I have mixed feelings about this right now. First
off, we do need a new direction for our national space
effort and I DO want that effort to include humans on
the Moon and eventually Mars. On the other hand, its
election year, the senior Bush did a similar speech
himself in 1991 but didn't bother to put any political
capital behind it. At this point, I am hesitant to
embrace this idea until I actually see Bush put it in
his budget.

Also, I don't think we can be as ambitious as he wants
on a national level. Establishing a PARMANENT
presence on the moon is going to be tens of billions
of dollars. Money we just don't have. It should be
an international effort mixed in with alot of private
enterprise.

The one good thing clinton did with the ISS was to
convert it from a primary US program with some
international support to a truly international
endeavor. However, Bush's willingness to slash
funding commitments we made to the international
community on the ISS is making the international
community wary of doing even more business with our
government. Regardless of the utility of this
enterprise to some, we should be a nation that once we
made a commitment, we stick to it. Or if we change
it, we do it with the consensus of those nations
involved in the process and NOT unilaterally.

What Bush needs to do is outline a general plan with a
timeline that includes fulfilling our ISS obligations
to make it a 7 person crewed station, establish a
manned lunar outpost and create a timeline for a
manned mission to Mars that is more than a plant the
flag enterprise.

Anyhow, there is my $0.02 on the issue. :)

Ryan Z

From: Ryan Z [mailto:ryjaz@...]

> The one good thing clinton did with the ISS was to
> convert it from a primary US program with some
> international support to a truly international
> endeavor.

While agreeing with many of your other points, what would prompt you to say
this? The general consensus is that Clinton's decision to bring Russia into
the program was a complete disaster, and rather than saving expense instead
made the station more expensive for the US.

Regards,

Mike Combs

On Jan 9, 2004, at 11:18 AM, Combs, Mike wrote:

>
>> The one good thing clinton did with the ISS was to
>> convert it from a primary US program with some
>> international support to a truly international
>> endeavor.
>
> While agreeing with many of your other points, what would prompt you
> to say
> this? The general consensus is that Clinton's decision to bring
> Russia into
> the program was a complete disaster, and rather than saving expense
> instead
> made the station more expensive for the US

The ISS was nearly cancelled just before the Russians came on board, I
think the margin in the House was about 3-5 votes. If they hadn't
brought the Russians in, there probably wouldn't be a space station
today -- which may have been a good thing. Actually, although the ISS
is too expensive and not very capable, bringing the Russians in did
exactly what it was supposed to do: improve ties between Russia and the
US and keep at least some Russian technical people occupied NOT
building bombs for third world dictators.

Actually, I suspect the real contribution of the ISS is to get space
tourism started. Could have been done cheaper, perhaps, but the first
paying tourists went to the ISS, not anywhere else.

The materials in one asteroid (the largest ) are sufficient to make
orbital space colonies with ~150 times the surface area of the Earth in
usable real estate. See http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/
for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Al Globus wrote:
>

> Actually, I suspect the real contribution of the ISS is to get
space
> tourism started. Could have been done cheaper, perhaps, but the
first
> paying tourists went to the ISS, not anywhere else.
>

Al, the ISS is a microgravity lab; it can never be a tourist
destination on the scale of, say, Hawaii. The two tourists who went
there did so under the strenuous objections of NASA; if NASA had any
say in the matter of who travels on Russian rockets, they wouldn't
have gone at all.

Had Russia not deorbited Mir, then those tourists would surely have
gone there instead of the ISS.

Now if one is serious about space tourism, then there must be a
destination suited to the task: something on the scale of the Queen
Mary 2 or QE2 in size, capable of handling hundreds or even
thousands of tourists at a time. There must also be a way to get
large numbers of people into orbit at one time, some kind of space
bus or a space elevator.

Furthermore, for tourism to succeed, it must make a profit and be
done privately; NASA is ill-suited to the task (and it is well
beyond NASA's mandate).

