Has anyone seen Time Machine??? Any chance man will drill too deep into the moon that it starts to break apart? Kinda reminds me of that movie's scenario around 2025.
This is a humor column, but didn't realize that the Bushies actually believe the mining story. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4008805/ Spaced-Out Invaders The Bush administration's designs on Mars and the moon are, well, a little spacey By Gersh Kuntzman Newsweek Updated: 12:53 p.m. ET Jan. 20, 2004Jan. 20 - The Earth has depleted all its natural resources. Life has become grim and hopeless. The only viable option for mankind is to colonize the moon, mine its surface for minerals and provide a limitless source of clean energy for the home planet. That's not just the basic plotline of the disastrous 1975 television series "Space: 1999," it also describes President Bush's latest energy proposal. You might not have heard this idea in Bush's "Back to the Moon" speech last week (mostly because there was so much to ridicule that plenty of eye-roll inspiring proposals slipped past reporters), but the White House's latest long-term strategy for dealing with the global energy crisis is to turn the moon into a huge mining colony. Here is what the president said: "The moon is home to abundant resources. Its soil contains raw materials that might be harvested and processed into rocket fuel or breathable air." Here is what the president meant: "My friends at Halliburton are very eager to strip-mine the moon and since most of my policies seem to come from outer space anyway, I said, 'What the hell?'" As a fan of "Star Trek" and "Total Recall," I am, of course, in love with the president's plan to harvest the mineral wealth of the moon. As an American, I'm dubious. Most important, as an entrepreneur, I'm saddened that someone out-hustled me in setting up a crackhouse on Pennsylvania Avenue, next to the White House (seriously, if Hollywood science-fiction is now the basis of American public policy, someone is on the pipe at 1600). This is not to undermine American ingenuity. We all know that, given enough resources, there are plenty of planets, comets, asteroids, black holes and nebulae that we could strip-mine, defile and abandon as a slag heap. We're good at this kind of thing. But the Bush speech is nothing more than sci-fi--low-budget sci-fi at that. The president's $1 billion allocation of new funds is the public policy equivalent of most lame science fiction: big boulders made of painted Styrofoam, spaceship crashes that are dramatized by simply shaking the camera and having the crew members lurch from side to side and time-travelers who routinely interact with their younger selves (which, as anyone knows, would rupture the space-time continuum!). But give Bush more credit: He's not listening sci-fi writers in Hollywood; as always, he listens to the econo-fi writers at companies like Enron, Halliburton, Boeing and Lockheed. As The Washington Post reported last week, the White House started revisiting these companies' long-held fantasies once China put a man in orbit last year. Suddenly, a new space race was on--and we didn't want the Chinese to get back to the moon before we did. Thankfully, Bush campaign contributors are hot on the case! Indeed, a key Halliburton scientist once admitted in Oil & Gas Journal (what? You don't subscribe?) that human achievement is only a small part of why we should explore space. Rather, it represents "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." In other words, space exploration is really space exploitation. In fairness to the president, I did a little research and found the microscopic grain of truth in what he was saying. It turns out that there is, indeed, an abundant quantity of something called helium-3 just under the surface of the moon. Forget for a second that we still lack the technology to use helium-3 for anything except making your voice sound really high and squeaky. Thanks to nuclear fusion, helium-3 will someday be that long-envisioned clean-burning, limitless energy supply. . . . But someday, we'll get fuel—if we give the sun, the moon and the stars to companies like Halliburton. Former astronaut Harrison Schmitt (the last man to leave his footprints on the moon) said that private companies would gladly rape the moon if they can be assured of "a competitive rate-of-return." (In other words, taxpayers pay for the rockets, NASA provides the know-how and private companies skim the profits.) Schmitt added that scratching the surface of the moon is just scratching the surface. There's a lot more helium-3 on Saturn and Uranus. Watch out, my friends, these people are so desperate to make a buck they're even looking at Uranus! But the biggest problem as I see it is that mining the moon for U.S. profit violates the Outer Space treaty of 1967 (not that the Bush Administration has shown much loyalty to international treaties). Then again, as a sci-fi fan, I hope Bush goes ahead and claims the moon's resources for the United States. That'll set up a truly titanic battle: The United States vs. China. World War III. On the moon! Now there's a sci-fi movie I'd pay to see! Gersh Kuntzman is also Brooklyn bureau chief for The New York Post. His website is at http://www.gersh.tv © 2004 Newsweek, Inc. This sounds like having the national forests denuded for "free" if the taxpayers buy the roads to haul the trees out...
