Nasa's Plan B

Originally posted by Frosty

Think about it. What can a human do that a robot or a camera cannot? Honestly?

Write poetry. Speak eloquently of adventure and daring. Inspire our children. Give hope to a species that often lacks it. Go on tour to the college campus's of the world to give lectures to the next generation of great minds. express awe at having gone above and beyond.

The adventurer in every little boy and every little girl deserves the hero's that do incredible and dangerous things.

Love and light,

Wupy

Originally posted by mrwupy

Originally posted by Frosty

Think about it. What can a human do that a robot or a camera cannot? Honestly?

Write poetry. Speak eloquently of adventure and daring. Inspire our children. Give hope to a species that often lacks it. Go on tour to the college campus's of the world to give lectures to the next generation of great minds. express awe at having gone above and beyond.

The adventurer in every little boy and every little girl deserves the hero's that do incredible and dangerous things.

Love and light,

Wupy

Let me get this straight. You guys want people in space so they can write poetry and talk to kids? We can do that here on planet earth!

Originally posted by Murcielago
Its a people mover...thats it. With out the shuttle we wouldn't have the ISS...ans without that there is no purpose for the Russian Soyuz.

I provide links for good reason and if you do not read them you will not know what i am talking about...t. They are buying the soyuz but NASA may also buy other services required, including one assumes luanching of American payloads on Russian rockets, to fulfill it's commitments...

In the future just check out the link!

Stellar

[edit on 29-11-2005 by StellarX]

Originally posted by StellarX

Originally posted by Murcielago
Its a people mover...thats it. With out the shuttle we wouldn't have the ISS...ans without that there is no purpose for the Russian Soyuz.

I provide links for good reason and if you do not read them you will not know what i am talking about...t. They are buying the soyuz but NASA may also buy other services required, including one assumes luanching of American payloads on Russian rockets, to fulfill it's commitments...

In the future just check out the link!

Stellar

[edit on 29-11-2005 by StellarX]

I've read the damn link.

and no where does it talk about the US using russian rockets for payloads...its only for people.

The shuttle is crucial for the ISS construction.

From the last article i mentioned....

"The Senate approved the House version of the bill, which allows NASA to buy Russian space hardware or services until 2012."

I then proceeded to speculate what that might mean by mentioning rocket launches.....

Hope that clears it up!

Stellar



[edit on 30-11-2005 by StellarX]

Originally posted by Frosty

Originally posted by sardion2000Frosty there are many many reasons(from learning to live efficiently with scarce resources to learning how to mine the moon) which you continually either ignore or brush off as fantasy for one reason or another. I'm sure glad people like you are in the minority(on this issue alone). And your arguments against it don't seem to be swaying anyone so I don't know why you keep harping the same tune.

Hundreds of millions of people in this world survive on scarce resources. There is no need to go into space or land on a moon to see if it can be done.

So what if my arguements don't seem to be swaying anyone. Your approach is wrong. There is no reason to send people into space for any scientific purpose, it is simply a coolness factor.

In fact there is no reason as of yet to send men into space. Your moon harvesting idea is mute. The US government does not mine its own materials or else TR would never have been a trust buster.

Think about it. What can a human do that a robot or a camera cannot? Honestly?

"Hundreds of millions of people in this world survive on scarce resources".
Answer: The reason being they have no freedom or liberty with which to do things for themselves. Wealth will ALWAYS be created if one is allowed to act upon a resource.

"There is no need to go into space...There is no reason to send people into space for any scientific purpose, it is simply a coolness factor."
Answer: The enviro-whackos should love this: three shuttle-loads of Helium-3 would provide enough energy to power the US for one year. It would be too cost prohibitive to set up robots to do thid. Besides, once set up, there WILL be automated equipment there to help with this.


"What can a human do that a robot or a camera cannot?"
Ask the pro's... they'll provide lots of answers.... and already have.

Originally posted by zappafan1"There is no need to go into space...There is no reason to send people into space for any scientific purpose, it is simply a coolness factor."
Answer: The enviro-whackos should love this: three shuttle-loads of Helium-3 would provide enough energy to power the US for one year. It would be too cost prohibitive to set up robots to do thid. Besides, once set up, there WILL be automated equipment there to help with this.

NO it wouldn't. There is no point in space exploration because no exploration is being conducted or at least at a high enough rate. Too much beuracracy slows everything down. It is a civilian space agency and the congress acts like it is theirs and the can do what the please (ie, turn the agency into politiking place).

true...Nasa is a bit of a pupit. (unfortunatly)

Frosty - While when it comes to science you are 100% devoted to robots...But what about tourism.

