Why America will not advance to the future because we need a new way of thinking and we need our President to change his agenda with the advisers who are not in his best interest. America has a history and its shortly going to damage and ruin it's self. Why war is not an answer and controlling other nations is a way to tear down the walls history and changing our way and your ways as well we all need some changes.
I am sure if you all of the people who work in the White House do not speak on certain subjects because they do not want to get in trouble. Its always secrets and this is what makes fear and when people fear you they react and it never turns to a positive out come.
There was an article featured by the Green Team – Matthew Van Dongen and Tiffany Mayer in the St Catharines Standard today about RETScreen International. You can email them at: standard@stcatharinesstandard.ca Subject: Green Team
RETScreen International is Renewable Energy and Energy Efficient Technologies. This software program has been used for local water power generators and biomass plants. RETScreen is a federal government software program that evaluates potential renewable energy projects. For sustainable energy worldwide and has over 200,000 users. Greg Leng is the Director of the Natural Resources Canada Program. The software program was created by Greg Leng at the University of Massachusett’s Master’s Thesis and it’s aimed at professional engineers, planners and architects. But it can be used to estimate energy production, building costs and green house --gas savings for projects of any size.
Non- technical homeowners make use of the program too. RETScreen will tell you if you have enough solar energy in your area to justify installing a solar water heater. It will determine how much energy, and money you’ll save and provide a list of product supplies. Larger Product Developers will use the program to cut costs on preliminary research and “screens out the bad projects” quickly.
It was used to determine whether to build a wind farm in Niagara. The question was; Is it worthwhile pursuing this project? In past it might have cost you $50,000 to $100,000 to answer that question. Expert Program will do it for $500 or $1,000. The Program can save millions of dollars for fledgling green energy development projects. Greg Leng said the program has saved about $4 billion over the last decade.
They say that, “Projects associated with RETScreen will keep the equivalent of 20 million tones of carbon dioxide annually out of the environment by 2012.”
It’s a proven money saver – the Federal Government gives out the software for free. “The goal of the program has always been to remove barriers to a much broader implementation of clean energy, not to store them up,” Leng said.
The United Nations, The World Bank and even NASA have all invested in RETScreen over the last decade. The program is available in 35 languages. In St Catharines, Rankin Construction used the program for a “ball park” potential of its proposed hydro power project on the Welland Canal by Engineer Jordan Beckhuis. The company is now finishing the last of the three two-megawatt turbines using canal water to pump out electricity.
This software program is being used in over 170 Universities and Colleges. If you want to check out the program for yourself visit: http://www.retscreen.net/ang/home.php
You can also watch a 2 minute video at: http://www.retscreen.net/ang/video.php
We need NASA more then bailing out AIG and all the Wall Street Fat Cats. Look back to the days when we were caught flat footed by the Russians launching Sputnik and that's how we'll be caught by the Chinese when they land on the Moon and Mars while we become a 3rd World country with no technology. A culture of minimum wage earners.
Obama claims he's for Science, well NASA and the Space Program are about Science more then anything else. We should be developing vehicles and programs that continue to explore the Universe around us. There are also ten's of thousands of jobs at stake in various States.
If the Obama administration cuts or eliminates NASA and the Space Program it will loose a part of my support and serve as a kind of sign that maybe the President's words are empty. It also could loose Central Florida which helped elect this President and could help elect a Democratic Senator soon.
The buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere resulting from the globalization of fossil-fuel burning and deforestation shows no sign of slowing down. Recent climatic changes - the increased pace of Arctic ice meltdown, rising frequency of major hurricanes and killer heat waves, and the accelerating retreat of mountain glaciers - all signal that the global temperature is rising in lockstep with rising CO2, in accordance with predictions based on global climate models. While the atmospheric level of CO2 is still below 400 ppm (parts per million), it could reach 1000 ppm before the end of the next century, a level last seen at the start of the Eocene Period 60 million years ago. That age was characterized by tropical climate from pole to pole. If the past is guide to the future, the world is on the threshold of a mass extinction that should be somewhat similar to at least nine mass extinctions caused by rapid global warming in the last 600 million years, triggered by CO2 released during the lava flows that produced flood basalts (Ref. 1).
