For the first time in more than six years, both chambers of Congress passed a bill that approves funding for NASA and gives the space agency new mandates [Ed: Link not AdBlock friendly].
The NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017 is a bill that the Senate and House collaborated on for months, and it appropriates $19.5 billion to the agency. (NASA received $19.3 billion in 2016, or 0.5% of the total federal budget.)
When the Senate brought the bill before the House of Representatives for a vote on March 7, "no members spoke against the bill" and it passed, according to Jeff Foust at Space News.
The document asks NASA to create a roadmap for getting humans "near or on the surface of Mars in the 2030s." It also calls on the space agency to continue developing the Space Launch System (SLS) — a behemoth rocket — and the Orion space capsule in order to eventually go to the moon, Mars, and beyond.
It also cancels a mission to capture an asteroid, and calls on the space agency to search for aliens.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @12:27AM (1 child)
[Ed: Link not AdBlock friendly].
But it is hosts-file friendly ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @10:29PM
[Ed: Link not AdBlock friendly].
But it is hosts-file friendly ;)
APK, is that you?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday March 11 2017, @12:51AM
... calls on the space agency to search for aliens.
Does this mean they could use government money to fund SETI@Home, and maybe BOINC [berkeley.edu] in turn?
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 11 2017, @12:56AM (1 child)
But will it deport those troublesome space-elevator proponents?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Saturday March 11 2017, @01:00AM
No need. A space elevator has to be built South of the Greatest Wall.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Saturday March 11 2017, @12:56AM (10 children)
Adventures rather than science
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 11 2017, @02:54AM (9 children)
Being human pretty much means adventure. Or, drama, for the more timid. What good is science alone? Put people on Mars, that's what most of us want. Who really gives a crap what sort of chemical reactions might take place on Mars, that don't happen here, UNLESS we can put it to use somehow? Putting it to use means, we have to have people up there. I don't even want to hear about robotics. Use robots to build the first colony, for all I care - the important thing is getting people up there.
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:09AM (3 children)
If some bonehead has enough money to get himself to Mars and wants to risk his life by doing so, whatever.
If the government wants to send employees to Mars, at great expense and at great risk to its employees' lives, it should only do so after first trying to find less risky alternatives and conducting a careful cost-benefit analysis of the alternatives. It's not ethical for society to pay people to needlessly risk their own lives.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:44AM
"If the government wants to send e̶m̶p̶l̶o̶y̶e̶e̶s̶ VOLUNTEERS to Mars,"
FTFY I say that it is perfectly ethical for government to enable it's citizens to attain their dreams. This is not the CoDominium, and NASA isn't the Bureau of Relocation, and there is no Bureau of Population. We aren't rounding up undesirables by the tens of thousands and dumping them on unexplored worlds to fend for themselves. Maybe in a couple hundred years, but not today. Everyone who goes to Mars in your lifetime or mine will be VOLUNTEERS.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:46AM
I think we can do it without them dying immediately. That's not to say that we shouldn't send people to "die on Mars". We should send people with the expectation that they will probably eventually die. But if we do want people to live on Mars permanently or indefinitely, we should create a self-sustaining habitat that can support itself without resupply using either robotic or human labor. It shouldn't be subject to political funding whims, it should be able to sustain itself if some catastrophe prevented Earth from sending supplies to it, and it should be able to expand using Martian materials. Meaning that it should be able to manufacture plastic, chemicals, metal items, usable water, etc. Hopefully, newer and very efficient techniques could be used that might find use back on Earth.
Ethics dilemma? No. Ask potential settlers (or more likely, visitors) whether they would be willing to die for the cause. You will get plenty of "yes" responses. Then do what is necessary to reduce the risk from takeoff and landing. That's where the bulk of the risk is (see Challenger and Columbia). Evaluate the risk of SLS/Orion, which is already being funded billions for the purpose of sending astronauts to various locations in the solar system, not limited to Mars. Once on the ground on Mars, there is risk, but the biggest risk is still takeoff and landing, which is something that is done routinely in the case of the ISS.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Saturday March 11 2017, @07:37AM
it should only do so after first trying to find less risky alternatives and conducting a careful cost-benefit analysis of the alternatives. It's not ethical for society to pay people to needlessly risk their own lives.
You're right [wikipedia.org]! We should never [wikipedia.org] do that [wikipedia.org].
Actually, there are few things I can think of that would be better reasons to risk life and limb than space travel, both for the sake of science and for the simple adventure of exploration. If you're afraid to risk your life, then hide your mom's basement (you spend lots of time there anyway, right?) and let the real men and women [goodreads.com] do the hard stuff.
There's nothing unethical about it, as long as there is informed consent. What's more, when a society has a dearth of people who will take risks like that, that society will likely fail in pretty short order.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:29AM (2 children)
We should only care about sending people there if we can create a self-sustaining permanent habitat there, with no resupply required. Send some robots in advance to build a habitat, sure.
Mars isn't as interesting of a target as Europa or other solar system objects with interior liquid oceans. If we're lucky, we might find something fishlike in one of those interior oceans. Real goddamn fish-analogues, swimming around for millions of years without humanity having any inkling of it. If not fish, microbes. And if there aren't any microbes, then fuck it, time to take a bite out of Ceres/Europa/Enceladus/Ganymede/Callisto/Rhea/Triton/Pluto/etc. [wikipedia.org] Mars? You might find some soil bacteria and have to wrack your brains on whether or not it's actually contamination from the tools sent to look for it. The value of Mars is in establishing a permanent habitat through technology. Sink a big ass amount into creating initial sustainable living space, and an industry capable of using Martian materials to expand and enrich that living space.
