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Big Changes In Proposed U.S. Space Budget
Posted by
michael
on Tue Feb 05, 2002 05:51 PM
from the to-the-moon-alice dept.
from the to-the-moon-alice dept.
Guppy06 writes: "CNN has this article on some of the effects of Bush's budget proposal would have on the space program. To make a long story short, funding for the manned space program is being trimmed (there's talk about outsourcing the shuttle program) and some high-profile missions to the outer solar system have been cut (say good-bye to the Pluto-Kuiper Express). On the flip side, nuclear propulsion research is getting a boost. Love it, hate it, some big things seem to be in store." The Planetary Society has their reaction to the budget proposal. And because it's been submitted several times: the ISS suffered a computer outage but all is well now.
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Big Changes In Proposed U.S. Space Budget
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Trimmed? (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless, of course, they feel the military is their future.
That is exactly the plan (Score:5, Informative)
Cheers,
--Maynard
The best way to get shot... (Score:4, Insightful)
>> I firmly believe that the military has to be the future of where all the power is centralized.
A quote, forget from whom, but seems poignantly relevant: The easiest way to get shot is to carry a gun.
Bush seems the stereotypical spaghetti western cowpoke, speaking softly and carrying a big gun, and, in the spirit of late Hollywood arrivals, lusting after a bigger gun. I wonder who (in the figurative and collective sense) among us will get shot as a result of this.
Re:Trimmed? (Score:5, Interesting)
Many things that were too expensive for NASA were developed by the USAF.
Examples
The SpaceLab was simply the final name for an Air Force Manned Orbital Lab.
Shuttle's cargo bay was designed around the size of the spy sats.
NASA is the civilian arm of Space exploration and development while the real interesting stuff is being done in black projects by the Air Force who has the real budget.
I'm of the opinion that the real advances will come out of Air Force spending. Examples.
707 - That was designed as a military tanker to replace the K-97. Only after the USAF bought it did the airlines buy it.
747 - Was designed in the CX project that the C-5 won, then Boeing pushed it for a commercial aircraft.
Many of the advances in materials and propulsion technology come out of the Air Force because they have the money to spend.
The engines on a CRJ-70 aren't evil because they were developed for the A-10 and S-3. It's just an offshoot.
Re:Sound like Bush (Score:4, Interesting)
There are aleady theoretical ways to recycle toxic waste into to fuel and stuff that is safe inside a decade but its illegal to do any research on real radio active waste in most counties thanks to Greenpeace. One of the thigns that the University of Missouri's reactor used to make was fake radio active waste that could be used for research.
Recycling waste. (Score:5, Informative)
There's no such thing as "fake" radioactive waste.
Greenpeace probably objects to manipulating waste with plutonium in it, because they fear (correctly) that facilities that do this could produce relatively pure plutonium for weapons. Unfortunately, the radioactive waste from conventional power plants contains plutonium.
There are several good arguments against reprocessing large amounts of radioactive waste. One is safety - it's a lot harder to keep a reprocessing plant safe than it is to keep a nuclear reactor safe, because your fuel is no longer stored inside oxide pellets, and it's being moved through many equipment rigs instead of sitting in one fuel frame.
The other argument is that, by nature, reprocessing plants produce substantial amounts of (relatively) pure radioactive materials as output. If stolen, several of these would be useful in weapons (whereas the waste in raw form isn't).
In summary, I tend to agree that reprocessing plants are probably not worth the headaches they raise.
Lastly, you can't just magically make radioactive waste non-radioactive. That's not the way radioactivity works. You _can_ separate it into its component elements. Some of these can be used as fuel, but will produce radioactive waste in turn. Some of these will be inert or almost inert - these can be buried without raising *too* much of a stink. But the rest is still dangerously radioactive. You can put it back into a reactor and hope it turns into something else, but a) this won't get rid of all of it (some will just get worse), and b) The vessels you hold the waste in in the reactor will become radioactive, and you're back to square one.
It's an interesting problem, with no easy solutions (though some acceptable compromises).
The sooner we kill the shuttle the better (Score:4, Troll)
Killing the shuttle (or sending it of to comercial land) will allow Nasa to get onto the things it should be doing the next time the administration changes its mind.
Presidents *Proposed budget* ?? (Score:4, Interesting)
bad news for science (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that the most astronomy that's going to get done in these next few years is astronomy by the Air Force, with satellites that are pointing down at the Earth, instead of up at the skies. There never seems to be a shortage of funding for those projects, even though diverting 1% of that money would probably save NASA and the US space research program.