Perhaps more alarming than the impending CO2 level is its rate of increase, a geologically unprecedented rate that could overwhelm the capacity of the oceans to absorb and buffer against acidification, making the next mass extinction more deadly than its predecessors. Thus the industrial addition of CO2 to the atmosphere presents the world with two environmental problems: Problem 1 is higher temperatures, Problem 2 is more acidic oceans. In the best of all possible futures, both problems would be addressed by cutting back CO2 emissions to preindustrial levels. But even if this could be achieved instantly, the global temperature would continue to rise until the massive CO2 injection of the 20th Century has worked its way through the ocean-atmosphere system, a process that could take a century or more. In other words, the effects of global warming are upon us already. Instant action to rein in CO2 emissions might avert ocean acidification and mass extinctions, but would not stop global warming in its tracks.
What can humanity do to stop the relentless increase in global temperature?
I have a party tonight. I have not been to a New Year's Party in twenty-five years. That kinda happens to you, or so I believe, if you have been a rolling stone. During those years I lived in places for maybe two, orsometimes three, years. You do not get to know people well over such a short period of time. But then, I have only been out here in the abandoned back-country for two years and I have a social life of some proportion. Which means I am wrong in my basic hypothesis. Not uncommon. So I have this party. And there is always the 'what in the world shall I wear' thing that occurs. I picked up my best sweater at the dry cleaners yesterday, but then there is the color issue. Since I am color blind I have a hard time putting stuff together, without causing those little side glances or raised eyebrows of fellow party-goers. And I don't look good enough. I know that because I have a big mirror in the bathroom. I know I look better than I do in that mirror, because everything is reversed in the mirror. I don't really look like that at all. Still. The effect is not pleasing. Not to me, anyway. But then, I am not trying to attract anybody so why do I care? Genetics. It is buried deep inside me somewhere. Maybe the Catholic upbringing. Maybe the Marine Corps (I sure looked good back then, although, and this is so typical, I did not think so at the time). I will do my best. The host is this wonderful guy, with a really neat wife, who expects that I will add some life to the party. In fact, Chris' exact words were "I think you will be great. Just be yourself. We don't care if nobody comes back next year." Then he went on to some other subject. I thought for a while about what he said. Am I that much of a character? I don't see myself that way. I think I am quite carefully held together. Even a bit urbane, maybe. But that is not how I am seen by others. Which is okay. I am used to that, a bit. Maybe I should include a muzzle with the rest of my outfit.
Brett Favre. God, is he a trip, or what? The coach of his team, the New York Jets, got shown the door yesterday. This is right after the owners, the day before, swore that they were not going to fire him. Our culture. You know, the one where everyone tells the truth all the time. So Brett does it again. Devastation follows wherever he goes now. He absolutely bombs his last four games with the team and the coach gets the sack. He blows the super bowl bid last year for the Packers and look what happens over there. I'll bet the coaches get the sack there too. In leaving, he made himself into the Favre Titantic. Everyone goes down with the ship. Except for Brett, of course. He gets a small dingy to sail away in, well stocked of course. Each year I wait for this old saw of a horse to be put out to pasture. He is the George Bush of football. Dumb as a post, spoiled rotten, and flapping his mouth all the time. Oh, as usual, the owners of the Jets are just begging Favre to come back next year. And those guys have quite a solid reputation for telling the truth. Maybe the football 'hero' can finally be left to travel by private jet across this land. Another modern idiot who has been given everything in the world that one can imagine, and for doing what?He throws a leather ball well. Maybe the coming financial crisis will change the way we look at such things and at such people. I don't know though. The games of Rome became more popular as Rome went down, not less.
Bob Herbert. Today he was not writing about stupidity, although, on the same page Judith Warner was being stupid again. Bob went on and on about just what a disaster George Bush has been for this country and the world over the past eight years. Gee, no kidding. The only thing the article lacked was retribution and recovery. We need the stuff back George stole, or helped steal. We need the culprits to be put in stocks and paraded around so people will feel better. We need to know what really happened (like who got tortured and what was done to them). We need to feed our puritanical and Calvinistic roots with the moisture of the blood from all those evil people. I fear, without such retribution and recovery, we are doomed. We must set our course based upon ideas. It is our belief system that has been so badly damaged. "He who has no target, hits same," kinda thing. Look at our space program, as an example. You really can plan to go backwards and design yourself out of the very thing you claim to be headed towards. Our design for the future, given to us by NASA recently, is just such a design. We will build some old Saturn Fives and shoot them off in all directions, for awhile. Maybe we will go back to the moon or on to Mars. Maybe not. The George Bush Space Program. Might just as well get first class tickets aboard Brett Favre's ship. And we will be doing the same thing with our whole culture if Obama, and team, just let this whole thing go and attempt to 'get on with business.' This is not about business. This is about our culture. Our tribe. This is about the belief system of an entire culture.
