How Do We Do Grand Things In Space Again?

Excellent testimony by Miles O'Brien. Finally someone who has a voice and can be heard has told the story accurately and pointedly.

These Constellation supporters are trying to keep NASA's focus on operating the spaceships for the sake a near term jobs for another year or two.

If Constellation survives, it will most certainly do the damage which ends human space flight in the US.

Buzz, Miles;
Bolden just said that after ISS, THE MOON is the next destination on our way to Mars. It's clear we're all not on the same page.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrY44-DVv2U
(Yes, Grayson was being deliberately dense, too prove his point that Bolden had no solid plan to back up the budget request.)

This new "Plan" is just too vague and open to all sorts of interpretation. If the pro-space community cant even agree what it means today, how can we successfully implement it. How can we defend it against future budget cuts when the effect of those cuts cant be concretely identified.

Thank Buzz

We have a proposal for a planetary mission from ISS.

Maybe the folks looking for work can attend NASA's 22nd Annual Planetary Science Summer School.

Yep good days ahead!

I'll take Hoot Gibson's & A. Thomas Young's opinions over Miles O'Brien's any day.

When can we do grand things in space again? Building the ISS was a grand thing in space. And so was the Shuttle. I am not sure what the next 'grand thing' is space will be but I suspect it will have a lot to do with the Moon.

If Hoot Gibson and Tom Young can contribute an additional 30 or 40 billion over the next decade, then perhaps we can pursue re-establishing Apollo. Once we have finished reassembling the first pieces, we'll need them to contribute a lot more money in order to keep the Orion's and Ares flying for a decade before we can get the remainder of the pieces ready to fly.

What Miles of course is pointing out is not only that no one has established or implemented a communications plan for the last five years, they've not even worked out the strategy for what they needed to be doing.

The near term strategy was really pretty clear five years ago. The Shuttle was ending. We needed a replacement. The replacement was needed now. Constellation went off to produce a lunar cruiser. We lost five years. Today, we will not have a replacement vehicle for yet another eight years.

Time ran out while NASA was dreaming about the moon.

Less than six months ago, LCROSS confirmed that there is water at the Moon's south pole. That's why I fervently believe we should dump plans to go back to the Moon and work on TBD technologies to go to Mars... at some TBD point in the future. We should do this because Mars is a lot cooler than the Moon. Yeah, I know that the Chinese give every indication of wanting to visit the Moon themselves and of wanting to establish a base there... but we'll be to busy working on the technology to get to Mars to worry about that. Anyway let those losers have the Moon. It's so drab and gray and boring and... uncool. Besides, there was never enough money budgeted to return to the Moon. Going to Mars will be a lot cheaper and easier, because... Did I mention the Mars is cooler than the Moon?

Last year there was a lot of anguish about Ares-1. Now, there are a lot of people slamming the new plan. I just have to shake my head at all of this.

I do wish that a more concrete direction was part of this new vision. Vision and resources are both needed. The visions of most or all of the policy documents of the past 25 years have consistently supported the development of the technologies mentioned in the proposed FY2011 budget. That's good, but my feeling is that unless a more specific path forward is plainly stated and understood by all (that means: a *destination* stated and supported by the President, as well, with a timetable), the technology development may not be done most efficiently.

NASA Administrator Bolden did state plainly that the "ultimate goal" is to go to Mars. That worries me, because "ultimate" suggests to me that once that ultimate goal is reached, we'll have done what we set out to do and then what? We'll have added to the (as John Marburger put it): "litter of ritual monuments scattered across the planets ..." We don't need another stunt. We need a deliberate and sustainable move outward, doing R&D that can be leveraged by private enterprise to provide services to a market provided by NASA, and NASA moving outward from LEO, to the Moon, then to Mars, and *then* *beyond* *Mars*. Mars is not the final destination - it's the next destination. There's always going to be a "next" destination. It's the one that's always just beyond our reach.

I'd very much like to see us go to Mars, but we're not ready, and in my opinion, that would be skipping some steps.

> I'll take Hoot Gibson's & A. Thomas Young's opinions over Miles O'Brien's any day.

You can bet on the government making your dreams come true. I'll bet on people who are making their own dreams come true.

I'll take Bigelow and Musk. You'll bet against American industry and lose.

The way you lefties (Kieth, Miles and yes, even Buzz) try to spin things amazes me. Last time I made a comment here one the elitist attacks on me was "That this forum BELONGS to those who work in the business". Well... I could debate that point but just a quick FYI, I was an aerospace engineer for over ten years at what was then Rockwell International for many years working on the Space Shuttle, B-1 bomber, GPS, then on to McDonnell Douglas Astronautics on the Delta II, then Space Station and C-17 programs. I was actually in structures design department at MD and was there for Jim Maser's (now President of Rocketdyne) first day of work at MD fresh out of collage, but I degress...

