Agreed on JWST.

But this idea of the SLS been repeated so many times. OK, I'll play along... How long do you think your "Ferrari" sits there before someone hops in and drives it somewhere? Not long.

Fact is, cargo and missions have been outlined. Many components of SLS have already been built and are in testing, (like the 5-seg SRB, J-2X, Orion, etc.), OR will be pulled "off the shelf" (like SSME), so now that SLS is officially being developed will start to see more specific mission profiles being developed.

This ain't the 60's - there is no "race" and no finish line. So the focus needs to be on cost vs. capability vs. sustainability.

SLS isn't perfect (I was a big supporter of DIRECT v3), but it's the law of the land now, so it's the best we've got (better SLS than Ares-1/Ares-V). We might as well all get behind it and make it work.

Based on what?? We are finally and officially working to making real progress in space. James Webb will see deeper into space and further into to the past than any telescope ever built, and SLS will send humans deeper into space than ever before. Meanwhile, some very capable commercial providers will be launch crew and cargo into LEO at a lower cost than ever before achievable.

I have some concerns like anybody else, but where in all of this positive news is your "train wreck"?

Fred Willett; google space elevator! That is how they plan to travel to the moon within the next 50 years, rockets, are not going to be needed as much when they build the space elevator!

What I cant fathom is the "new" design is 50 years+ old. Its a tube filled with 2 tanks of fuel & an oxidizer, the explosion fed into a narrow tube. OK guidance on the motors, but even they are a similar age. (or older, the Nazis built the V2, basically the same design).

We are being conned. a high school kid could build something of this design. I have friends who build hobby rockets that attain 10's of thousands of feet, with guidance and full control.

I also note that the military are quietly launching away from both coasts using a similar 50+ year old design, with a lot or reliability and success.

To my mind this is a contest by the agency "My budget is bigger than yours" they seem to forget that we are paying for this, I am all for space exploration but if NASA & their cronies keep screwing us they're going to end up a simple administrative agency with no development or power, whilst the true exploration is being done by other countries and some rich playboy dotcom billionaires.

Phil

Look at airplanes, same design for oh what, 100 years now? yeah lets toss those out.

Phil, your explanation of our current rocket tech is just a bit oversimplified. NASA has been making it look easy for decades, therefore you believe it is easy. FALSE.

The laws of physics and chemistry have led us to our basic overall approach to rocket design. The reason rockets basically look the same on the surface as they did 50 years ago is because these laws have not changed.

Meanwhile, there have been substational advancements in many areas... manufacturing practices, materials, electronics, avionics, thrust-to-weight, ISP, safety, etc.

The original Saturn V design, would not be affordable or acceptable today for a number of reasons. Don't get me wrong, the Saturn V was awesome. But SLS is a safer, more flexible, and much more cost effective design.

btw - while the V-2 was a groundbreaking achievement, lobby one 200 miles at sub-orbital altitude and speed, vaguely towards a desired target is many orders of magnitude less difficult than what todays launch systems are required to do.

(Model rockets? Fun stuff, but really?? There is no comparison to the real thing.)

Dale, regarding Space Elevators

They are highlytheoretical, potentially incredibly dangerous in the event of failure, and contingent upon materials technology (nanotech) that has not reached any level of maturity as of yet. Generally not something that we can develop in the near-term or in any cost effective manner whatsoever.

I don't believe we'll ever see space elevators (on Earth at least), because once we have attained the required materials tech/nanotech, rocket fuse, and tanks will be so light and strong that single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) we be commonplace. Ultimately I believe this makes space elevators completely unnecessary.

(Corrections to the above...)

I don't believe we'll ever see space elevators (on Earth at least), because once we have attained the required materials tech/nanotech, rocket fuselages, and tanks will be so light and strong that single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) spacecraft will be commonplace.

The main problem I see with a space elevator is its extreme vulnerability, not its technical feasibility. Nothing is invulnerable, and it's too huge to actively patrol and secure its entire length. One fanatic, or one accident, and it's all over. You'll never convince a government to do it twice.

depending on where it broke, the damage could be more than devastating.

cjsks

You miss my point. Yes I simplified it, but my point is still valid the chemistry/physics is of rocketry is verging on the ancient.

phil

The chemistry of how an internal combustion engine operates is just as ancient, using the basic principles of thermodynamics, yet we are still using them. The really big problem with moving to a new system is that the thermal efficiency of a rocket engine is about as high as you can get from a theoretical viewpoint. You can't get much higher. So an alternative will not only have to match that, but also exceed the general requirements (total thrust, etc...).