from-the-chateau-dif.blogspot.com
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Today India launched its first mission beyond Earth orbit. After a 5-day elliptical semi-orbit of the Earth to place it on a lunar intercept, it will fire its rocket to enter lunar orbit. It will then train a huge array of sophisticated instruments, many with foreign (including American) participation, on the Moon's surface. It will map lunar topography, make precision images, and map uranium and helium-3, ice, and other potential natural resources. I write with excitement, as extraterrestrial resources is something I have written a fair amount about in the technical science and space development literature. Use of extraterrestrial resources is part of what I view as forming humanity's destiny.
China and Japan each launched their own lunar orbital missions recently, so a full-fledged Asian space race is on. The U.S. will also have an advanced lunar resource prospecting mission soon. Japan's media, and the media across Asia, is abuzz with talk about lunar exploration and the Asian space race. Everybody is interested in pushing toward human lunar exploration.
Not lost on anybody, the Moon is also viewed militarily as the ultimate high ground. In principle, ice mines at the lunar South Pole could supply ice from to low Earth orbit (LEO) far more efficiently than launches of water from Earth into LEO. Ice translates not just as water, but also oxygen and hydrogen-- rocket fuel. Ample rocket fuel in LEO means unlimited capability to maneuver around Earth, to shift the orbits of spy satellites when crises emerge, to shift the orbits of Earth resources satellites, to fuel rockets that will move astronauts to the Moon and Mars and beyond more efficiently than if all the rocket fuel had to be launched from Earth's surface. In short, the lunar South Pole is like Middle Eastern oil as far as space operations are concerned. There are more ominous possibilities related to the "high ground" aspect that need not even be mentioned, but there is no question that the Moon is a strategic place in many regards, and it could be used as a stepping stone to places farther afield, such as Mars.
The Moon is also supremely interesting scientifically, having merit in its own right as a unique planetary type object but also bearing clues to Earth's origin, as Apollo began to teach us. In terms of the 'gee-whiz' aspect of human exploration, the Moon represents an exciting target if you haven't already been there. If you have been there, as America has been, it is still a worthy place to explore by humans, but in pure scientific exploration terms, that can be done far more cost effectively by robotics. Yes, humans can do some things that robotics cannot, but robotics truly are up to the task of doing most of what humans can do, plus much more that we can't. Even mining of ice or helium-3 (if we ever get helium-3-based fusion electrical power generation mastered) would best be done robotically, if money is an issue. I would warrant that for America, money is an issue, and most voters and taxpayers probably would say so, too. We need to do things efficiently.
That said, if we do venture beyond LEO with humans, is the Moon the best place to go? To most planetary scientists, Mars is much more interesting place than the Moon and it is more apt to be a place that can be settled. There are severe challenges for sure, especially in getting there and returning; the transit is the biggest danger because of solar cosmic radiation storms. Some Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) have orbits close enough to Earth's that they can be reached in as little as a month or two instead of a year or more; thus, they are safer. NEAs represent a much more diverse and resource-rich set of objects, although I note that there are some peculiarities of the Moon (such as enrichment in He-3) that could drive particular, specific efforts at resource exploitation. None of this, not even the strategic aspects (for those military types pondering that), favors human-driven activity if getting the job done efficiently is what the goal is.
If having humans do something interesting in space is the goal, the Moon is interesting indeed; but in post-Apollo era, there are other places we should go. If there is a sense of a space race, I would urge America's leaders to consider a space race in a different context, more like the framing context that JFK used to send us to the Moon. We should do something spectacular, partly because it is hard. We can go to the Moon, but it will be hailed as a return to the past. If there is no pressing reason to have humans on the Moon, but instead can have robotics take care of our scientific and engineering/resource exploitation objectives there, then I'd say let's skip the Moon and go to Mars, but do so in a logical sequence. If we need a stepping stone, near Earth asteroids would provide a more interesting one that would not entail years and years of staying there (at a cost of maybe $100 billion beyond the cost to get to that first return to the Moon). We could go to 3 or 4 asteroids, learn a lot, and be done with that phase of the program, and then focus on Mars. In some regards asteroids would be safer than the Moon, if we can select some that would entail only a month or so of transit time each way. We could have small solar storm radiation shelters onboard the craft, and not worry about osteoporosis and other severe maladies that we will have to worry about when we finally go to Mars. We could conduct these missions and use manned maneuvering units to make the landings; no need for extremely complex lunar landing craft, no need for a lot of things that would cost us dearly to get to the Moon and which would not be directly applicable to Mars landings. We could get to the asteroids rapidly, I would guess before 2016. With 8 years of doing one mission every 2 years or so, we could learn a lot, and then by 2024, if we aimed for it now, we could be on Mars. Otherwise, we will be busy trying to pay off our Apollo-Plus bill and not have really made much progress toward getting to Mars. We'll have China and who knows who else as neighbors, and we will be seen as competing directly with them.
