America’s space program is at a crossroads. This year, the Space Shuttle fleet is expected to be retired after nearly 30 years of ferrying astronauts and equipment into space. In addition, there have been calls to have its immediate successor — the Ares I launch vehicle which would be topped with an Orion crew capsule — shelved altogether.
A 155-page report issued in November 2009 by the Augustine Panel made a number of recommendations on which direction to steer NASA in the future. The recommendations included 1) hitching rides into space using spacecraft from other nations or private contractors, 2) keeping the Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs alive, albeit in more limited roles, and 3) shifting the focus from returning to the moon and instead aiming for Mars.
The Augustine Panel also made it clear that the estimated $145 billion cost to return to the moon by 2020 would not be possible given NASA’s $18.7 billion yearly allowance for all operations.
With 2001 long gone and 2010 here, their namesake movies now appear insanely optimistic about where we’d be in space by those dates. I guess war and making money was more important than advancing science, exploration and all that stuff we used to do.
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Mars rover’s continuing performance
Kurzweil’s Singularity
Rapid advances in robotics
Radiation dangers to humans on the trip to Mars and back
The total science waste of the space station
USA’s financial troubles
and you have to realize that manned spaceflight is an extremely inefficient waste of money and effort and robotic scientific flight can learn much more, faster, at less cost and more safety.
The loss of two shuttles doomed the ISS. The thing is falling apart with crap to show for it. Mars has to be an international effort. Can you imagine NASA, ESA, and the Russians working together to develop a program? We can’t cut through the politics with NASA alone. Why keep the shuttle going as only a cargo hauler to the ISS? I don’t think we’ll have the technology for a safe Mars mission in this century. There’s too much basic science left to do. Let advanced probes work for another fifty years or so.
Space exploration by humans is important. Going to the moon was one of mankind’s greatest achievements. To throw away a chance to go to Mars because it’s too expensive and risky in some people’s eyes is sad.
Seapilot #1, here here!
Jmrouse, I don’t disagree that it was one of the great achievements of all time. But the reasons we went to the moon were more about spanking the Soviets than anything else. In the background of the early effort was missile technology. This was a great way to spend money on ICBM development while making it look like the mission was lunar.
The argument for probes and robots was in full force in the 60s, and also played a large role in the cancellation of the last two Apollo missions.
Other than the mystery and romance, there’s little reason for man to travel to Mars. We can send a robot and a returning probe for maybe a hundredth the cost of sending a man, not including risk.
I think you’ll see a decision to return to the moon fairly soon. With fusion reactors closer to becoming a reality, we are likely to need a reliable source of Helium 3. So, the USA and several other countries are going to be building outposts that can collect and process the stuff for shipment back to the homeland. I suspect they’ll shoot the stuff back in heat proof canisters to fall in designated no fly zones. I suspect the Pacific Ocean out from LA.
I agree with Ol’ Baggins… Unfortunately I think the race to the moon was just to cheese off the Soviet’s.
Not that its a bad goal (the moon that is). NASA also had the strong support of the President then…Unlike Bush and Obama.
Thank you Uncle Dave for an actual, honest to dog, interesting post.
Of course, the cost of a Mars mission is reduced (50%?) if there’s no return trip.
Who would go anyway?
A friend, a physicist and Nobel Laureate confided to me in private that nobody really expects science to come out of manned space flight. It’s a primal right of fire and drums, with the odd bit of human sacrifice.
Based upon the ISS joint effort, I just can’t see that approach working for a mission to Mars.
@#10 Simple counterexamples: hill climb that took Mars rover 4 months would take human 10 minutes on foot. Mars rover (and any other robotic exploration tool) have limited action capability. Human armed with a little more than hammer could find more interesting new things to study. Robots are just tools, having human on site would make immensely more use of them.
The US manned space program is dead. Once the shuttle is retired, there will probably not be another US manned space flight in our lifetime. The other counties of the world will pass us by and the US will continue its decline into mediocrity.
