Mr Obama pitches for asteroids and Mars
President Obama went to Florida to sell his new human spaceflight policy, not to offer concessions.
Anyone hoping to hear in his speech at the Kennedy Space Center that he was going to extend the shuttle programme or breathe life back into the Constellation project will have been disappointed.
The president stuck to the broad outline of the policy he announced in February's 2011 budget request.
The previous administration's ideas to go back to the Moon are history; the shuttle fleet will be retired at the end of this year; and the private sector will be asked to loft astronauts to a life-extended space station.
What we did get that was new was some specifics - some targets, a timeline.
There was a commitment to start work on a big new rocket no later than 2015, to send astronauts on missions beyond low-Earth orbit in a little over 10 years from now (including to asteroids), and to try to circle Mars by the mid-2030s.
In Obama's words, you could even hear echoes of JFK's famous Moon challenge:
"Early in the next decade, a set of crewed flights will test and prove the systems required for exploration beyond low-Earth orbit. And by 2025, we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first-ever crewed missions beyond the Moon into deep space. So we'll start - we'll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history. By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And a landing on Mars will follow. And I expect to be around to see it."
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content.
The only thing that hinted at a concession was the promise to pick up technologies developed for Constellation's Orion crewship, to produce a "lifeboat" for the International Space Station - an emergency escape vehicle, if you like, which astronauts could use to flee a catastrophic accident on the platform.
But in truth it was never likely that Orion's development would be completely abandoned under the Obama plan.
If astronauts are ever to venture again beyond low-Earth orbit, they will need a vessel
capable of sustaining ultra-long-duration spaceflight, and Orion is currently the only such concept that has undergone serious development.
Much of what has been learnt these past few years will live on in whatever spaceship Nasa eventually chooses to develop:
"We will build on the good work already done on the Orion crew capsule. I've directed [Nasa Administrator] Charlie Bolden to immediately begin developing a rescue vehicle using this technology, so we are not forced to rely on foreign providers if it becomes necessary to quickly bring our people home from the International Space Station. And this Orion effort will be part of the technological foundation for advanced spacecraft to be used in future deep space missions."
So Obama's aim on Thursday was really to persuade doubters that his vision was coherent, that it contained clear, achievable objectives, and that it would maintain America's pride and leadership in human spaceflight.
In other words, Obama went to Kennedy to do a better sales job, to give the speech he probably should have given back in February.
Will his words have the desired effect?
The president is clearly winning over some people. He was accompanied on Air Force One by influential Florida Senator Bill Nelson and Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon. The former had previously expressed grave reservations about the new vision.
And the promise of a concerted effort to create new jobs along the Space Coast may also persuade some Floridians that the transition away from the shuttle and Constellation programmes might not be so painful after all.
Time will tell.
What Mr Obama will be hoping is that many Americans will finally accept his argument that it is time to stop looking back to Apollo and to try something genuinely new.
The sequence in his speech that caught my attention was this one:
"I understand that some believe that we should attempt a return to the surface of the Moon first, as previously planned. But I just have to say pretty bluntly here: We've been there before. Buzz has been there. There's a lot more of space to explore, and a lot more to learn when we do. So I believe it's more important to ramp up our capabilities to reach - and operate at - a series of increasingly demanding targets, while advancing our technological capabilities with each step forward. And that's what this strategy does. And that's how we will ensure that our leadership in space is even stronger in this new century than it was in the last."
Norm Augustine, the former Lockheed Martin chief executive, took to the podium after Mr Obama. Mr Augustine, you will remember, chaired the president's review of US human
spaceflight policy.
He said something pretty similar. He related the story how when his committee spoke to young people about Constellation and the idea of going back to the Moon, these kids dismissed it as uninspiring - as being the "policy of their grandfathers".
If you want to read the president's entire speech, you can do so here. If you want more detail on the Obama vision, this is available here [PDF] at the Office of Science and Technology Policy website.
And if you didn't see the criticism of the president's policy from Apollo legends Armstrong, Cernan and Lovell earlier this week, you can read that here.
And, of course, you can tell me what you think below.
I’m 
© 2012~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~42~RS~)
Comments
Sign in or register to comment.
Mr. Amos:
I am glad, and supportive of the guidance that President Obama is giving towards the future of asteroids & Mars...
(Dennis Junior)
Complain about this comment
In response to your Tweet (cos 140 char is never enough :)
"BBCAmos: Obama yielded little to his space critics, but how many is he winning over?"
The quick response is ONE. As a "$40 million initiative led by a high-level team from the White House, NASA, and other agencies to develop a plan for regional economic growth and job creation. And I expect this plan to reach my desk by August 15th." ...seems to have won over Sen. Bill Nelson! Space Pork Florida style.
I have other thoughts but will be saving them for my own blog!
The "Urion" and "Cosmos" gaffes were cringeworthy; surprising for such an assured speaker! No Rice University Speaker, he.
Complain about this comment
I understand Obama's argument, but I don't agree with the logic. While it may seem passé to go back to the moon, there is sound reasoning behind it. No space faring nation has had a manned mission on the moon since 14 December 1972.
Given the amount of time which has passed, institutional memory of conducting deep space operations has faded (even if technical knowledge remains), and the technologies and base knowledge about space have changed immensely over that time period as well.
Thus, it is cheaper, faster, and safer to conduct a moon-oriented 'trial-run' of the technologies, planning, training, and organization that will be need for Mars. It is akin to testing a kit car you've just built in your garage. But instead of doing a shakedown of the car by driving around your neighborhood, you plan a 1000 mile road trip across mountains, desert, and other terrain that is unknown to you.
Like I said, I understand Obama's argument, and the need for reducing near and long-term costs for space operations. But I'm not convinced that the logic of orbiting Mars first is sound. There is a big difference between low-earth orbit missions, and deep space... the same rules and needs don't apply.
I just hope that NASA doesn't suffer too much from the decision. Then again, like many departments and agencies within the US government, their direction, funding, and leadership change with the advent of almost every new administration - so they're probably used to it, unfortunately.
Complain about this comment
Don't promise a horse if you can't even give a toad.
Well, day dreams are self-consolations indeed.
Complain about this comment
#3 - "It is akin to testing a kit car you've just built in your garage. But instead of doing a shakedown of the car by driving around your neighborhood, you plan a 1000 mile road trip across mountains, desert, and other terrain that is unknown to you."
Yes... However the Moon was 'achieved' using fewer 'brains' on board
than are contained in a hand calculator.
Personally, I believe the USA should have been living on the Moon for a couple of decades, already! Operating several Moon bases.
I was upset when Obama said he was scrapping the Moon idea...
Interestingly, Obama caused me to do an about-face with his 'been there, done that' slant. The USA has 'missed the shuttle' concerning going back to the Moon. Decades wasted, I think. The time has come and gone. Time to do something else...
Let China 'have' the Moon... ?
Complain about this comment
Obama is right to cancel Constellation. NASA is good at innovating, not cheaply doing something easy. Low Earth Orbit should be the realm of industry at this point, much like railroads and airlines are private.
My main worry is that he won't be firm enough in still making this stuff happen. That he's going to leave it at this and 10 years from now we won't have anything new. Somebody really needs to be pushing the button here and making it happen. Constellation may have been a mess, but at least we knew where we were going.
Complain about this comment
Is the special relationship still on then ? The BBC never seems to obsess about other foreign countries space programs so much.
If only the UK had something to talk about in this column.
Complain about this comment
7, the fact is that NASA is the only spacefaring organisation likely to do beyond low Earth orbit manned flight.
What NASA does, or does not do, has major implications for all other space projects everywhere, not least since there is a lot of cooperation between them.
NASA's next big space telescope will be launched by the Ariane rocket, the space station has major European, Russian and Japanese components.
The piece of hardware resting on a surface farthest from Earth (by a long way), is the European package, carried by a NASA space probe, launched by a US rocket.
It's on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan, it had major UK content in it.
To the speech, it seems like changing Orion into a ISS 'lifeboat' at least for now (as if the Apollo Capsule had started out just as something like the Command Module with the Service Module added later for tasks beyond ISS support), answers those who want a formal US manned spacecraft capability, whatever the hopes are for the private providers like Space X, or if their hardware encounters problems, an insurance against this.
As well as not having to spend $2.5 billion in shutting Constellation down completely, which was the major problem with the original Obama plan.
(Jonathan, I was under the impression that Buzz Aldrin has been supportive of the plan from the start. Last year on Apollo's 40th anniversary, he was also critical of the then Constellation/Orion Moon return plan).
I still think a Lunar return is important for building up the capability for further missions, however, the references to 'not using current propulsion systems' I think is about the work headed by former Shuttle astronaut Chang-Diaz, to develop a system capable potentially of reaching Mars in weeks, not months-with obvious benefits of less radiation exposure, less time in zero G, I remember him once saying 'if you try to go to Mars with a rinky-dink chemical rocket, you risk losing a crew'.
Going to asteroids, as I understand it, requires similar energy as getting to the Moon, as well as getting deep space experience.
Complain about this comment
@Jonathan. This is the first President in decades who specifically highlighted what was necessary in terms of advanced technologies, recognising that conventional chemical propulsion system have reached their theoretical maximum.
However, the recent annoucement by NASA to award $250 million for advancing propulsion technologies is contradictory to that objective because a) the money went to corporate 'big boys' where the money will be swallowed up in administrative costs and b) there was no clear directive to support advanced technologies. $250 million could have funded 1785 SBIR Phase 1 ($70K, 6 month feasibility studies) and 250 SBIR Phase 2 ($500K, 2 R&D projects). This is how to kick start R&D projects in a cost effective fashion. Coporate giants are responsible to shareholders and its in the latter's best interest to engage in cost overruns to ensure a continued flow of funds at the expense of the tax payer.
