From: Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> At 04:08 PM 1/15/04, Bryon Daly wrote:When I first read Bush's proposal, one of the first things that struck me was that it seems to be far too little new money, and far too little time,
It took only 8 years from JFK's speech until Apollo 11, and JFK's speech happened less than four years after the very first ever object was launched into Earth orbit.
. . . and, BTW, six weeks (plus one day for the excruciatingly pedantic among us) after the first ever man in space and three weeks (minus one day) after the first and to that time only US manned launch.
Yes, but I believe that to have been a "crash" program,
NOT an appropriate term to use wrt aerospace . . .
with lots of money and resources brought to bear on it, with the singular goal in mind. (Am I wrong on that?) I've often heard use of "an Apollo-type program" to describe an intense, high-focus program to achieve some goal. Can reappropriating just 1/7 or so of NASA's budget allow for this sort of intense program? From some of the analysis I've seen, it looks as if NASA will still be spending part of its energies and a fair bit of its budget on the shuttle and space station, plus probably still trying to maintain at least some portion of its unmanned robotic exploration efforts.
One big oopsie for me: Rereading Bush's speech, I realize his target for a return to the moon is 2015-2020. I had misremembered his testing date for the CEV (2008) as the targeted moon landing date, so it's a far more reasonable 11-16 year timeframe that the short 4-6 year time frame I was thinking.
Even so, though, is that enough time (and is the budget sufficient) to develop both a heavy lifting Saturn V replacement, the CEV, and the moon probes? How long did the shuttle take to launch, from day 1 until its first true first space mission? I'm afraid our big project track record since the Apollo days isn't so encouraging.
Which imho is at least in part because the "vision" was lacking. No more "higher," "faster," "further," but a step back. As many people pointed out at the time, it was rather ironic, not to mention sad, that three decades after he became the first US astronaut to orbit the Earth, John Glenn's second flight into space was another low Earth orbit mission.
(ie: F-22)
All that said, I do really like the idea of a return to manned exploration of space, a Moon base and Mars landings. I was pretty disappointed the last time I remember a president (was it Bush?) sorta mentioned a manned Mars mission, there seemed to be a resounding No! from some of the science community.
And a loud "Yes!!" from some of us. I hope the "Yes" voices are louder this time.
So really, my concern here is in how realistic the proposal is.
Exactly how realistic a proposal was Apollo on 25 May 1961?
I'd prefer a realistic appraisal up front of the time and costs involved over one that earns a reputation as behind schedule and over budget. (Not to say that I think that will be the case, but Easterbrook's numbers cause me some concern. Particularly the "Saturn V cost $40b in today's dollars" Can we do it plus the CEV today for under $12b when Boeing spends $7.5b designing a new airliner?)
Easterbrook was a bit snarky with some of the stuff you quote below, which I won't defend, but I'll add some comments.
The name doesn't even make sense.
Who cares?
I think "Manned Exploration Vehicle" would make more sense, but Easterbrook's just nitpicking here.
That was my point. ;-))
I suspect, however, "MANned Exploration Vehicle", like "MANned mission to Mars", or "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a MAN on the moon and returning HIM safely to the Earth" won't fly in the 21st century . . .
Which is one of the questions I brought up last night in class: What will the structure of the crew be? All men, with a military or paramilitary command structure? A mixed crew, perhaps as some SF writers have suggested, composed of married couples to allow them to maintain at least an appearance of respectability? I asked my students (as I've asked them before) to consider, if they are married, what would happen if we shut them and their spouse up together in a room the size of the classroom for the next year or two . . . and whether both of them would still be alive at the end of that time . . .
Will the task of the vehicle be to explore the crew?
No. Its task will be to >>>>> LAND HUMAN BEINGS ON MARS <<<<<.
_That's_ what's inspiring about it.
I agree.
Yep. "Command Module", "Service Module", or "Lunar Module" are not inspiring names in and of themselves. What made them inspiring was what they did.
So far all money numbers announced for the Bush plan seem complete nonsense, if not outright dishonesty. We shouldn't expect George W. Bush himself to know that $12 billion is not enough to develop a spaceship. We should expect the people around Bush, and at the top of NASA, to know this. And apparently they are either astonishingly ill-informed and na�ve, or are handing out phony numbers for political purposes, to get the foot in the door for far larger sums later.
Obviously it is only a start. The converse of "No bucks = No Buck Rogers" is also true. Open your mind, man. And your heart.
Note that the last two sentences in particular are directed to the author of the article . . .
What would the converse of "No bucks = No Buck Rogers" be?
"No Buck Rogers ==> no bucks." As someone else here has already said, the taxpayers aren't going to get excited about spending billions just to get a piece of asteroid.
-- Ronn! :)
The contents of this message � 2004 by the author. All rights reserved. Any reproduction, reproduction, or transmission of the contents of this message in any form by any means whatsoever is strictly prohibited.
_______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
