Space Wars, Part II

Bob McDob · Post by **Bob McDob** » 2004-01-14 05:02am

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-01-14 07:50am

know what's interesting? If we hadn't gone to war with Iraq, and the president requested the 100 billion (comparitive cost in 1969 dollars to 2003 dollars) we could use NASA's current budget, plus the 87 billion plus donations from other countries, PLUS I'm seriously thinking if NASA is so hard up for money, why not paste sponsor stickers on the CEV/lander/base? I mean, hell, we've got goddamned SafeCo field, Adelphia colloseum, and Joe Robbie stadium, though some Heathens and degenerates refer to it as something like PorPlayer stadium. I fail to see a problem with Microsoft crater, the Nextel communications CEV, put into orbit by the boosters Trojan and Lifestyles, and what's wrong with Viagra Base? I ask you! What's the problem with VIAGRA BASE?!

Houston, this is Qualcomm 1, the Big Mac has landed.

That's one small step for Man, one giant leap for Mankind. And thanks to muh sponsors penzoil, the Ford Motor company, Quaker State, Kraft foods, Mars Candy Corp., and the NPR endowment for new initiatives.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-01-14 07:53am

Crap, I went on one my famous tangents.

Anyway, warp back to the part where the prez gets the 87 billion. plus nasa's current budget, plus other countries' involvement, plus sponsorship, and we could have easily afforded it. Especially considering the relative ease with which Shrub got the 87 billion dollar appropriation. I say, if we're gonna go bankrupt, DO IT ON THE DAMNED MOON. and cram a spiky steel dildo up the world bank and IMF's collective asses with their doomsday, "The U.S. will bankrupt the world with their debt" Prophecies.

Nathan F · Post by **Nathan F** » 2004-01-14 10:49am

Chardok wrote:I mean, hell, we've got goddamned SafeCo field, Adelphia colloseum, and Joe Robbie stadium, though some Heathens and degenerates refer to it as something like PorPlayer stadium.

Actually, we no longer have Adelphia Coliseum, their contract ran out and due to Adelphia's financial situation, they didn't renew. A new sponsor has yet to be found, so it's now just 'The Coliseum'.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-01-14 11:00am

Really? Damn! See how long I've been away? At any rate, it's still one of the neates stadiums in the league. and it's got that doggoned batman-style building (Whichever one it is I think it's--- Bellsouth?) as a backdrop. Plus Steve Mcnair and Eddie George are there, all of which just enhances the innate (Word of the week) cool factor of it.

Anyway, the point is,

!

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2004-01-14 12:08pm

Chardok wrote:Crap, I went on one my famous tangents.

Anyway, warp back to the part where the prez gets the 87 billion. plus nasa's current budget, plus other countries' involvement, plus sponsorship, and we could have easily afforded it. Especially considering the relative ease with which Shrub got the 87 billion dollar appropriation. I say, if we're gonna go bankrupt, DO IT ON THE DAMNED MOON. and cram a spiky steel dildo up the world bank and IMF's collective asses with their doomsday, "The U.S. will bankrupt the world with their debt" Prophecies.

While I nor you should wag our finger at 87 billion it is hardly a bank buster for the US budget. Granted, Bushy is running up the bill but this is still a budget with a domestic spending above the 900 billion mark.

I think I mentioned in another thread that I wouldn't mind doubling or trippeling NASA's budget to 30 or 50 billion but I'd be hesitent to give NASA a budget of 100 billion. They'd waste it on some Bull Shit project like the shuttle.

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2004-01-14 04:05pm

I think I mentioned in another thread that I wouldn't mind doubling or trippeling NASA's budget to 30 or 50 billion but I'd be hesitent to give NASA a budget of 100 billion. They'd waste it on some Bull Shit project like the shuttle.

I don't know about that; when NASA had its highest budget ever, when they were preparing the moon landings, they didn't seem to waste in on bull shit projects. It's mostly when they don't have enough money to spend on good projects, but don't want to get canceled, that they make white elephants like the shuttle.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2004-01-14 04:34pm

Well, GWB gave his speach and so far it sounds okey dokey. He outlined three goals;

1. Finnish the ISS by 2010 and retire the Space Shuttle that same year.

2. Develope a CEV and start testing it by 2008 and put into service by 2014

3. Send robotic probes to moon by 2008 and man missions by 2014 with a permement presence by 2015.

To fund this he wants to reallocate 11 billion of Nasa's budget durring the next five years and suplement it with an additional 1 billion over the next year. Thats only an increase of 200 million per year which isn't that much in comparison to other goverment projects.

All in all, if he forces NASA to actually do it, I'm excited. Its going to be fun over the next few years to follow the proposals for the CEV. Hopefully they just don't pull the Venture Star out of mothballs.

