The end of US space exploration?

The shuttle program gets scuttled, and now there is talk of cutting planetary exploration. I know the country is broke, but this is the LAST thing we should defund, due to the technology dividend and jobs created. It was like the last bright spot in national pride. Now its about to be gone. Neal Armstrong wrote this letter recently that sums it up very well. [Obama grounding NASA?

I don't think its Obama as much as that the wars of the past 12 years and financial malfeasance have bankrupted the country and apparently, our future. I hope that I am wrong.


Some details about the end of the planetary exploration program:

Planetary exploration, an uncertain future

I honestly think that it might be because NASA is using all there finds on black projects...

reply to post by openminded2011
China's doing a manned mission in orbit next year. They'll probably go to the moon shortly after.

I wouldn't hold my breathe for any Starbucks on the moon anytime soon.

ButI'm sure it'll be a great place to get General Tao's Chicken!

Moon? No oil.
Mars? No oil.

Middle-east? The final frontier.

Originally posted by krazyiven
I honestly think that it might be because NASA is using all there finds on black projects...

To a degree true there is a military shuttle program

Obviously we are weaponizing space

There are 2 things going on, privatization of the space Industry and Militarization of the Space Industry, that's 2 less things Nasa has to do now. And Nasa will keep sending probes and launching better telescopes most importantly

I think having visited every planet in the solar system and having amazing space based scopes the Space program is finally "coming down to Earth"

In other words, while deep exploration will stifle for a while, space tourism, and militarization is going on in our immediate environment, I see this as a positive actually, we aren't going to expand off Earth by simply sending men to Mars, having satellites up, space stations the Military with a far more massive budget than Nasa, tourism, colony on the moon, mobile colonies Asteroid mining, this is how we expand off earth by actually having people living working and visiting in space and it's near Earth space that will be first to create an infra structure that allows expansion further, not 3 guys in a pod for 18 months

reply to post by lordnightstalker


I agree, I have never thought that manned spaceflight as it was for the most part, was anything more than public relations. We do have to commercialize space flight to get people up there in the kinds of numbers that will make us a real space faring society. But I think the interest in space needs to be kept alive and if they gut planetary exploration the way they are talking, its going to have a very negative impact on that. Also if we let that infrastructure fall apart, we are not going to see people going into the sciences and engineering disciplines required to have a space program, within ten years we will have a serious brain drain for space exploration (if we dont already). People don't train for a job market that doesn't have jobs, and if we let it die, we will really see a shortage in a few years.

I don't think they understand that the Kuiper Belt is extremely profitable.
Shame our government only cares about oil.

Originally posted by openminded2011
The shuttle program gets scuttled, and now there is talk of cutting planetary exploration. I know the country is broke, but this is the LAST thing we should defund

Who said the state has a monopoly on space exploration? IMO this isn't going far enough: the state's entire space program should be defunded.

If you want more space exploration then quit advocating the theft of funds from people who could pool their sources and use superior technology through the market.

reply to post by ssupp


We are about to run out of rare earth minerals, within a few years. All the things that are needed to make the gadgets like smart phones and flat panel TVs are running out. There is vast mineral wealth out there on the moon and in asteroids. Hopefully the commercialization of space will start to capitalize on that. I think that's the whole reason the Chinese have started a space program, they are into strategic posturing towards resources, and space is where they are going to come from if we are to keep growing technologically.

I'm hoping that NASA and other space agencies will merge
and become a global space agency. Imagine the advancements we humans
could achive if we worked together on these things.
Separate national agencies just seem so last millenium to me.
The ISS is a good start but it needs to go further.
Thankfully I'm not the only one thinking along these lines

From NASA 2011,

During the past year, the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) has developed a long-range human exploration strategy. It begins with the International Space Station and expands human presence throughout the solar system, leading ultimately to human missions to explore the surface of Mars. The roadmap flows from this strategy and identifies two potential pathways: "Asteroid Next" and "Moon Next.

The GES set forth a shared vision for concerted human and robotic space exploration missions focused on solar system destinations where humans may one day live and work. Another stated goal is to encourage the partners to work together on strengthening both individual exploration programs and collective efforts.

www.nasa.gov

Originally posted by krazyiven
I honestly think that it might be because NASA is using all there finds on black projects...

