The Fight Over NASA’s Future

NASA has named the rocket Ares I, as in the god of war — and its life has been a battle from the start.

Ares I is part of a new system of spacecraft being designed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to replace the nation’s aging space shuttles. The Ares I and its Orion capsule, along with a companion heavy-lift rocket known as the Ares V, are meant for travel to the Moon and beyond.

Technical troubles have dogged the design process for the Ares I, the first of the rockets scheduled to be built, with attendant delays and growing costs. And in an age of always-on communication, instant messages and blogs, internal debate that once might have been part of a cloistered process has spilled into public view.

Some critics say there are profound problems with the design that render the Ares I dead on arrival, while other observers argue that technical complications crop up in any spacecraft development program of this scope.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/science/30spac.html?th&emc=th

I am afraid that the reality is that in order for NASA to survive they will have to contribute to solving our current socio economic problems. The USA can't afford any luxuries like NASA when millions of people are losing their jobs. I would like to see NASA volunteer an energy solution.

It's thanks to them that we have satellites which help us study the climate, track forest fires, provide GPS and many other things. Overall, space exploration has proved very good value for money.

That's thanks mostly to the USAF which launches almost every US satellite. Manned space exploration has been pretty much a complete waste of tax money since the early 70s.

Except GPS (military) and intelligence (CIA), I believe NASA builds virtually all non-commercial satellites.

Why do people not understand this?

e.g.: http://hubblesite.org/

Without reading that article, mind you - I'm assuming you're just snarking off on it because it's NASA and obviously intrinsically conservative or something.

Because, see, if you knew the first thing about the organization, you would know better than to make that same false, tired claim that they contribute nothing to society.

can discuss the issues without being dragged down by the "we need to solve all our problems down here before we go up there" posters.

I don't understand why he is even considering keeping Griffin. The man is a complete wingnut when it comes to climate policy. Obama needs to announce a successor, pronto.

is that the world is falling apart around us. We can't afford NASA. I am sorry but that it the truth.

Ignorance maintained in the face of facts isn't a good thing, and you're displaying it in spades.

Because you'd be surprised just how much NASA does. Lets shut down NIH while we are at it!:sarcasm:

A lot of what NASA does is not just valuable but indispensible to tackling, for instance, environmental challenges like global warming. A lot of what NASA does is glorified space tourism.

Everything NASA does, useful or not, costs a small fraction of the federal budget. Trimming NASA to "essentials" would make this small fraction truly negligible. It would have a similarly small-to-negligible impact on free resources for other purposes (whether for spending on other programs or to trim deficits).

Getting the hell out of Iraq... repealing the Bush tax cuts... that's where you can start finding some real money.

why you'd go away from a shuttle concept.

Why can't you simply come up with new parts?

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a spaceplane concept.

Newer materials, computers and you would seem to have a nice little replacement.

Why is the back to the future Ares concept the one that is winning out?

The only reason NASA cow-towed to the entire star-wars bullshit was becsaue they were threated with elimination of their budget, which has always been but a tiny fraction of the pentagon's.

Additionally they HAVE been trimmed. EVERY GoP congress since Ray-Gun (possibly nixon?) has tried to KILL NASA, and proof is that the budget KEEP getting SLASHED or at the very lease NOT increased to keep up with inflation and wages, etc.

Batteries, Velcro, GPS, COMPUTERS!!!!! the modern computers freepers write their bullshit drivel from are running on CONCEPTS CREATED IN SPACE! That is ways of growing crystals and more perfect ways of making computer wafers started as experiments in space.

The space tourism, ONE... is a Russian thing - brilliant of them, i mean really, and TWO... limited.

EVERY shuttle mission is jam-packed with science experiments to the point that getting a experiment ON the shuttle has somethign like a 5 year wait list, and that was when they were planning missions still.

hell even now they're debating whether or not to have a 10th mission (was going to end in 9) because of some vital experiments that need to be done.

The idea of re-fitting or building MORE shuttles is a great one, and I really don't know why we don't do this!

It would create MORE AMERICAN jobs (can't have that lol) and push for better science in schools (REALLY can't have that).

sadly we will need to look towards Russia and the ESA (Euro Space Agency) for any real space movement in the future, as the US seems to have given up on NASA, and practicle solutions :(

The hook-loop fastener was invented in 1941 by Swiss engineer, George de Mestral<7><8><5>

"why you'd go away from a shuttle concept."

Because they want to go to the moon and
you don't take an atmospheric capable vehicle to the moon.

"Why can't you simply come up with new parts?"

Too expensive to maintain and update two different manned systems.

"There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a spaceplane concept."

For low earth orbit missions. They want to move to interplanetary
missions. You don't take a shuttle to Mars.

"Newer materials, computers and you would seem to have a nice little replacement."

At this point, you'd basically replace the system from stem to stern.
That's fairly short of just engineering a whole new shuttle. Very costly.

"Why is the back to the future Ares concept the one that is winning out?"

See the first question. The original shuttle was to be a "conestoga wagon
to low earth orbit". It was never intended nor invisioned for moon
or mars missions. They can't afford two systems, so they are attempting to
engineer a system to maintain the space station and also launch them towards
the Moon and potentially Mars.

Obama wants NASA to launch people on the Atlas V and Delta IV !!!! These vehicles were designed to launch satellites not people. They do not have any of the designed redundancy infrastructure to safely launch people. It's a horrible idea.