US plan to return to moon 'is dead'

[DavidU]

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/technology/1005910/us-plan-to-return-to-moon-is-dead

:(

[JimmyH155]

Thats a real pity. Now watch the Chinese fill the gap!!

[supernova1965]

I don't care who does so long as someone does:thumbsup:

[FredSnerd]

Well then, thank God for the Chinese. What is this? Back to the cold war again.

[sjastro]

The Americans not interested in tapping into the He-3 resources?

Steven

[el_draco]

Space exploration will inevitably move out of government hands anyhow. It will be driven by $ and He-3 will be the currency for the moon atleast.

[TheDecepticon]

I for one don't think that the Chinese being on the moon is going to be a good thing if there is no collaboration between nations. It will end in tears, and not for the Chinese.

[Octane]

Maybe the US government has seen Avatar one too many times.

H

[Matt Wastell]

Sad - and very short sighted!

[Waxing_Gibbous]

Another reason the ISS is a waste of space (:lol:). A short sighted, post-cold war exercise in touchy-feely international relations.
Nobody's doing anything up there that couldn't be done more efficiently by a machine. All that dosh could've gone onto putting equipment and supplies on the moon ready to DIY together. The amount of top-notch Radio Astronomy that could be done, fairly simply, on the far-side is incredible.

ISS should have been a space hotel charging squillions to wealthy space buffs. That way they'd have some left $ over and have a much better idea of how real people react to long-term spac-edness (word?).

OUR place is exploring other worlds, not farting around in NEO.
And that's all I have to say about THAT!:screwy:

[Nesti]

Although I love the history of manned spaceflight, I say, GOOD!!! And that goes for pie-in-the-sky manned missions to Mars too.

The 2009 fiscal year for the US saw a deficit of US$1.4 Trillion, 2010 will be US$1.5Trillion and the following year may be worse still. The US economy is gravely ill through 60 years of recklessness, and it won't repair anytime soon.

Countries like Italy have a debt of 110% GDP and Greece is near insolvent.

The climate issues are not going away, but are getting worse, and no individual country wants to lead the way. The cost of keeping carbon emissions under control, in keeping warming under control, would be to condem all developing countries to stay as developing countries and to scale back first world countries. Ask the Chin family in the outskirts of Beijing (which is already choking to death with pollution), what they think about that idea?!

The west has got itself in a gorilla war with terrorist cells that won't go away until there is retribution, and since the US are in economic trouble, this issue will only heat up.

Until a thousand issues like this are cleaned up and we all can play nicely, I say space can wait...perhaps until a more sensible generation appears.

I'm sure the next 5 generations will really appreciate a more sensible approach to what gets achieved over the next 50 years.

Just my 20c worth.

[Matt Wastell]

[QUOTE

OUR place is exploring other worlds, not farting around in NEO.
And that's all I have to say about THAT!:screwy:[/QUOTE]

Could not have said it better!
One of those other worlds will be mankinds home oneday.............well, not if we do not get on with it - we can all wither and die here!

[sasup]

Thats too bad it would great to mount a luner scope on the far side:shrug:

[supernova1965]

I suspect way back when that someone was complaining about sending ships to the other side of the world was a waste of money and lives. Where would the world be now with out the pioneering spirit of the explorers of our oceans. And what happens when the habitable zone we are in moves and we haven't done the work to move to the other planets and stars do we seriously want to see our race die like the dinosaurs. What a footnote to our civilization yes we knew what was coming but we didn't move out of the cradle. In this diagram it shows that mars will be entering the habitable zone so this means we can look forward to living on 2 worlds in the future so we need to be developing the technology to take advantage of this and then when the earth is moving out of the Zone we have a place to live I understand it is way off in the future but that is no excuse that's how things get left undone and someone say's what the hell were our ancestors doing didn't they think ahead. O sorry if we don't do the tech there will be no ancestors to say that so I suppose that's ok:P. Any how I am all for moving out of the cradle that's my 2 cents worth.:D

[TrevorW]

I could see this coming just wait the Mars trip will get canned too

ISS wasn't a waste just not visionary enough what we need is more visionaries running the world.

When will they wake up to themselves and realise that all the worlds resource problems etc could be resolved with the conquest of space

No they'd rather spend billions on pointless wars in countries where they don't belong

[Paul Haese]

I don't see why this next moon shot cannot be a collabrative effort. We need a base on the moon for our next journey out. Why not like the ISS and use everyones efforts and money.

