["We represent public interest in space exploration - and thus we represent even those who disagree with some of the details in the Roadmap."]

Who assigned the Planetary Society the role to "represent public interest"?

Insufferable arrogance coupled with unsurpassed ignorance. Quite the accomplishment.

The only thing that TPS represents is a small clique of space wannabies who insinuate themselves into real space programs with real space experts, while constantly demanding money from their members, who otherwise are left on the sidelines.

I am so glad to see that Harrison Schmitt, a real space hero and scientist, stood up to them.

I hope other TPS members will also speak - with their wallets, because they don't give a flying fig about your opinions. Only money talks for them, and denying it to them will be the only way to make TPS do what its members want, not the other way around.

And for those who were thinking about joining TPS - don't.

Join a real space society that really does allow its members to participate in the space process. And join an astronomy club while you are at it, so you can do real space activities and get the general public involved, too.

Thank you, Keith, for bringing all this to our attention. TPS failed to say anything on this major event in their little club until you goaded them into the light. That is the American way.

"We share with you support for a lunar step to Mars - if NASA says they must build up their capability for sending humans to Mars by practice steps on the Moon, we certainly can't disagree."

This is at odds with what they wrote in the roadmap:

"With relatively modest changes, the current
Ares and Orion designs could be used to
enable 15- to 30-day deep-space missions
rather than lunar missions. As the first-ever
human missions to the edge of or beyond the
gravitational influence of Earth, these would
be significant cultural milestones as well as
major technical steps toward our long-term
presence in the solar system. ***Because it would
not require the simultaneous development of
expensive lunar surface infrastructure, this
plan would relieve pressure on NASA’s budget.***"

This appeal from Lou is a disingenous one, and is more likely aimed at the public to show how 'reasonable' they are compared to Dr. Schmitt. TPS is such a political animal.

It is TPS that should reconsider.
I would suggest TPS reconsider it's roadmap.
At least put in support for a lunar option.

Let's face it, right now is GO time for space advocacy more then ever. A new admin is going to be sniffing the winds to see what promises it can put off to later or forget about.
So TPS is not helping this matter.

They are giving an "out" to the new admin and new congress to nix human return to moon!

Why???

This is angering many and rightly so!

We should be united right now, and on the message it has been for a long time now, not a major group suddenly flipping the bird to everyone and making an unexpected left turn. We actaully got the two candidates to support the lunar goals! WOW.

Now this???? Or was it planned all along to give an "out" after the election? I hope not.

I have said it before, one of the biggest enemies of space exploration is space advocates at times.

Insufferable arrogance coupled with unsurpassed ignorance. Quite the accomplishment.

Actually, you give him to much credit, Paul. I'd say it's just a day's walk in the park for Lou.

Senator Schmitt:

If you were to start an space advocacy group based on your vision I for one would participate.

Best Regards

Brian Bernhard

From my early days as a member of the L5 Society, through more than 30 years of space activism, my idealistic goal remains the same: the creation of a spacefaring civilization. In all those years, I do not think that I have ever seen a more ill-informed, misguided, and self-serving position paper than the Planetary Society Roadmap. I agree with Jack completely- the Roadmap is more political than rational. The only thing the Roadmap does is to provide a rationale for continuing and increasing funding of space science, while rendering human exploration such a distant, expensive, and technically difficult proposition that its funding and vision can never survive.

We don't need another flag and footsteps mission to Mars. We don't need another ISS that gets redesigned - what? 16 times?, takes decades to complete, and costs who knows how many times the original budget. I find it ironic that the U.S. requires an ITAR license for a bolt because it attaches to a spacecraft, while the ISS ITAR waiver permits a massive technology transfer to other nations, no State Dept. paperwork required. Its time to stop giving away the farm. We don't need another international agreement that limits progress to the slowest common denominator.