C'mon guys, why can't you admit that Obama formed his panel to justify killing Constellation because it was a "Bush" program. It is still a valid program. Everybody hates government waste, and we have already spent $8B on it, everybody knows it was behind because it was not fully funded to meet it's guidlines, no fault of NASA. Constellation had rare congressional support from both parties, and pretty much everybody is left scratching their heads at the big O's budget to nowhere. I'm all for commercialization for LEO, (I myself am not totally sold on Ares I if a Delta or Atlas can do the job with an Orion capsule, but why is it politically incorrect for us to desire U.S. leadership in developing the Lunar Infrastructure? I used to own a small firm called "Hawker Aerospace", and still have some connections in congress and let me tell you that even the Dems are at a loss as to why the big O will not acknowledge the most obvious goal for NASA is our nearest neighbor. Remember though, Constellation was more then the moon, it was a long-term, pay as you go, step by step road to the Moon, Mars and beyound. At least that what the logo depicts...

Other countries get it, are going there, and are not "Middle aged men wanting to relive their glory days"

Constellation makes sense, we can all agree we are Space Cadets here and love what this frontier is all about. Let's get over who's administration came up with it, let's not piss away what has already spent on it and let's just do it!

O'Brians own poll had 69% against cancelling Constellation. LOL

The Garver/Obama plan is a loser.

"I'll bet on people who are making their own dreams come true."

Yeah?

Space Pioneer Burt Rutan Blasts NASA Plan
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704240004575085810715611660.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

First off thanks to Miles O'brien for having the courage of his convictions to step into this political quagmire and for having the professionalism to try to show balanced journalistic coverage of this powerful emotional issue. I personally feel we should continue the program of record if for nothing else as a jobs program just like when President Clinton put us in bed with the Russians to save the Russian space program. From a logical standpoint this is an election year all of the house seats are up for grabs and one third of the senate seats as well at least we have a program with bi-partisan support and political inertia on it's side. Regardless of whether it gets to the moon in 2020 is beside the point. So far no one has mentioned space nuclear power in any of the proclaimations submitted to congress or the public so I don't feel the policy makers are serious about deep space missions of any sort. As far as commercial space goes it is strange no one has mentioned Art Dula and his company Excaliber Almaz. He certainly has the track record Mr. Musk is sorely lacking.

John I'm glad someone else agrees. The LCROSS results indicate that the Moon is cool... but not cool enough for significant water reserves. Clearly Mars and orbits beyond will be much cooler and therefore water rich. Personally I think the real destination will be the Oort Cometary Halo and you can't get much cooler than that; except on the French Swiss Border!
Engineer in Houston with respect Bolden's "Mars as a 'final' destination" is a gentle sophistry. After all these people are your elected representatives and not technically qualified individuals. One would love to be able to explain what a Lagrange point is and what the Interplanetary Super-Highway means for space travel. But they are too busy with the next election cycle to worry about minor issues of science and technology.
Pity!
Even worse, Engineer in Houston, it is clear from what I have heard that the people that *do* know what the Affordable Path can enable in the medium and long term will have a real up Hill struggle over the chronic short-termism plaguing your political system.

let's not piss away what has already spent on it and let's just do it!
(BrentAndrewHawker February 26, 2010 12:06 AM)
Yes the hated Russians and even more hated Chinese would just love to watch America Piss yet more money on an unaffordable Hallucination.
"Cheap and Cheerful" is the new meme if not "Make do and Mend"

Actually BrentAndrewHawker the writing on the wall was here: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/100xx/doc10051/04-15-NASA.pdf

"The Budgetary Implications of NASA’s Current Plans for Space Exploration" (April 2009)
Check out Figure: 9!
HSF Committee was just a polite political figleaf to protect the guilty... IMHO

Cessna Driver:
The Garver/Obama plan is looser. So hang tight! And I refer you to http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/hyperbola/2010/02/burt-rutan-sets-the-record-str.html
Cherry Picking time!

You know what's even cooler than Mars? Sex, drugs and rock and roll. Howabout all the engineers blow this joint and go get some babes!

Dude, you know what else is totally cool? Neon lights and bouncey hydraulics! Why doesn't the shuttle have that?

Probably for the same reason those lamerz think so called "water" on the so called "Moon" is important.