Yes the US is in grave trouble, but if they stopped making war with every tin pot nation out there just so that their military industrial machine can keep rolling along, then things might be different. Let's face it, Afghanistan is no threat to anyone really, the same as Iraq. So much money and lives wasted on both sides.

I had hoped to see another moon shot in my life but perhaps now that is all for naught. We need another place where our species can be safe. If we don't do something soon we could jeopardize our very existence. The impact on Jupiter last year highlighted this issue. No one saw that coming and the same could happen to us.

Stupid State sovereignty is holding up our progression. Would serve us right if we had an impact in 30 years. Dumb humans:mad2:

[TheDecepticon]

Spoken like a true alien!!:P;):lol::lol:

[Paul Haese]

I must be, considering I don't think like all the rest on this rock.;)

[supernova1965]

Live Long and Prosper HMMM Sage advise will we take it

[stephenb]

Sorry to be a pessimist, but I thought this would happen. I just recall every space announcement by every US president over the years (apart from JFK) and almost everyone of them failed to materialise.

A sad day for space exploration, but the Sun will still rise tomorrow and life goes on.

[TrevorW]

A sad day for space exploration, but the Sun will still rise tomorrow and life goes on.[/QUOTE]


but for how long ???

[rat156]

I hate to disagree with you on this one Paul, but...

I'm sure there are many Afghans and Iraqis that feel their government was a threat. Look at what Saddam and his cronies had done to the Kurds, look at what the Taliban does to anyone or anything that challenges their thinking. It is in our nature, and in the Anglo-American psyche to help other people when in times of need. You could not have observed the tyranny going on in those countries and not felt the need to go and help the people. You must also remember that Saddam had developed WMDs before, and although he hadn't by the time the Americans went back in the second time, I'm sure that they would have if they could have, happily this is one time the UN had been able to stop them. Would you really want a State with ties to terrorists developing Biological and Chemical weapons, let alone Nuclear weapons?

Yes, there are many other people in need, but both of these countries fostered terrorists that are a direct threat to both the US and the Western world in general. Northern Africa will be the next hotspot, because the terrorists have sympathetic governments and a very disadvantaged populous to work with.

The problem with the US economy is not due to their war effort, it is, like their health system, in trouble because people concentrate more on making money than advancing technology. The US car industry is a prime example of this, whilst the computer industry is an example of what is possible when companies profit is tied to technology, it advances at an astronomical rate.

During so called "real wars" of which WWII is generally held out to be an example, technology advances at significantly faster rates than during peacetime, mainly because the government sponsors research without the demands of something profitable at the end. The current conflicts, like many of the past few decades have been poorly supported, both in monetary terms and in terms of R&D of technology, so we don't see the corresponding advances, though next time you use GPS, you might want to think a little about where the technology came from.

Now for the disclaimer.

Yes, I do work for the DoD, but I'm a civilian.
No, I'm not blinded by propaganda, I probably just see more than the average citizen wrt to this type of thing.
But, I'll not let the efforts of our men and women in the field of combat be denigrated by the questioning of the motives for them being there. These people are putting themselves at risk to uphold our societies principles, they are doing it for you and I, not for the government, not for oil, not for profit.

Cheers
Stuart

[Paul Haese]

Stuart I prefer to call it selective peace keeping. What about Indonesia's civil rights records or North Korea, Iran or name any country in mid to north of Africa where dictators rule supreme and murder countless people or rig elections and have new ones when they don't like the result.

As for harbouring terrorists well there are two ways of looking at this. First, terrorism would not exist if the west kept its nose and intelligence agencies out of other countries affairs. Aggressive foreign policies get fundemental idiots off side and they start taking steps to have their say. how many people have died in Iraq since the first gulf war. Last count was 500,000 or more. No wonder the extremists wnet mad and starting doing more bombing etc. Look at Ireland for the last 100 or so years and what the British have done there. Secondly, it is interesting fact that lots of money comes out of Saudi Arabia to sponsor terrorist organisations. Nothing gets said about that. Nor will anything get done about that. While the oil flows selective foreign policy rules supreme.

Actually GPS was around when I was in the Army and doing ops o/s to establish economic zones of other pourer countries. We were using GPS in 1983 and it took several days to get a 100mm fix. It was not borne out of conflict but certainly in anticipation of conflict. Mind you all the wars since Vietnam have sponsored Stealth aircraft and increased missile technology, nothing really positive there I don't think.

As ex military Stuart I am not denigrating the people in the field. The policy of warfare is composed and conducted by politicians and senior government officials. The troups are just the instruments for such policies and nothing more than that. They are ordered into the field and they follow orders.

