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Home Front
Bush to announce new missions to moon
2004-01-09
President George W. Bush will announce plans next week to send Americans to Mars and back to the moon and to establish a long-term human presence on the moon, senior U.S. administration officials said. Bush doesn't plan to send Americans to Mars anytime soon; rather, he envisions preparing for the mission more than a decade from now. The president also wants to build a permanent space station on the moon. The initiatives are part of a broad, new commitment to manned space flight. They said Bush wants to aggressively reinvigorate the U.S. space program, which has been demoralized by a series of setbacks, including the Columbia space shuttle disaster last February that killed seven astronauts. The officials said Bush's announcement would come in the middle of next week.

Rand Simberg doesn't seem to think much of this idea, and he gives his reasons. He may be right — he doesn't disagree it should be done, just doubts NASA's the tool to do it. But I'm not a professional space guy, just a consumer of government services. I look at it differently. This makes me feel good on a number of levels.

First, it's a reminder to the world of the difference between our society and jihadi society. (Lileks is already on this, by the way, just with the news of the Mars landing and the pictures.) It's rubbing their faces in the fact that we can go to the moon if we want, and all they can do is seethe and explode.

The second level is political. The announcement's coming middle of next week, which gives the Dems time to get their own statements together. They're still going to look reactive, even those who have the vision to see the potential of serious space exploration — and exploitation. Those who don't have the vision will fall back on "we should spend the money here, to solve our social problems first," which is an even more sterile argument today than it was in 1969. Lieberman will probably support it. Gephart and Clark might. I doubt any of the rest will. But even if they do, they've been scooped.

Thirdly, it's the right thing to do. Space is the ultimate adventure, just waiting for the human race. I never got into Star Trek, and I stopped being interested in Star Wars when the teddy bears showed up. But I read enough science fiction when I was a kid to regard the stars, as Alfred Bester described them when he rewrote The Count of Monte Cristo, as our Destination. People climb Mount Everest because it's there; we'll go into space because it's there. The reward will be in the accomplishment, though we'll probably end up with a pile of riches from it, whether through the exploitation or through the fallout from the R&D. Bush is setting it in motion again, after all these years of navel gazing. Good for him, and good for us.
Posted by:Fred Pruitt

#36  AC, They haven't figured out that the universe is already polluted with Nuclear Energy. Just look at the Sun - Fussion Power. I won't mention the center of the Galaxy.....
Posted by: CrazyFool   2004-1-9 11:17:51 PM  

#35  Bruce Gagnon, Arch-Druid of the luddite/LLL propaganda mill known as GnawAn'piss (from its name, Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space) has naturally denounced the new space proposal as another attempt to pollute the universe with the deadlyTM menace of nuclear energy.

These people remind me exactly of a mob of superstitious peasants rattling bones and shaking feathers in the direction of a suspected sorcerer.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy   2004-1-9 10:42:39 PM  

#34  Pro-life, it's been my experience that those who complain about the cost of space exploration usually have no conception of just what the amounts are, in either absolute or relative terms.
This proposal calls for a 5% increase in the NASA budget, equal to a few hours worth of welfare spending.
I pay 6 figures a year in taxes and I am more than happy to see it go for this.
If you want to save tax money, concentrate on some kind of wasteful, destructive entitlement programs and don't sacrifice the human future to save a few tenths of a cent on each tax dollar.
Why don't you join the Greens, so we can get all the space-hating luddites on the same page?
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy   2004-1-9 10:22:45 PM  

#33  You guys who want to go to the moon, take off. But would you please spend you own money doing it? Or if you're going to spend my money, would you please join the Democrat party so we'll know who is who? Thanks.
Posted by: Pro Life   2004-1-9 9:37:12 PM  

#32  If they don't fix the math, science, and engineering programs at high schools and colleges in the US, getting kids "more interested" will only make things worse. They need to stop moving kids from the relatively weak US high schools straight into college undergraduate programs full of foreign grad students; otherwise you'll just end up with more dropouts.
Posted by: Anonymous   2004-1-9 7:16:05 PM  

#31  Re: Orion - I can't think of a better use of the Indian nukes... Perhaps we can convince Perv to use his to send his jihadis to Goofy, too.

I am in the same boat as Mike Koz - and AC, from the comments, a total flatout unapologetic space nut. Dylan said, "He not busy being born is busy dying." In space-nut terms, if we are not busy looking for a new mudball to screw up, we're just treading water on this one till mother nature's ability to sustain all of those marvelous self-regulating systems finally tips over. And that leaves out all of the other considerations, moon escaping orbit, unstable tilt / wobble, flipping polarity, Sol going red giant in a few billion, etc. etc. etc.

