Do we still need a space program?

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by The Gaffer
The key lesson of the Apollo mission was that it wasn't worth it

good lord! under what authority do you declare this as base fact? Succesfully landing a human being on the surface of another resident of our solar system was valuable beyond any calculation. its like saying going through that whole birth process routine isnt worth it. im just staying in here where its warm and i dont have to almost kill myself just to get in a cold sterile hospital room where everything is different and theres nothing to eat. well hey if you dont leave the woomb youll never realize whatever potential you have as an adult.

[The Gaffer]

My authority is the evidence: the fact that manned flights to the moon stopped a few years after the first landing, because of the cost and absence of benefits, and space activity moved onto other, more economically viable and productive forms.

There's a key difference between getting out of the womb and getting off the planet, in that you can breathe the air.

Europe did not loose thousands of sailors and ships for the sake of understanding new plants and animals in the Western Hemisphere. They put the effort in so they could try to find a more direct route to Asia for trade purposes.

I'm glad you understand, JerseyDevil, that economic benefit was a prime motivation in exploration of the New World.

It's a shame you can't resist getting personal because it prevents constructive discussion of a really interesting topic.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by The Gaffer
I'm glad you understand, JerseyDevil, that economic benefit was a prime motivation in exploration of the New World.

The Gaffer, there you are with a snide comment. Of course I know the prime motivating factor.

It's a shame you can't resist getting personal because it prevents constructive discussion of a really interesting topic.

Too bad you can't listen to your own advice also. The fact that you never have anything positive to say about anything America does - is a fact. You always have a negative view on things. As is demonstrated by this...

It's a shame that NASA is being forced to accommodate TV ratings and other agendas.

This is your FEELING - not based on fact.

Instead of just discussing the subject at hand - you have to repeatedly throw in your snide comments.

I for one have wanted NASA to start having big dreams again, instead of these little baby steps they have been taking. It is about time a president gave them a new vision and overall purpose and GOAL. Sorry you don't like the president who is making the announcement. I have a feeling if it was Clinton you would have a different attitude, or if it was anyone other than Bush.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by The Gaffer
My authority is the evidence: the fact that manned flights to the moon stopped a few years after the first landing, because of the cost and absence of benefits, and space activity moved onto other, more economically viable and productive forms.

That isn't true. There were A LOT of benefits that resulted from the manned space program that we use everyday of our lives and take for granted. One of the reasons why it was dropped was because the next goal was never set. They reached the goal and said - that's it and the other was because of the Soviet Union NOT challenging us in space. Well now CHINA is challenging us in Space - or wants to. This is known as competition.

There's a key difference between getting out of the womb and getting off the planet, in that you can breathe the air.

There may be that difference, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it or attempt it. Space IS the future of mankind, and there will be a lot more disasters, a lot more expenses, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. Do we not fly because a plane crashes?

Humans take chances to bring man to the next level. That is what we have always done. The first submarines were a waste, the first oceanic ships were a waste, the first plane was a waste (didn't even fly further than the wing of a 747) - but that doesn't mean you don't carry on and learn from your mistakes, And without taking the chances and making the expenses (in human lives and money) - you can NOT make the improvements and you can not advance knowledge and mankind in general.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by The Gaffer
My authority is the evidence: the fact that manned flights to the moon stopped a few years after the first landing, because of the cost and absence of benefits, and space activity moved onto other, more economically viable and productive forms.

but by your logic we never should have gone to the moon to begin with. thats absurd if you dont mind me saying. we didnt go to the moon to mine space diamonds. we went to the moon TO go to the moon. period. thats all the justification you need. to say we shouldnt have done that strikes me as a bit short sighted if youll forgive me for saying. (you could say the same thing about why cross the river? its dangerous and expensive and too big a project and there may be nothing on the other side worth getting to. well you cross the river for the sake of crossing the river of course. its the nature of our species. only in crossing the river can we then realize what we are capable of doing and then set the next goal.) now does this mean we should go to the moon every three months? well no but thats a totally different question from should we go to the moon at ALL.

