President Bush To Propose A U.S. Return To The Moon? (1 Viewer)

[Wayne Bundrick]

To Peter, Joseph, and anyone else who says we should go to Mars and not the Moon... In my opinion, going back to the moon is a necessary step towards going to Mars. How do you figure we can get to Mars if we can't demonstrate the ability to get back to the Moon and spend a significant amount of time there? The Moon would be a great proving ground for so many of the things we need to accomplish before we can even think about going to Mars.

 

[Steve_Tk]

Since we will not even see the shuttle going up till next September then mars is kind of a lofty goal. But last time I asked I was told ~2018 was a goal.

 

[Joseph S]

To Peter, Joseph, and anyone else who says we should go to Mars and not the Moon... In my opinion, going back to the moon is a necessary step towards going to Mars.

If that's the case, then they should bill it as such and state it is part of a larger mission to Mars program. Based on what I read, it's merely a trip to the moon and nothing more which I find to be a waste of money. I find it hard to believe that getting to the moon and staying is a challenge anymore. They should be working on a better shuttle system and perhaps building mobile space stations rather than performing stupid PR stunts. NASA is better than this.

 

[Bill Griffith]

I think we need to get a foot hold on the moon for many reasons.

1. Hostile atmosphere, allows for experiementing with living in such conditions for long periods of time while still being relatively close to Earth for help, This would help "practice" for going to Mars

2. Launching point for space travel, less gravity, less fuel.

3. Possible scientific discoveries and Technological advances not able to be produced in high gravity.

4. Military - Highly strategic position. With simple modern day technology you could destroy anything on earth, and anything coming to the mooon.

However, I think there might be some sort of treaty/pact/international law, or whatever that prohibits anyone from "owning" the moon.

I wouldn't use it as a penal colony, we have an entire continent on Earth we could use for that, Antartica.

 

[Matt Gordon]

If that's the case, then they should bill it as such and state it is part of a larger mission to Mars program.

Absolutely.

The US Space Program needs a big audacious goal (bigger than going back to the moon just to go back), and needs it fast.

 

[CharlesD]

I think those that are putting down a return to the moon are "misunderestimating" just how difficult getting "only" as far as the moon is! Apart from anything else we currently lack the ability to put humans beyond low Earth orbit. If we are to go to Mars we need to re-build the capability to put humans beyond LEO and what better place to experiment with the technology we need to go to Mars than by going to the moon.

Besides as already pointed out, unless the Administration is going to seriously lobby Congress to spend a great deal more money on NASA, this is all just so much hot air.

 

[Patrick_S]

I think those that are putting down a return to the moon are "misunderestimating" just how difficult getting "only" as far as the moon is! Apart from anything else we currently lack the ability to put humans beyond low Earth orbit.

Yes NASA does lack the “ability” to put humans into space beyond low Earth orbit but more importantly they do not lack the knowledge of how to do it.

Making more trips to the moon would require a lot of money and planning but it would not be difficult in terms of technology because we already know how to do it successfully. In the thirty years since we last went to the moon NASA hasn’t suddenly lost the necessary knowledge so they wouldn’t need to recreate the wheel if going to the moon is the only goal.

I believe that if the stated goal is to only return to the moon then it’s nothing more then political grandstanding. Worse yet, if the goal is packaged as only a return to the moon it could in the long run do more damage then good for NASA. The American public could become even more blasé about space travel thus making the trip to Mars out of the question because no one would be willing to pay for it.

Going back to the moon will not energize the American psyche like original quest did in the sixties, no in order to do that we need an original goal not a recycling of past accomplishments.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Actually, though NASA deserves a far more robust budget ($40 billion, in my opinion), the entire concept of what the new space policy might be is based on only a minor, seven-percent boost in NASA's annual budget. The idea is to parcel off many of NASA's current programs -- particularly in the area of aeronautics -- to other government agencies, thus (the thinking goes), freeing the agency up to focus on research and development as well as exploration.

At the time of the CAIB report release, several members of Congress began pressuring the White House to seize the moment while the STS-107 tragedy was still fresh in everyone's mind. It was time, they said, to reassess the nation's space policy and to give NASA concrete goals and focus. Now or never.

While NASA's budget has remained constant for the past decade, inflation hasn't. That means NASA's spending power has shrunk, with catastrophic results (as STS-107 vividly demonstrated).

But the current administration, never interested in NASA, was and is unwilling to call for a vast increase in the agency's annual budget -- a difficult sell in light of current events.

So, the idea is to free up money already budgeted to NASA. And the speculation is that the White House, in commemmorating the hundredth anniversary of powered, heavier-than-air flight, will offer this "new, bold vision" for NASA's future as a means of developing technology that will "further strengthen" the nation as it stumbles forward into the 21st century.