I was so excited when I was young over NASA's achievements. I am so uninterested in the asinine struggle to overturn Darwin 101 by spending the money here to "save" that which should not be saved, in lieu of exploration. Now, I am so old - and we've pissed away the last 25 years. The shuttle is far out of date, the politics is idiotarian in the extreme, the words come so easily and the bucks require a crowbar, NASA has been rainbowed into stupidity, the deeds are so few.

Once upon a time, we were creating seed corn faster than we were eating it...
Posted by: .com   2004-1-9 7:02:50 PM  

#30  Its about C-H-E-E-S-E ! ! !

We all know that the moon is made of green cheese!
Bush wants it so his buddies can have corner the cheese market!

And we are going to MARS so we can oppress all the little green men so they can mine the green cheese! Yeah! Thats the ticket!

Behold! The power of Cheese.......
Posted by: CrazyFool   2004-1-9 6:51:19 PM  

#29  Still no link. Try this:Nuclear Space
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy   2004-1-9 5:57:31 PM  

#28  Val, I am one of the leading proponents of nuclear space propulsion.
Check out my link, now that it's (presumably) fixed.
We have a lot of material on NERVA and Orion, as well as more recent space nuke engines. There are a lot of good illustrations in our gallery section and a message board that attracts some really knowledgeable people as well as regular enthusiasts.
Besides China, there has been some speculation about India possibly sending people to the Moon in the relatively short term.
Most people scoffed. The fact is, though, that the addition of a small NERVA-type upper stage (a 1960s technology) would allow India's existing boosters to support a manned Moon flight.
NERVA technology is easily within their reach. I have done the numbers: with nuclear upper staging, a modified Soyuz and Earth orbit rendesvous, four of the newest Indian boosters could do it.
Imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth in Washington if this were to happen before we got back, to say nothing of the response to a possible Chinese Moon landing. (I call the latter scenario "Sputnik from Hell" in memory of the near hysteria that followed the Soviet's first satellite launch in 1957.)
I suspect that certain influential types in Washington have in fact imagined it, and that this is the origin of some of the push behind this new announcement.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy   2004-1-9 5:54:30 PM  

#27  Need to get private industry into this,in partnership with the goverenment.Private idustry has the best incentive ie:profits.
Posted by: raptor   2004-1-9 4:39:26 PM  

#26  Reminds me of a good cold war joke:
russkie1: Comrade, the chinese are sending men to the moon!

russkie2: what? all of them?



Posted by: Frank Martin   2004-1-9 3:50:26 PM  

#25  How long would you quarantine explorers returning from Moore?
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2004-1-9 3:37:29 PM  

#24  and lack of intelligent life...
*rimshot*
Posted by: Frank G   2004-1-9 2:18:20 PM  

#23  badanov: There are serious problems associated with colonizing Michael Moore...the obvious being the poisonous. caustic gasses that belch forth from the body's interior.
Posted by: Rex Mundi   2004-1-9 1:58:19 PM  

#22  I was out at the new Air and Space Museum near Dulles airport last week. Center

The two exhibits that drew the most attention where the Enola Gay and the Space Shuttle. The magnetism of the Space shuttle and the capsules and artifacts from the Apollo, Gemini and Mercury programs still inspire people 30-40 years later. In growing up these where magical times when anything seemed possible. A return to space would stimulate the imaginations of the greatest inventors the world has ever seen. The people of United States.... Heady stuff!!

Also, Joe Gibbs is BACK!!!
Posted by: Tom   2004-1-9 1:10:17 PM  

#21  John, Thats Northworst.
Posted by: Lucky   2004-1-9 12:07:32 PM  

#20  Fred: I work a lot with all the various accented engineers. The only ones that really scare me (this should not come as any surprise to you) are the Pakistanis. You should have seen 'em in March during the invasion. They were all gathered in the courtyard between the buildings muttering and smoking. I thought they were going to launch jihad right then and there. Even the other Muslims here think that they're nuts.
Posted by: 11A5S   2004-1-9 11:55:38 AM  

#19  Take the high ground.
Posted by: mojo   2004-1-9 11:44:26 AM  

#18  My wife applied for the "Teacher in Space" program; one of my brothers is on a list to train as a mission specialist. Even after the shuttle disasters, both would still go - and I would go right along with them, if even just to carry their luggage! Anyone care to join me for 18 holes of lunar golf?
Posted by: OldeForce   2004-1-9 11:39:22 AM  

#17  President George W. Bush will announce plans next week to send Americans to Mars and back to the moon....(Sounds like the last Northwest Flight I was on.)