Ed

Does anyone on this list have anything good to say about the impending
fundamental change in the U.S. space program?

I will tell you that I work for NASA and am very happy that the detractors,
many of them it appears, are not in any management position within the space
agency. The constant political paranoia as to why a change is occurring, at
what time and for what reasons are not what you should be thinking about.

This group refers to itself as "Spacesettlers", and it irks me why the
populous here doesn't want to take advantage of another direction in space
travel, or space colonization when its staring you in the face, instead of
anguishing in low earth orbit for another 20 years.

I'm not pointing fingers at anyone in particular here, just the general
vibes that are being passed along on this group are troublesome.

P.S. Estimates of a program like this would generate a million new jobs.
Something to think about if you are looking for viable employment.

Rick Fischer
rick.fischer@...

Inside KSC.com
http://www.insideksc.com

Join the Inside KSC Yahoo List Group
mailto:inside_ksc-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

From: Al Globus [mailto:aglobus@...]
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 2:30 PM
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Bush's space plan

On Jan 9, 2004, at 11:18 AM, Combs, Mike wrote:

>
>> The one good thing clinton did with the ISS was to
>> convert it from a primary US program with some
>> international support to a truly international
>> endeavor.
>
> While agreeing with many of your other points, what would prompt you
> to say
> this? The general consensus is that Clinton's decision to bring
> Russia into
> the program was a complete disaster, and rather than saving expense
> instead
> made the station more expensive for the US

The ISS was nearly cancelled just before the Russians came on board, I
think the margin in the House was about 3-5 votes. If they hadn't
brought the Russians in, there probably wouldn't be a space station
today -- which may have been a good thing. Actually, although the ISS
is too expensive and not very capable, bringing the Russians in did
exactly what it was supposed to do: improve ties between Russia and the
US and keep at least some Russian technical people occupied NOT
building bombs for third world dictators.

Actually, I suspect the real contribution of the ISS is to get space
tourism started. Could have been done cheaper, perhaps, but the first
paying tourists went to the ISS, not anywhere else.

The materials in one asteroid (the largest ) are sufficient to make
orbital space colonies with ~150 times the surface area of the Earth in
usable real estate. See http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/
for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

web/S05083543:HM/EXP73762818/A53618/R=0/*http://www.netflix.com/Def
ault?mqso_178338&partid=4116732> click here

l/S=:HM/A53618/rand6791196>

_____

Hi Rick - I think it's great, although I'm a little worried after Bush's
reputation for cronyism that this'll just turn into another way to
siphon cash to Boeing. But I think NASA needs a definite direction of
this order, and if what I just read about unifying the robotic and human
programs is to believed, that sounds like exactly what is needed!

Arthur Smith

Rick Fischer wrote:

Hi Arthur.

Unfortunately, NASA can be blamed for Boeing's or Lockheed's money
interests, as they have nearly sub-contracted everything down here at KSC.
Although I do not agree with your hypothesis concerning President Bush, I do
respect your views.

Thanks,
Rick

From: Arthur P. Smith [mailto:apsmith@...]
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 5:05 PM
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Bush's space plan

Hi Rick - I think it's great, although I'm a little worried after Bush's
reputation for cronyism that this'll just turn into another way to
siphon cash to Boeing. But I think NASA needs a definite direction of
this order, and if what I just read about unifying the robotic and human
programs is to believed, that sounds like exactly what is needed!

Arthur Smith

Rick Fischer wrote:

>Does anyone on this list have anything good to say about the impending
>fundamental change in the U.S. space program?
>
>I will tell you that I work for NASA and am very happy that the detractors,
>many of them it appears, are not in any management position within the
space
>agency. The constant political paranoia as to why a change is occurring, at
>what time and for what reasons are not what you should be thinking about.
>
>This group refers to itself as "Spacesettlers", and it irks me why the
>populous here doesn't want to take advantage of another direction in space
>travel, or space colonization when its staring you in the face, instead of
>anguishing in low earth orbit for another 20 years.
>
>I'm not pointing fingers at anyone in particular here, just the general
>vibes that are being passed along on this group are troublesome.
>
>P.S. Estimates of a program like this would generate a million new jobs.
>Something to think about if you are looking for viable employment.
>
>Rick Fischer
>rick.fischer@...
>
>Inside KSC.com
>http://www.insideksc.com
>
>Join the Inside KSC Yahoo List Group
>mailto:inside_ksc-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>From: Al Globus [mailto:aglobus@...]
>Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 2:30 PM
>To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Bush's space plan
>