Among the items believed to be in this new package is Project Prometheus, a program for developing nuclear-propelled space vehicles. Another item is to specify the nature of a manned vehicle to replace the current Space Shuttle and even the possibility of reviving "Shuttle-C," an unmanned, cargo-only variant on the current system. And, the speculation goes, a return to the Moon.

How to do it? This might be where the Orbital Space Plane project comes in. It might not even be a winged vehicle, but an evolution of the Apollo spacecraft -- but with multiple missions (ferrying crews to the ISS as well as possible applications beyond LEO).

There is much being considered, and the situation may still be fluid. Talks with top administration officials (including the president and the vice president), Congress, and NASA's leadership have been taking place since summer.

And we might learn what the results are on December 17. If not then, the thinking goes, then during next year's State of the Union address.

Don't get your hopes up. These things have come up before (remember the first President Bush's ill-fated Space Exploration Initiative of 1989?).

Ultimately, it's up the American people.

 

[Andrew Testa]

There has been much, much speculation about this for a few weeks now. Rumors have been circulating that seem to be gaining strength, and have been coming from some highly positioned people, leading some to think they were leaks floated to gain reaction within NASA and the aerospace community. We've been expecting a major policy announcement on 12/17. I'll pass the rumors on, but first I'd like to make clear what is NOT involved.

First, this has nothing to do with the Chinese. The attitude within NASA towards the Chinese program is "yeah, sure, good luck." There is zero interest in competing with them, and zero concern about any kind of "space superiority". The chinese program is in its infancy and their moon trip will be little more than the Apollo missions.

Second, this will not be another instance of "we're going here!". It won't be a one shot Mars or one shot Moon type of policy. These are losing propositions from both a political and economic stand. There's no way to sell Congress and the public on a one-off manned mission to Mars for no reason other than to say we did, and there's precious little knowledge to be gained for the price by doing so. Just stating a destination isn't a policy change. Rather, it's a continuation of the same old policy of setting a goal for no other reason than to have a goal, and not thinking beyond that.

The majority of the rumors have been that NASA will shift it's attention to the long term development of a scalable infrastructure that is mission independent. The plan will be to develop an infrastructure that will allow manned flight ANYWHERE, not just to the moon or Mars, but anywhere we choose to go. This means that the same vehicles and systems can be used to go to the moon, or be scaled up for a longer mission to Mars, or to an asteroid, etc. The rumor is that the tesbed will be a manned lunar outpost, possibly involving the installation and servicing of lunar observatories. This means developing a new heavy lift vehicle (as Jack mentioned, though even Shuttle-C isn't large enough) that will be capable of putting into orbit all components of the infrastructure, and using the infrastructure to develop vehicles for travel between Earth and Lunar orbits, landers, servicing vehicles.

The exact details are unknown, and the above is speculation on one application. But we believe the shift will be away from the kind of tunnel-vision reliance on continued operation of one system as we now have and a focus on a multi-vehicle system that can be used for many mission.

If it does indeed turn out to be a one-off flight of fancy, I'll be extremely disappointed, and you can rest assured it would spell the end of any meaningful manned space flight. I think that HQ realizes this. We'll see in two weeks.

Andy

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Although I would just love to see us go beyond the moon, I cannot agree that we're doing this for science. We went from zero flights to the moon in about 8 years. We could have kept on going after that, but the silly race was won.

Here we are now still shaking from the last accident, and they want to do what? And the timing of the announcement could not have been better.

I will stop here, and if the mods feel that my post shouldn't be here, please feel free to just remove it.

Glenn

 

[Jack Briggs]

What's wrong with your post? You're simply expressing an opinion.

 

[Andrew Testa]

Glenn,

I'm not sure what it is your trying to express. Please elaborate. I'll guarantee you that Apollo had nothing to do with science, and the reason it ended after the race was won was exactly because it was a one-shot goal with no vision for what to do after it was reached. NASA actually has a great track record for long term commitments to science. It just happens to be entirely in the unmanned exploration department. That's mostly because the probes are small enough projects that every congressman with a wallet isn't demanding that their district get some piece of the pie.

Sure, there's a lot of political capital involved in maintaining a manned space program. Despite their thundering apathy, most Americans wouldn't accept a shutdown of the programs. But the manned program is hobbled by the single-goal mentality and short term memory. If it is to survive it has to change. Columbia has finally driven that point home. Without an established infratructure for access to space we are always one failure away from abandoning manned flight. It appears we finally have an administrator who understands this and apparantly has successfully rammed it through the White House. Considering the complete lack of interest in NASA from this administration that's a significant accomplishment.

Andy

 

[Bryan X]

We as a nation also must accept the fact that great sacrifices are sometimes needed to achieve great goals.