Change you can believe in!
dusanmal, good and valid point. But at what cost? Those rovers cost a rounding error compared to one shuttle mission–hardware prep, training, ground control, PR, etc.
Mars? Add a bunch of zeros to start…and we get rocks.
gquaglia I have to agree but this is not an Obama or a Bush problem, it’s the way America has become and the world for the most part. With capitalism in effect unless it can turn a profit we will never do it. I asked my mother-in-law if she found it sad that this nation doesn’t have pride in itself anymore. She got to watch the Country go to the moon and now if it doesn’t fit a corporations bottom line and makes a profit it will NEVER happen. It is very sad to watch this once great nation decline into obscurity due to a greed for some to make more money.
From the article: “3) shifting the focus from returning to the moon and instead aiming for Mars”
Oh yeah, that’s the problem. We were trying to travel too close. Maybe if we go much further it will cost much less.
I don’t want to sound isolationist, but we have problems here on Earth.
There are some plans that will shoot satellites into space with a big gun for 1/10 the cost of conventional launches. That sounds smarter to me.
I’m convinced that ISS will be the pinnacle of space travel.
I agree with those above that the idea of Manned Space Travel is largely dead. There are no practical benefits to come from it, and it uses a ton of resources and capital that we are running out of.
The sad fact is, all space activity is doomed as technology seems to be moving back to Earth.
What are the three primary activities in Space today? satellite communication, satellite TV, and GPS systems. Broadband internet is replacing the first, Fiber Optic cable services (like Fios and UVerse) are replacing the second, and cell tower triangulation is capable of replacing the third.
Satellites have a limited life expectancy, and their costs are only going to (pardon the pun) sky rocket out of control in the future.
The space age started 53 years ago, it is very likely to be over before its 100th anniversary.
@ #17
It would actually be cheaper to go to one of Mars’s asteroid-moons instead of our Moon. Its further away, but you need less fuel overall because Phobos and Deimos have such low gravity. You need a lot of fuel to get off our Moon.
At the very least it would be nice to go somewhere we haven’t been yet.
_____
As for the whole Ares thing, meh. This is a perfect example of the bureaucracy at work, all the various groups within NASA are competing for funding. If SpaceX can service the Space Station then fine, scrap Ares I and focus on a heavy lift vehicle. All the work that has gone into Ares I so far (essentialy the SRB first stage) can be used on Ares V, so its not a waste.
Robotic space mission are the best way to gather data on a budget but it sdoes not provide a personal appeal.
What was the name of the first robot on planet Venus? Who was the first to step on the moon? Most people will know the answer to the second question but few will know the answer to the first without looking it up.
Manned space flight is to encourage people to seek the unknown.
Because of greed and red tape, the USA will not be able to encourage its children to seek out the unknown.
#19 I think when people are talking about “going to Mars” they would not be satisfied with going to a moon of mars. I’m deeply unconvinced that this would be cheaper.
#20 “Manned space flight is to encourage people to seek the unknown.” Wrong! During the cold war manned missions were to make us feel good about all those rockets we were building. Today it is to help pad the black budgets so we can continue to weaponize space.
If someone can figure out how to make space profitable more power to them. I would rather the gov’t spend money on fixing roads and teaching people to read.
#21 — Yes, manned space flight was used as a status symbol but the astronauts of that era have been role models for scientists and engineers afterwards. It is easier for a human to remember Neal Armstrong than it is to remember Viking. Manned space flight might be worthless but its side benefit of encouraging people to pursue science and engineering might be worth a lot.
So what price can you place on imagination?
What if we took 25 cents of every dollar that we were spending to find better ways to kill people, and invested in into a new space program?
We probably could get someone on Mars in 10 years, AND have fewer wars.
#22 “So what price can you place on imagination?”
I’d call it an opportunity cost. Why not build out high speed rail, or do any number of other things that are useful to people in their everyday lives?
We debate all the time if this or that gov’t program provides benefits in line with costs. It just seems silly to balance a fuzzy generality against the costs of manned space flight. Rather than stoking the pride and imagination of engineers why don’t we put them to work building something useful that is too big for the private sector?