We need international collaboration, but we don't need an international agreement to accomplish that. We need space science AND human exploration. We need a realistic program that proceeds step-by-step to accomplish well-articulated goals that offer the United States and the world concrete benefits and enduring inspiration. We need NewSpace AND government space. We need to escape the limits to growth by exploiting the resources of space. And finally we need to ensure humanity's survival through the creation of a spacefaring civilization.

I'm sorry Planetary Society, but your Roadmap just doesn't get the job done.

IT is sad that all we as a nation can come up is a Jule's Verneistic approach to the moon. Wonder what it cost to launch an Apollo mission in 2008 dollars. Now, I don't know all the answers, but why not build a spaceship in orbit (at the space station) that can ferry cargo and humans to the moon and back. It would of course have to have a lander, and could once constructed, continuously provide access to the moon and properly modified to Mars. Yes, it will be expensive, but, we already have a consortium of inrternational partners (sort Of) that given some guarantee, might help us fund such an idea

Real exploration is going someplace new and seeing new things. It is not building a moonbase or flying manned missions to lagrange points.

I won't add to the multiple comments about Schmitt's rather weird statements on climate change. I can only hope that his words were written too quickly.

I do agree that no EO space mission these days is proposed without the apparent case that it will provide crucial information about climate change, and that there is a bit of politicking in that. On the other hand though, Earth System Science is an incredibly complicated and intricated discipline, where indeed everything is mostly related to evevrything else so it's quite hard to rule out parameters as irrelevant to this effect. Even gravity or magnetic field measurements influence the atmosphere and thus the climate.

However, I will comment in more detail on his apparent xenophobic and rather chauvinistic view of international collaboration in space. I take issue with this on two points: the first one being that international collaboration saved rather than hindered the US manned space program since the 70s, and the second is that today and tomorrow's environment is much better for global teamwork.

On the first point, what many people here seem to forget is that when Apollo was cancelled, most missions became bi or multi-national, during which Americans learnt as much as they gave away: Apollo-Soyuz, SkyLab, Mir. As for the ISS, surely it is agreed here that, was it not for pressure from international agencies, the US may have terminated the program in one or more occasions. Also, it is clearly worth recalling two facts about the ISS: Most -if not all- of the science capacity on it comes in fact from outside NASA (ESA and NASDA), and if it wasn't for the Soyuz, Progress, and ATV/HTV this beautiful toy would be mostly empty of people most of the time.

On the second point, maybe Schmitt could note that the world has changed. The Russians now have, in some respect, more experience than the US on LEO and other manned spaceflight. ESA (and to a degree NASDA) is now able to play on a level field with NASA, and China and India have nothing to be ashamed of in terms of space technology. Space powers are popping up all over the place. So I contend that it is far from obvious that the US would lose a mythical unique technological edge in sharing space programs.

I can somewhat understand Schmitt's point of view as being tainted by the cold war and Apollo view. But this man was born before WWII, is now 73, so I would say not necessarily the best placed to make throw-away judgements on current global matters.

That said, from an engineering and programmatics point of view he is of course right that a solid LEO infrastructure and a Moon base are likely pre-requesites to a spacefaring humanity. That's kind of been known since the 50s or 60s, at least though.

"I won't add to the multiple comments about Schmitt's rather weird statements on climate change. I can only hope that his words were written too quickly."

Weird in what way?

I only press the point because Dr. Schmitt is dead on to tell TPS they are wrong to glom onto a scientific theory that is seriously flawed, and perhaps fatally so.

"Senator Schmitt:

If you were to start an space advocacy group based on your vision I for one would participate.

Best Regards

Brian Bernhard"

I second the motion. Dr. Schmitt, are you out there?

"Dr. Schmitt is dead on to tell TPS they are wrong to glom onto a scientific theory that is seriously flawed, and perhaps fatally so."

JCB: It's not glomming onto something flawed to study this further when qualified scientists support the idea (and I mean scientists whose interest is protecting the environment, not just NASA people who tend to be more into the joy of space exploration). The public cares more about the environment than space exploration, so they listen to the experts on the environment more than NASA scientists, and maybe some politicians join them to get votes. Ignore the politicians if you want, and maybe even the general public, but not the experts who are most qualified and genuinely concerned about the environment. And if they're not sure, sometimes it's a good idea to take action anyway. To refuse to even study it more is just ridiculous.

