Posted on 01/22/2008 10:04:54 PM PST by dr_lew
Some of the most influential leaders of the space community are quietly working to offer the next U.S. president an alternative to President Bush’s “vision for space exploration”—one that would delete a lunar base and move instead toward manned missions to asteroids along with a renewed emphasis on Earth environmental spacecraft.
(Excerpt) Read more at aviationweek.com ...
This is moonshine. Later Mars operations ? The moon a stumbling block ? ... and what would be the point of manned missions to the asteroids, for crying out loud ?
We're not going anywhere. That remains my firm belief.
The asteroids equal money, lots of it. An average sized asteroid contains enough Platinum Group Metals, PGMs or PeGgyMaes, to equal the world’s annual gross product. That is a lot of moolah. PeGgyMaes are important, and a necessary part of high-tech electronics.
PGMs are comparatively rare on the Earth’s surface and occur deeper than we can presently mine. But with robots and solar power, mining and smelting the ores would be easier in space. Using gravity-well sling-shot trajectories, the finished product can be sent to orbit either our Moon or Earth itself. Time wouldn’t be a concern as it would all be computerized.
There is a lot of wealth out there in those asteroids.
This is the visionless democrat space program.
They know a dem prez will cancel return to the moon.
So they are trying to salvage something.
An asteroid of solid gold would be too costly to mine. This is elementary.
Space Ping
Space Ping
The moon is muslim land. It would be an affront to Islam for Western kufir to go getting more footy-prints on it.
This is just another example of how government entrenched liberals betray President Bush.
http://www.livescience.com/blogs/author/leonarddavid
NASA’s Chief Reacts to Human Asteroid Mission
January 22nd, 2008
Author Leonard David
Lot of buzz regarding a recent Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine story about shooting off astronauts to an asteroid - presented as an “alternate vision” for the next president - perhaps altering the trajectory of NASA’s return of footprints on the Moon. An upcoming conference is to thrash out the idea in greater detail, noted the story.
This morning I emailed the NASA folks for any reaction - and got this response authored by the chief of NASA, Mike Griffin, in response to the Aviation Week & Space Technology story.
“I have noted on many occasions that, at present NASA funding levels, our budget is sufficient to support a variety of excellent space programs, but that it cannot support all of them. Balanced choices must be made. But they cannot be continually remade if there is to be progress,” Griffin explained.
“Those who are organizing this conference have long favored choices other than those put forth in the Vision for Space Exploration and subsequently authorized by the Congress. Their rejection of the Moon as an important destination for mankind, their emphasis on the early use of the Lagrange Points in a new space architecture, and their advocacy for early missions to the near-Earth asteroids (NEO) and to Mars are well known and long standing. These views were summarized in a report issued by the International Academy of Astronautics in July 2004. Their opposition to the International Space Station continues unremitting. One struggles to understand how the future international and commercial partnerships they advocate will come to pass if existing treaty-level commitments are not kept,” Griffin said.
“What is not mentioned in the Aviation Week article is that the questions to be raised at this conference have been asked and answered. The organizer’s views, and many others, were amply considered and thoroughly debated in the two years that elapsed between President Bush’s announcement of the Vision for Space Exploration in January 2004, and the strongly bipartisan ratification of the goals of the Vision in the NASA Authorization Act of December, 2005. As goes without saying, NASA will execute the law of the land. Until and unless the Congress provides new and different authorization for NASA, the law of the land specifies that we will complete the International Space Station, retire the Shuttle, design and build a new spaceflight architecture, return to the Moon in a manner supporting a ’sustained presence’, and prepare the way for Mars,” Griffin explained.
“We are doing those things as quickly and efficiently as our appropriated funding allows. System designs for the early elements have been completed, contracts have been let, and consistently solid progress is being made with a minimum of unexpected difficulty. True, the available budget is less than what was once promised, and progress is therefore slower than all of us would prefer. But applying resources in the right direction, irrespective of pace, is always productive, and we are doing that. Ares and Orion as they are presently taking form are the building blocks for any human future beyond low Earth orbit (LEO).
As I have often stated, human missions to NEOs have no stronger advocate than I, and I hope that a future Congress will add such authorization to future guidance for NASA, without altering other goals. But in other respects, I believe that the 2005 Authorization Act for NASA remains the finest policy framework for U.S. civil space activities that I have seen in forty years. In particular, I believe that to venture into deep space beyond the Moon with what will be our first step beyond LEO in more than fifty years, whether to an asteroid or to Mars, is riskier than it needs to be. Returning to the Moon and consolidating the gains to be made thereby is properly on the path toward NEOs and Mars. We should stay the present course as laid out in the Act,” Griffin said.