The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC), which used to fund a lot of these breakthrough technologies, was shut down shortly after the previous "Vision for Space Exploration" was annouced. Will that be restarted?
It's great that the President set an objective and highlighted the technologies required, but let's see if he can increase NASA's budget and get it passed through Congress.
By the way, I'm a "Moon first" guy and wish to see infrastructure development in CIS lunar orbit but by setting ones sight on a more distant objective as the President has, then this will encourage engineers to develop the technologies that will not only get to Mars but also back to the moon with relative ease.
[...and don't get me started about the European Space Agency!]
Complain about this comment
I heartily agree,
The moon is done people, we've learned a lot and progressed incredibly because of it but we need to set new goals for ourselves if we are ever going to progress as a race.
Clinging on to nostalgia does nothing for you. If we go back to the moon we could learn a bit more, but if we push ourselves further we could learn a hell of a lot more.
I commend Obama's efforts and hope to see Richard Branson offering buy-2-get-1-free tickets to Mars shortly ;-)
Go for it!
Complain about this comment
Good. Personally I don't care if its the Moon, Mars or Asteroids. What matters is that humans are exploring beyond our atmosphere and spending money on science and engineering. Any spacecraft capable of going to Mars and back is going to require highly advanced fuel cells, solar panels and light weight long life batteries and we'll all get the benefit of this technology soon.
Complain about this comment
The moon would have been a good target, if the plan had been to set up a permanent moonbase, perhaps with a railgun launch facility, which could have been used to stage all sorts of missions. Just going there to play golf and drive around in buggies belongs in the cold war.
Complain about this comment
This makes perfect sense, why aim for the moon, when you need to aim for Mars, the fact is it might take longer to be ready, but if you can get to Mars, its not hard to land on the moon, or hop to the space station....
And by doing this he gives private companies business, and a chance to lower costs, its not like Nasa can ever manage a budget anyway...
The shuttle should have been retired about 30 years ago....
Complain about this comment
#3
The way I see it, the new plan does not preclude returning to the moon to test new technologies (such as ISRU, expandable habitats, shielding, etc) that will be required for a Mars mission. Indeed, I do not think anyone could seriously advocate embarking on a crewed Mars mission without trial runs on the moon first. Rather, I think the policy shift is in the goals of crewed exploration. Whilst the now cancelled program, Constellation, identified Mars as the goal, it was rather undefined. It could be argued that Constellation focused on returning to the moon and the moon only. The new initiative, on the other hand, seems to focus on deep space exploration itself as the goal and advancing the technologies needed to enable it, not any specific destination. Yes, Mars is a goal, but it is one of many.
For my part, I am supportive of the new direction NASA has been given. I just hope that the current Administration (and indeed future ones) put in the necessary arm twisting/cajoling/outright bribery to ensure Congress funds the initiative at the necessary level.
Complain about this comment
Well I'm glad that he's setting out a vision for going beyond LEO but I think he's misguided in not going back to the moon.
A return to the moon should be used to test out the technologies that will be needed for missions futher afield. The establishment of a permanent base on the moon should be used as a test run for landing and spending time on Mars - the two are very different environments yes, but the Moon is still far enough away that there are dangers that should concentrate people's minds more on ensuring the safety of any astronauts sent up there.
Complain about this comment
As an Apollo kid, I was a bit worried in February, but I have to say that I am heartened by Obama's speech - like another contributor here, I am happy to have ANY manned program on the stocks from the US rather than nothing. For another thing, I don't want to see the world reliant on Chinese or Indian manned programs for their scientific and human breakthroughs assuming Russia and Europe are not going for anything manned any time soon). For the nay-sayers who say that space exploration is too costly i) there are jobs in this (though very few in UK...duh on successive UK govt's for that one) and ii) it's part of human nature to explore...it's one of the things that makes us who we are
Complain about this comment
7. Ian
Thankfully, the UK has a lot to shout about when it comes to space activity.
In Europe, the US and Canada, you will find a myriad of British and Irish contractors all participating in serious space programmes, through agencies, large corporations and small businesses. We still train some of the best engineers and executives in the World and box way above our station when it comes to space and aerospace input. And long may it continue.
The indigenous UK industrial space effort is limited to Reaction Engines, Rutherford Appleton, and a host of smaller (mostly underfunded) engineering, system and data handling houses, but our knowledge and expertise knows no bounds!
Complain about this comment
I was waiting for this speech with baited breath and I now I must say I am crushingly disappointed. Yes we have been to the moon, but all we did there was pick up a few kilos of rocks, play some golf and drive around in a buggy. So now we should go to Mars? What will we do there? Pick up a few rocks, play some golf and then move on? It’s like a space program with attention deficit disorder!
And to all the people who say it’s too easy, I say that’s pathetic. I say it’s easy to run a marathon, I would just spend a few months training and go – bob’s yer uncle. That’s a far cry from actually running 27 miles.
And why mid-2030s? From Alan Shepherd’s first manned spaceflight to Neil Armstrong’s giant leap was 8 years, what’s changed? We could get to Mars with existing technology, how is it going to take 25 years?!?
International cooperation is what’s needed. No need for Orion, Soyuz is a great lifeboat. No need for Galileo, we already have GPS. No need for any more earth observation, it’s too expensive and has little or no value outside a handful of elite labs. Let’s pool our resources and become a genuine, space faring people.
Complain about this comment
Aside from the fact that I'm dazzled by the prospect of people on Mars, (seriously, how awesome would THAT be!?) this should eventually be used as an opportunity to foster international cooperation. The Space Race pitted the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. against each other. To a large extent, competition drives innovation, but I'd be impressed if China, the E.U., Russia, India or whoever is up-and-coming works with the U.S. on this. That is, provided the U.S. is still in a position to do this 20 years from now.
There's going to be a lot of argument on funding and support in the future, but regardless of it being 'the right time or not' it's something that seems like a no-brainer in the long run.
If nothing else, it's about bloody time! The year 2000 was ages ago and we haven't even come up with flying cars! Let's get to work on 'the future'.
Complain about this comment
I agree with 70s James by the way. We're likely to go to the moon again anyway for testing of new spacecraft. You build a car that can go 10,000 miles and it's still going to be able to go 10.
Complain about this comment
I think it is a shame that the moon appears to be ignored. My generation were not around to see it the first time, and even if it is just down once or twice, it is surely a worthwhile trip to see how the equipment there has stood the test of time. We also have better photgraphic and video technology now, allowing better analysis of the moon. A visit to the moon will also allow a revisit to part of one of the most famous spacecraft in history, the descent stage of the Eagle.
Complain about this comment
I wonder if China do make progress with their space programme (going to the moon and maybe beyond etc.), whether more money might magically be found from somewhere to ensure NASA do not fall behind and lose their position as masters of the world?? Personally I'd regard a global space programme a better long term ambition rather than each individual country or region spending masses of money on their own interests - we inhabit the world together, we might as well explore the heavens together too. Idealistic, huh?!
Complain about this comment
I'm pleased that there still is an ambition and a commitment to go beyond LEO. I'm curious as to what new technologies they're envisioning for the new heavy lifter, ion drive? they couldn't seriously be thinking about a nuclear system?
As Stephen said this is what Obama should have announced back in February. Someone above mentioned that the shuttle should have been retired 30 years ago, actually the shuttle as we know it should never have been built, it's nothing like the vehicle NASA originally proposed. It's configuration was a consequence of cynical budget cuts imposed by Nixon, they knew that the configuration would be very expensive to operate but it would be far cheaper to develop and therefore they wouldn't have to pick up the bills. In hindsight NASA should have continued with the Apollo Applications Programme and just kept evolving and developing Apollo and the Saturn 1B but the aerospace companies wanted a shiny new toy (in the 49 years since Gagarin's first flight the Russians have only used one basic launcher for manned spaceflights, in the same time America has built and developed 6!)
For all it's engineering problems Constellation did at least have a vision, Obama's original announcemnt didn't have the vision thing. Now he has given a vision and I hope it comes to fruition!
Complain about this comment
It seems a shame that the Moon is not going to be exploited for all the available resources it has to offer. Surely if you are serious about going to Mars and beyond, launching payloads from one sixth normal gravity is much easier and the fuels and oxygen for the trip can probably be found and refined from the very regolith itself.
Complain about this comment
The UK does have something to offer through UKSA. It also has Virgin Galactic which is just waiting to open a portal into space through tourism. How does the UK capitalise on this to open up deep space as well as immediate benefits?
Complain about this comment
Neither Presidents Obama or Bush know anything about space.
How can NASA proceed if their programs are torn up by each new President,
presumably on political grounds.
The USA should decide what it wants to do with NASA (with cross party agreement and taking into account other countries programs) and then stick to it.
Complain about this comment
I was interested to listen to Norm Augustine. He likens the president's plan to his committee's "Option 5B". That option does not rule out the Moon completely, it just doesn't obsesses about it. It contains the "flexible path" to increasingly more challenging destinations and objects. But as Augustine said again in Florida on Thursday, the lunar surface may well be on the path at some point. And @Cartagena: I think your argument is the one why we may well see astronauts back on the Moon - it's a good place to try out new kit. @Ian: It's up to the UK to decide what it wants to do. We had our own mini-Augustine review. The report sets out the options for UK participation in the future. And @SONICBOOMER: Yes, Buzz has been supportive. A lack of clarity in my head. It's been a long week. I am indebted for your correction. @abdulmismail: This blog is supposed to have a European focus, so I'd actually really like to get you started on Esa! I was in Bremen on Tuesday to look over the Johannes Kepler ATV. It is two steps away from being a very capable European crew ship. It just requires the polticial will (and a lot of euros).
