Bush's Mission to Mars

In article ,
John Savard wrote:
Yes, the War on Terror is going to be expensive. But I can't fault the
President for thinking that the American people need a little good
news now and again as well.

Bear in mind that this initiative wasn't necessarily Bush's idea. (There
are reports -- yet to be substantiated or disproven, mind you -- that he
was personally not at all keen on it.)
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

On Mon, 05 Apr 2004 02:57:12 -0500, "Paul F. Dietz"
wrote, in part:
John Savard wrote:

Until such time as a viable business model for the private exploration
of space exists, there are two choices.

Do it with tax money, or forget about it being done.

No kidding. This doesn't create an entitlement for space activities.
Do you think that Really Wanting something means the government
must provide it for you?

No.

There are good reasons to explore space.

I am concerned about George W. Bush's initiative, because in practice
I feel its real likely result is to grant what you wish - the
disappearance of taxpayer-funded space activity, manned or unmanned.

But I think it is not beyond the bounds of probability that al-Qaeda
might get hold of a nuclear weapon in the Former Soviet Union. But I
don't think they'll risk wasting it and getting caught by setting it
off in the United States.

Not when they've got a regime genuinely guilty of oppressing Muslims
(remember the Chechens?) so close to hand.

After the detonation of a 25-megaton nuclear warhead in downtown
Moscow (St. Petersburg would avoid the foreign embassies, but it
wouldn't paralyze the government), Russia is unlikely to be as
forbearant as the U.S. in waiting for Pakistani troops to get Osama
bin Laden.

While the U.S. might just step aside while Russia invades Pakistan, a
Russian invasion of Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, might create
additional concerns.

A functioning Martian colony will send a message back to Earth that
American liberty _cannot_ be destroyed.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

On Mon, 5 Apr 2004 15:26:15 +0200, "jacob navia"
wrote, in part:
"Ool" a écrit dans le message de
...

Besides, NASA has been spending only 20% less than during the Apollo
years ever since the Shuttle program was initiated, all the while go-
ing *nowhere* with all that money in all that time.

Nowhere?

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Europa, Mars, Venus...

That is "nowhere"?

Nowhere with *most* of that money. The tiny fraction that wasn't spent
on the Shuttle and the Space Station _was_ well spent.

But low Earth orbit is indeed nowhere that hadn't been reached during
the Mercury program.

NASA should resume a more aggressive program of scientific exploration
of the Solar System with automated probes.

If it is also going to spend lots of money on manned missions, they
should serve some purpose.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

"Mark Thornton" wrote in message om...
http://www.lewrockwell.com/thornton/thornton19.html

The article is quite true! Except for the Private approach to the
exploration! Just like the transcontinental Railroad, Businesses do
not take such projects on without Public Funding! And like the
Railroads, they would then control and all pricesd and all findings!
Not a good use for public Money!

Bush will just destory the Hubble project and other Pure Scientific
projects and is currently not serious about even funding the step to
the Moon much less Mars:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?cha...mber=2&catID=4



April 05, 2004


IN DEPTH
April 05, 2004

SPACEFLIGHT


Fly Me to the Moon
Going to the Moon means winners and losers in science
By Mark Alpert



When President George W. Bush declared in January that NASA would set
its sights on returning astronauts to the moon by 2020, scientists
quickly lined up on opposing sides. Although Bush's plan promises more
funding for researchers studying the moon and Mars, other branches of
space science are already feeling the pinch. The most prominent loser
by far is the Hubble Space Telescope. Just two days after the
president presented his initiative, NASA announced that it would
cancel a shuttle flight to install new gyroscopes, batteries and
scientific instruments to the Hubble. If NASA does not reverse the
decision, its premier space observatory will cease operating when its
current equipment fails in the next few years.
The problem arises from the Bush administration's strategy of
financing the moon effort through the early retirement of the space
shuttle. During the phaseout, targeted for 2010, much of the shuttle's
$4-billion annual budget will be shifted toward designing a crew
exploration vehicle that could take astronauts to the moon. In the
meantime, shuttle missions will focus on assembling the International
Space Station.


ADVERTISEMENT (article continues below)



NASA officials insist that they canceled the Hubble mission strictly
because of safety concerns. To prevent a repeat of last year's
Columbia catastrophe, NASA will require all shuttles to dock with the
space station, where astronauts can inspect and repair damage to the
vehicles or, if necessary, await a rescue effort. A shuttle bound for
the space telescope would not be able to rendezvous with the station.
But two reports written by a dissenting NASA engineer, who declined to
be identified for fear of losing his job, claim that the agency could
perform the Hubble mission safely by developing alternative repair
methods and preparing a rescue mission in advance.
Although ground telescopes equipped with adaptive optics can match
Hubble's resolution, they cannot duplicate all of the space
telescope's abilities. For example, Adam G. Riess, an astronomer at
the Space Telescope Science Institute, notes that ground telescopes
cannot accurately measure the brightness of distant type Ia
supernovae, which are used to gauge the expansion history of the
universe [see "From Slowdown to Speedup," by Adam G. Riess and Michael
S. Turner; Scientific American, February]. "It's frustrating," Riess
says. "It will be a long while before we have a way of doing this
science again."