“The conference organizers have assigned sole responsibility for our new civil space exploration strategy to President Bush, ignoring the hugely bipartisan — actually non-partisan — support it has received in Congress. In fact, the principal features of the Vision for Space Exploration, and the subsequent 2005 Authorization Act, are directly traceable to the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board [CAIB]. President Bush acted on those recommendations in his proposal to Congress. No such far-reaching proposal should be adopted without debate. That debate was had, in 2003, ‘04, and ‘05, and it was fulsome. From it came a unifying plan for civil space, and the best legislative guidance NASA has ever had,” Griffin pointed out.
“No plan can fully satisfy all the many constituencies we have in what I wish were a true ’space community’. but as the CAIB noted, it would be far worse to continue the prior multi-decade lack of any strategic plan, to continue dithering and debating and inevitably widening the gap between shuttle retirement and the availability of new systems. The 2005 Authorization Act codifies a great strategic plan for civil space exploration. Now is the time for space advocacy groups to come together in support of it,” Griffin concluded.
Meanwhile, conference organizers of the workshop have notified Aviation Week & Space Technology that the recent story created a misperception - that the workshop to be held at Stanford University had already decided upon a new path for the human and robotic exploration of space, one that might call for pushing the Ctrl-Alt-Delete button on a NASA Moon base.
Not so, explains Scott Hubbard of Stanford University and Louis Friedman of The Planetary Society.
“We wish to make it clear that the purpose of the workshop is to examine critically the Vision for Space Exploration in order to prepare for future space policy considerations in a new Administration and new Congress,” states the letter to the magazine provided to SPACE.com.
“We have deliberately included a wide range of participants with disparate views, including those who would maintain the status quo. We personally do not know what the conclusions of the workshop will be - or even if there will be a definitive consensus,” the clarifying letter notes in part, underscoring the point that the workshop has “no predetermined conclusions.”
so let the private sector do it. space research by the govt should either be about basic scientific research or military strategic purposes, not to prop up some company
Asteroids contain pure minerals and water but are not stuck at the bottom of a gravity well.
Incredibly huge resources are in the belt.
We wish to make it clear that the purpose of the workshop is to examine critically the Vision for Space Exploration in order to prepare for future space policy considerations in a new Administration and new Congress,”
See.
Prepare for a visionless democrat president.
Some of them I am certain strongly support democrats and are trying to make this pitch.
While I agree with your belief, asteroid missions may be a lot easier than a moon mission. The moon is at the bottom of a gravity well and doesn't have enough atmosphere for any real braking maneuver. This means a lot of the mass for a moon mission is rocket fuel to get to the moon's surface, and more rocket fuel to get off the surface and on the way back to earth.
An asteroid doesn't have a lot of gravity to contend with so it is easy to rendezvous and then return to earth. Now, the cat's meow would be to capture the asteroid and return it to earth, which might even produce something the US could claim as its own.
What I see is that the space program will wander aimlessly for 5 or 6 years until the Chinese reach the moon.
Enough socialism from our government and we may not even have the national will to compete after that.
This reminds me of the story I heard about a Princeton post-grad student whose thesis was why a certain part essential for radio communication could never be made small enough to fit a radio into an automobile’s dashboard.
Clear across the country a fellow named William Lear (of Lear Jet fame, but that was much later) went ahead and invented that part, making it small enough so radios would fit into automobiles.
Bill Lear didn’t know it was impossible. He just went ahead and did it.
So, what are you a doctor of, anyway?
I go onto aviation and space threads knowing just a small amount of information, and the stuff everybody here talks about makes me feel insignificant.
Lol
>>
“...let the private sector do it...”
>>
Exactly my sentiment, ari.
Until the Chinese reach the what ?
Physics, my friend! Physics!
What are you a doctor of ?
yeah,its a shame,no spirit left,let the ruskies and chicoms have it
You hit that one right on the head. Pray tell what people think a mission to an asteroid is sexier than a trip to the moon?
Don’t you just love it when factions surface to challenge every step in the process?
Going back to space? You’re on target there too, we suffered our tower of babel moment around 1975, and we not going anywhere, period!
Any plan that sees us without a ride to space for five years, and doesn’t see us returning to the moon until 2020 something, is a plan for failure.
As for going to an asteroid, I’d chip in to send these brain trust alternates, on a one way ride.
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