NASA is already feeling the pressure... Help for Hubble: Officials Mull Donations, Russian Service Mission By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer 21 January 2004 A SPACE.com Exclusive Hubble Space Telescope operators plan to ask Russia for help in keeping the observatory alive and will even consider accepting private donations, which have already been offered. Every idea under the Sun will be considered for keeping the popular and scientifically valuable observatory operating even though NASA has decided to let it die. "We're in the mode of pursuing every wacky concept out there," said Steven Beckwith, the director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which operates Hubble for NASA. The stakes are high. Citing safety concerns, NASA declared Friday it would not go forward with a planned servicing mission in 2006, in which astronauts would repair defective pointing gyroscopes and install two new and powerful instruments on Hubble. The decision came two days after President Bush's call for NASA to refocus on human spaceflight with an eye toward returning to the Moon. Without a servicing mission, Hubble has a life expectancy of, at most, 3-1/2 years if some creative solutions can be employed, Beckwith said today in a telephone interview. No replacement There is no other telescope in existence, or any slated to go online in the next decade, that can replace Hubble's optical view of the universe. "You miss what the human eye can see," Beckwith said. "You miss all the visible." He likened the astronomers' expected plight to a soldier on the battlefield having to rely on night vision goggles. Ground-based optical observatories struggle to overcome the blurring effects of Earth's atmosphere. At times, they achieve or exceed Hubble's capabilities, but only in narrow, very limited bands of the optical portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, the scientists' term for light. NASA's new Spitzer Space Telescope views the universe in the infrared, akin to night-vision goggles, as will the planned James Webb Space Telescope, tentatively slated for launch in 2011. Even if Webb goes up -- and that is not certain yet -- it won't see visible light. Meanwhile, the two new Hubble instruments are already built. The Wide Field Camera 3 and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph cost a combined $167 million and would have provided unprecedented peeks into the formation of the cosmos, astronomers say. The camera is nearly ready at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and the spectrograph, which splits and analyzes light, is ready and waiting at Ball Aerospace Technology Corp. in Boulder, Colo. They would have made Hubble 10 times more capable of examining the early universe, making Hubble's final years "the best ever," Beckwith said. "If you liked Hubble up to now you would have loved it after Servicing Mission 4." No one knows what will become of the two instruments, but it is unlikely they could be adapted for use on any other telescope. All options considered Beckwith said there is no precedent in the history of astronomy for removing a telescope from operation before a better one is online. A classic example: A 100-inch telescope on Mt. Wilson, in California, was built in 1917. It was still in operation in 1948 when the 200-inch Palomar Observatory was opened, also in California. Both are still in use. "I've had a lot of e-mail from people who want to donate money to help keep Hubble alive," Beckwith said. He and his team will consider the feasibility of accepting donations but he said "billionaires might be needed." NASA still plans a robotic mission to attach a device to Hubble that would safely deorbit and destroy it. STScI engineers will consider whether a similar robotic effort might instead service the observatory. " We don't know if that's technologically feasible," Beckwith said. There might also be discussion with the European Space Agency (ESA), which partnered with NASA to fund the original development of Hubble. Beckwith said, though, that talks have likely already taken place at a high level between NASA and ESA and he's not sure "how much leeway we'll have." Others have suggested that the Russians might be willing to send a manned mission to upgrade and service Hubble. "The Russians probably have the capability to do it," Beckwith said, and he plans to pursue the possibility. "It's not necessarily politically likely, but it shows that we're going to take all ideas and put them on the table." Survival mode Hubble has six gyroscopes onboard used for pointing the telescope. They fail regularly -- several have been replaced during previous servicing missions -- and only four are operating now. Three are needed to make Hubble work. Engineers are currently working on ways to point the telescope with just two gyroscopes. If they can't succeed, then gyroscope failures could end operations in less than three years, Beckwith said. In reality, the end could come any day. Meanwhile, mission planners and engineers at the STScI, on the campus of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, will soon have a new set of tasks. Beckwith will ask his employees to present options for possibly servicing Hubble or extend its life without servicing. They might cycle power off during certain portions of the observatory's orbit to conserve batteries. Or they might immediately turn off one of the four working gyros to maximize its lifetime. Not dead yet Whatever happens, Hubble is still a working observatory for the moment. Beckwith will set up a committee of astronomers from inside the STScI and outside, in the general astronomy community, to advise him on a short-list of observations that should be done under the assumption that time is running out. That effort would be a "political process" involving hundreds of astronomers who regularly stand in line hoping to get approval for their proposed observation sessions on the telescope. No one in astronomy questions the value of Hubble. Astronaut and astrophysicist John Grunsfeld, now NASA's chief scientist, flew into space and worked on Hubble during the last mission. "This is a hard one," he said of the decision to let the telescope go. "We all feel it as a devastating blow," said Catherine Pilachowski, president of the 6,000-member American Astronomical Society. Perhaps the most telling measure of Hubble's success comes by comparison. Operators of other telescope often make the claim, and rightfully so, that they've observed a distant object with resolution comparable to or exceeding that of Hubble. They do so on a limited basis in a narrow bandwidth, but they do it. And they are proud to point it out. Their desire to match what Hubble does so easily on a regular basis is always apparent. "We enjoy being the gold standard," Beckwith said with some determination today, "and we will remain so." The STScI will set up a web site within a week or so to take suggestions from the public and to communicate the status of the effort to save Hubble. http://space.com/scienceastronomy/hubble_future_040121.html
What adds to the bizarre grip, or lack of it, that the Bush Administration has on NASA and Space Science is that, for all the supposed "big splash", the goofus didn't even mention his grand Moon and Mars program in his State of the Union address. Golly, it must have been an idea that had a damned short shelf life. Oh well, at least he can use it to dismantle NASA's earth science programs and all the data his industrial billioniare buddies are sick and tired of reading when they pick up the newspaper. That makes all this chaos worth it, right? Hubble is far down the lists of what he finds important. He's eager to throw 1.5 billion dollars at "preserving mairrage!", whatever that means. Hey, I've been married for 25 years... do I get a tax break??