Actually the final 1969 version of von Braun's plan called for using the nuclear thermal rocket engines that were developed by Westinghouse and Aerojet between 1961 and 1973 under the NERVA contract. The ground tests conducted at Jackass Flats actually proved that this NTR design exceeded the original design objectives for these engines. This NASA mission architecture would have placed the first humans on Mars by 1981. Still,even without the NTR engines, the type of SLS launcher that is now back on the drawing board does enable Dr. Zubrin's "Mars Direct" mission architecture that requires neither the nuclear engine nor on-orbit construction. It employs direct throw from earth to Mars using this kind of SLS lifter on a time table of just one decade and also provides for rotating a "Habitation Module" to provide artificial gravity that is also equipped with a "storm chamber" in case of solar flares.

JohnCarter

A lot of the alloys that are in the SaturnV design are not even made anymore, same goes for a lot of the manufacturing techniques. It would probably cost as much in todays dollars to get the Saturn V production up and running again. And that is ignoring the reality that NASA needed a 60,000 man standing army to launch them.

Saturn V... the greatest rocket ever built.

Saturn V... the greatest rocket ever built.

Agreed. Godspeed to NASA in developing the SLS, so that we can finally surpass it!

A little competition never hurt, but a lot can keep vital information from being shared between people who can use it to make things better for everyone. I hope we all work together somehow, but will all the different egos involved, I don't know if any cooperation will happen. I guess we will see, but I do agree that if other folks get ahead of us in the space race, we will see a drastic increase in funding for NASA. I just hope its not too little too late...

We already have the technology to go to Mars within a decade as I noted above. We already paid for the development of the nuclear thermal rocket engines under the NERVA program to the tune of $1.45 billion between 1961 and 1972 (equivalent to $4.5 billion today). They would have enable a transit time to Mars as short as 30-45 days, far less than the stints already common on the ISS. Further, even without NTR, this SLS can do the mission with a 6-month transit, using a Habilitation Module that provides artificial gravity to the astronauts, and keeps radiation exposure levels within acceptable standards. Please read the very detailed plan laid out in the latest edition of Dr. Zubrin's book "The Case for Mars, the Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why we Must" or go to The Mars Society website and study the plan before concluding that we need some new futuristic technology to do this. Remember the Vikings first crossed the Atlantic in longships, and the Spanish in caravels, they did not wait for the invention of steam technology that enabled modern luxury cruise liners.

yes they did not wait, the Pinta the Santa Maria, and the Nina, crossed long before they had steam!!!

Why can't the space station be accelerated to visit mars ?

Stan,

A high energy transit time to mars is 30-45 days anyways, NERVA doesn't save anything other than mass because it has a higher specific impulse. NERVA also only underwent a couple of tests and that was never completed. I personally wouldn't put my life into a rocket where most of the engineers that built and understood it are either retired or dead.

The reason why mars missions are generally of a 2 year duration has to do with orbital mechanics, not engine technology. If you launch to mars, spend any kind of time there, by the time your mission is finished, earth is no longer in a position to be there for a return trip, so you either have an extremely long return trip or you spend more than a year on the planet to wait for earth and mars to come back to ideal positions in their orbits.

Kevin

Because the space stations thermal management system is designed to operate in a close to 90 minute cycling between day and night. If you were to send it to mars, then that system couldn't cope with it.

Also structurally the truss can't take those types of stresses.

Jonathan, here is a link to a non-technical historical article on what was accomplished with the NERVA program:

www.nuclearspace.com/astro_W_nuclear.html

The orbital mechanics do not prevent shorter duration transits if you are willing to give up the "safety blanket" of having a free return trajectory available in case of an emergency. If you do not want to sacrifice the availability of a free return trajectory, however, the NERVA engines allow to instead vastly increase the payload mass. The total mission time will always be long because you are looking at perhaps 500 days on the surface of the planet conducting in-depth exploration while awaiting the next orbital alignment for the return to earth.

StanUlam

I know all about NERVA, and while the orbital mechanics do not prevent shorter duration trajectories, the NERVA rocket really doesn't buy you much except higher specific impulse. You still have the same limitations that a chemical rocket has. Basically that limitation is short engine life. You can't fire the rocket continuously because our materials technology do not allow for it with a high thrust chemical rocket. We STILL don't have the level of technology that would be needed. So all you get from NERVA is basically a smaller rocket engine.