Why try to steal the Chinese (or Indian or Japanese or European) thunder? Let them do what will give them national pride and international prestige. Let's not race them at all. Let's dedicate a strong robotics effort at the Moon, especially one dedicated toward natural resource exploration. If the Chinese are willing, we could ride with them to the Moon; and they could ride with us to asteroids. This would create openness and confidence that the more threatening possible uses of the Moon (and asteroids) would not elapse. We certainly do not need a militarized space race and hostile land grabs and paranoid approach to space exploration.
We should not accede to any territorial claims by any nation, nor make any claims, as international law now warrants. We should create a legal framework for resource exploration and exploitation, but astronaut involvement should not come to be seen as the legal basis for staking claims. The asteroids will be able to provide water to LEO even more cheaply than the Moon can (it sounds counter-intuitive, but the Moon's gravity well makes this statement true). On asteroids there is abundant platinum, carbon compounds, semiconductors, and all sorts of things that the Moon doesn't have. We can exploit those materials robotically, and we can involve humans in their exploration much more quickly and less expensively than going to the Moon; and the asteroids certainly represent stepping stones to the greater beyond, for which the Moon does not serve so well.
The cost of this proposed revised goal of the coming decade would be far less than the cost of the human lunar program. The savings (probably several billion dollars per year) could be split in quarters between (1) developing advanced planetary robotics, (2) reducing the taxpayer's burden (or our debt to China), (3) rebuilding our Earth observation program, and (4) preparing for Mars settlement by humans. By 2020 we can start ramping down expenditures for this asteroid program and sharply ramping up Mars settlement preparations if that is our nation's aspiration. Nearly all the hardware developed for the asteroid effort would be directly transferrable to Mars exploration, and by 2020 hopefully we will have an economy that reflects a decade of efficient and wise federal expenditures.
In any case, resource exploration should be the focus of NASA's extraterrestrial robotic exploration program.
It is pretty roundly reported that both Barack Obama's and John McCain's spending and tax cutting plans would increase an already dismal budget deficit situation. It can be argued, and I think Barack has the best arguments, that McCain's budget would be worse in terms of a ballooning deficit. Given that two debates in a row, candidates were asked to offer up some ideas of controlling spending, lackluster responses were given by both candidates. Barack Obama has some obvious places to reduce spending, such as in Iraq (though a post-occupation containment and muscle-down on extremist militant groups in Iraq will not be inexpensive, so savings there do not equal the cost of the war now). And McCain is obviously weaker in terms of revenue raising. However, the well-publicized questions about what priorities would be deferred or scaled back is indeed a good set of questions, and either candidate will have to grapple with an answer soon after arriving in office. So much the better to start grappling now. There is a real opportunity here for either candidate to make some points with undecided voters. McCain could seize the initiative if Obama is not careful. Barack Obama should be proactive on the issue. Nobody wants to cancel or defer a promise or a long-standing program. But we must have fiscal discipline. "Pay as you go" has to be rigorous policy, not just words.
Cuts getting into the hundreds of billions of dollars over 4 years (cumulatively) are going to have to be found. Tax increases on the wealthy have to be part of the solution, but there must be cuts in spending, and more than a sparse razor slicing off the edges of some programs. Otherwise, by the time midterm elections come, with an already disastrous budget deficit multiplied further, the Republicans will retake the House and whittle back the Democratic majority in the Senate, and by 2012, all will be lost back to the Republicans. But it would be even worse for America, and that's why the Democrats would lose the position of leadership they may be about to be handed.
