Space.com: Obama Adds Three More To NASA Transition Team

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OBAMA TEAM SEEKS DATA ON POSSIBLE CHANGES TO ARES, ORION

Not sure I like this.

Come on, dude, don't do this to us! This is the future now!

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

If you'd cancel Ares 1, you could "scale back" the capsule to nothing at all. After all, who needs a capsule without its launcher?

And how about Ares5? ...

You know what, cancel NASA alltogether. Yes. At least you're sure they run nicely break-even that way.

Sarcasm aside, can they really not think beyond the "cancel" concept to make an agency more money-efficient?

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

[Gene Krantz] We've just lost the Moon! [/Gene Krantz]

What it looks to me that they're wanting NASA to do is ditch the Ares I design, but keep the Ares V. In reading NASA's page on the Ares V, it appears that the V can put a manned capsule in LEO, but if you want to put heavy loads up, or go to the Moon, you need to bolt an Ares I onto the V.

If they do this, we might as well call the Ares and the Orion CEV Space Shuttle 2: Electric Boogaloo, because we're going to end up with the same kind of thing: A great prototype that never gets moved to a production model, so it continues to fly long past its design life, with few essential improvements made to it.

Anyone who's ticked about this, might want to go to the "Technology Agenda" page of Obama's Change.gov site and drop them a note. Might want to drop them several.

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We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

I agree with the article that asking such questions is due diligence. If an incoming administration is to make and defend decisions to either keep or eliminate specific programs, they need to know the specifics about them.

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

But, as the article also points out, they didn't ask the same of some of the other programs which are already behind schedule and overbudget.

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We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

I have a question. Which will cost less over the next 5 years?

1. Continuing with the current lunar path.

2. Starting off on the Mars path.

Budgetary problems might, sadly, force The President's hand.

Edit: I'm only sad because I personally prefer the Moon option. Changing over to Mars might be a win-win for both the President and others in the space community.

Yes, I noticed that.

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

In a previous post I alluded to writing letters...which I did... so much for grassroots...was the Bush vision for space exploration ever taken seriously by anyone besides the choir?

Time to write more letters...I guess...

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"The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir."
---Carl Sagan

I have a question. Which will cost less: Manned missions to the Moon and Mars, or giving Wall St. nearly $10 trillion?

Bonus question: How much of that $10 trillion will actually be used for important stuff (business loans, etc.), and how much of it will be spent on things like pedicures and spa treatments?

Methinks we'd all better start screaming.

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We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Will that do for a start on the screaming?

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Hehe. I've already screamed about this. Oddly, I seemed to be the only one. Like I said in that thread, mirror universe.

No, I meant that as a serious question. It's too late for screaming. What would be cheaper?

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It doesn't matter, because if Ares I is cancelled, we won't have a hope of doing anything other than go to LEO.

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We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

No need to be so gloomy. Even without any change in plans, we were probably not going to get out of LEO within 5 years anyway.

Also there is this assessment in that article, and it seems ok to me: No, Presidential Visions are hard to stop, they have a momentum all of their own- U.S astronauts will get out of LEO. But this may happen at a slower pace (other launchers), or in a different direction (Mars).

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But cancelling Ares I means we won't get out of LEO for at least a decade past Ares V going operational. Were we to continue with plans as they are, then we could expect to have 'Merkins getting their footie prints all over the Moon by 2019 or so. China and India (the two fastest growing economies on the planet) have already sent unmanned probes to the Moon. China's been doing manned flights, and India's looking to get into the game as well. They're catching up, and we're not even marking time.

I've got no problem with them giving NASA programs a closer look, but with the talks being about cuts and not about the fact that the Ares/Constellation program is under-funded, I'm worried.

Actually, Presidential Visions are pretty easy to stop. George H. W. Bush proposed going back to the Moon and then onto Mars, it didn't happen. Apollo was on the verge of becoming extremely cheap when Nixon cancelled the program to foist the shuttle on NASA (with the promise that the orbiters would serve as prototypes, and be quickly replaced/upgraded with better models).

Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman says that one of the most important things the government can do for the economy is:(bolding mine)

The best way to create a broad range of new technologies is to invest in the space program, and invest in it heavily. You don't do that by cutting the visionary parts of the space program.

