How do you feel with a largely missionless NASA?

NASA was once an organization that had people we admired, looked up to, considered heroes. Research associated with the space program gave us much more than Tang.

How do you feel about this?

around the globe and off to mars. I couldn't give a fuck less about them.

This isn't something new, it certainly isn't something invented in 1998.

RTG (Radioisotope thermoelectric generator) are a very effective way to power a spacecraft for decades in the very hostile environment of space, where repairs, and resupply are essentially impossible.

Because I remember the whole thing pretty clearly. Everyone who was talking about the "potential disaster" at the time had no fucking clue what they were talking about.

to Saturn.

You have this reflexive freak out in certain quarters when the word "Plutonium" is mentioned. I suspect we'll see the same sorts of hysteria when the Mars Science Lab is launched this year.

I mean the MSL is downright massive and powering that by solar power especially on Mars (60% of sunlight compared to earth) and in frequent dust storms is downright impossible.

when the bombed the moon :rofl:

I mean the same technology has been used on a dozen or so probes over last 50+ years.


1961 Navy Transit 4A - Test platform (powered by RTG)
1964 Nimbus - Earth orbit (NOAA observation sat powered by RTG)
1966 Surveyor - Moon (unmaned probes to moon)
1969 Apollo 12 to 17 - Moon (experiment package carried by apollo left on moon powered by RTG)
1972 Pioneer 10 - Jupiter (powered by RTG)
1973 Pioneer 11 - Saturn (powered by RTG)
1975 Viking 1 - Mars (powered by RTG)
1975 Viking 2 - Mars (powered by RTG)
1989 Galileo - Jupiter (powered by RTG)
1990 Ulysses - Sun (powered by RTG)
1997 Cassini - Saturn (powered by RTG)
2006 New Horizons - Pluto (powered by RTG)
2011 Mars Science Lab - Mars (powered by RTG)

Without RTG to power these probes (many for years or even decades) we would never have gained the massive amount of data we did. At best (and unlikely) we would need to send dozens of probes to each with minimal sensor packages and limited missions due to power load that can be provided by solar panels. Also even the best solar panel will be totally destroyed after a few years outside earths protective magnetic field. An RTG can operate for decades, centuries at reduced power output.

And it was Saturn, not Mars.

And solar panels don't work that far out, nuclear is the only thing that will work.

raised "hysteria" to EPIC levels.

I wish I bookmarked them.

A number of prominent scientists spoke out strongly against it, which is rare.
NASA finally agreed that the fly-by distance was unnecessarily close and increased it.
When NASA evaluated using solar panels for the mission, it would have only been slightly overweight, and there were several ways around that. NASA took an unnecessary risk.

Solar irradiance out past Saturn is 1/10th of what we experience on Earth. So all things being equal you need a panel 10th as large as one at earth to produce the same amount of power. Not only that outside the protective magnetic field of our planet solar panels don't last long at all. Voyager two solar panels were all but destroyed less than 18 months after launch from high speed collisions with stellar matter if it hadn't been for its pair of RTG Voyager would have gone dark a long time ago.

We never would have gotten the "pale blue dot" photograph.

"all of human history has happened on that tiny pixel, that pale blue dot, which is our only home"

There is a reason that all probes launched into deep solar system (and beyond) use RTG. This isn't something new and radically different. The technology has existed and been used since the 1960s.

1961 Navy Transit 4A - Test platform (powered by RTG)
1964 Nimbus - Earth orbit (NOAA observation sat powered by RTG)
1966 Surveyor - Moon (unmaned probes to moon)
1969 Apollo 12 to 17 - Moon (experiment package carried by apollo left on moon powered by RTG)
1972 Pioneer 10 - Jupiter (powered by RTG)
1973 Pioneer 11 - Saturn (powered by RTG)
1975 Viking 1 - Mars (powered by RTG)
1975 Viking 2 - Mars (powered by RTG)
1989 Galileo - Jupiter (powered by RTG)
1990 Ulysses - Sun (powered by RTG)
1997 Cassini - Saturn (powered by RTG)
2006 New Horizons - Pluto (powered by RTG)
2011 Mars Science Lab - Mars (powered by RTG)

In the deep solar system where sun shines faintly (sun looks like just another bright star from Pluto) solar power is worthless. An RTG gives you far more reliable power (that doesn't decrease as distance from sun increases), is compact, and can be heavily shielded to protect it from high speed collisions with stellar matter.