If anyone sees some interesting reaction out there following Obama's speech, do share the links with us.
Complain about this comment
Big rocket - definite tick.
Going to Mars and then just orbiting the planet? is someone there insane!
Surely the difficult part of a manned mission is getting there, you want to go with things like landers already prepared and do it all in one step. That's why in some ways Constellation actually made sense.
Of course the timeliness disgust me, with any vim at all we could still do a Mars mission in 2020, in the 60's it took 10 years to be ready to go to the Moon and the technical advances were at least 10 times bigger then the ones we need to make.
I suspect that NASA's health and safety although excellent is the heart of the problem. Only 2 failures in 130 Shuttle missions is an astounding rate of success considering the technology and inherent dangers involved. New components and systems need to be tested, but the reason that constellation was so expensive and slow was that that there were to many redundant sub-system safety tests. We're no longer in the Apollo era, there should really be enough data today to almost certify a new design with only a few complete dry run tests. Certify the components separately then test them together once. Just a thought!
Complain about this comment
More nonsense from President Soundbite, cutting NASA funding but talking about fantasy spacecraft in 20 years time. Can you imagine the diseases we could have found cures for if the pointless space budget was redirected to actually benefit mankind? Or are you interested in what kind of rock a passing asteroid is made of?
Complain about this comment
Sounds like pie in the sky politics - in the most literal sense. :-)
If you're going to Mars it's much easier to do so from the Moon than directly from Earth. In fact, counter-intuitively to a lot of people, the hardest part of any Mars mission is always going to be getting everything needed to get there and back out of the Earth's atmosphere and gravity well, once you've done that getting to Mars and back is actually fairly easy.
Obama's just selling ideas that will never happen, because of the massive PR gaffe he made in cancelling the Moon idea.
It's the easiest thing in the world to sell the "idea" of circling Mars by 2030...... especially if you have no intention of actually doing it.
Complain about this comment
#18 "And why mid-2030s? From Alan Shepherd’s first manned spaceflight to Neil Armstrong’s giant leap was 8 years, what’s changed? We could get to Mars with existing technology, how is it going to take 25 years?!"
Whats changed? Simple. The US people are no longer prepared to have such a huge chunk of their taxes spent on space research. In the 1960's cold war paranoia about the Soviets taking over Space allowed it. Unless Obama can find an Al Qu'eda training camp in the sea of tranquility he'd never get the budget approval with so many social problems in the US crying out for cash too.
I agree that we could probably reach Mars with current tech (although it would be like Thor Heyrdahl crossing the Pacific on his balsa wood boat) but what would we gain from such a feat? Its the technical advances that the space race generate that justify its huge cost.
Complain about this comment
Chinook: flying cars have been around for 60 years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_cars
The problem isn't the technology to make a car fly but the logistics of air traffic control and legal problems (currently you need a pilots licence to fly one in flying mode)
Complain about this comment
19. At 09:52am on 16 Apr 2010, Chinook wrote:
Aside from the fact that I'm dazzled by the prospect of people on Mars, (seriously, how awesome would THAT be!?)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
That is exactly the plan I'm afraid, to be dazzled by the idea, and not pay too much attention to the actual detail.
The reality is that the Moon idea was meant to make getting to Mars easier (much, much easier in fact).
Without the first step to the Moon, getting to Mars directly from Earth becomes a much bigger challenge (unless they are going to spend trillions on a massive mission construction and launch space station - which obviously they aren't).
By 2030 or even by 2100 we'll be no nearer to Mars than we are today, unless someone puts as much intent, effort and relative money behind it as the USA and USSR did in getting to the Moon.
And that certainly isn't what Obama is suggesting here.
Complain about this comment
I realise that national pride is at stake here, so Obama has no choice. However, I see little interest in national space programs. The only real interest in space exploration is to propose to do it as an international collaborative effort. In that respect it has value to mankind as a whole and may help reduce those dangerous nationalistic tendencies that still endanger the survival of the human race. If the human race can't work together on something as fundamental to our psychological growth as space exploration, then the whole idea is a total waste of time and money. This planet really cannot afford competing space programs from the US, China and India!
Complain about this comment
Its about time we in Europe got our act together. As the US appears to have abandoned plans to return to the moon, this would be a great opportunity for us to go there instead, as a true EU wide project this could really help provide unity and a great boost to the Science and Technology industry.
Complain about this comment
As an electronic designer I find it always better if I can be working freely and creatively rather than trying to satisfy some arbitrary inflexible goal a client has. Basically you can only do what turns out to be possible, you can't do the impossible no matter how much the customer cries and screams - you just end up wasting a lot of time if you try. The less politics you have the better. It's kind of like trying to take four musicians and setting up a programme to develop them into The Beatles, it doesn't work, they're either the Beatles or they're not. You can only really work to plans if it's something you've done before, and if it's something you've done before then it's not new technology, it's old technology.
I don't know if the same thing applies to development of space technology.
Complain about this comment
I think this plan is a much better idea than going back to the moon, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, there appears to be little of value on the moon. Apart from a slightly greater concentration of Helium-3 in the regolith, which *might* come in useful if we ever crack nuclear fusion, there is nothing worth going back for. Note that I'm not saying that we shouldn't send some more scientific missions, just that a full-blown base doesn't make sense with our current knowledge of resources. Once you're there, you have to pay twice to get out of gravity wells to go anywhere else - once for the Earth, once for the Moon.
It's a waste of energy and efforts would be best spent building staging posts at the Lagrange points or in Lunar orbit itself.
Secondly, the technology to (more) easily explore deep space is beginning to emerge. The VASIMIR drive, that will be tested on the ISS soon, has the potential to reduce journey times to weeks for the asteroids and Mars. If coupled with a nuclear fission powerplant, it would also make exploration of the outer solar system possible. This drive has been developed by an ex-NASA astronaut and physicist in a spin-off company from the space agency.
Thirdly, because of private enterprise efforts, the cost of transport into orbit (SpaceX, Scaled, etc) and construction while there (Bigelow) will begin to fall in the next while.
So, this is redirecting NASA to do the hard stuff (which leads to huge benefits back on Earth in the shape of new technology) and outsourcing the proven engineering to private firms. Sounds like an appropriate use of resources to me.
Complain about this comment
Oh and btw, good column Jonathan. Good to see the BBC giving some space to real science for a change.
Complain about this comment
Obama has vision - he knows that the Moon; the space station is part of the 'bus stop' and, part of the journey; Mars should be the 'destination' ?
Put the challenge to space science and all scientists - they will rise to, and focus on that? We all need 'direction' and 'inspiration' - in that respect, scientists are human and no different to us all?
Complain about this comment
#36 "It's kind of like trying to take four musicians and setting up a programme to develop them into The Beatles, it doesn't work, they're either the Beatles or they're not"
That WAS attempted. The end result was 'The Monkees' who its got to be admitted sold a lot of records and made the developers very rich. Funnily enough it turned out that the band was capable of writing very good songs too (maybe not as good as Lennon and McCartney but far better than most of todays song writers).
Complain about this comment
The link to the letter from Armstrong, Cernan and Lovell was interesting, particularly the reference to the Soviet Union in the early days and the need for the USA to be leaders in space exploration. They appear to still be stuck in the sixties and the Cold War; the world has moved on. Didn't someone once say 'a small step for MAN but a giant leap for MANKIND'. Perhaps it's time for us to properly read into that great statement and work together, as mankind, rather than the USA, Russia, Europe and China following their own paths.
Complain about this comment
I find it inconceivable that if the goal is to land on Mars that you wouldnt test the technology by going to the moon as your first step...
If we are to continue as a race we have to explore and expand our,space missions..at some point sooner or later for a variety of reasons, our little blue planet will become uninhabitable, rather than the USA bearing the cost we all need to contribute, that will require us all to work together as a planet, which would be no bad thing in my opinion...
Complain about this comment
I think is a really sad day for teh future. To say we've been to the moon and now lets go somewhere else isn't really a valid arguement for anything. Just think if teh early European explorers had said that after Columbus et al Obama wouldn't have had a country because no one would have bothered going back to teh new world!
While I'd love to see trips to Mars and asteroids etc realistically returning to the moon is the first step to any of this. If we've spent the past decade building an international space station why nor go for an international moon base over teh next decade? Surely this would be a great way to build on the success of ISS and inspire people from all over the world to go into science.
In these cynical post Apollo times an annoucement that the US may do something in 25 years time or so isn't going to spur on the new scientists in the way Kennedy's challenge did. Yes you need the Bucks for the Buck Rogers but you also need the vision to inspire people. That's what was lacking - go on Mr President be a real visonary do a deal with teh Europeans and the Russians and put the world on a real track to the future not just some empty promises which will never be met!
Complain about this comment
I like this a lot. I'd got the impression Obama was abandoning the idea of people in space.
However, the asteroids are the future, not the Moon, not Mars.
We don't have any technology to provide a safe and energy efficient method of getting in and out of gravity wells.
And that's not considering the complication an atmosphere provides.
Instead I think we should focus a good portion of our effort on technologies capable of making life in space self-sustaining.
Going to an asteroid (presumably a near-earth one) is the first step towards that.
Hooray!
