NASA rethinks space program

[MaTe]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/space/02/02/nasa.constellation.reaction/index.html

Short version: new moon program cancelled, ISS financing approved till 2020, goverment will support private companies to develop space ships.

I think it's a correct way to do stuff... NASA's developments are too expensive anyway and I belive a private company can achive the same result in a more effective way.

[Toruk Makto]

 It's nice of Obama to fund the Russian space program for the foreseeable future while he hangs ours out to dry. Frankly it scares me that we will have to rely on the Russians keep the ISS running. Too many people think that this stuff is cheap to do.

  Forget about going to the moon. And you can forget about going to Pandora. That is going to have to wait while the US shovels money into Wall Street to keep the fat cats fed, and throws more money at useless, short-sighted and dead-end programs to make the party of the current regime look like they are doing something.

[Coyote]

Ordinarily, I am not a big fan of private companies scooping up things like this, but in this case I'm willing to roll the dice. NASA has become a risk-averse organization that has chucked 'daring' in exchange for political expediency.

True, this isn't all their fault; the politicians use them as a bargaining chip and most of the public is largely apathetic, but geez...

If they want private space companies to really get going, they need a place to get going to: let people stake claims on the Moon and Mars (setting aside a few areas for off-limits preservation and history) and let them go there to try to make space profitable. As it is, space is a giant nature preserve, and can't be touched, so there's no reason for companies to go out there.

[Toruk Makto]

Ordinarily, I am not a big fan of private companies scooping up things like this, but in this case I'm willing to roll the dice. NASA has become a risk-averse organization that has chucked 'daring' in exchange for political expediency.

 Well of course NASA is risk averse, but it has nothing to do with political expediency. We chucked 'daring' after two vehicles blew up and we had our collective asses handed to us by a bunch of ignorant politicians and 'review boards' that were more interested in pushing their myopic, partisan agendas than they were in trying to improve the program. BTW, those are the same politicians that cut the NASA budget year after year after year, but still demanded the same levels of productivity and safety. That kind of douchebaggery will tend to make anyone a little gun shy.

What I don't get is that a large part of NASA is private now anyway. See U.S.A., Jacobs, Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, etc etc. Obama's minions aren't just cutting the budget, they are passing the responsibility for our future in space to a bunch of CEOs that only care about the goddamned shareholders. What they will do is trash most of the existing engineering structure and set the whole program back 10 years or more

If this budget passes, the glory days are done. There is a good reason why most of NASA's best people have come from the military. It has to do with responsibility and dedication to an altruistic goal. Now, the best we have to look forward to is the free market extending the "golden rule" to space.

Spoiler

"He who has the Gold, makes the Rules"

I am obviously a little too close to this issue to be objective, so that's my rant, and I am sticking to it.

[Coyote]

I am obviously a little too close to this issue to be objective, so that's my rant, and I am sticking to it.

Don't feel bad; I'm not connected to the space program at all, but I'm an advocate and your rant pretty much sums up my views.

[MOUNTAINBANSHEE]

the space program since the space race is, lets face it, been awful. I (along with being a avatar & aircraft enthousiast) am a space inthousiast and i can not stand to read about nasa after the moon. Now the russians are much beter and private companys have much more funding. Pandora will be a battle between the private companys after nasa has be shot by the man called congress.(I am not and american and haven't been there. I would like to in the future)

[Toruk Makto]

the space program since the space race is, lets face it, been awful. I (along with being a avatar & aircraft enthousiast) am a space inthousiast and i can not stand to read about nasa after the moon. Now the russians are much beter and private companys have much more funding. Pandora will be a battle between the private companys after nasa has be shot by the man called congress.(I am not and american and haven't been there. I would like to in the future)

Awful how? If people want better, then they need to bloody pay for better. Like I said before, this stuff isn't cheap. In fact, it is 'insanely expensive', to quote Jake Sully. And I will debate your assertion that the Russian program is better. It is only there at all because the US has totally funded it for the past 8 years or more.