More dramatic cuts must be offered up, but if Barack wants a further razor shaving, here's one:
International Space Station (ISS) and Space Shuttle. Mothball them. Spend one more shuttle mission flying a Japanese crew to their recently installed science module, then spend one more shuttle mission installing whatever needs installing to mothball the ISS. This could include a means to adjust the ISS orbit and a redundant means of attitude control and internal environmental control, attach a long-life low-thrust rocket motor, raise its orbit, and close and lock the doors. Remember how bad shape Skylab was in, and still it was turned into a useful station once we went back to it; that was a space station where actual science was done on a huge scale, in myriad experiments-- nothing of the sort is being done with ISS. It's a white elephant. When mothballing the ISS, there will have to be some kind of dealing with international partners, but America is not going to be a good partner if we go bankrupt and are so budgetarily strapped that we can't make anything useful come from the ISS. We should spend one or two years studying our return to the Moon, and rescope or redirect that effort to something that makes sense. We don't want to have an Apollo-like adventure and then come back and be done with it. It needs to become a self-sustaining effort-- a colonization in a sense. So rescope and redirect, and then by the time the ISS and shuttle are mothballed, we'll have the funds saved from those programs to be serious about a safe and effective next step in space. This thing about just orbiting the Earth endlessly for astronaut make-work has to end. We need to go somewhere real and future-seeking, or just forget the idea of human space exploration. I don't think the latter is what we want, but that's what will happen if we lose the economic capability to be a space faring nation. The way things are going, that is fast happening. We need to get our economic house in order, and we need to proceed smartly in space, not on some reprise of the past. Between the savings from mothballing ISS and shuttle, and the increase that would be needed to have a serious lunar (and Mars!) effort, I am not sure what we'd save, but it would be only a few billion dollars. But we need to make some cuts somewhere, and this could be a contribution from NASA.
Other things: Scale back the flight pace of Mars missions to half. Coordinate with Europe so that every launch opportunity (every 2 years) is utilized, but each agency does one mission or campaign every four years. Keep science data analysis budgets high, keep engineering teams together, but scope back flight intensity to a pace where scientists can make most effective use of the data. Cutting back flight activity by half will not save half the Mars exploration budget, but it will save about 30% (a guess). Then reinstall the barriers between human and robotic exploration and guarantee that planetary robotic exploration and Earth satellite observations will be protected from the human exploration effort. In the near term, this is where a "rethinking" of the lunar human exploration effort could be funded. Spend $100M annually to develop a concept for "living off the land" (Moon, Mars, asteroids) and developing preliminary engineering concepts. How can robotic exploration be geared increasingly toward natural resource exploration and in situ propellant production? Bring in our most reliable foreign partners-- mainly from Europe and Japan and Russia if they come back to a sensible relationship with the West-- and explore how ISS might be recommissioned around 2015 in support of a truly dramatic and realistic human space exploration effort. But don't spend any more than two more shuttle missions to ramp down what is currently an utter waste: ISS and shuttle. I would keep our astronaut corps-- at least those likely to fly beyond 2015-- together. I would expand astronaut training in geologic field work and lab analysis, in engineering related to natural resources processing, in economics of emerging technological societies (that's what they will be when they go to the Moon and asteroids and Mars) and doing the things needed to push our agenda in space forward. (Readers--if there are any out there-- may wish to read my book, "Mars: A Warmer Wetter Planet," Praxis-Springer, and books by John Lewis on the topic of space settlement.)
All together, this would save maybe a couple billion dollars a year for a few years while putting the long-term human and robotic exploration effort on a more realistic and sustainable basis and provide more dramatic ambitions for our nation. It's a serious razor shaving in the near term only, not an undoing of the budget deficit. But it's where my area of the government could contribute.
Now, ask everybody else in government where they can contribute cuts, which may be painful in the short term but will make a more robust America.
NASA celebrates its 50th just 6 months after I did. They've had, and continue to have, many amazing accomplishments in both robotic and human exploration, as well as in aeronautics. MSNBC listed the ten most amazing "firsts" (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26960098/?pg=1#Tech_Space_NASAfirsts), which I'd have to say is an over-shortened list. But anyway, it's their impression, and it's worth looking at. No top-ten firsts at all for 8 years. We're overdue for at least a couple, aren't we? In my opinion, robotic exploration has reached its greatest achievements--many of them-- just during this past decade, in Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, asteroid, and comet exploration, as well as in Earth remote sensing. In terms of human exploration, what has there been? A lot of flight activity, a terrible tragedy, but very little positive that truly captured America's and the world's attention. NASA's shuttle program seems all about negative headlines and nothing dramatic that's positive. And the International Space Station? Who can name any discovery it has made? Who can name a single ISS astronaut? Not many people can.