This beats Pandora because it is an actual headline from the NY Times Online:
“January 21, 2010, 4:19 pm
NASA Announces Designs for Personal Flying Suit
By DAN SALTZSTEIN”
I’ve had enough of this crap about living on other planets and the moon. There is NO reason for it, and no way for it to work – NO WAY. Just lookup the meaning of “light years” and do some simple arithmetic.
Boo Hoo, some foreign country is getting ahead of us in space. Space ships do not make a country great.
$18.7 BILLION year for NASA, plus stupid unnecessary wars – yet people complain about money for education, health and jobs. I’d be a much prouder American if we all had decent jobs and there was less homelessness.
Being a great country on a sustainable planet is what we should be concerned with.
There is a deeply held, religious sentiment attached to a rocket launch that speaks powerfully to religious Americans. The specter of a fire from heaven, a bright light moving amongst the clouds, loud booming drum noise from above, astronauts dressed in white. Why else would they put mission control in Texas?
Oh won’t you
Swing down chariot stop and let me ride.
Cause I got a friend on the other side.
Nasaastrianism
Robots are not some magical replacement for the human element in space. Without humans we’d never have had a Hubble space telescope – at least not an operational one, and that just one example of many. There’s no robot that can replace a man’s adaptability.
Fools, how dare you say that the manned trip to the moon was to cheese off the soviets, that gigantic expenditure gave dividends in myriad of patents and a technological edge that made America strong. I watched NASA obsessively since the Gemini program. It always seemed to me to be the noblest of all human endeavors, and it saddens me deeply, to see that we can save failing private industry at enormous cost to the taxpayer, but the manned space program is a waste.
Priorities, 1. Protect the super rich and their interests domestic and foreign, 2. Squeeze the American taxpayer until he can no longer live the American dream with or without credit, 3. Reduce social spending to the point of converting society into a jungle where only the strongest survive, 4 Limit spending on research exclusively to those investigations with military application.
Sounds like a recipe for creating hell on earth if you ask me.
#31 – “It always seemed to me to be the noblest of all human endeavors”
Shooting rockets into space – oh, the nobility of it!
A mere sideshow that’s all it is.
The new inventions would be great if we actually manufactured them in THIS COUNTRY. Our R&D provided profit for foreign manufacturers and American corporations; but very few AMERICAN jobs – just the designers.
Think of all those flat panel screens in NORAD, the Pentagon and the rest of the military. NONE made in the USA. We better stock up on spares before we go to war. China won’t sell us replacements.
#32 Get-a little less-Real
Let’s face it, overcoming limitation, for an individual or the entire race is a noble pursuit.
You’re so poorly documented in your arguments I scarcely know where to begin. To say that private industries didn’t profit from the R&D, that’s just stupid (ever hear of Texas Instruments?). Of course other countries started competing as soon as they could catch up. That’s why the goverment’s investment in R&D is so important. If you want to sell technology you’ve got to have the latest and the best, not just the cheapest.
I guess your first comment sums it up for you. So, in your perfect world we’d be on a tropical beach sipping martini’s served by naked native girls, right?
I never said that “private industries didn’t profit from the R&D”. I said the opposite.
I said, “Our R&D provided profit for foreign manufacturers and American corporations; but very few AMERICAN jobs – just the designers.”
It’s the American jobs. Get it now?
We can’t prosper, as a nation, if most corporate profits are obtained by a few engineers inventing things that other countries manufacture. That produces corporate profits and a few American jobs. The rest of American jobs are at Walmart.
You can’t have a healthy country when the only jobs are Walmart part-timers selling things made in other countries to other Walmart part-timers.
Of course, some people who have jobs cannot bring themselves to care abut that, regardless what they see in the world around them.
There are plenty of limitations we can overcome on this planet that will be of benefit to earthlings without pissing away YOUR tax money on other planets.
Please don’t call me stupid again. It does not add to your argument.