Not exactly a "Kennedyesque" call and I guess that whole "uniting the country" thing wasn't important enough to mention in the SOTU. Just as well. It did not make sense, it's way too expensive, and now we don't have to hear Bush talk about the "pursuit of knowledge."
World opinion appears to be fairly low regarding the recent space proposals; some are interesting some are just silly... Suddenly Everyone Has an Opinion about Space By SPACE.com Staff What a difference a few billion dollars and a little vision makes. Before President Bush announced plans to increase NASA's budget to support manned missions to the Moon and Mars, few bothered to editorialize about space. Now it seems every newspaper and every columnist has an opinion. It's no surprise. Perhaps never since the Apollo era has there been so much to talk about, cosmically speaking, from the hugely popular Mars Spirit rover (not everyone agrees) to Bush's announced new vision (if I had a nickel for every opinion ) to NASA's decision -- two days later -- to abandon the Hubble Space Telescope (almost nobody agrees). Here is a sampling of some of headlines and opinions published in recent days: Privatized space travel? If automobile construction were restricted to government regulation the way the space shuttle is, everyone would still be driving Pintos and El Caminos. -- Mike Walters, Texas A&M University's The Battalion [Article] A myopic decision to abandon Hubble The announcement of Hubble's abandonment came just two days after Bush directed NASA to direct its efforts to manned space travel. NASA officials were quick to separate the two events, but the timing and circumstances of the announcements made it hard to dispute the notion that the Hubble is being been sacrificed on the altar of politics. Closing mankind's best eye for peering into space is a terrible mistake." -- Editorial in The Virginian-Pilot [Article] Mars... a big step for womankind? Psychologists will have to find new ways to select crews that will not crack in close confinement. Evidence suggests that the best crew may be female: we may be celebrating the first woman on Mars in a few decades. They tend to be smaller than men, saving on fuel, food, water and oxygen. Most important of all, they tend to be more tolerant of their companions. -- Raj Persaud in The Daily Telegraph, London [Article] New cachet for Martian wannabes Can a Wal-Mart outside the Gusav Crater Gated Community be far behind? -- Beth Gillin, Philadelphia Inquirer [Article] Spaced out on budget priorities The only reason to explore Mars is if, as some have joked, we have credible evidence to suggest Osama is hiding there. How can anyone support sending gazillions into space when millions of Americans are without adequate clothing, housing and shelter? -- Wendi C. Thomas, The Commercial Appeal [Article] Missions possible: Author advocates space partnerships "Some say we ought to stop space exploration until we solve our problems at home. The real question is how many of these problems can we solve with less than 1 percent of the federal budget? To say that we should wait to explore space until we solve all our problems is to say we're not going to do it at all." -- Author Timothy Ferris, quoted in The Palm Beach Daily News [Article] Sci-fi dreams clash with rover reality Am I the only one unimpressed by the NASA robot Spirit? -- Tom Jehn, The Baltimore Sun [Article] Despite far-reaching goals, NASA benefits Earth most The next time you reach for your cell phone, thank NASA. If your doctor recommends an MRI, thank NASA. The space agency deserves another moment of gratitude when you pop in a DVD and settle back for a good movie, or when you reach for a composite golf club, hoping to out-drive your buddies. And think of NASA when a smoke detector blares to save your life. -- David J. Eicher, USA Today [Article] Is it worth the money to step foot on Mars? Conservative estimates are for every dollar the U.S. government spends on the space proram, it receives $7 back in the form of corporate and personal income taxes from increased jobs and economic growth. -- Steven Stiefel, Sand Mountain Reporter [Article] Moon Debate Lacking Scientific Input So far all of the debate has been based on political and economic issues with little input as to the scientific benefits and research advantages of such a mission. A decision as important as whether or not to go to the moon should be made with all of the facts both for and against on the table. -- Jay Richards, Discovery Institute [Article] Spaced-Out Invaders The White House's latest long-term strategy for dealing with the global energy crisis is to turn the moon into a huge mining colony. -- Gersh Kuntzman, Newsweek [Article] Searching for 'Kennedy' vision But in trying to capture the Kennedy magic by proposing new manned ventures to the moon and Mars, Bush seems a bit more out of touch, and a bit less visionary, than he had hoped. -- Mark Mellman, The Hill [Article] Mission to Mars: a very good idea If there is life on Mars, it is microscopic. The US President may figure that a pre-emptive strike against the Martians should occur while we have the size advantage. Maybe he figures the Mission To Mars money is well spent; he was never much good at book-learnin' and we've seen his disregard for hospitals during the recent Iraq (news - web sites) war. -- Tim Ferguson in The Age (Australia) [Article] Privatize the Space Program The space program is a political animal, marked by shifting, inconsistent, and ill-defined goals. Phase out government involvement in space exploration, and the free market will work to produce whatever there is demand for, just as it now does with traditional aircraft, both military and civilian. Develop a system of property rights to any stellar body reached and exploited by an American company, and profit-minded business will have the incentive to make it happen. -- Robert Garmong, CNSNews.com Commentary [Article] And some additional world reaction to the Bush vision, as compiled by the BBC: "A national mission to a far-away place where glory awaits and no rebel movement lurks will help Americans forget about the continuing problems in Iraq and portray the president as a peaceful visionary." -- Der Standard, Austria Bush is " clearly thinking above all about the astronaut China intends to send" to the Moon. -- France's Liberation daily "What are the other planets chosen for the US invasion? Are they an axis of planetary evil? And what is the relationship between the regime on Pluto and fundamentalist groups?" -- Palestinian daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=96&e=2&u=/space/20040122/sc_space/suddenlyeveryonehasanopinionaboutspace
