Back to the Moon by 2020? Nope! (Earth, Apollo, rover, electronic)

[NightBazaar]

Maybe not. It appears that the Obama budget will provide NASA with $6 billion, but only for the space station and commercialization. Any hopes for a return manned trip to the moon by 2020 is grounded.


Obama budget ends return-to-moon plan - Space- msnbc.com

[PITTSTON2SARASOTA]

I'm still in shock/horror that this administration believes in decommissioning the Space Shuttle program; before we have a replacement system and intends to rely on other nations, primarily (Russia) for ISS access....truly unbelievably "dumb".

[harry chickpea]

LOL, it wasn't THIS administration that started that ball rolling on decommissioning the Shuttles... (which were an ancient concept planned initially for using the Titan missiles). Single use rockets always were the more prudent way to go.

I remember when the last Apollo mission left the moon. I remember thinking and feeling with a lot of sadness that humanity would not be back there for a hundred years, if at all. The amounts of energy required to boost a human bag of water and all the related survival crud are huge, to the point that only motivated and rich countries can reasonably be expected to absorb the cost. Electronics and robotics are FAR more cost effective.

What I do expect is for there to be robotics on the moon, controlled from earth with a few safety overrides within the robot itself, to prevent damage from something occurring during the time lag.

[Josseppie]

Feels like 1910 not 2010 how sad for us...

[North Beach Person]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TopvAhMjIPU



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMINSD7MmT4

[Bo]

Been there, done that. With an economy that may not peak again before 2020, there are other needs closer to home. That's about as far as it is appropriate to go in this forum.

[other99]

well not long after 2020, this will happen at the moon

[NightBazaar]

Originally Posted by harry chickpea

LOL, it wasn't THIS administration that started that ball rolling on decommissioning the Shuttles... (which were an ancient concept planned initially for using the Titan missiles). Single use rockets always were the more prudent way to go.

I remember when the last Apollo mission left the moon. I remember thinking and feeling with a lot of sadness that humanity would not be back there for a hundred years, if at all. The amounts of energy required to boost a human bag of water and all the related survival crud are huge, to the point that only motivated and rich countries can reasonably be expected to absorb the cost. Electronics and robotics are FAR more cost effective.

What I do expect is for there to be robotics on the moon, controlled from earth with a few safety overrides within the robot itself, to prevent damage from something occurring during the time lag.

I have to agree that robotics is far more practical, less expensive and less hazardous than sending humans. At some point, humans will eventually set foot on the Moon again, but in the meantime, robotic equipment such as the rovers, could continue exploring the surface.

The only ways I can see sending people to the Moon would be as an international joint venture, or by private enterprise. It's not just the U.S. that's having economic problems. It's a global problem. Because of that, an international joint venture looks like a more attractive option. And private enterprise is making some very impressive progress. but it's hard to guess if a private manned mission to the Moon could happen by 2020.

In my opinion, the bottom line is that it all gets down to what it would cost. NASA figured the cost to return to the Moon would be around $104 billion. That's a pretty hefty chunk of change. A little too hefty for the U.S. to foot the bill and do on its own.

[Dane_in_LA]

Originally Posted by NightBazaar

Maybe not. It appears that the Obama budget will provide NASA with $6 billion, but only for the space station and commercialization. Any hopes for a return manned trip to the moon by 2020 is grounded.


Obama budget ends return-to-moon plan - Space- msnbc.com

Constellation was not a good program - already heavily plagued by cost and weight overruns. Ares-I was a serious, serious boondoggle. The idea was to build a rocket out of stuff from the Shuttle program parts bin - SRBs as first stage, SSME powering the 2nd, etc. Cheap, kludgy, but could've been adequate. Then the 2nd stage was changed to use another engine design - then it turned out those engines had to be re-engineered - then it turned out they'd be too weak and the first stage had to be re-engineered with an extra segment. We're not on the cheap path any more.

To show progress, $500 million was used for Ares-Ix, basically a shuttle SRB with boilerplate 2nd stage and capsule. Although it launched nicely, the data from the launch uncovered severe vibration problems. Problems that would take more engineering and add more weight.

This is where you have to take a deep breath and ask whether it's time to start over - or look around to see if you can buy something off the shelf.

SpaceX is seriously close to LEO launches with Ares-I like capabilities. The venerable Atlas lifting rockets could be man-rated for less than the cost of the Ares-I. There are options out there.

Incidentally, the previous administration planned to fund Constellation by taking away funding from the ISS (destroying it in 2016) and probes - probes being the thing that NASA/JPL does better than anyone.

If NASA wanted to be in the launch-to-LEO business, they should've started work on a Shuttle replacement ten years ago.

[Tek_Freek]

The gist of what I'm reading is, I believe, that it is too costly to send men back to the moon. There is an estimate of around $104 billion given.

So I present this as a balance. This is a partial quote from a Wikipedia article. If you feel like ragging on Wikipedia about it's accuracy, go ahead. I doubt the numbers are that far off.

According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report published in October 2007, the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost taxpayers a total of $2.4 trillion dollars by 2017 when counting the huge interest costs because combat is being financed with borrowed money. The CBO estimated that of the $2.4 trillion long-term price tag for the war, about $1.9 trillion of that would be spent on Iraq.[9]

Financial cost of the Iraq War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So it's okay to slaughter thousands of people and spend an estimated 2.4 trillion dollars doing it, but sending men to the moon is too expensive.

You just have to love this country. Which I do. It just frustrates the Hell out of me sometimes.