if you're right, i have an idea as to where those wmds are hiding... as much as i love technology and exploration, at this point with the deficit, I see this as a luxury we could do without. I'm very concerned as to where he will magically get ten billion dollars to fund this mission, hoping it doesnt come out of education, or soldier's salaries. secondly, we have yet to explore the depths of our own planet, im a proponent of knowing your own area before going somewhere that you know very little about.
Easterbrook: In the days to come, any administration official who says that a Moon base could support a Mars mission is revealing himself or herself to be a total science illiterate. When you hear, "A Moon base could support a Mars mission," substitute the words, "I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about." So, the head of NASA is either a "total science illiterate" or this is about politics as usual.
The head of NASA is in charge of a bureaucracy, his previous jobs have been budgetary. In a bureaucracy, one of the main objectives i, get as much money as one can in your budget, and spend all of it so you'll get the same amount next year or more. I bet we won't get a couple of physicists ( too bad Feynman isn't around to debunk this with a nice demo ) to say this is good science ( using the moon as an intermediate base or for mining in 20 years ).
You forgot the "or both" option. If this comes to pass... if they take one dollar away from the wonderful unmanned programs (see recent successes, from space telescope, to comet explorer to the ongoing Mars mission)... I will really lose my ****. I would almost prefer they take the money away from NASA entirely than to spend it on a micronauts moon base funhouse (I'm starting to sound like T_J does about the monorail! ).
President's Vision Is More Shrewd Than Flashy By Kathy Sawyer, Washington Post Staff Writer President Bush has resolved NASA's vision problem. The U.S. human spaceflight program has its long-awaited mandate to head out into the solar system after 30 years of going in circles around the home planet. But this will not be your father's Apollo program. Or, with luck, Bush's own father's ill-fated space initiative. In the absence of the Cold War urgency that drove the 1960s space race, Bush has outlined a tortoise-like pace, dictated by severe budget constraints, that allows a full decade just to develop a vehicle that would, once again, deliver people to the moon -- something Apollo engineers accomplished, starting from scratch, in about eight years. What the plan lacks in momentum and flash, however, it makes up in political shrewdness, and analysts said that, unlike previous attempts to get the space program off the dime, it might even survive the congressional gantlet. Its fate will depend heavily on how much credibility NASA, and particularly Administrator Sean O'Keefe, bring to the devilish details -- especially the questions of cost for myriad new initiatives that the new goals will entail, as NASA seeks to develop the long-needed technological advances required for any serious, long-term human presence in space. "We're gratified that the president has done this," said retired Adm. Harold W. Gehman Jr., who chaired the Columbia Accident Investigation Board after the loss of a shuttle and seven astronauts almost a year ago. The board, in its final report, had decried the lack of a vision for human spaceflight. "This is a step in the right direction. . . . The president must lead, and he has done that." Gehman said he has signaled that he will work with Pete Aldridge, head of a new presidential commission that will advise NASA on how best to implement the goals of the Bush space directive. The president's plan leaves it up to the space agency to take out of its own hide an extra $11 billion that will be required over the next five years to take merely the first steps toward the new solar system exploration plan -- a daunting call for self-amputation not usually welcomed by bureaucracies. The agency will be returning to the moon for perhaps half -- and what some say could be as little as 30 percent -- of the cost of Apollo. When Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush, in 1989 proposed a return to the moon and Mars, the agency essentially "blew it" by using the opportunity to bolster the fortunes of its mini-fiefdoms instead of transforming itself, said Howard McCurdy, a space historian at American University. If the agency does things right this time, he said, "the NASA that exists in 2015 will not be the agency that exists today." He said the new Bush proposal is a stellar example of the old curse "Be careful what you wish for -- you may get it." For much of the $11 billion shortfall, NASA officials indicate they will rely heavily on savings from the retirement of the remaining three shuttles in 2010, once they fulfill their primary purpose -- to finish building what has become a minimalist version of the international space station, which is currently orbiting half-built with a caretaker crew of two astronauts aboard. U.S. research aboard the orbiting facility will henceforth be focused solely on the effects of space on human physiology. There may also be slowed growth in the NASA space science budget, sources said, and a "refocusing" of activities within the agency to support the central theme of returning to the moon. There will be no further servicing missions to the Hubble Space Telescope (news - web sites). Though there is rampant speculation about closing NASA facilities and axing programs, there were few specifics. The plan is "exciting and doable" with the caveat that "NASA is going to have to be very clear" about what it can do for the limited money available, said Robert S. Walker, former chairman of a key House space committee and of the Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry. Walker praised O'Keefe for his efforts "to wrap his arms around those numbers" after the Bush White House appointed the former budget official to get control of runaway space station costs. The challenges of the Bush directive, by all accounts, could test those skills to the limit. Beyond the next five budget years, moreover, congressional sources said there are significant gaps in the game plan for funding the new initiative, as outlined in private briefings yesterday -- and many of them will stretch out long after their political parents in this administration have moved on. Such orphan programs, out of sync with the political rhythms of Washington, often fare poorly, analysts said. There are also serious unknowns about how, physically, the mandate will be carried out. There is no mention of money for a big rocket that could replace the shuttle's heavy cargo-carrying capacity. One congressional space expert speculated that the development of such a vehicle might be taken out of NASA hands and given to the military or done in partnership with the commercial sector -- a course that has led to multiple costly failures in the past with such experimental projects as the National Aerospace Plane and the X-33. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1802&e=1&u=/washpost/20040115/ts_washpost/a18228_2004jan14
http://www.spacial-anomaly.com/ Ohhhh they're artists, never knew GW was a fan of the anomalistic arts...
Lineup the volunteers. How about starting a self sustaining Adam and Eve like colony? How does one rule since it's all welfare babies? http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/15/o...00&en=60630c5edf30aefa&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE Life (and Death) on Mars By PAUL DAVIES Published: January 15, 2004 SYDNEY, Australia — President Bush's announcement yesterday that the United States will soon be pointing its rockets toward Mars will doubtless be greeted with delight by space scientists. After all, there are plenty of good reasons to mount such a trip. For a start, Mars is one of the few accessible places beyond Earth that could have sustained life. Though a freeze-dried desert today, it was once warm and wet, with lakes, rivers, active volcanoes and a thick atmosphere — all conditions conducive to life. Microbes might even remain alive there, lurking in liquid aquifers deep beneath the permafrost. If life began from scratch on both Mars and Earth separately, then evidence for a second genesis would await us, providing a heaven-sent opportunity to compare two bio-systems and learn how life emerges from non-life. And if life were found to have started twice within the solar system, it would signal that the laws of nature are inherently bio-friendly, implying a universe teeming with life. An alternative possibility is that life started on Mars and spread to Earth inside material blasted into space by the impact of comets crashing into the Martian surface. Mars and Earth trade rocks, and hardy bacteria could have hitched a ride to seed our planet with microbial Martians. Just possibly the journey was reversed, with life starting on Earth and hopping to Mars. Though such cross-contamination would compromise hopes of identifying a genuine second sample of life, it would still represent a biological bonanza, enabling scientists to study two versions of evolution. The economic and practical benefits would be incalculable. Mars is alluring in another respect. Alone among our sister planets, it is able to support a permanent human presence. As Robert Zubrin of the Mars Society has remarked, it is the second safest place in the solar system. Its thin atmosphere provides a measure of protection against meteorites and radiation. Crucially, there is probably the water, carbon dioxide and minerals needed to sustain a colony. And yet the scientific community's enthusiasm will surely be tempered by skepticism. Scientists, it's