_____

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Fischer"
wrote:
> Does anyone on this list have anything good to say about the
impending
> fundamental change in the U.S. space program?

How exactly would yet another flags'n'footprints mission be a
fundamental change in the US space program?

>
> I will tell you that I work for NASA and am very happy that the
detractors,
> many of them it appears, are not in any management position within
the space
> agency. The constant political paranoia as to why a change is
occurring, at
> what time and for what reasons are not what you should be thinking
about.
>
> This group refers to itself as "Spacesettlers", and it irks me why
the
> populous here doesn't want to take advantage of another direction
in space
> travel, or space colonization when its staring you in the face,
instead of
> anguishing in low earth orbit for another 20 years.

NASA is not involved in space colonization: they never have been, it
is not part of their mandate. In fact, any serious large-scale
migration to space would seriously undermine NASA's raison d'etre:
that is, keeping the ultimate high ground under US government
control.

>
> I'm not pointing fingers at anyone in particular here, just the
general
> vibes that are being passed along on this group are troublesome.
>
> P.S. Estimates of a program like this would generate a million new
jobs.
> Something to think about if you are looking for viable employment.
>

And if that money was left in the hands of the populace rather than
being stolen from them through income taxes, then 3.5 million jobs
would be created (it's called the multiplier effect, it's in all the
economics textbooks).

Furthermore, the longer NASA is in the market for space launches,
the longer their presence will distort the market, further delaying
meaningful progress in access to orbit.

It is time to admit that NASA has utterly failed at the main reason
they were created in the first place (at least officially according
to the space act of 1958): opening up space to commercial activity.

It is time to break it up, selling what assets can be sold, moving
the research centers to universities where they belong, writing off
the white elephant ISS and shuttle fleet, get LockMart and Boeing
off the public teat, and cease stealing 15 Billion dollars a year
from the US taxpayer.

Ed

Bush is a born-again idiot and I'm not voting for him even if he
gets Congress behind his space plan, a plan which, as far as I
understand it so far, I like.

If he doesn't get elected, will the plan still be carried out?
Congress has to make it so and this thing has to go on after Bush
leaves the White House whenever and I don't know if that's realistic
to expect although it happened with Kennedy's man-on-the-moon-in-'69
program.

If it goes through, NASA's budget is increased 5% which isn't much
of an increase but it's something but will it be enough to pay for
it all? Mars, I imagine, will be especially expensive.

On Mars?

Totally new and something I never thought I'd even see entertained in my
lifetime. And you've provided no factual basis for your claims.

From: Ed Minchau [mailto:spider_boris@...]
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 5:43 PM
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: Bush's space plan

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Fischer"
wrote:
> Does anyone on this list have anything good to say about the
impending
> fundamental change in the U.S. space program?

How exactly would yet another flags'n'footprints mission be a
fundamental change in the US space program?

>

And if that money was left in the hands of the populace rather than
being stolen from them through income taxes, then 3.5 million jobs
would be created (it's called the multiplier effect, it's in all the
economics textbooks).

Furthermore, the longer NASA is in the market for space launches,
the longer their presence will distort the market, further delaying
meaningful progress in access to orbit.

It is time to admit that NASA has utterly failed at the main reason
they were created in the first place (at least officially according
to the space act of 1958): opening up space to commercial activity.

It is time to break it up, selling what assets can be sold, moving
the research centers to universities where they belong, writing off
the white elephant ISS and shuttle fleet, get LockMart and Boeing
off the public teat, and cease stealing 15 Billion dollars a year
from the US taxpayer.

