Obama to Cancel US Manned Space Program Cancelled - NASA to focus on Global Warming

[OSECS]

I...


Just.....



Can't.....



Help.......



myself.....

I appreciate your lack of self control.







.....

[highangle]

And i agree with KQ, stop hashing our mellow.

btw, there is a Space Port in New Mexico. Maybe the capitalists can do some work and get this rolling and stop sitting on their respective asses asking for handouts like a welfare mom. Eh hypocrisy built this ship, I guess she might as well sail it.

?

[Cyber Cop]

Do you think brett ever took a basic Chemistry class, you know, calculated some moles and stirred the crucible? Can he even spell CO2?

[splat]

My concern is what will happen to the scores of space cadets and trekkies handling the counterculture's approach to intergalactic travel.

wtf are they gonna do?

[Blurred]

Do you think brett ever took a basic Chemistry class, you know, calculated some moles and stirred the crucible? Can he even spell CO2?

Notice how nobody thinks you're funny?

You should work on that.

[irul&ublo]

All is not lost. Only MANNED space flight is affected. Plans to make Rosie O'Donnel a new moon are still in the works. Plus, AKPM still has a shot at first eunuch in space.

[The AD]

I work in the aerospace industry and even I can't get worked up about this. Human space travel has become boring. Either fund something worthwhile or cut it all together.

[Blurred]

Human space travel has become boring.

How many shuttle rides you got under your belt?


Flying and driving is boring too.

[Cyber Cop]

Notice how nobody thinks you're funny?

You should work on that.

What's funny is you are the resident expert on climate, but you know what i said is true, which is why you are butt hurt and are now going to spend the next three pages trying to prove that it is in fact moi who is both unfunny and rectally pained. Dear brett, it's a game we can both play on auto pilot, but it's still just the special Olympics. You may be half black, but you are not Richard Prior or LeBron James.


anyway, LoneStar thinks I'm funny.

[summit]

I work in the aerospace industry and even I can't get worked up about this. Human space travel has become boring. Either fund something worthwhile or cut it all together.

Wasn't that the point of Constellation? Earth. Moon. Mars.

Doing it right of course would be a little different: set up a mostly self sustaining Moon base which is both for mining and spaceship fuel/reaction mass production, use a nuclear powered mass driver to shoot fuel into orbit and mining goodies back to earth. PROFIT!

Build a nice nuclear powered rocket, go to Lunar orbit, pick up reaction mass, go visit some asteroids and Mars, actually search for (past) life with the (comparative) ease of a human astronaut. EXCITING!

Find a neat asteroid, nudge its orbit, put it in earth orbit, mine it while proving asteroid defense. PROFIT!

[highangle]

My concern is what will happen to the scores of space cadets and trekkies handling the counterculture's approach to intergalactic travel.

wtf are they gonna do?

fkn spacenerds...

[The AD]

How many shuttle rides you got under your belt?

Good point, but I don't think funding a few dozen astronauts' joy rides should be the Feds' top priority right now!

[Blurred]

What's funny is you are the resident expert on climate, but you know what i said is true, which is why you are butt hurt and are now going to spend the next three pages trying to prove that it is in fact moi who is both unfunny and rectally pained. Dear brett, it's a game we can both play on auto pilot, but it's still just the special Olympics. You may be half black, but you are not Richard Prior or LeBron James.


anyway, LoneStar thinks I'm funny.

Is that the best you got? WEAK.

Guessing you're loving the attention you so desperately desire.
My treat.

[Cyber Cop]

Go ahead cool hand luke, tell us how you owned us all. sly dog.

[kevok2]

Find a neat asteroid, nudge its orbit, put it in earth orbit, mine it while proving asteroid defense. PROFIT!

Asteroids are filled to the balls with useful materials. Screw Mars, the asteroid belt is, as you said, where the profit is.

[jfost]

you republicans are really reaching...

Now you're CRYING about gov't funding (spending) being cut?!? Saying this is "yet another path to certain disaster" and other crap like this?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

This should be your wet dream, a chance for the "free market" to take up the slack of ineffective federal govt! Let the bidding wars begin! Richard Branson is your first ambassador to private space travel/exploration, now pony the fuck up big red wallets and get on board.

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN CAMPAIGNING FOR! Wallow around in it and lets see some solutions.

[The Duke of Hurl]

The meek shall inherit the earth. The rest shall go to the stars.

[nealric]

Nope... not if we get over the idea of using chemical rockets. Chemical rocket based exploration of the solar system is retarded.

Oh, now I remember where I stashed that warp drive I invented. Too bad we can't use it now

[summit]

dear jfrost, I am NOT a republican.

Oh, now I remember where I stashed that warp drive I invented. Too bad we can't use it now

OK small minded one.

I was referring to nuclear thermal rockets, something that was well within our technical capability 50 years ago, just not needed for the Earth orbit jaunts. We were developing them to go to Mars, but gave up due to the Green Peacers and because we had to spend money on Vietnam in stead of space. Newer tech could be used like the VSIMR Nuclear Electronic Rocket.

