Re: ISS after completion
- From: "Jonathan" <write@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2007 22:23:21 -0500
"Harmon" <harmon.everett@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1195060032.871569.8140@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Nov 13, 7:26 pm, "Jonathan" <wr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Harmon" <harmon.ever...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1194876467.828430.181520@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
As I understand it, NASA is planning on "retiring" the ISS at the end
of its nominal planned lifetime of ten years past its completion date
of 2010, that is, in 2020.
In a few decades, we'll be having this very same discusion about
what to do with the shiny new base we have on the moon.
How incredibly sad is that? What a great epitaph.
.....We Built Them and Nobody Came....
NASA needs to have a long term goal that actually
accomplishes something this time. Not another
engineering goal...ie...a make-work program
for the large contractors to maintain their
space capabilities.
s
I think NASA should be involved with basic exploration - and manned
missions to the Moon and Mars.
The moon is now a race between the US and China for the
high ground. That Chinese asat test and our aggressive space
policy has framed the race. It's a missile defense race, as in
can we rebuild our military space assets faster than they
can blow them up.
As a Government agency, they are not
supposed to make a profit. Which kinda crimps the next step in the
development of space, because the next step is pretty clearly to make
a LEO space station into a profitable activity.
It's not about profit, but about using space for the improvement
of our lives on earth....exploiting...space. Which is the next
logical step after exploring. I mean it'll take thirty of forty years
to put men on mars. While a very capable rover with electron
scopes and such can get built and land in a couple years.
A tiny fraction of the cost and time can give us the answers
we ...need...about mars with unmanned vehicles.
Manned flight should be about the hard part...exploiting
space...for the greater good. I've been consistant that
Space Solar Power as a long term goal could do far
more good, while bringing in more public support
and funding.
When Christopher
Columbus' men begged him to turn back, he refused; not because he knew
he was right and was determined to prove it, but because when Queen
Isabella had loaned him the money, she not only told him to bring back
her ships filled with loot, but not to come back until they WERE
filled with loot, or she would find him. He couldn't turn back until
he had found something.
But shouldn't we try a different approach to deciding on a long
term space goal? Instead of having the few and powerful decide
for us, then watch them try to sell it to the public and Congress
leaves us with a self serving goal with weak public and political
support. After a while the funding gets squeezed, compromises
one after another until the whole thing ends up being a waste.
Why not do the opposite of that? Have a goal that is carefully designed
to appeal to as many interest groups, people and issues as possible?
Design a goal derived...not.. from philosophical and technical
expertise...but from public popularity.
Design a goal with the best chance of success due to the
wide popularity and proportional funding increases.
Designing a long term goal in this way does two things.
One, the popularity gives whatever program emerges
it's best chance of success.
And it does something else, that combined with the above
does something rather magical. The most popular goal
would be to solve the single largest world-wide problem
for the foreseeable/near future. The greatest threat to the
most people possible!
A LARGE ambitious world-changing goal results....that is
given it's best chance to succeed.
The secret to success is to think large. The higher the
peak, the greater the basin of attraction.
The loftier the goal, the more support and chance for
success.
I believe Space Solar Power is that 'big idea'.
Why? It can be ...sold....as a single solution to global
warming, fossil fuel depletion and endless WARS
in the Middle East. With the $100/barrel oil prices
.....flooding...that extremist filled region with all the cash
the west can print as we speak.
The environmentalists would like SSP as much as
the hawks in the military. The right could like it
for the positive effect on our future economy if we
were to become the next energy 'Saudi Arabia'.
The left would embrace it as a alternative fuel.
Americans could like it for giving us energy
independence, our largest national weakness.
SSP would allow the US to win the new race
for the 'high ground'. By setting a space goal
that requires lower cost to orbit, builds an energy grid
in space that could support stations and colonies
and larger satellites and so on.
SSP....energy in space...is the basic infrastructure
needed to truly allow the exploitation and colonization
of space in a large way.
And along the way such a goal would have the kicker
of nothing less than......saving the world!
From climate change, from fossil fuel depletion, fromfanatics and from ourselves.
RIGHT NOW!
We are making the decisions that will determine
if technology is the vehicle for our destruction, or
our salvation.
Another wasteful cold-war like space race with the
Chinese. Or Space Solar Power.
I know which choice is more likely to destroy us.
And which could save us.
Jonathan
s
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: ISS after completion
- From: Harmon
- Re: ISS after completion
- From: BradGuth
- Re: ISS after completion
- References:
- ISS after completion
- From: Harmon
- Re: ISS after completion
- From: Jonathan
- Re: ISS after completion
- From: Harmon
- ISS after completion
- Prev by Date: Re: ISS after completion
- Next by Date: Re: ISS after completion
- Previous by thread: Re: ISS after completion
- Next by thread: Re: ISS after completion
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