And I agree it gives you payload mass, but I don't personally think it is a deal breaker. You can easily build any size vehicle in orbit, including multiple traditional chemical engine units.

The other part of it is that if you have a higher thrust engine that gives you a higher velocity to shorten your transit time, you have to expend the energy to slow you down when you get there. If you travel slower, you use less energy, and you require less energy to put you in martian orbit capture.

Also, the area where the NERVA was tested is still off limits due to radiation levels. That is not something I am sure that I would want to have around astronauts. (I am very pro nuclear in general, so this is not something against nuclear as a general concept, just that what was acceptable then is not necessarily acceptable now).

I don't know if I would consider a free trajectory return all that high a priority, the duration of the mission is such that if anything like Apollo 13 were to happen, the chance of return is minimal at best anyways.

I am not saying that it is not an option, but quite frankly to say that we can just dust something off that we only test fired a few times (contaminating a region of land in the process) in the 60s so that now most of the engineers and technicians are either dead or retired, is just plain silly. We would essentially have to start off from scratch, and considering the state of the nuclear industry, there really just aren't that many nuclear engineers that can do this work at the moment.

Well, I do agree that there are great challenges in reviving NERVA, but then isn't that what space exploration is supposed to be all about? Solving great challenges. With regard to the radioactive contamination at Jackass Flats, it should be noted that most of that came from intentionally causing some of the rocket engines to explode in order to test the cleanup implications of a serious launch pad accident. (There was also one case where a rocket test engine ran out of hydrogen propellant and self-destructed.) The routine firing of the rocket plumes into the atmosphere actually contributed relatively little long term radiation contamination to that site, probably far less than astronauts are already routinely exposed to in outer space. In any event, Wernher von Braun's final NASA mission architecture from 1969 proposed using the first stage of his Saturn V to boost the NERVA upper stages above the thickest part of the earth's atmosphere before firing the nuclear rocket engine. Though this precaution is probably not necessary from an engineering standpoint, such a compromise would help quell public anxiety over any fear of radiation leaking out from the rocket plume. James Dewar has also recently outlined a proposal for air launching NERVA-powered vehicles much the way Spaceship 2 is drop launched from the White Knight 2 mother ship.

The problem with NERVA is that it is still a thermal engine, it relies on thermal expansion to provide the exhaust velocity. In order to exceed the specific impulse of liquid H2/O2 fueled rockets, it would need higher temperatures, and liquid H2/O2 rockets already require special cooling to prevent melting of the components. To achieve sufficiently high thrust to compensate for the additional reactor weight, the NERVA rocket had to operate at a temperature too close to the melting point of the reactor components, so a single glitch and the reactor core would melt and be blown out the exhaust. Which is apparently what happened in one test.

That's why the focus has shifted to ion drives, which use electromagnetic acceleration and don't need high temperatures to achieve extremely high exhaust velocities. Unfortunately, with the possible exception of VASIMIR, ion drives don't operate well enough in an atmosphere and don't have sufficiently high thrust to get off the ground.

CM

Well ION engines don't achieve high exhaust velocities, they achieve a high specific impulse, which is a ratio indicating efficiency.

The best nuclear powered engine technology we have is a nuclear power reactor producing electricity to power ion rockets. They don't offer high thrust, but they have very high ISP and can operate for weeks or months, so they can build very high velocities. Manned interplanetary missions should launch from orbit anyway. Direct Earth to Mars isn't a good architecture for anything other than flags and footprints. Real missions should have fairly large crews and fairly long mission times at Mars. That requires big ships designed for orbit to orbit.

The VASIMR will not work for taking humans to Mars because its very low efficiency would require a very large nuclear reactor to power it and it would also need extremely heavy thermal radiators to dump all the heat generated by that very large reactor. It literally could barely move its own weight. The older ion propulsion system developed by Ernst Stuhlinger back in the 1950s, and the current ion engines already being used on unmanned space probes, are actually far more efficient that VASIMR. VASIMR has merely turned into a huge black hole for money

With regard to humans to Mars, the Mars Direct Mission architecture calls for sending a new crew out to Mars every 18 months using direct throw on a heavy lift launcher like SLS and each crew would remain on the surface for 500 days. Each mission would explore a different site until one site was selected to establish the first permanent Mars base. From there, permanent settlement would begin. Again, I defer to Dr. Robert Zubrin's very detailed mission architecture described in "The Case for Mars, The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must" and also to The Mars Society web site. This is not "flags and footprints," this is a very serious effort to stake a claim and take permanent possession of valuable real estate on another world.

stan

Actually the VASIMR holds promise to be an EXTREMELY efficient form of propulsion, one that is extremely efficient, but low thrust.