Since in the next decade the commercialization of space will explode, and there will be over a dozen different companies that will have their own space capabile vehicle, and tourism (people in space) will be primary goal.

Your not against people in space...are you?

haha, not the only reference to 2012 that pops over and over again on ATS...

connections? anyone anyone?

NASA's "Plan B" from Energia is having a little trouble at the "top" and in the "cashflow" department (which was news to me). A current flightglobal.com article kind of reads like an old-fashioned "purge", "New Energia boss says NASA contracts unaffected as firm faces management crisis".

Contracts recently signed with Energia do give them $19M USD for an ISS toilet and another $27M USD for other stuff. A NASA web-release from 070703, "NASA Awards Contract for Space Station Hardware". Another services contract not specific to Energia (but they'll get the lion's share), has been extended by NASA adding $719M USD to the already agreed-on launch/services fees, here.

The Progress vehicles have had some potential quality control issues over the last two years or so and yesterday's Progress 24/ISS undock was off-nominal with no separation burn event occurring.

Not a "big deal" and entirely correctable as the de-orbit burn was nominal but "little things" keep cropping up. I'm confident in Russian proven-technology (like the Soyuz booster), less so in other management aspects, which for a Westerner are a bit bewildering. Energia should be making money "hand over fist", the claim is that is not the case. Perhaps the Energia purge will help...

Progress 26 docking via KURS-automation with ISS is scheduled for Sunday afternoon about 2:30PM EDT. It will be carrying consumables and some replacement computer components.

Cheers,

Vic

[edit on 3-8-2007 by V Kaminski]

Robotic probes and cameras are a good first step, but if you want to learn anything of value you have to send people.
Robots are limited by their programing and design. They can't think intuitively and even when controlled by humans, don't have the scope of senses that we do. Their range of motion is limited compared to a person, and visual aquity is terrible. One person with a test unit can do alot more work in a day than one pobotic probe can. Think of the amount of data that we would have if there was a human presence on Mars as well as the rovers.
Humans can be quickly and easily retasked to another site or job. Robots can take weeks of programming to do the same thing, if it is possible.
Robotic probes are like trying to get your keys out of the sewer grate with a coathanger. It works but is clumsy and awkward. But it you put on a suit and climbed down to get your keys, you might also find some change and the neighbours keys. And it's the 'change and neighbours keys' idea that will be the reward from manned exploration.

frosty i agree with alot of your points on manned space flight- we can get huge scienece return from space telescopes and probes for much less cost.

its annoying missions like kepler/tpf get delayed becuase billions is being spent on sending people into orbit. I think the danger is if we stopped manned flight bugets would be cut further and we may never get back.

[edit on 15-8-2007 by yeti101]

I realize the OP of this thread was written almost 2 years ago, but here are some recent developments for what NASA has planned after the shuttle is retired:

NASA's new Plan "A" is the Ares launch Vehicles and the Orion CEV. By 2014 or so, these will be NASA's primary manned crew vehicles, whether it's for going to the Moon or to the ISS. Ares and Orion will replace the shuttle, which is being retired in 2010.

Their Plan "B" is the C.O.T.S. program (some people may consider this to be Plan "A-2"). C.O.T.S. stands for "Commercial Orbital Transportation Services". This is a program that will hopefully get private enterprise in the space business. NASA wants to contract with private companies to provide crew and supply transport to the ISS between 2010 (the year they retire the shuttle) and 2015 or so, which is the year the Ares and Orion will be up and running. Last year NASA has awarded two contracts for phase 1 of the C.O.T.S. program -- a contract to 'Rocketplane Kistler' and another to 'SpaceX'. NASA also recently signed non-funded agreements with three other companies.

If the C.O.T.S. program isn't up and running by 2010, then NASA has another Plan "B" that will resort to using the Russians to supply the ISS and to get crews back and forth. But once C.O.T.S. is fully operational, NASA will no longer need to use the Russian Space Agency.

I think that even after the Ares rockets are fully operational around 2015, NASA will continue to want to use C.O.T.S. to some extent, if only to keep private companies involved with space.

Link to C.O.T.S.:
www.nasa.gov...

Link to Ares:
www.nasa.gov...





[edit on 8/15/2007 by Soylent Green Is People]