VP says: Return to Moon in 5 years

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Nytrunner

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In before Winston!

Mr. Pence described a need for NASA to adopt greater urgency in returning to the moon. But an accelerated pace has not been evident in the Trump administration’s NASA budget requests to Congress, raising many questions about how it will be possible for the agency to accomplish this ambitious goal.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/science/nasa-moon-pence.html
 
In before Winston!

Mr. Pence described a need for NASA to adopt greater urgency in returning to the moon. But an accelerated pace has not been evident in the Trump administration’s NASA budget requests to Congress, raising many questions about how it will be possible for the agency to accomplish this ambitious goal.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/science/nasa-moon-pence.html

Yeah, but why?

Not sure if the article above covered that, since I don't have NYT access.
Below is a link for free access article, that doesn't really address that question. Not sure if NYT one does.

It would be good to understand why we are about to repurpose tens of billions of $$ in an already under-funded NASA.

Hopefully, there is a compelling reason for all this sudden bru-haha, or is there?


https://www.orlandosentinel.com/bus...e-national-space-council-moon-2025-story.html

a
 
Since money for the NASA space program is a scarce commodity, it would be wise to mothball the Gateway project (the manned lunar orbital mission), which is probably hold-over material from the Obama asteroid capture mission, and use the money for lunar surface exploration, especially at the lunar south pole.
 
Since Helium 3 is a boondoggle, is there another reason to go back to the moon?
Like we're in a new space race with China ?

I'm all for it if we send flat earthers.
 
Since money for the NASA space program is a scarce commodity, it would be wise to mothball the Gateway project (the manned lunar orbital mission), which is probably hold-over material from the Obama asteroid capture mission, and use the money for lunar surface exploration, especially at the lunar south pole.

Yeah, but why is moon suddenly so sexy again?
It was an ambitious stretch goal, a mega-technical challenge, and a giant middle finger to the Russians in the 60s.

Now, it's none of those things, so why the urge to repeat the moon, and in specifically in 5 years?
Because Pence wants to look presidential ?!?
Because he heard voices?

Than there is the matter of funding.
NASA has been short funded by the politicians for years, and was forced to slow-roll SLS and Orion development in response. And now the same politicians who never cared to fund NASA, act indignant that moon rocket is not ready for flight tomorrow.

It gets even more curious when you compare the motivational speeches vs. the actual NASA budget requests.
On one hand, it's "all hands on deck" to go to the moon in 5 years.
On the other, the just released proposal for fiscal year 2020 NASA funding is $500 million less than 2019 budget.
o_O:rolleyes:

Since Helium 3 is a boondoggle, is there another reason to go back to the moon?
Like we're in a new space race with China ?

For starters, think about what's special about 2024. It all flows from there IMHO.

Perhaps, middle finger to China?
Perhaps, prepping for the 2024 presidential election cycle?

Likely net result - NASA will pull funding from proper scientific space exploration projects in favor of politically favored lunar redux.
 
Pretty ambitious for country that hasn't launch a manned spacecraft in so long...

But when Kennedy announced the moon landing, we had less than 16 minutes in space total (Alan Shepard's sub-orbital flight) AND the Bay of Pigs of still a recent memory. Not a good time politically then either.

Fortune Favors the Bold.jpg
 
They'll just find another excuse to say its flat..
  • the thickness / material of the window
  • the ascent trajectory
  • the few who were sent were paid big $$ to say "its round"
  • etc..
I can believe number three. But the ones who went would see the globe turning, and they would not see all seven continents at the same time. So I think the ones who went would be convinced, and they would in turn convince some of the others, the ones who are really confused and seeking to understand. But, yes, there would be those who would not be convinced no matter what you do.
 
Here is Robert Zubrin's latest statement on Pence's address. Obviously, I strongly agree on Zurbrin's opinion of the Gateway project.

https://mailchi.mp/marssociety/anou...ciety-convention-banquet-1102709?e=480d62ce58

The Gateway hardware should be put in mothballs and saved for the day when NASA builds a solar satellite that transits between here and Mars. At the rate we are going such a project is 50 to 100 years away.
 