Ed

web/S05083543:HM/EXP73774643/A53619/R=0/*http://www.netflix.com/Def
ault?mqso_178356&partid=4116732> click here

l/S=:HM/A53619/rand8281577>

_____

George, sometimes you make perfect sense, in this case your case is
ludicrous.

If I knew the political agenda was so biased one way and the actual facts
were ignored to prove someone's political stance, I would never of joined
this group to begin with.

It's truly ashame that some of you who think that you know what your talking
about actually poison this list with inaccuracies and downright hate.

I'm gone from this group.

It's not worth anyone's time who actually has a passion for space
exploration.

From: George Perkins [mailto:george@...]
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 6:16 PM
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: Bush's space plan

Bush is a born-again idiot and I'm not voting for him even if he
gets Congress behind his space plan, a plan which, as far as I
understand it so far, I like.

If he doesn't get elected, will the plan still be carried out?
Congress has to make it so and this thing has to go on after Bush
leaves the White House whenever and I don't know if that's realistic
to expect although it happened with Kennedy's man-on-the-moon-in-'69
program.

If it goes through, NASA's budget is increased 5% which isn't much
of an increase but it's something but will it be enough to pay for
it all? Mars, I imagine, will be especially expensive.

_____

--- Al Globus wrote:
>
> On Jan 9, 2004, at 11:18 AM, Combs, Mike wrote:
>
> >> The one good thing clinton did with the ISS was
> to
> >> convert it from a primary US program with some
> >> international support to a truly international
> >> endeavor.
> >
> > While agreeing with many of your other points,
> what would prompt you
> > to say
> > this? The general consensus is that Clinton's
> decision to bring
> > Russia into
> > the program was a complete disaster, and rather
> than saving expense
> > instead
> > made the station more expensive for the US
>
> The ISS was nearly cancelled just before the
> Russians came on board, I
> think the margin in the House was about 3-5 votes.
> If they hadn't
> brought the Russians in, there probably wouldn't be
> a space station
> today -- which may have been a good thing.
> Actually, although the ISS
> is too expensive and not very capable, bringing the
> Russians in did
> exactly what it was supposed to do: improve ties
> between Russia and the
> US and keep at least some Russian technical people
> occupied NOT
> building bombs for third world dictators.
>
Thanks Al, this is one of the points. The other is
our ability to work with other countries. In the
1980s, we basically unilaterally screwed Europe on the
Ulysses mission. We had a Memorandum of Understanding
(MOU) with ESA that we would perform a certain task.
In Europe, a MOU is treated just like a treaty and has
to be upheld. In the US, what congress approves one
year can be removed the next (as happened with
Ulysses).

When the ISS was being negotiated, Europe sought
stronger protections that the US would not back out of
their agreement. However, once again over the past
year or so we have been renigging again on those
agreements. Though now Europe is a heck of a lot more
powerful and not as reliant on the US. If we keep on
this course of not following through on our agreements
with other nations, soon it will be much more
difficult to pursue truly joint programs.

Ryan Z

--- Ed Minchau wrote:
> Furthermore, for tourism to succeed, it must make a
> profit and be
> done privately; NASA is ill-suited to the task (and
> it is well
> beyond NASA's mandate).
>
First off, I have often argued on here and elsewhere
that I think space tourism is really only a small
piece of the pie. The real money is in space industry
and mining.

That being said I think you are really misrepresenting
NASA. It IS in NASA's mandate that they explore new
technologies that later can be given over the
commercial industries for profit. In fact, NASA has a
department of space commercialization that is very
active in helping many space companies that actually
produce hardware. They also help many small business
hrough the STTR and SBIR (see
http://sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov/SBIR/SBIR.html)

For the record, I am, nor have I ever been, an
employee of NASA. Though my company has won many
awards from them. Generally these awards are for
developing new technology. A good case is the
development of Ka-band frequency. In the early 90s
NASA paid for the first commsat to utilize this
frequency. Before this was done, everyone thought
that rain would cause this signal to fade to much to
ever be commercial viable. NASA proved them wrong.

