NASA astronauts unlikely to make it to the moon by 2020

[Heidi]

Source: Los Angeles Times

A review committee appointed by President Obama says there is not enough money for such a venture. The panel is trying to come up with worthy missions that stay within the current budget.

August 14, 2009

Reporting from Washington - NASA doesn't have nearly enough money to put astronauts back on the moon by 2020 -- and it might be the wrong place to go, anyway. That's one of the harsh messages emerging from a sweeping review of NASA's human spaceflight program.

The Human Space Flight Plans Committee, appointed by President Obama and headed by retired aerospace executive Norman R. Augustine, has been trying to stitch together a plausible strategy for America's manned space program. The panel has struggled to find options that stay within the current budget and include missions worthy of the cost and effort.

Committee members will meet with administration officials today and will report that there is no realistic way to get Americans back on the moon by the target date of 2020, which has been the agency's goal since President George W. Bush signed off on the "Vision for Space Exploration" proposal in 2004. Landing on the moon by 2020 would require drastic budgetary maneuvers such as de-orbiting the International Space Station -- crashing it into the South Pacific -- in 2016.

The final list of options being explored by Augustine's group will include a lunar base down the road. But the committee is most animated by what it calls the "Deep Space" option, a strategy that emphasizes getting astronauts far beyond low-Earth orbit but not necessarily to alien worlds.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nasa14-2009aug14,0,7967895.story

[tj2001]

1. Been there, done that

Let machines do it.

[Wednesdays]

28. Oh sure, let the machines have all the fun. nt

[Selatius]

2. Like the Soviet Union before us, we have become too bankrupt to afford to go that far.

We must aim lower given the reality of the government's finances. Thank the Republican stooges who fell in lockstep with Bush's policies.

[Heidi]

3. And the GOP's anti-science base.

:(

[dysfunctional press]

4. curveball told me that saddaam hussein hid his wmd's on the moon.

there- now they can spend ALL the money they want/need to get there, and nobody will question the expenditures.

next?

[calmblueocean]

5. Sigh.

I knew this was coming.

The "deep space" missions to asteroids and Phobos they're talking about in that article would be largely pointless, and are likely stalking horses meant to allow the manned space program to save face for a year, until those missions are axed, too.

There's no better indicator of a nation in decline than being forced to admit you can't do the things you did just 40 years ago.

Imagine a world where, instead of spending trillions on wars, bailouts, and boondoggles this past decade, we'd spent just a portion of that on manned space missions instead. We could be replacing carcinogen-spewing coal plants by beaming down solar power from the Moon. We could have started a whole new branch of human civilization on Mars, prospecting for life still buried in the briny soil. We'd have been driving enormous technical innovation in batteries, solar panels, and anti-cancer research, to say nothing of the hope and excitement in the air.

Instead of all that? We've got blood on our hands and Wall St. laughing at us while they pay themselves bonuses from the state till.

Our priorities are sadly screwed up.

[comtec]

9. Prepare to be spam'd by the earth firsters

but I do totally agree.
its so stupid that we can spend BILLION A MONTH in iraq, but cant spend a fraction of that bettering all of humanity!
we are going to die... here... on this pale blue dot. all of us!

Humanity is going to die, never knowing what Martian air smells like. (after making it breathable :))
we'll never know if one of Saturn's moons is inhabitable (imho totally plausible)...

we'll never find the vast riches in the asteroid belt or ort cloud.

deep space telescopes....

we are just going to die, pathetically on this small mudball.

I weep for humanity sometimes.

[No Elephants]

12. If money were no object, I'd go to the moon myself. But, it is an object and

adults set priorities. Besides, never is a very long time.

[comtec]

14. you are blind to all the advantages space has brought us

You obviously don't care that the moon is COVERED in H3, which is a necessary component for fusion.
Fusion that could completely eliminate nuclear, coal, gas, and diesel energy production!
Fusion that create NO RADIOACTIVE WASTE!

go put your head hack in the sand, and let the adults run things for a while.

[OnlinePoker]

33. Fusion

Fusion that has been 30 years in the future since I first heard about it in elementary school in 1969.

[No Elephants]

36. Yep. No problem. We don't need alternative energy soon. Let's go about it by

the most indirect route possible. It's so much more exciting that way.