To illustrate the point, an artistic depiction of "sunrise" on Pluto.

Nasa took an unnecessary risk, and there was strong outspoken opposition by highly respected scientists and engineers. If the engineers working on Challenger had been more outspoken, it might still be flying today. The claim that Cassini must have been safe because nothing happened is like someone saying Russian Roulette is safe because they put a bullet in a gun, spun the chamber, pulled the trigger, and nothing happened.

Fact: There was outspoken opposition to Cassini by highly respected scientists and engineers.
Fact: These were scientists and engineers who were very much in favor of space research.
Fact: These included scientists and engineers who worked for Nasa.
Fact: That should be a clue-by-four that this mission was different.
Fact: If the engineers working on Challenger had been more outspoken, it might still be flying today.
Fact: We might have had Challenger flying missions for the past 14 years and more years in the future if the engineers had been more outspoken and told their idiot managers to shove it up their ass. (I'm not blaming the engineers, the system was stacked against them - the lesson is we need to make it easier for whistleblowers to blow the whistle - just look at the attacks on wikileaks today, even by some here on DU.)
Fact: Instead of losing the crew, we would have had many more experienced astronauts, because there would have been many more missions over the past 14 years (and more missions in the future).
Fact: Nasa evaluated using solar power for Cassini, it would have only been slightly over weight.
Fact: There were a number of ways around that.
Fact: Nasa increased the earth fly-by distance, significantly reducing the risk of accident, even though they repeatedly claimed it was impossible to do so. They worked with the scientists and engineers who were highly critical of the project to do this.
Fact: Nasa also increased the Enceladus fly-by distance to reduce the risk of accident.

:rofl:

Once a shining star in American technology, it was allowed to grow obsolete. It became a cash cow for the states of certain powerful Congressmen, sucked the NASA budget dry and got us stuck in low Earth orbit payload delivery business which costs many times to deliver on a Shuttle as pretty much any other delivery system out there.

We've been to the moon boys. It's time to start looking forwards to the future and not backwards to something that we accomplished nearly 1/2 century ago and if you read the recommendations of the committee that President Obama seems to be following, the goal will be way, way beyond the moon.

Although, there also are damn good reasons to go back to the moon, for good. Not just because of the ice in the polar craters.

Now that it's about to fly its last flight, we can move on to better things.

The ISS is pretty much built, so we might as well use it for its intended purpose: research.

In the meantime, I'm excited about some of the commercial space launch programs out there, like Falcon 9 & Dragon - they've already seen a successful test flight, they'll be delivering cargo to the ISS soon, and just a little later, flying astronauts.

My suggestion would be to start looking not just at space exploration, but at space exploitation. If we want to really go big with space exploration and consider things like colonization, we need to learn to harvest and use resources in space, say from asteroids. That means we need to work on building space-mining facilities, and space-manufacturing facilities - we can't build big things by launching all the material from Earth - we have to get material from where the gravity well is lower.

I was a kid in the 1960s, the right stuff bled off into all of America, all of the world. There was nothing that couldn't be done to advance humankind.

Gone.

designed with a mission profile of 30 days, could probably teach all of us a thing or two about the "Can Do" that still resides here in the USA. Don't tell me that Rover isn't an example of some serious "Can Do."




Who says we can't build anything, anymore?

I also own two Fords that are great cars. We can do a lot of things.

But the general spirit these days, not so good.

Originally I was of the mind that the Constellation program- imperfect and under-funded as it was- was at the very least a clear imperative to get us out of LEO, again.