Complain about this comment
Personally I thought President Obama's speech and subsequent conference with Charlie Bolden was very inspiring, I think that at last NASA is going back to what it does best which is to develop cutting edge technologies and this time it will get funded!
Access to LEO should indeed be passed to the commercial sector as in time this will generate competition and hence innovation, increase launch frequency and reduce launch costs. Allowing NASA to concentrate on new cutting edge technologies/systems that will allow us to take the next step.
It is a shame however that there is still going to be a gap in the USA's ability to launch its own astronauts once the shuttle is retired, ideally the replacement vehicle should have already been doing its shakedown test flights now and fully operational once the shuttle is retired. However that is sadly not to be and that is not the fault of President Obama or NASA, it is the fault of the previous administration(s) that did not fund NASA correctly in the first place.
Also one has to remember, that giving LEO over to commercial enterprise means that Joe public will have far better chance of getting into space - that's always been my ambition so this course is fine with me!
Complain about this comment
I've come into this debate late, but it has been one of our lunchtime topics of conversation here. The basic premise of the speech seems to be "going back to the Moon is too hard and too expensive, so we'll go to Mars instead" [NASA had a plan to put a man on Mars in 1980...] There was also some scepticism about the concept of the first flight being an orbital mission only: after all, if you are going to spend a year and a half on the round trip, why miss out on the last few hundred kilometres? People did reply that Apollo VIII was circumlunar only, but that was the first manned test of a Saturn V rocket that had given some problems on Apollo IV, its only previous test and was the first flight ever out of Earth orbit.
I had noticed the re-phrasing of the Kennedy speech from 1961. It would have been nice if he had tried to be original. My first thought was something on the lines of: "Son, you're no Jack Kennedy".
All in all, I found the timeline optimistic (if getting back to the Moon in 2020 was too hard, are we going to get to Mars in 2030 with a new programme?) and the aims somewhat vague. It's fine suggesting a grand project with a 20-year timescale, but if President Obama doesn't get re-elected in 2012, will the new President support the project?
Complain about this comment
I was huge fan of the US manned space program but have become disenchanted with the political leadership's short-sightedness there. People, the Americans have been told this before but let us repeat - "If you cannot lead, please get out out of the way!"
There are others, (American and otherwise) who are quietly working at getting people there without all the hoo-ha over NASA's future plans - Mr.Obama while Kennedy will always be remembered as the one who sent men to the Moon, you will be remembered as the one who sealed the fate of the USA for manned space flight!
Complain about this comment
Below is a a link that I see seldom mentioned. The U.S. is working on many fronts. The X-37 being one of them and is pretty far along. It has been private industry that has always built the space ships, the method of appropriations is what is changing. The Space Shuttles are old and ready to be put into museums and justly deserve that honor. I have worked in the aerospace and defense industry for man years and what you see in the news is only the tip of a vast "iceberg" of technology that lies below.The ability to make design new propulsion systems will lead to spaceships that will make going to the Moon a "walk in the park". I love seeing all those Russian ICBM's being used to launch satellites and Soyuz capsules. It is far better than having nuclear warheads on them. One may want to research Begelow Industries and see the beginning of the new era of space stations. It is time to reach into the future. Even in the darkest days of the cold war America and Russia docked spaceships together. We (Russia and America) are at peace now. This is the best way to further our bonds. Space belongs to all mankind. The right asteroid could make one heck of a space station. Time to move past low orbit.
http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=8478
Complain about this comment
I for one have never brought into the idea that you need to have a moon base in order to go to Mars or even the lesser practice on moon to go to Mars as the challenges are so radically different.
Having said that I was initially at least optimistic that the constellation program would deliver some true space exploration even if it meant abandoning the shuttle for an overgrown Apollo capsule.
Like many I was disappointed to hear of then of Presidents Obamas cutting of the program, however having watched the presidents address yesterday i feel there is cause for optimisim again.
Private space travel is coming of age a few miles south of where the president spoke yesterday, a private comapny, SpaceX is preparing its first rocket for launch this will be the most advanced privately, deigened, funded and launched rocket yet. This company has one aim beyond simple satellite launches and taht is to supplemnt the ISS using there SpeceXs Dragon capsule intially just ferrying cargo but if Nasa Stay on this course evntually it astronauts too.
Nasa has always been at its best when it is is at its most innovative hopefully freeing them from having to provide Low earth orbit taxis will give Nasa the tools they need to get humans out of low earth orbit and into deep space...
Complain about this comment
Just to add a couple of points, any testing done of landing and habitation systems on the moon will only have limited utility on Mars. Mars has an atmosphere and much stronger gravity, which makes everything much more complicated in terms of landing - heat shields, atmospheric braking, etc.
Also, the moon is different on the surface - in particular dust is a huge problem up there. As far as I'm aware, it's less of a problem on Mars. We've had rovers operating there for years without any mechanical failure that can be attributed to erosion / clogging.
As some else said, the asteroids are interesting, in terms of science and also resources. Which is why Phobos and Deimos are interesting... our next staging post before the surface of Mars?
Complain about this comment
The message is clear. NASA is a socialist 'public' agency, The Russian's Roscosmos is now a capitalist endevour (for the most part). The US Republicans are conservatives, and Obama's Democrat administration endourses and promised change. The change Mr Obama was talking about is not hokey perochial change lined with fluffy bits, as was the perception of the majority of US citizens in the election (he is a politician after all), but a much wider geopolitical change reflecting the wortld in the 21st century. Wake up America, what worked in the 20th century is not what will make you great in the 21st century. The original Moon project was a giant leap of faith and started by a democrat, doing the same now will not work in the 21st century, you need another giant leap of faith and not 'just' depend on old hat technology. This goes for everything, not only the space industry...
Complain about this comment
Nasa has already spent $9B (£5.6B) on the current program. The president said Constellation was draining resources from other US space agency activities. The plan instead is to turn to the private sector for launch services.
Obama’s proposal has drawn criticism from some astronauts, including Neil Armstrong.
Armstrong and more than 2 dozen former astronauts and NASA officials, including Jack Robert Lousma, a former NASA astronaut and politician. Lousma was a member of the second manned crew on the Skylab space station and also commanded the third space shuttle mission. Lousma and group sent the president an open letter criticizing the changes. Lousma said the president's plan goes against NASA's Charter of Space Exploration. Lousma feels that the new program is not good for America and will send the US Space Program into mediocrity.”
Most importantly Lousma feels that the involvement of the private sector is an extremely naïve idea because the private sector is not prepared to handle this. They don't have any rockets. How long before the private sector will have rockets?
The Obama administration estimates the new plan would create @ 2,500 jobs in the Cape Canaveral area.
To create these relatively few 2,500 jobs, Obama will inject a $40 million fund to help transform the regional economy around NASA's Florida facilities and prepare the workforce. But the community itself expects to lose
- 9,000 Kennedy Space Center jobs when the shuttle program ends +
- 14,000 job from related industries like restaurants, hotels and retail shops.
The changes prompted Apollo 11 Astronaut, Neil Armstrong to emerge from his reclusion. He criticized the new program; he expressed great concern that the United States, long the world leader, will be at definite risk of being reduced to second or third class space status.
Neil Armstrong, along with astronauts James Lovell of the Apollo 13 mission and Eugene Kerman of the Apollo 17 mission, also wrote to the President. This group cautioned that without the skill and experience, the USA is likely to be on a long slide into space mediocrity.
Only Armstrong's Apollo 11 colleague, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, has backed the President. That in itself is noteworthy.
So, if Obama's mission on Thursday was to persuade doubters that his vision was coherent, that it contained clear, achievable objectives, and that it would maintain America's pride and leadership in human spaceflight, the people that should know, the people with space experience are trying very hard to help him understand
- the plan is not coherent,
- it does not contain clear, achievable objectives and
- it will likely reduce the American space program to mediocrity - perhaps even tragedy.
As for a return to the moon, it’s always been contentious that the Americans ever made it to the moon in the first place, whether the “moon” landing was orchestrated right here on earth.
Obama can say whatever he likes but there are two facts that are likely to take a significant (even fatal) bites out of his new space program:
a) China is already readying for its next leap into space this coming Thursday, with the Shenzhou VII will blast off with three astronauts and plans for a first space walk. The flight will be China's third manned space venture since October 2003, when it joined Russia and the United States as the only countries to have sent astronauts into space.
Maybe Obama is saying the US is no longer fixated on the moon because China is demonstrating the ability to accomplish "extra-vehicular activity". China's long-term goals are an orbiting station in the next decade and possibly a visit to the moon. (I wonder what evidence, if any, China will find of the American moon visit.)
b) The American debt now stands at well-over 12 Trillion dollars. The estimated population of the United States is 308,204,827; so each citizen's share of this debt is $41,630.00. The National Debt has continued to increase an average of $4.11B per day since September 28, 2007! Mr. President, you can’t afford to so much as point at the moon when poverty is huddled at your feet.
Complain about this comment
There is very little need for manned space flights. Technolgy can gather the information needed and the costs of such progams can be reduced. Want and need are two different things.
Complain about this comment
One of the reasons for returning to the moon is the abundant amounts of Helium 3 - very useful for fusion reactors and in very short supply on Earth.
