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Is the Space Program Dying?

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Gene Steinberg said:
It is now reliably reported that President Obama is going to pretty much gut the space program by severely cutting back on budget increases to NASA.

Obviously there are more important things to spend money, such as $700 hammers and $1,000 toilet bowls. But any hopes and dreams that humans might return to the moon or visit Mars during the lifetimes of many of you is pretty much gone.

Unless private industry or another country moves ahead in this endeavor.

So what say you? Does a petition make sense?
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Hi Mr Gene Steinberg,
Yes their is more important things like Kartrina cleanup :(and Hati:(. Furthermore, I did ask for your theories on private contractors running the space expoloration rather governmental institutions? (wages bills are a main issues don't you think?). Maybe the so called secret space program can lend them some spare parts?

Great show guys!:)

Peace,
blowfish
 
The manned side of space exploration has been in trouble since the moon landings ended. Mars was too great a challenge to be a plausible next step. Near-earth asteroids might have been good targets for manned flights after the moon, but as far as I can recall this was not discussed during the 1970s. The shuttle and space station were (in my view) expensive detours.

In terms of science per buck robot probes deliver a lot more. I think they should have priority, especially if funding is limited (as it will be for the forseeable future).
 
I suppose the issue is that, if you pass it off onto private industry, they need to see some profit potential. Or you give it to them in exchange for some government defense contracts. Regardless, it's criminal to see the space program getting short shrift as it is, and the question is how to convince the U.S. government that it'll be second- or third-best in space exploration as the result.

Remember that we had to get to the moon before 1970 to beat the Russians. That was the end game, and nothing as compelling has arisen since then in terms of motivation.
 
Gene Steinberg said:
Remember that we had to get to the moon before 1970 to beat the Russians. That was the end game, and nothing as compelling has arisen since then in terms of motivation.
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That is really the main issue. The space shuttle and space station have never captured the same public and political interest. After we won the space race what else was there? Maybe Chinese moon ambitions will ignite renewed space race.
 
jkoci said:
That is really the main issue. The space shuttle and space station have never captured the same public and political interest. After we won the space race what else was there? Maybe Chinese moon ambitions will ignite renewed space race.
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Not unless they establish a permanent inhabited presence. I think Mars would be a better incentive -- and perhaps discovery of a faster, cheaper way to get us there. :)
 
Gene Steinberg said:
Not unless they establish a permanent inhabited presence. I think Mars would be a better incentive -- and perhaps discovery of a faster, cheaper way to get us there. :)
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Good point. They would have to do something to trump our past accomplishments. They seem motivated to do just that. Although I would think that the current financial crisis has put a hold on their plans too.
 
I always had a feeling Obama has no Interest in the exploration of space. It's just a gut feeling. He doesn't aspire hope. To me he is the champagne bottle without the drink. I Think he will be viewed as an underachiever when the time comes to re'elect a president.That is frightening for many reasons. Another George Bush minded person in the White house. Scary thought.
 
I don't recall where I saw it, but about a year ago I read an article on the proposed Moon missions, and it did not inspire confidence. There were confusing and sometimes competing programs within Nasa that didn't seem to make much sense. Could it be that it was decided to pull the plug so a fresh start could be made when we can better afford such a program? I hope so. It sure would be a shame if we decided we "can't afford" space exploration because we still have a lot of people and property here on Earth to destroy.

Poor Nasa; Presidents make bold pronouncements out of the blue about renewed efforts to Mars or the Moon for whatever reason, then never mention it again. Nasa has no choice but to slam the brakes on whatever they are doing and redistribute resources in response to the "Presidential vision," and wonder what is next. Seems like a pretty stupid way to do science, but they are powerless to force the leaders make sense.
 
Gene Steinberg said:
And to add insult to injury:

DailyTech - Obama's 2011 Budget Kills Any Hopes of NASA Returning to the Moon by 2020
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Yeah but, Gene, there is an interesting closing to that article.

