NASA's Constellatiion Program, cancellation (or not)

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The point is moot though if the extra 3 billion would just add to that deficit. I guess if NASA's new moon program is unaffordable, its unaffordable. I would just be disappointed if I don't get to see a moon landing in my lifetime. For a long time I have been interested in space exploration.

$2.67 and our scientific prestige will buy a medium coffee and an Old Fashioned donut at the local Dunkin' Donuts (tm).

What counts is the kind of technology we can produce that is useful here on earth.

ruveyn

Our pre-eminence in science is based on an historical fluke. Hitler and his buddies made Europe unlivable for Jews and other intellectuals. As a result the scientific cream, the scientific elite of Europe fled for Britain and the U.S. In short, we inherited a scientific windfall. We got Einstein in 1935 for example and many other top notch physicists and mathematicians, many of them Jews.

Prior to the mid 1930's the U.S. was a second run country for theoretical physics. Our "stars" like Robert Oppenheimer wwnr to German universities (like Goetingen or Tubungen) to learn quantum physics. They came back to the U.S. to teach our first good crop of Bright Young Stars like Richard Feynman. The U.S. did not become first rate, except by a particular historical circumstance. If Hitler had not happened, Europe would have remained the leading place to go to to learn theoretical physics and mathematics.

The first American physicist to win international success was Josiah Gibbs at the end of th 19th century. For a while he was the only one. When the air was clean in the Southwest of the U.S. and the Pacific Coast, we developed a good crop of astronomers. But theoretical types were rather scarce in the U.S. Our culture is more oriented to practical and applied science than theoretical, at least it was before we inherited the best of Europe.

ruveyn

Yes, technically that's correct. However, we often don't know what benefits advancement in scientific knowledge will bring in the future and quite honestly the scientists, who are usually more interested in the pursuit of knowledge, don't think about it that way either. Einstein did not know that general relativity would be essential to GPSes. Similarly, the pioneers of quantum mechanics did not know that quantum theory would be the basis for lasers, computers and television sets. That's why part of the problem for researchers is selling their work to the public to try and taxpayers to fund their research.

In short, the US pre-eminence in science is not a given.

Not then, not now, not ever. Our pre-eminence is contingent on events and happenstance.

ruveyn

Would a working device similar to the near-mythical Dean Device make a difference?

A lot of folks are going to face-palm when they realize how easy it is to make a mechanical drive that produces linear acceleration from rotational acceleration, and how it can be done without violating any of the laws of physics.

No it won't. The Dean Device isn't different from ideas about perpetual motion machines that I've heard about. Translational motion from rotational motion to linear motion does not violate Newton's Laws or the conservation of energy or anything similar.

I still think the Obama administration might have an interest in preserving the current US pre-eminence in space but whether it can or not is another matter.

Ruveyn, I refer you to an essay by Robert Heinlein, entitled "Spinoff", which he also delivered as testimony before the House Select Committee on Aging in (IIRC) 1976 or so. It can be found in the collection Expanded Universe, published in 1981.

Short version - there have been massive amounts of spinoff technology, everything from remote monitoring of vital signs (so you don't need to station a nurse in every hospital room with a critical patient) to personal computers (as NASA had to make the electronic components as small, light, and durable as possible) to simple things like Teflon (initially developed to shed heat from the underside of personnel capsules reentering atmosphere) to intangibles like hope for the future (which you may notice has become in short supply since we focused our nearsighted vision on this planet alone).

That is NASA propaganda to justify an overbloated mismanaged effort. NASA management has lied to the public again and again. Remember the lie of the "ACE trucking company in space"? The lie was that the space shuttle would make hauling heavy freight to orbit cheap. It has not. It costs more per ton tare weight to lift freight in the shuttle than it has with our unmanned boosters, particularly the Delta rocket. ESA can lift freight more cheaply with their unmanned boosters than our shuttle (or as I like to call it, our shittle).