On the other side of that, you have something like the Space Shuttle solid rocket boosters, which have extremely high thrust but are actually extremely inefficient.

Give health care to them and en even larger percentage of the population will be sick and dying without health insurance as they do things like nix out pre-existing conditions to pad the bottom line.

The problem is that those "private" space launch companies are relying on Government funds for most of their operating costs. One exception, Virgin Galactic, is only planning short sub-orbital thrill rides at a high price for a small number of billionaires, it barely qualifies as a "space launch".

The only area that makes economic sense for truly private space launches is lightweight communication satellites. The high cost and minimal economic returns for manned space flights means it must be government funded, until some new way is found to substantially reduce the cost of getting up to orbit.

Health care already in the private sector, and the result is millions without insurance coverage, and millions more denied claims, because it is not profitable to pay claims or insure any non-healthy people. The risk far outweighs the reward.

Private space enterprises can succeed, unlike health care, because the rewards in space far outweigh the risks. Not that space technology is simple; far from it. But from simple thrill seeking (ISS trips and sub-orbital rides) to potential advances in nearly every field the vast potential of outer space is just now being imagined by the private sector. It's not cheap, but the reward far outweighs the risk.

JP Morgan; Launch vehicles are already obsolete, they don't need them in a few years, or less, actually they can do with out them now and still travel in space!

Right now they are working on carbon nano technology, to build a space elevator, the problem is they do not know how to produce it longer, they can only make it in very small lengths, but if they want to they could use another material that is not as strong as carbon nano, and build the elevator now, then take the parts up in the elevator to put together space vehicles in space.

Dale, Space elevators need to be built at geosynchronous earth orbit. They MUST be built 46,000 miles long. 23,000 miles to the surface and 23,000 miles out past GEO. They must be built out from the center the same length at the same time meaning you need to lift everything to GEO before you can even begin building. The item must rotate also at the center until it is long enough to be stopped and anchored at the equator which will be very difficult. It will take many many years to build. This scenario has been bandied about for several decades and due to political problems will NOT be attempted any time soon. Who wants a possible accident on their country if a problem occurs? How many terrorists will see the structure as a target? If it ever came down it would be catastrophic! For the foreseeable future we will be riding roman candles strapped to our behinds.

JP; they might as well stop now!

why spend the money, on obsolete projects!

Dale, You don't seem to grasp the concept. You can't build a space elevator from the ground up. You must start 23,000 miles up (geosynchronous earth orbit or GEO) and build down and out at the same time to balance the structure. You need to move the materials from the surface to GEO first. That means moving billions of cubic meters of materials to GEO. We CAN'T do that at all! Until we have enough rockets to put it there. You are trying to put the cart before the horse.

JP Morgan; You really do need to google space elevator, the elevator will be made with nano carbon, in the form of a ribbon, that is something like 117 times stronger than steel, If I'm not mistaken your calculations are about right, but I believe they will lower the ribbon to the platform on the equator, and it will need to turn! It will not be made like a structure, requiring materials!

A space elevator won't work unless your destination IS geosync orbit. The problem is that while a space elevator will put you into the right 'altitude' but it will not give you the orbital velocity to stay there, except for geo orbit.

And the LAST place a person would want to go to is geo orbit, right damn smack in the middle of a radiation belt. WOOHOO

I really wish that the space elevator people would get that bit.

The elevator that will be attached to the ribbon will keep people safe until the get to the space station! right now they are trying to figure out how they will move the elevator up the ribbon, with solar power, they have a contest, and the ones who come up with the best plan will win a lot of money!, I have a plan to do it that I think would win the competition, and would be willing to sell it to someone who is interested!

Jonathan, The destination is NOT GEO. That's just the stability point for commencing construction. The elevator will actually be 46,000 miles long, 23,000 miles to the surface and 23,000 miles to the opposite end and that is the destination.