[No Elephants]

34. If you seemed like an adult, I would gladly oblige. And there is more than one way to

skin a cat. Or to generate H3.

[Posteritatis]

42. At least there aren't any Apollo denier idiots in the thread

Well, yet at least.

[No Elephants]

11. I agree that we've spent way too much on war, but why do we need to beam

solar power here from the moon? Doesn't it pretty much beam itself here from the sun at no cost to us? Wouldn't it be more efficient to focus on cost effective ways to collect and use solar power--which we'd have to do no matter where it beams from? And also to use other alternative sources? There are great reasons to use sustainable energy sources and there may be great reasons to go to the moon, but I don't see going to the moon as the fastest or most cost effective route to alternative energy.

[Kolesar]

15. I would be happy with a sewer project on my block

And sidewalks

[katkat]

25. Re sigh, amen to that n/t

[The Second Stone]

6. There is no point in sending live people to the moon

It's dangerous, it's expensive and there isn't a good reason to do it. It is not a technical challenge except to the extent of quality control and creative financing. Do we really need to prove quality control? Creative financing? Do we need to risk money and lives for that point? I think not.

[Wednesdays]

29. Would you be willing to support a mission to somewhere else...

Mars, perhaps? :shrug:

[elocs]

7. When we have to justify the money for healthcare, screw going to the moon.

I sat on the floor of my grade school gym to watch the first astronauts. With all of the problems we have now and without a limitless supply of money I could care less about NASA.

[No Elephants]

13. Bingo. We have already stolen from our kids and grandkids to fight in Iraq and from our great

grandkids to pay the piper for mortgage derivatives and other greed based hanky panky--brought to you by Reagan Democrats, de-regulation, two generations of Bushes and two terms (going on three) of triangulating Democrats, etc.

Spending money that does not belong to you is immoral, if not techcnically criminal. When it belongs to your as yet unborn descendants, it's just heinous. Doing it clean up the air and water our greed dirtied and to PERHAPS save the world from global economic collapse is one thing. Doing it because we wonder what it would be like to walk the canals of Mars is quite another.

The space race may have been more of an extension of the cold war between Russia and America than anything else. The cold war is over. Both Russia and America lost and no one won. Now, we need actual, pressing reasons to spend billions on space before we take care of things like health care and a greener planet Earth. So far, I have no heard any.

It's not that I am anti-knowledge. However, as I wrote in another post, adults get that everything, including money, is finite and set priorities in spending.

[Jack_DeLeon]

49. Fuck healthcare space exploration and colonization is more important.

We have no shortage of human beings on this rock, and we are in no danger of running out soon, infact there probably are too many people.

If we stay on Earth our species will eventually one way or another go extinct however.

[elocs]

51. If we fuck up this Earth, what gives us the right to go and fuck up some other planet?

Live or die, we make out stand on this planet and if we go extinct then it is probably what we deserve. Life will live on with or without humans.

[BR_Parkway]

8. Trying to come up with worthy missions because you've got a budget

seems like a backasswards approach anyway.

[exboyfil]

10. Have to agree with you on that

At this stage I think we should beef up our robot probe missions. I would like to see one to Europa for example. Also extrasolar planet research with space based interferometers. Anything that finds and indentifies extraterrestrial life - that is a game changer. Also rethinking the search for intelligent life (perhaps we should be looking for evidence of sophisticated propulsion systems).

Going to the moon is pointless. I don't know of any science that needs to be accomplished, and the only thing going for the moon is its proximity. We can learn much more from active planets.

As part of this research additional work on machine intelligence and flexibility of machine probes. Such work has extensive spill over technological advantages.

Finally, we need to continue increasing our capability for identifying asteroid threats and developing plans for interception if necessary. That is one threat that we probably can do something about and has happened many times in the past.

Sending huge life support systems into space just is not in the cards right now.

[PATRICK]

17. Priorities

about space have to be constantly updated. As it is we are stuck in the Buck Rogers rut combined with war satellites as far as where the money goes. That is to get the most industries making the most expensive stuff allied to the usual suspects and the military industrial complex. We have found out that just getting a living body safely into space and back is ungodly expensive, much less the total madness of star wars thinking of any type reducing expensive tech into space debris and inward menacing rings of observation, propaganda and weaponry.

