Obama to axe Ares Rocket?

[taurusowner]

We are screwed, then. The nearest livable exoplanet continent hasn't been discovered yet, and when it does, it will certainly be too many light-years miles away to be more than a curiosity.

Common sentiment about 500-1000 or so years ago.  Now we're living on that mysterious continent on the other side of the vast uncrossable ocean.

It may be another thousand years.  It may even be more.  But when you look at how far we've come, from living in thatch huts thinking there was no world outside our tiny plot of land in Mesopotamia and believing the world was flat, to living all over that world and having even left the planet just because we felt like it; I think saying we will NEVER live on another planet is just not possible to predict.

Every major scientific advance humankind has ever made was IMPOSSIBLE....until someone did it.

[Northwoods]

We are screwed, then. The nearest livable exoplanet hasn't been discovered yet, and when it does, it will certainly be too many light-years away to be more than a curiosity. We cannot live on mars or the moon. So it might be claustrophobic to think that we are stuck on earth, but we are stuck on earth, and going to the moon to prance around on the regolith is not doing anything to help us. It's a waste of money that could be used for something better (like preventing the fiscal collapse of our country).

It's a good first step.  We didn't go from dugout canoes to the aircraft carrier in one fell swoop.  We didn't go from the Wright Flyer to the F-22 in one fell swoop.  We won't go from Earth bound to expanding to another viable planet in one fell swoop either.

Start at the Moon, and then Mars to get the settlement technology developed.  Work on terraforming while on Mars.  Meanwhile search for potential viable planets and develop our technology to get there in at a speed that makes the journey tolerable.

Plus there's the not inconsequential side benefit of me having a job.

[AZRedhawk44]

The space shuttle and ISS are the equivalent of space dug-out canoes.

Well, to be fair, Mercury capsules were canoes.

ISS might be something as refined as a primitive barge, and the space shuttle is perhaps akin to a longboat.

We need to build triremes, schooners, steamships and such before we can dream of the Reagan-class nuclear aircraft carrier space equivalent with 5000 souls aboard.

And we need to learn how to use those to "fish" in the deep waters in our solar system.  Go "whaling" for minerals in the asteroid belt.  Or build the equivalent of oil platforms where we can refuel ships from mined resources.  You know those floating fish processing plants in Alaska, or the Japanese lumber processing plants off the Washington coast?  We need those, in space.

Maybe we don't need more planets.  At least for a while.

Maybe our next step is to learn how to terraform Mars or some of Jupiter's moons.  Or partial-terraform, along the lines of giant enclosed sports domes.

[RocketMan]

We need to build triremes, schooners, steamships and such before we can dream of the Reagan-class nuclear aircraft carrier space equivalent with 5000 souls aboard.

And we need to learn how to use those to "fish" in the deep waters in our solar system.  Go "whaling" for minerals in the asteroid belt.  Or build the equivalent of oil platforms where we can refuel ships from mined resources.  You know those floating fish processing plants in Alaska, or the Japanese lumber processing plants off the Washington coast?  We need those, in space.

Maybe we don't need more planets.  At least for a while.

Maybe our next step is to learn how to terraform Mars or some of Jupiter's moons.  Or partial-terraform, along the lines of giant enclosed sports domes.

All of this.  We just have to realize it won't be America doing it.  The folks that accomplish this, English will not be their primary language.

[Gewehr98]

Why not?

We still have the technological lead, NASA's slashed budget notwithstanding.

Unless you think the language of our planetary exploring descendants will be speaking a dialect that's a mix of Chinese and English (Engrish?) in deference to the Global Economic Merger/War of 2020? 

[agricola]

As someone who admires your space program from afar, I have the following points to make:

i) there is no American achievement, policy or programme in history that managed to boost the image of the US worldwide more than Apollo.  No amount of dollars sent in foriegn "aid" has ever, or would ever, manage(d) to have the same effect.
ii) as Bruce H, scout, MechAg and AzRedhawk state, there are a whole load of things that should / must be cut before going after NASA
iii) every time I hear the "there is no benefit in space travel" argument, I think of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSELOCMmw4A
iv) if you dont go into space, someone else - probably the Chinese, after all they will be able to afford it given all the interest you will be paying them - will.