Dale, You still don't get it. The "ribbon" will be several meters in diameter at a minimum. Not only does it have to support it's weight and the cargo but it MUST be strong enough to withstand being struck by a steel item weighing several tons moving at 20,000mph. Nobody will allow a possible breakage to occur if a satellite or cometary fragment strikes it. And even at "117 times stronger than steel" it is going to be a massive structure. And please be aware that the space station could NOT be serviced by a "beanstalk". As Jonathan mentioned you don't have orbital velocity until you reach the middle of the stalk at 23,000 miles. If you step off at 100 miles up you will fall and burn up. You need to be traveling at 17,000mph to stay up there hence the huge roman candles we currently ride to LEO.

JP,

And the ONLY point where you can go with a space elevator IS GEOSYNC.

Think of this, you have a space elevator, fixed point at one end (the ground) fixed point at the other end (geostationary orbital point). You want to deliver something to the space station. Do you not see a problem there? Let me know when you figure the problem out.

Jonathan, GEO is 23,000 miles up. The elevator is 46,000 miles high. You get off at the top and receive a sling shot effect to your destination. If you need to simply launch a satellite you kick it out at 23,000 miles up. The entire point of a Beanstalk is to get away from earth. It is NOT to get to orbit. People leaving earth for other planets/habitats/asteroids will out number satellite launches by several orders of magnitude in the near future. The space station in LEO has NOTHING to do with a Beanstalk by the way.

jp, er um, you don't get a sling shot effect unless you add that velocity when you 'get off' the elevator. You don't need to do so at GEO orbit because the orbital speed is the same as earth rotation. But if you are going to spend a few trillion dollars just to launch 4 or 5 geo satellites a year, then you can use your money.

And my example had nothing to do with geo satellites, I stated explicitly the SPACE STATION.

If you are ignoring the space station, then guess what? you have no market. Look at how many communications satellites are being launched every year and ask yourself, is that enough of a market to build this thing? and what about all the other required orbits? you now going to limit the types of satellites we are going to put up in orbit? And what about manned operations, which as I stated, you do NOT want them to be going into geo orbit because it is right damn smack in one of the outer van allen radiation belts.

Jonathan, The space station is a completely different discussion separate from Beanstalk technology. The beanstalk is the ultimate device for achieving interplanetary space flight baring sci-fi stuff like reactionless drives or inertialess drives. It has been discussed for over 50 years and the pros and cons weighed over and over but it won't be built for decades at least. And remember your teacher said you would need geometry when you got older. Calculate the speed of an object traveling in a circle. If the circle is 24,000 miles in diameter and the outer edge is traveling 1,000mph then if you add a circle 60,000 miles in diameter around the first circle how fast must the outer circle spin to equal 1 rotation for every rotation the inner circle makes? There's your acceleration.

The discussion for SpaceX's Falcon 9 and their heavy lift rocket was my first post. Please read it. It clearly says they ROCK!

And you really need to learn about communication satellites. GEO is the preferred position for them. Governments & corporations pay BIG money for the right to place satellites in these slots. Small governments actually lease their slots in GEO to others. There are whole books at the United Nations covering the laws for GEO satellite slots. The Van Allen belts are NOT an issue. Satellites are hardened against this and other dangers like say mass coronal ejections. The LEO satellites you are mentioning are ALL temporary satellites whose orbits eventually decay then crash & burn. They may last 5 or 10 years in the LEO orbit but they all go the way of Skylab. Oh and watch out. One of them may head your way in a few days.........NASA's UARS is incoming.

jp,

and you really need to learn about how many communications satellites are being launched currently. I am IN the industry. I know ALL ABOUT communications satellites.

So again, if you are launching only 5 or 6 communications satellites a year, exactly why would you spend the few trillion dollars on a space elevator. It doesn't make sense.

You really do NEED to learn a little bit about what is commonly called 'engineering economics'. or maybe some basic economics. You need to look at the cost benefit analysis.

the beanstalk could be built if we can produce flawless carbon nanotubes about 3 inches or more in length, we aren't there yet, but the possibility exists.

