Watch the $huttle dock with the $pace $tation.

[alfredo]

It is your money, might as well watch.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/

Actually, it is fun to watch.

[gulfcoastliberal]

1. What a waste.

I challenge anyone to provide some peer-reviewed published science from this nonsense. What exactly are we doing that hasn't been done before? I do applaud NASA switching back to capsules, though. If we're going to keep blasting people into space, might as well go with something more reliable and safe than the shuttle. That thing is a deathtrap where a million things can go wrong..

[knitter4democracy]

2. The space program has had all sorts of side benefits.

No one planned for cell phones or GPS or better knowledge of many materials or porcelains or any of the many things that we use today back in the 60's. Heck, pure science always gives us more than anyone had planned on. The scientists have the vision and goal, and then the engineers figure out how to apply all the stuff they made up for the scientists to other problems. It's what we do.

[LoZoccolo]

3. Agreed; I'd even argue the same for defense. n/t

[originalpckelly]

8. And quite frankly, if you took all the money NASA gets every year...

and divide it by the population, you get $54.52 spent on NASA per person in the USA per year for this year.

If you double it, to account for the fact that only about 1/2 of the population actually works, then you get $109.04.

That's equal to $9.09 spent per month per person in the workforce on NASA.

I think space exploration is worth $9.09 per month, don't you?

[LoZoccolo]

33. I've heard the argument raised that people spend more on dog treats...

...than space travel, so if they're really that concerned...

[knitter4democracy]

36. There's that.

I have a cousin who used to work defense work for one of the big companies, and while he couldn't tell us what they were designing and working on, he did say that they all constantly thought up civilian uses for the same technology.

[jollyreaper2112]

7. I'm a space fan, not a nasa fan

My analogy for government spending on any goal: it's like trying to fill a 5 oz. dixie cup with a lawn sprinkler. Yeah, you can do it, but it'll take you ten gallons.

Right now NASA is the home of the small idea. I would like to see us in space but I want it to be for serious reasons, not just silly flag-planting operations. If we can develop a commercial reason to be there and hardware to get us there, pure science will be easier to fund. Do you think that Charles Darwin would have had a Beagle to sail on if there wasn't a demand for and development of seafaring technology? Would any of the missions of exploration have been launched without serious financial backing by major world powers? And would those powers have come up with the cash if they didn't have in mind some kind of return? I love pure science but it's easier to do it if you can bundle it along with applied science money.

The international space station is a small-minded flop. NASA needs to grow a pair and set some real goals. Wanna see something ballsy? An O'Neill-style habitat. What's that? Think Babylon 5, a big rotating cylinder.





Cool, huh? But what's the point of being up there? Glad you asked. Space mining/manufacturing and solar power sats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_mining

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_satellite

Shift the burden of supporting our population into space, give the Earth some breathing room. I guarantee you that I could get the staunchest Greenpeacer to go along with these ideas if you just give me ten minutes. The human population is not going to shrink voluntarily any time soon but if it keeps growing at the current rate, it will shrink involuntarily. War, disease, famine, it's going to be ugly for everyone. Our best hope is to accept that it isn't going to shrink and take steps to keep the population sustainable without ruining the planet. We're going to have to turn to the sort of technologies talked about in sci-fi arcologies, the same kind of technology involved in space stations. We're talking self-sustaining, closed-system ecologies. Imagine taking a city like New York and making it 90% self-sustaining. Water is pumped in, used for drinking, bathing, cooking, hydroponics, recaptured and pumped through distillers and put back into the system. Imagine human waste broken down into the base organic components and pumped as nutrients into the hydroponics bays. Oh, that sounds sick? Where do you think your poop goes in nature? Imagine if the power for all of this came not from fossil or nuclear fuel but from power satellites. Imagine it, a city of millions with a minimal footprint on the environment!