The best space priorities lacking the lure of heavy production of toys continue to be simply monitoring of space with tech eyes and ears, then drones for some physical exploration. Not very sexy for the budget committees looking for pork, jobs, toys. Now with the equally unglamorous high priority of R&D might come breakthroughs to get Flash Gordon back in the saddle although most theoretical scientists imagine the same problem of economy and limits to persist and the difficulty in sustaining a human pilot of such rule stretching technology to increase as well.

In any event our purpose to the earth might be justified in total if we simply detect and thwart planet killers such as(in recent memory) Shoemaker levy hitting Jupiter. Sadly for our dysfunctional psychology the big strikes were on the other side of Jupiter lessening the impact of a contemporary visual aid. Gamblers that we are, we might consider such a threat(which we are actually able to meet in some ways) as statistically remote in the far far future. So the budget cutters once again deprive humanity of life insurance for all.

Who can forget the GOP enmity toward SETI projects simply because mankind must be the center of the universe like the GOP is the top of the human fool chain. Besides, there is no heavy industrial bucks in contacting yet another competitor for the crippling global industrial propaganda that seeks to dominate all thought, all priorities all the time. The fact that many thousands of people freely join together in this pursuit standing in line for array usage time inspires the deepest distrust and hatred.

The two main, cheapest, most economical and potentially critical for survival priorities have gone begging for years- probably because they are just that. As for any species stumbling across our signals or outreach programs on the shoestring they would likely be horrified at discovery of a dysfunctional race on the cusp of crisis and likely burnout.

[Grinchie]

16. They were smarter and braver in the 60's. America is too dumb to do it now

After all, they might miss CSI: Miami or something important on the TV.

[No Elephants]

35. Yeah, that's the only reason. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's the ticket.

[Grinchie]

40. I guess you've never seen the computers used by the Apollo modules.

They were "Programmed" by using fine copper wires threaded through tiny ferrite beads on a grid. I saw one at a county fair many years ago from some guy that found it in a junkyard.

It was their version of a PROM.

You have probably never sat in an Apollo capsule either. I doub't you'd have the courage to stay in there for more that 15 minutes.

The trouble is that the Military take all the money and great inventions away for space travel. They would rather milatarize space than actully become comfortable with being able to navigate it.

The same goes for deep ocean travel, which for some reason, is just as difficult as space exploration.

If we can't use the moon as a stepping stone, then we are unable to go to Mars effectively, simply because we would be unprepared for a contigency that a landing on the moon may help resolve.

So what if it is a rock? It's easier to land on it with the lesser gravity, which might come in handy with a damaged spacecraft in the area.

[No Elephants]

47. I post implying that TV shows are not the only reason to oppose more manned space

exploration at this particular time and, from that, you conclude that I am a coward? LOl. Good luck with those powers.

BTW, this was your original post, the one to which I responded:

"They were smarter and braver in the 60's. America is too dumb to do it now
After all, they might miss CSI: Miami or something important on the TV."

Nice back pedal attempt to make it seem more reasonable than it actually was, though.

[Joe Bacon]

18. China will beat us to the moon and beyond.

We're too busy teaching creationism and bible studies in schools now. We've regressed as a nation since the first oil embargo in 1973. Its been downhill for us ever since. China will get to the Moon and Mars while the overwhelming masses of Americans are in church awaiting a rapture which will never occur.

[onehandle]

19. Fine. Skip it because Bush called for it. Many scientists say it would be a waste, and that we...

...should be going straight into deep space and to Mars.

Bush was just grasping at straws for a 'legacy.'

Sorry, chimp. Cheating, Iraq and world recession are your legacies.

[Blandocyte]

20. Moon trip = waste of $

on a cosmic scale. We have more important things to do right here on this planet.

[mbperrin]

21. So $5 billion a year for NASA is too much, but $180 billion for AIG is just fine

as well as the other $12 trillion we're on the hook for in ONE year for banksters.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Well, we don't have to worry about technological leadership any more. We can just borrow the money from China to buy some tech in the future, right? Who cares, right?

One little factoid from history: every time a technologically advanced civilization makes contact with a less tech civilization, the less tech is destroyed.

Meanwhile, OMG, that CYRUS girl showed a bra strap!!! Gotta get on Google now! Plus Mary Kate is SOOOOOOOOO skinnny!!!