"To refuse to even study it more is just ridiculous."

Straw man ALERT!

Study is fine. Given that empirical information is stacking up COUNTER to AGW's validity, more study and renewed analysis is essential. I don't think Dr. Schmitt advocates not studying the issue, but he does make the reasonable case that crafting public or private policy on the basis of a seriously deficient theory is the wrong thing to do.

He wrote:

"As a geologist, I love Earth observations. But, it is ridiculous to tie this objective to a "consensus" that humans are causing global warming in when human experience, geologic data and history, and current cooling can argue otherwise."

He did NOT say Earth obsevations should be neglected, but rather that science goals should remain unbiased in this matter. The 'A' in AGW needs to be seriously examined before imposing draconian limits on Humanity, and it should have no direct bearing on official policy of TPS or NASA. The 'W' is also in doubt as a general trend, given the cooling period of the last decade.

Fascinating to lurk here and see how out of touch some of today's "space advocates" are with both the scientific and political mainstream.
I, too was a member of L5 Society back in the 70s when our motto was "L5 in 95". I still share the dream but we will not win friends and influence people with paranoid ravings about a global warming conspiracy. Have you taken a look at such fringe, socialist rags as "Science" or "Nature" in the last 5 years? Perhaps you should check out some of the review articles about climate issues, for starters.
The Planetary Society roadmap is an admirable attempt to capture the zeitgeist in a relevant way for future support for space activities.
For much of the public, aspects of the Vision seem like Apollo redux. If we want broad support then we have to make the case for how these expensive plans fit not just our desires, but societal needs. It certainly doesn't help to blatantly marginalize ourselves!
Schmitt could be the Sarah Palin of the space movement - energizing the base while alienating everyone else!

Yet another anti-global warming rant. They must be deniers.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov08/SoilBlackCarbon.kr.html

I am also very puzzled by Jack Schmitt's comments on global warming. But he's a scientist, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that his concerns about global warming are based on sincere doubts about the science. I'll assume he's not just another right-wing politician and pundit who denies the concept of global warming on purely ideological and political grounds.

Pure science never ends. Every theory, no matter how widely accepted, remains tentative. It may be highly unlikely, but it is always potentially falsifiable with new empirical evidence. So I can see how some scientists might be uncomfortable with the government basing a major public policy decision on the current state of a particular scientific field.

All three branches of government regularly use (or should use) science to inform their decisions. But what if the science later turns out to be wrong? In a courtroom, a person might be convicted of a murder on the basis of scientific analysis of some DNA samples. What if the science turns out to have been wrong after the defendant has been executed?

The public policies necessary to deal with global warming might not be as irreversible as an execution but they will be far reaching and expensive. We certainly don't want to make them on the basis of scientific opinions that turn out to be wrong.

But this is real life, and we can't wait forever. There's no "back of the book" that gives "the" answer on global warming. We have to decide on the basis of the best information currently available, i.e, the majority consensus of the scientists actively working on the problem.

Could they be wrong? In principle, yes. Science is always tentative. But it certainly seems to me, a scientifically aware layman, that there's very little uncertainty left in mainstream climate research. Global warming is real, we're causing it with CO2 emissions, recent changes have been closer to the worst-case rather than the best-case scenarios projected by earlier models, and current models are putting us close to a "tipping point". Major reductions in CO2 emissions are needed soon to avoid the worst consequences.

In the end, it boils down to a value judgment: how do you react in the face of uncertainty when the consequences of a wrong decision -- either way -- are very great?

The irony is that the engineering definition of the word "conservative" means playing it safe -- assume the worst case scenarios are true and quickly begin drastic reductions in CO2 emissions. Yet those who deny global warming are self-described "conservatives". One could ask just what it is that they are conserving.