7 ms·

NASA Budgets for a Trip to the Moon

38 points by Ankaios 9y ago

craftyguy 9y ago
> The Trump administration is also looking to trim the budget of NASA’s earth science directorate > The nearly $1.8 billion budget for that part of NASA would be about 6.5 percent lower than what was enacted for fiscal year 2017 Donald seems to be stuck in the Cold War. I've not heard of one good reason for him wanting to send Americans back to the Moon other than "prestige." There are much more valuable scientific targets than the Moon that we could be targeting, and it's very upsetting that he seems to be using NASA to enhance his own image (e.g. deep cuts in areas where NASA needs budget increases..)
- webkike 9y ago
  Maybe it's a smokescreen to divert resources away from potentially damaging climate research?
  - whatshisface 9y ago
    It'd be hard for additional climate research to do anything (politically) that the existing climate research hasn't done already. Although, I understand how there might be some element of "Hah! Got'em!" among some groups. Overall, I see this as a move towards globally inspiring national pride projects and away from the more subtle and less-expensive "only PhDs understand how this is really important," tasks. It really fits the personality and promises of the current president.
    - maksimum 9y ago
      The fundamental issue is that it's relatively hard for us to reasonably account for future costs against present costs. I also think it's interesting that in more social equitable countries (like the Scandis) the public and politicians tend to take climate change more seriously. Is Maslow's hierarchy actually coming into play?
      - whatshisface 9y ago
        Another explanation might be that some countries have much stronger governments than others. In the US, the "man with a plan," pattern almost never plays out successfully.
- gnarbarian 9y ago
  How about a moon base we could use as a base camp for missions to the outer solar system or mars? H3 mining is another thought. Edit: other ideas * Autonomous vehicles sent ahead of time to build habitats for people. * Large underground bases dug into the bedrock positioned at the poles collecting solar energy. * Long tracks to launch things into space/earth electromagnetically. * Mining of ice which could get split into H and O for propellant. * Mining of other materials to be used on site or sent back to earth. * Attempt to get people to be self sufficient on another world, even if it took a hundred years. * Depot for deep space asteroid mining ships/drones to drop off their cargo and refuel/repair without having to drop all the way down to Earth.
  - lorenzhs 9y ago
    Unless you can make propellant on the moon, that’s going to be less economical than going directly. There’s nothing to be gained by going down another (albeit not very deep) gravity well. The base camp analogy doesn’t really apply.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      You could make propellant on the Moon (from water). The Moon is also a good place to test Mars-related procedures (couple dozen hours of travel beats couple dozen months in case of an emergency). Finally, I imagine building a telescope on the "dark side" is astronomers' wet dream.
      - lorenzhs 9y ago
        Hm, hydrolox could indeed be possible. Didn’t think of that. But you’d still need a very large number of missions to make construction and maintenance of the moon base cheaper than just directly going where you want to go. It’s probably going to be a while before a moon base makes sense for economical reasons. Also, the moon does not have a dark side. It has a far side that never faces the earth, but the sun shines there just like it does on the other side.
        9y ago
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- lorenzhs 9y ago
  There’s a good point to be made about manned missions to the moon. There are so many things we don’t know about the moon. See, for example, ESA’s “moon village” plans. The General Director gave a talk at 33c3 that—among other things—makes the case for prolonged human presence on the moon for scientific purposes: https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8406-the_moon_and_european_space_exploration https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8406-the_moon_and_european_space...
  - TaylorAlexander 9y ago
    It makes me happy that someone from the ESA gave a talk at 33c3.
    - lorenzhs 9y ago
      Not just anyone, the Director General! There was another talk by someone from ESA (I don’t remember his name) on the feasibility of a moon elevator (lunar surface to Lagrange point 1 iirc), which would be possible with current materials if we could just figure out how to get them there... I was in the audience for both and it was absolutely amazing!
- TaylorAlexander 9y ago
  I feel in many ways that this is how NASA works. One leader says “My predecessor has no vision for a positive future. We must go beyond low Earth orbit and explore the solar system. I’m announcing renewed funding for programs that will send humans to Mars in 25 years. I’m introducing a bill that adds $2B to the NASA budget.” And then the subsequent leader says “My predecessor loved spending money even while the people suffered. We cannot be spending billions on space exploration while people need jobs. I have let NASA know they’re going to have to tighten their belts and get to work with less so the people can have jobs. I’m introducing a bull that cuts $2B off the budget.” Meanwhile, both leaders expand the military budget by $40B.
