Obama aims to ax moon mission

Orlando Sentinel ^ | Wednesday, January 27, 2010

[rightcoast]

NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead. So are the rockets being designed to take them there — that is, if President Barack Obama gets his way.

When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. The troubled and expensive Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for its bigger brother, the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to take humans back to the moon.

There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.

In their place, according to White House insiders, agency officials, industry executives and congressional sources familiar with Obama's long-awaited plans for the space agency, NASA will look at developing a new "heavy-lift" rocket that one day will take humans and robots to explore beyond low Earth orbit. But that day will be years — possibly even a decade or more — away.

In the meantime, the White House will direct NASA to concentrate on Earth-science projects — principally, researching and monitoring climate change — and on a new technology research and development program that will one day make human exploration of asteroids and the inner solar system possible.

There will also be funding for private companies to develop capsules and rockets that can be used as space taxis to take astronauts on fixed-price contracts to and from the International Space Station — a major change in the way the agency has done business for the past 50 years...

See link for full article...

[Spktyr]

One thought is that a lunar railgun could take the place of an even more expensive and very vulnerable terrestrial nuclear arsenal. Lunar rocks cost nothing and there is nothing in the US arsenal that will stop an incoming cee-fractional lunar projectile.

[tioga]

Obama has taken the fatal shot at our economy and now he tries to kill of NASA....we need to get rid of HIM, not NASA.

[dead]

Well if we’re not going to weaponize the moon, we should at least blow it up.

[Thermalseeker]

I think it’s likely that a fair number of academics are going to have buyers remorse.

Yep. We're already seeing it, but it will undoubtedly grow to epic proportions. The academic elites will end up choking on that buyer's remorse, too. See? There is a ray of sunshine in the middle of all this misery....

[Bogey78O]

‘In the meantime, the White House will direct NASA to concentrate on Earth-science projects — principally, researching and monitoring climate change’

“GO TO HELL!!!” was my only reaction. Actually... it wasn’t that family friendly.

[Gilbo_3]

BWahahahah...i clicked the thread just to say that, but you were sittin at #2 already...

[thecabal]

More importantly, most of the states where the NASA facilities are located are red states. A little “middle finger” from Obama to them.

[Spktyr]

I hope that’s a joke. We don’t have enough deployable nuclear weapons to blow up a medium sized asteroid, let alone the moon.

[saganite]

Privately owned and operated companies have big plans, maybe even grandiose plans, for the future of space. Certainly, they will be much better than NASA at the low earth orbit tasks.

[PogySailor]

...but a railgun or linear accelerator on the moon has a practically unlimited ammunition supply and can hit any spot on the planet Earth

See "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress"

[GL of Sector 2814]

Leftists hate space exploration with a passion.

To a lesser degree, there are some on the right who feel the same way, unfortunately.

[Thermalseeker]

Do you think supporters of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln were thinking, “Dang, if only we had a NASA to get us to the Moon?”

No, but they had their own NASA's of their time, like the Lewis and Clark expedition and building a transcontinental railroad and telegraph network......

[Spktyr]

Mentioned upthread already.

[SES1066]

... but a railgun or linear accelerator on the moon has a practically unlimited ammunition supply and can hit any spot on the planet Earth.

Robert A Heinlein "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" 1966 - has exiled convicts (think Australia) and forced evacuees revolting against an overbearing UN-Governed Earth by sending rocks against the Earth (What is now called KEW - Kinetic Energy Weapons).

[Frantzie]

People voted for this. More ACORN workers for NASA. LOL! What a joke. Stupid NASA workers voted for idiots like Bill Nelson and Obama. Shut it down and the space station. More moeny for illegal aliens - they need their endless benefits.

[rwfromkansas]

I was tempted to want to live in Florida, up until the recession. You all are suffering horribly down there, particularly the middle west portion I like to visit near Fort Myers.

And Obama just sits on his hands.

[dead]

It was a joke. I like the moon.

[Borges]

"So many technological advances we enjoy today grew out of the technologies developed for the Apollo and Gemini programs "

Which technologies?

[Nachum]

The list, ping

[GonzoGOP]

One thought is that a lunar railgun could take the place of an even more expensive and very vulnerable terrestrial nuclear arsenal. Lunar rocks cost nothing and there is nothing in the US arsenal that will stop an incoming cee-fractional lunar projectile

And no radiation. You can't nuke an enemy stronghold and then occupy it the next day. Drop a rock on in and you can move in as soon as the rock cools down enough to stop being a liquid. And if they bury their command center under a mountain. Just use two or three consecutive shots to remove the mountain.

It completely changes the meaning of the phrase, "What are we supposed to do throw rocks at them?"

Now a lunar rock isn't a c-fractional relativistic projectile. But they are cheap, accurate, and can make a big hole in the ground. The cheap factor is important because an Earth launched interceptor costs so much that you can't possibly build enough that you can shoot down all the rocks.