‘I have a nephew that just deployed, so my sister has had to swear off any TV coverage of Afghanistan – luckily his spouse is handling it much better.’

Understand entirely!

Yes, there is a price for the freedom of expression we both currently enjoy in our respective countries. Often it seems too high.

My condolences for your cousin. I had always seen Afghanistan as the correct war to be waged, but unfortunately it took too many years to provide the right focus. That probably doesn’t do anything to replace your cousin, but I hope it shows my gratitude for his service & sacrifice.

I have a nephew that just deployed, so my sister has had to swear off any TV coverage of Afghanistan – luckily his spouse is handling it much better.

Apologies for my off-topic response. I just lost a cousin in Afganistan so I’m a bit touchy at the moment.
Back on topic.
I don’t believe that we expect too much from NASA. When you consider the advances in other areas of technology, space is definitely severely lagging behind. 40+ years and HSF can no longer get out of leo let alone the the moon and beyond.
What fires up people’s imagination and interest is not leo – been there and done that. It’s beo, exploration, doing new stuff albeit built on existing capabilities. That’s where NASA leadership has failed. They’ve failed to build on the dream, to push the boundaries, the do exciting stuff along with the boring stuff of course. That’s why I’m disappointed.
Oh and by the way, NASA’s had oodles of $’s to do it with, they just haven’t and if you think they can lead HSF back to beo and exploration of other planets in your lifetime (unless the radically change track – tech, mgt, contracting, political direction, etc) well we’re both going to be very disappointed bunnies.

“This writer opposed its construction in favor of a return to the moon. The moon is a space station, albeit 240,000 away. Lori Garver suppoeted the contractor-freiendly ISS. No surprise there. The ISS should have been anchored to the floor of the Ocean of Storms, not sailing overhead 300 miles up.”

It’s one thing to dream, but it’s another to do, much less afford to do.

I have always hoped that we would return to the Moon someday, but I have become educated recently about the actual costs in doing so. Because of that, I don’t know if a sustained presence on the Moon will happen in my lifetime, because of how much it costs.

If money were no object, then we could start planning today. But Congress has historically funded NASA at or below where it currently is, and there is no expectation that it is even going to increase – in fact it may decrease with the need to trim the national budget.

My point is that you may blame Garver for some part of choosing the ISS over many of the other choices (I don’t know if the Moon was even seriously considered), but if we had chosen the Moon, I think we would have failed.

I mean, just look at the problems we had with budget overruns, schedule slips, and programs pauses caused by the Columbia accident – and that was just doing stuff in LEO. Going to the Moon is supposedly something like 5-10 times more expensive.

No, I hope you’re not too bitter about the decision not be return to the Moon, because you would not have a realistic view of it if so.

“The Orbiters aren’t ‘new’ or even ‘refurbished’.” Actually, they are in pretty good shape- at least as new as possible via upgrades– and they are meant to be reusable, which is the whole point of it. They’re well taken care of and we’ve paid the bill for it. A lot of upgrades – glass cockpits, etc.,. Plenty of years left in them. Same with the ISS although it was an aerospace works project. Hardly out of date and underused. Given the jobs situation in the U.S. these days, there’s plenty of underused talent in the ‘workforce’ to recruit and ramp things up again. Americans are pretty good at that. The years and years of use by the Russian MIR is a good example of how to push the use of your equipment to the end of its life. This writer opposed its construction in favor of a return to the moon. The moon is a space station, albeit 240,000 away. Lori Garver suppoeted the contractor-freiendly ISS. No surprise there. The ISS should have been anchored to the floor of the Ocean of Storms, not sailing overhead 300 miles up.

One suspects you expect too much. Consider how far things have come since Kitty Hawk. In the span of my late grandfather’s lifetime the Wrights first flew, men walked on the moon and imaging spacecraft swept past distant planets beaming photos back. Consider the frustrations of Galileo, Kepler, Newton, … or Goddard…etc… they never witnessed the triumphs and realities we have but would not be surprised that they eventually occurred. My late granfather was always amused that in the time he was born, the idea of flying– let alone flying into space to the moon– was ridiculed as technically impossible. Today space voyages are debated as financially impractical. A hundred years from now the mind set may well be why we in this era did not see these voyages were inevitable.

Yes, it would be nice to live to see men reach Mars and there’s still a chance for that to occur, at least in my lifetime. Still, it wont be quite the same as those first lunar landings. But if we don’t live to see it, it’s still a matter of certainty that it is an inevitability. We were incredibly lucky to be alive to witness and share the experience of reaching the moon. Just stop and consider how many generations over the past 50,000 years were cheated of witnessing that experience by accident of time and birth. But those tapes.. well, there’s still some debate on whether they were lost, erased for reuse, (<- the most likely outcome) misfiled in some storeroom someplace or simply 'procured' by some private collector. Example- years ago this writer attended the premiere of the HBO series, From The Earth To The Moon and struck up a conversation with some of the research and costume people who worked on the series. Hanks was a sticker for accuracy and insisted they research ansd trackdown as much as they needed for the series, which is why it was so well done. THe costume designer couldn't understand why the early Mercury suits had pieces of cork on them… turns out the museum suits they looked at were decaying and the 'cork' was actually elastic straps, which they later discover. When they were in Florida and tracked down an access arm and 'white room' for use, they asked about and archival imagery or files they could use. NASA directed them to a semi-truck trailer parked out in a field someplace. They opened it and inside were many, many old-style file cabinets, rusted shut. The designer told me they used a crowbar and jimmied open some of the cabinets and discovered a treasure trove of old documents, photos and data from the 'early days' at NASA. She asked why the stuff was all but left to the elements in the trailer, and she was told there was simply no budget to maintain that kind of material. So they parked it in a field down there. Same thing happened with a LLTV out at Edwards they found out abandoned there for the series research. In other words, NASA wasnt very good at archiving stuff, at least the 'old' stuff from back in the day. The tapes, if not erased, are probably in someone's collection or in another file cabinet someplace. It In any event, the major television networks actually have excellent archival tapes, CBS especially, (having worked there years ago, know they're safe and sound– the old-style video playpack machines, less so.) But time marches on. As my grandfather once quipped, 'Only Americans could be smart enough to walk on the moon and dumb enough to walk away from it."

The ISS, well I think it’s been an expensive experient built up over how may years (oh, I forgot, it’s ‘new’ – cough!) , we’ve learnt a lot about operating in space but unless there’s a ‘real’ cost / benefit argument for keeping it then it should be deorbited. The Bigelow modules utilise modern equipment and technology. A lot of the ISS is now outdated, bit like the shuttles.

And finally, the Australian population has never had an HSF program nor wanted one – unfortunately in my opinion, so we’ve followed the USofA/Russian lead (now Chinese as well). As for our space program, well as you say, we’ve tended to play a supporting role for various countries such as your own and most recently the Japanese asteroid mission. What’s wrong with that?

Australia has supported the US in many fronts over the years not just in space but in conflicts starting as allies during WWII and moving on through Korea, Vietnam, Iraq x 2, and now Afganistan and we will continue to do so for our common good and despite paying the price.

Oh and a bit more history for your info’. That first landing on the moon came to you via Parks Observatory here in Australia. In addition, after NASA lost, destroyed, the tapes of those first landings, Australia was able to provide copies.

Cheers.

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2009/11/15/australia-overhauls-space-program/