Announced yesterday, NASA says they are on track to get humans back on the moon by 2020.

 Take a look:
http://www.breitbart.com/print.php?id=071211002619.itpq7dm2&show_article=1

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=071211002619.itpq7dm2&show_article=1

An interesting chunk of text :

QuoteThirty-five years ago this week, Gene Cernan, Ron Evans and Jack Schmitt were on the surface of the moon. We are working hard to return a future generation of astronauts to the moon," said space flight veteran Carl Walz, who now works for NASA's exploration systems mission directorate.

Despite budgetary constraints, NASA hoped to have Constellation fully operational by 2016, Gilbrech said.

"We're hoping we get a budget passed by Congress," he said, pointing out that only six-tenths of a penny of every tax dollar went to funding NASA's space programs.

"We're making plans to be ready for any and all scenarios. The (budget proposal) we put in keeps our program on track for the March 2015 initial operating capability... and full operating capability a year later," Gilbrech, who leads new spacecraft development at NASA, said.

Very Cool!! I hope it actually happens.

- Ed C.

Not cool. Barely acceptable. If its 2020, where's my lunar mass drivers then?

As I recall, Ronny Raygun wanted to have Space Station Freedom up by 1990 (they're still building it). And George First wanted to have Americans on Mars by 2000.

I'm not optimistic, especially given NASA's recent history of making extremely expensive unreliable equipment.

I think you'll see China on the Moon before the USA gets back there.

Quote from: Kyle AaronAs I recall, Ronny Raygun wanted to have Space Station Freedom up by 1990 (they're still building it). And George First wanted to have Americans on Mars by 2000.

I'm not optimistic, especially given NASA's recent history of making extremely expensive unreliable equipment.

NASA's project have been operating under huge budget constraints and all missions have been with a cost-savings mindset.  All the Mars rover missions were made for a "relatively speaking" song, and have operated well beyond what the operating projections expected.  They expected to get maybe a few months out of them, and they've gone for years.

Seriously, NASA's tenders operate under extreme cost constraints now, and their focus is on cheap and quick and very focuses missions, rather than large and sweeping scope things like Voyager that end up being bloody expensive.  

I'm seriously interested in where you are getting the "expensive and unreliable" opinion.  Because considering how much budgetary pressure they are under, that the stuff works as well as it does is a bloody miracle, and a lot of it is over-performing, not under performing.

Just do a little research into NASA's budget for particular launch vehicles, cost per launch, combined with their reliability - and then compare with Russia, France, Japan or China. Here's a start to your researches.

Some example cost/kg to low-earth oribit,

US:-
Athena 2: $11,622
Pegasus XL: $30,744
Taurus: $13,768
Atlas 2AS: $11,314
Delta 2: $10,692 (much cost not counted due to being Cold War surplus ICBMs)
Shuttle: $10,416


Russia/Ukraine:
Cosmos: $8,667
Rocket: $7,927
Shtil: $465 (much cost not counted due to being Russian Navy project)
START: $11,627
Dnepr: $1,548
Soyuz: $5,357
Proton: $4,302
Zenit 2: $3,093

China:
Long March 2C: $7,031
Long March 2E: $5,435
Long March 4B: $4,412

Europe:
Ariane 44L: $11,029
Ariane 5G: $9,167

Overall we see,

Small launchers, $8,445/lb Western, $3,208/lb non-Western
Medium/Intermediate, $4,994/lb, $2,407/lb
Heavy, $4,440/lb, $1,946/lb

So in general, Western launchers are much more expensive per unit weight put into space, and US launchers the most expensive - that's despite long and extensive experience and support from the defence industry.

Now let's have a look at the Shuttle. That's relevant to a discussion of putting Americans on the Moon since it shows NASA's ability to develop a spacecraft which carries both people and cargo, and which has to stay in space for some weeks.

The study I linked to notes,
   "There are several ways to compute the cost of a shuttle mission, ranging from dividing the total NASA budget for the shuttle by the number of launches each year to estimating the marginal cost of one additional shuttle flight. The former method can produce per-launch costs of over $500 million, while the latter can lower the cost below $100 million. NASA's Space Transportation Architecture Study in the late 1990s estimated a shuttle launch cost of $300 million, based on an annual budget of $2.4 billion and eight flights a year, a rate NASA approached or achieved for most of the 1990s. We adopt the $300 million cost figure for this analysis, although we note that in the last few years the shuttle flight rate has dropped significantly without an appreciable decrease in the shuttle program budget, which would result in a sharp increase in per-launch costs."

So it's pretty fucking expensive. Now, let's consider reliability.