China is more of an attention-grabber than anybody else in human spaceflight. They are about where America was with the Gemini 4 mission in 1965, with the first spacewalk. That may mean they could be 4 years from a lunar landing, though they profess to be on a half-pace trajectory toward that goal.
America, meanwhile, has a program underway to return us to the Moon, somewhat Apollo-style, more like Apollo on steroids, but nothing dramatically different, just a slight evolutionary improvement. Will it be interesting and attention grabbing? Sure, if it works, which is not so clear given that NASA is under orders to make this dramatic re-advance to 1969 on a flat and safety-straining budget. If we're successful, and I sure hope we would be, we would likely be joining China to do what they're doing, half a decade after they do it. What would be the global perception if China succeeds and treds where we did forty years ago, and then we fail to do what we did way back then? What message would this send the world?
NASA was never afraid of failure in the sense of being reluctant to try something bold. We shoudn't start being afraid in that sense. To the contrary, we could try harder than we are, do something greater, or at least something very different; or I'd say let's call it off. We cannot do much at all in true human space exploration on a flat budget. We can orbit the Earth endlessly in a make-work program for engineers and astronauts; there is nothing about exploration in our current program, just a lot about white elephants. We need to get our senses about us, be realistic, and do something worthy of NASA or just stop wasting taxpayer dollars on flitting through the near-ether and aspiring to attain our past.
I'd reiterate a previous message: let's take a 2-year breather, recover our economy, see what we can do that is totally novel and exciting to every 5th Grader, something that will motivate the next generation of engineers and scientists and dreamers; and then go for it, without the budgetary stranglehold that may keep us from doing anything overly dramatic and successful. Let's not worry about China; let's watch them shine, approve of their successes and suffer with their failures and revel in the new technological whiz-kids on the block. Let's not simply mimic the Chinese, or try to upstage them by simply having a slightly bigger bootprint, or mimic our grandfathers forty years past. Let's move America forward, not in haste, not in carelessness, but with steadfastness and vision. For now, robotics will do; we're learning a lot, doing so cost effectively, and we're laying the groundwork for human expansion through the inner Solar System.
As a planetary scientist, I keep my ear close to the ground on issues that are far above us all. And so it was with great interest that I noted today an innocuous-sounding message that the deadline for proposals to a NASA research program had been delayed a few weeks. There's been a lot of this lately, but this delay is quite noteworthy for the reasons given for the delay. The research funding program is LASER, which has in recent years funded lunar scientific and human exploration-related research. The announcement today said:
"LASER will not be co-sponsored by the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) this year; LASER is sponsored only by the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) this year. Objectives that support only lunar exploration without supporting lunar science are not being solicited this year.
In order to allow sufficient time for proposals to be prepared in response to this change, the proposal due date has been deferred to November 7, 2008."
I'd say that's innocuous and detail-oriented, if not for the fact that, if anything, [human] exploration-oriented research ought to be on the uptick if, according to announced plans, we're headed there, due for new bootprints on the moon by 2020 or whenever NASA can get us there. The rug is being pulled from [human] exploration-oriented research. Forget about research into lunar resources, or better ways to have humans explore the moon. But since we have lunar robotic missions in the works, lunar science research is acceptable.
Frankly, I find this to be a smart decision, and I don't say this lightly. I have written in this blog site before about how I think the human lunar initiative is underfunded, almost destined for failure, and certainly destined for a narrow vision of where we're going in space. The problem is, you just can't keep NASA's budget flat and expect us to shoot for the Moon. Furthermore, China is apt to be there around 2017, some 3 years before the U.S. Why would we spend a hundred billion dollars to fund a project that's short-funded relative to a success course and only has a hope of getting back to the Moon half a century after we were already there and three years after China arrives anew? Why would we risk failure even to achieve that goal, too late, too under-funded to give a high likelihood of success?
OK, I figure somebody somewhere has done the math and sees that this is not technically smart, financially stable, scientifically supportable, or apt to succeed. So what to do? China is not going to stop. Is that a problem? I don't think so. Let China shine. Let China have her day in the lunar light. The U.S. should take a couple years, recover our economy, and gauge where we can go that is so bold, so innovative, so far beyond the realm of possibility anywhere else, that only America could do it. I'd suggest near-Earth asteroid survey missions, where we could explore for water resources (water = oxygen and rocket fuel and access to space like never before), platinum metals (hundreds of billions of dollars' worth), semiconductors for space-based photovoltaic systems, and basic science related to the origin of the Solar System and prebiotic chemistry. From asteroids to Mars, and beyond.
