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#11
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Bush's space plan: most people don't care
Every acre of the Moon has been explored by probe and telescope. There is nothing there to catch anyone's imagination. Check the reaction to the current Mars photos, which look just like the Viking photos and the Pathinder photos. The Moon and Mars are -dull-. Paying billions so humans can bounce around on airless, waterless desert is pointless. There is one mission that might get the public interest back... Europa. If they can send an unmanned probe there that can find some sort of liquid water Ocean underneath the ice then a manned mission becomes desirable. A water zone means a space colony would not have to constantly ship water and likely with some means of energy generating and UV bulbs could grow its own food. Water means as long as you have energy you have air. |
#12
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Bush's space plan: most people don't care
In article ,
"Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )" wrote: Stephen Souter wrote: One of the reasons for building a space station first and going to places like Mars afterwards would be to research the long-term effects of weightlessness and try to find solutions. When you are on Mars, you aren't weightless. You have to get to Mars first, and that will probably take at least six months. Then having got to Mars the astronauts have to be in a good enough physical condition to do useful things, probably more or less right away. We know that being weightless for long periods isn't a plus. We do not know what being in a lower than one gee environment for long periods means. The Moon is the perfect test bed for looking into this. It requires no special anything. Just build your moonbase and do other things and you find out the answer to this important question for free. You like free, don't you? Being under one-sixth G for six months is probably not the same as being weightless for six months. Nothing worthwhile in this life is free. You get what you pay for, as NASA learnt to its cost when it found that cutting too many corners led to the crashing of MCO & MPL. To its credit, it seems to have learnt from its experience, as Mars Odyssey & the MERs attest. Which is doubtless why Bush & his advisers seem to have decided to stay on and use the ISS for precisely that kind of research. -- Stephen Souter http://www.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/ |
#13
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Bush's space plan: most people don't care
"Stephen Souter" wrote:
In article , "Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )" wrote: Stephen Souter wrote: One of the reasons for building a space station first and going to places like Mars afterwards would be to research the long-term effects of weightlessness and try to find solutions. When you are on Mars, you aren't weightless. You have to get to Mars first, and that will probably take at least six months. Then having got to Mars the astronauts have to be in a good enough physical condition to do useful things, probably more or less right away. We know that being weightless for long periods isn't a plus. We do not know what being in a lower than one gee environment for long periods means. The Moon is the perfect test bed for looking into this. It requires no special anything. Just build your moonbase and do other things and you find out the answer to this important question for free. You like free, don't you? Being under one-sixth G for six months is probably not the same as being weightless for six months. Nothing worthwhile in this life is free. You get what you pay for, as NASA learnt to its cost when it found that cutting too many corners led to the crashing of MCO & MPL. To its credit, it seems to have learnt from its experience, as Mars Odyssey & the MERs attest. Which is doubtless why Bush & his advisers seem to have decided to stay on and use the ISS for precisely that kind of research. Exactly. The plan revealed today by Bush was obviously given a lot of thought. I think it's a good plan, a sensible plan. It's way better than *no* plan, which is what NASA has been given for decades. I hope the leadership shown today does not fade, with presidential apathy returning. Jon |
#14
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Bush's space plan: most people don't care
"John Ordover" wrote in message om... (TKalbfus) wrote in message ... All of the above might be a reason to go to the Moon and set up a base, but even so, without seeing any analysis to the contrary, my intuition says it would be cheaper in the long run to establish as robust an orbital presence as possible before concentrating on a lunar or mars mission. Planning things to work with such a mission would be fine, but concentrating on one at the expense of a more flexible orbital station seems short-sighted and counterproductive to me. The better your space station, the easier it will be to do everything else. If you want to explore space, don't you think it would be obvious to explore the things in space like the Moon and Mars? I really don't understand people like you. You want the public to pay you so you can bore them to death with irrelivant experiments in orbit and scientific gobbledigook that the average taxpayer can't understand. However a simple concept of exploring another planet is easy to understand. Now which, do you think, will have an easier time convincing the public to pay for? Tom Every acre of the Moon has been explored by probe and telescope. You really don't know what you're talking about it, do you. Many areas of the Moon have not been explored at all and many have barely been touched. There is nothing there to catch anyone's imagination. There's a lot there. The possibility of water for one. Check the reaction to the current Mars photos, which look just like the Viking photos and the Pathinder photos. The Moon and Mars are -dull-. Paying billions so humans can bounce around on airless, waterless desert is pointless. |
#15
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Bush's space plan: most people don't care
