!!
Doc
No, because there's as of yet no purpose served on earth by Helium 3. Moreover, even if there turns out to be one, NASA would have to establish
(1) that mining it on the moon is even remotely cost-effective viz. production on earth
(2) that the need justifies that cost and
(3) that manned mining on the moon is cost effective viz. robotic mining.
At the present time, there is no benefit whatsoever to sending a man to the moon, and rather horrific costs.
"incomprehensible sums"
Oh please. that is way over the top. Go back and look at the federal budget graph I posted. IT is not incomprehensible at all what NASA spends. It is waaaaaaaay down on that list.
You may consider the words flowery. But our constitution is flowery as well. Fundemental truths have a way of expressing themselves that way.
Ask yourself where would be without exploration.
Probably exinct.
So you spend $10 billion per potato grown on the moon. What, precisely, is the benefit? Is the United States short of arable land?
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It feeds the people living on the moon! And the cost is not $10 billion per potato. Almost all of that cost is in transport, which needs to be lowered drastically.
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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.
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Not to the people living on the moon! They would be glad for Oregon. What they'll probably have is Carlesbad Caverns with grow lights and a pretty unforgiving surface above (worse than New Mexico in August).
But what they will have is a start. That's what pioneers do. And some of them even live to tell about it.
Where is your pioneering spirit?
"I CANNOT IMAGINE a BETTER TIME in our Nation's History for us to take such action!"
It is well over due.
Great risks bring great rewards.
These endevours inspire our youth like nothing else can.
You also have the technology to stick the entire population of St. Louis in a plexiglass bubble in the Marianas trench on the bottom of the Pacfic Ocean. Why not do that? It would probably be cheaper, and you could probably conduct some interesting psychological studies.
If the purpose of landing men on the moon is agriculture, and the purpose of agriculture on the moon is landing men, it sounds you've got yourself one hell of a circular argument.
Not to the people living on the moon!
Well, there aren't people living on the moon. Nor have you presented one argument concerning why there should be.
They would be glad for Oregon. What they'll probably have is Carlesbad Caverns with grow lights and a pretty unforgiving surface above (worse than New Mexico in August).
So forgive me, why should anyone spend trillions to get people to leave Oregon so they can live in something resembling Carlsbad Caverns with grow lights? Why not just get people to live in Carlsbad Caverns?
Where is your pioneering spirit?
Well, I built a deck a couple of years back.
For the cost of a manned mission to Mars, you could buy every man, woman and child in my country their own private helicopter, although necessary modifications to the air trafic control infrastructure would be extra.
Ask yourself where would be without exploration. Probably exinct.
How will landing a man on the moon keep me or you or anyone else from becoming extinct?
But our constitution is flowery as well.
I've read your Constitution. It isn't flowery, nor does it suggest that the purpose of the United States Congress is to allocate vast sums for zero public benefit.
Cost/benefit analysis is commonly applied to public works projects. Space development is not something public works would undertake. Business, though, is a different story, or will be as soon as the present murky legal environment in outer space is clarified.
Good, now read Calhoun, Sec'y of War.
I'm SURE a GREAT "Psychological Treatise" might Satisfy some "Academic THEOREM,"--but I am proposing ACTION!!
I am NOT proposing "Theory," I am proposing that We--as a Culture--Make a Formal Committment to a Dangerous & Risky endeavor. I am asking "W" to "Get On With It;" I am asking "W" to Launch our next Moon Landing--The Sooner-the Better!!
Doc
Simple. It doesn't lead anywhere!
For an answer to your first question, see your second question.
But in addition, as a scientist and policy planner who envies the kind of budgets available to my American counterparts, it is mind boggling that you're throwing away so many valuable programs for... nothing.
Neither does sticking a man on the moon.
I agree. We've already explored the moon, we have largely explored Mars, and there is a probe exploring the moons of Saturn as we type. There is no purpose to sending a man to see what robots have already seen. That isn't exploration, that's just wasting money.
Sorry, can't agree. Exploration is fine. We're talking about colonization.
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