Bush may call for a return to the Moon

[vishniac]

Dont act, Orstio?

[Rxke]

yup. If all he can do is put out unsubstantiated, opinionated 'statements' i'd ignore him.
They never answer if you ask 'em a question, just come up with something else, vaguely related to a question. That's not discussing things, that's monologue. I go to a theatre if i want to hear a good monologue, thank you very much.

[skyejim]

Orstio, I move to ban that troll, if you haven't done so already.  Waste of bandwidth.

Jim

[payloadcontroller]

I agree with SkyeJimbo. Not only is he spouting the same nonsense, he's obviously not reading anyone else's posts if he thinks nobody here has any education in space science.

[Dingo1]

I concur

[remcook]

I think he has been banned for two days now...notice the "guest" status, where there was once a blue name with a picture of speedy gonzalez

[Orstio]

http://www.floridatoday.com/columbia/columbiastory20201WROLAND.htm

[archiebald]

Oooh, I haven't posted for a while, the posting page looks good.  I like the character counter.  hee hee, there goes some more.... I could keep typing all day just to see what happens when it gets to zero.  tum tee tum,   ahem, yes the reason for the post I suppose.

Orstio, that link gets it 100% spot on as far as I am concerned.  Its nice to read that there are other people ou there not being blinkered by this fool of a President.

[vishniac]

http://www.floridatoday.com/news/space/stories/2004a/020804guest.htm

Another one from Florida Today, this time to shut the critics up!

If even The Mars Society endorses the plan, I wonder what stops the members of a space forum...except their irrational hate for Bush.

[archiebald]

Vish,
if you are pointing the finger, then you know very well that my hatred for Bush is not irrational.  I have given you dozens of valid reasons in the past why I conclude that Bush is a dangerous moron who stole the presidency.

Unfortunately, it doesn't matter a hoot what we say against each other or this reporter says about that reporter, the facts as I see them are that Bush's speech was nothing more than a feeble attempt to suck in a few votes for his doomed upcoming election campaign.  (did you see the way he was squirming over the weekend over Iraq and his Vietnam war record?)

I would love to be proven wrong on that by the way.  I want people on the moon and Mars but I fail to see that happening in the US due to petty politicians trying to get one up on each other by initiating new programs, then cutting programs to save cash and repeating the cycle ad infinitum.  I wouldn't be surprised if the Russians start future co-operative programs with the Chinese for future moon landings,  after all, the Russians haven't got to the moon yet.  With their infrastructure and knowledge base backed up by political will and cash from China, I would put my bets on the Eastern Hemisphere being the next moon inhabitants.

As we've seen, the US currently has a bad reputation amongst its partners for holding true to its promises on the ISS, I see it unlikely that any other major player will want to be involved with them on such a huge new project.  Therefore the US realistically will have to go it alone if it really wants to go back to the moon.  Of course, the US could do it technically within a very short time frame, but only if the political will is maintained over a sustained period.

[skyejim]

Geez, Archie!  Guess I'm a hopeless optimist.  I seem to recall all sorts of happy noises from the ESA folks last week regarding the lunar efforts.  Didn't sound like summary dismissal of future partnering to me!

Any realistic look at partnering with the U.S. includes the vagaries of the annual budget dances in Congress.  It's incredibly inefficient, it's infuriating to have to refight the same battles over and over, it would be much better from a program management standpoint to have multi-year authorizations, but that's simply not the way it happens.  Failing to take that into account would be naive.  In the end, the ISS partners have no choice but to roll with it since the U.S. is footing most of the bill.  And that is a fact set they were acquanted with going in.   I think they have been magnificent in supporting the program in the wake of the Columbia accident - but what options are really available?  I would love to simply be purchasing Progress/Soyuz flights right now - a real sore spot for me - but Russia has stood up and shouldered the load, and Europe and Japan have displayed great patience as their people and hardware wait to fly.  IMO we should be considering adjusting the allocation of available crew slots to partially redress the situation - but, as I said, everybody knew the score going in.    

I guess no other nation has to deal with being run by politicians, eh?  

I'm unhappy about the state of ISS - but we ARE going to get the complex completed and the partners labs up.  The fact that it is taking longer and costing more is unfortunate, hard reality.  See above.  If others wish not to partner with us in the future, that is of course their call.  In the long run, I don't know that the U.S. is a lot better off or not for all of the partnership with other nations in ISS.  I believe it is probable that ESA and NASDA (or JAXA, I think - correct me please...) would've remained on board whether or not Russia had come into the program.  If the Soyuz/Progress capability had not been part of the design mix, we might have pushed ATV and CRV harder early on.  Hard to say. The complexities of the management structure and the hardware/software integration headaches (which have been handled magnificently by the working troops scattered all over the globe - they've made it look relatively easy, which is most assuredly not the case!) may have cost more in the long run than were gained through cooperation.   I personally think that it is A Good Thing For Humanity to carry off projects of this magnitude with an international team, but that is just personal opinion.  