Yes, lives will be lost in the pursuit of manned space flight. We need to understand and accept that. That doesn't mean that we become ambivilant towards the lives of our astronauts. Certainly we should do what is necessary to protect them from accidents.

We just can't be scared away from our goals because something might or does go wrong. If we choose to go to the Moon or Mars we CAN do it. We have the technology. Hopefully the nation has the guts.

 

[Christ Reynolds]

These things have come up before

these types of things have popped up before, and it has always been attributed to human error.

i admit i dont know much about the space program or its history, but whenever i hear about going to the moon for the first time, i always think about how little computing power they had to work with. one of my professors once told us the equivalent of what they had in todays terms, it seemed very low. i forget what it was now, anyone know?

CJ

 

[BrianW]

Wow! How did I miss this thread?

Christ, they didn't even have calculators. Computer memory consisted of tiny iron loops in a matrix of cross-hatched wires, with each loop capable of storing a single bit. Nixie tubes, not seven-segment LEDs, were the ultra-modern way of displaying base-ten numeric information from a digital source. Analog meters were used for everything else. As for capability comparisons, my recollection (which could be inaccurate) is that the on-board navigational computers were equivalent to a modern-day, $10, 100-step programmable calculator.

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I'm all for manned space travel, but only if it is driven by meaningful objectives. Just sending someone back to the Moon or even to Mars is pointless unless, well, there's a point. I think observatories on the Moon, for instance would be a wonderful bullet point to add to our species' resume.

The majority of the rumors have been that NASA will shift it's attention to the long term development of a scalable infrastructure that is mission independent.

Thanks, Andrew, for expressing this hope. (Okay, rumor.) Enough of all this sending trailblazing pioneers out west into the wilderness with nothing but a covered wagon and a six-shooter. I think it's high time we built a railroad. I just hope we have the conviction (budget) to do it right.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

If Bush wanted a space program that was doing something, he would have done something about it long before now. Especially after the last crash, he should have announced then that he wanted to put more $$$ into NASA, and make sure that they had enough money to correct any safety problems. We did discuss them here. NASA didn't have enough money then, and the way it was going, it was going to take us another hundred years, if we wre lucky, to get anywhere.

Now... the other day PRC sends one up. I don't want to get into their domestic financial problems, but just like the USSR, they are proud to 'expand the country' by going into space, and it makes their country stronger. (Gee, didn't I hear this in the '60's by the USSR?)

What is to stop the PRC from landing on the moon and declaring it theirs? I'm not going to buy that - oh, there is an 'international treaty or agreement' stuff. This is communism at its finest. If we are not there to stop them, then it will be theirs. I am sure that a small colony could prevent anyone else from landing.

Silly? Go ahead and call it that, but this is the same country that sent hundreds of thousands of troops into Vietnam. This is the same type of government that took over half of Europe after WWII, and I won't even get into Taiwan.
/rant

Glenn

 

[Yee-Ming]

All this talk of Moonshots is making me itch to re-watch From The Earth To The Moon, Apollo 13 and For All Mankiond

However, I think there might be some sort of treaty/pact/international law, or whatever that prohibits anyone from "owning" the moon.

This is going to be really interesting, some huckster has been selling plots of the Moon for a while now -- apologies for strong words, he claims he has valid legal grounds, but to me it's a scam. If NASA returns to the Moon -- and let me state I'd love to see this -- wouldn't the so-called owners start alleging trespass etc?

Certainly I can see that a permanent Moonbase (Alpha? Does anyone else remember Space:1999? ) is a vital stepping-stone to further manned exploration of anything else, in particular Mars. Perhaps in the distant future, Arthur C. Clarke's suggestion of retirement homes on the Moon, where the elderly would find relief in the lighter gravity, might also come to pass.

 

[CharlesD]

I think it's high time we built a railroad.

Thats a great way of putting it

If the rumors Andrew has heard about a "scalable infrastructure" and they are serious about funding it, then it will be great step forward for our space program IMO. Where we go and how fast we get there will depend on how much money we are willing to spend.

 

[Todd Hochard]

Go ahead and call it that, but this is the same country that sent hundreds of thousands of troops into Vietnam. This is the same type of government that took over half of Europe after WWII,

Are you talking about the USSR/China, or us? Both apply.

I look forward to it. I just sincerely hope that it isn't a reelection plan with a candy coating and no creamy nougat. (There, Glenn, I said it ) I sincerely hope it's the "real deal" that Andrew mentions, and I'm absolutely willing to put my money (via tax dollars) where my mouth is.

Todd

 

[CharlesD]

Buzz Aldrin has written this Editorial in the New York Times about what he thinks the future of US space exploration should be.