A Rocket Boy and Two Star Trekkers Respond to Choosing Not to Go to the Moon

Associated Content ^ | February 9th 2010 | Mark R. Whittington

[Marcus]

Opposition to President Obama's bid to cancel the Constellation return to the Moon program has started to manifest itself among purveyors of popular culture. It has even inspired its first work of literature.

[Waverunner]

Go Homer - For two years guys and girls from the high school I taught at won Homers national rocket launch competition. The prize was a trip to W Virginia and they got to launch with him. A great guy who promotes science.

Obama - a no nothing luddite lawyer.

[Yorlik803]

We have to cut budget, so there goes the space program so we can more money on bail outs and welfare programs.
Obama and his kind never thinks about all the good that comes from NASA. All the advances in science. But if it dont help Obama suck up to the unions, he dont care about it.

[sig226]

I can’t believe I actually agree with the 0. Moon shots are exciting events, but honestly, what will we get from them that we do not already have? Someone will say that the engineering to solve the moon shot problems will produce incredible technologies and new understandings.

Fine, but research into food production and laser technologies can also produce new technologies and advance science, without having to build extremely expensive single use rockets. Tmes are tight. The government should be reducing non-essential expenditures. This will have to wait until the money is flowing freely again.

[RoadGumby]

Non-essential. Non-essential? Have you perhaps taken a gander at the budget? At the magnitude of the different pie slices? Cutting NASA, cutting Defense is PEANUTS compared to the entitlements. Medicare/Medicaid/SocSec/As well any other ‘entitlement’ , those are the budget busters, those are the pie-slices that need eliminating. You could probably fund a coulpe hundred NASAs under Medicare.

[kalee]

ping

[kalee]

ping

[Waverunner]

He's actually raising Nasa’s budget, the money is being moved to climate study programs, ect... Political pork without deliverables. We've paid most of Constellation development cost already, so let's build some hardware and actually do something. Of course a 1 term president doesn't want a moon landing to occur during his successors term

[DesertConservative]

Zero would like to hand space supremecy to the Chicoms.

Space is power in the way that early European colonial expansion was power and set the pace for politics and human history for the next several hundred years.

A permanant base with access to materials not outside of Earth’s gravity well (such as the moon, now with water and possibly other valuable materials) would make a wonderful launch point for cheap exploration and colonization of the solar system.

Also, if you have viable populations outside earth, you may not mind tossing a few thousand kilotons at your enemy (ie, the threat of mutually assured self destruction loses its sting) because you are assured of the clean-up afterward from your safe vantage point outside of the kill zone.

The spin-off technologies are great. But this is really about positioning for the next half a millenium of human history.

[chimera]

Did you know that of every dollar the federal government spends, less than one-half of one cent of it goes to fund NASA? Do you really think eliminating that will result in significant savings?

Here's another number that will sober you up. The interest payment on the national debt for the month of December 2009 alone was $105 billion. That amount would fund the entire US space program for the next six years at the FY2010 budget request. It would have paid for four separate Project Apollo programs of the 1960s. It would build about 15 nuclear power plants to help us be more energy independent. Mind you, that just an INTEREST payment for ONE MONTH, not really buying anything, not really getting us anything on a return on our money. Just paying interest to those who hold our debt.

[GraceG]

>> Also, if you have viable populations outside earth, you may not mind tossing a few thousand kilotons at your enemy (ie, the threat of mutually assured self destruction loses its sting) because you are assured of the clean-up afterward from your safe vantage point outside of the kill zone. <<

But, But, But, But, But, But, But, But, But, But, the UN treaty they signed in 1970 will prevent this right???????

/sarc

[GraceG]

Reading Homer’s words I know that he is one of us!

• The man turned away from the dingy storefront, and took his son by the hand. He wanted to walk in the park but, of course, it was too dangerous. Bad people roamed there, intent on robbing anyone they could find. Not that very many people had any money, just food stamps and that kind of thing, but still...
• The man led his son toward their apartment that they shared with two other families. “From what I can tell,” he said, as they ambled along the garbage-strewn street, “the leader of the government back then decided we weren’t good enough to go back to the moon. The people he appointed covered it up by saying what they were doing was bold and new but nothing much happened after that. I read where some really smart people thought the leader would let them build nuclear and plasma rockets and jump far ahead in space.”
• Excited, his son grinned. “That sounds great! But what happened?”
• “Well, son, for many years, everybody was apparently very happy. There were some wonderful drawings of amazing spaceships and a lot of scientists, even one of our first walkers on the moon, said this was a marvelous plan. But when it came time to actually build those ships, government officials said it was too dangerous to put nuclear reactors in space and that plasma rockets might blow up and hurt people. They also said there wasn’t any good reason to do it, anyway. It was best to just research things and hope a magical way to get into space would be created. I saw a picture where one scientist had a chair attached to a flock of doves. It was very well done.”

[Reily]

You can’t think of anything?
Think again real carefully as you type a response.

[sig226]

Gee, chimera, I’m sorry I had something else to do besides wait for you to type a response.