"jetgraphics" wrote in message ... Art wrote: [Space research] Gave us Composite Structural Materials, Velcro and the Micro Chip Not true. [1] Velcro was not from NASA nor space research; [2] Nor Composite Structural materials; [3] Nor bipolar transistors; [4] Nor Field Effect Transistors (FET). [1] In the early 1940's, Swiss inventor George de Mestral went on a walk with his dog, finding the "ah hah" connection between tiny hooks on cockleburrs and the loops of his clothing... and that was a bit before NASA's time. [2] Composites are a broad category, but if you mean carbon fiber composites, it wasn't just NASA. The idea of composite building materials, made from a polymer, or plastic, mixed with carbon or glass fibers, as a replacement for steel goes back nearly three decades. Other fiber reinforcements, like ferrocement, go back over 100 years. Fiber reinforced mortar was used in the Great Wall, in China. [3] Bipolar transistors were (re)discovered in 1947, before NASA. [4] Julius Lilienfeld,who in 1925 and 1926 filed a patent that issued in 1930 as patent 1,745,175 for a FET transistor. In 1932 Lilienfeld was issued patent 1,877,140 for what would be known now as NPPN and PNNP transistors for amplifying electric currents. In 1933, he was awarded patent 1,900,018 for an NPN transistor, and a reversed biased P-N junction used as a variable capacitor. You're doing good so far. Anecdote: A Russian, commenting on the difference between the two space programs, summed it all up with the example of NASA spending millions of tax dollars to make a pressurized ink pen to write in Zero G, and the Soviets using a mechanical pencil to do the same job. As you say, this is just an anecdote. It's not true. http://www.spacepen.com/usa/index2.htm Though I do advocate the exploitation of space, I do not think a government controlled and funded agency, with public wallets to mine, can overcome political obstacles to open up "space" to private enterprise. |
#16
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Bush's space plan: most people don't care
In article ,
"Jon Berndt" wrote: Exactly. The plan revealed today by Bush was obviously given a lot of thought. I think it's a good plan, a sensible plan. It's way better than *no* plan, which is what NASA has been given for decades. I hope the leadership shown today does not fade, with presidential apathy returning. One encouraging tidbit I've learned recently is that, apparently, O'Keefe was instrumental in developing this plan. That is a very good sign, since NASA administrators serve much longer terms than presidents. If O'Keefe is truly behind this plan, and believes in it, then he has a good chance of keeping it alive and moving forward even with an apathetic boss. ,------------------------------------------------------------------. | Joseph J. Strout Check out the Mac Web Directory: | | http://www.macwebdir.com | `------------------------------------------------------------------' |
#17
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Bush's space plan: most people don't care
"Paul F. Dietz" wrote:
No, Art. Your claims are a classic example of the 'post hoc' fallacy. In fact, your claims are just false. The space program did not bring velcro into our lives, or composites, or microchips. Paul For those interested, here are some links that purport to show how spinoffs that had their roots at NASA have helped industry: http://vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/spinoff.html http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/local_busi...529724,00.html http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/spinselect.html http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html Jon |
#18
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Bush's space plan: most people don't care
"Jon Berndt" wrote in message ...
"Paul F. Dietz" wrote: No, Art. Your claims are a classic example of the 'post hoc' fallacy. In fact, your claims are just false. The space program did not bring velcro into our lives, or composites, or microchips. Paul For those interested, here are some links that purport to show how spinoffs that had their roots at NASA have helped industry: http://vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/spinoff.html http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/local_busi...529724,00.html http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/spinselect.html http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html Oh, don't bother, Jon. I made a generalization in order to illustrate "spending money on space, rather than right here at home" turns out to be immeasurably profitable to ALL of us "right here at home." Paul seems to be under the impression that the Race for the Moon wasn't a factor (though certainly not the only one, as I'm more than willing to concede) in bringing the three things I listed into mainstream industry and, therefore, our everyday lives. Perhaps he's correct, though I'll let NASA toot her own horn, and he can carry on the debate with it. Not the main thrust of the post in question, at any rate. The main thrust was that the primary reason for the US to return to the Moon, at this juncture, is the same as it was 40 years ago. And it can be assumed with a high degree of certainty that it will follow approximately the same course. This will entail unforeseen benefits, but when the military need to establish a presence on the Moon disappears (as in the economic or political collapse of the PRC, or the premature end to its' own space program), so will US committal to a presence on the Moon. --- Art |
#19
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Bush's space plan: most people don't care
On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 09:01:35 -0600, in a place far, far away, Joe
Strout made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that: In article , "Jon Berndt" wrote: Exactly. The plan revealed today by Bush was obviously given a lot of thought. I think it's a good plan, a sensible plan. It's way better than *no* plan, which is what NASA has been given for decades. I hope the leadership shown today does not fade, with presidential apathy returning. One encouraging tidbit I've learned recently is that, apparently, O'Keefe was instrumental in developing this plan. That is a very good sign, since NASA administrators serve much longer terms than presidents. Not true, in general. Goldin was an exception. If a Republican succeeds Bush, then O'Keefe may stay, but if a Dem is elected this fall, he'll be toast. Even if Bush stays, rumor has it that O'Keefe is in line to replace Rumsfeld. |
#20
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Bush's space plan: most people don't care
Not true, in general. Goldin was an exception. If a Republican
succeeds Bush, then O'Keefe may stay, but if a Dem is elected this fall, he'll be toast. Even if Bush stays, rumor has it that O'Keefe is in line to replace Rumsfeld. It would be very easy for Kerry to stake out a more pro-Mars position than Bush. He could propose to fulfill a Mars direct mission by then end of his hypothetical 8-year administration, and repeal George Bush's tax cuts on the rich to finance it. By doubling NASA's budget, its possible to accomplish this in 8 years, assuming he starts immediately. I wonder if any of the Democrats have thought of this? Instead all I hear from them is criticism of George Bush's space proposal. I'll bet Kerry would standout much more if he followed this advice, and he could make comparisons to JFK as well, he certainly tries to talk like him. I'm tired of the Dems being just the Anti-Bush party, they should have some bold initiatives of their own. Tom |
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