Some details here about NASA’s plan to put humans on the moon by 2018, at a total cost of $100 billion. I’m not sure about:
since I thought the shuttle was on the way out.
Are the existing stocks of moon rocks at a critically low level?
The idea is to use the shuttle components (Fuel tank, main engines, boosters etc.) in a “shuttle derived” launch vehicle like this
The United States is quickly accumulating a crushing national debt and projections suggest the trend is accelerating, not slowing. Factor in millions of retiring Baby Boomers and the pension/Social Security/Medicare crises–and NASA’s lowball figure–it would be surprising indeed that the US could afford such an ambitious mission. That said, proposing something ambitious that’s 13 years away is relatively affordable.
$100 billion, huh? Well, between the unexpected Iraq War, the unexpected hurricane, and the soon-to-be-unanticipated California Earthquake – not to mention the rising costs of healthcare and other entitlements – I’m not sure I can afford $100B.
How about we just find all of the current civil and military space acquisition programs that are over budget and/or behind schedule, and fully fund them to whatever their “get-well” numbers are… and pocket the remaining $292.17, or even pay off some of our country’s atrocious credit card debt?
I know! We’ll put it in an interest-bearing account and save up for manned exploration of Mars, which might actually be useful.
(Yes, I am a huge manned-Mars zealot, and yes, I view our current space acquisition process as seriously broken. Sorry for ranting.)
The current budget plan is to re-direct the $7-8 billion dollars allocated yearly for the ISS and shuttle into this new launch program. Since $7 billion over 10 years is $70 billion (not counting inflation), I think $100 billion to build a launch vehicle capable of going further than 200 miles from the surface a deal.
LOL I know you mean that as a joke. The Moon is deservedly getting headlines, but the plan itself is much more ambitious.
**Sam Stone ** did a great job of talking about the intitiative in this thread[link] it is the omst concise and direct “nutshell” on the 100B I have seen.
It is a modular spacecraft capable of scaling up and down to do everything from LEO work to moon missions to manned missions to other planets. And CEV is only one part of the initiative. There are also programs for new telescopes, research into new propulsion methods, etc. It IS a ‘flexible, reusable infrastructure’. That’s the whole point to “Moon, then Mars”. If we sunk everything into a grand Mars mission, it WOULD be a ‘flags and footprints’ mission, with everything purpose-built for that one-shot deal. Instead, the new vision is to incrementally create a whole range of new space capabilities, test them in orbit and on the moon, get better at it, and continue exploring indefinitely. Moon, Mars, AND BEYOND. That includes robotic missions, large space telescopes, etc.
IOW we’re now gonna do it the way it should have been done to begin with?
Interestingly, the Russian next-gen vehicles (announced for a while but with no funding to make it happen) seem to also be inspired along similar lines – use “evolved” system components from existing vehicles (Soyuz and Proton) with a main crew vehicle (Kliper) that can then be hooked up with other modules to do specific things, but that by itself is solely a smallish lifting-body crew module that you can launch on the nose of the booster.
With luck, our articulate Canadian friend will convince his fellow Albertans to kick in, oh, US $10 billion. 
Actually, the Chinese may arrive sooner than 2018. Expect an expensive space race.
If we can travel to the moon for less than it’s going to cost us to rebuild New Orleans, I call it a deal.
Ooh! How about we rebuild New Orleans on the Moon.
Sounds good. No Levi’s, and certainly no hurricanes. Girls gone Wild: Moon edition.
Canada’s pulled its own weight in the space program. First, a good chunk of the core of the Apollo engineering team came from the cinders of our Avro aviation company. Second, we built the Canadarm, which is a fairly substantial part of the shuttle and an even more important piece of ISS.
I would be ecstatic if Canada would toss in a few billion along the way.
That $100 billion price tag sounds impressive, but remember it’s over 13 years’ time. In comparison, at today’s funding levels the Department of Education will have spent about 1 trillion dollars. Frankly, I think NASA’s program will do more for education than the DOE ever did, merely by inspiring young children to go into engineering and science. It’s worth it for that alone.
And anyway, it’s not like this is $100 billion in new funding - NASA is getting a large chunk of the money from this from the money that would have gone to the shuttle, and later the ISS. In other words, it’s just shuffling money from dead-end projects to a new architecture. Good idea. There is additional funding as well, but it only amounts to a billion or two a year, which is almost a rounding error in the overall federal budget.
So…what’s happening to the ISS, then? Are we just abandoning any effort of finishing and getting any useful work out of it?
I’m sure the contribution is major, but can you quantify and/or provide links? What proportion of overall US space-program spending (1960-2005) are you talking about?
At least there won’t be any sagging breasts.
I don’t know the exact numbers, but Canada has invested 1.1 billion in the Mobile Servicing System for ISS plus another $207 million for the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (arm) on the MSS, $100 million in research for the initial Canadarm, and another $500 million for general funding for ISS. In addition, Canada has worked with NASA on numerous smaller programs, satellites, instruments, etc.
Canada doesn’t have a huge space budget - I think it’s around $500 million a year.
Here’s the web site of the Canadian Space Agency.
No, the U.S. has committed to finishing ISS, which is why the shuttle is still going to be flown until 2010.
The real problem is going to occur if the shuttle keeps getting delayed and can’t fly all the ISS-finishing missions by then. Because 2010 is supposed to be a ‘hard date’ at which time the shuttle has to be extensively refurbished before it can fly again. And that’s not going to happen, because it would cost billions. So I don’t know what will happen if we get to that point and ISS isn’t finished.
Actually $100 billion isn’t that bad, when you consider the commonly quoted price tag heard in the 1960s, for the Apollo program, was 25B. That was worth a lot more back then, than 100B is worth today, so if they can pull it off at least it shows they can get things done more efficiently now.
Though I agree with Jurph that Mars is more interesting.
I strongly support the NASA manned space program. Bush’s backing for it is one of the few things he’s done right since he moved into the White House. That said, with the deficit soaring due to his tax cuts, Iraq/Afghanistan, and now Katrina reconstruction, I’m afraid that NASA’s plan will be DOA on Capitol Hill. I just don’t see how we can afford it.
Damn, I wish I didn’t have to write that…