Back to the moon?

[akamifeldman]

Caeli: Yeah, I heard that too about the Hubble. What it means, though, is that Bush's initative is not driven by science, only by politics in an election year. Hubble has given us so much, from pictures a few hundred million years after the birth of the universe, to new insight into the mysterious dark matter.
To abandon the it before its usable life is up, well that's just wasteful.

But I think alot of you are missing the point. Planting a flag on Mars in 30 years is not a 'focused' mission for NASA, just as it wasn't for post-Apollo NASA. The space program needs to be driven by real science, not vague exploration speeches by a one-term president.

But I'm just a High School Student, so don't go all ape on me

 

[caeli]

akamifeldman - yeah you can't just ignore the timing of bush's announcement. And there has been a lot of good science to come out of Hubble (like some stuff I've studied in my Cosmology class).

But what drives everything in NASA - including Hubble, is congressional funding, which is driven by public relations. A manned mission to the moon or mars is gonna generate a lot more publicity than Hubble or even the 2 mars rovers no matter how much science is done. As long as it's good publicity NASA will get more $$

You're right about the plan not being focused as much as it could be. I think we could finish the ISS as it was meant to be, go to the moon and mars in much less time than bush plans, but what he's proposing is a lot more concrete and realistic than what has been proposed before. All the space missions that have been proposed by past presidents (except JFK) have been half-hearted like Reagan's space station plans, or Bush Sr's moon plans.

JFK did it right back in his day - he proposed we go to the moon back in '61, which meant he could actually make significant headway by '64 - then whoever won the '64 election would have to continue with such an amazing endeavor. Bush on the other hand just proposed it 10 months before the election - which means that if he loses, this entire thing can be scaled back and trashed by his successor. Poor judgement in my mind.

But anyways - I think that bush's plan is a heck of a lot better than what is going on in NASA today. Like I said before - If i was in charge, I'd put all my $$ towards a space elevator - cause if you could possibly build that, the Hubble, any moon mission, or mars mission would be pocket change compared to what it's costing now. just my 2 cents.

 

[46Driver]

It's not just science, and its not just national prestige - as important as both are. Its national security.

The greatest strength and the biggest weakness of the United States is space. Communications, reconnaisance, navigation, and now targeting with GPS are satellite dependent. Next up are weapons in space - although lasers and particle beams weapons are exotic, even simple kinetic energy weapons with either conventional warheads or none at all can change the balance of power because there is no defense against them. That is not just against other space targets such as satellites but terrestrial targets as well

Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, our next most probable threat is China - and China is now moving strongly into space. China is a land power - the US is a naval power. Space based weapons have the ability to control the high ground: and as aircraft carriers made battleships obsolete, thus low earth orbit (LEO) stations could render large vessels vunerable. SuperHornets, F-22's, JSF - doesn't matter what jets the carrier has, nothing can protect the battle group from space based misiles. Thus the US loses control of the seas and its ability to project power.

To whet your appetite: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03209/206344.stm

You can also go to the Air Force plan for the future (I think it is Air Force 2025), as well as think tanks such as DARPA and the RAND corporation. www.rand.org Now, I have to get back to studying for the War College.

 

[Daedalus]

The NGST Next generation space telescope will take the place of Hubble. http://ngst.gsfc.nasa.gov/FAQ/FAQans.htm
The last servicing mission for Hubble was due to be around now, and by Colombia, which is obviously is not going to happen. It was not only a funding thing, but the other orbiters were due to be building the ISS, but Colombia can't dock with the ISS (too heavy I believe) The orbiters when cleared for flight will have a huge backlog of flights including rumored test flights before carrying ISS payloads, and they weren't going to be servicing the Hubble anyway, that would push it back even further. So the hardware and a lot of the money for that mission has probably already been spent, they are only saving the actual flight in terms of money, so it's not all about the $, more about the future of the program.

Go manned Space flight!

 

[Valion310]

Being a news junkie, I was reading an article and saw a couple reports on plans to retire the Hubble and do an orbital capture, put it in the cargo bay, land it and display it in the Smithsonian. As mentioned above, the Hubble was suppose to be serviced about this time and for the life of me I can't remember if it was just suppose to be serviced, or the capture of it was suppose to happen around this time.

There is also I beleive the Solaris telescope which is more advanced then the Hubble. Unfortunatly the public only hears about the Hubble from the main stream, so thats all they have to go off of.

Some other points just on telescopes, with us landing on the moon, low-frequency telescopes and optical telescopes can be placed on the moon thus out of the earths influance, so the advancement of science is once again on the forefront. After watching Sean O'keef on NASA TV giving a press briefing after the Presidents speech last week. He made some fairly interesting comments about reallocating funds from things like the now retiring Hubble and other programs for funding the initial down-payment of this new objective.

I find it hard to beleive we'll just plant a flag on the Mars and call it quits. That was fine in the 60's when we were racing the Soviets, but this isn't the 60's nor is it a race ( atleast officially.)

