Comments on: Science, aeronautics, explorations all receive increases in draft House NASA appropriations bill

By: Hiram

Hiram — Thu, 01 May 2014 00:27:05 +0000

Wolf’s attitude toward China is positively nuts and highly unconstructive. His fixation on a return to the Moon is based on a stale rationale. But he made some comments the other day about his exasperation with the ARM human spaceflight mission that hit some solid notes. See here his “Concerns about Exploration Program”.

http://wolf.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/wolf-remarks-at-space-policy-institute#.U2GJzC-LH8o

For one, “The current asteroid mission was born not out of a strategic vision for American leadership in space, but out of a reactionary need to justify the cancellation of the program to return to the Moon.” Bingo. That’s exactly right. We needed a destination (read “rock”) that we haven’t been to before. That’s not strategic vision. That’s “Get me a new rock, any new rock, quick!” In fact, ARM is going to send people to what is pretty much a random, and likely totally boring, rock.

By: josh

josh — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 21:48:38 +0000

good thing that clown wolf is retiring and won’t be putting his senility on public display anymore.

By: Reality Bits

Reality Bits — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 19:30:14 +0000

NASA as an Anchor tenant. I would expect a lot of other countries would pony up some money for a fractional share. Bob Bigelow’s Lunar Timeshares!

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 18:36:17 +0000

If SLS gets a flight in once a year or even once every two years then it sounds legit as long as it can make big strides each time, such as going to asteroid or and Lagrange point. The important part is that the private sector can take over space operations in low earth orbit. I wouldn’t expect any commercial company is willing to start a moon base if government doesn’t want to pay

By: Hiram

Hiram — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 15:13:42 +0000

“To afford it they might have take in a borders, perhaps one with a penchant for drinking and violence.”

Russia is not a “boarder” on “our” ISS. We never “bought” the ISS, but rather bought into it. So sure, I’ll compare it to that family of yours, and the comparison is simply nonsensical. As to violent partners, Russia looked the other way, with regard to ISS, when the United States invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq. Penchant for drinking? Well, Russia has us beat there but, on a per capita basis, our penchant for cocaine and amphetamines blows them away. The effect of our ISS partnership with Russia on our budget is that our budget for ISS is a lot smaller than it would be without them. In fact, we simply wouldn’t be doing it without them.

Of course, for the work we need to do in LEO, a trailer home equivalent wouldn’t suffice. If you think ISS is all about just maintaining “human presence” in space, then I guess a trailer home in space might do. But if it’s for learning about human factors in space and proving out technologies that can inform future more ambitious voyages, it won’t. The scale of ISS isn’t motivated by vanity.

Now SLS … that’s another thing. Buying something you can’t afford because it looks so big and powerful is how you “overextend” in the name of vanity. But maybe we need to take on some boarders for SLS with a penchant for drinking and violence? Nah, they wouldn’t be that stupid. They learned their SLS lesson with Energia, and quickly dropped it after developing it.

By: Rick Boozer

Rick Boozer — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 14:13:11 +0000

Geez, I forgot. In the very article these comments are under, Jeff says SLS got over $1.9 billion, so that proved your $1.4 billion was wrong right there.

By: Neil

Neil — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 13:27:59 +0000

Marcel’s been pushing this barrow for a long time. It’s embedded in his psych’ and it appears all logical thinking has been displaced. Sad but that’s it in a nutshell.

By: Rick Boozer

Rick Boozer — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 12:24:24 +0000

“Funding for the SLS is less than $1.5 billion a year.”
Though the Obama admin originally proposed $1.4 billion for SLS, funding formally assigned to SLS is $1.6 billion for FY 2014. Hardly “less than $1.5 billion”. However, as Jeff pointed out here, http://www.spacepolitics.com/2014/01/14/omnibus-bill-gives-nasa-17-65-billion-and-launch-indemnification-extension-as-well/
almost all of the “Exploration Ground Systems” budget of $318 million is for “facilities supporting SLS”. Thus the total spent on SLS is very close to $2 billion.

As for the rest of your objections, I think they are adequately answered by others here.

By: Reality Bits

Reality Bits — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 05:32:00 +0000

No trampolines required. Hah! https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/461279062837968897

Dymitry! So where is Perspektivnaya Pilotiruemaya Transportnaya Sistema (PPTS)? You are still relying on that old buggy that Sergey Pavlovich built?

And your grand plan to colonize the Moon? I think that by the time you finally get there you can buy some fuel, food and a bunk at Bob Bigelow’s Budget Suites of the Moon. =)

By: Coastal Ron

Coastal Ron — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 04:38:13 +0000

Marcel F. Williams said:

“Mr. Bigelow probably made an honest mistake.”

No, he stated that other than the SLS, that the Falcon Heavy could also lift the BA2100. And considering that he knows more about the BA2100 than you do, I’d trust what he says over you any day.

“But there is no way the Falcon heavy can accommodate a 65 tonne Olympus BA-2100 habitat that requires a fairing size that is at least 8 meters in diameter. No way!”

Considering that the BA2100 is still only a concept, and not a firmly defined payload, I’d say Bob Bigelow has a much better idea what launchers can or cannot launch it.

“And Iâ€™ve already listed a ton of reasons…”

Yes, you’ve listed YOUR reasons. However, and I want you to brace yourself about this revelation – few people care about your reasons.

Now that’s not to say you can’t eventually convince people about your cause, but as of today few people care about going to Mars anytime soon, and even fewer care about going to the Moon to mine one of the most plentiful substances we have here on Earth.