The Russians got around to commenting on Bush's Mars/Moon space agenda. Makes for interesting reading. Russia Scoffs at U.S. Mars Plans- Reuters Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,62097,00.html 08:59 AM Jan. 29, 2004 PT Russia's top space official slammed as unrealistic U.S. plans for manned missions to Mars and said the emphasis for space exploration should be completion of the International Space Station. Yuri Koptev, head of Russian space agency Rosaviakosmos, distanced himself from President Vladimir Putin's comments this week that Russia could work with the United States on President Bush's ambitious plans. In remarks Thursday, Koptev was particularly critical of Bush's plan for designing a spacecraft capable of carrying astronauts to the space station, the moon and Mars, saying he did not understand how this could be done since each destination had different needs. "Yes, we can agree that certain elements could be used. However, there cannot be a universal spacecraft as is being suggested at the moment," he said. "I don't think we will work together on this project." He dismissed Bush's ideas as being an eye-catching ploy linked to his campaign for re-election. He said the 16-nation ISS was Russia's priority and called for construction work there to be completed within the original time frame of the next two years, despite building being delayed for almost a year since the United States withdrew its shuttles. "We are insisting on the execution of the decision taken at the end of 2002 in Tokyo, which says the construction of the station should be finished within 1-1/2 to two years," Koptev told reporters, referring to a meeting between the leaders of space agencies involved in the ISS. He also said he wanted to boost the number of astronauts on the station to six as soon as possible, but did not explain how this would be done. Currently a two-man crew is stationed on the orbital platform. The building of the space station has been delayed since last February when the United States withdrew its shuttles -- the only craft capable of delivering large sections of the station to the ISS for assembly. It grounded its entire fleet after the Columbia disintegrated on re-entry, killing all seven astronauts on board. Space officials have said they expect the shuttle to return to service in September. For the past year Russia has been the sole supplier of manned and cargo ships to the station. On Thursday it launched a Progress cargo ship, delivering food, fuel, water and scientific equipment to the outpost. Koptev said the European Space Agency could play a key part in the station, when its new cargo ship -- the Automated Transfer Vehicle -- makes its scheduled debut journey to the ISS by September. When Bush outlined his space plans earlier this month, he said shuttles would be retired in 2010 once the space station was complete. Koptev said Bush's plans to send humans back to the moon and then on to Mars were simply connected to his election campaign as had been the case with previous U.S. presidents. "We understand that to a large extent our U.S. colleagues came up with these plans as part of a pre-election campaign," he said, adding funding was the primary barrier.
Too bad the name "Led Zeppelin" is already taken. It would make a great name for Bush's Mars program.
Well at least there is a formal review starting. NASA Chief: Hubble Decision Under Review By Brian Berger Space News Staff Writer, SPACE.com WASHINGTON -- Retired U.S. Navy Adm. Harold Gehman, the chairman of the now disbanded Columbia Accident Investigation Board, will be taking a second look at NASA's decision to curtail the use of the space shuttle for any further servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said Thursday. O'Keefe said he has asked Gehman to review the decision to cancel what would have been the fifth and final Hubble servicing mission to satisfy a request by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) that NASA not scrap the mission without getting a second opinion. Mikulski wrote O'Keefe last week to say she was "shocked and surprised" by the decision and urged him to reconsider. The two have spoken about the matter several times since then, according to O'Keefe, and the decision to ask Gehman to weigh in was made out of respect for the senator. O'Keefe said he did not set a deadline for Gehman to report back, but that he would "expect a pretty expeditious answer." He also said that he has not reversed orders that the Hubble team wind down preparations for the servicing mission and transfer personnel to other activities. Hubble scientists and engineers have said that the 14-year-old space telescope could last another three or three and a half years without the servicing mission. The purpose of the mission was to change out Hubble's failing gyroscopes and other components in order to improve the chances of the observatory staying in service at least until the James Webb Space Telescope is launched in 2011. O'Keefe told reporters here that he is unlikely to change his judgement that sending a shuttle to Hubble is too risky, given the restrictions imposed on the shuttle program by the Gehman board in the aftermath of the Columbia disaster a year ago Feb. 1. The Gehman board did not issue any recommendations that would specifically preclude a Hubble servicing mission, but did advise NASA to postpone any space shuttle mission not bound for the international space station until developing the means for a shuttle crew to inspect and repair any damage the might occur to the orbiter during launch. NASA is working on the means to inspect and repair a shuttle docked to the station and has to have those capabilities in place in time to fly again this fall. O'Keefe said that even with on-board capabilities to inspect and repair a shuttle, the mission would still be much riskier than flying a shuttle to the station. "In the end of the day its still a judgement call and my judgement is this is a real leap of faith," O'Keefe said. Mikulski, meanwhile, is scheduled to speak to Hubble scientists and engineers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore on Friday. She had planned to go there on Monday, but a winter storm that hit the East Coast prompted her to postpone her visit. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=96&e=3&u=/space/20040129/sc_space/nasachiefhubbledecisionunderreview