Exactly correct, OP. All of that missing Pentagon money and heaven only knows what more has given us a dandy space force including those nifty, aerial triangles that frequently get into the news--especially here on ATS.

It boggles my mind that space and airplane enthusiasts complain about the falling away of the old ways of space work--which is basically using the thousand-year-old principles of brute rockets--and utter fail to every look outside of the offical pronouncements of NASA and the aerospace industries. To be sure, the reports of the triangles get lumped with reports of "alien flying saucers," but you know what? They are both real devices.

As somebody said during the Clinton administration, "It's the economy, stupid!" So it can be said here,

"It's the triangles, stupid." (No personal offense intended.)

Not to be worried, Richard Branson will boldly go where NASA has not gone before....

reply to post by 0bserver1


He doesn't have that kind of money, why do such idiots fail to realize this simple fact of private ventures?

What NASA says to the Public is one thing, What they do Secretly is another, Especially what people who are into sites like this would think that if they hold Super High Technology they would NEVER Give Up, And they would Launch from 51 or Dugway Utah, No one would Know... Just a Thought .

reply to post by Illustronic


Maybe not today but I think there will be more money coming from the private sector and companies will build there activity around space travel in the future, when the first come back with great stories others want to follow....And they will pay for it.....

reply to post by ssupp

I don't think they understand that the Kuiper Belt is extremely profitable.
Shame our government only cares about oil.

Could you show me in dollars and cents how anything up there would be profitable down here.

Of course, BUT NASA isn't shut down...

Rumors are saying they are currently making a rocket to travel to deep space missions'.

Well, China is soon to open up a chinese food place up on the moon, why not?

Originally posted by InsideYourMind
Moon? No oil.
Mars? No oil.

Middle-east? The final frontier.

Moon? No oil but H3, far more valueable because we have almost nothing of it here on earth. Clean Energy source

But did NASA do it tothemselves with them selling out to corporate intrest with propaganda?

I give you asteroid Eros. In 1999 NASA began pushing this story of a Gold Asteroid with more gold then exist on Earth all together.
news.bbc.co.uk...

Then you got the asteroid watch program to search for more asteroids worth mining. Near Earth asteroid watch began.
neo.jpl.nasa.gov...

Then they decided to figure out how to drive one through space to where they wanted.
www.space.com...

Then you got the exploritory search for minerals with a deep impact to view what could be mined.
deepimpact.umd.edu...

Then you have the B.S, of colonies in space. You gotta have some miners on location you know.
www.telegraph.co.uk...

And if you notice each article or find some other articles on the same topic you will find huge amounts of propaganda involved in the articles. Thats because it has nothing to do with exploration to advance mankind. Its to advance mining for corporate giants at tax payer expense. So as long as the corporate giants want to take over space in order to put more money in their own pockets let them pay for the exploration not the tax payers.

And here you thought they were trying to protect you from 2012 asteroid dooms day event?

I always thought the "payback" of investing in space exploration was supposed to justify the cost, though I also suspected some of those numbers might be a bit contrived. However I suspect there is SOME payback. Moreover as others have pointed out, it's the one source of inspiration we have in what's otherwise largely a sea of bad news, so I think we need it psychologically, and can easily find funding by cutting military spending just a bit.

Originally posted by JBA2848
And here you thought they were trying to protect you from 2012 asteroid dooms day event?

I was thinking more along the lines of Apophis in 2029 and 2036, but yes, I would hope so just in case the small chance occurs that it goes through the "keyhole".

neo.jpl.nasa.gov...

2009-Apr-29: This animation illustrates how the unmeasured physical parameters of Apophis bias the entire statistical uncertainty region. If Apophis is a RETROGRADE rotator on the small, less-massive end of what is possible, the measurement uncertainty region will get pushed back such that the center of the distribution encounters the Earth's orbit. This would result in an impact probability much higher than computed with the Standard Dynamical Model. Conversely, if Apophis is a small, less-massive PROGRADE rotator, the uncertainty region is advanced along the orbit. Only the remote tails of the probability distribution could encounter the Earth, producing a negligible impact probability. Although measurements in 2010-2011 may cut the size of the measurement uncertainty region greatly and result in an "all clear" using the Standard Dynamical Model, it may not be until Arecibo radar in 2013 provides a spin direction that Earth's passage through the probability distribution center can be ruled out.

So it sounds like 2013 may be when we could get a better estimate of impact probability.