Go NERVA go M2P2 go go go go go.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-01-14 04:40pm

Had he replaced 1 billion with, say, 10 billion, I might say I now know how it must've felt to be alive in the late 60's. I remain ambivalent...for now. If I see this....NERVA...or whatever...I will be excited. if someone named zephraim somehow rises through the ranks and becomes head of NASA, i will jizz.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-01-14 04:41pm

Had he replaced 1 billion with, say, 10 billion, I might say I now know how it must've felt to be alive in the late 60's. I remain ambivalent...for now. If I see this....NERVA...or whatever...I will be excited. if someone named zephraim somehow rises through the ranks and becomes head of NASA, i will jizz.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-01-14 04:42pm

Dammit. could moderator Moderate my number of posts in this thread?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-01-14 04:42pm

Chardok wrote:Had he replaced 1 billion with, say, 10 billion, I might say I now know how it must've felt to be alive in the late 60's. I remain ambivalent...for now. If I see this....NERVA...or whatever...I will be excited. if someone named zephraim somehow rises through the ranks and becomes head of NASA, i will jizz.

NERVA is a nuclear drive, essentially using a fission reactor to superheat gas, which is then expelled out the back. NASA has been doing some limited research into similar designs (gas core reactors).

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-01-14 04:45pm

would not range on this NERVA be quite limited, though, as it would still require the crew to carry copious quantities of gas to superheat? how is this more or less efficient than current designs? Dumb it down for me

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2004-01-14 04:49pm

Chardok wrote:Had he replaced 1 billion with, say, 10 billion, I might say I now know how it must've felt to be alive in the late 60's. I remain ambivalent...for now. If I see this....NERVA...or whatever...I will be excited. if someone named zephraim somehow rises through the ranks and becomes head of NASA, i will jizz.

I will remain some what ambivalent until I see if this was just political fluff. However, if Boeing and Gruman start pitching spacecraft to the goverment, I'll giggle and jump up and down in joy.

I do think its importent to note that Bush has anounced the retirement of the shuttle forcing Nasa to acutally come up with something else.

On the money, I see what Bush wants to do. Focus the money Nasa already has or is already getting into the task instead of various other projects. Thats what was mean by realloting 11 billion. Weather or not thats enough? I don't know. The additional billion is inconsenquencial really. Their current budget is 15.5 billion and that 1 billion is spread over five years. Thats a raise of just under 2%.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-01-14 04:50pm

Chardok wrote:would not range on this NERVA be quite limited, though, as it would still require the crew to carry copious quantities of gas to superheat?

Yes, but you can do a lot more work with that gas than you could if you had to use chemical rockets.

how is this more or less efficient than current designs? Dumb it down for me

Fission produces more energy than chemical reactions.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2004-01-14 04:51pm

Chardok wrote:would not range on this NERVA be quite limited, though, as it would still require the crew to carry copious quantities of gas to superheat? how is this more or less efficient than current designs? Dumb it down for me

Any desing is limited by how much fuel it can carry. Hydrogen or Hydrogen proroxide are what they were using, IIRC but I might be wrong on that. I might note that the actual NERVA was tested in the 50's and 60's so I'm sure they could update it, as it were, if they dusted it off and proposed it.

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2004-01-14 05:51pm

It sounds like a very conservative plan. The good thing is, that it's likely to survive the ravages of future Congresses and Presidents, especially as our commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan start to wind down. It also stands a chance of accomplishing at least one of its goals, the replacement of the shuttle, which goes away as soon as the ISS is finished (lest we end up reliant on the Russians, or even the Chinese

to get us into space.) It also sets a fairly firm timeline, not like the pie-in-the-sky vision of Bush the Elder's Mars speech way back.

The problems, however, are fairly numerous. Bush neglects to mention how he plans to fund this trivial increase in NASA's budget, something that his opponents are already swarming over. The liberals will say that Bush is blowing money that doesn't exist on programs with no real benefit to the common American. The conservatives will sadly shake their heads and note that Bush has pretty much abandoned all pretense of fiscal conservatism. This means that while the program is likely to stay on track, it will only just barely do so. Secondly, NASA's other science missions are going to pretty much come to a standstill (insofar as most of the money will come from NASA reallocating a huge part of its present budget to this initiative. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. NASA needs a definite focus, and whenever we do end up with a permanent lunar presence, science missions will suddenly get a lot easier and cheaper because of it.)

So, let's have some bets on the year when humans actually set foot on the moon again. I'd say we'll make it back around 2018 or 2019, with the first manned Mars expedition taking place in 2032. (It would be nice if I could say that we'd make it back to the moon before 2014 and land on Mars by 2026, but public and congressional interest doesn't seem to be there for that sort of ambition.