I saw this, KC, and although it's far from out of the woods, at least this is a good example of the power of the public and the scienific community to affect policy if they "rise up" and make their voices heard. Someone is listening... and now they will make the political calculation of whether this is beneficial or not. I think the problem mentioned of safety has not been as uppermost on their minds as the expense of doing the mission and working to ensure the spacecraft is undamaged, which, in my opinion, they could check out in orbit as well as any other mission if they made the effort. It would just cost more. (don't get me wrong. right now saftey should be #1. it's should always be #1, unless national security is at stake)
This was about the space station but found some interesting tidbits at the end. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/03/science/space/03STAT.html?pagewanted=2 . . . The Moon, experts say, has now taken on the role of steppingstone. "Lifting heavy spacecraft and fuel out of the Earth's gravity is expensive," Mr. Bush said in his speech. "Spacecraft assembled and provisioned on the Moon could escape its far lower gravity using far less energy, and thus, far less cost." Many experts are skeptical of those claims, saying Mr. Bush overlooked the large energy costs of getting fuel and rockets to the Moon. Previous NASA studies for Mars missions have seldom if ever used the Moon as a launching pad because that would take about twice as much energy as going from the Earth or an Earth outpost. "The president and some of his advisers appear not to be aware of the implications," said Saunders B. Kramer, a veteran aerospace engineer. "It's worse than a pipe dream. It's nonsense." Dr. Roland of Duke said the Moon base had the same kind of inflated rhetoric that accompanied the station's debut and could suffer a similar fate. "One definition of a fanatic is redoubling your effort after losing sight of your objective," he said. "That's NASA's problem. It needs to get back to basics."
4 pages and not one response from the usual suspects........basso? traderjorge/bigtexxx? Bamaslammer? Where is the usual heartfelt defense of the admin's policies? Does your silence mean that you realize that this is a bad idea?
Onward through the fog... NASA's Moon-Mars Plans Take Shape By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer Planning for NASA's return to the Moon is now in full swing and officials expect to meet the tight timetable of putting a robot there by 2008. Meanwhile, the focus of robotic Mars missions will soon shift to further prepare for human exploration. As analysts had expected, a stark financial and resource refocusing is underway at NASA in which robotic efforts will be planned less for pure science and more for supporting future human spaceflight. The first mission to the Moon will likely be an orbiter that generates NASA's first digital map of the pockmarked world, officials said Wednesday. It will be a reconnaissance craft designed to help prepare for a return of astronauts as early as 2015, as envisioned last month by President George W. Bush. The second new lunar foray, in 2009, will be with a robotic lander whose goals are not yet clear. "These missions will not be driven by science," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for the NASA's Office of Space Science. "They will be driven by preparations for human landings." The initial robotic journey back to the Moon will nonetheless yield "a lot of science," Weiler said, but "we are going to the Moon to prepare to go to Mars, where we will do the real science." Paying for the vision Some geologists are eager for human exploration of Mars in order to conduct an investigation more thorough than what can be accomplished with robots. Some say only humans will be able to determine whether Mars does or ever did harbor life, and only humans can turn all the pages of the complex book of geology written in Martian rocks. Critics argue you can send dozens of robots for the price of one manned mission. Astronomers and planetary scientists have worried that the president's new vision might cause casualties in robotic and telescopic programs. "Space science is alive and well," Weiler declared. "We have healthy budget increases. In comparison to the rest of the government we obviously have nothing to complain about." However, NASA remains firm, he said, on a decision not to service the Hubble Space Telescope. That conclusion was reached based on concern for astronaut safety, not budget issues, the agency maintains. Hubble could last into 2008 but almost surely not beyond. Back to the Moon "We've got a pretty good idea of what we want to do with the first Moon mission," Weiler said, adding that he's confident the orbiter can be ready in four years. "This will be the first digital recon mission of the Moon," he said. In addition to high-resolution photographs, the orbiter will likely work to map lunar resources, such as water ice that is suspected of hiding in permanently shadowed craters. Frozen water would be a key resource for any future Moon base, providing drinking water and, when broken down into hydrogen, fuel for return flights or missions beyond the Moon. New focus at Mars Mars missions will begin shifting focus early in the next decade, said Orlando Figueroa, one of Weiler's top lieutenants and the NASA official in charge of exploring the Moon and planets. So far, Mars missions have been geared toward the search for water, as well as understanding the climate, atmosphere and environment as a whole. The new budget provides more money to examine safety issues at the red planet, "so we can begin preparing in a more focused way" for sending humans, Figueroa said. He added that in 2011, the focus starts to shift from looking for water to looking for organic compounds, signs of life or signatures of the seeds of life. Full article: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=96&e=1&u=/space/20040205/sc_space/nasasmoonmarsplanstakeshape
