What do you think is more important

[ryan]

What do you think is more important for NASA to do? Is it more important to keep going to the ISS and link up international relationships. Going back to the Moon with Project Constellation and hurry up on making a lunar base. Luanching Space Shuttles with science expirments and not docking with the ISS. Moving on to Orion to take supplys to the ISS and more other things.

 

[MJR]

That is a really broad question. In what terms do you mean? It could be along the lines of, developing a new craft, find efficient ways to conserve fuel, and much much more. Try explaining it in a more specific manner. I personally think they should focus on the Ares project since the STS missions are almost through.

The Ares program really needs some work on my opinion. To many flaws and problems with the whole hing. I think some of it is getting fixed though. That is a plus. I think they should also enforce safety for the Ares program because I heard on NASA TV that they were concerned about it. That is what I think NASA needs to focus on. So, to the Moon it is.

 

[ryan]

I updated it, i hope that makes scence.

 

[MJR]

It certainly does. The only one that really would be the least priority is the experiments.

 

[ryan]

Well there stepping big steps in Science, Medicine, Chemistry all those subjects that I'm not good at school.

 

[MJR]

That is true, but I think NASA wants to expand more on space flight.

 

[ryan]

That is true, but I think NASA wants to expand more on space flight.

I agree, but can you imagine one day your life is saved by something that a Space Shuttle crew found out they can do.

 

[MJR]

Maybe........

P.S. I found the scenario. It is this. [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3005"]LC39-EAFB 2006.3 (Lo-Res)[/ame], the scenario is included. I think it still works even without the runway markers; the runway markers are no longer available.

 

[ryan]

I liked those runway markers, something to run over when your waiting for wheel stop.

 

[MJR]

I used to have trouble with landing on the runway along time ago. I practiced with that scenario.

 

[willy88]

I think NASA should return back to the Moon, set up mining colonies, research stations, etc. Specifically to mine helium-3 and research nuclear fusion. With nuclear fusion, we could hopefully explore the solar system far more easily. Not to mention clean, abundant energy.

 

[tomek]

Where is "proceed with unmanned exploration, until means and reasons are discovered to make manned spaceflight meaningful"? Because at this very moment I see neither necessity nor capability to do anything manned beyond LEO.

Moon camp by itself isn't much good, astronauts aren't going to mine helium-3 or build nuclear fusion research facilities out of regolith with their own hands. We first need the technology for launching to the Moon complete base modules themselves, and once we have that, sending people there won't be much more complicated. Right now we can just barely get people there, and risking their lives for no good reason will be all they'll be able to do there.

Voted for ISS.

 

[thomasantony]

Nuclear fusion is far away from being a primary source of power. And "mining" for Helium -3 only would be rather difficult as its presence on the moons surface is only around 0.01 ppm ( parts per million ). You will have to process 10^8 kg of moon regolith to get 1 kg of Helium -3 .

As for what NASA should do, I voted for the returning to the moon. But what really want to see it do is exploring somewhere outside the Earth-Moon system, like the Lagrangian Points or an NEA. This would be much more similar to a Mars trip and would help for developing technology for a future Mars trip. I also think NASA is really wasting time developing the Ares rockets. They should just man-rate one of the Delta's and concentrate on making the Orion. Like Urwumpe said before:

Make the burning end serve the pointy end and not the other way round.

Shaving off features from the capsule to compensate for a shoddy launcher is plain stupid. That would make it unscalable too.

I mean look at how Elon Musk does it for the Falcon 9 . He does shave off stuff from the Dragon capsule saying his booster isn't strong enough. You add a couple of more boosters to the rocket (which are the same as the core stage) and you get considerably more payload capacity. But the same cannot be said for the Ares 1.

~
Thomas

 

[ryan]

What about sending expirements into space on the Space Shuttle. Good old days of SpaceLab days. There saving lives remember that.

 

[Eagle]

I think manned exploration and colonization needs to be the focus.

I don't think we should wait for new technologies for greater ISP. Fuel is one of the least expensive parts of the rocket. Make the rest cheap to refurbrish and launch costs drop to damn reasonable.

Bring your launch costs down and you can afford to launch more and inefficiencies in life support and other systems becomes less important.

I'm not saying that efficient propulsion, life support and other systems aren't important. But, the best way to make these more efficient is to try out what you have in the black.

 

[ryan]

I think manned exploration and colonization needs to be the focus.

I don't think we should wait for new technologies for greater ISP. Fuel is one of the least expensive parts of the rocket. Make the rest cheap to refurbrish and launch costs drop to damn reasonable.

Bring your launch costs down and you can afford to launch more and inefficiencies in life support and other systems becomes less important.

I'm not saying that efficient propulsion, life support and other systems aren't important. But, the best way to make these more efficient is to try out what you have in the black.

You have a good point Eagle.

 

[n0mad23]

To the Moon!

Maybe someone could design a cislunar tether-sling network, like an orbital metro. Maybe this system could be bi-directional, and payloads could move between the Earth and the Moon only requiring propellant for getting into LEO. The tether-slings could be re-energized by translating the energy from inbound traffic into orbital and rotational velocity maintenance.

Now if this wasn't a self-serving piece of self-promotion, my nym isn't n0mad23!

 

[Brad]

For those in the United States, there was a very interesting "60 Minutes" interview/story this evening about America's return to the moon and exploration toward Mars. One of the interesting quotes was by NASA Administrator Griffin when he said (and I am paraphasing here): "Throwing away all the Saturn technology was the biggest mistake this country has ever made in relation to space exploration." He even went further on to say that the Shuttle program was basically "a waste of good talent".

When the Apollo program was in operation, the US spent about 4% GNP on the space program. Now we spend less than .04% GNP. If the US is really serious, then we'll get back to 4%, but I doubt it will happen.

 

[ryan]

He thinks that? I rekon moving on to the shuttle was the best thing NASA could ever do.

 

[BlueDragon8144]

I don't think moving onto the shuttle was the best thing that could happen. Most of the experiments can easily be replicated on a Skylab type station, and given the fact that astronauts would be up there much longer, long term experiments would have benefited better on such a station. The Space Shuttle really has no advantage over space stations concerning the conduction of experiments.

Don't get me wrong here, I still love the shuttle. I just don't think it was the best thing that NASA did.