New NASA moon rocket can't fly
POSTED BY: piratenews
UPDATED: Sunday, March 1, 2026 23:37
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I still think the DS1-type ion engine has a damned lot of potential, and 55 years of improvements in metallurgy and ceramics later - we really oughta revisit project WINTERHAVEN as well, if not follow up directly on the work of Townsend Brown.
-F
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Lawmakers Slash $670 Million From NASA Budget Request
By Amy Klamper
Space News Staff Writer
posted: 08 June 2009
10:48 am ET
http://www.space.com/news/090608-nasa-budget.html
WASHINGTON — In a move that reflects the uncertainty surrounding NASA's current strategy for replacing the space shuttle and returning astronauts to the Moon by 2020, House appropriators slashed by 16 percent the space agency's $4 billion request for manned space exploration in 2010.
The proposed legislation, marked up June 4 by the House Appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee, trims $483 million overall from U.S. President Barack Obama's $18.7 billion budget request for NASA next year. The $670 million cut to the 2010 manned exploration request would leave $3.21 billion, which is less than is available for the effort this year.
Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.), the subcommittee's chairman, described the move as a "time-out" in the budget process as the White House awaits the findings of a 10-member panel tasked by the White House to reassess NASA's post-shuttle exploration plans. That panel, led by former Lockheed Martin chief Norm Augustine, is expected to report back with its findings in August.
In his opening statement at the markup hearing, Mollohan said the cut should not be viewed as a diminution of the subcommittee's support for NASA's human spaceflight activities. "Rather, it's a deferral taken without prejudice; it is a pause, a time-out, to allow the president to establish his vision for human space exploration and to commit to realistic future funding levels to realize this vision."
Mollohan told Space News June 4 he is "open to responding to an amended budget request" based on Augustine's review. Mollohan also said he expects the Obama administration to deliver to Congress a "realistic and sustainable" cost assessment of NASA's human spaceflight program in time to amend the 2010 request.
"We invite this report and the administration's response to it, whatever it is," Mollohan said.
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Quote:
Originally posted by JaynezTown:
Lawmakers Slash $670 Million From NASA Budget Request
http://www.space.com/news/090608-nasa-budget.html
Yeah, I saw that. Didn't have the energy to post it. Pretty much the final nail in the coffin.
Quote:
Nasa experts scale back moon and Mars plans in face of Obama funding cut fears
Forty years after astronauts first walked on the moon, Nasa, the US space agency, is officially committed to a $35 billion (£22 billion) plan instituted by President George W. Bush to build the first of a new generation of manned rockets that can return to the planet by 2020.
However, the new president has appointed an independent panel to review America's costly manned space programme, called Constellation, and make recommendations by the end of August.
With Nasa engineers now floating cut-rate rocket alternatives, some politicians and former astronauts fear that the 2020 deadline will be foiled by financial constraints.
Noting a space exploration budget of six billion dollars in 2009, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida said: "Nasa simply can't do the job it's been given - the president's goal of being on the moon by 2020."
Mr Nelson, a former astronaut, bemoaned the fact that, between 2010 and 2015, the US will have no way of transporting its astronauts to the International Space Station except aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
Michael Griffin, a former Nasa chief who championed the Constellation programme, warned that America had concentrated for too long on space shuttles – which are being retired - while rivals, such as China, were emerging with more ambitious goals.
"I think we must return to the moon because it's the next step. It's a few days from home. Mars is only a few months from Earth," he said.
Developers of Ares I, the first rocket in the Constellation project, reject claims that costs have spiralled out of control.
However, Constellation has been projected to cost around $150 billion, including the development of the Orion capsule and the Ares launchers needed to put it into orbit.
Sceptics believe that Nasa is worried that its moon plan may prove too expensive for Washington.
They point out that John Shannon, Nasa's shuttle programme manager, has now proposed a cheaper, $6.6 billion alternative that would use the old shuttle propulsion system.
But the Shannon plan, dubbed the Shuttled-Derived Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle, would only be able to carry two astronauts at a time. According to its creator, this might limit the size of any base on the moon.
Meanwhile, a group of rebel Nasa engineers have put forward their own rival family of rockets called Jupiter.
