House cancels NASA Lunar Base funding

a reply to: worldstarcountry

We can only hope. Fortunately as it stands, this bill will likely not get through the Senate and if it did, it would be facing Mr. Trump's veto stamp. Now if some donkey makes it in office next year, all bets are off and the American taxpayer will get the shaft again.

originally posted by: worldstarcountry
a reply to: jrod

It's because the Democrats in charge of the house Ll get their marching orders from China. Cutti g funds only benefits our rivals space programs. Cannot wait until the 2020 election washes away all the sell out traitors in the house.

While you spew your vitriol at the "Democrat" "traitors," you might want to take a look back at the last half-dozen or so Presidents -- Democratic and Republican -- who also promised a literal NASA pie in the sky and then tossed it all in the trash when it came time to pony up the money.

It happens ALL THE TIME. That's because promising trips to the Moon is easy, flashy, gets press, and nobody ever, ever has to actually make good on it. If you live long enough to see several more Presidents in office (unless your dreams of a Trump empire come true), I will bet you a Coke that they ALL will say and do that very same thing.

originally posted by: jrod
a reply to: smurfy

Already provided 4 posts before yours. This is legit and it appears Boeing lobbyist and Democrat House Reps have pulled a fast one. This would give the space program to Boeing while squashing government funding to SpaceX and others while sabatoging Trump's space vision.

It's Congress who have approved whatever...and it is a bi-partisan effort,

'Now Congress, in a bipartisan action in the House with new NASA Authorization legislation, delays human landings, deletes hardware and puts a new item in the critical path, and deletes any useful use of capabilities on the lunar surface once we return with humans. Exploration and utilization is now Flags and Footprints 2.0. This action by Congress seeks to kick Pence and Bridenstine in the knees and remove any urgency or sense of purpose. While the 2024 date did have a few people wondering if it was doable, NASA's push to try and make it happen has been admirable - and refreshing - at least in my personal opinion.....'

nasawatch.com...

originally posted by: Middleoftheroad
From your source:

However, the language of the bill would make going to Mars harder, not easier. A study conducted by MIT concluded that the moon could be used as a refueling base for spacecraft headed to Mars. A lunar fuel depot would mine water ice from the moon’s poles and refine it into rocket fuel. A Mars ship would dock at the planned lunar gateway and top off with fuel brought up from the lunar surface. Ships headed for Mars would save a tremendous amount of weight by not having to carry rocket fuel all the way from Earth. Under the House bill, an expedition to Mars would have to take all of its fuel directly from Earth at great expense.

Leave it to some politicians to think this one up. Probably just another program to enrich themselves and their families by dumping our hard earned money into useless endeavors.

The MIT study is incorrect. During my NASA career I worked on every Moon/Mars human exploration architecture study NASA conducted between about 1990 and 2005. If you want to get to and from Mars in the most economic way possible, you want to refuel on Mars (where the ingredients for making fuel are much more abundant), not the Moon. Similarly, if you want to go to and from the Moon, you wouldn't stop at Mars for refueling; you'd be better off refueling at the Moon, or just building a rocket that didn't need refueling on the Lunar surface.

In the human exploration community, there have always been two opposing communities--Moon enthusiasts and Mars enthusiasts. Moon enthusiasts have, since the end of the Apollo missions been trying to convince everyone that the Moon is on the way to Mars. Every time we aim for Mars, the Moon jumps in the way! It's like the punch line from that old joke "You can't get there (Mars) from here (Earth), you have to start from somewhere else (the Moon)".

It's simply not true.

About 15 years ago, I chaired a committee within NASA that looked at how you would use the Moon as a technology springboard to Mars. We interviewed all the technical communities within NASA that would be required to design a Mars mission--propulsion, guidance and nav, communications, habitats, life support, etc., etc. We asked them how having a Lunar base would help them to get ready for Mars. Every single one of them said it wouldn't. The differences between the Moon and Mars are so great that every subsystem would be designed differently. The answer was clear: if you want to go to the Moon, design and test all the systems to do that and then go to the Moon. If you want to go to Mars, design and test all the systems to do that and then go to Mars. If Mars did not exist, the mission design to go to the Moon would not change in any way. Likewise, if the Moon did not exist, the mission design to go to Mars would not change in any way.

If you are clever, however, you can design one transportation system that would get you to and from either location, more or less. That is what Elon is doing with his Starship. If he gets it working, it will be able to get to/from the Moon or Mars. For the Mars trips, it would refuel in Earth orbit before it departs and then refuel on Mars' surface before it departs there. No need to go to the Moon first. For lunar missions, it would refuel in Earth orbit and then land on the Moon and return without refueling, as I understand it. No need for a Lunar propellant plant.

a reply to: jrod

It's too bad that these type of projects can't be done in unison with the other space nations, instead of individual countries.
A human colony should be from Earth not just a particular country. A giant leap for mankind and all that jazz.

a reply to: Subaeruginosa

From memory, I think NASA had planned to carry out another manned moon landing in 2020 (that's literally this year... damn how time flies!), but the Obama administration canned it, which seemed to receive very little backlash from either side.

Constellation? The overpriced and over-budgeted piece of crap?

a reply to: Blue Shift
Got money for a space Force though didn't he?? I bet that was a very sudden and spontaneous decision. Dude, our guys are already fighting in orbit. Maybe the lunar base can be a joint project. I disagree though, we will see landings plural, manned and permanent missions on our moon throughout the 2020's by multiple agencies and governments.