In summary, the distingushed astronaut and Senior Senator (D-Blue Cheese) Hillary is going to lead the first manned Mars flight, just in time for the 08 Lunar Primary. Moonbats for Hill! LOL.
Posted by: john   2004-1-9 11:11:49 AM  

#16  Someone, I think on LGF, mentioned that there's a verse in the Quran that "Islam will prevail until men walk on the moon", and that most Islamists don't believe the US got there before. Setting up a permanent base on the moon may be GWB's version of sticking a finger in the eye of the turbantops. Whatever the reason, I think it's a must thing for us to do as a nation, or we'll end up stagnating, something like the British when there wasn't an Empire any more.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2004-1-9 11:02:15 AM  

#15  ...Actually, when I heard this, I remembered exactly how I felt when Apollo 11 landed on the moon - "Cool - where do we go NEXT?" I'm 44 now and I would still go in a heartbeat.
The only thing we need to watch out for is that this doesn't become a welfare program for BoLockMart. My dad retired out of NASA in 2000 after doing a lot of the design work on the ISS, and one thing that still saddens him was how much of what got reinvented that had been in existence in the 60s and early 70s. He - and every other engineer who worked with him - still say that there was no intelligent reason it should have taken as long as it did to get the ISS up and running. Columbus didn't have ships specially built and designed to sail the Atlantic - we should follow his lead.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski   2004-1-9 11:01:09 AM  

#14  Forget Pluto. Let's go to Goofy.
Posted by: Tibor   2004-1-9 10:39:19 AM  

#13  But something in me tells me that what you see from earth is whats actually there. Wasteland!

The important thing is to make sure it our Wasteland.
Posted by: Shipman   2004-1-9 9:48:13 AM  

#12  But something in me tells me that what you see from earth is whats actually there. Wasteland!

Yes, and that's all the Europeans saw when they first looked at the Americas -- wasteland. That's all ANYONE saw when they looked at, say, the Valley of the Sun or what became Las Vegas.
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2004-1-9 9:34:45 AM  

#11  
rkb -
I doubt if we'll be learning Chinese soon, but I'm still not comfortable with the fact that such a large percentage of American engineers speaks with Chinese, South Asian, or Russian accents.
Posted by: Fred   2004-1-9 9:20:53 AM  

#10  Why not colonize Michael Moore? Might improve his political views.
Posted by: badanov   2004-1-9 8:41:37 AM  

#9  I'm in favor of a major new push into space. Our technology infrastructure got a little rusty under Clinton and our schools are full of fuzzy-headed students who value feelings over facts.

We need a new generation of scientists and engineers. Otherwise, we'll all be learning Chinese soon.
Posted by: rkb   2004-1-9 8:10:36 AM  

#8  Bush doesn't plan to send Americans to Mars anytime soon; rather, he envisions preparing for the mission more than a decade from now.

I smell a conspiracy. First, Bush allows illegal aliens that are employed to stay in the country. Then, ten years from now we will find aliens on Mars. When found, we will bring them back to earth to work the farms. Makes sense to me.
Posted by: Dragon Fly   2004-1-9 8:08:55 AM  

#7  This is a ploy by the administration to buy off Hollywood with major contracts. Haliburton, Hollywood same deal.
Posted by: Alumanaut   2004-1-9 8:01:06 AM  

#6  We must commit ourselves to landing astronauts on the sun. Preferably me personally.
Posted by: Howard Dean, Metroman   2004-1-9 4:33:04 AM  

#5  ....and the meek shall inherit the Earth

The meek can keep the Earth, I want us to go for BIGGER challenges. Theres a lot of resources in space if we had the frigging guts to use the right equipment. If you're wondering just what that equipment is its nukes, nuclear engines to be exact. Like it or not thats the only way we're going to get anywhere in our local space in any sane amount of time. And if thats not all whoever does manage to control space manages to gain overall ability to police even Earth. Orbital high ground is literally the highest ground you can reach.
Posted by: Val   2004-1-9 4:00:21 AM  

#4  Pluto's a bit cold
Posted by: Igs   2004-1-9 1:33:17 AM  

#3  Forget Pluto. We ought to set up a colony on Rupert. After we work out Rupert's zodiac, of course.
Posted by: Pete Stanley   2004-1-9 1:29:34 AM  

#2  Don't think badly about me, well okay whatever. But something in me tells me that what you see from earth is whats actually there. Wasteland! Sure lets go, first class, and find out.

Those involved in the proprams are cool. But is this the cutting edge, Mars? Fuck Mars. I say Pluto. If it ain't on Pluto then what good?
Posted by: Anonymous   2004-1-9 1:14:49 AM  

#1  ....and the meek shall inherit the Earth.

Space colonies will be no place for navel-gazers, professional victims, or fraudulent hierarchies; which probably explains a lot of the opposition to them.

I was rather amused to see that certain creationist/anti-gummint luddites over at Free Republic sound exactly like the new age/tinfoil luddites at DU in their response to this.

Hypothesis: Branson all-u-can-eat causes the same brainlock and tunnel-vision as tofu and patchouli oil.

Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy   2004-1-9 12:48:01 AM  

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