[FredSnerd]

And if the orders to go to war are based on lies whose really denograting the troop and putting them to wanton and unnecessary risk.

[Nesti]

Sorry Warren, but I strongly disagree with your point of view here.

As this 'Green [habitable] Zone' moves outward leaving earth uninhabitable, the general idea is to follow it, so that our species may survive. But I have another viewpoint, I say that we have been given THIS planet, and unless we perfect the art of surviving here, what right do we have propagating our [silly] issues out into other regions?!

If life naturally evolves when conditions are ripe, then what right do we have, to deny other life-forms their opportunity to evolve...we can't even look after the life-forms on this planet, let alone some other planet...which incidentally, would only be colonized out of commercial gain (Strip-mining yet another planet).

I'm sorry, but I strongly believe that we either make it here, on our (collective life) planet, first, or we perish here; isolating and localiszing our abuse and impunity to just a small region. We use and abuse science and technology as though WE OURSELVES created it and earned the right to employ it...like a child wielding his father's shotgun (Quoted from Jurrasic Park) without any regard for it's correct usage.

As far as I'm concerned, Copenhagen pretty much sealed the fate of this planet. It basically said that we, as a species would prefer wars and plasma TVs above and beyond survival. Hair-brained clean-up concepts aside, what will save this planet, save us from killing our and other species-off, is nothing less than selflessness. So, for me, spreading our human mind throughout the galaxy is distasteful.

When you sit down and think, and I really do mean think hard, about what we could achieve, as a collective and collaborating body, IF we put our minds and backs into it...space exploration is only a stepping-stone...and short sighted.

This planet is only so big, and we have reached our population saturation point...no...we're over populated actually. Our focus as a species is toward short term gratifications and distractions, not real achievements. As a species, we are lost...totally...and it seems impossible to retrace our steps. The entire system needs to either collapse, or degrade, before we can move ahead...if there's enough time that is.

Manned space exploration has become an unsustainable pipe-dream. We look for reasons to go, commercial reasons, but that's purely to address the issue of funding. The real point here is that as a species, the vast majority of the general public lack the VISION to explore. we are not the Egyptians or Mayans...not even close.

There is a solution to all of our problems, but it's so outrageous and such a bitter pill to swallow (almost laughable really) that nobody would accept it.

Well enough of my pointless rant (as nothing will change from just words).

Cheers
Mark

[TrevorW]

Actually on that note lets not forget that most of the technology and advancement in rocketry today came out of Germany, as a direct result of WW2 from Hiltlers mad but visionary quest to dominate Europe.

Also don't forget the America only entered WW2 after Japan (who where allied to Germany bombed Pearl Harbour.

http://www.worldwariihistory.info/in/USA.html

Pearl Harbour may not have happened if America hadn't enforced a trade embargo due too the Japanese invasion of China.

There is a lot of history of America being involved in conflict only too protect capital interests.

Anyway you look at it they may have still been going too the moon if they hadn't wasted 3 trillion dollars on the Afghan/ Iraq conflicts.

Also they will not directly intervene unless it suites them to do so look at the Sudan/Darfur conflicts

One shouldn't kid themselves into thinking that America's and their allies actions are altruistic, it's all about $$$$

Well said Mark !!

[supernova1965]

That's great that you disagree and that you kept your disagreement civil and friendly. I have to take up some points Physical Evolution takes millions of years so why shouldn't Social Evolution be given the same amount of time we have only been evolving socially for lets say as a ballpark figure 100 thousand years and I am not claiming that this is the correct figure. Shouldn't we ensure that we have the time to evolve socially just look at how far we have come it used to be the excepted norm to have slavery. Child molestation used to be considered quite acceptable and it's not now there are many examples of things that used to be acceptable that are not considered acceptable now.

We were given this planet or maybe life came from Mars to begin with we don't really know it could have been some microbe from mars or elsewhere on some Meteorite that provided the spark to kick off evolution. Maybe we were given the brains to try to extend our Species lifespan and the opportunity to do so. Mars to our knowledge at present used to be a water planet and will probably be one again could not the fact that Mars can become habitable mean it was left to us as well. To allow the entire system to collapse would be to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We need to build on the good that we have achieved to date and discard the negative things that hold us back.

How can space exploration be both a stepping stone and shortsighted at the same time a stepping stone is a first move a way to the other side therefore it is actually a longsighted view to the future. And I think that even the Mayan's and Egyptians had only a minority of their population that had the vision to explore I can't believe that 100% of their population were brilliant Scientists, Philosophers, Explorers there would have been your average Joe and Jane Blow that had no understanding of anything but their own daily lives. Just like today:thumbsup: as to whether things can change from just words I think you maybe mistaken there words are far more likely to change the world than bombs and bullets these make people just to want revenge but words can make us think and improve ourselves.:)

[Nesti]

Wasn't saying your point of view was wrong...I just disagree; doesn't mean I'm right.