But let's not get the dream ahead of the practicality of it, especially as America tries to cope with a financial/economic crisis the likes of which have never before been experienced. We don't need to abandon bold visionary thinking; but we have to think it out first. We must not go bankrupt while trying to be bold and future-thinking. We need to get our priorities right. This LASER program rescoping may seem a small issue, but I'd say it is a sign that somebody somewhere finally is thinking things out.
Anyone who has driven through Ohio and glanced at a couple license plates knows that the Buckeye State is the renowned "Birthplace of Aviation"--the Wright brothers and space pioneer (and former Senator) John Glenn are famous natives of the state.
And John Glenn himself recently endowed Barack's campaign with his Ohio born-and-bred space expertise, by advocating for Senator Obama's NASA platform. The Dayton Daily News carries the story:
Former Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, spent part of his Sunday afternoon stumping for Sen. Barack Obama’s space agenda. On a conference call with reporters, Glenn backed Obama’s plans for NASA, saying Obama’s plans represent a reversal from funding cuts during the Bush administration. “I’m looking forward to working very closely with Barack Obama after he’s president,” said Glenn, adding he hopes that Obama adds more than the one shuttle flight per year he’s committed to in his space plan. If elected, Obama said he would: - Re-enact the National Aeronautics and Space Council to oversee and coordinate the civilian, commercial and military space programs and report to the president. - Go to the moon by 2020 as a precursor to going to Mars. - Add another shuttle flight to help accelerate the development of the next generation space vehicle. - Complete and enhance the International Space Station so it can host the innovative scientific and technological research projects it was intended to facilitate. - Emphasize NASA research to study climate change and advance aeronautics research. - Expand public/private partnerships to develop new technolgoy - Expanded education. Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth when he piloted the Friendship 7 around the earth in 1962. He served in the U.S. Senate from 1974 to 1997.
Former Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, spent part of his Sunday afternoon stumping for Sen. Barack Obama’s space agenda. On a conference call with reporters, Glenn backed Obama’s plans for NASA, saying Obama’s plans represent a reversal from funding cuts during the Bush administration.
“I’m looking forward to working very closely with Barack Obama after he’s president,” said Glenn, adding he hopes that Obama adds more than the one shuttle flight per year he’s committed to in his space plan.
If elected, Obama said he would: - Re-enact the National Aeronautics and Space Council to oversee and coordinate the civilian, commercial and military space programs and report to the president. - Go to the moon by 2020 as a precursor to going to Mars. - Add another shuttle flight to help accelerate the development of the next generation space vehicle. - Complete and enhance the International Space Station so it can host the innovative scientific and technological research projects it was intended to facilitate. - Emphasize NASA research to study climate change and advance aeronautics research. - Expand public/private partnerships to develop new technolgoy - Expanded education.
Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth when he piloted the Friendship 7 around the earth in 1962. He served in the U.S. Senate from 1974 to 1997.
Space policy made a pretty decent splash at Netroots Nation. We had an excellent panel on space policy, and an excellent platform meeting. For those of you who don't remember, we had Andrew Hoppin moderating, and Chris Bowers, Lori Garver, Patricia Grace Smith, and George Whitesides all speaking. You can about the panelists here.
Join me over the fold to read, and see it
Hey Everyone,
I figured now would be a good time to remind everyone (again) about some upcoming space events, that would be worth going to. We have a couple of major events this week, as well as future events upcoming. I promise reports to any and all I attend, and I suggest that you attend as well
Why not use satellite to harness renewable energy instead of using them to spy on us?
Ocean Wind Power Maps Reveal Possible Wind Energy Sources
ScienceDaily (July 10, 2008) — Efforts to harness the energy potential of Earth's ocean winds could soon gain an important new tool: global satellite maps from NASA. Scientists have been creating maps using nearly a decade of data from NASA's QuikSCAT satellite that reveal ocean areas where winds could produce wind energy.
The new maps have many potential uses including planning the location of offshore wind farms to convert wind energy into electric energy.
"Wind energy is environmentally friendly. After the initial energy investment to build and install wind turbines, you don't burn fossil fuels that emit carbon," said study lead author Tim Liu, a senior research scientist and QuikSCAT science team leader at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Like solar power, wind energy is green energy."