There's a key difference between getting out of the womb and getting off the planet, in that you can breathe the air.

well when you get off the planet you breathe air you just breathe it differently. through a space suit. just as a baby breathes air using its lungs for the first time. analogy still holds.

It's a shame you can't resist getting personal because it prevents constructive discussion of a really interesting topic.

well I dont at all think its an issue that is defined by national boundries myself. so really whats the point of going on about america vs. europe on this issue? thats the good thing about space exploration. its SO much more important and bigger then any of these petty earth bound political squabblings. thats part of the reason im attracted to it so much. it shows us just how unimportant we are.

[The Gaffer]

Originally posted by Insidious Rex
well I dont at all think its an issue that is defined by national boundries myself. so really whats the point of going on about america vs. europe on this issue? thats the good thing about space exploration. its SO much more important and bigger then any of these petty earth bound political squabblings. thats part of the reason im attracted to it so much. it shows us just how unimportant we are.

agree 100% with you there. apologies, got to run but will post a more detailed response later.

thanks for replying

[Ruinel]

I think you can look at NASA in three ways...
1) science for the sake of knowledge

2) science for the sake of making our lives better

3) science for the sake of profit


I hold that the purpose of science should be prioritized in the order in which I have them there (1, 2, 3).

I do not feel that NASA should be forced to show a profit for every endeavor it makes. However, currently, any advance that NASA makes is pretty much public domain, and is marketed by private companies if they are willing to put forth the capital.

NASA does not own the discoveries it makes, because it is a government entity. Therefore, it does not collect a royalty on anything that makes a profit. When a discovery is made at NASA, it is the private businesses that profit from it.

Knowledge for the sake of knowing is the most important thing that separates us from the animals, IMO. An animal only needs to learn what it needs to survive and better live in it's environment (ie, get food more efficiently). Humans like to know things for the sake of knowing.

[The Gaffer]

Agreed.

Still arsing about not writing a full response on the case against manned missions, but meantime here is a link to a "belt and braces" British mission which is nearing Mars: Beagle 2

[Insidious Rex]

heres more on that and the accompanying american offerings. geez im ringing my hands just reading this... its such a hard thing to do really. so easy to be unsuccesful. but heres a toast to the beagle. god speed! lets hope she lands in one piece. and the other two as well.

Alluring Red Planet Attracts a Crowd
3 Robotic Geologists Are Poised to Land on Mars

Tuesday, December 23, 2003


Earth is invading Mars again. Late on Christmas Eve, four years after the United States lost an entire generation of spacecraft bound for the Red Planet, the first of three landers is scheduled to bound onto the surface.

If all goes well, the invasion of the frigid Mars terrain will begin when Britain's pint-size Beagle 2 -- a disk not much more than three feet across -- settles just north of the equator. There, on a flat basin called Isidis Planitia, between the planet's younger northern plains and the ancient southern highlands, it is to stay put and prospect for direct evidence of organic molecules, possible signatures of past or present life.

Beagle 2, with its underdog spunk appeal, is to be followed within weeks by the much larger and more sophisticated U.S. landers Spirit and Opportunity, ferrying a pair of robotic field geologists the size of golf carts. In contrast to the stationary Beagle, they are designed to lumber across the planet's surface at about the pace of Galapagos turtles and examine the history of the planet's vanished water for evidence that it could have supported life.

The Spirit is scheduled to streak into the Martian atmosphere at 12,000 mph late Saturday, Jan. 3, and roll to a dead stop on the ground six intense minutes later, on a terrain plagued with unpredictable winds and strewn with boulders, cracks and other possible hazards. Following three weeks later will be the Opportunity, whose landing zone on the opposite side of the planet is deemed slightly less risky.

"This is a very exciting, very nerve-racking time," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, lead scientist for the U.S. Mars lander program. "Mars is starting to get pretty big in the windshield."

