http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30896443

General Bolden is an inspired choice for this position--a scholar, a scientist, a proven leader. He will bring a fresh new attitude to an agency which has lately become stagnant and uninspired. Bolden's testimony before Congress two years ago is credited with convincing many to vote for continued funding of manned space programs. There are, he said, missions which REQUIRE human management and control, and there other missions best suited for robotic explanation. But if the ultimate goal is have men working in space and on other planets, it is necessary to continue to develop the systems which will sustain them there.

Looks to be a fine choice.

Matt

An administrator is nice. But their wasting 6 months on a "review" of Constellation to neuter the lunar program.

__________________
January 21, 2013: The End of an ERROR.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."
"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."
---Benjamin Franklin

If they can send a man to the moon, why can't they send them all?

__________________

I think it is an excellent choice and most of the space forums which I frequent agree. NASAwatch is the place to go to get news about NASA programs.

D11011101

__________________

Constellation needs some review. It really does. President Bush's vision was just that a vision without any actual planning involved. We want to go to Mars and were gonna go. Sorry, we can't give you anymore money and we can't let you work on anything but ARES. BTW. You had better get us to Mars or its your heads on a platter. It was widely understood in the space advocacy community that it was just grandstanding because it didn't have any actual relevance to the reality. ARES is another big dumb booster and it will do what it was supposed to do which is get things into orbit but that is all it does. Any replacement for the Shuttle (which is desperately needed) was abandoned. I am not, in any way, advocating discarding the ARES aspects but we need a more multiphased operation than what we have. NASA also needs a significant boost in funding because what we give them to get the work done is laughable. It has steadily decreased since around 1998 and was in general decline before that. The current budget allocation is .55% of the national budget and the future allocation (2010) is .52%. You can't get to Mars or even the moon on that kind of budget.

D11011101

__________________

Given time and a lack of interference they could have done it, though theres no disputing the funding issue, and that the rate of progress do to the poor funding makes it vulnerable to meddling Congresscritters, which is precisely what this "blue ribbon panel" is.

The technical problems with Constellation were largely also caused by the extended time line. Spitting the current manned budget between Orion and the Shuttle means development of Orion takes ten years. Lunar installations development can't start until Ares I/Orion is done. Ares V and the LSAM can't start in until the Shuttles are in the Smithsonian.

We can go the Jupiter route, and still have the option for the Ares V, and that would shave a few years. We can even use the SpaceX Dragon capsule to put people into orbit.

The trouble is whatever hardware we take, we can't throw out the mission. Mars is at least 20 years off even if we started today. In the mean time what are we going to do? The ISS is going nowhere. We might be able to do NEO missions, but without a lunar sortie campaign and a permanent lunar base, we will get no closer to Mars. Their trying to cut the lunar base out.

Our biggest bottleneck is the amount of volume we can deliever to any one desitination at once. We can solve that by using the main core tank as pressurized space, just as the Saturn upperstage was used in Skylab. The trouble is they simplely are not at the point to plan for that yet, so theres big gaping holes in the overall plan.

__________________
January 21, 2013: The End of an ERROR.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."
"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."
---Benjamin Franklin

I definitely agree. I think that is why the plan needs some reanalysis to fill those holes. There definitely isn't enough money being provided for space exploration which I feel is crucial to human existence.

The worry I feel with regards to the shuttle is that if they are gone before we have another replacement there will never be a replacement built. The problem with developing ARES and maintaining the shuttle is that there simply isn't enough money provided to do what is necessary. For an organization that is so crucial congress sure doesn't like to give them money to do what is necessary.

On cutting out the Moon base. I would say that has a lot to do with Robert Zubrin pushing his Mars Direct program as the only way to get into space. I do support manned missions to Mars but I think that simply jumping to Mars as, what I consider basically a publicity stunt, will do far more damage than the other process. The problem I see is that once we set foot on Mars the world will take the approach of "been there, done that, got the T-shirt" and stop trying to develop any further. Especially, if no evidence of life is found because that is what the majority of people want to find out.

D11011101

__________________

If there is to be sustained exploration of the Solar System and its planets, the Moon Base is the essential foundation on which that effort will be constructed. Missions to other planets, conducted without a Moon Base, will be prohibitively expensive and unnecessarily dangerous. Further, it is only from such a lunar facility that rescue missions could be effectively mounted in the face of impending disaster to a mission. It is a step we cannot afford to skip.

I don't think disaster to missions which are not orbital could be helped regardless. Having an orbital station and a lunar base, however, would greatly reduce the risk of deaths due to such disasters though as one station could lend aid to the other with minimal effort (when compared to launching another shuttle).

__________________
During the journey we commonly forget its goal. Almost every profession is chosen as a means to an end but continued as an end in itself. Forgetting our objectives is the most frequent act of stupidity.
-Friedrich Nietzsche, The Wanderer and his Shadow

All good socialists have villas in Southern France. That's not the point.
-Eurosocialist

I disagree. I think that one of the first things we should do, when building a Moon Base, is to construct a versatile "lifeboat" to be keep in a state of "near-readiness" at all times, and which should be upgraded to a "stand-by" condition whenever particularly hazardous missions are attempted. From a scientific standpoint, the "lifeboat" would be an ongoing project, to be upgraded whenever we identify new hazards, and the integration of new features into existing technology will be a VERY productive project.

In terms of emergency the distance to the moon from LEO makes it just as undependable for rescue operations as having a base on the earth. The perfect solution, and I think the one that Porras is advocating, is a combination of emergency preparations in redundant space stations and a moon base.

The fastest craft we have which is the New Horizons took over 8 hours to get past the moon but that is impractical for humans because of acceleration. The average time from the Earth Orbit to Lunar Orbit is about three days based upon the Apollo missions. It would be faster to send a rescue ship from the Earth than from the moon and even faster to send a rescue ship from another space station in orbit.

D11011101

__________________

Well, as I say, they are already split too many ways as is, and drawing too many pretty pictures cost money. They've plotted out a decade in the future, and are already risking a lost of credibility if those don't pan out.

I think our human access to orbit is safe. It's actually considered a matter of national security, and we have two known ways to get there. Orion/Ares I is very capable, but will need a second launch to go anywhere. The COTS SpaceX Dragon is less capable, but since we are going to have to dock with something else anyway thats not an impediment as long as it stays in LEO.

Yeah, there's a serious Mars lust out there, under the theory that if they find life funding will skyrocket. I don't think they will find it, at least not definitively distinct from life on Earth. It has to be a pioneering frontier to be explored and developed by as many normal people as possible, both for the health of humanity and its survival in a crisis.

__________________
January 21, 2013: The End of an ERROR.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."
"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."
---Benjamin Franklin

Any life found at all would be a monumental finding. There is a theory out there that microbial life may have come from a nearby body via meteor strike. If microbial life was found and was similar to Earth, that would be very interesting.

Of course, I'm still wondering if we are seeding Mars by bringing microbial life there...

__________________
He who learns but does not think is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger. --Confucius

Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.
--African proverb

Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.
--Albert Einstein

Apollo astronauts found dorment but living microbes on the camera lens of a Ranger probe that they reclaimed.

I would be shocked if there wasn't Earth lafe blasted all the way to Mars, but that isn't the second genesis we are looking for.

I think we will have to take a close look at Europa, and Enceladus to find that, its it occured in our solar system at all.

__________________
January 21, 2013: The End of an ERROR.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."
"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."
---Benjamin Franklin