Complain about this comment
@Bluesberry. Your wrong. That Simple. You don't know what your talking about. You obviously missed the photos showing the Lunar sites and will probably doubt the new photos from the Hi-Rez satellite taking pictures of the Moon's surface right now. Another America Hating Conspiracy nutjob with no sense of reality. Obama may or may not be gone, the continuity does not lie solely within the President. Research the X-37, the next Orbital Spaceship will be flying very soon (if it already hasn't, which I suspect, like the F117 Night Hawk, which flew for 10 years before it's formal unveiling) already has flown. Up to your post, the thread was at least somewhat sensible. It's great China is exploring space. America is not threatened by China or anyone else. After all, the best minds usually end up here. Understand, America is a nation of immigrants. So when you hate America, you hate part of yourself, because America represents people from every corner of the world. It's amazing that people who read public magazines think that if they read enough they can know what is going on. Sorry, that's not the way it works. There is what is called "need to know", and you don't need to know. You can only speculate in ignorance, like the rest of us.
Complain about this comment
P.S, as far as America's debt. Your numbers don't add up because when the dollar gets stronger, the debt goes down. As a percentage of what America is worth it is a drop in the bucket. The debt compared to America's potential already existing in our infrastructure, is a flash in the pan. There are other countries that have this potential. I hope we all achieve it. We will have a safer better world. We have one government to do this either. A world of sovereign nations who cherish peace will do just fine.
Complain about this comment
#50, goggyturk
Interesting, but inaccurate. The Martian dust is a real problem as it progressively covers solar panels. In fact, it seems only the regular cleaning by tornados that has stopped the Mars rovers from dying sooner, although they have suffered significant power drops. I don't know about mechanical failures by dust - one of the wheels did stop early on, forcing it to drive backwards until it finally became completely mired.
Mars also has a more serious problem. The lunar atmosphere is not thick enough to break primary cosmic radiation into secondary and terciary showers... Mars's atmosphere is, giving a dangerous surface radiation environment.
Complain about this comment
What is it that these astronauts are supposed to be doing on Mars? The benefit from using humans on Mars or in space is unclear to most of us who are trying expand our knowledge of the earth and beyond using technology. Nasa's inspiring missions over the few decades have not had astronauts on them (Hubble, Mars Rovers, Voyager) and the drop in reliability associated with robotic missions translates to huge cost savings. Now, what could I do with that cash...
Complain about this comment
To me, the single most important thing to remember is that the Obama Administration is trying to clean up the mess it inherited, on many, many fronts. And sadly, that includes the U.S. space program.
That is not to lay the blame solely at the desk of his predecessor, who himself inherited a lot, but simply to make it clear that what's going on here is a legitimate attempt to move forward in the most expeditious way possible.
The Constellation Program, like the Shuttle Program, was fatally flawed. The Augustine Commission established that incontrovertibly. Yes, it could have been salvaged, but at a far higher cost than had been previously estimated.
And yes, we are in the middle of the Great Recession, so that means something. Does one start to build a bridge with absolutely no assurance that the funds will be there to complete the bridge? Answer: No.
If one can fault the Bush Administration for anything it was for their lack of planning on how to actually accomplish their admirable goal.
So yes, the Constellation Program's plug needed to be pulled, and a lot of money needed to be, in effect, wasted - in order to save a great deal more money from being likewise wasted.
And anyone who remembers how the Space Shuttle ended up getting built knows why. They were beautiful ships, but they cost us dearly.
Now, I personally see far more gain in a return to the Moon than those in the Obama Administration seem to, particularly since it appears there may well be copious amounts of water there. But I also know a couple of things that many of your posters don't. First, there's a LOT of American space enthusiasts that want us to ignore the Moon and go straight to Mars - and since we now know that there are copious amounts of water there as well I'm less against that than I used to be.
But how many people know that launching from the Moon to Mars would require a lot more propellant than launching from Low Earth Orbit? And it's that little fact that people need to understand before they attack the Obama Administration's plans to get to Mars.
Interestingly, the Obama Administration's plans include the construction of a heavy lift vehicle that will be far more economical to operate than the Space Shuttle. And with the development of that vehicle a return to the Moon, as others have posted, becomes much easier to accomplish! Note that, with the Constellation Program, it would have been more money and a longer time before that heavy lifter would have been developed, so in a sense, the "Obama Plan" promises to actually get the U.S./mankind back to the Moon sooner than we had otherwise anticipated!
Finally, the sole piece of equipment that is being discontinued is development of the so-called "stick", which was in and of itself highly controversial for a number of technical reasons, not the least of which is that it might not have worked!
I hope this helps to give some clarity to your reader's thinking.
Complain about this comment
I was highly surprised when Obama had basically said "the moon is the thing of the past" seeing that only a few months ago we confirmed there was water and possibly more than we ever thought there was. The moon would be an essential base for future missions. Not primarily because of launch costs as was mentioned above.
Deep space missions are very new to us and there is so much to learn before we can go to orbit Mars, ranging from radiation shielding for astronauts as they leave the earth's protective magnetosphere to biological effects due to the absence of gravity for a long period of time. The moon gives us an opportunity to research into a spectrum of issues before we go further. The fact that there is water on the moon could be used as fuel, drinking water, radiation shielding etc for astronauts.
I do believe he is right by saying we need better ideas and greater technological breakthroughs. To make it short we need a more efficient propulsion system one which does not depend in burning fossil fuels.
It is safe to say that not very far into the distant future fossil fuels will reach its peak and we will have to resort to other forms of energy to meet our demands. Deep space missions like going to Mars require a lot of fuel, and until we solve our coming global energy crisis, travelling into deep space will be a problem.
Complain about this comment
It would seem the bigger issue at hand is not the desire or need to explore space its the lack of funds. This great "civilized" and well educated nation commits more to war than medical research for cancer, we commit more to war funds than to our own indentured Americans, family and relatives, We commit more to war more funds than health care, general welfare and the list goes on.
Its clear from the responses to this article that there are many ways into space and many more reasons why and why not go one place or the other. It is also clear that each place of destination provides us with valuable knowledge on surviving off this planet.
Our days to total planarity consumption based on growth rate is computable, and factoring in climate change as a divisor, the total consumption rate is dramatically reduced.
Space is a must for the existence of our race.
The people living in the Midwest are a testament to our need as a people, to look urgently at alternatives to war funding and divert funds to space.
On April 15 2010 a huge fireball streaked through the lower atmosphere, it caused multiple sonic booms and large electrical discharges recored by many security cameras in the area. A Rock from Space. I say that one had our name on it.
Imagine for a moment we could do every one of the missions described, achieve every program envisioned and employee 10s of millions.
How, is the next logical question.
The core of the space funding situation is that tax payers are not able to demand the use of taxes through the traditional vote. However what is apparent thought is we can and do demand the way our chartable contributions are consumed and in some cases to a very fine level of detail. I do realize that this speaks of a from of new world order but todays global crisis shows that the status quo does not work well in an educated, and connected world. The evidence of the cause of our funding shortfalls are on the front page of our news papers and headline our TV news and websites everyday, in this century, minutes before the attack on September 11, Rumsfeld announced the to the American people that 2 trillion dollars was unaccounted for in the military budget, later during the ramp up for war he said that Oil would "pay" for the war. Later crisis in market caused by poor oversight created more avoidable financial fund diversion and around the world the reports of misdirected funds for war and poor management are much the same.
In our own advanced society failure after failure of misdirected funds has taught us tax payers very little.
Change is required.
Gentlemen in Washington, while it is a violation to dictate the use of our tax, this rule was created because the mass tax base at the time was mostly uneducated. Today however that is not so. It would therefore seem apropos that this law be reviewed for its current merit while doing so, review your rolls as elected managers, your rolls in the use of tax funds would change to more direct management of public money rather than acquiring a source of funding. Your programs would voted for and then funded by the people that voted for it, with much clearer accountability on your part and a greater success rate for the tax payer.
These comments and suggestions on the space program alone are testimony to the intelligence not employed at NASA that should be. On the financial bloggs our current crisis was predicted and bet on by a few who were not employed by those who permitted our global economy to fail.
The 21 century has open the third modern wave of global communications and one with a greater capacity than last two, we need the best and worst in our society in order to ensure a greater chance of getting it right the first time. As the forth new mass communications platform becomes available a greater surge of people will be able and willing to contribute. This is the best time to launch such a program and refine the funding process.
The governments position should change to gather the proposed programs and present them not to a few selected people but to the tax base as a whole. once voted on would then be required to indicate the proportion of their tax return that will fund that program.
This telescope view of the funding solution is a starting point, however the results can be computed and the scenario modeled.
Space is not the end and this planet is not eternal. This planet has taught us who we are and how to survive as a society at its basic level and we have come a long way. Its time for us to build on this achievement and venture from the planet nest.
I, like most of you saw and followed the moon programs, the first space lab and so much more. Those first grainy black and white images of man landing on the moon are an achievement we dare not sit on, but we have. Those images stimulated a generation of great people who have accomplished so much to the preservation of me and you, imagine what more could be done, more so, read about the the dark ages and what could be lost.
I know we need to be in space, just as an ant needs to forage far beyond its nest, or a bird needs to migrate to stay alive.
Our reach into space should be on all fronts since each provides valuable information. all the programs that have some merit should be tried explored beyond paper. A base on the moon is a must and we should be there because we need one to discover more raw materials , how to live thrive and survive, Space stations and trips to mars are required for the same reason.
War and preparations for war are medieval, primitive and present because of poor leadership and mismanagement of funds.
Lets fix the system that fuels our visions and then make them a realty.