I am not saying that NASA is the only entity that can get us to interstellar space. What I am saying is that when the private companies (see "free market") gets their hooks into the management of the space program at the level these Obama administration wonks are wanting, we will see the space program go the same way the economy recently went. They will build a huge speculative market bubble, a few people will get egregiously rich, and a little later the whole structure will collapse when the bills come due and the books are found to be cooked into limp noodles.

Pxasik.

I am going to hush now. 

[MOUNTAINBANSHEE]

I am sorry but some of the companys will work out in the long term, and amazingly the russains are the best example of that. Before the your govenment started funding them, the rockets they were producing in there production line were being paid for by the passengers who paided to go up on them. They haven't had funding for a long time and thats how they do it. Oh and by the way I hope I don't need to point out that they put the first satillite into space and first man in space and spacewalking. They have the largest amount of space time and of cause the first series of space staions

[Étienne]

new moon program cancelled

Thank Eywa. That was a bad series anyway.

[Robert Nantangä Tirea]

Ultimately competition is the best envireoment for growth so I am on the side of ACCEPTING that it is a good idea for space travel to be privatized. (don't necessarily agree with a global slash of all NASA space activity however)

That said though, private companies are going to need a legitimate cause to compete. This will mean a freeing of regulations for what exactly can be done in space and/or on the moon. Like Coyote said, permission to stake claims on the Moon and Mars is the kind of thing that private sectors will jump on and from there generate venture capital and get the movement going. What I want Obama and Congress to do is play fair, and draw up a comprehensive, open guideline on the subjects like:

1) licensing for private launches
2) permisions on timelines/locations for private launches
3) universal craft safety standards
4) system of support in conjunction with NASA for developing "spacelanes" in orbit. There's a lot of satelites/junk in orbit and there will be even more with a bunch of companies sending their own crafts into orbit. A system to keep these safe from eachother is important.
5) liability concerns. Even NASA can make mistakes (challenger?) so it's even more of a concern with private companies out-doing eachother. The last thing I want to see is incompetance on the part of some groups/companies generating a global ban of activity on all related parties. Think about it like the fireworks issue here in Georgia. Just because some people are too stupid to avoid hurting themselves with fireworks, EVERYONE is banned from owning/using them. This kind of global shutdown is just the kind of thing I fear if the media goes to town on one or more private crafts falling out of the sky.

[Toruk Makto]

I am sorry but some of the companys will work out in the long term, and amazingly the russains are the best example of that. Before the your govenment started funding them, the rockets they were producing in there production line were being paid for by the passengers who paided to go up on them. They haven't had funding for a long time and thats how they do it. Oh and by the way I hope I don't need to point out that they put the first satillite into space and first man in space and spacewalking. They have the largest amount of space time and of cause the first series of space staions

I am not going to turn this into a "my space program is better than your space program" discussion. My point is that the uncertainties of the yearly funding lottery have held back space exploration more than most people can possibly understand.

[Toruk Makto]

Robert, I like your list of things to do, but who is going to enforce all that? Up to now, it has been NASA, but Obama apparently wants NASA to go away. We have plainly seen that the "free market" concept totally sucks at self-governance. My guess is we will probably see lots of drama and stupid accidents that will precipitate just the kind of boot stomping of the industry that you mentioned as we move forward into space under this New Plan.

[Robert Nantangä Tirea]

Robert, I like your list of things to do, but who is going to enforce all that? Up to now, it has been NASA, but Obama apparently wants NASA to go away. We have plainly seen that the "free market" concept totally sucks at self-governance.

I mentioned exactly about that, it needs to be the Obama administration. We can't just let him cut off funding to NASA and walk off scott-free. It needs to be his/their sweat and blood spent on building a gameplan for a space frontier expansion.

Either he plays fair and does the leg work and promises to enforce his own policies or we vote congressmen to Congress who will refuse to pass his bill/bills on the issue. Obviously the Obama administration needs funds if it's going to pull off any stunts with economic stabalization, job creation, and healthcare. He can't be allowed to skim those off other existing legitmate causes like NASA willy-nilly. Dangle the funding carrot in thier faces until they promise to build and enforce a system that allows private space travel to grow and flourish.

