In article ,
quibbler wrote:

The realignment is a desperate attempt to fix the idiotic reagan
administration priorities of things like a space station and shuttle
misssion.

Agreed.

However, manned exploration is not the way to do it

I disagree with that.

and manned exploration will eat the lion's share of this budget.

Good, that is as it should be.

Not wasteful, but highly useful.

You are uninformed.

No, I'm quite informed, thanks.

Manned exploration is ruinously expensive.

It is expensive, yes. Largely because we don't do enough of it. And
this is why it's important for the government to be doing it -- the
government can, in theory, develop things which are beyond the
return-on-investment horizon for the business world. This is a very
good use of tax dollars.

We have known since the inception of the space program that robotic missions
would be the most cost effective ways to produce scientific data and
that's still true today almost universally.

Agreed. But irrelevant. NASA is not about producing scientific data.
That was just a bad choice made after Apollo wound down when they said,
"Well we've won the Moon race, now what do we do?" A much better answer
would have been: "We develop infrastructure needed to live and work in
space, and strive to open up the space frontier as quickly as possible."
That's essentially what the new mandate does. Better late than never.

Allowing NASA to drift
about with the lack of focus it's had for the last few decades, now THAT
would be wasteful.

NASA doesn't need a moron like Bush to pretend that he is now an expert
on space, when he's not an expert on anything except maybe smoking crack
or dodging service in vietnam. Bush is not qualified to micromanage NASA

I agree with all of that (except perhaps Bush's past activities, of
which I have no knowledge or interest). But he's not micromanaging
anything; he made one speech in which he set out some broad goals. He
didn't even present the budget chart; that was left to O'Keefe. It will
be up to O'Keefe to make this plan actually work. I don't know whether
O'Keefe is an idiot or not, but since he hasn't demonstrated so yet, I
think there's cause for optimism.

and unfocused hodge podge of manned space stunts will only drop to zero
the amount of real science that NASA will be able to do.

Well, that's a fine amount of real science for NASA to do. But I don't
think an unfocused hodgepodge of space stunts is what we're talking
about here. Instead, we're talking about building infrastructure,
especially on the Moon. That's quite focussed and very important.

Yeah, we needed
to get rid of the shuttle, but Bush is the guy who vowed to keep it
flying after Columbia. Bush is all talk and no action.

Bush Bush Bush. Will you get over it? I don't like the guy either but
so what? Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Whatever his
reasons, or whoever may have been pulling the strings, is irrelevant.
The result is the most sensible plan NASA has had in a very long time,
and I don't care who made the speech about it.

His proposals
give no serious amount of money to NASA to accomplish the grandiose
flagpole sitting Bush wants them to do.

We're not talking about flagpole sitting, and you're right, the budget
proposed is modest enough to actually get funded by Congress. That's a
good thing. Whether NASA can be readjusted enough to put this small
budget to good use remains to be seen. Certainly it's plenty of money
in principle.

Rather, he is forcing them to cancel real science in order to engage
in an idiotic, completely unnecessary moonbase boondoggle.

No, he's forcing them to cancel real science (good!) in order to refocus
on what their mission should be, which is manned space development.
Whether the moonbase will turn out to be a boondoggle or not, we're
better off trying than not trying.

So let's not attempt to do real science.

LOL. You obviously don't understand that it is is the science that
underpins this whole program.

No, science has been the *excuse* that NASA has used to justify its
budget. That was a mistake. The sciencific results don't justify the
expense, even when talking about strictly robotic missions. Most
taxpayers really don't care exactly how old the universe is or whether
it's going to end by collapsing, ripping apart, or freezing.

We can't just jump in a rocket and go to
mars. We have to understand the science of how to provide life support,
shield from exotic radiations, etc.

Those are engineering questions, not science. And besides, who said
anything about going to Mars? We need to develop the Moon first before
we think seriously about any other large bodies in the solar system.

Let's work on opening the frontier for human habitation instead.

That takes science and real intelligent planning, neither of which Bush's
plan supports.

It takes much more engineering than science. The only bit of science I
can think of that would really be useful is data on how the body adapts
to long periods in 1/6 G. Perhaps some of that science will eventually
be done on ISS, but if not, then the best way to get that data would be
to collect it on the Moon.

The moon would be a less hospitable place, for example,
than mars or perhaps some asteroids.

Less hospitable than Mars: yes, but tremendously, ridiculously,
irreplaceably closer. It is pure folly to consider going directly to
Mars before we've learned how to stay for months or years at a time on
the Moon.

Less hospitable than some asteroids: pure bunk. Some asteroids may be
richer in volatiles, perhaps, but that doesn't make up for other factors.

We can't have a scientific illiterate like Bush ramming his own
ill-conceived politial nonsense, like a moonbase through NASA.

You seem much more concerned with who made the speech and why, than with
its content. Perhaps you should be venting in some politics newsgroup
instead of sci.space.policy.

We don't need Bush doing that in spades with a moonbase which would
have no source of food, water or essential support.

Nonsense. It has a ready source of all those things: a large, inhabited
planet rich in all of those and more, only a couple days' travel away.
Perhaps you've heard of it?

