Predictably the Trump regime is slashing NASA funding related in any way to protecting the environment. I would favor a one way mission to Mars w/ Trump & his minions aboard.
14
The head of NASA is absolutely unqualified. Climate change denier and a ex Navy pilot. As a line mechanic for a major airline for 30 years, some of the stupidest people I have ever met where sitting in the left seat of a large airplane. The idea that you must be intelligent to be a pilot is simply false. There are electronic boxes that do the job much better.
5
Who cares, Elon Musk is sending us all to Mars anyways.
2
Someone should dispatch Hope Hicks to the Air & Space Museum store to buy some toy rockets for Donald’s desk. Then, just maybe, he will shut up about all this.
5
Unfortunately most people don’t understand that the real value of the space program is not going to the moon or mars. It’s the development of technology when trying to accomplish those incredibly difficult tasks that leads to discoveries that benefit the public. Those include sunglass lens technology, running blankets, the foam in Nike shoes and artificial limbs, firefighting life packs, airplane runway safety, to satellite television and many improvements in medical technology.
These were not intentional discoveries, but were born from pushing the limits of traveling in space. They only became possible by our government investing in very long range projects with great risk, much longer and bigger than private enterprise would take, as profit was not a motive.
What we lose by not funding space exploration are future technologies that no one has even dreamed of yet.
8
Some handy numbers: NASA's 2019 proposed budget is $19.9 B; the proposed department of defense budget is $686 B. Some of the comments bemoaning the cost of future space ventures should bear in mind that NASA has to plan on an historically austere budget and is (trying) to do a lot more with a lot less. The days of Apollo budgets are long gone.
7
Not mentioned here is that the station is a joint project by the space agencies of several different countries and space agencies, including the Russians, Japanese, and the Europeans. How much longer to operate the ISS is therefore much more than just a problem for American budget-makers. The Russians, in particular, have also agree to operate the ISS only until 2024, and have plans of their own for another station. It's possible that having proved humankind can function for long periods of time in a semi-permanent lab in earth orbit, that it will be time soon to move on from the ISS, and demonstrate the same thing on the Moon, or Mars, which would be the logical next step.
4
Asteroids are so rich in rare earth metals and other valuable resources that when we are finally able to mine them at cost it will revolutionize our economies and our societies. This should be our only goal in space for now. The pay off will be enormous.
Maybe I'm missing something about the ISS, but that structure seems extremely valuable. We should at the very least preserve it. Its not cheap putting something that large into orbit. Would it be worth it to turn it into a storage facility? Could we keep it around to serves as the start of a space station in the future when we are ready for another one? To me, preserving the ISS should be its own project. Lets fly a rocket up there and make sure its orbit is maintained. :)
We have plenty of problems here on Earth, but we should definitely keep exploring space. It probably won't save us, but it definitely inspires quite a few of us in the mean time.
7
My nephew is doing an intern ship at NASA right now. His major is mining engineering. I know the plan is to mine meteors, but at what cost? Trump is taking about infrastructure. He doesn’t seem to think it’s among the important issues he wants to fund. What will he think when industry bogs down because the highways and bridges can’t handle heavy traffic?
He has no idea what he's talking about. He only takes the advice of greedy businessmen.
3
"For astronauts, the goal is still to reach “the vicinity of the moon” in 2023. That is the current schedule for the first crewed launch of the Space Launch System, which would fly around the moon but not land. Under the proposed timeline, work on a lander would not start until that year."
Been there, done that. In the 1960s we would "boldly go where no man has gone before". Now the best we can do is what we have done before? We are a more imaginative species than this, or at least we used to be.
4
"Been there, done that. "
But we no longer have the technology to do it. You maybe had training wheels on your bicycle, and you learned to ride. Then Dad took them off and you had to learn all over again. Bikes work better without training wheels, so it was worth your effort. We need to start with a clean slate and redevelop the technology to get to orbit and beyond.
We need to get back to the moon, and stay, not just come-and-go. The moon is our gateway to the rest of the solar system, with its mineral-rich asteroids and maybe other forms of life that can teach us how to survive.
Do you know what else is on the moon? Helium-3, the fusion-favorable isotope that might make safe, cheap, carbon-free energy a world-wide commodity.
Mars can come later. I want us to get back to the moon in earnest, and soon.
