The Future of NASA

It's not the mission, it's the financing that is the issue.

The philosophy in Washington is a shift from the status quo to funneling as much money as possible into social services, and virtually nothing else.

This is why the NASA budget has been chipped away and only rhetoric remains for the mission for NASA.

I do not mean to sound bitter about the situation, but it is clear that social justice is the prime directive for Washington while science and exploration takes a back seat.

With the end of the Cold War and the winding down of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars the US no longer has anything to rally against nor lead for. This paves the way for the current administration to focus our resources toward our own internal social issues.

Decades ago the measure of the United States' exceptional-ism was measured in its technological lead. That is no longer considered to be an important yardstick compared to social justice.

NASA no longer serves that "new" vision for America.

I liked the OLD vision just fine

it's my understanding that obama's long range plan is to land a rover on a nearby asteroid and NASA has another objective in mind?

Because it is all rhetorical fluff.

Landing on an asteroid has no real value. Japan has already returned a sample and there is no significant science nor glory in sending humans to a tumbling rock.

It is hardly a feat like going to Mars. Going to an asteroid will not capture the imagination of the public like a mission to Mars would.

we always go to Hale Bop and see if the mental giants from Heavens gate made it there safely

well said.

I'm amazed at the contrast in these two articles. The first is an analysis of NASA's plans to send a proble to Mars to return a sample of Martian soil to Earth.

Mars the hard way

This second article is about a private effort to take space tourists to the Moon.

Golden Spike -- human missions to the moon

Focus on Robotics - in the long run it will increase the mass fractions that can be dedicated to getting complex things done. We can also use the technology in a wide variety of terrestrial applications beyond killing our neighbors. I mean we get some technological evolution in robotic killing machines; but given the mission - the robotic tasks are way too limited to optimize technological advancement.

Expand upon "Orbital Express" to include on-orbit assembly and fuel depot-ing.

Revisit Field Effect Propulsion in light of advancements in super conductivity - if that can be made to work then fuel mass fractions can be greatly reduced for deep space propulsion; as well as keeping the launch windows continuously open for deep space. (Reference Torque Rods as applied to Satellite Attitude Determination and Control - now expand that old technology to vectored impulse for propulsion.)

Robotically visit the PHO's and come up with a better idea than nuclear deflection and fractionation as deflection methods.

How about a little more NASA focus on moving around in the deep oceans?

Space is a great place to study our own planet. Do we even have the capability to measure the IR signature of our planetary disk? What a GREAT way to determine the rate at which the equilibrium temperature is changing.

We are about to lose our weather satelites because of age. How about building some more refuelable Nexsats?

Planetary exploration:

Why Mars? We live in an Entropic Universe - ITS A DEAD PLANET - we go there for what might have been (and probably was) and because its gravity well makes it easier than other way more interesting targets. No; we are not going to "restart the planetary dynamo" - and because of that - we are not going to "rebuild an atmosphere."

How about a Venus Atmospheric Floater? Somewhere between space and the surface is a temperature and pressure that our machines can work in. All that CO2 and a genetically engineered photo-synthesizer of just the right density might work wonders in making it a little more hospitable. Why do we have to occupy the surface? We have some experience with neutrally buoyant air craft; lets pack an inflatable onto a heavy lifter or on orbit assembled system and go to Venus and do something different - why ANOTHER Mars rover for 2020? Screw that - we've got several of those T shirts.

And the following diatribe is for the guy who is blaming the cause of social justice for our past and future failures.

WE lost the ability to do great things when the WE was traded for the ME. Until that changes the WE probably won't be accomplishing much because there really isn't anything in it by the next fiscal quarter for the ME. No modern equivalent of an Interstate Highway System and no equivalent of Man to the Moon project. What the ME doesn't get is that what's good for the WE ends up being great for the ME.

How bad is it? Well the ME business will make refurbishing 18 B61s more expensive than the entire Manhattan Project. The ME business has us paying BILLIONS of dollars per year out of the Judgment Fund to pay the Nuclear Power Plant Operators for storing their own waste while the Nuclear Waste Fund just continues to grow. The ME business has our Federal Reserve creating 40 BILLION DOLLARS A MONTH more air money to purchase mortgage backed securities to give to themselves.

What this means is there is that much less money to do the great things; as in our past.

More than just good engineering will be required to bring America back into the game - it's going to require accountability, competition, and more importantly a sense of WE -in all sectors; and that my friends is a greater challenge than any engineering feat we have ever accomplished in our glorious past.

Gavilan

It's Obama.

It's actually President Obama.

i stand corrected. i meant no offence to the president or his office.