“The interest payment on the national debt for the month of December 2009 alone was $105 billion.”

Your answer is that since the interest is already 105 billion, why not see if we can make it more.

Then you throw in a smarmy, “that just an INTEREST payment for ONE MONTH,”

Do you realize it? Do you honestly think that it’s going to down if we spend money faster?

[chimera]

My point is you are penny wise and pound foolish. You're straining at gnats while swallowing camels. You really want to cut spending? Start with some of the low-hanging fruit like welfare. Did you know that federal spending for just one program in the overall welfare spending, the families and children program (used to be called ADC), would pay for the entire NASA budget for the next four and a half years? And that's just one of many welfare programs where taxpayer dollars are spent for people to do no work (other than make babies). At least the NASA people show up for work, and it isn't for making babies. I'll believe you're serious about reducing spending when you go after these programs with proportionately more hatred and vigor than you do the NASA folks.

[Names Ash Housewares]

We have only begun to fight!!!

I'm emailing, I'm writing, I'm blogging, I'm hassling friends, I'm FIGHTING THIS! Support for cancellation of America's space goals through Constellation program are soft to none in congress.

Obama has thought this out even more incompetently then Obamacare! if that is even possible.

[sig226]

Colonial expansion was vastly different than space exploration. It costs less to go find the colony, and the potential rewards were obvious - starting with new trade routes that nations could control, and ending with ships full of gold and other stuff that they could sell.

NASA estimates the cost of an ARES V launch at $1,000,000,000. page 12 That's the cost to reach low earth orbit, not including the cost of whatever it takes to reach the final destination. Since we're not going to find anything useful on the moon, let's assume it's another billion and there's a pile of pure platinum sitting on Mars. You'll need to bring back 83,000 pounds of it to pay for the trip.

Space supremacy is mostly important in orbit. Satellite killers could damage our own communications systems, and potentially damage the GPS system. Since so many other countries use GPS, it's doubtful that anyone would attack it. They could zot the comm satellites, so we need to develope the means to prevent that. Of course, there are treaties that forbid this, and I hope we are ignoring those treaties.

Even if someone could build a military base on the moon, it wouldn't do them any good. It takes two and a half days to get from the moon to the earth, so it is not a good place to launch an attack from a strategic perspective. Any vehicle that makes the trip has to be light and travel a predictable course, making it easy to destroy.

[sig226]

Perhaps you should try reading some of my other posts here before you decide that you know what I think.

[chimera]

I did. I read your post. You said:

The government should be reducing non-essential expenditures.

I don't disagree. I pointed out the that most non-essential expenditures, which in total absolutely swamp and dwarf anything ever spent on NASA (including lunar explorations) are so-called "social programs" that basically pay people to do nothing other than have more kids they can't afford or raise properly. This country has squandered it's treasure now and into the future on failed social engineering programs which, if only a fraction were spent in more productive areas, very likely (based on historical precedent) would have resulted in abundant, clean, reliable, domestic energy sources, colonies on the moon, a manned presence on Mars, unimaginably productive sources of food, medical miracles beyond any today, and unrivaled industrial and communications infrastructure.

Reasonable people can debate what is "essential", but maintaining a technological edge in all areas, food production, lasers, electronics, materials, energy, aeronautics, astronautics (including lunar explorations, manned and unmanned spaceflight), computers, manufacturing, and others is, IMNSHO, essential. It keeps us competitive economically, militarily, and technologically. It doesn't have to be done exclusively by the government. It doesn't have to be done exclusively by private industry. It can be a combination of both and, if you do it right, results in a stronger position for both.

[DesertConservative]

Before anyone knew what was over the Atlantic Ocean, they had to take a gamble. Columbus had no proof of the riches of the Americas, which is why he had so much trouble funding his expeditions. In fact, he had no idea the Americas were there, he was looking for cheaper spice and silk trade routes, as you know.

Guess who got more than they bargained for with his expedition?

It doesn’t cost much to use the moon as a weapon. No need to launch a fleet of space craft. All you need is a base, a launcher, and a whole lot of rocks and you can terrorize any nation on Earth with homemade meteor impacts for cheap. No fuel, no enriched radioatives, just an understanding of mathematics and rock. And if you’ve bothered to put a breeding population in space, too, you can avoid retribution from those you threaten. The knowledge that your foe cannot assure mutual destruction may even cause them to capitulate to demands without a fight (”Even if we nuke their nation on earth, they will still survive..what’s the point?”)

Also, who says there is nothing useful on the Moon? We keep surprising ourselves with what we are finding in our solar system. We just found water on the moon. What else did we not pick up on? We barely know what’s under our oceans, and we’re supposed to write off the moon, too? Or other solar systemic bodies?

Limiting ourselves to what is useful ‘now’ limits us to what will be useful ‘later’. Think ahead.

BTW, if we’re worried about costs, please examine the costs of our Federal Government’s social programs. NASA’s expeditures are a drop in the bucket in comparison. But not paying for space development now will cost us in end.