1
Traveling to the moon or Mars is a fools errand. Human space travel is an utter waste of time and money when there are so many pressing and unsolved issues here on Earth. If we can't solve fundamental human problems here on Earth there is no reason to expect different results in space. We have the potential to create a better world if we'd only re-focus our efforts, best scientific minds, and money to solve some of this world's most urgent issues.
3
If we can't solve fundamental problems her on Earth, then getting out into the solar system may be the only way to ensure the long-term survival of the human race.
And for us cynical species-centric types, that is worth any price.
3
Tell that to Columbus.
3
A few facts about NASA's moon ambitions after the 70's:
1) GWB was the first to promise a return to the moon. That was at the hight of his unpopularity and in the middle of two failing wars. Nobody took him seriously.
2) President Obama saw what the NASA had done with all the money and immediately canned most of the bloated, stupid sub-projects.
3) One of these sub-projects was a lunar rover with a cabin for extended trips. Basically a good idea, but developing this thing had cost six billion dollars (that's $ 6.000.000.000).
4) Of cause DJT would like to distract from his failures some more, so NASA and the moon are just what he thinks could do the trick.
5) But the SLS is way behind schedule, way over budget and hasn't flown yet. NASA/Boeing/UAL are so desperate that they wanted to put men on the first (!) launch of that rocket. That's suicide, and Elon Musk knew it and double-dared them with the equally stupid promise to send tourists around the moon on the first launch of the Falcon Heavy.
6) Speaking of Musk: his rockets are cheaper, stronger and nearly as reliable as anything the USA or the Russians have. And the Falcon Heavy could - in theory - send a crewed ship around the moon. And he is just getting started, check out the specs for the BFR!
In conclusion: national space programs have run their course and are obsolete. NASA is kept alive by Congress for appearances sake only. The future belongs to the private sector. Deal with it, bureaucrats!
6
I spent 10 years at a NASA center. The almost pitiful lack of any real mission, save for an occasional token piece of work for this space vehicle or that but which inevitably went nowhere, made what I saw during my tenure painful to behold, let alone be party to. JPL aside, NASA is a jobs program now, fiercely protected by the members of Congress in whose districts those centers provide so many decent household incomes. It's a rudderless agency and should be pared down for use in some sort of legitimate exploratory mission by leadership well credentialed in engineering and technology; the chances of such leadership materializing during Trump's tenure are nil.
1
"... the chances of such leadership materializing during Trump's tenure are nil." Look at the nation as a whole and that statement is from the potus throughout congress and all throughout the federal ?leadership? currently.
Myself, I believe NASA should focus on 'science, math, engineering and leave the maned exploration to xy&z capitalist.' I would like to see more scientific deep space as well 'mental' challenges to further brain trust then the political endeavor of maintaining itself against such odds as the current political structure.
Meanwhile Vladimir Putin charges America $71 million per American astronaut riding to and from the International Space Station.
NASA's manned space travel glory years were the result of a team of Nazi German rocket scientists led by Werner Von Braun during the Cold War. While America's future manned space glory seems to rely on the South African American Elon Musk the Englishmen Richard Branson and the American businessman Jeff Bezos.
Trump NASA Administrator nominee James Bridenstine is a Republican member of Congress from Oklahoma and a U.S. Navy pilot with no scientific nor engineering education nor training nor experience related to space. He is a climate change science denier.
15
Just call me a bubble-burster:
Spending billions on space exploration while people on Earth are dying for no reason other than personal and national (this nation included) greed is truly deplorable. What is the goal in this? We can’t agree to fund ecological change in order to reverse the damage human life has caused on this planet, but yet we're willing to spend billions to find a planet to colonize?
I’m not an astrophysicist, and perhaps I only know enough on this subject to be dangerous, but it’s not going to happen. None of us alive now is going to live to see that. We don’t have the money, knowledge, or the resources to send out a scouting party. How can we keep a group of people alive for travel that will take light-years and kazillions of dollars that could be better spent to make life livable here for everyone.
If we did manage to do, it would require that humans live in a hostile environment with help from the homeland. Could we survive and/or thrive in an environment that on its own cannot support human life? The homeland couldn’t possibly afford the upkeep for its explorers.
