NASA Seeking Innovative Ideas from Public 172
Mike Peel writes "Science Blog is reporting that NASA is seeking proposals 'for creating and managing innovative activities, events, products, services, or other types of formal or informal education methods for the purpose of disseminating information nationally about NASA's projects and programs.'" Sadly I don't think simply providing them with a list of people you want shot into space counts.
Re:How about killing the shuttle and doing science (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How about killing the shuttle and doing science (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, we do. What we don't have is political commitment for a government backed development (which some may argue is a Good Thing) nor sufficient venture capital available to the private sector to get off the ground floor (if you'll excuse the horrible pun).
Instead of pointlessly doing it wastefully now for no other purpose than habit,
Pointless? Hardly. The Shuttle is the only launch vehicle capable of completing ISS (International Space Station). Whether we're better off ditching the whole ISS/Shuttle program because it's wasteful is a separate, though related, argument.
why not pour all that money into a program to develop new forms of propulsion and energy, and come back to spacefaring when we have a better solution?
This really bears repeating: the viability of a successful space program -- public or private -- has nothing to do with technology; what we have now is totally adequate for the task and has been for at least the last 20 years.
The plea to "come back when..." is a specious bumper sticker argument that emerged in the early 1970's though it usually goes like "... when we've solved the problems here on earth!" as if the space program exists to "solve problems in space". The suggestion that we wait until we've developed "the right" technology betrays enormous ignorance.
As for doing science, an astronaut can stop, look, say "ooh, what an interesting rock!" then walk over, pick it up, and examine it closely with a Mark I eyeball in, what, 30 seconds? It takes days if not weeks for a Mars rover to do the same thing.
So answer me this, earthworm, what "new forms of propulsion and energy" should we wait for? Scramjets? Totally unsuitable. A large, lightweight tank filled with LOX (liquid oxygen) is a far superior solution than a heavy air breathing engine that carries a huge drag penalty. Better to get out of the atmosphere quickly and carry your own oxidizer. LOX is cheap, as is rocket fuel be it RP-1, liquid hydrogen, or whatever.
It's not like sending humans into space serves any real purpose anyway. Robots can carry out virtually everything we need to do for FAR less payload cost. People often whine about the limitations of the robot missions compared to human missions, but these people have simply not thought through the cost-benefit analysis.
As if you have done a thorough analysis? Right. So what benefit are you talking about? Science? Economic return by exploiting an extraterrestrial resource? Human colonization of the solar system?
Why would we build a colony of and, presumably, for robots on Mars? As for any sort of "easy" robotic mission to Mars, forget it. The robotic technology simply does not exist. It's likely, but by no means certain, that the cost of developing the robot technology would be at least as much as it would to develop a human mission. Why? Human beings are a well developed technology; the technology to send humans on long space voyages also exists -- because we've been doing it for over 40 years when we include the Shuttle program. Duh.
Geeks of Slashdot, I bring you the link to The Case for Mars [amazon.com] by Robert Zubrin. It's not the latest treatment on a manned Mars mission but it indicates that we've had sufficient technology to begin development of Mars mission at least as early as 1996 when the book was written. Goo
Re:Here's an innovative idea (Score:2, Informative)
I never saw it but it looked pretty lame. Actually training them (not anybody, real potential astronauts) and sending the winner into space would be far more interesting.