[ChinaGotTheGoodsOnClinton]

Comments welcomed

[Walkingfeather]

Yea why spend money on space when we haven't even rescued those on gilligans island yet. Where are our priorities?

[Steve Van Doorn]

The question should be how is it going to be financed?

Why should tax payers pay this bill? If there is money to be made let business send their people to space. Right now with the laws as they are it is impossible for business to explore space.

[Vidalia]

All you need for "spaced research" is a micro-cam, and a few Socialists.
Actual research on many upper level Democrat Congressional staffers who had recent brain scans revealed they depended upon this type of semi-liquid grey matter to function.

Scientists from world-wide are now flying in to attempt to define what this primordial matter may be, besides the obvious amoebic matter.

All members on the left side of both aisles attempted to block the research project.
Current descriptions concur with an initial description of "MOON JELLIES"...

[jae471]

The best thing for space exploration and technological advances is competition.

We develop, tested, and launched the Apollo program in 8 years because of competition. Now we simply work on ISS.

Maybe China starting a manned space program will help us -- maybe it will generate much-needed competition. The ESA is our lap-dog, and Russia (aside from using capitalism to fund its program) is too. If China says they will put a man on Mars in 2017, we'll get one there in 2015. Otherwise, who knows when we'll get off of our bums and start working towards a clear goal.

We also need to re-investigate things like Project Orion and Project Daedalus -- Resonable interplantary propulsion. Forget 8 months to Mars. Try 8 days.

Abandon prohibitive treaties that prevent space development. Get hotels into orbit -- it will only make spaceflight cheaper. Sure, at first only yuppies with 50M to blow will be able to afford it, but as the launch vehicles become more efficient, the price will drop considerably. You and I will never be able to afford it in our life (well, I won't), but it would be nice to see someone get there in our life.

The biggest problem with the space program is funding. I'm a big fan of private funding (a good little conservative), and private funding can go a long way in space exploration (SETI and The Planetary Society are all good examples). I am not opposed to public-private partnerships (Tito?). I have trouble thinking the space program should be entirely publicly funded, but I rather see NASA receive full funding instead of than entities like the NEA/NEH, which do little to advance anything -- at least the space program gives us nice spin-offs.

Sorry for the rant... These are just my views on the space program.

In case you care, I work for Goddard SFC on MODIS ( http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ) and my fiancee is working on her physics/astro degree. We both have strong interests in the space program.

[tcostell]

Wanna see space exploration explode? Announce that the US government is not only planning a manned missions to Mars, but will be claiming it as exclusive US territory when we get there.

[Willie Green]

First of all, it is apparent that a strong American space program is the same thing as a strong America.
The military spin offs of space exploration are almost limitless.

Although Mars may be as barren as our SouthWestern deserts, I don't think our military will learn much about defending our borders on an uninhabited planet.

The heck with building extravagent space-vehicles that will only ever transport a handful of elite astronauts. We need high-tech mass-transportation such as high-speed rail and maglev. THAT is technology that the average taxpayer will benefit from directly.

[Brett66]

I don't think going to Mars is all that important in the establishment of a true spacefairing capability. We need to:

1. Get the costs of transport to LEO down to reasonable levels.

2. Establish a LEO space tourism industry.

3. Establish tourism and mining operations on the moon.

When all of this has happened, it will be easy to go to Mars. I don't want more flags and footprints that cannot be sustained long-term, I want real space infrastructure with heavy off-Earth industry. Going to Mars won't do it, but going to Mars will be a natural extension of a burgeoning space industry. NASA isn't interested in space for the common man, they just want their super-elites to go. I think we're on the verge of a revolution in space enterprise, Tito going to the ISS signaled the start. This was in spite of NASA, not because of it. NASA is paralyzed with beauracrat mindthink, they're not the same organization that put men on the moon 33 years ago.

There has been a quiet revolution under way and it consists of private, non-government organizations opening the space frontier. NASA is clueless and will be made irrelevant in short order. Here's some of the players in this revolution:

X-Prize

RETURN TO THE MOON IV

Rick Tumlison's Vision

The Artemis Project

Space Adventures Teams with XCOR Aerospace To Develop Sub-Orbital Vehicle

MIRCORP

The revolution is underway, it just doesn't make headlines, but it is going to shock a lot of people when it starts rolling.

[RightWhale]

Pretty good.