For scientists as well as much of the public, Mars remains an object of fascination, and this year the Red Planet loomed larger than usual in the skies and in human psyches. It is in many ways the most Earth-like of any known world, the inspiration for countless fantasies of lush life there. Robotic explorers since the dawn of the Space Age have revealed it to be a cold, almost airless and forbidding world, constantly blasted by radiation that effectively sterilizes the surface. But a renaissance of Mars research in the late 1990s has revealed many strong signs of running water, now mysteriously vanished and perhaps buried in the form of ice just below the surface.

Scientists are intrigued by the possibility that life once thrived on a warmer, wetter Mars, or might even exist today in subsurface springs warmed by volcanic vents, or beneath the polar ice caps. The current missions focus on studying the clues left by water, presumed to be one of life's essentials.

The Mars teams have learned the hard way that getting even robotic emissaries, much less human ones, safely to the planet remains a perilous and unforgiving task.

Earlier this month, Japanese scientists gave up on their first mission to Mars, making it the first casualty of the current armada. The Nozomi ("Hope"), launched in 1998, struggled with persistent technical problems that had left it years behind schedule, low on fuel and with a crippled heating system. It was to study Mars from orbit.

"Mars has been a most daunting destination," said NASA's chief space scientist, Edward Weiler, one of several scientists who have taken to referring to Mars as the "death planet." He noted that two of every three Earth missions to the planet have failed. Only three previous attempts to land on the surface -- the two U.S. Viking craft of the 1970s and the U.S. Pathfinder in 1997 -- have succeeded.

[Insidious Rex]

The missions are timed to take advantage of favorable planetary alignments that occur about every two years, providing an opportunity to send more mass with less boost. This year's lineup was slightly better than usual, bringing the two worlds to their closest approach in almost 60,000 years -- about 35 million miles apart.

Mars is now almost 100 million miles away, and the spacecraft will have traveled about 300 million miles to get there.

On Friday, European controllers in Darmstadt, Germany, reported the Beagle 2, nearing Mars, had successfully separated from the mother ship Mars Express, which had carried it sidecar fashion since the two craft were launched from the steppes of Asia on June 2 aboard a Russian Soyuz-Fregat rocket. A spring mechanism aboard the Mars Express shoved the Beagle 2 onto a carefully targeted trajectory, like a Frisbee thrown at a running dog.

The relatively low-budget craft is on its own now. Powered only by the pull of Mars gravity -- about one-third that of Earth -- the Beagle cannot make course corrections. Spinning at about 4 rpm for stability, the lander is managing its own power, heat control and sequence of onboard events -- including parachute and air-bag deployment -- to take it through the atmosphere to bounce-down.

Shortly afterward, the Mars Express is scheduled to go into orbit to study the planet's atmosphere, structure and geology.

All signs are that the Beagle 2 is "on target," Colin Pillinger, a planetary scientist at Britain's Open University and the driving force behind the Beagle 2, said in a telephone interview yesterday.

"It's pandemonium in our office. We don't have time to be tense," Pillinger said.

After jettisoning the parachute and air bags intended to cushion its landing, the craft is supposed to open like a pocket watch, unfold its solar power panels, and begin a six-month assignment to photograph, dig and analyze Martian air, soil and other material.

Instruments mounted on the Beagle's PAW (position adjustable workbench) will look for signs of current life by analyzing the atmosphere for molecules such as methane, which on Earth is a byproduct of living processes, Pillinger said. And the robot will hunt for signs of extinct life by looking for carbonates deposited in rocks by trickling water. If it detects carbonates, it will then look for residue from ancient organisms.

The British craft was named after the HMS Beagle, the ship that carried Charles Darwin on the 1830s voyage that ultimately led him to develop his revolutionary ideas on evolution. Pillinger has declined to reveal the exact cost of the mission. It started at $25 million, he said, but six years of inflation and some unspecified budget items have been added.

The three landing missions are designed to complement one another and all involve international cooperation, scientists said. Communications with the robots on the surface will be aided by two U.S. orbiters already in the Martian skies and by the newly arrived European Mars Express.