But there are some solid arguments to be made for the direction we're going now, or at least the direction we could go. Allowing Elon Musk or other private ventures to take over the job of dealing with Low Earth Orbit could free up resources for real, bold exploration and discovery. Rather than re-engineering Apollo-on-Steroids we could pursue propulsion technologies like the VASIMR engine, which could conceivably shorten the time of a manned trip to Mars to around 39 days out.

I remain committed to peaceful, vigorous, manned and unmanned exploration of the universe. If anything, we (and NASA) need more $ for this very important human endeavour, and not just because every dollar we've put into space exploration has paid off in spades.

VASIMR looks pretty damn interesting. Thanks for bringing it up.

That line is a giant crock.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201007060005

If you're really interested in what NASA is actually doing these days, there are plenty of sources to find out.

http://nasa.gov

freak out about it. But it still doesn't mean that's what NASA should be involved in.

Should we be cooperating with Muslim nations on space exploration? Sure, just like we should be cooperating with all nations. I also happen to think that science makes for an excellent antidote to backwards-ass religious fundamentalism, as a general rule.

"This idea of 'feel good about your past' scientific achievements is the worst kind of group therapy, psycho-babble, imperial condescension and adolescent diplomacy."


Earth to Obama: Stop the condescension. Stop the pyscho-babble. Stop the EFFING wars.

The one where the head of NASA says that that Obama "wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering."

Do you have a link to the debunking?

I'm glad to hear, though, given your apparent outrage over what undoubtedly would be a misstatement of NASA's core purpose if that's what it actually had been, that presumably you DO support the ACTUAL goals NASA is pursuing; i.e. the scientific exploration -manned and unmanned- of the universe we live in.

A huge Government bureaucracy that does nothing except shoot people up to orbit the Earth a few times and then come back down, just like we did in the 1960s.

Put the money that is saved towards prizes to encourage creative thinkers to really explore space. A $50 billion Mars Prize, for example.

Hubble, Cassini, and the Mars rovers are nothing but junk.

"nothing"? Establishing a permanent manned outpost in orbit, and doing the kinds of long-term research that will allow us to complete trips elsewhere in the Solar System- is "nothing"?

Landing a probe on the surface of fucking TITAN- is "nothing"?

Landing 2 rovers on Mars- driving them well past their 30 day mission lifespan- one of which is still going, still driving, still doing science, almost 7 years later- is "Nothing"?

If you think NASA has been doing "Nothing" you haven't been paying attention.

National Aeronautics & Space Administration ;)

Also, here's a source you might want to peruse next time before being perceived as a fool, and then removing all doubt.

NASA Tech Briefs

real direction.

That was pretty much the reason. Once we got to the moon the Cold Warrior Right did not care anymore and the Luddite Left started pushing the "we have no right to put people into space as long as there are poor people in the world" nonsense.

Space exploration's a worthy endeavor that can employ lots of out-of-work people. Too bad banksters ran up the price of everything in sight to pay for war.

It's only been a half-century since we proved we could get there and back. Were we just visiting? Is it a "been there, done that" thing?

I was personally under the impression that moon bases were a prerequisite for further solar system exploration due to the low energy requirements to enter and leave Moon orbit. So why ain't we there?

Moons low escape velocity only helps if you are building or at least fueling something there.

Simply going from Earth -> Moon -> Somewhere else makes little sense. You might as well go Earth -> Somewhere else.

Now building things or fueling things on the moon is a much more challenging operation and that would require a rather significant presence and significant cost. Now if you send enough "stuff" into deep space the cost savings can be worth it. If you are just going to half ass space and send a half dozen probes a decade it makes more sense to just launch from Earth.

When mankind cares enough to devote just 1% of GDP on exploring our Solar system we will have a functional industrial presence on the moon.

Helium-3 mining is our future, if we have one.

Humanity has one of two destinies... either we are destined for extinction (most likely at our own hand), or we are destined to spread out from our home planet into the rest of the solar system, and eventually, other solar systems.

