Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 168 posts

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#31

Post by smaddox »

Mvandenbergh wrote: post #13

The thing about the original moon landing programme was that it had a great clarity of outcome and timeline. What: Land a man on the moon and return him safely When: Before the decade is out That meant NASA could really focus and throw out everything that wasn't directly on that path. Reusability - take too long, we'll build each craft from scratch. Permanent mission - Too complicated, keep the missions very short. M…

As far as I can tell, the primary purpose of manned space missions is to redirecting taxes to congressional districts and defense contractors. The secondary purpose might be to inspire interest in STEM, but it seems much less successful at achieving that objective.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#32

Post by hackeraccount »

lettergram wrote: post #3

It’s kind of ridiculous how often NASA has to reallocate their focus. Personally, I’d like to see a longer term 5 - 10 year plan that is voted on by congress and basically the funds are deposited in an escrow. It’s insane the waste that occurs from random political moves like this. I understand the need to be able to direct NASA, but that should be in addition to the described 5 - 10 year plans. This would give the f…

Oddly I agree with your description but not the solution. NASA doesn't need longer term goals - it needs shorter term goals. I'd say don't fund anything that takes longer then a single presidential term. That would limit what's possible but increase the likelihood that something will get finished.

If the president says my goal is to land humans on Venus (with asbestos booties naturally) in 20 years then odd are in 4 years the new non-crazy president will scrap that goal and change it to land on Jupiter in 20 years. And then it will be to put a flag on the Sun. And so on.

With 4 year goals the goals may be idotic but they will probably be finished because it'll be a single lunatic from start to end.

It's also possible that from one crazy administration to the next there could a chance to build on what was accomplished so at the very least something will be accomplished.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#33

Post by whatshisface »

nerdkid93 wrote: post #28
clarkmoody wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a governmental entity, NASA will never be removed from politics. A million different things could completely derail any sort of 5-10 year plan, not to mention that as soon as NASA got a "guaranteed" fund-for-5-years-and-leave-us-alone budget, every other federal agency will clamor for that too. Long-term planning requires alignment of incentives. In government, the incentives of top officials are short-term in the…

> Until there is market-driven demand for humans to be on or around the Moon, politics will dominate the story I don't know if I've ever thought this before, but wow. That's a great argument

Weirdly, you'd think that politicians would want to look smart by successfully administrating public projects.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#34

Post by yellowapple »

One of the things the anti-station crowd misses is that giant rockets like Apollo are pretty expensive and wasteful. Apollo was great for getting us to the Moon first, but not necessarily for continuing to go there.

An ideal would be at the very least a place for the lander to dock and refuel during the return trip. Then you don't have to haul a lander on every single mission, and thus can use a smaller/cheaper rocket with just the (reusable!) crew module.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#35

Post by yellowapple »

lettergram wrote: post #3

It’s kind of ridiculous how often NASA has to reallocate their focus. Personally, I’d like to see a longer term 5 - 10 year plan that is voted on by congress and basically the funds are deposited in an escrow. It’s insane the waste that occurs from random political moves like this. I understand the need to be able to direct NASA, but that should be in addition to the described 5 - 10 year plans. This would give the f…

> Shouldn’t we listen to the experts here?

When have politicians ever actually listened to experts?

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#36

Post by goodcanadian »

smaddox wrote: post #31
Mvandenbergh wrote: post #13

The thing about the original moon landing programme was that it had a great clarity of outcome and timeline. What: Land a man on the moon and return him safely When: Before the decade is out That meant NASA could really focus and throw out everything that wasn't directly on that path. Reusability - take too long, we'll build each craft from scratch. Permanent mission - Too complicated, keep the missions very short. M…

As far as I can tell, the primary purpose of manned space missions is to redirecting taxes to congressional districts and defense contractors. The secondary purpose might be to inspire interest in STEM, but it seems much less successful at achieving that objective.

I almost down voted you in a knee jerk reaction. I believe that manned space exploration serves a very important purpose in advancing humanity . . . however, from the typical Congress critter's point of view, I suspect you're right.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#37

Post by magashna »

justin66 wrote: post #18
magduf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've heard, a lot of people have left NASA as a result of the month-long government shutdown this year. NASA is a political football, and it's not going to get any better: it just takes too long to see a big mission (i.e., manned ones) through, so they're never going to get done with the way our government is running these days. The probes are usually OK because those can get done a lot quicker.

> From what I've heard, a lot of people have left NASA as a result of the month-long government shutdown this year. I've got two friends there, a civil servant and a contractor, and I've heard no such thing. That doesn't mean it isn't true, but I'm curious whether there's any data to back this up. You'd have to be careful looking at that data, too: a lot of people are retiring from NASA simply because they're old. No…

Total conjecture, but seeing as how the private space industry has ramped up, it would make sense to leave during such a hostile administration

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#38

Post by inlined »

superkuh wrote: post #5

It's terrible because they effectively canceled the asteroid retrieval mission (ARM) when they chose to fund the proposals that did not include any de-spin mechanisms. This leaves them with literally 3 possible asteroids to try to bring in. Useless. The point of the lunar gateway was to have a close (in time) place for resources and the like. But without any ability to capture and bring in asteroids it's just a waste…

It could be that they’re fighting for tangible progress that would let them repropose something like ARM that now has a cheaper marginal cost.

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#39

Post by LinuxBender »

moate wrote: post #29
LinuxBender wrote: post #22

Would building a lunar space station get us closer to being able to deflect mass extinction sized asteroids?

Of course it would. But the important question is "how much closer". That would be much harder to answer.

Is there anyone from NASA or SpaceX here that could offer some opinions on how much closer we could get to deflecting / mining mass extinction asteroids?

Re: NASA’s Lunar Space Station Is a Great/Terrible Idea

#40

Post by WillPostForFood »

magashna wrote: post #37
justin66 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From what I've heard, a lot of people have left NASA as a result of the month-long government shutdown this year. I've got two friends there, a civil servant and a contractor, and I've heard no such thing. That doesn't mean it isn't true, but I'm curious whether there's any data to back this up. You'd have to be careful looking at that data, too: a lot of people are retiring from NASA simply because they're old. No…

Total conjecture, but seeing as how the private space industry has ramped up, it would make sense to leave during such a hostile administration

Is the current administration hostile to NASA?

Today, the President signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2017, which funds the U.S. government for the remainder of the fiscal year. NASA received $19.65 billion—its best budget since 2010—and the Planetary Science Division saw its budget increase to $1.846 billion—its best budget in more than ten years.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/casey-dreier/2017/fy2017-plan...

Post reply on HN