Would this be easy? No, of course not. It's a tremendous challenge for all of us. But by God, if we can cough up a trillion fucking dollars for a war in the sand, I think we owe it to ourselves to pay for something like this, something that will grow the wealth of this nation instead of squander it!

[A HERETIC I AM]

9. I was thinking of starting a thread on this very subject. Glad you bought it up.

The United States can and should begin to colonize space for the express purpose of power generation. These ideas and the technology to accomplish them have been around since the seventies and yet, as you state, NASA must "grow a pair" in order to get this going. Either that or we need another speech like Kennedy's; "Before this decade is out....etc"

A Princeton University Physicist named Gerard K. O'Neil did an excellent body of work on this subject 30 years ago and yet it isn't discussed. Sure, it would cost probably trillions but the alternative is wasting the planet away waiting for someone to come up with table-top cold fusion.

[jollyreaper2112]

22. check the links, dude

I mentioned the good doctor. :)

Too bad there's just not a lot of good info about this stuff online. I know there were a lot of pictures from back in the day but not much of it has been scanned and indexed online.

[A HERETIC I AM]

24. Here's some more links "dude". Plenty of info on this subject. Just Google "L5 Society"

"L5" for those that don't know has to do with the "Lagrange Points" ( http://www.physics.montana.edu/faculty/cornish/lagrange.html )
discovered by a French mathematician that show there are 5 points in orbit between two orbiting bodies that offer stable positions in space in which one could position a station well outside low-earth orbit.

What Wiki has to say about the L5 society;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L5_Society

Link to the history of the L5 society from Space.com;
http://www.space.com/adastra/adastra_nss_history_051116.html

Link to a page of Space Colony artwork;
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Education/SpaceSettlement/70sArt/art.html

The July, 1976 edition of the National Geographic Magazine had this subject as it's cover with a story written by Isaac Asimov.

[knitter4democracy]

35. I'm all for that.

NASA used to be about big ideas, but with massive budget cuts and all, they keep scaling back and scaling back some more. If we really put together a good plan like that, I could see a lot of people getting into it. I know I would.

[MindPilot]

4. Dude, it is space travel, you know, exploration.

It is by its very nature dangerous. If we waited for things to be completely safe, nothing would happen.

[jollyreaper2112]

10. I agree with you

But what NASA's been doing for the past 30 years basically amounts to Low Earth Orbit masturbation. Return to capsules is proof that the space plane idea was a huge waste of time. We were stuck with a fantastically expensive tool that couldn't do much and were forced to invent tasks to justify its existence. We don't need a space shuttle, we need heavy lift.

Sea Dragon was a two-stage design of 1962 capable of putting 1.2 million pounds (550 tonnes) into low Earth orbit. The concept was to achieve minimum launch costs through lower development and production costs. This meant accepting a larger booster with a lower performance propulsion system and higher stage dead weight then traditional NASA and USAF designs. The first stage had a single pressure fed, thrust chamber of 36 million kgf thrust, burning LOX/Kerosene. The second stage was ‘considerably smaller’ (thrust only 6.35 million kgf!) and burned LOX/LH2. The complete vehicle was 23 m in diameter and 150 m long. The all-up weight was 18,000 tonnes. The launch vehicle would be fuelled with RP-1 kerosene in port, then towed horizontally to a launch point in the open ocean. It would then be filled with cryogenic liquid oxygen and hydrogen from tankers or produced by electrolysis of sea water by a nuclear aircraft carrier (such as the CVN Enterprise in the painting). After fuelling, the tanks at the launcher base would be flooded, and the vehicle would reach a vertical position in the open ocean. Launch would follow. The concept was proven with tests of the earlier Sea Bee and Sea Horse vehicles. Aside from the baseline two stage expendable version, a single-stage-to-orbit reusable vehicle with a plug nozzle was designed. Costs to low earth orbit were estimated to be between $60/kg and $600/kg - eg one fourth that of the Saturn V or less.




http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/mwade/lvs/searagon.htm

You want an even bigger idea than that? Orion Drives.



http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=679

Project Orion was intended to harness nuclear energy in its rawest form: by detonating a series of nuclear bombs in rapid succession to propel enormous spaceships from the Earth into the heavens. The largest of the Orions was to be seven million tons–more than 7,000 times more massive than the Space Shuttle– and powerful enough to launch a small city. Provided sufficient numbers of bombs, an Orion spaceship theoretically could have reached 1/10th the speed of light, enabling interstellar travel. The motto of Project Orion was "Mars in 1965, Saturn in 1970."