I like the Earth. I want my tax dollars spent on improving the environment on this planet that would include minimizing our impact it, cleaning up the environmental damage we've already caused, and helping the disadvantaged live pleasant and healthy lives. I don’t want to travel into space.
Space is an endeavor for a species that can live hundreds of years. Cut the spending on space.
2
The Race for Space united Americans at a time when we lagged behind a principal rival (the USSR) and faced the emergence of a major conflict in Southeast Asia. We exceeded expectations and delivered innovations we capitalized on for decades.
Ending support for the ISS and privatizing space exploration are signs that we're no longer interested in leading from the front. Not a welcome sign from the current administration.
4
We are no longer leading from the front. God only knows if that is going to ever be the case again.
1
They should do a one way trip to the moon now, with Trump being the only person on board the rocket. I believe they would get plenty of funding for that.
31
Evangelicals believe that since the Bible doesn't mention extraterrestrial life, it doesn't exist. So, Trump is wasting NASA's budget returning people to the one place that life is unlikely to be found. If they spent that money on a robotic mission to Mars or Europa, the result might be different.
6
Greg, I don't think you read the article. The administration is saying that tax dollars will be ended, as planned, in 2025.
Here we are, trashing the Earth with methane, ruining the oceans, over populating the planet.
And what are we going to do? Go to the moon. And go to Mars.
We think we're intelligent, but we're not. Otherwise we would trash our own environment. Either that or we simply have the wrong kind of intelligence. We have technological intelligence, but no thought about our natural surroundings. The native Americans knew about this. Their intelligence was superior to the white European invaders, but the invaders had technologically advanced weaponry, so they were able to take the land and kill the animals for food, shelter and trade. (Nowadays it seems to be done mostly for fun and for something to hang on the wall.)
If we are not going to take care of the place where we all live, space exploration is a complete waste of money, time and effort except for a few science geeks. Those science geeks ought to be figuring out how to fix the place we are stuck living in, instead of looking out into space and wondering what's out there.
7
Your passion is admirable, but NASA is not responsible for the environment. This is a common logical error that people make, including those in government.
The EPA is the department responsible for overseeing the environment. NASA does not have an obligation to do the job of the EPA. This has its own hornet's nest of issues as many people believe the EPA is corrupted under Scott Pruitt's leadership due to potential conflicts of interest in the energy sector. Your frustration seems directed at the wrong agency.
Also of note is the mention PACE mission, which is still underway at NASA and is designed to study ecosystems which serve as indicators for the status of the environment. Its mission statement goes something like this: "We can see that Earth's ecosystems are changing; yet, we are often blind to the reasons and consequences. The Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission will deliver the most comprehensive global combined ocean-atmosphere measurements in NASA's history."
No need to panic about our ignorance -- yet. The scientists are working on it even if the politicians wish their efforts buried and gone.
1
"Those science geeks ought to be figuring out how to fix the place we are stuck living in, instead of looking out into space and wondering what's out there."
But many answers have been found due to NASA and its missions. There are more to come. BTW, if anything is going to save us from the damage we have done to our environment it is going to be technology.
1
Mr Trump's budget plan is becoming clear.Give a lot of government money via tax cuts for the wealthy and then pull back governmental contributions to health care and NASA science .When it comes to important and expensive projects he turfs off the expenses to states and private enterprise.He wants to create the illusion the government is supporting NASA and space science by asserting that less is more-exactly like the sleight of hand that Mexico will pay for the Wall.
18
Why on Earth do we need to waste more money going to the moon? It's as if our government needs to fritter away as many dollars as it can to prevent any sort of domestic spending that would actually help the people. If we can't waste it on wars, lets fire it off into space. Another useless boondoggle.
6
To have any hope of getting to the moon or Mars, NASA must kill the jobs program called the Space Launch System, which has already cost taxpayers $19B to develop. Once ready, launches will cost $1B each.
SpaceX is going to have to save NASA from itself. Its developing its own rocket called BFR using mostly private funds, and it will be fully reusable and thus cheaper.
5
I'd be OK with if it were true. Who is this group going to look to when they have a malfunction? We'll send people into space and, ultimately, abandon them. Eventually we're going to have to accept the fact that space travel is non sustainable.
Folly. Americans being shafted, again. No money, no moon. Those engineers can find work on this planet.
2