Actually, everyone wants the same thing/outcome, but we vary only in the application of change.

We can drill-down into each and every topic in detail, but then we separate our viewpoints. When we keep a holistic focus, we all have the same agenda/viewpoint.

Personally, I believe that these experiments - Communism, Socialism, Democracy etc etc - have all failed because of the human condition (greed power etc). The only thing left to try, would be a global Monarchy; give everything to just one entity, money, power, everything. At least then, there's nothing to fight over, no possessions, no sovereignty, and no difference between the races. But the Monarchy would have to earn the position and it cannot he handed down within the bloodline...it must be earned. A Nobel Peace price every 25 years...the winner literally takes-all. Ridiculous I know, but what else is there?!

When you own everything, and there's nothing else to have, you tend to look after it or give it away to someone who can do.

[rat156]

Sorry, but again I have to disagree. Terrorism will rear its ugly head wherever people are disadvantaged, but one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. To be clear we are talking about terrorism against civilians in the developed world by the likes of Bin-Laden etc. These people are fighting a Holy war, which has more to do with religious zealotism than politics. I think that they would have emerged anyway.

North Korea has had very little influence from the west other than being stopped from invading South Korea.

I did mention that there were many other areas that they should be fixing, but if they can halt the spread of the influence of the Bin-Ladens of the world then they may be able to use diplomacy on the majority of the rest.

How many of the 500,000 people killed were Saddam's doing and how many were from the US? Saddam was engaged in genocide, and now the same extremists still bomb innocent civilians, they hardly target the Americans anymore. This has been going on for thousands of years, and it's not going to stop anytime soon.

Ireland's woes too came not from the influence of the British, but from a holy war from centuries ago, admittedly from the English royalty at the time. Have you noticed that since 2001 the IRA have been actively involved in the peace process. They realised that the first thing to be clamped down on would be resident terrorists, 9/11 was just the excuse the Brits needed to wipe them out completely with little objection from anyone.

Hmm... It's a fact that "lots of money comes out of Saudi Arabia to support terrorism" is it? Please quote sources for this information. It is not a fact, it is unsubstantiated rumourmongering supported by the same people that denigrate the war effort. Look through that "fact" and you'll see the conspiracy theorists at work.

As ex-military you should know that this sort of questioning of the motives for war has to denigrate the troops that are actually over there doing it. I am surprised that you do it.

Cheers
Stuart

[TrevorW]

If I said tommorow there was a cheap and fast way to mine the resources of our solar system and could prove it

I'd bet ya everything would change over night and we'd be over running the solar system in 10 years or less

[Stuart78]

Could not have said it better!
One of those other worlds will be mankinds home oneday.............well, not if we do not get on with it - we can all wither and die here![/QUOTE]



This is the wrong way to look at things in my opinion i would probably rather die anyway than live on a desert like mars what sort of life would it be living in a bubble on a dead planet, lets get our ****e together and look after this extraordinary planet while it isn't too late, space isn't going to dissapear.. >>> Stu

[TheDecepticon]

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/02/01/president-obamas-nasa-budget-unveiled/

[norm]

You cannot be serious? how many billions have been poured into Iraq and Afganistan to date, let alone how much per month. That money would have been better spent paying off debt, getting there health system back on track. It may even have left them with money to actually spend on the moon exploration.



I'm sure the soldiers have their own moral views on the situation but at the end of the day Paul sums it up

From what I can see, America will remain a superpower, but their overall dominance is on the decline. Emerging economies of China and India will come into the foreray in the decades to come. America seriously needs to get its house back in order to stop the bleeding.

That's my 3 cents worth. Norm:)

[Jen]

:lol: yeah me too :thumbsup:

Maybe the aussies should do it :rofl:

IIS members to the moon :D

[supernova1965]

I will sign up if you do Jen

[Jen]

;) ok its a deal :P
:D

[mswhin63]

I think commercialisation of space flight like Virgin or whatever will be the next step. Western government are trying to privatise many areas as much as possible. Space exploration is one of them. Richard Branson obviously put his foot forward, others will follow.

Possibly setting motel on the moon could even be a viable commercial investment.

[iceman]

I enjoyed this article which talks about what NASA will be focusing on now instead.