[No Elephants]

37. I must have missed the post where someone said the bailout was fine.

And a moon voyage is not the only use we have for technology.

[mbperrin]

46. No, the part where the bailout is fine is not cutting back on it to do

space, but to cut back on space after the bailout.

And I agree that the moon voyage is not the only use we have for technology. I would argue that the original moon shots created today's technology. Basically, we didn't have the knowledge to build big boosters, so had to miniaturize early. That led to today.

The space program is worth it as a spur to technology whether or not there is anything worth having there or not. By others taking up the challenge, they'll reap the knowledge windfall.

We can keep worrying about skins for iPods.

[Libertas1776]

22. "We go to

the moon...we go to the moon, not because it is easy, but because is hard. We will have a man on the moon by the end of this decade...OK decade and half. Two decades top, but no more. Aw, fuck the whole damn thing. The Chinese will get their first anyway...we'll just hitch a ride."

Speech by Pres. Kennedy...if he had our 21st Century "can do" spirit.







Seriously, though, our coffers are little too small to be planning anything this expensive in the near future.

[No Elephants]

38. We made it to the moon when Kennedy said we would--unless you are one of those who believes

it was a huge hoax.

[shadowknows69]

23. And were not likely going to be able to live on earth much past 2050

So we better come up with plan B pretty quickly and send the terraforming shit right to Mars.

[Gman2]

24. Fuck all of this. We should go to the moon. WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

There should not be state missions. That leads to only more of that nationalistic claptrap we want to get beyond. MANKIND, should be striving. And in that striving, we might have an epiphany. That we dont need protection from all others. That national competition of this type is attached in rhetoric to war. If we go as nations to a globe other than this one, we will just do our fucking human greed thing to it too. And blow it up. Fuck humans. Get our act together in our minds, before we go finding other globes to FUCK. The insane fucks in this country cannot be allowed to stay stupid. We will never be able to afford shit, if we dont stop celebrating ignorance.

[Wednesdays]

27. Umm...what?

:shrug:

[Butch350]

26. Gee. I thought they were making moon trips from the space station.

[One_Life_To_Give]

30. Assumed I would live off planet by now

When I was younger having watched the Apollo missions. It seemed likely that my later years would be spent elsewhere than at the bottom of this particular gravity well. Alas it appears not only shall I take my last breath having never set foot off of this rock. But that humanity doesn't have the vision nor inclination to ensure it's own survival by branching out beyond the reach of a single event wiping out every last member of the species. For people who were so deathly afraid of Nuclear War and Nuclear Winter have short memories at how close we have already come to such events by our own hand, let alone nature.

[WriteDown]

41. You had your chance....

It was called Heaven's Gate. :)

[MilesColtrane]

31. The only thing that will get us to the Moon or Mars is the prospect of Chinese bases there.

[No Elephants]

39. Yayyyyyy. Another round of the cold war, but with China this time, instead of Russia.

More of a challenge, since we owe China so damn much money, but, the greater the challenge, the more fun it is, right?

[RedCloud]

32. Solar radiation could kill our astronauts. NASA's little secret.

Seems like we will have to move the whole freaking planet just to stay partially protected in the event of a flare up.

[Grinchie]

45. Or just live on the Dark side until it passes.

You think life on the Moon would be any different from that in NORAD after the infrastructure is built, and the Nuclear Holocaust renders the surface uninhabitable?

[Tesha]

43. Maybe they can just scrape up the bus fare to Moonachie, NJ instead?(NT)

[Grinchie]

44. Why do Moon rocks taste better than Earth rocks?

Because they're Meteor.

[MisterP]

48. "300,000-km rope ladder too long to climb" n/t

[lovuian]

50. It makes you wonder

Why did we do it in the 60's and not 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLaUuxDIRkw

And then we erased the 40,000 Apollo moon tapes

is anybody a wee bit suspicious

China will beat us there?
one wonders
Russia isn't going either

the two major Space organizations are dragging their feet

hmmmm

[mr_smith007]

52. When the top marginal tax rate

is 36% and won't get any higher than 39% anytime soon, the moon is a luxury. When Kennedy made his announcement in '61, the top rate was 91%, I think that kind of helped.

[TankLV]

53. Not if they keep stopping at all the Denny's on the way there...

damn those rest stops...

[conspirator]

54. They have never been there in the first place

I am joking. got ya