worth remembering, rejoiced when President George H. W. Bush unveiled a Mars project in 1989. The same scientists then despaired when the plan quickly evaporated amid spiraling projected costs and shifting priorities. Of course, the project's demise should not have surprised anyone. Back then, a manned expedition to Mars came with a price tag of of more than $400 billion, a sum that makes the cost of the Apollo Moon landings seem like small change. Why is going to Mars so expensive? Mainly it's the distance from Earth. At its closest point in orbit, Mars lies 35 million miles away from us, necessitating a journey of many months, whereas reaching the Moon requires just a few days' flight. On top of this, Mars has a surface gravity that, though only 38 percent of Earth's, is much greater than the Moon's. It takes a lot of fuel to blast off Mars and get back home. If the propellant has to be transported there from Earth, costs of a launching soar. Without some radical improvements in technology, the prospects for sending astronauts on a round-trip to Mars any time soon are slim, whatever the presidential rhetoric. What's more, the president's suggestion of using the Moon as a base — a place to assemble equipment and produce fuel for a Mars mission less expensively — has the potential to turn into a costly sideshow. There is, however, an obvious way to slash the costs and bring Mars within reach of early manned exploration. The answer lies with a one-way mission. . . . hen this stage was reached, humanity would have a precious insurance policy against catastrophe at home. During the next millennium there is a significant chance that civilization on Earth will be destroyed by an asteroid, a killer plague or a global war. A Martian colony could keep the flame of civilization and culture alive until Earth could be reverse-colonized from Mars. Would NASA entertain a one-way policy for human Mars exploration? Probably not. But other, more adventurous space agencies in Europe or Asia might. The next giant leap for mankind won't come without risk. Paul Davies, professor of natural philosophy at the Australian Center for Astrobiology, is author of "The Fifth Miracle: The Search for the Origin and Meaning of Life."
Hubble is the first casualty of the Bush mooning. WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Hubble Space Telescope will be allowed to degrade and eventually become useless, as NASA changes focus to President Bush's plans to send humans to the moon, Mars and beyond, officials said Friday. NASA canceled all space shuttle servicing missions to the Hubble, which has revolutionized the study of astronomy with its striking images of the universe. I'm all for space exploration and support missions to the moon and to Mars. But the Hubble project is arguably the most awe-inspiring mission in world history. C'mon! http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/16/hubble.telescope.ap/
It's just ridiculous that they can't send one more shuttle mission up there for a final tune-up around 2006 to prolong Hubble’s demise for 5 or 6 years. All that science lost, I hope there is a major outcry about this - if not what a waste…
Hmmm. ___________ Industry Hopes Soar With Space Plan Energy and Aerospace Firms Have Long Lobbied NASA By Mike Allen and Greg Schneider Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, January 16, 2004; Page A01 President Bush emphasized American ingenuity, international cooperation and human destiny when he announced his new space policy this week, but the plan also reflected long-held ambitions of the U.S. aerospace and energy industries. For years, they have labored to persuade NASA to pursue interplanetary voyages more aggressively, with companies standing to reap billions of dollars from the contracts and spinoff technologies that would result. Industry officials said yesterday that they see a huge boon to business in Bush's "renewed spirit of discovery," which set a mission to Mars as a long-range goal after astronauts build a science base on the moon. Among the companies that could profit from the plan are Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp., Boeing Co. and Halliburton Co., which Vice President Cheney headed before he joined Bush's ticket. "Going beyond the moon is big news for us," said Ed Memi, a spokesman for Boeing, which is NASA's largest contractor. As an example of private industry's hunger for a Mars mission, Steve Streich, a veteran Halliburton scientific adviser, was among the authors of an article in Oil & Gas Journal in 2000 titled "Drilling Technology for Mars Research Useful for Oil, Gas Industries." The article called a Mars exploration program "an unprecedented opportunity for both investigating the possibility of life on Mars and for improving our abilities to support oil and gas demands on Earth," because technology developed for the mission could be used on