Re:bad news for science (Score:4, Interesting)
More and more of our space exploration is taking place in the outer system, with only the occasional lunar mission (been there, done that) and two or three high-profile Mars missions. Everything including the asteroid belt and out are beginning to get the treatment that Venus and Mars got in the past decade (and as a result we know more about the surface of Venus than we do of the earth itself!)
However, because of the distances involved (Venus and Mars are a mere stone's throw away), all of these missions will require a lot of time and a lot of fuel. The more fuel you use to put the probe on its way to its destination, the less the probe can do. While the ion drive has a lot of promise and will probably continue to be researched, it's just not a near-term solution to this problem. On the other hand, there's nuclear propulsion.
As the Planetary Society pointed out, nuclear propulsion has been studied before (NERVA [astronautix.com] and Orion [astronautix.com]are the two most famous), has decades of research already there waiting to be used, and promises a near-term solution to deep space propulsion (if not launch vehicles). Combine this with the fact that the United States is the undisputed leader in the field of nuclear propulsion, and I can't help but see big results coming soon.
As an example: When I submitted the article, I was disappointed with the umpteenth cut of Pluto-Kuiper Express. But the Planetary Society take reminded me that, with the prospect of nuclear propulsion, there isn't anywhere near the pressing need to launch it immediately to make it to Pluto in time. Putting a nice liquid-fueld fission engine (for example) into the plan means that we aren't forced to launch "something, anything" now and can take the time to refine the probe before launching it.
So long as the anti-nuke folks don't kill the proposal in Congress, we've just taken a big step towards putting a person on Mars.
This should prove to be as successful (Score:5, Funny)
Really not that bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
I didn't think it was as bad as could be, really. Losing the Pluto-Kuiper probe is a bummer, but there's still pretty strong (in relative terms for today's financial climate) support for basic science.
More to the point - Nuclear Propulsion - Hooray!. This is an utterly fabulous development, and I'm probably going to get flamed for saying so. It's still the truth, all the same. Decent nuclear propulsion is the only way to reduce the current long flight times around the solar system.
not all bad (Score:3, Interesting)
The missions to the outer planets, I think, are very important and should receive full funding. They may not be very efficient, but travel to the outer planets takes so long and is subject to so many constraints that we really need to get these projects going now. It's a shame that they are being cut.
Nuclear propulsion in space is a hot potato because it's potentially dual-use. If this research is conducted completely openly and in an international framework, then it may be acceptable. Otherwise, it will be perceived as simply a way for the US to militarize space and put nuclear technology into space, and, domestically, it would be little more than a ploy for transferring NASA funds to military research.
Nuclear propulsion research? (Score:3, Interesting)
Apparently, there were plans to build a high-atmosphere sky base above the USSR during the cold war using this technology. Makes you wonder just what our government is capable of.
Perhaps I'm paranoid (Score:3, Flamebait)
Nuclear-powered probes have been used for, literally, decades. It's actually something of a misnomer to call the Voyager, Cassini, et al probes "nuclear-powered". "Decay-powered" might be a better term, since their energy source is radioactive decay generating heat. Putting nuclear-powered rovers on other planets might be a good idea, allowing rovers to run longer. I wonder how much longer Sojourner and Sagan Memorial Station could have run with a decay-based backup. Of course, there is always a concern about radioactive materials being exposed to the environment; not much of a problem in interplanetary space, something of a problem if the probe is on a planet suspected of having life.
The point of decay-powered power generation is to run electricity-based devices for long periods of time at distances from the Sun too great to make solar generation effective. If the Bush report refers to nuclear reaction-based power generation and propulsion, I'm a bit lost. The best reason to use nuclear-powered engines and generators would be to support manned flights that require much energy for life support, emergency power, pushing along its own bulk, et al. There's also the issue of fission- vs. fusion-based generators and engines.
Perhaps I should find a copy of the report, but that one little bit rubs me wrong. The Bush administration seems hell-bent on reviving Cold War-era defense programs that were never actually proven, and dropping or evading weapons treaties, some of which dealt with the development of nuclear technology for space use. I just can't shake the feeling this is a wedge to finally move the nuclear race into Earth orbit; one proposal mentioned by Sagan in 'Cosmos' was Project Orion, a propulsion system based on the detonation of fusion bombs.
I'm pretty sure it's paranoia... but it's a nagging feeling, and it creeps me out.