Moreover, once we're set up and taken care of a few more urgent needs
(like a pressurized, temperature-controlled environment to move around
in), we can start looking into finding them more locally. Food can be
grown. Water may be obtained at the poles. Etc.

We don't need men on the moon right now.

Agreed; we needed men (and women) on the moon 30 years ago. But again,
better late than never.

We need robots to lead the way for another decade or two until we know
enough about the moon to intelligently plan our options.

First: rubbish. We know plenty enough about the moon to get started;
the only major unknown is the form of the hydrogen at the poles.
Second: the plan involves unmanned missions, insofar as those contribute
to the goal. That means we WILL see robots going back to the Moon and
answering those questions that need to be answered, well before the
people go.

We also need to spend far more on research and less on putting rocket
on a lunar resort.

Ah, I'd love to see a lunar resort, but NASA isn't going to build one.
However, spending more on "research" isn't going to build one either --
what we need is infrastructure development. Once we have that, Disney
or Bigelow or somebody else will eventually build the resort.

Robots have their place, but to get people living in space we really
need to have people living in space.

We've had them in space stations.

Yes. That's good, but it's time for the next step.

There are serious health risks at
present. Similar health risks would apply on the moon.

Actually, not so much. Most of the health risks in the space station
are due to (1) microgravity and (2) radiation. Well, the Moon doesn't
have microgravity; we don't know how much 1/6 G helps but it certainly
can't hurt. And radiation shielding is cheap on the Moon; people there
will be much less irradiated than those in a space station.

More importantly, it would be far more expensive and difficult to constantly
send servicing and support to a moonbase as opposed to a space station.

Not far more expensive. Maybe twice as expensive. Until we develop
infrastructure that brings the cost down, such as a nuclear-electric
tug, or a tether transfer system, or something else. But those things
don't spring fully formed out of the head of Zeus; they arise only
*after* there is a need for them. So, to get the ball rolling, you
found your base and make do with what you have.

Not if by "exploration" you mean "expanding the range of places people
have visited and experienced firsthand,

That's flagpole sitting.

There is some truth to that. So I did cringe a bit when he talked of
"exploration" -- I'd rather have heard "development." However, the
details to sound more like development than exploration; we're going to
make a base and stay in it for increasingly long periods of time.
That's not flagpole-sitting, that's homesteading.

We need to expand the range of places that our
robotic sensors have visited. We need more probes to pretty much every
planet.

No we don't, and no we don't. Maybe you do. You pay for it, then. Or
better yet: this is the sort of thing the National Geographic Society
will no doubt get into when the cost comes down enough. So just get out
of the way, let us bring the costs down, and then you can join NGS and
urge them to take pretty pictures of remote and currently-irrelevant
planets.

If Bush wants to do something for the space program then revive
the pluto-kuiper missions. Send more science packages to the outer
planets. Land robots on the moons of mars, rather than rushing to get
humans there. The experience will eventually make it much safer and
easier for humans to go there.

No, that will just tie up NASA producing nothing but pictures and charts
for another half-century. I'm certainly glad you're not in charge!

No, I get it. Science is the only thing that separates us from the lower
primates. It is more and more critical that we expand our scientific
capabilities.

Learning to live and work in space will expand the important scientific
capabilities. And eventually, it will enable those less important ones
(cosmology, so-called astrobiology, etc.) to accomplish far more than
they could now as well.

Bush's undermining of space science is reckless and will
only hold us back. We went to the moon and then, when we had our little
adventure fix we sat around for another 35 years doing relatively little.
The same may happen if we make one trip to mars.

I agree. Fortunately nobody's proposing making one trip to Mars. And I
note that what you're proposing -- more robotic probes and so on -- is
the same thing NASA has been doing for the last 35 years, which you
correctly describe above as "doing relatively little." But, being able
to hold two contradictory points of view at the same time is what
separates us from the lower primates.

We'll shoot our wad and
that will be it for mars exploration for another few decades. Bush's
childish ego gratification scheme will make going back to mars the next
time that much harder.

Forget Mars. That was just a bone thrown to the Mars advocates. The
focus of the plan is the Moon, which is exactly where it should be.

I don't care about "real science."

I know that because you fail to grasp that we live in a highly technical
world where we are utterly dependent on science.

You are quite incorrect. Shall we get out our rulers and compare?

You also fail to grasp
the intense promise and power of science which could answer questions
about issues like whether life existed on Mars.

Ooh, whether life existed on Mars -- why didn't you say so! How did
they ever manage to build a car without knowing that? If we only knew
whether life existed on Mars, we could solve the energy crisis, cure
poverty, reinvigorate the economy, and protect humanity against global
catastrophe!

(I'm being sarcastic, BTW.)

Seriously though, it's great that you're so content with the world that
you think whether life existed on Mars is an important question. Good
for you. Most people are not so content, however. The world is
entering a crisis period, with several different global dangers
developing at once (including energy, climate change, genetically
engineered bioweapons, etc.). And closer to home, we have economic
problems (lots of low-tech jobs going to other parts of the world,
without enough high-tech jobs being developed to replace them) as well.
I'd rather see my tax dollars go into something that can help out with
these problems. Purely intellectual pursuits are worthwhile too --
that's what NEA is for, for example -- but not as relevant to me as
developing space.

rest of your repetitive junk snipped

ditto

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