  - throwawayjava 9y ago
    TBF the military is the only jobs program whose recipients are unimpeachable.
    - rdtsc 9y ago
      The fact that counties around Northern Virginia are the wealthiest counties in the whole country (and 3rd wealthiest one is in Maryland, also close to DC) supports that statement: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccalerner/2017/07/13/top-10-richest-counties-in-america-2017/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccalerner/2017/07/13/top-10...
    - TaylorAlexander 9y ago
      That’s under our control. They’re unimpeachable because we support an air of respect for them. We could do the same for those less privileged, but other agendas get in the way.
      - throwawayjava 9y ago
        Yes, that's the point I was trying to make.
- coolso 9y ago
  > I've not heard of one good reason for him wanting to send Americans back to the Moon other than "prestige." Not even for the inspiration? I mean look at how everyone reacted to SpaceX's recent launching of a Tesla into space. Everyone thought it was super cool and inspiring - and it was. Now imagine how much cooler it would be to send people to the moon again in the modern age. Yeah it happened before but that was a long, long time ago, and may as well have never happened for probably 3/4 of the people in America.
  - tobltobs 9y ago
    How is repeating something, which has been done already 50 years ago, inspirational? That sounds more like admission of defeat.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      It's not defeat to fall down, it's only defeat when you stay down. Getting to the Moon, especially with something more serious than samples pickup mission, would signal that we're back on our feet again.
- unethical_ban 9y ago
  1) It is closer and more feasible to practice landing and returning from a planet than Mars 2) The ISS is going to de-orbit in the 2020s, so for low-gravity and habitat research, we can spend billions on another LEO station (which private industry is already tackling) or we can do something a bit more daring: set up shop on another rock. I think NASA should be allowed, broadly, to choose its own missions and goals, and stick with it for longer than one administration. Their work takes more than 3 year election cycles.
  - ggg9990 9y ago
    The British-style civil service structure is much more suitable for long-term government investments like NASA, NIH, etc. They are too important and too complicated to be left to politicians.
    - maksimum 9y ago
      How does accountability to the public work with career civil servants? I'm not saying it's not possible, but I think for every country like Finland where civil servants hold themselves accountable you can find 2-5 countries where they are inefficient, or worse, corrupt. Would the USA be more like Finland or more like the other countries?
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    > The ISS is going to de-orbit in the 2020s, Only because we are going to allow it. We could, you know, keep it in orbit and continue to use it. > I think NASA should be allowed, broadly, to choose its own missions and goals, and stick with it for longer than one administration. Their work takes more than 3 year election cycles. I could not agree with this more. Having every administration fuck up their agenda every 4-8 years is not productive.
    - xupybd 9y ago
      > Only because we are going to allow it. We could, you know, keep it in orbit and continue to use it. I'm not sure if it's safe to operate much longer than the 2020's without some major work and the running costs are astronomical. I'd love to see the ISS live longer but with limited resources going to the moon instead seems like a solid plan. At least on the Moon we might be able to get some practice in at harvesting resources off world. That's really going to be the economic key to kicking off a non war related space race.
Havoc 9y ago
To boldly go where we've never gone before...except in 1969.
blackmagevivi9 9y ago
This is just embarrassing, especially for the United States as a whole. The Trump administration should be ashamed for cutting important research and nominating a climate change denier as the head honcho. Although building a moon base would be cool. It could increase our reach for manned missions. Sort of a first/last pit stop before a long journey.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
Mars vs. Moon debates are getting ridiculous these days. Why not both? Thanks to NewSpace, getting out there is only going to become cheaper; we can, as civilization, afford both. Let ESA and NASA and China race to the Moon. SpaceX wants to go to Mars. If either succeeds in the next decade, we all win. The knowledge and experience gained is reusable for either, it goes into the same pool. And if we keep fighting over which destination is better, we won't get to any.
- xupybd 9y ago
  > Why not both? Because it costs too much right now. SpaceX is providing NASA with rockets, I'm not sure they'll have a sustainable business model to get to Mars. I hope they do find a way but until costs come way down it's going to be tough.
  - nine_k 9y ago
    There is no sustainable business model to go to Mars. Unlike LEO, GEO, or maybe even Moon, there's no business opportunity on Mars. The only way to go there is to accumulate resources from real business, and to improve efficiency.