You could swap the nukes for antimatter bombs and launch the thing far out at sea. You'd have intense gamma bursts but no ionizing radiation and no fallout.

This is thinking big. NASA is about jerking off these days.

[originalpckelly]

13. "Low Earth Orbit masturbation"

:rofl:

[Warren DeMontague]

16. I agree we need to start thinking bigger, no doubt.

No doubt at all. Of course, maybe if we had other priorities than having a military more expensive than every other one on the planet combined, thinking big might be a little more feasible.

[gulfcoastliberal]

27. They need to study the Burkhard Heim hyperdrive theory, etc

You're right and every time they "launch" one, it costs billions. We're not exploring anything that hasn't been explored since the 60s.

[originalpckelly]

5. Not everything is about science. Life isn't meant to be cold and efficient.

No robot can tell you what it feels like to look at the Earth or the Moon.

[slowry]

31. Nonetheless, the suggestion that there's no "peer-reviewed" science

being done at the ISS is mind-boggling.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Do you use Teflon in the kitchen?

Thank the space program...

And soem of the medical research done today might benfit you

Also I will make an argument people rarely make, if we are to survive as a species we have to do far more, not less, than what we are doing

Yep, we need to find ways to go interstellar and to other worlds.

[Wilms]

12. I hope you don't use Teflon in the kitchen.

""In retrospect, this may seem like one of the biggest, if not the biggest, mistakes the chemical industry has ever made," said Jane Houlihan, vice president for research at the Environmental Working Group, an activist organization. "And how could they not be in our blood?" Houlihan said. "They're in such a huge range of consumer products. We're talking about Teflon, Stainmaster, Gore-tex, Silverstone. So if you buy clothing that's coated with Teflon or something else that protects it from dirt and stains, those chemicals can absorb directly through the skin." According to the Environmental Protection Agency, some of the highest C-8 levels were found in children."

http://www.tuberose.com/Teflon.html


But I think $5-10 a month for the space program is a bargain...even while I favor the unpersoned missions.

[gulfcoastliberal]

28. Sorry but Teflon came from DuPont, it was used in jet engine parts

http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Teflon/Teflon-HistoryDuPont.htm

My mom's partner was a polymer engineer with DuPont for decades. I know all about Teflon - had nothing to do with being a "spinoff" from rockets.

Even if teflon was a spinoff, is teflon worth a trillion dollars?

[MadHound]

21. As far as peer reviewed science,

I think that if you would simply Google for the subject, you would find lots of peer reviewed scientific articles concerning scientific work done in zero or micro gravity scientific research in almost all scientific disciplines.

I also find it rather ironic that you're expressing this opinion on a computer, since a great deal of the impetus for packing ever more computing power into smaller and smaller packages was provided by the space program.

And if you're looking for more practical results, you need go no further than either to your closet or your car, since many of the artificial fabrics, along with the technology for forming nylon and fiberglass for car and other parts are a direct result of the space program also.

Going to space is expensive, yes. However it does provide concrete progress in both theoretical and practical scientific fields.

I agree with retiring the shuttle, it is an older designed that needs to be updated.

[gulfcoastliberal]

29. Wow, no one heard of DuPont inventing polymers? and what shuttle electronics are?

Do some research into the type of computers the shuttles use - finest 1970s technology still in use by the space program.