[Toruk Makto]

I mentioned exactly about that, it needs to be the Obama administration. We can't just let him cut off funding to NASA and walk off scott-free. It needs to be his/their sweat and blood spent on building a gameplan for a space frontier expansion.

Either he plays fair and does the leg work and promises to enforce his own policies or we vote congressmen to Congress who will refuse to pass his bill/bills on the issue. Obviously the Obama administration needs funds if it's going to pull off any stunts with economic stabalization, job creation, and healthcare. He can't be allowed to skim those off other existing legitmate causes like NASA willy-nilly. Dangle the funding carrot in thier faces until they promise to build and enforce a system that allows private space travel to grow and flourish.

We already have a bunch of smart guys that know a little about about space travel. They have a little place over here in Houston and have been doing this stuff since the 60s.  Why replace them with yet another bureaucracy that is just there to "oversee" a bunch of private companies all going their own separate ways?  What's the thinking?

[Ayfa'liyä omumyu]

Obviously the Obama administration needs funds if it's going to pull off any stunts with economic stabalization, job creation, and healthcare. He can't be allowed to skim those off other existing legitmate causes like NASA willy-nilly.

I think there are plenty of "causes" from which funding can be redirected. Let us take a quick accounting.

Total of ALL non-defense discretionary spending for 2009: $584 B
NASA's share of that: $17.2 B

Defense budget in 2009: $657 B

[Rain]

Why are we trying to populate other planets when it's THIS planet that needs our help? So many people seem to think it's a lost cause but if they'd just put their petty, materialistic annoyances aside, they'd realize that if each person does their part, even if it's a small thing, we can help heal Earth and not have to resort to finding somewhere else to live. It doesn't necessarily mean we have to abandon our technology, but instead find ways to make it more efficient and cleaner to manufacture and use. Patents exist that could ELIMINATE the United State's need for foreign oil, and even eliminate the need to use oil AT ALL, but people obsessed with money and power own those patents and refuse to give them up because they're afraid they'll lose money.

We're not guaranteed that Pandora exists. We're not guaranteed ANYTHING. All we have is this planet, and already she's showing signs of becoming sick. We HAVE the means of healing her, we HAVE the ability to make things right, so why don't we start now?

Maybe learning to speak Na'vi is just the beginning. Maybe, we can all band together and start working to make our OWN Pandora, right here on Earth! With a language as a binding force, we've got the beginnings of a global movement. And each person who joins us in our cause brings us one person closer to seeing that dream of Pandora-on-Earth come to life. What we already have is a mystifyingly beautiful planet that does incredible things, and we should do everything in our power to help. Something simple, like planting a garden, nullifies the need to ship food all over the place in deisel trucks, and gardens aren't hard to maintain. One person at a time, we can ALL have Pandora someday, and we won't need a space program to get there.

Who's with me?

[MOUNTAINBANSHEE]

(loud crowds cherring)

I am!

[Rain]

I'd like to spread this to others on the site so if any moderators could help me, that would be great. I honestly think that we may be onto something and if we can get enough serious people together, we can do it! Earth is all we have and it has the potential to return to its original, healthy, near-paradise state without the pollution and energy crises. I'm for starting an evironmentalist thread/group/board on Learn Na'vi, a place where we can share ideas and learn how to be self-sufficient and ecologically efficient. The rewards we could reap would be ten times better than intangible dreams.

[Robert Nantangä Tirea]

Rain, what you said is without a doubt true.

However, the point of this thread is a little different. It's not necessarily about inhabiting other planets but the furthering of exploration and knowledge. The day we lose our drive to learn and explore and push the boundries of our knowledge and capabilities is the day we fail as a society. That inborn desire to discover the unknown is HUMAN trait, without it were nothing much more than animals struggling for survival with the rest of life.

We owe it to humanity to move forward and expand our frontier. And legislation like the shutdown of Constellation is a disservice to the cause.

[Toruk Makto]

Besides, the space program puts food on the table for a lot of people over here, so I hope you don't mind if we keep plugging at it...