The Space Shuttle has had 120 flights, and two catastrophic failures resulting  in the complete destruction of the craft, a failure rate of 2/120 = 1.7%

14 of 830 crew members have been killed in these two incidents, a death rate of 14/830 = 1.7%

Now let's compare it to Soyuz launchers, which from 1963 to 2002 had 1,143 launches and 36 failures, a rate of 0.3%. The Russians have had 4 deaths from 96 cosmonauts, but none since 1971, and none in the current Soyuz design (which has also launched many US and EU astronauts).

It may be objected that Soyuz has had a number of "near misses" in terms of deaths, but then so has the Shuttle. For example, STS-51-F had one of its three main engines shut down due to a faulty valve reading, and a second was about to shut down when a flight controller stopped it. Had he not, the craft would have ditched in the Atlantic destroying itself and killing its entire crew.

Russian history is of making cheap and reliable spacecraft. Chinese history is of making cheap and unreliable spacecraft, though their reliability is improving. US and EU history are of making expensive and unreliable spacecraft.

See?

 No matter what the topic  - Kyle aaron finds yet another way to do America-bashing.


Its still pretty neat news, if you're not a pessimist. (or cynic)

- Ed C.

Why?  What's the point of the mission?  Is it just another mass budget boondoggle of the sort NASA seems so adept at these days?

And that's not America bashing, it's NASA bashing.  America is in many ways a great place with a great culture, NASA is a massive bureaucracy with all the vision of the IRS.

So, now the great vision for human space exploration is to return to missions that we were carrying out decades ago, that's it.  I fail to see much to get excited by.

Call me when we go to Mars or build a genuine permanent space station that people can visit who're not astronauts.  Hell, call me next time we build some major orbital telescopes or build a radio telescope on the dark side of the moon.  Call me when we do something ambitious.  Frankly I don't find this cool, I find it depressing.

Quote from: KoltarSee?

 No matter what the topic  - Kyle aaron finds yet another way to do America-bashing.


Its still pretty neat news, if you're not a pessimist. (or cynic)

- Ed C.

He critices the US and EU, you just read it as America bashing.  I didn't read it as EU bashing.

Besides, on the facts he's correct, NASA is shockingly bad at this stuff these days, if you disagree with his remarks then show how his numbers are wrong.

Bashing a US agency is not the same as bashing the US, if I say that I have doubts about the efficacy of FEMA for example that doesn't make me a US basher, it makes me someone who doubts the efficacy of FEMA.

would be neat, says the geek in me.  

will it truly happen?  doubt it, says the realist in me.  i mean, get serious.  when push comes to shove, will the american people support financially:

1.  energy independence
2.  "global warming" stuff
3.  more ridiculous military spending
4.  space travel

i bet 1 - 3 beat out 4.  unless things get a whole lot better, which personally i don't see happening.  

that said, i'd love to have a lunar hotel out there.  or even a base (visions of space:  1999.

I am fairly pessimistic as well, but I do have to admit that Americans are never so good as when they have real competition.

If it starts to look like the Chinese will beat them to the Moon, then you'll see huge interest pick up.
Shit, if only Iran had a space program, the Americans would have reached Jupiter by now.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditI am fairly pessimistic as well, but I do have to admit that Americans are never so good as when they have real competition.

If it starts to look like the Chinese will beat them to the Moon, then you'll see huge interest pick up.
Shit, if only Iran had a space program, the Americans would have reached Jupiter by now.

RPGPundit

Instead, they are attempting to compete in the nuclear field - and you know how we feel about that...

It'll depend on the folks in charge.  Didn't Obama state that he'd cut funding for various NASA projects?

I don't necessarily think it's a "left v right" thing, it'll depend on the specific priorities of the folks in charge.  Some folks think space is important, others think we should fix our problems here first.  

I like space, and I suspect if we stop funding things and get into the "why? What's the point?" mentality, we won't start again any time soon.

Quote from: RPGPunditf only Iran had a space program, the Americans would have reached Jupiter by now.

OH, as the kids say, SNAP!

I think it's great. It makes me even happier that it makes Kyle mad.

Quote from: Kyle AaronAs I recall, Ronny Raygun wanted to have Space Station Freedom up by 1990 (they're still building it). And George First wanted to have Americans on Mars by 2000.

I regret that they couldn't do it, I don't regret the ambition.

Regan got stuffed by his success in the cold war, having won that the need for a space station was suddenly less evident, had the USSR lasted a bit longer we might have got our space station before the century was out after all.  Bush 1 I suspect just didn't realise the huge cost involved and the technical difficulties.