Bush to announce new missions to moon

But flags and footprints missions don't really count as 'development'.
And there is no realistic way in which the US can do anything else with
manned flights in the next 15 years, even if it commited five times
as much money as they do now to all of space.

The rule is simple. Don't do anything you cannot do over again. The Mir and
its launches were more productive and cheaper because they kept using the
same design and held their position in space. The shuttle is repeating its
mission and amortizing its cost. The cost of going to the moon would have
reduced if we kept doing it. It was a dead loss because we gave it all up
and let the technology rot. And the Saturn 5 could have got us to Mars and beyond
with different payloads at the end, just as we refit for the space station.

Jorge R. Frank wrote:

Two daughters, both too young to run. But he has two brothers,

Three, actually: Jeb, Neil, Marvin...and his sister Dorothy

one (Jeb) in
politics (governor of Florida), and Jeb has at least one son.

Two George P., and Jeb junior... along with everybody's favorite crack
addict, the gorgeous Noelle:
http://www.gridlockmag.com/dewey/ima...dpic012902.jpg
To whom every Christmas is a white Christmas, whether the snow be on the
ground, or up one's nose.
An interesting sidelight on this woman:
She was arrested in Tallahassee, Fla., on Jan. 29, 2002, and charged
with prescription fraud after she tried to buy the sedative Xanax at a
local pharmacy.
Xanax as you may remember, was one of Rush's favorite drugs. Maybe the
company should advertise it as the preferred drug for Republicans.

Pat

Dr. O wrote:


I would hate to see Pluto Express get scrapped. I would like to see a
close-up snapshot of Pluto in my lifetime.


And so you shall:
http://www.strawserart.com/luke/imag...ukesmaller.jpg

Pat

Joe Strout wrote:

So? Since when did space become about science?

Well, I'll answer that: it became about science towards the end of the
Apollo program, when NASA realized that this huge organization it had
built to put a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth needed a
new purpose. Science was chosen as that purpose (and indeed, this was
the outward reason given for the Apollo missions -- mostly lunar
geology).



If you added the proviso that _manned_ space became about science at
that time, I'd agree with you; but a large number of unmanned spacecraft
were flown dedicated entirely to science before Apollo flew.

This was a bad choice in retrospect, though perhaps it was
the only choice available. But nothing has come of space science so far
that can justify the huge expenditures involved.


Well meteorology is a science; and those weather satellites have been a
very major benefit in both weather prediction and the tracking of
storms. I don't know what exactly they have saved in dollar terms since
they first were invented, but I have little doubt it has been many
billions; and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of lives.


Now, space *development* -- that's another story. That's worth much
more than what we're putting into it, because it addresses real-world
needs in the near term (such as energy production, protection from
asteroids/comets, etc.).

The public intuitively knows this -- when people are out there
developing ways to live and work in space, they're interested, but as
soon as it devolves into taking pretty pictures, we get a giant
collective yawn and change to the sports channel.

Unfortunately, we still have this myth rolling around that space is
supposed to be about science. Engineering is certainly required for
space development, and a small bit of science here and there is needed
to support that engineering. But science is not the *reason* for space
development. Attempting to make it so just undermines the whole
enterprise.

Indeed, to put the cart properly behind the horse: once space
development is further along, then we can build much bigger and better
instruments to answer those cosmology and astronomy questions, much
cheaper than we could today.


This would cost a _lot_ of money... money which looking at our budget
deficit, we frankly don't have.

Pat

jeff findley wrote:

I hate to say it, but I tend to agree. Unmanned probes are useful,
but what's the point if we're going to stay on the same rock forever?
Why learn about Mars if we're never going to actually set foot on the
surface?

Not on this trip apparently, according to this:
http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?i...t=1&spa rte=4
the plan is for a manned Mars _fly-by_ by 2020; not a landing...and I
can think of few things more useless and frustrating than a manned Mars
fly-by with no landing. Of course, they could land unmanned probes on
Mars as they flew by...wait a minute...we can do that now!

Where's the excitement in exploration by proxy (robot)?

In the Oval Office, apparently.

Pat


Jeff

Ian Stirling wrote:

A crash mission to Mars wouldn't come to fruition in any conceivable
Bush administration. At best he has 5 years left; ain't getting there in
that length of time.



Orion?

No, giant terrorist attack threat, national emergency, suspension of
elections, and Bush becomes president-for-life.
I can conceive of that in relation to the Bush administration.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:

the plan is for a manned Mars _fly-by_ by 2020; not a landing...and I
can think of few things more useless and frustrating than a manned Mars
fly-by with no landing.

Couldn't agree more. If it's about science, it's a waste of money to
send guys to fly past, if it's about exploration, a fly-by accomplishes
nothing. I can't even see it serving as a stepping-stone - there are no
legitimate questions that this answers.

Land, or send unmanned probes. The intermediate solution is a loser
in any case.

Brett

In article , Ian Stirling wrote:
In sci.space.policy Scott Lowther wrote:
Mike Rhino wrote:

If a lunar space station precedes a manned Mars mission, then the Mars
mission won't occur until many years after Bush leaves office.

A crash mission to Mars wouldn't come to fruition in any conceivable
Bush administration. At best he has 5 years left; ain't getting there in
that length of time.

Orion?

That just solves "transit time" - but, let's be honest, we'd be
hard-pressed to make it to the moon in five years, and the transit time
there is three days...

Development, even a crash program, isn't fast.

--
-Andrew Gray

"Joe Strout" wrote in message
...

The public intuitively knows this -- when people are out there
developing ways to live and work in space, they're interested, but as
soon as it devolves into taking pretty pictures, we get a giant
collective yawn and change to the sports channel.

which is why the entire world sits spellbound at all the data/imagery coming
down from ISS, and why there have only been seventeen hits on the "Spirit"
web pages. Sure, sport.

--
Terrell Miller


"It's one thing to burn down the **** house and another thing entirely to
install plumbing"
-PJ O'Rourke

"Brett Buck" wrote in message
m...

I can't even see it serving as a stepping-stone - there are no
legitimate questions that this answers.

except for the question of "can we safely send humans on years-long journeys
out of LEO"? and "are there any gotchas involved in Martian operations"?,
stuff like that...

Land, or send unmanned probes. The intermediate solution is a loser
in any case.

You do realize that people said exactly the same thing about Apollos 8 and
10, yes? WHy bother going all that way and not land?

--
Terrell Miller


"It's one thing to burn down the **** house and another thing entirely to
install plumbing"
-PJ O'Rourke