I think I would prefer spacex setting up a lunar base rather than the Government. It would cost less and actually get things done.

SpaceX makes changes when needed or when better things are available. They do not need Government approval to do so or a huge committee that would slow it down to a crawl.

a reply to: 1947boomer

So you disagree with MIT, fine I don’t have a dog in that fight. My point is it’s a useless endeavor that will waste money.

Now if you want my take on it. I think going to Mars first is the dumbest idea ever. What goes through my mind is, we’re gonna send some of our brightest minds to a planet we can only travel to every couple years and hope they make it before we can send reinforcements? Plus, making a lunar base would be way easier and show us all the difficulties of actually making a base on another planet/moon.

Another thing that comes to mind is the timeframes of these Mars projects. They seem to take around a decade to plan and execute. Neither of those questions addresses the dangers of take off, traveling to Mars, long trip, entering the Mars atmosphere and landing safely. Then those few astronauts setting up a system to survive long enough for assistance to arrive. Hell, they will most likely all have died or lost their minds before that happens.

I like watching survival shows and one thing that gets to everyone is the seclusion, helplessness, and sheer difficulty of surviving in hard environments here on our own planet and these are the toughest survivalist on our planet. What makes you think some random astronauts will be able to the same knowing they will most likely be there indefinitely. Just my 2 cents from a non NASA employee

a reply to: Middleoftheroad

Back in the 1500's you could only sail from Europe to the New World only a few months a year. The sailors did not know if they would make it, and many never made it back a round trip was generally over a year because of weather/season windows.

Today, sending crews to Mars has a much higher survival expectation.

It is our nature to explore new worlds. We have had the technology to go to Mars for over a generation, we just have not had the funding.

a reply to: Middleoftheroad

I like watching survival shows and one thing that gets to everyone is the seclusion, helplessness, and sheer difficulty of surviving in hard environments here on our own planet and these are the toughest survivalist on our planet. What makes you think some random astronauts will be able to the same knowing they will most likely be there indefinitely. Just my 2 cents from a non NASA employee

I think you've got the wrong idea about how such a mission would work. A human landing would be preceeded by multiple unmanned landings bringing down equipment and supplies. There will be a space ship in orbit. The crew going to the surface will be living in the landing ship. It will be nothing like a survival show.

Although personally I believe that the first human landing will be more like the moon landings. Land, spend a day or two on the surface, go back into orbit, spend some time in the orbit, return to earth.

What they need is builder robots!
then they can build it, then test it.
Then send humans to it knowing they will not die.

a reply to: jrod

We spend more on Pizza and treating gambling addiction than we do on space exploration. Look it up, its true. I wouldn't worry too much about this. I think space exploration is about to become a private enterprise anyway. As soon as someone develops the tech to harvest asteroids and becomes a TRILLIONARE as a result, you will see it take off like a rocket, hehehe. And as soon as the Chinese or some other country are trouncing all over the moon and mining it, we will suddenly find the money to fund a lunar base. Its inevitable that we move out into space. Eventually we will trash this planet to the point that we will have to find a new one. That's in the back of everybody's mind truth be told.

The Democrat controlled House continues to be a do nothing waste of space group of boomer rubes.

Why go back to the Moon?

Deuterium (H3).

Unbelievably rare element required to sustain a thermonuclear (fusion) reaction in a controlled environment. Such as a fusion reactor. Because of near zero Moon atmosphere, solar particle bombardment over billions of years laid inches deep deuterium.

A working network of fusion reactors means limitless energy for millions of years. That ends the Georgia Guidestones edicts. That ends the petrochemical dependency financial world. Everyone that's anyone has their funding streams in that one.

a reply to: smurfy

Bi-partisan? Do we have a list of house members that voted for this particular legislation? Just want to see which reps are completely clueless and which are not.

a reply to: Grimpachi

At the very least, provide federal monies, specially in the areas of transportation, consumer travel and Military applications.

I doubt im the first to say it...im always late to the con ersations here...

But we are at the end of one of those pretty darn reliable what is it, 6000 year cycles of climate reworking and thinning put of species and possibly at the end of one of the even bigger 24000 year mega extinctions which, call it fiction amd myth all you want, but every civilization from the ancient world claimed to be factual history in which some cosmic/planetary phenomenon caused the earth to go haywire and that age of mankind to start over, i feel we even got much farther along at some time in the past than we pulled off this time and many religious texts agree which speak of personal flying cpntraptions, floating cities, and even the Bible stresses that DNA manipulation and genetic engineering was perfected in the antediluvian times and got weaponized as did atomic energy in the Bhagavad Gita/Mahabharata. And the Bible describes whats to come in Revelations which lones up well with the forseen timeline and the medium of destruction.

But even if you ifnore the religious implications and evidence and simply think in terms pf inevitability and do some brainstorming...we know sooner or later mankind is doomed from some piece of space something. Our plan became building a structure on the moon as a pass through point to Mars, our salvation. Why take out the middle step? What about all the gun confiscations, pestilence and talk of martial law?

Maybe something big really is coming very soon. Like within the next decade, having to have colonized Mars or face having to make it through some nearly impossible to survive disaster.

Its just a thought, i agree that there are ten explanations which are much more likely but...only time will tell.

Was so lookin forward to thr directors cut!

Guess they'll never go back; 6x seems enuf?

I am convident we will do the moon and do the other stuff. If Merc wont, Spax will or we will chear Rus or Chin up. My applause is with whoever goes, for going we will. After that Folo will kick in big time, launching all out.