[RocketMan]

Why not?

Privately or sponsored by .gov, either way, if we do not get our economic house in order, and soon, we will not have the means to do so.   And I just don't see that happening.

[RevDisk]

We are screwed, then. The nearest livable exoplanet hasn't been discovered yet, and when it does, it will certainly be too many light-years away to be more than a curiosity. We cannot live on mars or the moon. So it might be claustrophobic to think that we are stuck on earth, but we are stuck on earth, and going to the moon to prance around on the regolith is not doing anything to help us. It's a waste of money that could be used for something better (like preventing the fiscal collapse of our country).

Then why do anything?   If you are right, we are already dead as a species.  Taking to the stars, colonizing the universe and maintaining our continued expansion by the barrel of a gun or the movement of the slide ruler, or death.  Those are our two ONLY options for humanity.

Yanno, of all the movies I've seen in my life, one scene has made the largest impact.  One was Apollo 13, when they dumped a carton of space junk on a desk, ordered the geeken to make it work and by the gods, they did.  I think I was 14 or 15 at the time when I saw the film.  That is what made me proud of humanity and want to be a geek. 


May every NASA desk jockey administrator that has done his or her part to kill the best part of our humanity burn in whatever version of hell is especially appealing for all time.

[41magsnub]

Amen to all that has been said.  NASA in it's prime was driving many great things beyond the obvious direct technical advances.  The moon landings and launch of the space shuttle inspired lots of folks to go into engineering and math causing a rise in the US's technical ability overall.  What was the last really inspiring thing NASA did?  The Mars rovers come to mind and that is about it.  What do we have to look forward to?  We have launching satellites down to a fairly routine matter.  BFD.  What are we doing that is pushing the envelope?  What would a high school graduate have to look forward to right now that would inspire them to take up engineering in college?

[RevDisk]

What was the last really inspiring thing NASA did?  The Mars rovers come to mind and that is about it. 

http://www.xkcd.com/695/

[roo_ster]

Yanno, of all the movies I've seen in my life, one scene has made the largest impact.  One was Apollo 13, when they dumped a carton of space junk on a desk, ordered the geeken to make it work and by the gods, they did.  I think I was 14 or 15 at the time when I shttp://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?action=post;quote=437811;topic=22790.25;num_replies=34;sesc=42b507563e1dd636f0787448a4d4cb35aw the film.  That is what made me proud of humanity and want to be a geek. 

That scene/event was the REAL "Revenge of the Nerds." Freaking inspiring.




A little b-ground:
http://www.octanecreative.com/ducttape/NASA/index.html
(search on "Apollo 13 CO2 Filter Modification")


More:

the square carbon dioxide filters from Apollo 13's failed command module had to be modified to fit round receptacles in the lunar module, which was being used as a lifeboat after an explosion en route to the moon. A workaround was made using duct tape and other items on board Apollo 13, with the ground crew relaying directions to the spacecraft and its crew. The lunar module CO2 scrubbers started working again, saving the lives of the three astronauts on board.

Ed Smylie, who designed the scrubber modification in just two days, said later that he knew the problem was solvable when it was confirmed that duct tape was on the spacecraft: "I felt like we were home free", he said in 2005. "One thing a Southern boy will never say is, 'I don't think duct tape will fix it.'"

[Hawkmoon]

NASA doesn't need to be in the space-taxi business.  Outsourcing this to build private space enterprise is a good move.

I disagree with abandoning the moon, though.  It's the ultimate sustainable high-ground from a military perspective, and an EXCELLENT choice for a place to build larger spacecraft.  I don't have visions of NCC-1701 in my lifetime, but I would like to see the Moon serve as a lighthouse of sorts, or perhaps an offshore oil platform that provides H2/O2 fuel and oxygen resupply.

