The news about NASA's new timetable.

One trade-off ?

NASA announced on its procurement Web sites that it was canceling a request for outside proposals to integrate the exploration vehicle into a comprehensive development plan for the moon-Mars project.

Instead, the announcement said, this work would be performed in-house.

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I see no problem with that. Think about it, it will (or should) include the evaluation team for the next "shuttle". Keeping it in-house (with my previous assumption) would help to accelerate the missions in a number of ways.

First they can start planning missions before specs are fully finalized (which also allows for some degree of change). They also have a leg-up in that they are familiar with its capabilities. I see this all as a good thing, even the disagreements.

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Still looking for something profound or inspirational to place here.

Yes, but NASA has gone nowhere in manned exploration since we landed on the moon over a quarter of a century ago. Two astronauts in low earth orbit?!? That has been done better by skylab. We keep having these grand visions that never quite get funded in whatever administration proposed them.
Ed Griffith

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NASA/JPL will have a new Public Affairs Officer. Jessica Collisson. She will be naked. And having an affair. With me.

Yes, but NASA has gone nowhere in manned exploration since we landed on the moon over a quarter of a century ago. Two astronauts in low earth orbit?!? That has been done better by skylab. We keep having these grand visions that never quite get funded in whatever administration proposed them.
Ed Griffith

Competition does wonders, but without a serious competitor our "game" has gotten rusty. The space race was a public specticle, the underlying force was the military (a demonstration of missle tech without starting nuclear war). So far the other space agencies haven't given us the push we need to mobilize.

As it stands now, Space is a pipe dream, a ploy used by our leaders. It is like paying down the national debt, everyone thinks it's a great idea, but... (insert excuse here). Presidential budgets always start paying down debt after their out of office (after 2nd term). Hey there is always something important to fund, like a study of the percentage of gay pigeons in NYC.

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Still looking for something profound or inspirational to place here.

Competition does wonders, but without a serious competitor our "game" has gotten rusty.

In other words... if Saddam had had an aggressive space program, the U.S. would have a colony on Mars already, and we'd have thrown every available resource at it to get there. Nothing lights a fire under our governments' butts like a good old-fashioned adversary in space. Keeping up with the 'Joneses' got us to the moon in less than a decade, but with the cold war gone, we have nobody to 'beat' anymore.

In other words... if Saddam had had an aggressive space program, the U.S. would have a colony on Mars already, and we'd have thrown every available resource at it to get there. Nothing lights a fire under our governments' butts like a good old-fashioned adversary in space. Keeping up with the 'Joneses' got us to the moon in less than a decade, but with the cold war gone, we have nobody to 'beat' anymore.

Thats pretty much the way I see it, although even if a non hostile government had an agressive space program, I think it would get the job done as well (just some good, old-fashioned one-upsmanship for nothing more than bragging rights).

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Still looking for something profound or inspirational to place here.

Thats pretty much the way I see it, although even if a non hostile government had an agressive space program, I think it would get the job done as well (just some good, old-fashioned one-upsmanship for nothing more than bragging rights).

Agreed, although Cold War hostility and paranoia definitely played a major role in our getting to the moon in a hurry. A friend and I were pondering this very point the other day.

Can you imagine where our space program would be right now if the Cold War hadn't ended? Or if the Soviet Union had landed on the moon first, then set their sights on Mars? If the Space Race was still very much alive today and fueled heavily by our governments? Crikey... we went from just looking at the moon, to standing on it, in less than a decade. Who knows what we'd have achieved in the next 36 years had that kind of fierce competition gone unchecked.

Of course we could also just be piles of ash on a big dead rock in space right now, so I'm not saying the Cold War was a good thing. But it's interesting to speculate nonetheless.

Nice discussion. :)

Agreed, although Cold War hostility and paranoia definitely played a major role in our getting to the moon in a hurry.

Think about what the new space race will be, if George finds out that bin Laden has been hiding and the backside of the moon all this time... Then he wants to fund NASA. ;)

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Agreed, although Cold War hostility and paranoia definitely played a major role in our getting to the moon in a hurry. A friend and I were pondering this very point the other day.

Can you imagine where our space program would be right now if the Cold War hadn't ended? Or if the Soviet Union had landed on the moon first, then set their sights on Mars? If the Space Race was still very much alive today and fueled heavily by our governments? Crikey... we went from just looking at the moon, to standing on it, in less than a decade. Who knows what we'd have achieved in the next 36 years had that kind of fierce competition gone unchecked.

Of course we could also just be piles of ash on a big dead rock in space right now, so I'm not saying the Cold War was a good thing. But it's interesting to speculate nonetheless.

Nice discussion. :)

The what if the cold war was still going on, scenerio is usually an interesting discussion. It throws out a wide net, you can pick almost any subject, and in some way there is an effect. When discussing it with people who are able to visualize several steps (I refer to it as a chess player mentality), the results are often unexpected. However, this is a bit off topic.

I've always given high probability to Nuclear winter. A large off world colony allows for this (it has to be self supporting of course). Who ever controls it (or more like rules from it) wins by default in a global extinction. A few thousand people could carry on and repopulate in the aftermath. It would take one of the biggest deterants out of a first strike.

Here's a happier scenerio to consider: Imagine that our government didn't leverage (capable) companies (GE, Boeing, McDonald Douglass and at least a few more I'm not listing) to keep thier efforts to venture into space through NASA? The results might tick you off, but it does avoid the whole Armagedon thing.

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Still looking for something profound or inspirational to place here.