Jonathan you need to let go of the idea of the space elevator. My comments were to another poster concerning his errors about the space elevator. I never posted that this needs to be built now. This item will eventually be used to move products and people off the surface and then back down to the surface but it will be decades before it is even contemplated. It is the easiest and safest way to move metals and volatiles from our space mining facilities to the earths surface for use by the ever growing population. Or would you rather have corporations dropping huge packages down the gravity well hoping they don't miss their targets?{shudder} Again this is something we will deal with in the future but not now. At this time we only need to get to LEO quickly and safely so we can start building the infrastructure that will eventually lead to asteroid mining, La Grange point habitats, colonization of the other planets and moons, etc.. I personally believe that SpaceX has the right plan for now. Too bad Russia is crapping their pants about COTS 2&3. They know that when SpaceX succeeds their net worth will be nadda. ;-)

The ultimate purpose for building a space elevator would be to get off at GEO. because there it would be easiest to build space habitats for offworld exploration. though it would be just as easy to build at GLO (geostationary lunar orbit) a space elevator attached to the moon.

Spadez

Not sure if you saw this part though, but GEO is right damn smack in the middle of one of the outer van allen radiation belts. It is NOT the place you want to er um, 'get off the elevator'.

Space elevators need to be built at geosynchronous earth orbit. They MUST be built 46,000 miles long. 23,000 miles to the surface and 23,000 miles out past GEO. They must be built out from the center the same length at the same time meaning you need to lift everything to GEO before you can even begin building.

It does need to be built at the geosynchronous Earth orbit, 23,000 miles up, but it only needs to extend past that far enough with a heavy enough counterbalance to suspend the weight of the descending tower - not an additional 23,000 miles! An additional thousand miles might be enough, bringing a total to 24,000 miles. That would still be by far the largest construction project, ever. One unknown is how much of the tower could be built up from and supported by the ground, but considering that Mt. Everest is more than 4 miles high and un-engineered, there could be a considerable number of "ground up" miles involved.

Carbon nanotube fibers are strong enough, and carbon is abundant enough and cheap enough, but currently the manufacturing of nanotubes is way too slow and expensive. A major breakthrough in manufacturing is needed before we could even consider beginning construction.

The item must rotate also at the center until it is long enough to be stopped and anchored at the equator which will be very difficult.

No need to rotate at any but synchronous speed, 24 hours per rotation, so the tower always faces earth. As the growing tower descends and the counterweight moves outwards, small adjustments would be made to keep it pointed down in the right direction. A series of small ion drives strung along the tower should do the trick.

A space elevator won't work unless your destination IS geosync orbit. The problem is that while a space elevator will put you into the right 'altitude' but it will not give you the orbital velocity to stay there, except for geo orbit.

Not really. The tower transfers momentum to passengers travelling up the elevator, "getting off" at any point other than geosynch orbit just means diving into a different eccentric orbit and may need additional rocket thrust to change the orbit. Going out past geosynch gives additional velocity, making it easier to aim for the moon or other planets - but rockets will still be needed. Fortunately, highly efficient ion drives can be used up there, as there isn't enough atmosphere to interfere with their operation.

Things travelling down the space elevator transfers their orbital momentum back to the tower, thus helping to accelerate things going up and keeping things somewhat balanced. When necessary, a small amount of thrust from ion drives could keep the tower balanced, and even move it out of the way of satellites and larger orbital debris.

Not sure if you saw this part though, but GEO is right damn smack in the middle of one of the outer van allen radiation belts. It is NOT the place you want to er um, 'get off the elevator'.

Shielding. No different than what any other manned spacecraft would need at that altitude. But with the ability to move large amounts of material to orbit relatively cheaply, the "Geo Station" on the space elevator could have a lot more shielding than would be practical - or even possible - on rocket launched space vehicles.

your ion drive needs enough thrust to accelerate the vehicle to an orbital velocity before it reenters the atmosphere. Ion drives at this point are not even being envisioned to produce enough thrust.

Ion drives are being envisioned to be used in applications where there is a need for a low but constant thrust for long periods, something for which chemical rocket engines cannot do for two reasons:

1) Fuel capacity

2) Engine life due to materials limitations.

since my links seem to be disappearing, just google NASA SPINOFF, under the picture in the center is a tiny link that says archives to see past editions going back to the mid '70's

YellaHammer; two words space elevator: google it!

Hey Dale, see comment 5.5 above: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/16/7802548-the-shape-of-space-to-come?threadId=3224444&commentId=58119827#c58119827

Yellahammer, it's comical how much and how often China's capabilities are exaggerated. Look at what have they accomplished so far vs. their launch rate. They've had a couple manned orbital missions. At their current rate of progress, I don't see them putting men on the moon (or anywhere in deep space) anytime soon. They're talking about assembling their own space station (more along the lines of a MIR than an ISS). That will keep them busy for a while.