Space for Profit (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not like it cannot be done, the main issue (and granted a huuuge one) would be to build the initial stations in space for handling of various extracted resources.
Hell there are 8 other planets in this solar system, why do we have to tear apart ours? There are some darn valuable resources up there, *taps lycos on the head* go get'em!
Seriously though, hhhuuuge startup costs, but scaled, not likely too much more then the initial startup costs of getting resources from the "New World" way back when.
NOT A BUDGET CUT!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
What NASA, and the rest of our federal government, needs to do is eliminate the sheer waste of money that is going on... Focus on products that produce science, not kickbacks (*cough* ISS)
So you do/don't like the budget? (Score:4, Informative)
Their staff is there to listen to your comments and respond to them. They do take your voice into account.
They like email more than letters since the anthrax scare.
Here's a like to this years budget in HTML and PDF: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2003/index
Send your comments to the President at this address: president@whitehouse.gov
Find your Senator at this page: http://www.senate.gov/senators/senator_by_state.c
And find their email address here: http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm
You can find, then write to your Representative here (this is very slick): http://www.house.gov/writerep/
Please, please, please take a more active role in the direction our national technology policies take. Keep an eye on http://www.eff.org/alerts/ for issues of which you should be aware. If we don't do it as technology professionals and enthusiasts, no one will.
budget priorities (Score:3, Insightful)
The federal government's most important priority is to maintain the infrastructure which makes the US possible. Things like operational costs of the three branches, minting money, foreign relations and maintaining a military (what good is all the other stuff if anyone can take it from us at whim?). In the middle area, you see things like HUD, Dept of Education, SSI, etc (stuff which they don't have a constitutional mandate to create but which people have become reliant upon). Way down at the bottom of the list, you'll find things like most of NASA, fluff research grants( did we REALLY need to spend $45k to find out how many people rinse their dishes before putting them in the dishwasher? ), etc. Things which are nice to have but aren't critical.
Now that you have your priorities, you only have a fixed amount of money to spend. An outside force has made it necessary to increase spending on one or several of your highest priority items. Nobody is going to die if NASA's budget gets reduced for a year or three to shore up our more important needs. If pure space research means that much to you, donate from your own pocket to one of the non-profit groups out there promoting research.
Think about it (Score:4, Informative)
In the unmanned space programs, missions are being put on hold so that nuclear propulsion technologies can be dusted off and put to practical use. This would cut down on mission time, and in doing so allow us to get probes to their destinations faster, and possibly with more power when they get there. That would have the net result of 1) cutting down on the money spent monitoring the probes during their cruise phase and 2) potentially extending their time at their destination spent gathering science. If you look at it from a business perspective, this makes sense-you want to invest money in the project for a gain (in this case, knowledge).
Aside: would be nice to see them develop a general purpose class of probes that they could basically shotgun to the outer planets (and unlike the Voyager probes, orbit their destinations). That may be more practical with this propulsion and power system. Any thoughts? Probably not going to happen until NASA has enough cash and confidence from the White House. No time soon.
Now, on to the manned space program. The Shuttle and ISS costs are way, way out of line. Take a look at the findings from the commitee last year. They're expecting its going to cost many more billions of dollars to finish the ISS in the plan which was comitted to. This on a project that is already considerably over budget, and suffering from numerous technical, engineering, and managerial problems (eg incompatable water purification systems, maintenance panels with the procedure for replacing the panel on the inner side where it can't be read while you're reinstalling it, and so on). If those costs aren't brought under control, it could easily swallow up the more productive unmanned program. The shuttle program is very much in the same boat, since the shuttles cost a huge amount to launch, and are only just barely reusable (they have to rip out large parts of the propulstion system, and refurbish the shuttle between launches, at a huge cost). I would be much happier to see them put yet more funding into developing a next generation system, but first getting the current manned space program under control is important.
If the costs aren't brought under control, and new technology developed, it is very unlikely we will even have NASA in a decade. It is very hard pressed to keep the budget it has when there are other programs (such as fighting this little war thing we have right now) are getting the lions share of the money available. Like anything else, a little wise long term investment could reap huge benefits (such as a better unmanned program that allows us to have many more probes in operation, including the much needed additional communication equipment). It would be great to see some long term planning that results in a return to the Moon, or a solid plan to go to Mars. That will require that the NASA administration take the initiative and plan out a program that won't break the budget, and that NASA also earn the confidence of Congress that money invested won't become part of another horror story of misused funds. Its a hell of a challenge, particularly for a government program, and I would be interested to see NASA step up to it.