38 points by Ankaios 9y ago

> The Trump administration is also looking to trim the budget of NASA’s earth science directorate > The nearly $1.8 billion budget for that part of NASA would be about 6.5 percent lower than what was enacted for fiscal year 2017 Donald seems to be stuck in the Cold War. I've not heard of one good reason for him wanting to send Americans back to the Moon other than "prestige." There are much more valuable scientific targets than the Moon that we could be targeting, and it's very upsetting that he seems to be using NASA to enhance his own image (e.g. deep cuts in areas where NASA needs budget increases..)

webkike 9y ago
Maybe it's a smokescreen to divert resources away from potentially damaging climate research?
- whatshisface 9y ago
  It'd be hard for additional climate research to do anything (politically) that the existing climate research hasn't done already. Although, I understand how there might be some element of "Hah! Got'em!" among some groups. Overall, I see this as a move towards globally inspiring national pride projects and away from the more subtle and less-expensive "only PhDs understand how this is really important," tasks. It really fits the personality and promises of the current president.
  - maksimum 9y ago
    The fundamental issue is that it's relatively hard for us to reasonably account for future costs against present costs. I also think it's interesting that in more social equitable countries (like the Scandis) the public and politicians tend to take climate change more seriously. Is Maslow's hierarchy actually coming into play?
    - whatshisface 9y ago
      Another explanation might be that some countries have much stronger governments than others. In the US, the "man with a plan," pattern almost never plays out successfully.
gnarbarian 9y ago
How about a moon base we could use as a base camp for missions to the outer solar system or mars? H3 mining is another thought. Edit: other ideas * Autonomous vehicles sent ahead of time to build habitats for people. * Large underground bases dug into the bedrock positioned at the poles collecting solar energy. * Long tracks to launch things into space/earth electromagnetically. * Mining of ice which could get split into H and O for propellant. * Mining of other materials to be used on site or sent back to earth. * Attempt to get people to be self sufficient on another world, even if it took a hundred years. * Depot for deep space asteroid mining ships/drones to drop off their cargo and refuel/repair without having to drop all the way down to Earth.
- lorenzhs 9y ago
  Unless you can make propellant on the moon, that’s going to be less economical than going directly. There’s nothing to be gained by going down another (albeit not very deep) gravity well. The base camp analogy doesn’t really apply.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    You could make propellant on the Moon (from water). The Moon is also a good place to test Mars-related procedures (couple dozen hours of travel beats couple dozen months in case of an emergency). Finally, I imagine building a telescope on the "dark side" is astronomers' wet dream.
    - lorenzhs 9y ago
      Hm, hydrolox could indeed be possible. Didn’t think of that. But you’d still need a very large number of missions to make construction and maintenance of the moon base cheaper than just directly going where you want to go. It’s probably going to be a while before a moon base makes sense for economical reasons. Also, the moon does not have a dark side. It has a far side that never faces the earth, but the sun shines there just like it does on the other side.
      - 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
lorenzhs 9y ago
There’s a good point to be made about manned missions to the moon. There are so many things we don’t know about the moon. See, for example, ESA’s “moon village” plans. The General Director gave a talk at 33c3 that—among other things—makes the case for prolonged human presence on the moon for scientific purposes: https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8406-the_moon_and_european_space_exploration https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8406-the_moon_and_european_space...
- TaylorAlexander 9y ago
  It makes me happy that someone from the ESA gave a talk at 33c3.
  - lorenzhs 9y ago
    Not just anyone, the Director General! There was another talk by someone from ESA (I don’t remember his name) on the feasibility of a moon elevator (lunar surface to Lagrange point 1 iirc), which would be possible with current materials if we could just figure out how to get them there... I was in the audience for both and it was absolutely amazing!
TaylorAlexander 9y ago
I feel in many ways that this is how NASA works. One leader says “My predecessor has no vision for a positive future. We must go beyond low Earth orbit and explore the solar system. I’m announcing renewed funding for programs that will send humans to Mars in 25 years. I’m introducing a bill that adds $2B to the NASA budget.” And then the subsequent leader says “My predecessor loved spending money even while the people suffered. We cannot be spending billions on space exploration while people need jobs. I have let NASA know they’re going to have to tighten their belts and get to work with less so the people can have jobs. I’m introducing a bull that cuts $2B off the budget.” Meanwhile, both leaders expand the military budget by $40B.