There is no global demand for He-3. Nobody has yet created a fusion reactor which has achieved ignition (self sustaining reaction), or unity (outputs net positive of energy).

If we had a functional reactor and all we needed was low cost He-3 then the demand for even commercial operations on the moon might be there. Harnessing fusion for power has been a very slow road. No doubt people in the 1960s thought we were 10-20 years from fusion powerplants. Today we are talking about maybe 20 years from first unity reaction, and maybe another 10 years before commercial plants. I wonder if in 2040 we are talking about being 10-20 years from commercial fusion power.

into the Military Industrial Complex. What else would you like to know?

It should be an legendary achievement in the commons, not something just for stockholders. I usually don't say this, but I view space as sacred.

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

I don't understand your post. I'm sure centuries ago people thought that the planet we are on was also unlimited. We had a new chance in space exploration to do things via government for the public. If Elon Musk et. al. get bored of playing billionaire spaceman then where will we be? I just don't like this rush to hand over the reins. Don't hurt your head there.

research, which are equally important.

On the other hand, I think removing a central goal for their manned space program goes way too far.

Yet another marker.

I still remember my first trip to Washington DC, going into the Air and Space Museum, and after an initial euphoria, being hit with a major depression when I realized we had gone from virtually nothing to men on the moon in 66 years and haven't really done jack shit since.

They'll become the FAA of space, when it's fully commercialized. A regulatory body.

learning to do math without a calculator.

NASA could still be an organization that people admire and with missions to which young people aspire. We have not discovered all there is to discover outside of our own habitat, and as long as there's something to learn about that bigger space, NASA has a mission.

I would like to see more hard science being done on the station but I don't have any problems with NASA other than the fact that we don't have a second generation shuttle in place.

That is what NASA's demise means to me.

Back when I was a kid, watching the first man walk on the moon, I thought by the I was the age I am now, we would have colonies on the moon, perhaps Mars. We would be harvesting asteroids for their resources.

Instead we're stepping back, limiting ourselves, how very sad.

for the next round of missions. There was a good plan for the future of NASA but we didn't do it because of politicians not because NASA doesn't and can't do useful scientific things.

Don't forget about the "A" in NASA, we have much going on. My father started there in 1961 and there were many times they were in this same boat. And NASA didn't give us Tang.

Instead of fighting endless wars, we could have a colony on Mars already.

Instead, China will probably be the first on Mars. Because they don't waste endless amounts of money making weapons.

With Hubble gone, Webb will be our primary eye in the sky, in perpetual orbit above the dark side of the moon.

Science must and will continue, one way or the other.

Mars rovers run for years past the time they were supposed to break down and sit idly on the surface...and we ignore it.

Hubble discovers evidence of new habitable planets beyond our solar system and cosmic evidence of our universe's existence before the Big Bang...and we spend our time talking about a sixteen year old's homophobic slurs on Facebook.

Voyager leaves the Solar System carrying a message from Earth and still stays in contact with NASA...and instead of reading more, we switch over to Youtube to watch a cat do something cute.

NASA discovers a fucking new form of life on Earth, and it disappears from the news because we're more interested in the President pardoning a goddamn turkey.

Instead of showing our kids that we have human beings LIVING IN FUCKING SPACE onboard the ISS and encouraging them to be the next ones...we glorify and deify a profession that involves going around the world killing people.

It's our fault, our public opinion that we're more interested in war and more interested in nonsensical time wasting...we can blame the government and the MIC all we want, but in the end, it was the American public's desire to go into space and land on the Moon that brought us the Golden Age of Space Exploration.

Withdraw from Afghanistan, downsize the military...take all that money and give NASA a mandate to land a human being on Mars in the next twenty years...give us another Neil Armstrong. Give us another giant leap for mankind on the Red Planet.

You know what? It doesn't even have to be JUST NASA...bring the ESA, the Russian space agency, the Japanese, Chinese, Mexican, and the ISRO all together and get us working on moving humanity into space. From the man who kicked NASA into high gear: "Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science...together let us explore the stars."