Obama orders review of NASA return to the moon

[IDemo]

Source: Computer World

As agency presents its $18B budget, White House calls for closer look at space flight plans

May 7, 2009 (Computerworld) Plans for NASA to send humans back to the moon might be in jeopardy.

President Barack Obama's administration today called for an independent review of NASA's human space flight activities.

Looking at possible alternatives to programs already in the pipeline, the review is geared toward making sure the country's human spaceflight program remains "safe, innovative and affordable" after the space shuttle is retired, NASA says.

Acting NASA Administrator Christopher Scolese said in a statement, "The thousands of workers who have given so much over the years to bring human spaceflight to where it is today deserve nothing less than a full assurance their commitment will be applied in the smartest and most practical ways."

Read more: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9132692&intsrc=news_ts_head

[Tommy_J]

1. This is good.

While I fully support manned and unmanned spaceflight this program is in deep trouble. Witness the recent announcement of an 18 month slip on Ares. Witness the recent reduction of the Orion crew module from 6 astronauts to 4. The current design has inadequate margin and the whole philosophy of trying to do things on the cheap is going to cost a fortune. This trend is already visible.

[Better Believe It]

2. Good. Drop the return to the Moon nonsense and instead let's continue and deepen ....

the serious unmanned exploration of Mars preparing the way for an international human expedition to Mars in 10 years or so.

The idea that the Moon could serve as a base to build, fuel and launch an expedition to Mars is utter nonsense and would cost much more than a direct flight from Earth orbit to Mars.

Drop the Moon and let's have a far more ambitious and interesting focus on Mars.

[RedCloud]

3. Space the first frontier! Let us go into other dimensions.

It may hurt like the dickens to squeeze into some of those skinny dimensions, but hell, let's do it!

[Dogmudgeon]

4. We need to broaden the scope of space development

Right now, it's based around what amounts to a) stunts, and b) science labs.

Don't get me wrong. We NEED those labs to do scientific work. And those "stunts" are usually show pieces of technology. We have gotten a lot of usable technology from them.

BUT ... we have been in space for about five decades now. Fifty years. It is time we started to actually live in space, and to bring back the know-how to solve the problems we have here on Earth.

Indulge me for a moment while I crack open a six-pack of clichés: "we need to be informed by a holistic integrated paradigm of space exploration and development that takes us to the tipping point for which we are hardwired."

Not just NASA and ESA and Glavkosmos. If we are serious about space, we have to expand our field of vision.

--d!

[OwnedByFerrets]

5. Cut off ever last penny....just imagine how many good banking jobs

could be bought with 18billion.

[Gamey]

6. If space exploration was truly given 1/10 the scrutiny

that alternative energies were given 1/100 the funding of bogus wars the past 10 years we'd be even more fatter and sassier?

[mitchum]

7. I don't really understand the impulse to spend scarce public funds on further space exploration

To what end? To exploit the resources after we so piggishly use up the ones on this planet? To fulfill woo hoo Buck Rogers living on Mars fantasies? To continue a pissing match with a no longer existent USSR?

[MicaelS]

8. Then you don't undertand human nature

To want to explore, to see what's around the next corner, over the next hill. Besides that it's knowledge and scientific research and those two things are never bad.

[mitchum]

9. It's also human nature to want to fuck your neighbor's wife...

but that doesn't mean it's a wise idea

[Gamey]

10. My wife is gorgeous!

You projectioners want to fuck my wife? Fuck you!

[mitchum]

11. This post is useless without pictures

:)

[sofa king]

12. Becasue it's our one solid chance at survival?

We live on a fragile planet which we have thoroughly trashed and which is reaching a turning point which nobody can reliably foresee.

So what if planet Earth becomes uninhabitable? Wouldn't it be a damned good idea to have working knowledge of how to live in a deadly environment?

What if a comet drops in from the Oort Cloud to ruin our day? What if it's something bigger?

Wouldn't it be a good idea to have humans living at some remove from the planet itself?

What do you do with a hundred thousand scientists and engineers who are currently expert in creating machines for killing people, when the defense budget is slashed? Let them find work in third world nations, building A-bombs? Or putting a man on the moon?

NASA's budget, of which manned space flight is only a part, is currently costing us just about as much (around $20 billion a year) as the paltry sum America spends on its Indian tribes and other native Americans. Or, comparing it in another direction, we could have funded manned space flight ten times over each and every year we've been diddling around in Iraq. If we told just one bank to go to hell, we could pay for the whole thing in one lump sum.

But the thing is, we don't need to cut anything to pay for NASA. NASA pays for itself by providing an entire sector--a civilian sector--of industry experts and expertise, which can be applied to any other field which requires that expertise, and by creating a demand for innovative new materials and methods, which (unlike the fruits of military research) are then offered for public use.

You can't better spend your money making life on the ground better if the people smart enough to do it have gone on to become firemen, soldiers, and truck drivers, because there's no future in space.

[canetoad]

14. Do you really think

that if humankind trashes the earth they deserve another planet to start on? I'm not particularly fussed if humans become extinct.

[sofa king]

15. Well, then why blow all that money on schools and roads?

[Vidar]

13. Outsource the banks to the moon.