UPI Exclusive: Bush OKs new moon missions

[Buffler]

UPI Exclusive: Bush OKs new moon missions

WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- American astronauts will return to the moon early in the next decade in preparation for sending crews to explore Mars and nearby asteroids, President Bush is expected to propose next week as part of a sweeping reform of the U.S. space program.

To pay for the new effort -- which would require a new generation of spacecraft but use Europe's Ariane rockets and Russia's Soyuz capsules in the interim -- NASA's space shuttle fleet would be retired as soon as construction of the International Space Station is completed, senior administration sources told United Press International.

The visionary new space plan would be the most ambitious project entrusted to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration since the Apollo moon landings of three decades ago. It commits the United States to an aggressive and far-reaching mission that holds interplanetary space as the human race's new frontier.

Sources said Bush's impending announcement climaxes an unprecedented review of NASA and of America's civilian space goals -- manned and robotic. The review has been proceeding for nearly a year, involving closed-door meetings under the supervision of Vice President Dick Cheney, sources said. The administration examined a wide range of ideas, including new, reusable space shuttles and even exotic concepts such as space elevators.


Full article:
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040107-123930-1532r


Is this for real? Back to the moon and then onto Mars?

Traveling to Mars has always seemed like a challenge that America should rise up to meet. I have always wondered what kind of technology it would take and what kind of people it would take just to make the journey to Mars. An unimaginable journey.

[Stephanie]

1. Umm - isn't UPI the Moonie wire service?

As in Rev. Moon...

This is about Star Wars/SDI

[mouse7]

19. I'll grant Moonies the right to break "Moon story"

Seems appropriate somehow.

That's the only one, though.

[wuushew]

2. Going to the moon is a waste of time and money

unless you claim that we need to go the moon to mine helium-3 for next generation fusion reactors. Going to Mars requires no detour to the moon and frankly given what Bush has done with the federal money situation I would consider very carefully what projects NASA undertakes.

[Stephanie]

3. This is about military bases in space

Read "Rebuilding America's Defenses"

[wuushew]

4. I figured as much by the mention of Cheney oversight of the project

n/t

[Beetwasher]

5. I'm All For Supporting NASA

Did the little monkey boy finally realize that he and his goons are fucking up the earth so badly that in all acuality it will probably be uninhabitable for his obnoxious and spoiled progeny?

Why do I get the feeling that this initiative is either A. just lip service like so many others or B. Cover for something sinister?

[Kolesar]

6. A year of "closed-door meetings with Dick Cheney"

WTF! I thought this administration had a war to fight, not sending Dick off to negotiate with dreamy scientists and engineers.

[havocmom]

15. military contracts or help to the extraction industries

just another way to siphon US Treasury $$ to corporations.

Also, a really neat place to ship all the criminals too dangerous to leave on earth. Gitmo will be too valuable as a resort spot. Patriot II will surely swell the ranks of the incarcerated. (Lunar Mining, Inc. will need a work force). Go outside, look up into the night sky and say hello to the next penal colony.

[earthside]

7. Proof Bush is Mentally Unstable

Comment on: www.Earthside.com

Earthside is placing this story right above the report on the massive deficits Bush has created because it demonstrates the total disconnect from reality by the current occupant of the White House. We are big believers in technology and the importance of the space program. However, since Bush has been in power, the nation has added nearly a trillion dollars to the federal debt; we cannot get a shuttle in orbit to the air-leaking space station; and our satellite technology is so bad that it allegedly detected non-existant WMD in Iraq. This is not a great record upon which to entrusting an expensive and challenging project - like manned missions to the moon and Mars. Remember, Bush is the guy who still cannot even tell the truth about why he is getting Americans killed everyday in the Middle East. So, will he lie again and tell us that all we need are a few more tax cuts to pay for what will easily be a $500 billion interplanetary space program? This grandstanding space scheme is just a political maneuver, but as we noted, it does show that the leaders in the Bush regime are mentally unstable ... It's as simple as that.:crazy:

[SaveElmer]

8. If he is serious I am all for it

But knowing this guy, there is some ulterior motive we are not hearing about

[pmbryant]

20. The ulterior motive is politically blinding all the space-fanatics

I know, because Reagan pulled the same trick in 1984 with the space station announcement and it worked on me (I was a 15-yr old space fanatic at the time, who thankfully could not vote).