this planet. Lockheed spokesman Tom Jurkowsky expressed similar enthusiasm. "Today our people in Houston, our people at Cape Canaveral, at the Marshall Space Center . . . are talking to their counterparts at NASA -- at headquarters, at all levels," he said. NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe said at a briefing Wednesday that officials will now determine to what degree Bush's exploration program, which must be funded by Congress, will be "industry-driven." Private companies had pushed NASA for years to think big, to undertake more far-reaching programs, such as sending astronauts to the moon or Mars. But the agency resisted, its ambitions beaten down by years of declining budgets, industry officials said. One industry official said the climate changed last October, when China put a man in orbit and announced plans to go to the moon. Suddenly, the official said, the White House seemed anxious to revitalize the U.S. space program, in effect telling NASA that "we're not going to let the Chinese take the moon and let us look like fools." NASA then spent weeks in drills to come up with an outline for getting U.S. astronauts back into space in a big way, using some of the broad ideas that companies had been pushing. A senior administration official involved in the process said the impetus for the space policy review was Bush's desire to give NASA a clear mission after the Feb. 1 disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia. "The president made a commitment that we will continue on our journey," the official said. "But as we looked at that journey, the question was, is there a specific goal? What is the vision? And the assessment was that it lacked a specific vision and goal. The president kept asking, 'To what end? The space station, to what end? The shuttle crews will continue to orbit the Earth, for what end?' And he said, 'What is the vision?' " Whatever the plan's genesis, the aerospace industry has been hungry for the work. Many companies consolidated in the 1990s, with Boeing and Lockheed Martin emerging as by far the dominant contractors. One or the other oversees virtually every major NASA program, and a Boeing-Lockheed joint venture, the United Space Alliance, manages the space shuttle program. The companies had counted on a huge jump in commercial space business from the telecommunications industry, but when the Internet boom went bust and when fiber optics replaced satellites as the medium of choice, commercial space launches evaporated. Military space business picked up some of the slack, but the giant companies have pushed for more NASA work. Industry officials said they did not do an end run around NASA and plead their case directly to the White House. The problem is funding. Although the extra $1 billion the president has proposed for NASA for the exploration project is a start, officials said, the agency will need more money to carry out the new goals. One industry executive said spending is likely to increase once the programs get underway. That would fit a familiar pattern, said Phil Finnegan, an industry expert with the Teal Group aerospace consulting firm. Military programs traditionally start with small price tags and grow once Congress has bought in; NASA's international space station has done the same, he said. The companies are ready with advice for NASA, though, about how to move forward at a politically viable pace. "We've been doing feasibility studies for some time on how to make an affordable, sustainable program," Boeing executive Mike Lounge said. Halliburton's interest in Mars was first pointed out yesterday by the Progress Report, a daily publication of the liberal Center for American Progress. Administration officials scoffed at the idea that Halliburton had anything to do with the development of the space policy, which was headed by Bush's domestic policy adviser, Margaret Spellings, and Stephen Hadley, the deputy national security adviser. Another administration official said Cheney did not take a lead role in the interagency work on the space policy but gauged support on Capitol Hill and served in an advisory capacity. An industry official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the oil and gas industry, including Halliburton, would benefit considerably from technology that was developed for drilling on Mars, including the tools, the miniaturization, the drilling mechanism, the robotic systems and the control systems. "How to go up there and drill remotely, seal it off, make sure the well stays stable, analyze it, produce from it -- that has a lot of application right here," the official said. "If you go up and drill down several thousand feet, you've got to have the same types of safety equipment there that you're going to have here, or you'll blow your spacecraft off wherever it landed, if anything comes back at you out of the ground, like it does here."
