[extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA

[Technotranscendence]

I noticed the years being off too.

On Wednesday, January 14, 2004 9:17 PM Robert J. Bradbury
bradbury at aeiveos.com wrote:
> Questions: Is the space station above/below
> the radiation belts?

Below.  IIRC, they start at 800 km.

> Is it feasible to move it to L4/L5.

Well, I guess, but it would be one heck of a job to move it given that
its electronics, etc. might not survive the trip through the radiation
belts and it might not survive bombardment outside the Earth's
magnetosphere.  Add to this the problem with accelerating a structure
like that slowly enough so it doesn't rip apart.  I don't think it'd be
worth the cost.

However, it might be worth the cost to move it to a higher orbit to
prevent a SkyLab-like finale.

> What would
> its lifetime be in those locations?

I'm not sure.  One thing you'd have to think about is that resupply and
rotating crews would be harder -- assuming no other changes.  The orbit
itself would be stable, but L4 and L5 are outside the Earth's
magentosphere and also since they're stable points, I imagine there
might be some junk in them already.

>> 2010-2015 Period where US has no
>> vehicles that reach space station
>
> I'm not sure this is true -- I think they are
> planning on using European & Russian
> vehicles to get there and it looked to me
> like they were going to start testing the
> new capsule by ~2008.  Perhaps not
> human rated -- but 4 years given the base
> we have to build on doesn't seem *that*
> difficult.

I don't know what they're planning, but the Russian launchers and manned
vehicles are quite reliable.  By then, China might have a much more
robust manned flight program and (I really f***ing hope!) there also
might be several private launch systems.

>>> 2015-2020 Manned Moon Mission
>>> 2020-2030 Manned Moon Base
>>> 2030-2045 Manned Mars Mission
>
> And all of these are *long* past the end-
> point for G.W.B. political machinations
> so their probability of remaining "cast in
> stone" probably approaches zero as
> each subsequent president decides
> to put his or her stamp on them.

Anything over five years for a US space policy initiative approaches
zero.  I think this is only election year talk.  Why didn't he come up
with this in 2001 or 2002?

> This seems to me to be sound signifying
> nothing.  Though G.W.B. does seem to be
> doing something right with the Prometheus
> Project.  If that gets enough funding to
> produce real nuclear rocket engines
> then I may be willing to forgive the rest.

I'm against government space programs, but I'd like to see a stroner
nuclear propulsion program.  Sadly, governments would probably not let
private companies develop that...

>> It seems like he wants to spin the space
>> station off to private enterprise, perhaps
>> a consortium of universities and high tech
>> companies? This would create a market
>> demand for private development of
>> manned orbital capability.
>
> I think you are *way* too optimistic Mike.

Not to mention that the station is deep in a whole financially and even
to see it at one tenth the cost would be overvaluing it.

>> Hey, if they want to auction it off, I'll put in
>> a bid... ;)
>
> If it were something we could move to L4/L5
> and use for 20-30 years I think it might be of
> interest.  But you are going to have to get a
> lot of millionaires and billionaires together
> to privitize it unless they sell it for less than
> pennies on the $$.

Or most likely the government would give grants or loans -- i.e.,
privatization in name only and really just another corporate welfare
scheme.

Cheers!

Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Poetry.html