Little talk of the 'politics' too, which is great.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/02/nasa-reboots-focuses-on-cheaper-sustainable-exploration.ars

[multiweb]

Interesting stuff. Was surprised to hear about the planned deorbiting of the ISS. Seems like an awful waste of resources after all the trouble and time spent in assembling and putting everything up there. Why can't they keep it up there? Even if it's not powered up? I mean it's not going to fall down anytime soon right?

[Terry B]

And I like the pic on that page of the "budget" rockets.:D

[multiweb]

:confuse3:They're not in trouble. Their defence budget just dwarfs any NASA budget or everything else for that matter. We're talking of 100s of billions of dollars every year. It's a choice really. I also wouldn't be surprised at all if the US defence had its own space agenda either. The US will never give up any aspect of space related activities because it's a strategic advantage. NASA is the friendly public front shop window. I wouldn't worry as a whole about our future abilities to get into local earth to space transport or long range exploration.

[Manav]

So you are saying we need terrorists in space? :p

[Octane]

$3.3 trillion total budget.
$738 billion for defence.

50% cut to unemployment insurance.

Go figure.

I find it sickening.

H

[multiweb]

:shrug:


Such is life but I reckon it's still better to have the US with such a yearly budget on this planet rather than Iran or some other nut cases ;)

[norm]

Lets not forget their budget is in Deficit, not surplus and the spend, spend, spend attitude is costing them dearly.

Iran maybe a threat to the US but to Australia I somewhat doubt it in the greater scheme of things.

Norm:shrug:

[Manav]

Almost everyone is disappointed at the financial decision made by the US government. I'm sure they had a valid reason however I must point like many before me - JFK had a vision of a nation working towards a common goal for humanity.....I'm yet to see any leader match that! Maybe China going to the moon may bring out that spirit again... Who knows

[multiweb]

The "human rights" in space? :lol: ;)

[Manav]

Competition will bring out the best from US lets just hope someone gets there so we can all start buying land plots on Mars and Pluto!

[netwolf]

I am a big fan of the space program but at the same time i feel we must be practical about it. The famous speach by JFK "...we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,...."

Lets think on this, why not chose to fix the problems on this planet first.
Some would say that Space exploration inspires the rest of us to do better. But surely we need to fix the foundations first before we build the house? It seems to me the foundations of humanity are very weak with large cracks called, War, Comericialisim, Captilisim, etc etc. We need to fix these foundations first.

To those that say we need to find alternative planets, well is that because we have already wrecked this planet and now we want o move onto the next place to wreck havoc.

We look to the stars and see the immense beauty out there but we neglect to look through the microscope at our own foundations. There is untapped potential right here on this planet, there is immense beauty right here on this planet, and there is much to much to do to clean this place up. We need to start looking inward instead of outward.

Think on the ships and explorers from timae gone by, why did they explore? and whad did there exploration lead to? We wiped away many a native civilisation in the need to expand empires. We dummped the problems of one nation on another by mass migrating them to collinies. Exploration is a double edge sword. All the good will behind it will not stop human nature from corrupting it.

We need to fix "us" first. This age is all about consume, big TV's, entertainment, fashion, food, etc etc. But where are we at with poverty, homelessness, mental health care, child labour, human rights, climate change...... Whats our budget for these things compared to our Consume budget? Let us first fix this and the other hard things on this planet before we talk about setteling on others.

We speak a lot about Terrorism. But consider this question first.
Why are there Terrorists?
Instead we jumping to how do we stop them.

Again its all about escaping the truth. Some day if we so desired we could travel to the moon instantly, but what will we sacrafice to do it. What will we set aside to achive it?

If we find another planet and we find ways of getting people there do you think it will resolve the other "harder" issues. Or will people be more inclined to think, does not matter we can always find another planet.
Keep on with the same old escaping.

What if we fixed the problems here first and then tackled the problem as one world. Would not a united world that has overcome its shortcommings find better solutions and more quickly and with less expense?

What purpose will we set for ourselves? What will be the best one for our generations to come? Will we leave them enslaved to the "Escaping" or will we look inward and change the world.

It is not governments or nations that need to set this agenda, we as individuals must make a comitment to do our best to change for the better.
To change the world we must change ourselves first.

[sjastro]

http://www.lab-initio.com/screen_res/nz058.jpg (http://www.lab-initio.com/250dpi/nz058.jpg)

[Geoff45]

The problem is that it will take 10-12 years to get someone on the moon and US Presidents can serve a maximum of 8 years. This means the guy who sets it up won't be President when it succeeds and the next guy will get all the kudos.
Geoff