People are questioning whether NASA’s current agenda is capable of producing the bountiful economic spinoffs reaped from the early space program. Personal computers, software, GPS, weather satellites, solar panels, digital cameras...all are a horn of plenty set in motion by President Kennedy in 1961. NASA is adrift from the economic challenges of the 21st century. The key lesson learned is that humans are very expensive space workers owing to their complex life support systems. By comparison, robots easily adapt to outer space and only lack one attribute – the intelligence to deal with unexpected problems. What if NASA were to forget about sending people to the moon and Mars, and instead adopt an ambitious goal to colonize the moon robotically? Two worthwhile projects would be astronomy outposts on the moon, and a particle beam gun to deflect killer asteroids away from hitting the earth. Unlike Apollo, which was a difficult act to follow, a robotic space program is sustainable because mission costs are much lower.
But the bigger payoff will take place back here on earth. Intelligent robotics will transform manufacturing, construction, transportation, hospitality, health care, landscaping and housework. If a parallel effort is devoted to robo-ethics and economics, smart robotics will usher in an era of unprecedented human prosperity.
NASA should play a leading role in spearheading the computer science leading to this outcome. A major shift in priorities needs to take place. Sen McCain has endorsed men-on-Mars, which should be vigorously debated as out-of-touch with what we've learned in our first 50 years in space. It's a strategic blunder that could surrender the smart robotics revolution to our global competitors.
Sen. Obama hopefully will have the most well-informed scientists helping him shape the issues in time for the fall debates.
One good thing then Governor George W. Bush did - signing a law that makes it relatively easy for astronauts to vote.
For anyone who missed the story on NPR you can find it here:
While two votes from space won't make much of a difference in the presidential contest in Texas, who knows what they'll mean at the state-level given the GOTV efforts.
Regardless, that NASA and the Texas election officials go through the trouble to help the astronauts vote is one of those "proud to be American" moments.
Hey everyone,
This is kind of a small group, but I hope that I have a fair number of space exploration lovers here. I know Barack Obama has already been willing to at least question the status quo (although definitely in such a way as to put at least a small dagger in my Mars-loving heart). There is a strong element of truth in what he said about NASA not inspiring as much as it has in the past. Once upon a time, when we heard we were going to the moon, we gave out a cry of "hell yes." Now, talk of Mars usually returns a "yeah, right." Even in my own program, I am often derided as a dreamer for hoping for something more than a comfortable job with a fat and complacent contractor.
After the jump, I'd like to bring up a proposal that I've chewed on for some time:
Where does Barack stand on NASA and space exploration? After sorting through his various policy pages on technology, education, spending and the like, I have not been able to find any information on where Barack stands on Space.
I would imagine that like most Democrats, he isn't wildly enthusiastic about funding space exploration, instead prefering that money be spent on social programs. This makes sense, space isn't sexy any more like it was in the 60's. The many problems and cost overruns with the shuttle and space station in recent years make it easy to understand why voters would rather that sixteen-odd billion dollars a year be spent on them. Also, Bush is the one who set forth the Vision for Space Exploration culminating in the creation of the Orion program to replace the shuttle and return to the moon, so it wouldn't be prudent for a change candidate to agree with the president on this. That being said, NASA has done some amazing things with unmanned missons in recent years such as the 2004 rovers that landed on Mars and the lander that is there digging away as we speak. Also, the Cassini mission to Saturn has proven to be a huge success and sets the stage for the Jupiter icy moons orbiter that is set to launch soon. So, with so much going on at NASA, what will Barack do as president?
I would love to hear him pledge a Kennedy-like goal of landing on Mars or at least establishing a base on the Moon, but I don't think he would do anything like that during his first term. Once the economy is in better shape and the war in Iraq is ended, there will be room to be bold and visionary about space exploration. However I think the space program is integral to supporting efforts like combatting climate change, researching alternative energy (NASA's been using fuel cells for decades), and supporting math and science education so it would be in Obama's best interest to come out in full support of NASA. Furthermore, a renewed commitment to NASA could also help with restoring America's image accross the world. Right now, the Chinese, Russians, Indians, and Europeans are all pushing forward with their own space programs and America cannot afford to get behind in a new space race to China (who plans on going to the moon, too).
So I guess my question is: Where does Barack stand on space? And: Where should he stand?