Not all reaction to the move has been negative, however. Not surprisingly, Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) president Bretton Alexander championed the move, stating, "NASA investment in the commercial spaceflight industry is a win-win decision. Commercial crew will create thousands of high-tech jobs in the United States, especially in Florida, while reducing the spaceflight gap and preventing us from sending billions to Russia."
​
The CSF is an industry association committed to promoting the development and safety of commercial human spaceflight. Some of the big names involved with the CSF include SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and Spaceport America.​


Perhaps more poignantly, CSF executive director John Gedmark remarked, "The Defense Department began using commercial rockets a long time ago to launch priceless national security satellites, that our troops' lives depend on. If the Pentagon can trust private industry with this responsibility, we think NASA can, too."
​
This may shake out pretty cool. I am a NASA nut too, but you want to see space flight take off, then let commercial enterprise get into it, find a way to make money with it. I know, lots of other issues can arise with that, but at least people may be buzzing around in space creating those issues.

Just a thought.
 
We are not going to the moon because...we are not wanted there...

(Ingo Swann's) book describes his experiences with an ultra secret government agency where he is asked to remote view the dark side of the Earth's Moon. They observed mining and manufacturing operations are along with human looking extraterrestrials. An E.T. base on the dark side of the moon had extensive buildings, roads, and human forms digging.​
Swann also says that things aren't so copacetic between the national security state and the aliens:
Swann makes it very clear that our government is very much intimidated by these ETs. They are not friendly. He concludes that extraterrestrials are living on earth in humanoid bodies. He also talks about the fact that DENIAL of the ETs is a patent fact. The question is WHY?​
 
Gene Steinberg said:
And to add insult to injury:

DailyTech - Obama's 2011 Budget Kills Any Hopes of NASA Returning to the Moon by 2020
Click to expand...

I'd just turned 8 years old when Armstrong and Aldrin set foot on the Moon: I was hoping against hope that I'd get to feel that feeling again before I die, and that we'd have something to help humanity pull its head out of its rear end.

Now our species can continue with the serious business of sitting in a pool of its own filth waiting to die.

While I'm all in favour of commercial spaceflight I don't see any real chance of it getting any further than low Earth orbit at best in the foreseeable future (as in "this century").
And damn, that was one cool Moon buggy they had planned.
Still, there are going to be a lot of engineers looking for jobs and not content with the enabling same old bus run to the ISS, so who knows where they'll end up and what they'll end up working on...

Failing that, let's hope for a propulsion breakthrough - I actually think the odds of that are quite a bit better than I would have assumed a few years ago.
 
For an interesting yet bleak analysis of the probable future of the space program, one can read pages 229-39 of Princeton astrophysicist J. Richard Gott's Time Travel in Einstein's Universe.

After noting that "The goal of the human spaceflight program should be to increase our survival prospects by colonizing space," Gott warns us that "Only a relatively brief total epoch of human spaceflight is likely, a brief window of opportunity..."

Read the 10 pages to see why the space program is not only about exciting exploration, but is actually a vital component to our very future existence as a species.

Dr. Sami Saladin
Pisa, Italy
 
The most essential thing to the current space program right now is to develop new propulsion technologies. The conventional means of getting around space is just not going to do it. Once that is done, space travel will take off like a balloon. There is plenty of commercial opportunities in space and once we figure out a cheap safe way to travel there it'll be like Columbus discovering Americas. I'd just hate to see the Chinese do it ahead of us, but they seem to have all the extra cash these days.
 
Didn't you guys get the memo about NASA? They are a Climate Observation program now... and not very good at it either.
 
Once you get past the shrill "OMG Obama is killing NASA!" headlines, there actually is a lot of well-reasoned thought into the decision process behind it. First of all, NASA's budget is being increased ($6 billion more over the next five years) with a much greater emphasis on science and technology advancement - more of a DARPA like organization with much more $$$ for experimental technology and cool robots from JPL and less for that black hole of 40-year-old administrative pork in Texas and Florida called the manned spaceflight program.

NASA is in dire need of a management and organizational shake-up and I'm glad it's finally happening.

Put it this way... In the time it's taken NASA to modify a shuttle SRB to make one sub-orbital flight (the Ares I-X flight last year), Space-X has designed and launched two orbital flights of the Falcon 1 (a completely new design). Bigelow's two experimental space stations were launched (and are still orbiting). Scaled Composites is readying their sub-orbital SpaceShipTwo passenger ship and Space-X has made it clear that they're working towards a manned orbital flight. I believe they'll do it.

In the best case scenario, NASA's Ares I would be making its first orbital flight in 2014.
 
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