The biggest winners are the lunar geologists, who argue that the
Apollo missions left many questions unanswered and that continued
exploration of the moon could reveal much about the evolution of the
solar system. The Bush plan earmarks $1.3 billion for unmanned
missions to the moon over the next five years, including a lunar
orbiter to be launched by 2008 and a robotic lander scheduled for
2009. Although both craft would pave the way for manned missions—by
investigating potential landing sites, for in-stance— they would also
provide researchers with a treasure trove of new data. "The moon is
still mostly unexplored," says Alan Binder, the principal investigator
for the Lunar Prospector orbiter that studied the moon in the late
1990s. "So lunar science can make a giant leap forward."
In some ways, planetary scientists know more about Mars than they do
about the moon. The orbiters sent to the Red Planet in the past few
years have thoroughly mapped its topography and mineralogy; in
comparison, the moon maps obtained by Lunar Prospector and the earlier
Clementine spacecraft are fuzzy and incomplete. The 2008 lunar orbiter
could fill in the gaps by charting the moon's surface with radar
imaging, laser altimetry and high-resolution spectroscopy. One
probable goal of the mission will be to carefully delineate the
permanently shadowed areas at the moon's poles, where some scientists
believe that bits of water ice may be mixed in with the lunar dirt.

James Head, a planetary geologist at Brown University, hopes that the
2009 mission to the lunar surface will be the first in a series of
unmanned landers. That craft may well carry a robotic rover similar to
the Spirit and Opportunity vehicles that are now roaming the Martian
surface. The moon mission, though, is more likely to be focused on
applications that will aid human spaceflight— such as finding ice and
learning how to extract it for life support or to produce rocket fuel
by breaking the water into liquid hydrogen and oxygen.



"It's not really a science mission," says Paul D. Spudis, who was
deputy leader of the science team for Clementine and is now a member
of the space exploration panel advising the president. "The
fundamental goal here is to expand the human presence in space." But
given the uncertainty of the lunar initiative—critics in Congress
doubt that NASA can send astronauts to the moon under the proposed
budget—some researchers are wondering if the gains to science will
outweigh the losses.

Henry Spencer wrote:


Bear in mind that this initiative wasn't necessarily Bush's idea. (There
are reports -- yet to be substantiated or disproven, mind you -- that he
was personally not at all keen on it.)


If not his, then whose?

Pat

On Mon, 05 Apr 2004 13:34:05 -0500, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

Bear in mind that this initiative wasn't necessarily Bush's idea. (There
are reports -- yet to be substantiated or disproven, mind you -- that he
was personally not at all keen on it.)

If not his, then whose?

Laura?

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
Bear in mind that this initiative wasn't necessarily Bush's idea. (There
are reports -- yet to be substantiated or disproven, mind you -- that he
was personally not at all keen on it.)

If not his, then whose?

Same as almost all policy initiatives and changes that come out of the
White House: it originally came from some underling -- perhaps O'Keefe in
this case, but he's not the only possibility -- and Bush *approved* it,
perhaps after modifications.

Only rarely is something new actually the President's own idea.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

Pat Flannery wrote:


Mark Thornton wrote:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/thornton/thornton19.html



You can't fool me! You are a hidden agent for the
military-industrial-candy complex!
Now those little bags of candy dropped by parachute for the German
children during the Berlin airlift take on a more sinister aspect, don't
they?
Well mister...WE ARE GOING TO MARS! And we are going there without our
astronauts having a mouthful of CANDY-ROTTED TEETH ON ARRIVAL!


Let's see, I saw Milky Ways, Starbursts and Mars Bars.

When it comes to naming candies, why are the other celestial objects
slighted? Here's a few suggestions:

Mercury Balls
Uranus Nuggets
Black Hole Bars
Brown Dwarf Delights

I hope someone from Hershey is reading this.

--
Hop David
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html

(Alex Terrell) wrote

I'd state it more strongly. There is no Bush plan to go
to Mars. Mars is a long term strategic goal,

Nothing wrong with strategic goals; they can serve as useful
organizing principles, ways of chosing among nearer-term
objectives. The problem is that you have to maintain them over
the long term, in the face of things that may be much more urgent
and contradictory to them.

and will remain so throughout Bush's presidency (for 1/2 or
4 1/2 years).

And his successor and the next, and probably the next. Unless
someone decides this is Really Important, which I wouldn't count
on though it might happen.

"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
In article ,
John Savard wrote:
Yes, the War on Terror is going to be expensive. But I can't fault the
President for thinking that the American people need a little good
news now and again as well.

Bear in mind that this initiative wasn't necessarily Bush's idea. (There
are reports -- yet to be substantiated or disproven, mind you -- that he
was personally not at all keen on it.)

That it isn't his idea is self evident.

His strength is fund raising not technical insight.