I think a Russo-Chinese joint program would be great.  One of the things I am in hearty agreement with in the Bush plan is the focusing it is forcing NASA to do.  I don't like Mr. Bush and probably will not be voting for him next November, but the move to a hard retirement date for the shuttles and the declaration of a long-term goal for NASA to focus on is hugely important, and is something Clinton should have done years ago.

  Nothing focuses we Americans like a rivalry, though, and a joint program with Russia and China on board would create just the focus and political will you correctly state are necessary to move forward.  I'm happily willing to show our stereotyped competitive nature in a second space race.  I just don't think it is all that likely.  Too bad!  

Lots of us thought that the human future in space would be a logical evolution of programs.  We read too much science fiction, I guess.  It is, instead, looking like more of a series of spasms, and base competitiveness seems to be a potent stimulant for these jerks ahead.  

I personally would welcome a credible effort beyond LEO from China and other countries, but I think the Chinese may have a hard time partnering with anyone for awhile.  They seem intent on going it alone for the time being, don't you think?

As far as the NASA  planning goes, I am politically poles apart from Vish, but he makes a good point - your dislike of Dubya seems to me to be getting in your way.

What is better - to lurch along for 20 more years pouring $4 billion every year into the shuttles or making the choice to move on?

To fail to set a goal or to look outward?

To wait five or six years to get a payload to the outer solar system or try to cut that down to a third or less of that time?

Yes, there are funding problems, and reach will probably exceed grasp.  Yes, I think the chance of getting to Mars in any fashion inside of 20 years is that of a snowball in Hell.  But no, this isn't something exclusively suported by the conservative right in this country.  There are plenty of Democrats in key commitee positions who are in favor of moving NASA back into exploration mode, and the front end of the Bush plan is putting this into motion.  It will certainly not survive the budget process unscathed, but it beats the hell out of what we've been doing for the past 20 years or so.  I can live with any NASA plan which moves us out of the shuttle era and looks to extend human presence beyond LEO!

Jim    

[archiebald]

Extremely well said Jim,
This matter about Dubya and his moon speech is just the tip of it for me.  Don't forget other factors such as Kyoto, Illegal steel tariffs, Invading Iraq on what has proven to be extremely questionable grounds, the ICC, anti pollutions controls (or the lack of) etc, etc, etc.  Yes it is true I intensely dislike the guy, but I do so based on more than one policy.

Anyway, enough of that.

What NASA needs is not only long term goals but also long term budgeting.  Once set in place, the budget should not be touchable by the next administration.  Let NASA have the money for five or ten year plans on a five year or ten year basis and when it is all used up, go and request some more.  I wonder if it might also push the management into more efficient long term project management policies when they understand that they have a fixed task and a fixed budget to complete it with.

I totally agree with you on the Soyuz point, most of which I understand stems from the refusal of the US to try to repair the bridges between itself and Iran.

The US is not so badly off with its politicians, the UK politicians normally wait to see a good idea developed to the pre-production stage, then cut the funding so the developers end up going overseas.  The Mag-Lev train system being one of their biggest points of shame.  Now, Japan and Germany rule but the technology was invented by Britain's Eric Laithwaite.

True, the Chinese will have a lot of pride and ego set in going to the moon for themselves, but the experience of the Russians will be hard to ignore.

The end of life for the shuttle was already earmarked, the Columbia accident only brought it into people's minds again.  Nasa has no other choice but to develop something new and Bush simply tagged onto that to earn a few political brownie points as far as I could see.

Anyhow, sorry to appear so pessimistic.  But on the other hand, by being a pessimist, you have a far greater chance of being pleasantly surprised when something DOES happen as planned.  Optimists are the ones that are continually disappointed.

[remcook]

Here is the place to give feedback on the new programme:

http://www.moontomars.org/

behave!

[remcook]

mmm...the form doesn't seem to work right now, so I'll paste my comments here in the mean time:

I think it is a worthy project and I admire the president for his vision, but like he said, it is important that the United States first does his duty in the internation partnership within the ISS project.

Furthermore, I think it is wise to also look at ESA's Aurora programme and adjust goals accordingly, and, if possible, coorperate. I think it would be impossible for both Europe and the United States to do such a project seperately. But both have now set up a programme that shows they are more than willing to expand human presence beyond the Earth. Coorperation between the two would only look wise to me, saving cost and time, saving redundant missions and improving international relations.

[remcook]

it works again