What did Reagan say? Space station by 1992, or something like that? For $8 billion, or something like that?

Here we are, 2004, tens of billions ($40 billion plus, I believe) dollars later, and the space station is just barely begun. And the eventual product will be a mere shadow of what was originally conceived. Essentially just another Skylab, but somewhat bigger.

I recall Bush the First also did a Mars mission announcement back in 1991 or so. Where has that gone?

Expect the same from the Bush the Second.

--Peter

[necso]

9. This is about the Chinese.

It will look very bad for the US when China is sending astronauts to the moon and we are not.

While the "corporatists" love sending jobs to China, they realize that it is a major propaganda victory for the "Communists" when said "Commies" are doing what we seem not to be able to do.

It is just part of these extremists' extreme schizophrenia about China. Strengthen the Chinese economy and military by sending our jobs and dollars over there: Build a missile defense system that has China in mind. Vilify their system of government and human rights violations: do ever more business with them. Oppose Taiwanese independence: Sell weapons to Taiwan. The list goes on.

Besides W has no compunctions about spending our descendents' dollars or making meaningless promises to appease some group of potential voters.

[Beetwasher]

11. Oooh, I Hadn't Thought of the China Angle

Very interesting hypothesis.

Hmmm, I wonder if the Chinese realize this too, and know that this type of investment into a new "space race" by the US could really hurt us economically right now, especially if the insane morons running the US are incensed by their paranoia about exacty what it is China is REALLY doing on the moon (if in fact the DO end up going)...

[Buffler]

12. What?

While the "corporatists" love sending jobs to China, they realize that it is a major propaganda victory for the "Communists" when said "Commies" are doing what we seem not to be able to do.

We have been to the moon multiple times and are the only country to have done so.

[necso]

14. Ah.

And as for going back to the moon or establishing a permanent presence there? Short of a new US moon project, the Chinese will be next to the moon. At the moment we don't even have manned space flight --- except with Russian help.

Previous to this announcement, there were NO US plans to return to the moon.

As for having been to the moon etc, etc, we also used to have lots of manufacturing jobs, lots of affluent one wage earner families, a trade surplus, rising real wages, etc. A lot of good it does us now.

[mouse7]

21. This is about China and polar water ice in moon

That polar ice on the moon is more valuable than gold. They have to secure that before others do.

[pmbryant]

23. The amount of polar water ice on the Moon appears to be miniscule

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/moon_ice_0301112.html

Water on the Moon? Scientists Await Definitive Answer
By Rick Callahan
Associated Press
posted: 01:00 pm ET
12 November 2003

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The latest effort by science to answer whether there's ice on the moon has come up empty. There's no sign of a lunar skating rink in the mysterious polar craters -- or even a big slab of ice.

The results of the most detailed radar study to date of the moon's shadowy poles don't mean the moon is bone-dry. But the apparent lack of large ice tracts suggests there isn't a big supply of life-sustaining water nearby if people ever wanted to colonize the moon.

"It certainly would have been nice to find some sort of lunar skating rink, or thick layers of ice, but it looks like it's just not there," said Bruce Campbell of the Smithsonian Institution's Center for Earth and Planetary Studies.

Five years ago, NASA's Lunar Prospector orbiter found tantalizing evidence that deep, permanently shadowed craters at the moon's poles could harbor ice in their sunless depths.

(snip)

Now, Campbell and colleagues at Cornell University have used the mammoth radar dish at Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory to probe craters more deeply than ever before -- as far as 20 feet (6 meters) down.

And still there's no sign of thick layers of ice.

(snip)

[Stephanie]

10. PNAC - space wars

http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

Therefore, the Air Force should:

<snip>

• Target significant new investments
toward creating capabilities for
operating in space, including
inexpensive launch vehicles, new
satellites and transatmospheric
vehicles, in preparation for a decision
as to whether space warfare is
sufficiently different from combat
within earth’s atmosphere so as to
require a separate “space service.”