Thanks for the article, KingCheetah. Here's a piece that gives more details about the Hubble's bad news that was linked in your post. Doesn't sound good. http://www.space.com/news/hubble_weiler_040204.html NASA Firm on Hubble Decision but Would Listen to Options By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer posted: 10:46 am ET 04 February 2004 NASA is standing firm on its decision not to service the Hubble Space Telescope, but the agency would not ignore offers from other parties to extend the observatory's life providing someone else footed the bill and took responsibility for mission safety. In a conference call with reporters today, the Associate Administrator for the NASA’s Office of Space Science, Ed Weiler, said he does not see anyone lining up to make such an offer, however. Weiler also said that contrary to press reports, no serious layoffs of Hubble staff are planned. The agency's 2005 budget request includes money for continued operation of the telescope for the next few years, he said. NASA announced in mid-January that Servicing Mission 4, slated for 2006, was cancelled because it could not reasonably meet new safety requirements set out by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB). Astronomers and even a senator called on NASA to reconsider. Despite NASA's insistence that the decision was entirely safety based, some saw it as the first casualty of the White House's new vision for expanded human spaceflight. NASA chief Sean O'Keefe has since asked Retired U.S. Navy Adm. Harold Gehman, the chairman of the now disbanded CAIB, to evaluate the concerns and report back to him. While from a science standpoint Weiler said today he would choose to keep Hubble going, he understands the safety-based decision not to send astronauts to work on the aging observatory. Asked if NASA would consider an offer from someone to fund a servicing mission and take responsibility for safety, Weiler said, "I'm sure that NASA would listen to them." But he added: "I don't see anybody stepping up with a billion dollars." Weiler said Hubble could remain operational at least through 2007 "and maybe 2008" if engineers are successful at conserving its batteries and figuring out how to point the telescope with two gyroscopes instead of three, as is now required. Hubble currently has four working gyroscopes out of six. Several have been replaced in previous missions, the last time in 1999, and those still working will eventually fail. Hubble is operated for NASA by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore. STScI Director Steven Beckwith recently said he would consider all ways to keep Hubble going beyond its expected lifetime. NASA, however, would have to approve any change in plans for Hubble. "We have not pursued any avenues of asking for outside help," Beckwith said today. "We for the moment are working on ways to extend the lifetime of Hubble, working with NASA." Beckwith made it clear that "we are not soliciting offers. When people make offers, we listen." Hundreds of public pleas to keep the venerable observatory alive have rolled in to the STScI. Among the suggestions are asking the Russians to service the telescope. Others have asked if Hubble could be moved to the International Space Station. "That ignores the laws of physics," Weiler said. Hubble is simply too heavy and in the wrong orbit to be maneuvered in that manner. Others have suggested a robot might service Hubble. Weiler noted that astronauts have done "impossible things" to make previous servicing missions successful. "I frankly don't see how a robot could do the things an astronaut has to do," such as "closing doors that don't want to close." Weiler, a scientist himself, is sympathetic with astronomers who bemoan O'Keefe's decision to let Hubble's mission wind down. "Based on the science, we should do a Servicing Mission 4," Weiler said. "No question. Trouble is, there's more than science to be involved here." He cited astronaut safety in the wake of the Columbia shuttle disaster. "I understand the things [O'Keefe] had to look at," Weiler said. "If I were in his position, I would have made exactly the same decision." Weiler also allayed fears that the decision not to service Hubble would lead to immediate layoffs. President Bush's 2005 budget request leaves Hubble's operational budget intact. Funding for daily operation of the telescope "has been untouched," Weiler said. The work force at NASA and the STScI will, however, be shifted to work on life-extension plans. "There are no massive layoffs planned" through 2005, he said. Ultimately NASA must launch a robotic probe to capture and deorbit Hubble into the Pacific Ocean, a plan that has been in place since the telescope launched. It is too big to allow it to crash to Earth uncontrolled and risk hitting a populated area. Weiler said some of the technology needed to carry that mission out still needs to be developed. But there is no rush. Regardless of when Hubble stops being scientifically useful, it will remain safely in orbit until at least 2013, he said. The new budget allows $300 million over the next five years to plan for the deorbiting project. NASA has not decided in which year it will carry that mission out. Meanwhile, the closest thing to a replacement for Hubble gained support in the new budget. The James Web Space Telescope (JWST) is slated for launch in 2011. The infrared observatory will be powerful, but it will not record visible light, as does Hubble. Many astronomers have expressed a desire to keep Hubble going until 2011. And since JWST's development funding has not been entirely solid, they were also concerned its launch could be pushed back to 2012. The JWST launch date is now "realistic" based on the new budget, Weiler said.
I think the bottom line here is more safety than it is money. Apparently, they're having to admit (at least internally) that the aging shuttles are just not very safe at all. They're going to fight like hell to minimize the number of shuttle missions now until we get a new delivery system. As much as I love the Hubble, how can a NASA administrator tell astronauts to risk their lives for it? Maybe some astrophysicists should volunteer for astronaut training and go up there! Hey, that'd be an excellent movie (for me).