Jupiter would, at an estimated $14 billion, also be substantially cheaper than the NASA project and would also use existing shuttle technology.
Norman Augustine, a former Lockheed Martin chief executive who chairs the panel reviewing the programme's cost, admitted it all comes down to money.
"With a few exceptions, we have the technology or the knowledge that we could go to Mars if we wanted with humans. We could put a telescope on the moon if we wanted," he said.
www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/space/5760285/Nasa-ex
perts-scale-back-moon-and-Mars-plans-in-face-of-Obama-funding-cut-fears.html
Note use of lowercase "moon" when proper English requires uppercase "Moon", as used in all other satelites in the Solar System. Lowercase denotes a movie set on Earth. That job has now been outsourced to Commie China, which has already been busted faking LEO spacewalks and "moon" orbits.
Quote:
The Obama administration's fiscal 2010 NASA budget request includes $630 million in additional near-term funding for development of follow-on rockets and spacecraft needed for the agency's post-shuttle moon program, officials said Thursday. But most of the increase is from the administration's economic stimulus package, and projections through 2013 show a $3.1 billion reduction in overall funding for the program compared with 2009 projectionsNOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Note use of lowercase "moon" when proper English requires uppercase "Moon", as used in all other satelites in the Solar System.
Actually, "proper English" DOESN'T demand that. I can speak all day long about the moons of Mars, the moons of Jupiter, or our lone moon. When doing so, I am speaking of "moons" in general, a generic term for a planet's companion satellite. When I refer to THE moon, it's assumed that I'm speaking of OUR moon, our lone orbiting companion. Seems it should have a proper name. Seems like "Luna" is one I've heard.
Quote:
Lowercase denotes a movie set on Earth.
Oh, is THAT what that denotes? So when we speak of Phobos, one of the moons of Mars, if I call it Phobos, I'm speaking of the actual place, but if I say "a moon of Mars", I'm speaking of the movie set on Earth, huh?
What if I use a lower-case "e" on Earth? What if I refer to the movie set on earth? Am I speaking of a movie set build on the ground, or one build on the movie set?
You have some funny, funny grammatical rules, PN. Or should I call you "pn", and refer to the fake you that inhabits the 'net?
Mike
Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
If it wasn't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college...
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"Hoodwink" is a routine phrase used by Freemasons, who ran NASA during Apollo and planted their Masonic flag on the "moon" in Apollo 11
Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:Quote:
Note use of lowercase "moon" when proper English requires uppercase "Moon", as used in all other satelites in the Solar System.
Actually, "proper English" DOESN'T demand that. I can speak all day long about the moons of Mars, the moons of Jupiter, or our lone moon. When doing so, I am speaking of "moons" in general, a generic term for a planet's companion satellite. When I refer to THE moon, it's assumed that I'm speaking of OUR moon, our lone orbiting companion. Seems it should have a proper name. Seems like "Luna" is one I've heard.Quote:
Lowercase denotes a movie set on Earth.
Oh, is THAT what that denotes? So when we speak of Phobos, one of the moons of Mars, if I call it Phobos, I'm speaking of the actual place, but if I say "a moon of Mars", I'm speaking of the movie set on Earth, huh?
What if I use a lower-case "e" on Earth? What if I refer to the movie set on earth? Am I speaking of a movie set build on the ground, or one build on the movie set?
You have some funny, funny grammatical rules, PN. Or should I call you "pn", and refer to the fake you that inhabits the 'net?
I guess you better call Hollywood and tell them to rename their new movie:
www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=8&t=39115
So what's the proper name of Earth's moon? Are you alleging it does it not have a name?
Entemology: For thousands of years nobody knew that other planets existed, nor that the Earth was orbited by a planetary satellite, nor that the Earth and other planetary objects are round. They did however see the Earth's satellite every night, and it was named "Moon" god, since it raised the tides and made werewolves. When folks finally figured out the Moon is just a dead rock and not a god, it was never given a new name. "The Earth" and "the Moon" are common grammital phrases, so adding "the" does not require lowercase when talking about a planetary body by its proper name.
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Quote:
Entemology: For thousands of years nobody knew...
Sorry, but I simply refuse to be lectured by someone who doesn't even know what word he's trying to use to describe the origin of a word.
