Obama’s Space Plan

[kallend 2,154]

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Is there any purpose besides scientific for having a permanent settlement at the south pole?

None that I can think of. However, cost of operations at the south pole are insignificant compared to what a Moon base of similar size would be.

SO like the man said, having established what she is, we are now just haggling over the price.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[quade 4]

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Is there any purpose besides scientific for having a permanent settlement at the south pole?

None that I can think of. However, cost of operations at the south pole are insignificant compared to what a Moon base of similar size would be.

SO like the man said, having established what she is, we are now just haggling over the price.

When the difference is multiple orders of magnitude that's important and yes, frequently the deciding factor.

Some people might be tempted to spend a night with a $100 hooker. Few people are willing to spend $1,000,000 for one.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[BIGUN 1,490]

Bill, would you consider this statement still true or could we still accomplish the same; spending the money on earth/ocean exploration?

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It is important to realize the enormous power of the space-colonization technique. If we begin to use it soon enough, and if we employ it wisely, at least five of the most serious problems now facing the world can be solved without recourse to repression: bringing every human being up to a living standard now enjoyed only by the most fortunate; protecting the biosphere from damage caused by transportation and industrial pollution; finding high quality living space for a world population that is doubling every 35 years; finding clean, practical energy sources; preventing overload of Earth's heat balance.

—Gerard K. O'Neill, "The Colonization of Space"

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[billvon 3,120]

>Bill, would you consider this statement still true or could we still
>accomplish the same; spending the money on earth/ocean exploration?

I think we could indeed accomplish some (not all) of O'Neill's objectives through space exploration and commercialization. I just don't think the moon is a very valuable place to explore. It's like having the choice to explore Australia or Antarctica; which is going to prove more useful as a place to live in the long run?

To make space exploration feasible, first you have to have somewhere to go that has some worth. Mars is probably the most worthwhile place to go in the short term because it has a lot that will make it valuable, namely:

-an atmosphere sufficient to protect against solar wind, micrometeorites and temperature extremes

-most of the basic elements we need to live (oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous) in usable forms (carbon dioxide, water.)

-sunlight on an approximately 24 hour cycle

-gravity at least somewhat comparable to earth's

All of these mean that you can live there - with difficulty, but you can grow food, mine water and create soil. And once we are living there, there will be a demand for transportation to and from there, and commercial demand will result in efficient space transportation systems. And once we have _them_ we can go anywhere in the solar system, and things like solar power satellites become almost easy.

[JohnRich 4]

Obama has a space plan: "Hitchhike on Russian rockets."

[AggieDave 6]

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Obama has a space plan: "Hitchhike on Russian rockets."

Yup.

http://www.silberstudios.tv/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/astronaut_hitchhiker_1_0911.jpg

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[rhaig 0]

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Oh I agree with the ultimate use of Robots/UAVs tp do the exploration, but 'we' may still need a base on the moon from which to launch deeper space missions (reduced fuel requirements?)

I think it's not so much fuel cost to escape the gravity well of the earth, but more the engineering problems of building something here that can survive the launch from the gravity well, and make the trip while being light enough to be fuel efficient yet strong enough to be safe.

Orbit is likely a better place to do this. But I'm not that well informed on this topic. That's just opinion and a guess based off of a lot of sci-fi and a few years of engineering school.

--
Rob

[bclark 0]

I definitely think that we should send Obama to space.

[Lucky... 0]

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Obama has a space plan: "Hitchhike on Russian rockets."

Mite as swell, I herd Obomers a Communist, so he'll be right at home with the Ruskies.

[BIGUN 1,490]

Well, it took a whole 34 posts to kill this thread.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[riddler 0]

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People keep thinking of it as Europeans colonizing the Americas, but the reality is nothing could be further from the truth.

Expanding a bit on your post with my own statements - some of them are repetitive of your thoughts:

By the time of Columbus, humans had thousands of years to advance the technology of water travel, compared to about 60 years that we've had to learn about space travel.

The Europeans had some pretty good reasons to come to America. Many were persecuted and killed for religious or lifestyle choices; no one is being killed because we aren't going into space. There was also a lot of money to be made in the new world, generating crops, harvesting trees, etc; there's no financial reason to go into space (with the unique exception of award money, like the X-prize). The only comparable rationale was the space-race, which was a competition of political ideologies; there was equal economic and political competition in Europe between nations when the Queen of Spain commissioned Columbus. Even then, he was pretty lucky to find a fiancier, considering she had already rejected him three times, and finally had to threaten to pawn her jewels to get her husband to agree.

The difficulties of going to space far outweight the difficulties of sailing to the new world, as hard as they were. We're talking about an environment that doesn't even have air to breathe, much less pressure to hold human bodies together, cosmic radiation, zero gravity, and the list could go on and on. Additionally, we have a much lower tolerance for people dying to achieve these objectives; far fewer people have died going to space than did coming to America.

It wasn't easy for the American colonists by any stretch of the imagination. But I would argue going to space is harder by at least an order of magnitude. Even with that relative difference, it still took 128 years for even small colonies, like Plymouth Rock, to start after Columbus started the new world.

The biggest difference is our attention span. We just can't stand that it takes so long to go into space. Give it time, we'll get there. We need better reasons to go, we need more money (and a much better economy), and we need to keep advancing the technology.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[SethInMI 174]

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Kind of a nice explanation of the whole reasoning behind programs of this nature here at Big Dead Place

That was the funniest thing I have read in a while.

Reading that makes me question the necessity of a long term human occupied moon or mars base.

It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

[lawrocket 3]

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Do you think the NASA program should be "re-engineered" with some definitive goals and time-lines, scrapped in exchange for earth/ocean exploration, combination of both?

Well, the Obama proposal increased funding for NASA's Climate Science (namely, GISS) by $2.4 billion - a 62% increase over the next five years. As I have stated, there are ways to get funding and ways not to get funding. Commies are gonna get to the moon first and that'll cause havoc! Here, there is a climate "crisis" that we must know about.

They are doing exactly what you said. And the funding goes the way the disaster marketing goes.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[billvon 3,120]

> Here, there is a climate "crisis" that we must know about.

What happened to "the science is not settled and we have to do more research before we come to any conclusions?"

[lawrocket 3]

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> Here, there is a climate "crisis" that we must know about.

What happened to "the science is not settled and we have to do more research before we come to any conclusions?"

The science is settled unless there is a need for funding. Ironically, it's the question that I ask quite frequently. However, the funding is designed to give a few more satellites - either new ones or to replace older ones.

I also believe that James Hansen is an excellent marketer, as is Gavin Schmidt. Is AGW an established scientific fact? Possibly, but it simply does not matter, for political fact is what controls.

It is what it is.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[champu 1]

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However, the funding is designed to give a few more satellites - either new ones or to replace older ones.

Particularly the one that went swimming last year.

Monitoring carbon dioxide levels along with air, cloud, ocean, and land temperatures is a good idea regardless of which side of the AGW debate you're on. If national and/or international measures are implemented to reduce CO2 emissions, it's helpful to know if they're being followed and if they're working.

[billvon 3,120]

>The science is settled unless there is a need for funding.

Do you think the science is settled?

[lawrocket 3]

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>The science is settled unless there is a need for funding.

Do you think the science is settled?

The fundamentals? Yes. It's the millions of interactions that are not.

What I DO like is the ability to test the hypotheses (models). Of course, according to many, these satellites will be useless to confirm the models for another, oh, 75 years. But then there are those like me who think that monitoring and data are important.

There is room for robust data, robust debate. It's just interesting that in a world of budget cuts for the rest, a big budget boost comes this way.

My wife is hotter than your wife.