Hey, while we're at it why don't I charge you a monthly fee for storing data on your hard drive? It's causing all those paper mills to lose jobs because nobody is writing anything on paper anymore. Oh wait, that's right. This is all a bunch of bs. Post office gets a lot of work through packages, birthday cards, etc.

Actually, the main problem with the post office right now is sharp declines in direct mail advertising, which was a huge portion of their revenue.

Jeremiah: I would be willing to pay a small fee, if it would help the country, we all should be willing to help our country, don't take it so personal! If we all help and work together our children will be able to live in a better world!

RevelWoodie; That sounds right to me.

I'd be willing to pay a moderate fee to stop the junk mail!

This country has no future as long as that moron is in the white house, let alone space exploration.

gunman: "boy" are you gullible!!!

Dale, would like to bet on that? You could be classified as one of those losers if you aren't careful. Believe its time for your meds.

gunman: the way you are talking about the President of the United States ! you might need some medication yourself!

Gunman: Get a life! If all you can do is obcess about our President, then you definitely need some meds. People like you are what is holding our country back.

might I suggest a prozac-lithium combination therapeutic medication plan. mmmm.... I heard the drool effect isn't that bad.

Vox, you are an idiot. We are not communist, we are liberal (the real liberal, not this pseudo commie crap) which means that our country is as successful as our strongest citizens. Next time your Chinese friend says something retarded like this tell him to look at our quality of living and our purchasing power compared to theirs and then ask him if he still believes the rich dont care.

You do realize that the "rich" (who actually are human beings, too) built this country and they can unbuild it too? There is a very good reason the founding fathers placed SEVERE limits on the federal government. It was so the government cant nationalize our assets.

It is because they understood, which we for some reason forgot, that economic boom and bust are natural cycles and as long as the government stays out of the business affairs of the citizens we will go far.

then we would not have cell phones, sattelite tv, gps, or many of the luxeries we have today. our military would be blind without the satellites guiding them and giving them intelligence, our investments in space have given us so many things and having them has benifited us. and the US is currently the top dog in the world, we will not be a second or third rate nation.

interested,

The US (among other nations, not alone) won WWII without satellites. The US since WWII has not been in a fair fight (in other words, had a war with a comparable opponent), so there is no clue as to whether or not the technology actually helps.

............What if every penny that was invested in putting rockets into space had instead been used to advance civilization right here on earth

what if far greater number of pennies that were invested in the military were used instead?

our current YEARLY military budget is very close to the ENTIRE amount spent on NASA since its beginning, including adjustments for inflation

the military space budget is more than double NASA"s total budget (only about half of NASA's budget is space related).

It was badly run because Congress refused to fund it properly, as a result engineering shortcuts had to be made, (mostly in testing of design concepts) and a ton of rework had to be done.

This is a problem when you short change yourself when you are doing things that have never been done before.

As for the russians and the private citizens, while there was some concern, it is a very different one. Having someone on board is VERY different than having something attached to the station that could end up causing a major accident on the station, you know like say an air leak due to an improper seal, accidental firing of thrusters etc... VERY big difference from having a person on board.

"Congress refused to fund it properly" ... that's difficult to do when the program management office is unable to provide accurate estimates. Bottom line is that the people managing JWST have low-balled their final costs from the beginning and their credibility is non-existent. I would prefer to know a true, not-to-exceed cost to deploy the instrument within a schedule that could be met rather than to be lied to repeatedly. Yes, I used the word lie - because the people executing the program are competent enough to know what it's really going to take, but the people in charge of the program are too cowardly to admit it and take their medicine.... which could easily include program and employment termination.

Regarding the Tito vs Dragon point; they are different on one level, but my point is not from a standpoint of making ISS program decisions among the partners. The risk of any decision depends on your viewpoint and the information available, however the partners have to follow the governance process to function. The Russians didn't "follow the process" with Tito and NASA called them on it; looks like the roles have reversed on the Dragon flight. It was always planned, but NASA and SpaceX are accelerating the schedule by skipping 1 flight test.

The problem with funding space ventures is that we spend our money elsewhere namely: Entitlements and war.

until we reform the spending on either our space program will be retarded.

