NASA's Moon-Mars Initiative Harms Science: American Physical Society Repor

[papau]

So who really cares about killing off the Einstein Probes on dark energy, black holes, and cosmic inflation, or the NASA Explorer program, for a not well defined, no long term cost study, not really budgeted Mars/Moon vision thing from Bush? Former Congressman Robert Walker, a member of the Presidential Commission on the Implementation of the United States Space Exploration Policy in 2004 - also known as the Aldridge Commission given its chairman, Pete Aldridge - sees the complaint as a defense of the NASA that "has been" rather than an effort to create the NASA that "can be"! GREAT BUZZ WORDS! Besides we want to look for the origin of life, and robots can't look for/check out fossils that may exist in deep underground water pools that might exist and need drilling to get to!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=96&ncid=753&e=10&u=/space/20041124/sc_space/nasasmoonmarsinitiativeharmsscienceamericanphysicalsocietyreport

NASA's Moon-Mars Initiative Harms Science: American Physical Society Report

Wed Nov 24,11:28 AM ET Leonard David Senior Space Writer SPACE.com

A new report released by an American Physical Society (APS) Special Committee on NASA Funding for Astrophysics (chaired by Joel Primack) has questioned the space agency's Moon, Mars and Beyond initiative. The APS assessment warns that the cost of overcoming technological challenges to make real the plan could far exceed budgetary projections and that numerous approved science programs could be jeopardized.

Returning Americans to the Moon and landing on Mars would have a powerful symbolic significance, the APS report observes, but it would constitute only a small step in the advancement of knowledge, since much will already be known from exploration with the robotic precursor probes that are necessary to guarantee the safety of any human mission.<snip>

To underscore their concerns, the APS reports that in the wake of the Moon-Mars initiative, NASA's readjusted priorities have already created a negative ripple effect for space science: For instance, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) has been delayed a year while Constellation X (Con-X) has been delayed until at least 2016.

LISA will use an array of free flying satellites to carefully measure the baseline expansion or contraction due to the passage of gravitational waves while Con-X will perform X-ray spectroscopic studies of some of the most extreme objects in the Universe.<snip>

[tk2kewl]

1. Getting to Mars may really be more important than real science

At the rate we're going, DUers won't just be talking about leaving the U.S., they'll need to be looking for a new planet.

[papau]

2. I suspect we'll have a very violent era before that happens-.leaving the U

S -

much less looking for a new planet

I am sure we will find a gene that turns folks into GOP Whores that pretend to be Christian as they reject the God of love and peace - the one we were shown in the first coming - and wait for the "second coming" of a the meaner God as described in the right wing fundies "Left Behind" series of books.

We will then offer to fix the gene - and the pretend Christians will all say go and fix as they must if they are to continue to pretend to believe in helping the poor - and suddenly we will have a GOP free world.

Or that is at least the plot outline for a possible book!

:-)

[Ready4Change]

3. MIxed bag. Look at the Apollo experience.

While Apollo is often praised for the advances it brought about, there are many who decrie the damages it created in existing programs. A cheif example is how it pretty much cancelled the X-Planes program, which was about to do the next step of the X-15, which would have been a manned version of the just flown X-43, only 30 years earlier.

Rather than Reagan making a speach about developing his Space Plane, we could have been flying it, and enjoying the easier access to space that it could provide.

But that's not only hindsight, it's hindsight plus a dose of "what if". Can just as easily complain that if the Allies hadn't interfered with Nazi aeronautic research we'd be on Mars by now.

:silly:

However, I do think that how NASA is being required to scrap all their existing programs in order to support a Mars mission that's hardly even being funded yet is nearly an act of execution for our Space Agency.

[Buzz Clik]

4. About NASA funding...

If you look at the current budget estimates coming out of Congress, NASA funding is flat. Typical of the Bush administration, they have provided nothing to support their pet projects; instead, they are expecting NASA to do exactly what you're saying: they are forced to scrap a lot of other programs to support these unbelievably expensive manned flights.

Even worse, there simply is not enough money currently in NASA to perform these manned flights. It's all political on Bush's part -- he pacifies some critics by announcing this edgy program, but doesn't support it. The only benefactors will be the subcontractors who will get some juicy deals.

[Buzz Clik]

5. This is not isolated within NASA

The Bush administration is making clear and decided moves to squeeze science out of NASA. (Separation of Science and NASA?)

These decisions are not limited to NASA and is, quite frankly, disturbing.

[YankeyMCC]

6. I can understand their concern

If there were real political will and a real objective of getting back to the Moon and to Mars then I'd say it's worth it.

But what these concerns really point out is that it's all a bunch of crap. Shurb and company don't want the government to succeed and certainly not in space exploration which is an industry they hope to make a lot of money on in the "free market".

This mission from shrub was nothing more than a lame attempt of acting like a leader and another way to set up another government program to fail.

[Emmanuel Goldstein]

7. Are you guys really *that* naive?

Bush's Moon/Mars initiative has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with space exploration. He needs a heavy-lift booster of Saturn class or better to get SDI (missile shield) components into orbit, and by hijacking the civilian space program's funding for military purposes he can get such a launcher built without it appearing as a line-item in the already obscenely bloated Pentagon budget.

Wishful thinking is one thing, ladles and gentlemints, but if you take this one at face value you're fucking delusional.

[YankeyMCC]

8. You might

want to read all the posts before you accuse us all of being "fucking delusional"