[gate of the sun]

13. they want to escape to the moon

once the earth becomes uninhabitable.....or at least their decendants! this is absolute B.S. with the economy going the way it is with so many social programs cut etc. this is a complete travesty. It makes me seeth in anger. I expect there is more to this than meets the eye. It may sound silly but I suspect they have a reason for going there and it isin't good. I could get into all sorts of crazy speculation. Let's just wait and see.

[Nazgul35]

16. It's called dual use...

the whole push for landing a man on the moon was that the same technology that could put a man on the moon could deliver an intercountinental ballistic missile to Moscow....

just like the same technology that will build the space plane will be used to construct Airforce bombers that can hit anwhere in the world in 20 minutes, or take out anybody's satellite communications by simply going up and snatching them from orbit....

that's why Bush supports this...it's all part of the missile defense plan....look at the Rumsfeld report way back...he was a big pusher for the military space plane...

[gulliver]

17. It hurts to have such a microbe start such ...

... an exciting project. Bush doesn't compare favorably to Kennedy in any way. Bush is a skid mark in the underwear of history.

[mouse7]

18. Dumbya announces in SoTU plans to destroy WoMD on Moon

Dumbya plans to announce in his State of The Union address his intention to invade the Moon and destroy the WoMD possesed by the dictator Man in the Moon.

"The Man in the Moon is an evil-doer, and poses a direct threat to the security of the United States. He has the capability to launch moon nukes at US cities made from the remnants of Apollo moon landings left behind on the moon."

Secretary of State showed the United Nations evidence of the imminent threat from the Man in the Moon

"The Man in the Moon has the ability to deliver WoMD against the Unites States using the three moon rovers left on the Moon by Apollo missions...."

[pmbryant]

22. Eureka! This is a cover for killing the Space Shuttle.

To pay for the new effort -- which would require a new generation of spacecraft but use Europe's Ariane rockets and Russia's Soyuz capsules in the interim -- NASA's space shuttle fleet would be retired as soon as construction of the International Space Station is completed, senior administration sources told United Press International.

We are nowhere near developing anything to succeed the Space Shuttle. It would probably take at least a decade, likely longer, to develop a replacement.

This "program" is just cover for the Bushies to kill the Shuttle program, even with no replacement in sight.

Of course, at this point I don't think killing the Shuttle is all that bad of an idea.

--Peter

[necso]

27. Could be part of it

The Airforce has tried to kill the space shuttle ever since it was clear that they would not be able to take total control of the program. This could be the bushies gesture to appease a part of the military... which as a whole is not as thrilled with them as it used to be.

If this is the case, expect other gestures to be made towards the other branches of the military.

It would be like the bushies to get the most mileage out of a idea. Simultaneously appease those who would hate to see China pull ahead of us in space, give the Air Force generals something they want (new boosters and potential control of them --- and perhaps complete militarization of manned space flight) and kill the space shuttle which is costly and exposes the inevitable result of the privatization of a program like this: neglect, nonperformance and criminal negligence in the name of profits. On top of this, they can save a few bucks in an area none of them care about, do it in the name of something better and perhaps avoid an outcry (if they dangle control of the new booster in front of NASA, along with other bait (and threats), its voice can probably be largely silenced).

Yes I think that you are right, this is part of it.

[Yupster]

24. Landing on Moon when I was ten

I am amazed at how little we've done in space since my early days. When I was 15, I would have assumed we'd have a space station on Mars by now. We went from no where to the moon in 10 years, and it just seems like we haven't gone a whole lot further in the last 35 years. If we're going to give the program a kick, I'm all for it.

[WilliamPitt]

25. This is cover for the militarization of space

Don't believe the hype.

[Draven]

26. Why is he going to the moon??

Oh...is it so he can bring up there a giant "laser" and have military bases named "Moonunit Alpha" and "Moonunit Zappa" and take over the world from space?

Someone get me Austin Powers...

[scottcsmith]

28. Say goodbye to billions and billions of dollars

When are right-wingers going to get on Bush's case for these big-government spending programs?