The more interesting science is going to be done by robots and space telescopes. The James Webb Space Telescope in particular. If we're lucky, it will find a biosphere among the exoplanet atmospheres it looks at. And if it finds/images Planet Nine, we have another gas giant to examine close by, along with lots of new moons, some of which could have interior oceans. Maybe we'll find a moon in our solar system larger than Ganymede... or even Mars. JWST goes up in late 2018.
If we keep funding NASA the way we do today, Mars 2035 will probably divert a lot from the budgets of more interesting stuff. Either NASA's budget should be doubled/quadrupled, or the Mars colony idea should be funded as a one-time large expense. Keep in mind that Congress has just asked for NASA to create a "roadmap" and there's no certainty on what kind of mission would be launched. It could be a manned flyby (wouldn't that just be a huge disappointment lol) or a temporary surface mission. You and I are talking about colonies, but is that even part of the plan for the 2030s? Stay tuned.
We should fund the asteroid capture mission too, but at least when it comes to asteroids, it seems that private industry will make an attempt to do it themselves. That could be idealism or a scam, but at least it's being openly considered by multiple entities.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:55AM (1 child)
Well, first thing - the robots won't get it right. People will have to make it right, no matter how much work the robots do in advance.
Interesting? Any new land is interesting. If you don't have an interest in Mars, then you can wait for the first ship to Europa. But - be warned. The first ship to Europa will be as likely to depart from Mars, as it is to depart from Earth. The really adventurous types will already be on Mars, and Timid Timmy will be calling the shots on Earth.
As I mentioned in another post - it isn't all about science. Adventure and drama fuel the human soul. Science is cool, in that it enables adventure and science. Aside from that, science has little real use.
NASA funding . . . Well, I'm no real fan of NASA. They lost their vision long ago, when they built a space plane, instead of pushing out into the solar system. Yeah, the space shuttle was kinda cool, but it ate up to much time, money, energy, and vision.
Today, we have private corporations working on important stuff that NASA should have figured out 30 years ago, like reusable rockets.
Let's go to Mars, and worry about solving problems when we get there. That's how Europeans got to America, after all. That's how Africans got to Asia, and Europe, and eventually North America, and then South America. (I don't think anyone knows how people got to Oz - there was probably a wizard involved.)
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday March 13 2017, @06:28PM
Reusable rockets were part of the original plan for the space shuttle. As far as I can remember, they dropped the reusability of the rockets for budget reasons. A pity. It might well have saved them more over the years than it would have cost.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 11 2017, @12:52PM (1 child)
Not necessarily. We could also put robots up there, and have automated shipping of the good stuff to earth.
That's solely your problem.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:50PM
You're not paying a lot of attention, I think. MANKIND doesn't want to send a bunch of robots all over the universe. MANKIIND wants to go out and see the universe, firsthand. For all the same reasons that the original humans in Africa spread out, all over the world.
Erik Wernquist knows the song -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH3c1QZzRK4 [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Saturday March 11 2017, @12:58AM (2 children)
> both chambers of Congress passed a bill that approves funding for NASA
Yay!
> For the first time in more than six years
Dafuq took so long?
> $19.5 billion to the agency. (NASA received $19.3 billion in 2016
Yay, about inflation-adjusted!
> create a roadmap for getting humans "near or on the surface of Mars
Near? Waddyamean near?
Either you take all the stuff for landing, or you go spin around the moon for 18 months. What's the point of taking humans near Mars and not land? Take selfies while basking in radiation for nothing?
> in the 2030s
Really? I know "before this decade is over" is a bit short, but half of Congress should be dead by then (or by now, depending on your read).
Don't go exploring too fast, you might get hurt.
> It also cancels a mission to capture an asteroid,
Yay!
> and calls on the space agency to search for aliens.
WTF?
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Saturday March 11 2017, @01:15AM
> create a roadmap for getting humans "near or on the surface of Mars in the 2030s
... half of Congress should be dead by then (or by now, depending on your read).
Maybe we can send *them*, and have it both ways!
(Score: 2) by compro01 on Saturday March 11 2017, @04:23AM
Near? Waddyamean near?
Either you take all the stuff for landing, or you go spin around the moon for 18 months. What's the point of taking humans near Mars and not land? Take selfies while basking in radiation for nothing?
Mission to Phobos maybe?
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Saturday March 11 2017, @02:46AM (1 child)
Give us the budget, and guarantee it wont get cut later on, and we will.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 11 2017, @02:57AM
No guarantees, sorry. Politics, you know. If the other party takes power, they might defund it all and put the money into ethnic diversity studies.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Snotnose on Saturday March 11 2017, @02:57AM (1 child)
These morons deny climate change, deny evolution, deny any science that contradicts their bible. They are scientific idiots with no clue.
On the other hand, NASA is a bureaucratic hide bound cesspit that is terrified of risk.
Not sure where I fall on this.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @04:41AM
NASA was slowly being transformed into the "geeksquad" for the government: https://www.sewp.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov]
Maybe that is changing.