To Laugh or Cry?

Note the article on Bush & NASA at
http://my.core.com/~carhart/
While it is a humor site, this sadly smacks of the truth.

Dave S, Chicago

"DaveS" wrote in message ...

Note the article on Bush & NASA at
http://my.core.com/~carhart/
While it is a humor site, this sadly smacks of the truth.

Even if it were the truth, so what?

What's the point of NASA if we never go anywhere past LEO? We might
as well leave space to the military and to the commercial satellites,
beaming Oprah and soaps down at us.


If the next thirty years consisted of just looking into space and
sending a few probes there then, for all I'm concerned, I wouldn't
mind giving up doing that as well. If all of the pretty pictures of
moons and planets and comets in outer space bear a label saying, "For-
ever off-limits to *you,* wetware-boy! Hahaha!" then I personally
don't care about getting nice pictures, either.

So if I shared the opinion that a moonbase project would kill NASA
long before a base even happened, then *let NASA die!* Let's the
geeks watch reruns of "Space 1999" and "Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars"
instead!


--
__ "A good leader knows when it's best to ignore the __
('__` screams for help and focus on the bigger picture." '__`)
//6(6; ©OOL mmiv :^)^\\
`\_-/ http://home.t-online.de/home/ulrich....lmann/redbaron \-_/'

In article ,
"Ool" wrote:

"DaveS" wrote in message
...

Note the article on Bush & NASA at
http://my.core.com/~carhart/
While it is a humor site, this sadly smacks of the truth.

Even if it were the truth, so what?

What's the point of NASA if we never go anywhere past LEO? We might
as well leave space to the military and to the commercial satellites,
beaming Oprah and soaps down at us.

If the next thirty years consisted of just looking into space and
sending a few probes there then, for all I'm concerned, I wouldn't
mind giving up doing that as well. If all of the pretty pictures of
moons and planets and comets in outer space bear a label saying, "For-
ever off-limits to *you,* wetware-boy! Hahaha!" then I personally
don't care about getting nice pictures, either.

So if I shared the opinion that a moonbase project would kill NASA
long before a base even happened, then *let NASA die!* Let's the
geeks watch reruns of "Space 1999" and "Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars"
instead!

So let's see, if Congress won't give NASA the money it needs to do
(manned) exploration of outer space you'd rather NASA was disbanded and
the US spend *no* public money on space at all?

--
Stephen Souter

http://www.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/

"Stephen Souter" wrote in message ...

So let's see, if Congress won't give NASA the money it needs to do
(manned) exploration of outer space you'd rather NASA was disbanded and
the US spend *no* public money on space at all?


Well... Yes!

If the goal of all those telescopes and probes looking at things in
space is just *more* looking by *more* telescopes and *more* probes,
then we might as well give up.

It's less frustrating not even knowing about the things you have no
chance of ever getting to anyway. (Especially when the reason is that
no one else wants to, not because it's impossible.)

All those rovers and landers and orbiters are cool and worthwhile.
But only if they are the vanguard for ourselves.


No moonbase--no point! I wouldn't give a fig about NASA or ESA or
whoever without it for a goal and, indeed, until recently I hadn't.



--
__ “A good leader knows when it’s best to ignore the __
('__` screams for help and focus on the bigger picture.� '__`)
//6(6; ©OOL mmiv :^)^\\
`\_-/ http://home.t-online.de/home/ulrich....lmann/redbaron \-_/'

In article ,
"Ool" wrote:

"Stephen Souter" wrote in message
...

So let's see, if Congress won't give NASA the money it needs to do
(manned) exploration of outer space you'd rather NASA was disbanded and
the US spend *no* public money on space at all?


Well... Yes!

If the goal of all those telescopes and probes looking at things in
space is just *more* looking by *more* telescopes and *more* probes,
then we might as well give up.

Isn't that all astronomers are doing with their telescopes on the ground?

Looking & more looking.

Should no more money be spent on them either, and the government
organisations responsible for them dismanded?

--
Stephen Souter

http://www.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/

"Stephen Souter" wrote in message ...
In article ,
"Ool" wrote:
"Stephen Souter" wrote in message
...

So let's see, if Congress won't give NASA the money it needs to do
(manned) exploration of outer space you'd rather NASA was disbanded and
the US spend *no* public money on space at all?

Well... Yes!

If the goal of all those telescopes and probes looking at things in
space is just *more* looking by *more* telescopes and *more* probes,
then we might as well give up.

Isn't that all astronomers are doing with their telescopes on the ground?

Looking & more looking.

Should no more money be spent on them either, and the government
organisations responsible for them dismanded?

I don't care!

There are only so many pictures of the furthest stars one can look at
before thinking, what's the point if we can't even manage to settle on
our closest neighbor in space?

What's the point of finding planets around other stars if even those
around our own are out of our reach? What difference does it make
whether they exist or not?


--
__ “A good leader knows when it’s best to ignore the __
('__` screams for help and focus on the bigger picture.� '__`)
//6(6; ©OOL mmiv :^)^\\
`\_-/ http://home.t-online.de/home/ulrich....lmann/redbaron \-_/'

Ool wrote:
"DaveS" wrote in message ...

Note the article on Bush & NASA at
http://my.core.com/~carhart/
While it is a humor site, this sadly smacks of the truth.

Even if it were the truth, so what?

What's the point of NASA if we never go anywhere past LEO? We might
as well leave space to the military and to the commercial satellites,
beaming Oprah and soaps down at us.