[PNWbrit]

Hey summit have you gotten laid yet?
I think I last asked about 2 years ago...
Any luck?

not a chance.....

I was referring to nuclear thermal rockets, something that was well within our technical capability 50 years ago, just not needed for the Earth orbit jaunts. We were developing them to go to Mars, but gave up due to the Green Peacers and because we had to spend money on Vietnam in stead of space. Newer tech could be used like the VSIMR Nuclear Electronic Rocket.

[Purveyor of Slack]

I was referring to nuclear thermal rockets, something that was well within our technical capability 50 years ago, just not needed for the Earth orbit jaunts. We were developing them to go to Mars, but gave up due to the Green Peacers and because we had to spend money on Vietnam in stead of space. Newer tech could be used like the VSIMR Nuclear Electronic Rocket.

Freeman Dyson was a smart, eccentric dude but futurist generally tend to be full of shit the majority of the time.


BTW his sons' biadarka shop is just down the street. Sweet aluminum SOF sea kayaks.....true works of art.






How about cutting the space budget in half and focusing on unmanned projects.

Use the the other half on renewable energy development, thereby saving untold billions on the military defense of the multinational corporate resource rapists.

Then reinvest some of those savings back into manned space programs.



BTW manned flight is candy for the masses.

[splat]

Yeah, I just ordered one of his iridium particulate nuclear detonation kayaks cause it was so much cheaper than a used shuttle.

[summit]

Freeman Dyson was a smart, eccentric dude but futurist generally tend to be full of shit the majority of the time.

This has jack to due with futurist bullshit. This is mostly extremely simple and viable older technology that we abandoned for political reasons. Here is nuclear thermal rocket we built in the 1960s. It already had a SI 3x that of a Saturn V and 2x of the Space Shuttle's main engines that wouldn't be developed for another 20 years:



These are NOT complex designs. They are in fact far simpler than the nuclear propulsion systems we use on naval ships. It works like this (simplified):

Hot nuclear reactor -> run coolant through -> coolant gets really hot -> expand it through a nozzle -> THRUST!

More advanced NTRs would used liquid metal reactors. NERs are even nicer because they allow even more efficiency and can be made lighter and safer depending on the thruster design.


VASIMR rocket completing full power test

We currently have functioning ion engines and we have operated ion engined probes, but we lack a good power system. As I said, exploration outside of earth orbit without fission power is just retarded.


Image of Comet Borely taken by the ion engined Deep Space 1 probe in 2001

We were going to build a fission powered probe to send to Jupiter's moons, possibly dropping landers, but W's budget cuts killed it:

Prometheus I - Fission Powered Ion Engined Probe - Artists Concept

Project Prometheus was defunded in 2005. It was supposed to restart NASA's fission propulsion division which was abandoned in 1973 after Nixon cut funding to the NERVA Mars program (NERVA was the NTR in the first picture of this post).

How about cutting the space budget in half and focusing on unmanned projects.

Use the the other half on renewable energy development, thereby saving untold billions on the military defense of the multinational corporate resource rapists.

Then reinvest some of those savings back into manned space programs.

Pulling out feel good solutions without thinking about any details... 7 billion is not going to solve our energy problems if you want your green feel good shit. It would be a tiny start. We need to do two things to be energy independent (and carbon freeish): build gen IV nuclear plants and invest money in battery/fuel cell tech which are charged by the nuclear power. Period. End of story.

And you don't have to neuter NASA to do it. Hell, investment in NASA got us leaps and bounds in battery technology to start with!

BTW manned flight is candy for the masses.

Negative. Read the thread.

[f2f]

there are other nucular spaceship designs that can be even stranger (exploding bombs and riding the blast wave is one of them). interesting overview here:

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0385520697/thedailygrail"]Amazon.com: Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel[/ame]



and a way more complete (in a "mad scientist" kind of way) is Tony Zuppero's "To Inhabit the Solar System". completely bonkers, but free for download:

http://www.neofuel.com/inhabit/inhabit.pdf

[Rip'nStick]

you republicans are really reaching...

Now you're CRYING about gov't funding (spending) being cut?!? Saying this is "yet another path to certain disaster" and other crap like this?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

This should be your wet dream, a chance for the "free market" to take up the slack of ineffective federal govt! Let the bidding wars begin! Richard Branson is your first ambassador to private space travel/exploration, now pony the fuck up big red wallets and get on board.

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN CAMPAIGNING FOR! Wallow around in it and lets see some solutions.

Yeah the reaction from the right seemed a little out of place. Can someone like Rubicon answer this?

First half of my career was directly involved with designing satellite systems. Exciting work, but I moved to a career in energy because I believe it to be the biggest challenge facing mankind right now. But I still haven't cut my ties with aerospace since I enjoyed working with the best designers in the world.

I can truly understand both Summit and AD's point of view. Wish we weren't in this mess, but it seems like we have to address energy and US economy before we can move to our lunar launch pad. It will happen, probably about the time I am ready to pass on from this life.