I have a feeling 2024 is barely doable in terms of an Apollo 8 style lunar mission, and that would be a slapdash affair I suspect. Something like putting a trans-lunar injection booster stage in orbit with a Falcon Heavy, and then putting a crewed Orion capsule up, docking with it, and then setting off around the moon. That would entail designing the booster and testing it somehow, as well as mating the Orion to whatever vehicle they chose, testing it in LEO, and then probably testing the docking as well. I’m guessing at least two preliminary missions, if not more.
It’s doable if you scrap that pesky “returning him safely to the Earth” constraint.
Test what? I didn’t think anyone had a “ready to cut metal” design for a crewed lunar lander.
You’re right. It is even worse. I was confusing the crew capsules, which have not been tested with humans, with the lander.
How much more successful would such a project be if the person making the journey was Trump?
“Space Force One is fueled and ready!”
The projected cumulative U.S. budget deficit for years 2020-2024 is $5,235 trillion*.
It is trite to say, but let’s solve some problems on the ground before creating problems to solve in space.
*Page 7 of https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2019-03/54918-Outlook-3.pdf
It’s not just trite, it’s dumb. We are capable of working on more than one thing at once. If we can never start an endeavor until all other problems are solved, we’ll never start anything. And NASA’s budget (which I don’t see the GOP increasing in any meaningful way for this effort) is negligible, anyway.
That is an interesting interpretation of what I posted. You seem to be fighting a strawman. As Chronos points out, at the moment there is no scientific need to fund manned space exploration. It is just really, really cool.
Funding manned space exploration will require drastic increases in NASA’s budget. That money will have to come from somewhere.
On the other hand, if we cut the defense budget by just 3% and gave all that to NASA, that would double NASA’s budget.
Or maybe stop this trade war with China so we don’t have to prop up our soybean farmers with taxpayer money. That would free up $16 billion, which is about 75% of NASA’s annual budget.
Ahhh Federal programs. Always willing to cut someone’s program to fund their urgent requirements!
And perhaps less compelling in the 1960’s than we seem to remember.
There is an interesting article in the latest Smithsonian, that I was reading last night. I don’t have it here at the office, but something like 39% of those polled after the Apollo 8 mission that went around the moon felt that landing on the moon wasn’t that important, and a majority of Americans felt it wasn’t worth the cost.
The article went on to show that Kennedy didn’t think he could keep support for the program though (presumably) two terms. The writer of the article postulated that if Kennedy is assassinated, that we don’t land on the moon before 1970, if at all.
I don’t think in this budget environment, when we are so split politically, that either the science or the Star Trekian coolness of space are compelling enough to get us to the moon or Mars.
Personally I don’t want to see NASA waste resources on another nationalism project. But if the administration wants to do it, I suggest that’s where they could find money. Taking funds from the military should have minimal effect on workers because the contractors who will be paid for Artemis can be the same companies that lose military contracts.
I’d disagree. But taking funds from the military will have an effect on the military. The money isn’t there just to support some contractors. And we have no idea where the money from DoD would come from. It’s generally a mix of operations and maintenance, personnel and procurement - it’s rarely against one program or company.
Bottom line is unless we raise taxes (or God forbid just continue to increase the debt) it’s a zero sum game - someone had to do less to pay for it.
Thoughts:
-
I think manned space travel is, by and large, a waste of time. Space is for robots. They don’t need air, they don’t need food, they don’t have to be protected from vacuum, cosmic rays, etc.
-
But you’d think the moon by 2024 would be doable, from a standing start. I mean, where are we now, compared to where we were in 1964? And from where we were in 1964, we put a man on the moon in 5 years.
-
We won’t go to the moon by 2024 or soon after, because you’d need to mobilize a whole lot of people, budget a ton of money, etc., and none of that is happening.
-
But if we’re going to go to Mars (I still think that’s stupid), travel to the moon is an obvious destination to test everything out with. If you can’t do the moon, you can’t do Mars, and at least you’re way, way closer if something fucks up.
You’re going to need a big-ass rocket to get out of Earth’s gravity whether you’re going to the moon or Mars.
Also, the orbital geometry of the Earth and Mars requires, IIRC, a stay of several months on Mars. You can test out a habitat on the moon and see if it holds up that long.
Actually, a lot of it is. There are always stories in the press about how the military doesn’t actually want some latest-and-greatest project, but it’s going forward anyways, because a lot of the work will be done in the home state of some influential senator.
And then there’s the money that’s spent on the military as a matter of national prestige, which is probably an even bigger chunk of the Department of War’s budget. If we’ve already decided that we want to spend billions on national prestige, space is a lot better way to spend that money than weapons.
I don’t want to go to far down this tangential rabbit hole, especially since you have an ax to grind with DoD. But there is certainly not a lot of money just spend on contractors just to spend it on contractors. Are there pork programs, yep. But not to the degree that you’re arguing. There are in NASA too I’d guess.
Can you give me a few examples of the billions we spend annually on DOD national prestige programs that isn’t really needed by DoD?
There are certainly SOME good things that can be done on the Moon, but there are a lot of important differences too. For example, your last sentence: Mars has an atmosphere with weather. The Moon does not. I’m not sure testing how the habitat stands up on the Moon tells us anything useful about how it will perform on Mars.
Let’s see: Mars’ atmosphere is awfully thin, a lot closer to lunar vacuum than Earth-density atmosphere. The moon is colder than Mars. So there’s two things: you can test to see if it sufficiently preserves (1) air, and (2) heat, over a period of months.
Anything else related to the Martian weather can be tested just as well here on Earth.
I’m all for investing in human space flight, but this seems like an unfunded mandate. With current technology, the resupply and support cost would be very high. I’d much rather see a push into economical propulsion technology. How do we bring down the cost of getting into orbit and beyond? Let’s cut the cost by a factor of 10, then lets talk moon base.