People have to realize, this new direction cannot be compared to past projects. Thats like comparing the Iraq invasion to Normandy or WWII - uncomparable. We live in a totally new world, totally new technoligy, totally new dollar amounts and totally new American mindset. Its like saying "Project X" is over-budget and over time, that happens from past experiences with similar projects, people will say this will be over-budget and over due basing it off of the 1960's NASA projects or perhaps the 80's Shuttle projects. But it can't be compared, its totally new, the science will be new, the vehicle platforms will be new and so will the mission objectives.

I dunno, food for thought I suppose.

Back to Aerodynamics ... whooooo!

Valion310 - "

"

 

[Daedalus]

Hubble's engineering model is in the Smithsonian on the Mall. Its identical as far as a museum visitor is concerned, a lot cheaper than deorbiting the Hubble.
If you want to see how politics wastes money look at Goresat. Gore was dreaming one night on how he’d like a live view of the earth spinning, because watching paint drying was getting boring. So he had Dan Golden, Mr. Better faster cheaper, whip up a 220 million dollar camcorder. Then when Gore lost the election it was put in the closet.

 

[Daedalus]

Originally posted by Daedalus
One of the reasons why it is so much cheaper for a Soyuz flight is because its payload capacity is about 1.5 tons while the shuttle capacity (to station orbit) is about 6.5 tons. Also only the shuttle can do the periodic boosts to put the ISS in a higher orbit lest it fall into the ocean. The Soyuz doesn't carry much. The proton is a different story, but most of the ISS components can only be carried (and were designed for) delivery by the shuttle.
The computer I am using now (average desktop) does not have more computing power than any shuttle. The shuttles are constantly being updated (for instance they all have a glass cockpit, the last of which to be fitted was Colombia) and I’m sure that behind any given panel there is more computing power in any EEPROM than my computer.

The reason spacecraft have old electronic parts is not solely the cause of the time it was produced. I have never heard of 7.5 in floppies, but they had 5 inch when they were building Colombia. The reason they use old computer parts is because they are not space qualified. If you have a 2 billion dollar orbiter (and there are only 3 left) are you going to put a Pentium 4 in space without any actual radiation and temp space track record? Or will you use a 486 which is proven for the job? It's a pretty huge gamble, and designers will often go with the workhorse when a mission is already filled with risk. So when they build new spacecraft, even today they will not be using brand new parts no matter how much power they have. Designers will often scrounge around old stocks of spacecraft inventory parts to get parts that are obsolete, because they are proven. This is one reason why spacecraft are so expensive. You can get a Pentium 4 for what 50$ or so? Do you know how much it would cost to buy an entire stock of they only remaining 486 parts that are still qualified for flight? Electronic parts are made for cell phones computers and dvd players, they are rarely made specifically for a flight project, so the market is driven by what sony wants and needs, not by what NASA wants. Therefore it is a lot more difficult to find electronics that can actually be used in space than just picking up something at the mall.

How many times has NASA had a human spacecraft 8/10ths of the way of being finished and scrapped it for shi*&y foresight? The CRV (not the Honda) was all ready to go and they pulled the plug. The linear aerospike engine for venturestar was working and they pulled the plug. If NASA stops funding 10 projects 8/10ths of the way and completes 2 we would be far better off.

Any comments on the space elevator?

Damn Daedalus you be smart http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/mer_computer_040128.html

 

[NeoCortex]

Question about the Space Elevator. Does anyone know how high it has to be built before it's weight supports itself? Ok, that wasn't worded well, but can't think how to word it any better.

 

[chazmurr]

short answer: no
easy answer: high
cost: astronomical

 

[McNamara]

I get what you're asking, Neo. The top of the elevator would need to be past geosynchronous orbit. Below that point, the weight of the cable would be pulling the elevator towards the earth. All the mass above GEO, on the other hand, would be pulled outward by centrifugal force due to the earth's rotation, keeping the elevator in tension. A Space.com article put the length at 62,000 miles (GEO is around 21,000 miles altitude).

We need to come up with a cheaper and easier way to get payload into orbit before even THINKING about the Moon and Mars. Could we do a Mars mission using current technology? Of course, we could have done it a long time ago. But without an efficient way to get into orbit, it'll be no more than another flag-planting mission. If Bush had proposed money for a new SSTO competition or a space elevator project, I might have believed he was serious. But this is just a B.S. election year promise.

 

[NeoCortex]

Anyone thought about a Magnetic accelerator? You'd need a lot of space for the run-up, but it's doable now, as apposed to the Elevator, which we need better building materials.

 

[vegita1220]

magnetic accelerator? The attractive part of that is that you get a lot of reusable bang out of the accelerator, unlike the current system, where you have to dump boosters. Another up side is that the more boost you get from the accelerator, the less fuel you need, which lessens the weight, etc. Basically reverses the spiral loop downwards which would be nice.

On the other hand, I'm not sure you could get the electricity to do all that into one spot.