Fast forward to today and almost every commsat user
out there is now putting Ka-band payloads on their
spacecraft (every order my company recieved last year
has a ka-band segment).

So can NASA help for profit companies? Of course it
can and it does. It is in the interest of a
government agency, like NASA, to spur our economy and
help it create new exports which iin turn will create
a greater GDP. (on the negative side it is the role
of agencies like the dept of state to limit our
exports through ITARS).

Bottom line, don't think that NASA is forcing us down
in any way. Without alot of their funding, our
technical expertise would not nearly be at the level
in which it is today.

All I can say is that everytime I see a picture from
Chandra or Hubble, or see the images of Mars from a
rover, I am very happy that an org like NASA is
around.

Ryan Z

> From: George Perkins [mailto:george@...]

> If it goes through, NASA's budget is increased 5% which isn't much
> of an increase but it's something but will it be enough to pay for
> it all? Mars, I imagine, will be especially expensive.

It depends how it's done.

If they don't do it the NASA way (and try and reinvent the wheel every five minutes) then it could be done affordably over a decade or two. A reusable OTV would be a good start. The technology could proove itself boosting stillites into non-LEO orbits and returning them for fixing when they go wrong or for refueling. In such a system all you'd need to launch a relatively small amount of rocket-fuel rather than the weight and complexity of a whole-stage. That should have savings. Being able to extend life and recovering 'stillborn' satillites, such a system might even be able to cover the cost of it's own development.

And wouldn't that be a nice change?

The OTV could be used to send cargo and men to the moon. Since the OTV would already be subsidising it's costs (at minimum) and the manned-module *should* be ISS/Mir based module, costs should again be rather low. If it proves reasonable to mine ice on the Moon, the OTV could take it back to LEO. By the time we get to MArs, the OTV should be mature technology, and the Mars modules can be Moon-based. Since both have been in use for some time cost could be kept below astronomical.

Of course if Dubya has his way it'll be (disposable?) nuclear-thermal rockets all the way. And won't that be fun, easy and cheap, boys and girls?

ANTIcarrot.

"Of course if Dubya has his way it'll be (disposable?) nuclear-
thermal rockets all the way. And won't that be fun, easy and cheap,
boys and girls?" -- ANTIcarrot

LOL!

I keep seeing this nasty picture of the Lunar module sitting on Mars.

On Jan 9, 2004, at 12:34 PM, Ed Minchau wrote:

> --- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Al Globus wrote:
>>
>
>> Actually, I suspect the real contribution of the ISS is to get
> space
>> tourism started. Could have been done cheaper, perhaps, but the
> first
>> paying tourists went to the ISS, not anywhere else.
>>
>
> Al, the ISS is a microgravity lab; it can never be a tourist
> destination on the scale of, say, Hawaii. The two tourists who went
> there did so under the strenuous objections of NASA; if NASA had any
> say in the matter of who travels on Russian rockets, they wouldn't
> have gone at all.

I'm quite aware of that. Nonetheless, the first space tourists went to
the ISS. This is important, even if unforeseen, unplanned for,
extremely suboptimal and (by NASA) unwanted.

>
> Had Russia not deorbited Mir, then those tourists would surely have
> gone there instead of the ISS.

This is a good thing (I think). If they had gone to Mir the experience
would have been quite different. Mir was a great project, but by the
time Tito went up it was old, smelly, cluttered, and probably not that
much fun. ISS was nice and new, shinny, and Dennis had a great trip.
This was also important.
>
> Now if one is serious about space tourism, then there must be a
> destination suited to the task: something on the scale of the Queen
> Mary 2 or QE2 in size, capable of handling hundreds or even
> thousands of tourists at a time. There must also be a way to get
> large numbers of people into orbit at one time, some kind of space
> bus or a space elevator.