Nylon and fiberglass came from NASA? Yeah, right. Nylon was invented by DuPont scientists in 1930 as a polymer based silk substitute. Mind telling me what NASA was doing in 1930 with nylon? LOL. And modern fiberglass was invented as insulation in 1938 or so. The false idea of technology "spinoffs" from NASA are just a PR campaign. Pretty successful too, since no one seems to back up their claims with facts.

[jollyreaper2112]

34. That's what I'm saying

What we've done in space up to the Apollo program is kewl. Unmanned space exploration has been pretty neat since then and the earth observation sats are invaluable. But manned space exploration since Apollo? Total waste. Apollo should have been the first step towards a lunar base, not a flag-planting photo-op. That's why I object to the idiotic idea of a Mars landing. What, we'll spend 20 years getting a mission together to go plant a flag and have nothing but a pile of mars rocks to show for it? No! I want serious space infrastructure up there, I want space-based industry. Then you could do a Mars landing with pocket change and off-the-shelf components.

[knitter4democracy]

37. Here are some links.

http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/

NASA's page on what of theirs has been spun-off for commercial purposes.

A privately run page that does the same thing:
http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html

Another page:
http://www1.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/spinoff.html

And another:
http://www.stars4space.org/Benefits.html

So much for no one backing up their claims with facts. :eyes:

[slowry]

30. I win

http://www.nasa.gov">nasa on the interwebs

[originalpckelly]

11. This is just so fun to watch!

I just got done re-watching this whole series documenting human spaceflight and now I get to see this! WOOHOO!

[alfredo]

14. I did get to see Atlantis and the Space Station one day as it

flew overhead. I was impressed at how fast it travelled.

[originalpckelly]

20. I did as well, they have the software to tell you when it happens here:

http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/

[alfredo]

25. I forgot about that software. Thanks.

[Warren DeMontague]

15. Money for NASA, science, and peaceful space exploration is ALWAYS well spent, IMHO.

Some people loooooooooooove to bitch about NASA, complete with the saw about how we need to "solve our problems on Earth here first", nevermind the fact that space science is instrumental to understanding our world AND it's problems, and never bothering to explain why, since space exploration gets such a tiny sliver of cash as it is, we haven't solved all those problems already.

And you'll notice that EVERY time something is written about the Space Program, the media feels compelled to include the price tag, for some odd reason. But in my book, the half trillion a year we spend on the bloated Military-Industrial Complex is a far bigger "waste". The $400+ billion in additional spending above and beyond for Iraq? An even bigger, crueller waste. How about the $40 Billion a year we spend on a bullshit "drug war" aimed primarily at pot smokers? How about the costs associated with the incarceration of millions of non-violent drug offenders? And like I said, for some reason those things aren't reported with a price tag: like,

"in an operation today that cost the taxpayers several million dollars, cops driving a $300,000 armored police vehicle, carrying thousand-dollar assault weapons and wearing several thousand dollars in riot gear kicked down the door of a medical marijuana dispensary, and used $200 batons to subdue, cuff, and drag off several cancer-ridden grandmas who posed a threat to homeland security with their attempts to eat dangerous, narcotic-laced brownies. These grandmas will be incarcerated at a cost of $80,000 a year to the taxpayers. Back to you, Chet"

[alfredo]

17. I have little doubt that the space program is essential to pure science,

but I also know bush is using it and other space programs to further his goal of militarizing space.

[Warren DeMontague]

19. I don't think the Holy Roller crowd he has running "science" in that White House know space from

spaghetti.

Most of them probably think the 6,000 year old Earth is flat, anyway.

[alfredo]

26. If they can't eat it, kill it, or extract tithes it is of little use.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

18. And Money Well Spent Too. And Yup, It Is Fun To Watch.

[jollyreaper2112]

23. more images of what we could be doing

huge picture of the inside of a space habitat, I broke the link because it's too wide for the screen. Open in new window, remove the "l" from the end of the url and reload.

l

[alfredo]

32. I'd rather be making that than making war.