And worst-case, we'll end up back on the moon in the lovely year of 2026.)

EmperorSolo51 · Post by **EmperorSolo51** » 2004-01-14 06:06pm

I support the presidents idea that we must begin to colonize space. Our population on this planet is growing ever larger, the only real way to reduce our planet's population is to move them into colonies. However, I think that mars for the time being is out of our technoligical expertice. We shiuld therefore try and colonize the earth sphere first.

I personally like the O'neil Space Station design.

http://www.l5news.org/oneillcylinder.htm

Bob McDob · Post by **Bob McDob** » 2004-01-14 09:09pm

EmperorSolo51 wrote:I personally like the O'neil Space Station design.

http://www.l5news.org/oneillcylinder.htm

I dunno, I always figured that aside from the obvious logistical difficulties it'd be more realistic to have a moonbase than a space colony ...after all, you could mine it and stuff to get more resources for future (space) development ...

Anyway, our population problems aren't THAT drastic that we have to look into orbitals, but I can certainly see some countries (*cough*Japan*cough*) that might take a second look if the cost went down.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-01-14 09:40pm

EmperorSolo51 wrote:I support the presidents idea that we must begin to colonize space. Our population on this planet is growing ever larger, the only real way to reduce our planet's population is to move them into colonies. However, I think that mars for the time being is out of our technoligical expertice. We shiuld therefore try and colonize the earth sphere first.

I personally like the O'neil Space Station design.

http://www.l5news.org/oneillcylinder.htm

Wait, you say we need to colonize space to eleviate population pressure, right? But if we are doing it without the technical expertise to colonize Mars, how will we have the technical expertise to build enough super monster colossal space stations to even put a dent in the Earth's population? Besides, the moon is arguably harder to colonize than Mars.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2004-01-14 09:49pm

EmperorSolo51 wrote:I support the presidents idea that we must begin to colonize space. Our population on this planet is growing ever larger, the only real way to reduce our planet's population is to move them into colonies. However, I think that mars for the time being is out of our technoligical expertice. We shiuld therefore try and colonize the earth sphere first.

I personally like the O'neil Space Station design.

http://www.l5news.org/oneillcylinder.htm

Colonization to relieve population stress is not possible. To reduce population growth, we'd have to move millions of people every day to other planets. During its Imperial expansion, Great Britain had an INCREASE in population that was very severe.

The logistics would also be problematic. We can't even move a million people by train without having a train wreck.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-01-15 12:05am

Knife wrote:Well, GWB gave his speach and so far it sounds okey dokey. He outlined three goals;

1. Finnish the ISS by 2010 and retire the Space Shuttle that same year.

2. Develope a CEV and start testing it by 2008 and put into service by 2014

3. Send robotic probes to moon by 2008 and man missions by 2014 with a permement presence by 2015.

To fund this he wants to reallocate 11 billion of Nasa's budget durring the next five years and suplement it with an additional 1 billion over the next year. Thats only an increase of 200 million per year which isn't that much in comparison to other goverment projects.

All in all, if he forces NASA to actually do it, I'm excited. Its going to be fun over the next few years to follow the proposals for the CEV. Hopefully they just don't pull the Venture Star out of mothballs.

Go NERVA go M2P2 go go go go go.

They should just go with an "Ares"-style booster for the CEV (a la Zubrin's Mars Direct), Mars, and Lunar missions, which should be made derivatives of Mars Direct, as I mentioned on the other page.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-01-15 12:15am

Only by harassing the uncontrolled power of the atomic chain reaction shall we achieve the Martian surface.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-01-15 12:33am

Sea Skimmer wrote:Only by harassing the uncontrolled power of the atomic chain reaction shall we achieve the Martian surface.

What's wrong with Mars Direct? (Which, for anyone who reads the proposal, has additional provisions for a NTR-version).

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2004-01-15 01:05am

Illuminatus Primus wrote:
They should just go with an "Ares"-style booster for the CEV (a la Zubrin's Mars Direct), Mars, and Lunar missions, which should be made derivatives of Mars Direct, as I mentioned on the other page.

I would assume, and we all know what that stands for, that that is probably what they'll look at first. A larger capsule like craft that is launched via Ares style booster.

My suggestion, if they'd only listen to me

, would be to make a capsule craft (both maned and unmaned version) for cargo and personel, and an engine capsule. Both would be launched via a conventional rocket. The engine and capsule would then dock in orbit and then continue on to their destination (in this case the moon). Once there, the cargo/personel capsule could undock from the engine pod and decend to the surface. When done, it'll dock back up and make the journey home. Once there the two part system is done, the capsule goes down and the engine pod either becomes space trash or is burnt up on a steep reentry.