The two U.S. robogeologists, with a mass of almost a ton each, are "the most sophisticated rovers ever built," said Charles Elachi, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which manages the missions for NASA. "We know the world is waiting to see if these missions will succeed."

Fifteen minutes before hitting the top of the Martian atmosphere, each lander is to cast off its cruising stage, retaining a protective heat shield that will reach temperatures of about 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit from friction with the atmosphere, which will begin to slow the descent. Less than two minutes before landing, each spacecraft's parachute is to open.

Each lander will make part of the descent hanging from a tether. In the final few seconds, air bags are to inflate, retro rockets fire and the tether is to be cut about 49 feet above the ground. The swaddled spacecraft should fall no more than four stories, bouncing maybe just over half a mile from its initial touchdown point, managers said.

"In my mind we've done everything humanly possible" this time to make sure the U.S. landers succeed, Weiler said earlier this month, but the final outcome may be up to Mars. "A strong gust of wind in the final seconds, and the mission could be over."

[Insidious Rex]

One of the challenges of Mars exploration, scientists have learned, is that the most interesting landing sites are often the most treacherous. More than 100 scientists spent more than two years of intent study selecting the targets for the U.S. missions. The common theme is "follow the water."

The Spirit, launched from Cape Canaveral on June 10, is to bounce onto an ancient lake bed called Gusev Crater close to midnight Eastern time on Jan. 3. The crater, larger than Connecticut, appears to have once harbored a lake formed when water flowed down a branching valley from the highlands. The floor may contain water-deposited sediments that preserve records of the ancient environment.

The sister ship Opportunity, launched on July 7, is on course to touch down on the Meridiani Plane on Jan. 24, after midnight EST. Halfway around the planet from Gusev Crater, this landing zone is of intense interest because of a deposit of a type of iron oxide called gray hematite that was detected by the orbiting Mars Global Surveyor. On Earth, this mineral usually -- though not always -- forms in association with liquid water.

The rovers are designed to drive up to about 44 yards in a day, or a grand total of about three-quarters of a mile in their operating life.

But first, like human geologists taking a look around, the rovers are to use mast-mounted cameras about five feet high to scan the terrain for interesting features. Each has a robot arm capable of movement similar to that of the human arm, with an elbow and wrist, and is designed to reach out and position instruments directly against rocks and soil that intrigue its handlers back on Earth.

The arm's mechanical "fist" contains a microscopic camera that will stand in for a human geologist's magnifying glass. A device called the RAT (rock abrasion tool) will serve as a rock hammer, to chip away the surface and expose the interior of targeted rocks.

But will they have a chance to do their work?

Investigators concluded that the staggering 1999 loss of an orbiter, a lander and two surface microprobes -- a package that cost about $360 million -- were caused by avoidable human errors.

Elachi said the new, reorganized Mars team has worked hard to incorporate the lessons of those failures. Among other things, they have subjected their more solidly funded current missions -- estimated to cost a total of $820 million -- to much more rigorous hardware testing and "an unprecedented number" of independent reviews.

"Can we guarantee success? Of course not," he said. "But the team deserves it."

[Insidious Rex]

success for team spirit!! this is great news. the rover is on the planet and right exactly where they want it to be. Its already brodcasting pictures.

At slightly past 11:35, after tense moments of waiting, the control room erupted in a series of cheers, and people who had spent up to four years on the project hugged each other, as control room engineer Wayne Lee, doing the commentary, reported: "We have signs that the spacecraft is bouncing. . . . The signal indicates we are bouncing on the surface of Mars."

kudos to the NASA people that made this happen. Hopefully we'll get a lot of good research out of this mission.

[Earniel]

And what about Beagle 2, still not even a single blip?

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by Eärniel
And what about Beagle 2, still not even a single blip?

unfortunately nothing yet. although the head of the Beagle project said that January 7 would prove their best opportunity for contact. it really comes down to if the probe landed ok and just couldnt be picked up (because the orbiting module was on a wrong trajectory so the windows for contact were out of synch) OR if it was dashed to pieces on martian rocks or burnt up in the atmosphere. Hopefully well hear from it on wednesday...