There are plenty of productive reasons we should go back to the moon, and should have done it 40 years ago. This "announcement" has nothing to do with any of them. And certainly nothing to do with providing funding to make any of it happen.

There are 500 posters on this board with more knowledge on space than the person making the statements.
 
In before Winston!

Mr. Pence described a need for NASA to adopt greater urgency in returning to the moon. But an accelerated pace has not been evident in the Trump administration’s NASA budget requests to Congress, raising many questions about how it will be possible for the agency to accomplish this ambitious goal.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/science/nasa-moon-pence.html
:) But you won't keep me from commenting about it. Here's my take from the segment of his speech I caught:

1. New cold war (no kidding...)
2. We need to beat the Chinese to the moon... because we need to beat them.

Yeah, great idea. Let's waste vast sums of limited funds just as we are with the SLS to rush to do something stupid because of political optics. I say let the Chinese waste their money going there. When they get there we simply say, "Welcome to the club we started 50+ years ago."
 
We need the moon as a stepping stone to Mars. If you can't get monthly or yearly stays down on the moon, you're SOL on Mars.
 
I can believe number three. But the ones who went would see the globe turning, and they would not see all seven continents at the same time. So I think the ones who went would be convinced, and they would in turn convince some of the others, the ones who are really confused and seeking to understand. But, yes, there would be those who would not be convinced no matter what you do.

  • the refraction of the window would be a reason.
  • they wouldn't think they are travelling around a sphere. but traveling in a circle on a 2D plane at some altitude (and they believe there are disks of light & dark that follow the same kind of path. Frankly, I don't think flat earthers can think or appreciate a 3D environment..
 
We need the moon as a stepping stone to Mars. If you can't get monthly or yearly stays down on the moon, you're SOL on Mars.
What we need is an international agreement to address this concern, serious contamination of Mars which will prevent us from knowing whether life independently evolved there, a discovery which would be the discovery of all times:

ASTROBIOLOGY
Volume 17, Number 10, 2017
DOI: 10.1089/ast.2017.1703

Searching for Life on Mars Before It Is Too Late

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/ast.2017.1703

Abstract

Decades of robotic exploration have confirmed that in the distant past, Mars was warmer and wetter and its surface was habitable. However, none of the spacecraft missions to Mars have included among their scientific objectives the exploration of Special Regions, those places on the planet that could be inhabited by extant martian life or where terrestrial microorganisms might replicate. A major reason for this is because of Planetary Protection constraints, which are implemented to protect Mars from terrestrial biological contamination. At the same time, plans are being drafted to send humans to Mars during the 2030 decade, both from international space agencies and the private sector. We argue here that these two parallel strategies for the exploration of Mars (i.e., delaying any efforts for the biological reconnaissance of Mars during the next two or three decades and then directly sending human missions to the planet) demand reconsideration because once an astronaut sets foot on Mars, Planetary Protection policies as we conceive them today will no longer be valid as human arrival will inevitably increase the introduction of terrestrial and organic contaminants and that could jeopardize the identification of indigenous martian life. In this study, we advocate for reassessment over the relationships between robotic searches, paying increased attention to proactive astrobiological investigation and sampling of areas more likely to host indigenous life, and fundamentally doing this in advance of manned missions.
 
I'm assuming the moon was determined not to have any potential life forms prior to landing?

We didn't think so, but basically we just went.
The whole lunar-quarantine program was the result of the fear there might be something there we knew nothing about.

I believe, between Soviet Luna/Lunik and U.S. Surveyor, there were fewer than a half-dozen successful lunar landing probes total prior to the landing of Apollo 11.

Certainly our Mars landing probes should have life-detecting technology (and most do), but we could send 100,000 Mars probes which could spend 10 years each searching nonstop for life and still cover only .001 percent of the surface.

And much speculation is that any life which may exist on Mars is more likely to be found under the ground, where access to water and protection from solar radiation may be much better.
 
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