You THINK you're using "entomology", but that would be wrong, since that's the scientific study of insects. What you're TRYING to use is "etymology", the study of the origin of words.
And yes, it DOES seem to me that our moon should have a proper name. After all, why should it be less special than Phobos, Deimos, Io, Europa, Titan, Ganymede, Calypso, Atlas, and others. Most sources list our moon's "proper" name as Luna.
Mike
Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
If it wasn't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college...
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Entemology of space bugs on the moonset:
Kosher Geraldo says moon landing was faked and 9.11 was an "inside job":
Moon Landing Conspiracy Faked by Fox Part 1:
NASA spokesman Brian Welch was assassinated after this video, for asking NASA to actually offer proof of the moon landing. He died of a "heart attack". He was 42 years old.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-858597577309315730
Quote:
"If we had actually landed on the Moon in 1969, we'd now have International House of Pancakes on the Moon. We'd have Walmarts on the Moon by now. Instead NASA said, 'Been there done that. Poof, no need to go back...'"
-Capt Joyce Riley USAF, The Power Hour Radio Show, 20 July 2009
http://thepowerhour.com
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Oh, I'm just commenting so I can change the title.
***************************************************************
Silence is consent.
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Quote:
Kosher Geraldo says moon landing was faked and 9.11
Well why didn't you SAY so in the beginning? After all, if GERALDO says it, it HAS TO BE TRUE, right?
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Japan's First Space Cargo Ship Ready to Fly
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/090904-japan-htv-ready.html
Japan's first unmanned spacecraft to haul cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) is nearly ready for its maiden launch next week.
The new cargo ship is poised to launch toward the station on Sept. 10 at 1:01 p.m. EDT (1701 GMT) from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan on a shakedown cruise. If all goes well, the inaugural spacecraft, called the H-2 Transfer Vehicle 1 (HTV-1), should arrive at the station on Sept. 17.
The spacecraft was built by JAXA, Japan's space agency, and will launch atop the country's brand new H-2B rocket. It will be early Sept. 11 Local Time at the Japanese launch site at the time of liftoff.
"JAXA is ready to carry out the important HTV-1 mission as a new contribution to the ISS program," said Masazumi Miyake, director of the JAXA office at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, in a Wednesday briefing.
JAXA mission managers are expected to hold a series of final readiness reviews for HTV-1 and its rocket booster to make sure it's ready for launch day.
"There's very little work to be done," said Mike Suffredini, NASA's space station program manager. "We're all on schedule and we're not working any issues relative to this launch."
Suffredini said that the new spacecraft, like cargo ships built by Europe and Russia, will be vital to support the space station's six-person crew once NASA's space shuttle fleet retires in the next year or so.
The HTV-1 cargo ship is Japan's latest contribution to the International Space Station. Astronauts completed construction of JAXA's enormous Kibo laboratory, a $1 billion facility the size of a tour bus, in July with the addition of an exterior experiment porch.
The spacecraft is a solar-powered cylinder about 33 feet (10 meters) long and 14 feet (4.4 meters) wide. It can haul up to 6 tons of pressurized and unpressurized cargo to the station, but will only be packed with about 3 1/2 tons for its debut flight.
Unlike the automated cargo ships built by Russia and Europe, which can dock themselves at the station, the HTV-1 is designed to fly close to the orbiting laboratory and be grabbed by its robotic arm. Astronauts inside the outpost will oversee the approach, rendezvous and grapple.
After about a month at the space station, the disposable cargo ship is expected to be detached from the outpost and commanded to intentionally burn up in the Earth's atmosphere over the southern Pacific Ocean.
Miyake said JAXA has spent about $680 million since 1997 to develop the HTV spacecraft. The vehicle alone costs about $220 million, he said.
The new H-2B rocket launching the HTV-1 cargo ship is a more powerful booster derived from Japan's workhorse H-2A rocket, which the country has been flying since 2001.
The HTV spacecraft will be controlled from JAXA's Tsukuba Space Center, which is also home to the agency's Kibo mission control center.
Japan has until Sept. 30 to try and loft the HTV-1 mission from its seaside launch site before its window closes due to the country's off-shore fishing season. The next opportunity to launch the spacecraft after September is in February 2010, Suffredini said.
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