U.S. Eyes Space as Possible Battleground By Jim Wolf WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush's plan to expand the exploration of space parallels U.S. efforts to control the heavens for military, economic and strategic gain. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld long has pushed for technology that could be used to attack or defend orbiting satellites as well as a costly program, heavily reliant on space-based sensors, to thwart incoming warheads. Under a 1996 space policy adopted by then-President Bill Clinton that remains in effect, the United States is committed to the exploration and use of outer space "by all nations for peaceful purposes for the benefit of all humanity." "Peaceful purposes allow defense and intelligence-related activities in pursuit of national security and other goals," according to this policy. "Consistent with treaty obligations, the United States will develop, operate and maintain space control capabilities to ensure freedom of action in space, and if directed, deny such freedom of action to adversaries." No country depends on space and satellites as its eyes and ears more than the United States, which accounted for as much as 95 percent of global military space spending in 1999, according to the French space agency CNES. "Yet the threat to the U.S. and its allies in and from space does not command the attention it merits from the departments and agencies of the U.S. government charged with national security responsibilities," a congressionally chartered task force headed by Rumsfeld reported 10 days before Bush and he took office in 2001. Theresa Hitchens of the private Center for Defense Information said the capabilities to conduct space warfare would move out of the realm of science fiction and into reality over the next 20 years or so. "At the end of the day it will be political choices by governments, not technology, that determines if the nearly 50- year taboo against arming the heavens remains in place," she concluded in a recent study. Outlining his election-year vision for space exploration last week, Bush called for a permanent base on the moon by 2020 as a launch pad for piloted missions to Mars and beyond. One unspoken motivation may have been China's milestone launch in October of its first piloted spaceflight in earth orbit and its announced plan to go to the moon. "I think the new initiative is driven by a desire to beat the Chinese to the moon," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense and space policy research group. Among companies that could cash in on Bush's space plans are Lockheed Martin Corp., Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp., which do big business with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as well as with the Pentagon. The moon, scientists have said, is a source of potentially unlimited energy in the form of the helium 3 isotope -- a near perfect fuel source: potent, nonpolluting and causing virtually no radioactive byproduct in a fusion reactor. "And if we could get a monopoly on that, we wouldn't have to worry about the Saudis and we could basically tell everybody what the price of energy was going to be," said Pike. Gerald Kulcinski of the Fusion Technology Institute at the University of Wisconsin at Madison estimated the moon's helium 3 would have a cash value of perhaps $4 billion a ton in terms of its energy equivalent in oil. Scientists reckon there are about 1 million tons of helium 3 on the moon, enough to power the earth for thousands of years. The equivalent of a single space shuttle load or roughly 30 tons could meet all U.S. electric power needs for a year, Kulcinski said by e-mail. Bush's schedule for a U.S. return to the moon matches what experts say may be a dramatic militarization of space over the next two decades, even if the current ban on weapons holds. Among other things, the Pentagon expects to spend at least $50 billion over the next five years to develop and field a multi-layered shield against incoming missiles that could deliver nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. Ultimately, this shield -- first proposed by President Ronald Reagan and dubbed "Star Wars" by critics -- may include space-based interceptors, the first weapons in space, as opposed to sensors that guide weapons. Last year, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency obtained $14 million for research on basing three or more missile interceptors in space by the end of the decade for tests. The plan would field satellites armed with multiple "hit-to-kill" interceptors capable of destroying a ballistic missile through a high-speed collision shortly after its launch, according to Wade Boese, research director of the private Arms Control Association. Such a system could also function as an anti-satellite weapon. No decision has been made yet to deploy space-based interceptors as part of the U.S. missile defense program "although we are conducting research and development activities in that area," a Defense Department official said Friday.
Maybe we should just let the Halliburton boys and the aero space industry - military industrial complex types go to Mars. It is better than having them have to keep pushing for war as a way to make some bucks.
And, in other news, the White House has just released a map of what Mars will look like once we begin the occupation:
I encourage *any* interested party (by interested, I mean interested in the cosmos at any level) to write a letter to their congressional reps that strongly supports one more Hubble maintainance mission. This mission was not only going to be a prolonging tune-up; two new instruments were going to be installed. This device has taught us more about the universe that the entire history of manned spaceflight, and it will be a complete travesty to lose even a few years of great science from this instrument. I never thought piss-poor executive leadership could affect the Hubble, the world's most successful scientific instrument, would certainly be safe. Sad times for good science.
Here's a start, Mac B. recent New Scientist article (edit: to mitigate the hand-wringing somewhat, note in that article that a new telescope is slated for 2011 or so, though I don't know how they'll deploy it without a shuttle. Those writing letters, IMO, should append a paragraph urging full funding for the next generations of unmanned space telescopes).