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We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

Hopefully, someone at NASA will speak up and make it abundantly clear that man-rating is a big, expensive deal. The beauty of the Ares I/V combination is that you man-rate the smallest piece that you can.

To a pencil-pushing politician it might sound like a good idea to put the capsule on the Ares V, but what they aren't understanding is that you then have to man-rate that huge beast of a rocket. That not only makes it more expensive, it also makes it heavier and that means less payload.

Come on Obama. (not to get political here, but) one of the big criticisms of certain other administrations is the way they mettle in technical fields and second-guess scientists/engineers. It's incredibly hypocritical to say, "look at Administration X, they're a failure, they don't listen to what scientists say about global warming, they think they're smarter than the scientists" and then turn around and do the exact same thing on a technical project! "Oh you engineers think you're so smart, but *I* graduated top of my class in political science at George Washington U. so I'll tell you how to design a rocket."

Blahh!! We're going to end up with an Ares V that carries less payload to LEO than the shuttle, and costs nearly as much as the shuttle to launch. And we wont make it to the moon, but we'll have the politically symbolic measure of astronauts in orbit. So the president can say, "look everyone! americans orbiting the earth! don't you feel patriotic! doesn't that bring a tear to your eye?" Sure, they're not going anywhere because I canceled the moon missions. Sure, they just orbit the earth and do experiments in a tiny capsule. But every four years, when it's time to get reelected, I'll make more empty promises about manned missions to Jupiter or whatever is en vogue.

This makes me sick.

Ok Tuckerfan, a couple of points first.

1. We're all worried.
2. We're all on the same side
3. If you want me to survive this debate, please don't quote Krugman again.

Right. My other points:

1. U.S vs other countries. Yes, everyone's catching up. But the US is miles ahead.
2. The President's hands are tied. I'm sure he'll do the best he can with what he's got.
3. Stopping Visions. Let me rephrase: Happy? Don't forget the last sentence!
4. And then we get to Krugman. Gaaaaaah!

This is my personal opinion anyway. Time will tell.

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But we've just gotta go! What will I dream about?

__________________
I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

This sounds like DailyKos. Everyone reading too much into a blurb. Over there it's called a "concern troll". I say we should wait until we get more information before we assume the worst. Sure, you should write the presumptive president-elect, and your congressman and senator about space funding... but you should do that anyways.

I think he'll try to stick with the comparisons with JFK, and that means using space to distract us from problems at home.

But if the government is going to try solving problems by throwing money around, it might try investment in something that could have multiple returns on that investment by way of jobs, distraction, high tech, low tech, and other parts of the economy.

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

Not really. The same guys who're offering the trips up to the ISS for $25 million a pop, are scheduled to start offering trips around the Moon on Russian Soyuz capsules for $100 million in a couple of years. We can't send the shuttle around the Moon, and without Ares I and V we can't get close to that.

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We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

When he starts saying something like, "We choose to go to the Moon. . ." I'll stop worrying. There's a long history of the government giving money to NASA and then taking it back. At present, he seems more interested in making comparisons to Lincoln, which would incline one to expect him to focus heavily on more Earthly matters.

Key word being "might." Until I see somebody planting the American flag on the Moon, I'm not going to hold my breath that it'll happen.

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We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

I didn't realize you were that young. There's time. I barely caught the last one by a couple weeks.

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

Superheroes!

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I'm forty, and one of my earliest memories is of Apollo 17.

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We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

Gemini 3 is the first crewed mission I was aware of. But I knew about Vostok and Mercury.

I guess, but as cool as superheroes are, they can't hold a candle to real-life astronauts.

__________________
I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

I received an e-mail message from Senator Feinstein (or one of her staff members) acknowledging my past e-mail letters; and, she tried to re-assure that me that (as we all know about budgetary restraints) there would be fiscal relief considered for the science budget...

Lets hope for he best at least...

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"The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir."
---Carl Sagan

The shuffling begins...

AllHeadlineNews: NASA Deputy Chief Resigns Ahead Of Obama Taking Office

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Well, en sure concerned us!
(En is a gender-neutral pronoun created by my friend.)

__________________
I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek