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from the a-billion-here-a-billion-there dept.
Going Back to the Moon Won't Break the Bank, NASA Chief Says
Sending humans back to the moon won't require a big Apollo-style budget boost, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said. During the height of the Apollo program in the mid-1960s, NASA gobbled up about 4.5 percent of the federal budget. This massive influx of resources helped the space agency make good on President John F. Kennedy's famous 1961 promise to get astronauts to the moon, and safely home to Earth again, before the end of the decade. NASA's budget share now hovers around just 0.5 percent. But something in that range should be enough to mount crewed lunar missions in the next 10 years or so, as President Donald Trump has instructed NASA to do with his Space Policy Directive 1, Bridenstine told reporters yesterday (Aug. 30) here at NASA's Ames Research Center.
The key lies in not going it alone and continuing to get relatively modest but important financial bumps, he added. (Congress allocated over $20.7 billion to NASA in the 2018 omnibus spending bill — about $1.1 billion more than the agency got in the previous year's omnibus bill.)
"We now have more space agencies on the surface of the planet than we've ever had before. And even countries that don't have a space agency — they have space activities, and they want to partner with us on our return to the moon," Bridenstine said in response to a question from Space.com. "And, at the same time, we have a robust commercial marketplace of people that can provide us access that historically didn't exist," the NASA chief added. "So, between our international and commercial partners and our increased budget, I think we're going to be in good shape to accomplish the objectives of Space Policy Directive 1."
We're talking about the surface of the Moon, right? Not the mini-ISS in lunar orbit that would give the Space Launch System somewhere to go?
Previously: President Trump Signs Space Policy Directive 1
2020s to Become the Decade of Lunar Re-Exploration
NASA Cancels Lunar Rover
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine Serious About Returning to the Moon
Related: Should We Skip Mars for Now and Go to the Moon Again?
How to Get Back to the Moon in 4 Years, Permanently
NASA Administrator Ponders the Fate of SLS in Interview
(Score: 2) by eravnrekaree on Tuesday September 04 2018, @12:54AM
Going to the moon sounds to be pointless. A basic requirement of any program should be that any base is going to be self sustaining from local resources, especially you need air and water to be supplied locally. This is so we do not deplete earth resources. You don't have much in the way of air or water on the moon. Im not really fond of the idea of either mars or moon colonization. If the goal is survival, antartica is paradise compared to mars or the moon, you could build a survival base there that would be well stock with years worth of food, seed supplies, livestock, etc that could survive through anything, even a K-T type event is perfectly survivable by a well stocked and supplied secret survival base.
There is talk of Mars, its a very hard thing to do and doesnt give you anything more as far as species survival than what I outlined above. It is better than the moon however. With Mars, there is a possibility of compressing the martian air and seperating out Oxygen from the Co2 to create an oyxgen atmosphere of 20% earth atmospheric pressure. I asked some people about this, and while earth atmosphere is 80% nitrogen and 20% oxygen, it is safe to breath pure oxygen at 20% earth surface pressure. There is not much nitrogen to work with on mars for the 80% nitrogen component. At earth surface pressure 100% oxygen will hurt you, but its safe to breath pure oxygen at 20% earth surface pressure. Find local sources of martian water is also critical to any plan. Its still a tough thing to do, there are many other problems and so on, but its actually easier than the moon.I am just not very fond of the idea and the chances of successful self sustaining colonization (an absolute requirement to avoid depleting or damaging the earth ecosystem to support it), are very slim,
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A moon trip would be pointless, its much more difficult to send a person than a robot and a robot can do the things a human can do. Its basically an entertaining stunt like a tight rope walk but with little long term viability.