Complain about this comment
How heartening it is to see that President Obama is relying on children to formulate his space policy. Who wants to set up a permanent base on the moon when one can zip by an asteroid? Landing on one would be downright silly when we could use robots to do the job. Back to reality. Skipping the moon just doesn't make sense. His asteroid and Mars plans are projected years in advance and can easily be axed by himself or a future administration. It seems to me that he is paying lip service to critics and offering some crumb$ to the Florida politicians who can point to some jobs being kept. His aim, really, is to scale back America's role in space. After all the lives and billions of dollars spent to bring America to the forefront of space exploration, he is putting America into a back seat position. As Americans get upset with him, he pokes fun at them. His media and Congressional allies go further by calling them teabaggers and haters and raising alarms about potential domestic terrorism. As for the moon, I fully expect to see other nations step into the gap and set up operations there. And why not? The moon is close and has resources, including water. It has barely been explored. Exploring the moon and using its resources would hardly prevent exploring the rest of the solar system. Obama presents it as a false choice. It's not one of the other. His extra $1 billion a year to the NASA budget is a drop in the bucket. What's his real agenda?
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
HAS ANY PERSON THOUGHT ABOUT THIS A YEAR AGO NASA AND THE PRESIDENT WAS TAKING HEAT FOR NOT DOING ENOUGH ABOUT A POSSABLE ASTEROID HIT IN THE YEARS 2029 AND 2036 AND NOW COMES THIS NEW INTEREST BY THE PRESIDENT TO VISIT AN ASTEROID SHOULD WE ALL BE READING BETEEN THE LINES HERE DO THEY KNOW SOMETHING WE DO NOT KNOW HOW ABOUT IT
Complain about this comment
37, thanks for clarifying the advanced propulsion system I alluded to.
55, how do you know that this 'Apollo was faked' rubbish came from a non American?
Sadly, that stuff originated from, seems to most be popular, WITHIN the US.
Shocking I know, it's your nations greatest ever achievement.
Most level headed people elsewhere without an axe to grind (that is, most of us!), have long admired the greatest moments of the US space program, mind you, not our taxes being spent on it!
Worth mentioning that not only was Apollo curtailed, but some areas of great interest to science were not practical or just too marginal for the Apollo system to reach.
The far side, Tycho in the Southern highlands, the polar areas.
Apollo was not, even within the proposed Apollo Applications projects, (axed except for one Skylab in the late 1960's), suitable for setting up any kind of base, each Saturn V launch was not cheap, sending dozens to set up and support such a base was not going to happen.
To return to the Moon, as a step to Mars, which for testing out Martian surface activities would be highly desireable,should target the Lunar regions I mentioned above, (since any Mars landing would be at least have an 8 minute communications time lag from Earth, a far side to the Moon landing would be a way to test out doing a touchdown without mission control in the crews headphones).
The now axed Constellation program, for all it's talk of establishing a Lunar base, did not seem to good way of doing this either, returning for longer periods each time and doing a lot more science yes, (with all due respect to the later Apollo 15-17 missions with their 3 day stays, mobility from the rover and much more sample return each time).
The issues behind return to the Moon now, are no different now than from most of the last 35 years, when it comes down to it, the support from the US public and most of their elected lawmakers-aside those with major space facilities on their patch - is not there, sadly 'been there, done that', is a common view.
There might though be more support for Mars, since with manned exploration, we have not 'been there and done that'.
A contributor above mentioned that NASA had Apollo era plans to do so, the immense costs made it a non starter just after all that spending on Apollo - and look how the US public fell out of love with that after the first landings - their politicians responded to that, NASA were lucky they got to fly any of the later landings.
Complain about this comment
The whole issue of cost is central to all these things, if you were doing say a Mars mission on a budget you should be able to do it for about 30 to 60 billion- with a maximized efficiency profile. (thats about a month in Iraq)
They could start by using a very large booster to lift the whole system into orbit in 1 or 2 launches instead of 50 or 100 small launches. - It turns out to be cheaper to fly 300 people in a 747 than in 300 jet fighters, but current space agencies seem to keep going for the jet fighter because it looks cheaper on paper. (look at Sea Dragon)
For manned interplanetary missions what is really needed is the Dan Dare style nuclear rocket ship of the 1950's. A single stage that can leave the ground on Earth fly all the way to Mars, maybe pick up a fuel reload then come back to Earth and land. The problem is not so much that its more difficult or more complicated than current tech its the difficulty of building a closed cycle nuclear engine thats light enough and powerful enough. -
Open cycle or Orion system engines are both simple enough that workable systems could be developed in only a few years. Orion of course works using hundreds small nuclear explosions so it would really need to be lifted out of the atmosphere by something else- say a large packet of strap on SRB's or big booster. The main safety problems with Orion do seem to be solvable and from a scientific view at least it does seem to br quite workable.
Of course since almost all space technology is dual use they would have to rescind or rewrite nuclear weapons treaties to make any of these engines strictly legal.
Complain about this comment
I once heard it said (in the context of running a business) that the most important thing about a strategy is to have one. Obama's administration now has one that goes beyond the ISS and low Earth orbit. Next comes the tricky part - seeing it through.
Complain about this comment
Scrolling around, it seems that up to last year,without extra very major funding for years to come, Constellation was not looking like getting to the Moon before 2028, not quite 'around 2020'.
In other words, never.
There is the paradox, to get somewhere, like the Moon, including a return not just the first time with Apollo, you need a fixed date to a fixed mission, within a two term Presidential period.
When JFK was considering the science spectacular to trump the recent Soviet space firsts, he would have been advised that with the funding, a wall of it, a landing might be possible by 1968.
What a way to end his second term! (Never mind L.H. Oswald, if that is, his private life scandals or his Addison's disease had not got him first).
But to do that, the funding has to be very major.
The US political system, with it's twin houses, Presidential budget requests having to pass through the constant political minefield of the houses and both partisan and pork barrel coming into play, is almost as much of a challenge as spaceflight itself!
JFK/LBJ got Apollo through because of the events of their time, the fear of the USSR, the fight with them for influence in the world of the uncommitted, it was an era of so much that was new, happening so fast, jet airliners-supersonic ones coming soon as well, color TV, the pill-and all the other medications, labour saving devices at home, the US at it's richest and most confident, ever expanding, from freeways to jet travel, pioneering into space fit right in.
The USSR just gave it extra purpose and ruthless focus, for a time.
By the turn of that decade into the 70's, Vietnam, social discord, worries about pollution, harmful insecticides and poorly tested drugs like Thalidomide, the stirrings of the coming economic slowdowns, all of a sudden the great space adventure started to look as out of place, as it had seemed to fit in with the times just a few short years before.
And that within two Presidential terms!
A new way of doing things HAS to be found, is this new approach outlined by the President the way to start to do it?
That I think is what the debate should be.
Complain about this comment
Having entered this blog late and read all the comments, I was most interested in #27, particularly the opinions of Norm Augustine regarding option 5B from the committee's review of US human spaceflight.
I do not think Barack Obama is ruling out a return to the moon. Rather I believe that he may be trying to avoid entering another space race with China. If the moon is made a specific target and China get there first it will appear that the US has lost. With the plan Obama has set out, China reaching the moon first would not be a failure for the US and would not change the fact that the US are still the world leaders in space (just to clarify this is not US patriotism - I am British and currently working on a purely ESA project).
A second space race between the US and China would not be beneficial for the future of human spaceflight. While the space race in the cold war resulted in what is in my opinion mankind's greatest achievement with the manned lunar landings, I do not think it was the best result for the long term manned exploration of space. Racing to the moon was jumping too far too quickly and resulted in an unsustainable amount of money being spent by the Russian and US governments. It gave the politicians an easy way to cut funding when the goal of winning the race was achieved.
When thinking about long term human exploration, it would have been better in the 1960s to follow Von Braun's vision for space exploration. I definitely do not claim to be an expert on this vision and am open to corrections on these comments, but from what I understand Von Braun believed the best plan would be to steadily build up activities in low earth orbit (e.g. space stations) and then steadily progress to the moon, asteroids and beyond in a sustainable manner. This is the more logical engineering approach and Obama's plan seems to be in agreement with this. In the short term it won't produce the same achievements as Apollo, but hopefully in the long term it will pave the way for human exploration of the solar system.
Complain about this comment
Watch the video at around one minute in when Obama says "...I want to be around to see it", he does the same thing as Gordon Brown with mouth. Draw your own conclusion.
Jonathan, I don't think he gave a commitment to super heavy lift, rather he said they'd have to come up with new technology if they were to get the funding by 2015.
As for the £40M job creation scheme, that's replacing real jobs for real engineers, scientists etc. with McJobs!
Complain about this comment
as posted on HYS
Yes, it is the right decision. I`ve followed the space mission`s since `Sputnick` right up to the present day. And I`ll bet there are not many on HYS who know that there is a British satellite - Prospero - `still` orbiting Earth, launched 28 October 1971 aboard the `Black Arrow` R3.
Man`s conquest/exploration of space can only benefit us in the years ahead.
which makes me sad - for what once was; like being now proud to make brake linings, but not cars.
Complain about this comment
Ian, in fairness, the UK is a significant player in satellites, on experiments on space probes, we beat ourselves up about Beagle 2 but what about the significant contribution on Huygens?
But not in rockets true, the problem was in 1971, that Black Arrow, successful as it was, could only launch small payloads.
While it could be said that lack of foresight was guilty of the UK neglecting this market, in 1971, the commercial demand for small sats just was not there, what else then could Black Arrow launch after Prospero?
When the demand for small sats emerged, a British company, SSTL did and does does, take advantage of it, the satellites not the launch vehicle though.
Would we like a rocket program like Japan, they've built a series of launch vehicles, however they have not penetrated the commercial market, it's really more of a 'make work' effort, keeping certain parts of the science/industrial base busy.