The saga continues... NASA Engineers Dispute Decision to Ax Hubble By Deborah Zabarenko WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The verdict seems final: NASA says it is just too risky for shuttle astronauts to fix the Hubble Space Telescope, which means an early death for the world's premier astronomical eye in the sky. But two reports by NASA engineers maintain it is no riskier to service the orbiting telescope than to use shuttle astronauts to finish building the International Space Station, which will require some 25 shuttle flights. The engineers' reports, provided to Reuters by an astronomer familiar with the case, dispute NASA's Jan. 16 decision to forgo a scheduled shuttle mission to repair and upgrade Hubble in 2005 or 2006. "The final planned HST (Hubble Space Telescope) servicing mission, SM4, will be at least as safe as shuttle flights to the International Space Station," one of the reports said. The other report argued that missions to Hubble would have the same ability as those to the station to deal with possible damage to the shuttle's thermal protection system. Damage to this system on liftoff doomed shuttle Columbia to break up on re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003, killing all seven astronauts. Both reports were written by NASA engineers who feared they would lose their jobs if their names were made public, said the astronomer, also requesting anonymity. Without the servicing mission, the gyroscopes that enable Hubble to point at specific objects will eventually fail and the spacecraft's batteries will fade. When that happens, Hubble will be nudged out of orbit and down toward Earth, where it will burn up on re-entry. The servicing mission -- which would also install a new camera and another instrument -- could give Hubble six more years of effective life, said Steve Beckwith, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, which manages Hubble. WILL NASA RECONSIDER? "I hope very much that NASA will reconsider this decision in light of these new analyzes that have come out in the press," Beckwith said in a telephone interview Saturday, after a report of the engineers' analyzes was published in The New York Times. Calls to NASA for comment were not immediately returned. NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said he decided to scrap the service mission based on recommendations from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, which probed Columbia's breakup. The board said the shuttles should be able to inspect and repair problems before re-entering Earth's atmosphere, and could take advantage of additional resources when they are near to or docked with the space station. O'Keefe has said missions to Hubble would not provide the same kind of "safe haven" for astronauts in case of emergency that the space station would, and developing technologies to make trips to Hubble safer for a single servicing flight would be impractical. In response to pressure from Hubble supporters, O'Keefe agreed to ask for a second opinion. But he has said repeatedly that this is a judgment call that ultimately is his to make. "I think basically Mr. O'Keefe has overestimated the risk and underestimated the benefits of flying a servicing mission to Hubble," Beckwith said. Fans of Hubble have weighed in on several Web sites, including www.savethehubble.org, which counted more than 15,000 signatures for a petition asking Congress and NASA "to not allow the Hubble to be retired, so it can continue to be used for scientific purposes, as well as for educational research." Shuttle astronauts have made four previous service calls at Hubble, the first in 1993. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=585&e=1&u=/nm/20040208/sc_nm/space_hubble_dc
I see this time as an important moment where we either do it or just give up. -- Neil deGrasse Tyson Vision Team Meets Today: Inside Bush's Space Committee By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer Tyson was appointed in late January to serve on a nine-member commission that will report back to the White House in four months on how NASA should go about getting astronauts back on the Moon by 2020 and then sending them on to Mars. The Presidential Commission on Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy has its first meeting today, an all-day affair in Virginia. I caught up with Tyson last week to discuss his personal views on how NASA should proceed, why the money needed to get to Mars shouldn't be spent finding a cure for cancer, and why neither he nor anyone else has been able to fill Carl Sagan's shoes. Tyson also shared his views on the importance of going back to the Moon first and why the initial Martian astronaut corps ought to be teenagers. SPACE.com: The space program has been in the doldrums since the end of the Apollo era. Is NASA finally at a turning point? Tyson: Yes, unquestionably. Since the end of Apollo we have not left low-Earth orbit. And during that time there has been no shortage of people with strong emotions about what NASA's next steps should be. What makes now different from these past 30 years is that the debate has reached much, much deeper into the population, showing up on op-ed pages, in letters to the editor and in the attention given to it by politicians. We haven't had that level of penetration since the 1960s. So I see this time as an important moment where we either do it or just give up. SPACE.com: What is the charge to this presidential commission? Tyson: It is to navigate a path of engineering, science, politics and economics that can allow the president's vision to become a reality. Our task is not to come up with another vision or even to reshape the president's vision, but to find a way to make that vision work. If people hope we'll skip the Moon and go directly to Mars, that's not going to come out of this commission. In fact, I don't have a problem with going back to the Moon. Our first time out of low-Earth orbit in 30 years, I want to go someplace nearby, to make sure the rockets work. But we should make sure we don't get bogged down there, because the solar system is vast. SPACE.com: What is the biggest challenge for the commission? Tyson: It is not the engineering or a prioritizing of the science. Those problems are an investment of intellectual capital and are simple compared with the real challenge. The vision must sustain public support longer than a presidential election cycle or political cycles in general, as well as economic cycles. SPACE.com: Some astronomers yearn for another Carl Sagan to get the public excited about space, and your name often comes up. Why has no one emerged to popularize space exploration the way Sagan did? Tyson: Sagan was at his highest prominence in the early 1980s, during the era of his Cosmos series -- 13 parts on PBS with an accompanying best-selling book. He was also making appearances on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. Back then, what else was on TV? There was a test pattern on the remaining four stations. Carl Sagan was in a position to have a unique and singular influence on the public's exposure to and appreciation of science. Today, with the hundreds of television stations, with the Internet, with SPACE.com, the ways that a person can touch the universe are many and varied and beyond comparison to the time that Sagan achieved prominence. It was