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  TBF the military is the only jobs program whose recipients are unimpeachable.
  - rdtsc 9y ago
    The fact that counties around Northern Virginia are the wealthiest counties in the whole country (and 3rd wealthiest one is in Maryland, also close to DC) supports that statement: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccalerner/2017/07/13/top-10-richest-counties-in-america-2017/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccalerner/2017/07/13/top-10...
  - TaylorAlexander 9y ago
    That’s under our control. They’re unimpeachable because we support an air of respect for them. We could do the same for those less privileged, but other agendas get in the way.
    - throwawayjava 9y ago
      Yes, that's the point I was trying to make.
coolso 9y ago
> I've not heard of one good reason for him wanting to send Americans back to the Moon other than "prestige." Not even for the inspiration? I mean look at how everyone reacted to SpaceX's recent launching of a Tesla into space. Everyone thought it was super cool and inspiring - and it was. Now imagine how much cooler it would be to send people to the moon again in the modern age. Yeah it happened before but that was a long, long time ago, and may as well have never happened for probably 3/4 of the people in America.
- tobltobs 9y ago
  How is repeating something, which has been done already 50 years ago, inspirational? That sounds more like admission of defeat.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    It's not defeat to fall down, it's only defeat when you stay down. Getting to the Moon, especially with something more serious than samples pickup mission, would signal that we're back on our feet again.
unethical_ban 9y ago
1) It is closer and more feasible to practice landing and returning from a planet than Mars 2) The ISS is going to de-orbit in the 2020s, so for low-gravity and habitat research, we can spend billions on another LEO station (which private industry is already tackling) or we can do something a bit more daring: set up shop on another rock. I think NASA should be allowed, broadly, to choose its own missions and goals, and stick with it for longer than one administration. Their work takes more than 3 year election cycles.
- ggg9990 9y ago
  The British-style civil service structure is much more suitable for long-term government investments like NASA, NIH, etc. They are too important and too complicated to be left to politicians.
  - maksimum 9y ago
    How does accountability to the public work with career civil servants? I'm not saying it's not possible, but I think for every country like Finland where civil servants hold themselves accountable you can find 2-5 countries where they are inefficient, or worse, corrupt. Would the USA be more like Finland or more like the other countries?
- craftyguy 9y ago
  > The ISS is going to de-orbit in the 2020s, Only because we are going to allow it. We could, you know, keep it in orbit and continue to use it. > I think NASA should be allowed, broadly, to choose its own missions and goals, and stick with it for longer than one administration. Their work takes more than 3 year election cycles. I could not agree with this more. Having every administration fuck up their agenda every 4-8 years is not productive.
  - xupybd 9y ago
    > Only because we are going to allow it. We could, you know, keep it in orbit and continue to use it. I'm not sure if it's safe to operate much longer than the 2020's without some major work and the running costs are astronomical. I'd love to see the ISS live longer but with limited resources going to the moon instead seems like a solid plan. At least on the Moon we might be able to get some practice in at harvesting resources off world. That's really going to be the economic key to kicking off a non war related space race.

Havoc 9y ago

To boldly go where we've never gone before...except in 1969.

blackmagevivi9 9y ago

This is just embarrassing, especially for the United States as a whole. The Trump administration should be ashamed for cutting important research and nominating a climate change denier as the head honcho. Although building a moon base would be cool. It could increase our reach for manned missions. Sort of a first/last pit stop before a long journey.

TeMPOraL 9y ago

Mars vs. Moon debates are getting ridiculous these days. Why not both? Thanks to NewSpace, getting out there is only going to become cheaper; we can, as civilization, afford both. Let ESA and NASA and China race to the Moon. SpaceX wants to go to Mars. If either succeeds in the next decade, we all win. The knowledge and experience gained is reusable for either, it goes into the same pool. And if we keep fighting over which destination is better, we won't get to any.

xupybd 9y ago
> Why not both? Because it costs too much right now. SpaceX is providing NASA with rockets, I'm not sure they'll have a sustainable business model to get to Mars. I hope they do find a way but until costs come way down it's going to be tough.
- nine_k 9y ago
  There is no sustainable business model to go to Mars. Unlike LEO, GEO, or maybe even Moon, there's no business opportunity on Mars. The only way to go there is to accumulate resources from real business, and to improve efficiency.