Now there may be a case for this here, but this has cost Japan a lot of money, they've had their launch failures too, imagine what out press would make of that here?
Complain about this comment
Sonicboomer - make work would be nice, at least we'd still have experienced engineers. And how much money did the government spend on the millenium and various fripperies (ignoring banking now..) Better spending money on local industries than overseas commercial interests.
Complain about this comment
If you do not built a car that can get you from Paris to Berlin, you cannot easily built a car that can get you from Paris to Moscow...
Complain about this comment
@ddichiera: It is probably worth pulling out the OSTP notes on heavy-lift. New tech is an essential pre-requisite, yes.
"...in addition to investing in transformative heavy-lift technologies, he will commit to making a specific decision in 2015 on the development of a new heavy-lift rocket architecture. This new rocket would eventually lift future deep-space spacecraft to enable humans to expand our reach toward Mars and the rest of the Solar System. This new rocket would take advantage of the new technology investments proposed in the budget – primarily a $3.1 billion investment over five years on heavy-lift R&D. This propulsion R&D effort will include development of a U.S. first-stage hydrocarbon engine for potential use in future heavy lift (and other) launch systems, as well as basic research in areas such as new propellants, advanced propulsion materials manufacturing techniques, combustion processes, and engine health monitoring, all of which are expected to shorten the development time for any future heavy-lift rocket. The new rocket also will benefit from the budget’s proposed R&D on other breakthrough technologies in our new strategy for human exploration (such as in-space refueling), which should make possible a more cost-effective and optimized heavy lift capability as part of future exploration architectures. A decision in 2015 means that major work on building a new heavy lift rocket will likely begin two years sooner than under the troubled Constellation program."
I think we all have many follow-up questions. There is an interesting article from Amy Klamper in Space News about Lockheed Martin's views on Orion-lite, and how it can be progressively upgraded in the years ahead. Lockheed Martin were (are) the prime on the ship.
Complain about this comment
As an American I am very upset on the direction of our President for our Space Program. He has only offered hollow words to a shallow program that is not of his design. In fact the idea of going to an asteroid is from a 2007 NASA study to test Orion and Constellation technology before going to Mars. http://www.space.com/news/061116_asteroid_nasa.html
The idea of advancing a heavy lift rocket by 2015 was forced onto the President as to woo the many soon to be unemployed Shuttle workers that all is not lost. Obama said the design would be chosen by 2015, a date that could be when he is out of office. His audience was specially selected to the few at NASA that support his agenda of taking the Manned Space program away from NASA. There were no more than 200 people in that room. The long time between building a Rocket and a mission by 2025 means many other Presidents will have a chance to stall or advance his policy. (This is no way to run a space program!) Adding the Orion capsule to his program as a life boat will add several billion dollars to his budget, and with no Commercial Space Taxis that the President wants to replace the Shuttle for trips to the ISS, NASA will have little to do in Manned Space flight for 5 or even 10 years till one is invented. Many in America are very sad at this policy and only Congress can save the Constellation program.
Complain about this comment
Sonic boomers comment no 68 is right - no US President will spend money on going back to the moon if they don't think it will be done while they are in office - why spend the money & let some other person get the glory. This is probably the real reason why we've had so many abortive starts for shuttle replacements.
What we need is a real leader who will take the right decision and not the one which he thinks is either going to get people off his back or make him look good in the history books when his sucessor concels the R&D again.
Come on Mr President - if you really want to do something new in space team up properly with the other nations out there and make a real international space programme!
Complain about this comment
Jonathan, do you really believe that President Obama's grand new vision will be seen through, particularly, as is possible, he turns out to be a one-term president with a less supportive (if not hostile) Congress?
Making a 20 or 30-year committment is easy. Seeing it through is harder.
Complain about this comment
While there is nothing wrong about setting higher and more challenging targets, it should be done by someone who is informed and competent in the area. All of this smells awful much of Brezhnev or Khrushev giving advice to aerospace engeneers or telling agronomists how to grow better corn. Why doesn't the lawyer stick to the law.
Complain about this comment
@Stargazer: Isn't that one of the big problems? Subsequent presidents unmaking the policies of their predecessors? And potentially a colossal waste of money, too.
Complain about this comment
Jonathan, that is what Nixon did to the Kennedy/Johnson vision (after Apollo XI, of course) and what Obama has done to the Bush vision. A tit-for-tat by a future Republican President is sadly likely. It is why I am highly sceptical of this whole initiative. See my original post above on this. $9 billion wasted so far and rising, with only a single Are X-1 launch to show for it and a complete new start in the offing... quite probably after Barak Obama has left the White House.
Complain about this comment
I have just seen the latest Mars Society Newsletter. It rips the Obama Vision to pieces.
Complain about this comment
Cartagena, and I'm sure many other posters by now have more-or-less brought this up, but a mission to send astronauts to the Moon is not due to the nostalgia of some old farts, but rather due to the fact that it has been so long since we've (Americans) sent men to the Moon, and even those experiences are not fully sufficient to test whether we have what it takes for lengthier missions.
Bush's space vision would have had a lunar base where astronauts stayed for a long duration. If we can house astronauts on the Moon for a long time, then we might be able to house astronauts on spacecraft and a Martian base for a long time. If something goes wrong, the Moon is only three days away. If something goes wrong on Mars or far from Earth, the astronauts are dead.
I notice that much of Obama's plan will occur after the next presidential election, and much when he cannot legally even be in office. So it will ultimately be his successor(s) who are in charge of maintaining American space superiority. He's essentially shifting the responsibility to the next President(s) and their space administrations.
Complain about this comment
Regarding BluesBerry's comment 52:
"China's long-term goals are an orbiting station in the next decade and possibly a visit to the moon. (I wonder what evidence, if any, China will find of the American moon visit.)"
BluesBerry, your comment here seems to suggest that you believe China will be able to land taikonauts (astronauts) on the Moon in the next decade or so, but that you don't believe the United States landed astronauts on the Moon in 1969. This although, adjusted for inflation, the United States was in 1969 wealthier than China is today, and it isn't so much the technology to get to the Moon that's the problem so much as the resources and cost. Once you've successfully made an ICBM, you're about halfway there to landing people on the Moon. Nobody denies that the United States had ICBMs prior to 1969.
The above comment makes me believe that BluesBerry is not American, and is either ethnically Chinese or a Sinophile.
Complain about this comment
AnonymousCalifornian (and others)
I find this kind of debate extremely depressing. Part of the blame is due to NASA's "we can't do it now", to which the obvious corollary is "so you certainly couldn't 40 years ago". Of course, when you throw away the technology that you did it with... Of course, that film "Capricorn 1" didn't help, because it seemingly demonstrated how - and why - such a deception could be carried out.
Years back I sat down to a conference dinner on a sternwheeler and started to chat to the very pleasant gentleman sat next to me. After a while he revealed that he had designed the TV camera that the Apollo astronauts took to the Moon. I wonder what he would have made of this debate and the recent British opinion poll that suggested that more than 30% of respondants did not believe that the Moon landing had ever happened?
Complain about this comment
Jonathan, re your post 27. I disagree with you that the European ATV is anywhere near resembling a "capable" manned vehicle. There will be no real further progress in manned spaceflight until the private sector takes over transport, which is why I approve of Obama's plan.
America currently has a vehicle which is partly reusable (with great difficulty). The necessary step forward from the Shuttle requires improving reusability and greatly increasing frequency of flights. NASA has proven itself incapable of this, because the main market for such flights (personal space exploration, or space tourism) is invisible to it. This is why the private sector has to be encouraged to step in now. Remember that the British Interplanetary Society's symposium on space tourism a few years ago concluded: "Space tourism is the key to affordable access to space."
For Europe to go to great expense to develop a single-shot capsule on a throwaway booster is therefore an irrelevance in the greater scheme of things. It would be going back to pre-Shuttle concepts.
Europe has no shortage of designs for vehicles that can take that next step beyond the Shuttle. You know them well: Skylon, Spacebus, Sänger. We currently have a market for personal space exploration that stands at one passenger per year at around $30 million, and the key question for any new vehicle is how much it can expand that market and how much reduce the ticket price. The potential growth in personal space exploration is many orders of magnitude, and only with this growth can the frequency of flights be achieved that will permit progress towards greater safety and reduced costs (think of the growth in passenger air travel).
Until spaceplane access to orbit comes into being, we will be forever stuck at the stage of occasional, expensive, exclusive, politically driven, government astronaut access to space with minimal growth prospects. Europe should be planning the next stage of growth, not trying to emulate the Apollo-Saturn IB system that America had 40 years ago!
Stephen
Oxford.
Complain about this comment
Worth remembering that the serious spending for the previous Constellation program was to really ramp up, after the President who approved it, would not be in office to try and get it paid for.
The other side of the political coin.
While I was excited about this return to the Moon, parts seemed rather too vague.
Going back, doing a lot more science, learning much about the potential for Moon bases yes, but a full time base that would have to be supported by two major rocket launches each time?
Unsustainable.
As unsustainable as Apollo Applications would have been.
Trying to develop not one but two new launch vehicles, two new space craft, all one after the other, was asking for trouble, small wonder it fell behind and by 2009, had NO chance of getting to the Moon anywhere near 'around 2020'.
Not unless something like Apollo era funding returned, again no chance, even before the great financial meltdown.
Why did NASA not plan to launch Orion on a modified existing rocket - as many said at the time, adapting it would be way cheaper than Ares 1, then go hell for leather for the most important part, Ares 5?