The main spin off has been solid state electronics. But it is NOT a spin off of the space program. It is a spin off of the needs of The Phone Company. Transistors were invented at Bell Telephones Labs. The so called spin offs of the manned space program were no such thing. They were being developed independent of the manned space program. As it stands the computers aboard the space shuttles are at least 15 years out of date.

ruveyn

well, we can always outsource our space efforts to the Chinese. At least they're doing something, and may beat us (back) to the moon.

Not much to do in the void.
We knew the Moon was a dead rock long ago, very expensive checking proved that to be true.
Mars has more, but the Sun is just another star, and Death Valley at least has air.
The one function of NASA was to make space a government monopoly.
All of their science is second rate, they do not design or build, they let out government contracts.
The contractors can only build with available parts.
Teflon existed before NASA used it, they had nothing to do with it's development.
When the big money came along, computers, software, none of the NASA people moved into the field, their contractors bought from the people who produced.
NASA describes what they want, which is mostly twenty years behind developments.
It is a show program, and the show is getting old.

I like the telescopes, but they do show that everything is very far away.

There was the idea that other stars would have planets, for billions spent, we can say "Yup."

Odds are, there is intelligent life, but our thinking has been sending a radio message. The part about hundreds of light years was overlooked.

Closer to home there are the wandering rocks, planet killers, but it was private interests that brought up the subject, before NASA claimed it as part of their mission. Like FEMAs mission in New Orleans.

The energy of a fast moving huge rock is more than can be pushed aside by anything we have.

The warning we are paying for would not be given, for it might cause panic, and loss of faith in our Washington Overlords.

Unmanned rockets are the best way to boost cargo, and only two people have come up with any use for space.

Author Clark with his ribbon to a space station in geosincronous orbit, 25,000 miles of ribbon, would then be cheaper than rockets, after the cost of building, and if nothing hit the ribbon. The space station would produce electric power which would come down the ribbon, and power the elevator.

Tesla wanted to build a ring resonator around the planet, and broadcast electric power. It would be free energy for everyone, so he was called a Communist. Freedom has Meters!

Both projects would cost, and both would have to be built, for Clark's answer to getting mass into space, had no mass, and Tesla had no idea how to get his mass up there.

As the cost is now, and the benefits far in the future, past the next election, it will never happen in the West, but China does not have elections. A Chinese ring of power around the Earth would fit their thinking. They have been buying a lot of copper. They lead the world in high energy long distance transmission.

A decade ago they launched a shuttle that was one piece ceramic, one orbit and back home, the last I heard, but they could have thousands by now.

Compared to the costs of oil and coal to produce electricty, and the declining supplies, they could be looking at becoming the world's electric company.

They also have a water problem, and lots of electricty can turn salt water to Hydrogen and Oxygen, which run through a fuel cell turns back to electricty and produces fresh water.

America no longer leads in applied Patents, Asia does.

The Moon is the perfect place to build observatories. On the far side away from the Earth shine the seeing is perfect. The Moon's main virtue is that it is close to Earth and activities their can be supported from Earth. The Moon is also a shallow gravity well and is an ideal jump off point for space activity once we develop decent propulsion technology. Right now our propulsion technology is still at the stage of the Chinese rocket or the Congreve rocket (both use solid state boosters).

Mars is a looser without a mazoozer. The cost of terraforming Mars is beyond our means. And support from Earth at the best distance of 40 million miles is a practical impossibility. At best Mars is 40 million miles away. The Moon is always nearly 250,000 miles away. A factor of 160. On a good day.

We need ion drive that can accelerate a vehicle over long intervals of time and require much less weight for fuel. Something that converts mass to energy will do the job.

ruveyn

we have Ion drives, they're just not very efficient..there's one pushing a satellite out near Jupiter as we speak.

Nifty. It is pushing a 200 lb package. Just what we need to dwell among the asteroids.

For manned flight we are still stuck with burn and coast. No better in principle than the Congreve Rocket

ruveyn