Regardless, NASA needs to focus more on space, rather than low earth orbit.  LEO is now old-hat and can be serviced by private industry.

More to the point, what IS the point of "re-tasking" NASA to study Earth-based climate issues? We already have NOAA for that. NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. What part of "space" does our fearless leader not understand? Basically, if we don't need NASA to be doing space syuff, then we don't need NASA at all and it should be disbanded, dismantled, and otherwise scrapped.

On the other hand, if we need NASA, then NASA needs to be doing space stuff.

[MicroBalrog]

We cannot live on mars or the moon.

Why can't we?

We can build Island 3 colonies, and we can terraform the hell out of Mars when we are wealthy and smart enough to do so.

[Balog]

Anyone else find it ironic that some here are saying scientific breakthroughs enabling multi-lightyear travel and terraforming planets is inevitable, but consider scientific breakthroughs allowing indefinite life on Sol impossible?

[Regolith]

Anyone else find it ironic that some here are saying scientific breakthroughs enabling multi-lightyear travel and terraforming planets is inevitable, but consider scientific breakthroughs allowing indefinite life on Sol impossible?

At some point, something is going to happen that will make living on earth very, very difficult.  Whether it's an impact from an asteroid, an extreme volcanic event (something akin to the one that wiped out a large percentage of life 200 or so billion years ago), or our sun running out of hydrogen gas to burn and switching to heavier elements instead (which will cause it to swell, pushing it's outer edges past the orbit of Venus and turning our planet into a cinder), our existence on this planet is not likely to be indefinite.  We need a presence in space in order to survive as a species, period. 

Looking at the most likely threat (an asteroid impact), we either need to have colonies elsewhere to repopulate the earth after the impact, or we need the ability to find and destroy or relocate asteroids that threaten the Earth.  Both of which require a robust space program.  Then there are other ways that a presence in space can protect us, such as countering other nation's efforts to militarize space (either by preventing them from doing it all together, or simply not letting them do it without competition).

NASA is quite frankly as necessary to this nation (and perhaps the planet) as the military is.  It's a shame it doesn't get equal attention, and only a fraction of the funding.   

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Why is it assumed that human civilization cannot survive on the earth?

[MillCreek]

Anyone else find it ironic that some here are saying scientific breakthroughs enabling multi-lightyear travel and terraforming planets is inevitable, but consider scientific breakthroughs allowing indefinite life on Sol impossible?

Eventually our Sun will go nova, and our planet will be within the actual body of the sun as it expands or will be destroyed as the Sun explodes.  Hard to think of a scientific breakthrough that will enable the planet to survive that.  Unless we develop the spindizzy and fly the planet away, as conceptualized by James Blish.  

[MillCreek]

deleted due to double post

[seeker_two]

Why is it assumed that human civilization cannot survive on the earth?

...or that we'll be allowed to settle anywhere else? Maybe the aliens want to keep us Earth-bound....kinda like keeping all the problem children in one playpen......




 
 

[Balog]

When is the sun predicted to go nova? Few billion years? You really think us funding NASA now is going to have a material impact? Such hubris...


That being said, I'm all for funding NASA. Lots of things we need to do in space. But all the "ZOMG we're all gonna DIE!!!!!!!1!!1!11!eleventyonezomgwtfbbq!11!!1!" talk makes me 

[lupinus]

When is the sun predicted to go nova? Few billion years?

At best estimate, but that's not the point. There's a few million different things, any one of which means we are outa here.

Then again as far as I'm concerned when the time for humans is up it's up, and it doesn't matter if we are on one world or one million worlds IMO. So for now funding NASA is fine because it's cool and the same reason I keep SD weapons. Who am I to ignore the tools the good Lord has seen fit to provide me with.

[RevDisk]

When is the sun predicted to go nova? Few billion years? You really think us funding NASA now is going to have a material impact? Such hubris...