[Insidious Rex]

Well Bush has laid out his space exploration plan. Check it out. See what you think:

President Bush's Vision for U.S. Space Exploration

The President's plan for steady human and robotic space exploration is based on the following goals:

First, America will complete its work on the International Space Station by 2010, fulfilling our commitment to our 15 partner countries. The United States will launch a re-focused research effort on board the International Space Station to better understand and overcome the effects of human space flight on astronaut health, increasing the safety of future space missions.
To accomplish this goal, NASA will return the Space Shuttle to flight consistent with safety concerns and the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. The Shuttle's chief purpose over the next several years will be to help finish assembly of the Station, and the Shuttle will be retired by the end of this decade after nearly 30 years of service.

Second, the United States will begin developing a new manned exploration vehicle to explore beyond our orbit to other worlds -- the first of its kind since the Apollo Command Module. The new spacecraft, the Crew Exploration Vehicle, will be developed and tested by 2008 and will conduct its first manned mission no later than 2014. The Crew Exploration Vehicle will also be capable of transporting astronauts and scientists to the International Space Station after the Shuttle is retired.

Third, America will return to the Moon as early as 2015 and no later than 2020 and use it as a stepping stone for more ambitious missions. A series of robotic missions to the Moon, similar to the Spirit Rover that is sending remarkable images back to Earth from Mars, will explore the lunar surface beginning no later than 2008 to research and prepare for future human exploration. Using the Crew Exploration Vehicle, humans will conduct extended lunar missions as early as 2015, with the goal of living and working there for increasingly extended periods.
The extended human presence on the Moon will enable astronauts to develop new technologies and harness the Moon's abundant resources to allow manned exploration of more challenging environments. An extended human presence on the Moon could reduce the costs of further exploration, since lunar-based spacecraft could escape the Moon's lower gravity using less energy at less cost than Earth-based vehicles. The experience and knowledge gained on the Moon will serve as a foundation for human missions beyond the Moon, beginning with Mars.

NASA will increase the use of robotic exploration to maximize our understanding of the solar system and pave the way for more ambitious manned missions. Probes, landers, and similar unmanned vehicles will serve as trailblazers and send vast amounts of knowledge back to scientists on Earth.

Key Points on the President's FY 2005 Budget

The funding added for exploration will total $12 billion over the next five years. Most of this added funding for new exploration will come from reallocation of $11 billion that is currently within the five-year total NASA budget of $86 billion.

In the Fiscal Year (FY) 2005 budget, the President will request an additional $1 billion to NASA's existing five-year plan, or an average of $200 million per year.

From 1992 to 2000, NASA's budget decreased by a total of 5 percent. Since the year 2000, NASA's budget has increased by approximately 3 percent per year.

From the current 2004 level of $15.4 billion, the President's proposal will increase NASA's budget by an average of 5 percent per year over the next three years, and at approximately 1 percent or less per year for the two years after those.

[jerseydevil]

I think it's good - NASA has been short changed for far too long I think. I just wish the dates were a little sooner. Anything can happen in 6,10 and 16 years. I know the six years would be hard to shave - but I just wish they were going up to the moon sooner.

[cassiopeia]

I felt a thrill of excitement when I watched the news tonight and saw George Bush speaking. To think that we may see humans land on Mars in 15-20 years! And the moon in only six years! Yes, we've been there before, but there's so much to explore. I can't wait.

[Goatee]

While I would like to see it happen, I don't think Congress will approve this plan, not as it stands anyway.

[Falagar]

Originally posted by jerseydevil
I think it's good - NASA has been short changed for far too long I think. I just wish the dates were a little sooner. Anything can happen in 6,10 and 16 years. I know the six years would be hard to shave - but I just wish they were going up to the moon sooner.

But won't it be very expensive?

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Falagar
But won't it be very expensive?

Yeah - but space is the future of mankind. it was also expensive for the early explorers of the Western Hemisphere. If we don't do - we will ultimately fall behind in space.