Much as I love and admire NASA, they sometimes don't do themselves any favours at times.
Ian, I do see your point, but the 'Dome?'
Since I don't do the National Lottery I was not bothered by it!
Complain about this comment
@Stephen Ashworth: Space Tourism will do absolutely nothing to make space exploration more affordable. As per the unbundling of telephony and broadband, commercial enterprises will only go after the cream i.e. sub orbital and light payloads to low earth orbit.
Exploration of space requires super heavy lift (>50 tons to LEO). Private enterprise will never get an ROI on this, which is why it's up to governments to do it. You could say that super heavy lift is space's "Field of Dreams"
If we'd had a heavy lift in 1998, the ISS wouldn't have taken 12 years to build. In fact if Nixon hadn't cancelled Apollo/Saturn, we'd probably be on to a second or even third generation space station. And, we'd certainly have returned to deep space by now.
Complain about this comment
I agree with ddichiera.
There is NO market for space tourism. The idea of Commercial Space Taxis is a FANTASY and our President knows that. This hope to use SPACE TAXIS is just smoke and mirrors to the American public that believe Captain Kirk is waiting in a garage with a FLYING SPACE CAR. If any private company had 5 Billion dollars they probably would be able to get a manned space ship into orbit in 6 years. But not at the budgets they are using now. They also hope to make a profit on each launch. Our President in the U.S. is not the least bit concerned on the success or failure of these start ups in the near future. President Obama knows he will be out of office long after it is realized that his policy is a complete hoax. For his term (or terms) in office will no longer be burdened by an expensive government Rocket program and with no launch disasters during his time as president. His BIG ROCKET to the Asteroids and Mars will either become a reality long after he leaves office or be swept away by other Presidents with other agendas.
It saddens me that he does not have the courage to just admit that he finds NASA and Human space flight a luxury and be done with it. But he knows that will cost him VOTES in the most contested state in the Union.
FLORIDA!
Complain about this comment
@ ddichiera: Yes, governments need to explore, but then private enterprise needs to catch up. We're still doing catch-up to LEO at present.
I do NOT agree that flights to the Moon and Mars need a heavy lift, Saturn V class booster to launch! The reason why they do at present is that all the propellants for the flight have to be launched from Earth. If the propellants could instead be brought downhill to LEO or to wherever they are required, in the form of asteroidal water electrolysed into propellants in orbit with solar power, then the heavy lift booster is not necessary. Obviously, nobody is talking about using asteroidal resources at present, because of the space agency monopoly on manned spaceflight, and the agencies have a culture of occasional missions rather than mass-market infrastructure.
Yes, govts can build giant rockets and fly astronauts to the Moon and Mars any time they like. But the political imperative to do so is almost zero; govts do not see this as a core activity in the same way as social security and military activities. I would therefore argue that whenever a govt sends astronauts to deep space, we can be sure that the programme will later be cancelled, as was Apollo, at the next financial or global security crisis or change of president.
Commercial growth of a mass market which taps into asteroidal resources is therefore the only way that manned access to the Moon and Mars can be made affordable and sustainable.
Stephen
Oxford
Complain about this comment
Oops I wrote that last letter in a bit of a hurry .. typing mmlmfl!.
My point is that the quantum leap needed for real space exploration has been known since the 1950's and it is nuclear thrust. Nuclear thrust was the next step in Von Braun's plan after Apollo. I was trying to put forward that the original Orion system still offers a really quite workable solution to Mars. Solid liquid or gas core nuclear engines are more complex and still require separate reaction mass but are far more efficient in their use of nuclear fuel and don't have the problems with using and carrying nuclear bombs.
Nuclear rocket engines. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_thermal_rocket
There are a huge range of possibilities and designs. (three basic types, solid, liquid, and gas core) - From fairly conventional solid core type engines which are basically lightweight gas cooled reactors. To nuclear lightbulb engines which work at super high temperatures to allow the fission process to be far more efficient. Nuclear rockets are generally designed to lift from the ground so they have more stringent nuclear problems than Orion, but this can reduce the whole system to a single stage though fuel depots will probably still be needed.
One of the Shuttles original design criteria was an ability to meet with interplanetary missions in orbit carrying up their crews in maximum safety..
Orion is probably the simplest option and as most will know would use small nuclear bombs to create a pulsed thrust. Yes this means it really needs a separate technology to lift the system into orbit - the massive Sea Dragon rocket was the answer in 1962.
Probably the biggest real difficulty with Orion is lifting its fuel stores safely because they contain thousands of small nuclear bombs - and could present a considerable environmental threat on a launch fail (maybe about 1/10 of Chernobyl). Reasonable solutions aren't too impossible though, starting by say carrying up the bomb units in separate pieces and assembling them in orbit. Special launch precautions like ablative carriers could be taken with the active nuclear material. Most of Orion's other difficulties centre around the production and costs of the bomb units themselves - refined fissionable plutonium or uranium are hugely expensive. An Orion type mission taking say 10 crew members to Mars (return) might cost $20 to 40 billion for the basic system - Orion is much cheaper than chemical .
----
The horrible joke when they talk about dates in the 2030's and trillion dollar costs for a Mars mission is that even fringe technologies like nuclear fusion thrusters could start to be developed in the same costs and timescales. Looking at fusion the real problem is still that to much basic tech is not yet perfected, but one thing we do know is that fusion systems do tend to be very very large. (imagines something like the Nostromo)
Complain about this comment
One problem with the Orion ideas of the late 50's and early 60's, is that it required the truly mass production of small nukes.
With all that implies in today's world and exact opposite of what US Governments have been trying to do, decrease the number of nukes and access to the technology.
The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 additionally prohibits the explosion of nukes in space.
This concept was the way to explore the Solar system, completely and within a generation or less.
If the Earth they left was more utopian.
However, one way it could be revived is if proof was found of an object, like an asteroid or comet was on a collision course with Earth, then this would concentrate the minds enough to look for a way of decoying it, for which the old Orion concept would be ideal.
89, Paul, are you saying that American industry cannot, with NASA help remember, replicate and improve somewhat the capability the Russians have had for over 40 years with Vostok/Soyuz?
I think it's a fair question a new President would ask, 'why are we planning to service ISS with this Ares 1/Orion, years late, way over budget, which has serious technical issues too, when there are guys like Space X out there who reckon they can do it at a fraction of the cost?'
Indeed, carry up to 7 crew to the ISS, not just 4 (reduced from the original 6), of Orion.
NASA acting as a sort of space version of the Federal Aviation Administration, along with the technical help and experience, leaving them to do the exploration beyond LEO, as well as research in general for aerospace.
Complain about this comment
@ Paul: the demonstrated market for space tourism currently stands at one passenger/year at a ticket price of $30 million/seat. This has been a steady demand for the past decade.
Market surveys pioneered in Japan have indicated wide interest, provided the ticket price can be brought down, which can be done if the rate of flights is increased using a sensible reusable vehicle such as those currently under development in the UK.
You argue that Obama is trying to avoid an expensive space programme, but the reality is that he has asked for a modest increase in NASA funding.
Stephen
Oxford
Complain about this comment
Its no ready yet. I have followed the commercial space industry for 24 years and I have seen so many companies tell me (in person) that we can do the job of NASA better and cheaper. It is all BRAVADO! Most if not all went out of business. Its American Car-Sales-men-ship ship in all respects. The Obama Space policy is to derail the American dream of routine access to Space by ending the NASA made space craft. Private companies are not equipt to do the testing of a man-rated space craft like NASA and make a profit. This fairy tail of private Space Cowboys is a Hollywood dream and does not reflect the reality of space science. The SMALL advance of 6 Billion dollars over 5 years is CHUMP CHANGE and Congress knows it. To push any real scientific return for a NASA manned space flight into the future (2 decades)is a plan to make sure it is NEVER achieved. Far too many budget and bureaucratic conditions will change for a VAGUE idea of Men in orbit around another planet with no real goal to do more than Robots can do now. Our President is not interested in CHANGE, he is interested in the status quo. The real goal of NASA is not to always invent new stuff, but to reach far off destinations and do science once there. This silly idea that private Space Billionaires are going to open up the space frontier is pure FOLLY. Look around people...IT IS OPENED UP! IT is here now. All we need is the funding and we could go to MARS in 10 years. Settle the Moon, bring samples back from the Moons of Jupiter. You think some rich playboy is interested in science? I know President Obama is not. NASA will not be doing any thing glorious while he is in office. Look at Russia for the last 40 years, They are using 1960 technology and yet we have to pay to ride their space craft for some time before a Space taxi is invented with a motive only directed to Profit. Did anyone ever think that Russia could do that now in a free market economy sooner than our space industries? Sure! They have a mandate from NASA and are charging more per seat. If our American Cowboy space companies drop the ball, Russia could be the Space Taxi for the world. It seems that the love Cult of Obama and his plans for America are always seen in the best light, but as my experience in Aerospace has shown me, NOTHING goes according to plan.
Complain about this comment
Cheers everyone. I've really enjoyed reading all the comments.
Complain about this comment
Although I am saddened to see the end of what was an inspiring project in the Space Shuttle, and not see a slight extension to the program until a new (US) craft (private or not) is available to bring Astronauts into space, I do agree it's time to move forward and head for further away destinations.
Developing new space crafts and their associated technologies is the only thing that can truly push our technologies ahead, as opposed to just a refinement of what Apollo has already accomplished. Even if we do visit the moon, it will then be done with the newer technologies, perhaps for less cost, and with more comfort and safety than would have been the case with an Apollo derivative.
Complain about this comment
View these comments in RSS