I would go more for the essence of America, try to stir their souls and spiritual ambitions rather than their pocketbooks.

Let's see if I can distill this a little.

---

America when founded by the Declaration of Independence was a civilization on the edge of a vast frontier. The frontier offered limitless opportunity to any and all. Go West, young man was the call. And they went West and the country grew. In a short time, maybe 150 years, the country had spanned the continent and the frontier was nearly conquered. There were distractions, war and Depression, and war again that made the ending of the frontier pass unnoticed.

But now the frontier is definitely closed. America has no frontier, and America isn't what it was when it was young. It's actually passing into middle age, staid and comfortable, no plans for the future except to put in a garden or pave the driveway.

Soon America will reach retirement age. We all see it. Can America be restored to youth and vigor once more? How?

Look Outward. There's a Limitless Frontier, you can see the start of it from the deck on the back of your house. The children can see it, but they know they won't live to go out there and make their own lives there.

Want to restore America the way it used to be? Open the Frontier. The Limitless Frontier -- Outer Space. We can do it if we want, that was shown 32 years ago.

Which is the future, America retired from the active life and staying home to tend the garden while growing senescent? Or America entering the Limitless Frontier, robust and powerful, hopeful and courageous, with spirit and vigor? We still have the choice; we might not have it much longer. Choose soon.

Kick down the barriers, let's go!

---

Something like that.

[Brett66]

Also we may not have a comfortable choice on what we do next. China is making bold plans to conquer the moon, we may forced to go back there in short order because of strategic concerns.

Hard to see, the future is. - Yoda.

[discostu]

The why's are simple. Someday the big yellow thing in the sky with either blow up or go out. Before then it's entirely possible another "dinosaur killer" will fall from the sky. If human civilization hasn't spread beyond our solar system by the time the big yellow thing stops working then it was all pointless. All of our art, science, political experiments, philosophy and religion is 100% meaningless if we don't get off the rock. This should be goal #1 of every society, because solving all other goals means nothing if we're still rockbound when the rock goes away. Solving poverty and crime and disease and every other malady of mankind means nothing if there is no more mankind. If we get off the rock then we have all the time in the universe to solve these problems.

[techcor]

Sure I'll give you the answers but nobody listens. First, understand that nuclear waste really isn't a problem http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/1998/6/nuclear_waste_works/.
Then go to google and search on hafnium 178 or on "nuclear isomers". Right now the initial really good reports on hafnium 178 haven't been confirmed but you need to understand the theory that light (x-rays) may be able to stimulate emmission of radiation from metastable isomer sources. This is really big . Sort of a "poor man's" anti-matter.
Since you'll be discouraged by hafnium not being confirmed as a power source go search on "Two weeks to Mars" or "americium-242m". Americium 242m is a metastable isomer that is self-fissile meaning it doesn't need large rods gathered together like plutonium. Only a small strip of this metal will produce radioactivity. It is about 100 times as powerful as plutonium. If you really search you'll find a couple of scientists have already worked out how reactors can be configured to have half of their output as americium 242m.

So to sum up. Nuclear waste is cleanable. Reactors could be built to produce Am242m . Americium 242m can be used to power a rocket. And if Am242m proves to be able to be stimulated by photons, then it could prove to be as powerful as we may need. That an allowing free enterprise to take over as in a Robert Heinlein novel and that should do it. Clean nuclear energy also solves global warming etc.

[anymouse]

We don't necessisarily need so much (government funded, i.e. taxpayer financed) space exploration, as we need a safe environment for privately financed space development to build a thriving space marketplace.

Why is it that even many conservatives think that socialism in space deserves a free pass? The laws of economics as well as physics still apply in space.

[StoneColdGOP]

Excellent job! I've been saying for the longest time that we need to get back into the business of manned space exploration, most significantly, AMERICAN settlement of Mars (forget going with the U.N. or letting Red China get there first... treaties be damned).

One aspect I'd add... The inspirational power it will have with young people. I missed the moon landing by eight years. I was born in 1977, and I've seen some pretty crazy s*** in my time, good and bad. The only significant one as far as space was seeing what happened to the Challenger. Not exactly inspiring. My generation, but especially my younger brother and sisters, need to see something PHENOMENAL, to compel them and their peers into things like aviation, astronomy, technology, etc.

Otherwise, where will tomorrow's explorers come from?