necessary back then to have an individual guide the public's experience. It's not necessary anymore. The number of people who are now delivering science to the public is without precedent. No longer is it a stigma to be interviewed by the newspapers or to appear on television. We credit Carl Sagan for being the first to broach that wall. Where is the next Carl Sagan? Carl Sagan is distributed among the countless colleagues and science writers who are delivering the message. SPACE.com: NASA's 2005 budget request is for $16.2 billion, including nearly $1 billion in new funding to explore getting humans to the Moon and Mars. Why should we spend this kind of money on space exploration when there's no cure for cancer and unemployment is high? Tyson: America is arguably the wealthiest nation the Earth has ever seen. And one of the advantages of living in a wealthy nation is you get to spend money on all kinds of things that contribute to the quality of life in your country. Quality of life is not only whether you are free from disease or free from poverty -- those are important -- but quality of life is also the support of art, the support of music, the support of science, and the support of all else that rounds out a culture. It is always a question of what is the right distribution of monies in one pot versus another. NASA moneys tend to be the most visible. I never hear people asking, "We haven't cured cancer yet, so why are there farm subsidies?" Farm subsidies aren't as visible as NASA. When NASA fails or succeeds it makes front-page headlines. It costs about $1 per week, per person to sustain NASA. Is it worth that much to do the exploration NASA wants? I'd say hell, yes. I'd say it's even worth $10 a week. But a dollar a week? Sure. America spends more on makeup than it spends on the space program. But I don't hear anyone asking, "Should we spend money on cosmetics or cure cancer?" Meanwhile, visionary programs allow educators to attract the best students to become engineers, physicist and biologists. It's these folks who make tomorrow come. These are the folks who invented the Internet, the PC, the cell phone, the microwave oven -- all the trappings of modern living come from countless scientists and engineers who were attracted in the first place because there was an irresistibly seductive goal. SPACE.com: It's often debated whether humans or robots are best for exploring the cosmos. Robots are more cost-effective. Humans are more adept. So what do we do? Tyson: Send both. But if I were to wear a pure science hat, it's obvious that you just send robots. Humans want to eat and want to come back usually, and they don't want to freeze to death. So you protect them in ways that cost you much more than it costs to protect a robot. We all agree that there are certain things a human can do that we have not yet been able to program a robot to do. Yet to send people costs at least 10 times as much as to send a robot, in some cases 50 times as much. Now let's put on the hat of the public. The public has never given a ticker-tape parade for a robot. Many colleagues of my generation say, "Only send robots because people are too costly and it's too dangerous." Those same people, if you ask what got them interested in science, eight times out of 10 they'll say it was the manned space program of the 1960s. It was a grand vision and they each had heroes. SPACE.com: How does NASA recover the sort of excitement that propelled public support in the Apollo era? Tyson: It must have a vision. There's not been a grand vision since the Apollo era. I think it's that simple. In the recent past, what did you expect people to say about NASA's shuttle and space station vision, "Oh this is great, we're driving around the block for 30 years"? The astronaut corps that is slated to go to Mars could be selected as teenagers, then 10 years out they'll be the right age for landing on Mars. I can guarantee you those teenagers would be written about in every teen magazine that's out there. They'll be heroes in the same way the Mercury seven were heroes to their generation. They're going to supplant rock stars as who are the coolest people to be in society. And now we have women astronauts, and astronauts of color, something that was unthinkable in the sixties. So there's a previously disenfranchised subset of Americans who will want to become scientists and engineers. SPACE.com: Can NASA afford to lose the Hubble Space Telescope (news - web sites), given the public fascination with it? Tyson: I think it would be a costly loss. We've almost come to expect to be beamed a new Hubble image every couple of weeks to remind us of the majesty of the cosmos. It comes almost as regular as the sports scores. It's something we will all notice when it's gone. Hubble has this legacy because it is practically branded. It's a household term. I think NASA needs to think seriously about the value of Hubble to the agency's support that it has enjoyed in the recent past and the support it might need going forward. SPACE.com: Fast forward to the year 2030. What should America be doing in space that will engage the public and generate a wise return on taxpayers' money? Tyson: Once the Apollo program was announced, every mission was conceived to do what the previous mission had done, and incrementally add a next challenge that would be necessary to ultimately land on the Moon. Every mission was more ambitious than the previous. The approach was not only technologically sensible, but it created a sense of suspense. That hasn't happened for 30 years. What we need going forward are very real, very measurable milestones -- light-year-stones if you will -- that tell us we are now farther into the frontier than we were yesterday. That should happen before 2030 and continue beyond that. As long as that is happening, I think you can always sustain the interest of the next generation. SPACE.com: Space exploration is traditionally a governmental function. Will there be a role for corporate advertising, space reality shows or cosmic vacations? Tyson: I like to take a broader view. Early pilot-engineers, who invented or designed their own airplanes, were supported by the government in the form of a guaranteed load of airmail. That enabled these people to be more and more innovative, to be more competitive to try and get the government contract. What emerged from this were airplanes that no longer required the government support because they could then fly paying passengers. In developing all the technology necessary to go to Mars, stuff is going to get invented. Look at the government investment in the Global Positioning System (GPS). It was initially a military utility, but now there are commercial GPS receivers in cars and even in wristwatches. These are whole industries that have been spawned and given unto private enterprise to then make money and create jobs. If it means we can one day get into space so cheaply that you can set up a hotel, fine, let it be so. If it's a hotel with a zero-g theme park, fine. Business will go wherever it thinks it can make a buck. Right now space is kind of expensive, so only governments can do it. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=96&e=2&u=/space/20040209/sc_space/visionteammeetstodayinsidebushsspacecommittee The rest of the 'Space vision team': http://www.space.com/news/bush_commission_040201.html