That being said, I'm all for funding NASA. Lots of things we need to do in space. But all the "ZOMG we're all gonna DIE!!!!!!!1!!1!11!eleventyonezomgwtfbbq!11!!1!" talk makes me 

Sigh.

The sun going wonky (not necessarily nova) is one of several dozen scenarios I could think up off the top of my head.  Dude, the P–Tr event only occurred 251.4 million years ago and we have no clue what caused it.  It wiped out 96% of marine species, 70% of terrestrial vertebrates, 57% of all families and 83% of all genera.   

If you think humanity is immune to space rocks, improved Spanish flu, solar activity, plant evolution, flood basalt, gamma ray burst from other stars, etc for...  whatever reason, that is your business.   The rest of us subscribe to the statistical certainty that on a long enough timescale...  stuff happens.  Maybe tomorrow, maybe next year, maybe a thousand or million years from now.  But sooner or later, statistics win again.  Having all of our eggs in one basket means if any one of the above happens again, we're screwed.  If we diversify our eggs in to many baskets, we're statistically significantly less likely to die as a species.

[zahc]

Travel to other planets is such a practical scientific impossibility that nasa is completely irrelevant. Saying that traveling to the moon is a first step to interplanetary travel is about like saying that traveling to the top of mount Everest is an important first step to the moon. If you want to get to the moon, you need to build rockets; climbing mountains is a distraction; you can't climb to the moon no matter how good of a climber you are. If you want to get to another planet, well, I think you are going to need hyperspace or wormholes or other physics that don't really exist yet, in which case your breakthrough is going to come in a chalk room or physics laboratory, and prancing around on regolith is a similar distraction.

People think technology is magic, so if we can go from the pony express to cell phones in a couple hundred years, it will only be a matter of time until we have one of those fancy space ships they saw on TV. But technology will never invent a perpetual motion machine or a single-reservoir heat engine and it's NOT a matter of time or a matter of wanting it bad enough. And any exoplanets, supposing there are any, are so far away as to be irrelevant. They are far. Like really far. Like so far that when we find one, we won't even know if it's there because the light will be centuries old by the time it hits our telescopes. Using the possibility of interstellar travel to justify NASA funding is basically a joke. Oh, it sounds romantic though.

[Northwoods]

Travel to other planets is such a practical scientific impossibility that nasa is completely irrelevant. Saying that traveling to the moon is a first step to interplanetary travel is about like saying that traveling to the top of mount Everest is an important first step to the moon. If you want to get to the moon, you need to build rockets; climbing mountains is a distraction; you can't climb to the moon no matter how good of a climber you are. If you want to get to another planet, well, I think you are going to need hyperspace or wormholes or other physics that don't really exist yet, in which case your breakthrough is going to come in a chalk room or physics laboratory, and prancing around on regolith is a similar distraction.

Bad analogy.  By going to the moon/Mars you are developing technology that will enable human habitation in a variety of challanging environments.  You are developing technology to enable survival and comfort for relatively lenghty times en-route to the destination.  You are developing technology to shorten that travel time.  All of that will inspire lots of people to go into science and engineering and will eventually result in that critical person being in the chalk room or lab to make the breakthrough discoveries necessary to such achievement.

[taurusowner]

People think technology is magic, so if we can go from the pony express to cell phones in a couple hundred years, it will only be a matter of time until we have one of those fancy space ships they saw on TV. But technology will never invent a perpetual motion machine or a single-reservoir heat engine and it's NOT a matter of time or a matter of wanting it bad enough. And any exoplanets, supposing there are any, are so far away as to be irrelevant. They are far. Like really far. Like so far that when we find one, we won't even know if it's there because the light will be centuries old by the time it hits our telescopes. Using the possibility of interstellar travel to justify NASA funding is basically a joke. Oh, it sounds romantic though.

Earth is flat, and is the center of the universe.  And human beings will never fly.  To think otherwise is heresy.


We've been wrong about things that we KNEW were true before.