You could get them to build a SPS or SAS or SMS technology demo there to
investigate the issues. Similarily, the new mission could be making space
acecss cheap. But no - instead it is something completely different,
something that makes sure they will be doing a couple of manned missions
a year for a *LONG* time.

moons and planets and comets in outer space bear a label saying, "For-
ever off-limits to *you,* wetware-boy! Hahaha!" then I personally
don't care about getting nice pictures, either.

So do something about it wetware boy. something that counts, something
that actually gets you closer to being able to do things in space
and go there in stead of drooling and a silly wasteful project that is
going to send a couple of humans to moon once a year.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

"Sander Vesik" wrote in message ...
Ool wrote:

You could get them to build a SPS or SAS or SMS technology demo there to
investigate the issues. Similarily, the new mission could be making space
acecss cheap. But no - instead it is something completely different,
something that makes sure they will be doing a couple of manned missions
a year for a *LONG* time.

moons and planets and comets in outer space bear a label saying, "For-
ever off-limits to *you,* wetware-boy! Hahaha!" then I personally
don't care about getting nice pictures, either.

So do something about it wetware boy. something that counts, something
that actually gets you closer to being able to do things in space
and go there in stead of drooling and a silly wasteful project that is
going to send a couple of humans to moon once a year.


I would love to; I'm just not sure, what. Two weeks ago I wouldn't
have considered looking for a job at NASA--exactly because of what the
President mentioned in his speech: In the last thirty years no one
has been higher up than the distance between D.C. and Boston. They've
been going nowhere for a long time, with no end in sight, until that
new mission statement.


So let's consider the alternatives:

- Extreme example first: Manned mission to Mars. Everyone thinks
that's too expensive at the moment, but let's assume that's what
we'd concentrate on. Result I'm afraid of: Just like the Lunar
missions '69 through '72--they send about a dozen people there, then
they decide that it's *way* to expensive and cancel everything and
return to LEO and Earth for the *next* fifty years.

- Another goal: Robotic missions to Moon/Mars/wherever with no clear-
ly stated long term goal of eventually sending people and setting up
a base. Possible result: It could continue the way it's been going
so far--rovers and landers sent every two years, two thirds of which
never even make it, the rest delivering results that many deem not
being worth the expense. At any rate results that are limited by
the robot-handicap.

- NEO asteroids--they contain lots of resources, but they're not ex-
actly resources we need on Earth. So unless there's a space infra-
structure in need of space resources that's not a goal anyone would
be interested in. Not as a benefit, at least--only as a possible
impact threat to Earth.

- Solar power stations in space, as well as the rest that you suggest-
ed--I'm all for the solar power from space; we may have no choice
but building those anyway a few decades hence. I'm also quite con-
fident that they *will* be built. What I fear about them, however,
is that they may become what the commercial satellites of today
are--unmanned, providing reliable service for a long time, offering
no incentive for us to do any space *exploration* beyond LEO and
GEO, however.

So those are my fears about what could wrong if we officially commit-
ted ourselves to those other goals. Then there's the moonbase goal...

If I gathered correctly what you fear then that it's going to be an-
other ISS--expensive, leading nowhere, sucking up the resources of
other projects. You have the same fears about it as I do about the
other choices.

What I think--what I hope, at least--is that the goal of a moonbase
will force us to build powerful rockets that will make transportation
towards other destinations cheap as well--for building SPSs, for
reaching NEOs, for sending probes to Mars and beyond. Observatories
can be set up on the Moon that can be maintained by the base staff.
If we manage to master Lunar mining technologies then the Moon could
provide all sorts of cheap resources for rocket fuel and Earth's sat-
ellites. If we cannot economically mine the Moon then the demand for
mining NEOs will arise and the means for reaching them will exist...

That's optimistic--admittedly. But you have to be an optimist with
the alternative goals to, hoping they'll lead to further exploration.
You could counter that maybe we shouldn't have *any* long-term goals
and merely concentrate on making launch facilities cheaper. But what
I fear is that without a visible destination for those launches the
incentive just won't be there to make rockets big enough.


And in all this there is, of course, also the question of, what can
*I* do about it? What project should I be looking for that will ac-
tually advance the dream and not wind up in a dead end. Personally
I'd feel much more comfortable working for an agency that has set it-
self a goal such as the Moon, whose reaching would force us to do all
the other things, than one that hasn't.

So what counterarguments to the Moon goal do you have in *that* con-
text? And what alternatives?



--
__ “A good leader knows when it’s best to ignore the __
('__` screams for help and focus on the bigger picture.� '__`)
//6(6; ©OOL mmiv :^)^\\
`\_-/ http://home.t-online.de/home/ulrich....lmann/redbaron \-_/'

In article ,
"Ool" wrote:

"Stephen Souter" wrote in message
...

Should no more money be spent on them either, and the government
organisations responsible for them dismanded?

I don't care!

There are only so many pictures of the furthest stars one can look at
before thinking, what's the point if we can't even manage to settle on
our closest neighbor in space?

What's the point of finding planets around other stars if even those
around our own are out of our reach? What difference does it make
whether they exist or not?

But will disbanding NASA get you any closer to them?

A bit like cutting off your nose to spite NASA.

That in turn would pretty much leave it up the Russians or the Chinese
to achieve the goal of landing on Mars or returning to the Moon.

As for private enterprise...well even Columbus required a government
grant in order to get to America. Hopefully some firm will soon win the
X Prize, but the way things seem to be going no manned space mission
funded by private enterprise itself is going to get to even the Moon in
the foreseeable future. Certainly not before Bush's goal of a c.2015
time frame for a NASA mission.

--
Stephen Souter

http://www.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/

"Ool" wrote in message
...

I don't care!

A pity, that.