The new white house policy for NASA

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-...n-21st-century

What do people at NASA think of this ?

Does this offer concrete enough promises to result in real stuff
happening, or is it another "Constellation" that will be cancelled at
the first sign of cost overruns ?

Also, there is mention fo continued work on Orion to create an espace
pod for the space station so the USA wouldn't have to rely on the
russians. How would this be launched ? And would it be an espace pod
only, or a transport vehicle that would regularly be crews up and down ?

Would it make use of the heavy lift rocket they hope to start building
by 2015 ?

Would this also imply the development of automatic docking system, or
perhaps an HTV like berthing procedure ? (station keep close enough to
be grabbed by the arm).

"John Doe" wrote in message
...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-...n-21st-century


Constellation is dead; long live Constellation! About bloody time. I don't
think sending people all the way to Mars just to orbit it will be done -
it's 99.99% of the way to the surface; might as well go the extra 0.01%. I
still like Mars Direct, but I'm not a big fan of the nuclear reactor. I can
see the need for it in this instance however.

On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:28:53 GMT, "Alan Erskine"
wrote:

Constellation is dead; long live Constellation!

Except for no Ares rockets (no rockets at all until we decide to build
a new one in 2015), no humans on Orion except in an emergency,
and no Moon or Mars, just the "Beyond" part.

I don't
think sending people all the way to Mars just to orbit it will be done -
it's 99.99% of the way to the surface; might as well go the extra 0.01%.

Landing and launching again will be a LOT more than .01% of the delta
V, and a LOT more than .01% of the program's budget.

I
still like Mars Direct, but I'm not a big fan of the nuclear reactor.

Curiously, this President doesn't seem to have much of a problem with
nuclear, so maybe that's one of the new technologies he wants NASA to
field.

I really am baffled by what the President did. Sure, Constellation had
lots of problems (some self-induced, some due to underfunding) but why
take the PR flak by canceling it outright but still keeping some of
the same goals? President Obama could have achieved the same goals by
simply changing Constellation, which everyone in the field knew was
going to have to change anyway. He could have used his famous
"CHANGE!" mantra, saying (correctly) that Constellation needed to
change to fit the times.

Brian

On Apr 16, 6:26�pm, Brian Thorn wrote:
On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:28:53 GMT, "Alan Erskine"

wrote:
Constellation is dead; long live Constellation! �

Except for no Ares rockets (no rockets at all until we decide to build
a new one in 2015), no humans on Orion except in an emergency,
and no Moon or Mars, just the "Beyond" part.

I don't
think sending people all the way to Mars just to orbit it will be done -
it's 99.99% of the way to the surface; might as well go the extra 0.01%.

Landing and launching again will be a LOT more than .01% of the delta
V, and a LOT more than .01% of the program's budget.

I
still like Mars Direct, but I'm not a big fan of the nuclear reactor. �

Curiously, this President doesn't seem to have much of a problem with
nuclear, so maybe that's one of the new technologies he wants NASA to
field.

I really am baffled by what the President did. Sure, Constellation had
lots of problems (some self-induced, some due to underfunding) but why
take the PR flak by canceling it outright but still keeping some of
the same goals? President Obama could have achieved the same goals by
simply changing Constellation, which everyone in the field knew was
going to have to change anyway. He could have used his famous
"CHANGE!" mantra, saying (correctly) that Constellation needed to
change to fit the times.

Brian

well obama is leaving a big opening for privatising space, and that
key to future operations

Obama pledged to increase NASA's budget by $6 billion.

Is this a case of having reduced the budget by $6 billion by cutting
Constellation, and then claiming they will increase the budget by $6
billion (net: no change) ? Or is this a true increase in funding ?

On Apr 17, 2:06�am, John Doe wrote:
Obama pledged to increase NASA's budget by $6 billion.

Is this a case of having reduced the budget by $6 billion by cutting
Constellation, and then claiming they will increase the budget by $6
billion (net: no change) ? Or is this a true increase in funding ?

Obama should of lit a fire under NASA ISS MUST PRODUCE SCIENTIFIC
RESULTS or get defunded too,

For way too long NASA ONLY cared about spending money for its friends,
and lost interest in accomplishing anything but pork spending.

with our country in collapse we cant afford spending like this in any
area.

ZERO 1/4 of american budget each year then PROVE each item its
worthwhile....

On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 20:00:16 -0400, JF Mezei
wrote:


President Obama could have achieved the same goals by
simply changing Constellation,

Changing it to what ?

Changing Ares to a Next Generation kerolox launcher and deleting the
Moon from the Moon/Mars/Beyond goal that was Constellation's. Neither
is really that big a change in the grand scheme of things. He could
have used the monstrosity that had become Ares V and the Augustine
Commission's finding that a 2020 lunar return was a pipedream as
justification for this change, and blamed it on underfunding of the
last six years (for which he himself as a Senator was partly to
blame.) So he could have said that skipping the Moon goal and moving
straight on to Mars and Beyond (asteroids) that were 2030-ish anyway
gets us back on track.

Brian