"Entitlements" are things someone DESERVES to get because they already paid for it, they're entitled to get it. So cutting "entitlements" is actually a form of fraud, not delivering everything that the purchaser paid for.

The war expense is a major problem, but it wouldn't have caused such huge deficits and expanded the national debt by trillions if taxes had been increased to pay for it. Eventually, taxes MUST be increased to pay for it, but not before added interest substantially increases that debt payment.

Manned space flight is expensive and has too little financial return, until costs are substantially reduced it should be considered a luxury, and luxury spending should only be done in prosperous times, not during a recession. It is only a matter of time before the manned spaceflight program is suspended due to lack of funds.

It's not the normal taxpayers that will probably be paying, according to Obama's plan it will be those with more than enough to share. You remember kindergarten, right? Sharing is caring!

Sell NASA to a private contractor? Yeah, no security issues with that idea. What could possibly go wrong? Wait - I got an idea that'll save even more money! Let's sell the Navy!

we're "broke", yet we spend 20.2 billion a year to air-condition our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (which is more than we spend on NASA)

You are correct Isee... We have to put a stop to all this warfare. We're pissing off the rest of the world, and frankly, there are more of them than us. Not a good idea. Beside that, as stated before we are falling behind everyone else in technology and education, and funding rebuilding of those whom we invade and ruin their infrastructure instead of maintaining our own. Our own space station is going to be abandoned and at best it will be 2017 before we can get back to it, if the Russians don't get their soyuz program back in the air. We need to get our troops home, stop warring, start educating rebuilding.

Grunt,

Even if we eliminated NASA today the paltry amount of tax dollars saved would be insufficient to save the children, save the homeless, save the whales, or save whatever cause you deem more important than space exploration and the contributions it has made to society (and tax dollars NASA employees pay).

We aren't "broke", and won't be "broke". But if you believe we are, I suggest hiding your money in your mattress, no one will find it there.

but just remember, in space, no one can hear you scream.

but if you'll recall, putting the man on the moon raised the countries overall morale, yeah it was probably a waste of money, but it opened the public's eyes and showed them the things we could accomplish.

we will always have problems at home

Gentlemen, you seem to be forgetting about all the things that were invented through spinoffs of the space program that enhance our everday quality of life. Would you like a quick list off the top of my head? How about minaturization of everything, materials science that affects everthing from automobiles to food packaging, cell phones, GPS, global communications, weather forcasting, disaster perparedness and monitoring. For goodness sake, do a little research and you could easily make my list into a book! Some people are truly so close to the trees that the entire forest disappears. And, those people have a vote equal to those who are more educated and more aware of the consequencies of myopic thinking. Please expand your minds.

indy, that was my point, there will always be "problems at home", but that is no reason to give up on the future , in fact it is a good reason to invest in the future.

Gentlemen, you seem to be forgetting about all the things that were invented through spinoffs of the space program that enhance our everday quality of life.

But all of those "spinoffs" came from basic scientific research and unmanned space satellites, none of them came from the manned spaceflights themselves. So we could get all the "spinoffs" at a fraction of the cost if we funded scientific research and satellites and forgot about manned spaceflights.

Old Person,

There will never be a "good" time to go. There will always be problems, you have to multi-task. I doubt 1492 was a "perfect" time for Columbus to rediscover America (or at least the Caribbean), but he went anyway. History is replete with major discoveries and advancements made even though times were "bad".

HARCOURT!!! HARCOURT!!! (just think of that shrill voice of mrs mudd).

LIGHT!! The Light!!!!!

It would probably cost as much to get the Saturn V running again, and you need a chemical rocket to get into orbit, VASIMR isn't even being advertised as a way to get into orbit.

You may want new tech now, but you also need technology that works for the purpose.

actually, the new system proposed by nasa can exceed the lift capability of the saturn v

isee

now if only NASA actually had a payload for the rocket.

lol

but seriously, the asteroid rendezvous craft, new lunar landers, a replacement space station in a higher orbit, maybe mars...

all yet to be built, but you need to have a way to get the stuff there first

I know the ISS is an extremely fragile structure, but I wonder if there could be several tiny ion accelerators attached to gently gently accelerate it over the course of many months to a new orbit? I know we would have to zap space debris along the way, and then there is the case of increased radiation...but all and all it might be cheaper than letting it crash and starting again...input?