Great vision, but (IMHO) too big for the first step. I think the
X-Prize has the right idea. Start with 3 guys in a sub-orbital hop.
If they can make that even marginally profitable then go to the next
step.

>
> Furthermore, for tourism to succeed, it must make a profit and be
> done privately; NASA is ill-suited to the task (and it is well
> beyond NASA's mandate).

I couldn't agree more. However, NASA does do an excellent job of
supporting the airline industry, and a major part of their business is
tourism. NASA could be directed to do something similar for space
tourism. Actually, Rutan is using Dryden (I'm pretty sure, anyone
really know?) for his tests so NASA must be helping out to some degree.

>
> Ed
>
> Canada.
>

The materials in one asteroid (the largest ) are sufficient to make
orbital space colonies with ~150 times the surface area of the Earth in
usable real estate. See http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/
for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

Why don't we just wait a couple of days and see what the space policy
really is before pointing fingers?

On Jan 9, 2004, at 1:56 PM, Rick Fischer wrote:

> Does anyone on this list have anything good to say about the impending
> fundamental change in the U.S. space program?
>
> I will tell you that I work for NASA and am very happy that the
> detractors,
> many of them it appears, are not in any management position within the
> space
> agency. The constant political paranoia as to why a change is
> occurring, at
> what time and for what reasons are not what you should be thinking
> about.
>
> This group refers to itself as "Spacesettlers", and it irks me why the
> populous here doesn't want to take advantage of another direction in
> space
> travel, or space colonization when its staring you in the face,
> instead of
> anguishing in low earth orbit for another 20 years.
>
> I'm not pointing fingers at anyone in particular here, just the general
> vibes that are being passed along on this group are troublesome.
>
> P.S. Estimates of a program like this would generate a million new
> jobs.
> Something to think about if you are looking for viable employment.
>
> Rick Fischer
> rick.fischer@...
>
> Inside KSC.com
> http://www.insideksc.com
>
> Join the Inside KSC Yahoo List Group
> mailto:inside_ksc-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> From: Al Globus [mailto:aglobus@...]
> Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 2:30 PM
> To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Bush's space plan
>
> On Jan 9, 2004, at 11:18 AM, Combs, Mike wrote:
>
>>
>>> The one good thing clinton did with the ISS was to
>>> convert it from a primary US program with some
>>> international support to a truly international
>>> endeavor.
>>
>> While agreeing with many of your other points, what would prompt you
>> to say
>> this? The general consensus is that Clinton's decision to bring
>> Russia into
>> the program was a complete disaster, and rather than saving expense
>> instead
>> made the station more expensive for the US
>
> The ISS was nearly cancelled just before the Russians came on board, I
> think the margin in the House was about 3-5 votes. If they hadn't
> brought the Russians in, there probably wouldn't be a space station
> today -- which may have been a good thing. Actually, although the ISS
> is too expensive and not very capable, bringing the Russians in did
> exactly what it was supposed to do: improve ties between Russia and the
> US and keep at least some Russian technical people occupied NOT
> building bombs for third world dictators.
>
> Actually, I suspect the real contribution of the ISS is to get space
> tourism started. Could have been done cheaper, perhaps, but the first
> paying tourists went to the ISS, not anywhere else.
>
> The materials in one asteroid (the largest ) are sufficient to make
> orbital space colonies with ~150 times the surface area of the Earth in
> usable real estate. See http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/
> for details.
>
> Al Globus
> CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
> http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html
>
> Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
> position of any organization I'm familiar with.
>
> D=egroup
> web/S05083543:HM/EXP73762818/A53618/R=0/*http://
> www.netflix.com/Def
> ault?mqso_178338&partid=4116732> click here
>
> D=egroupmai
> l/S=:HM/A53618/rand6791196>
>
> _____
>
> Canada.
>
The International Space Station's (ISS) most important legacy may be
jump-starting space tourism. Consider: the first space tourist, Dennis
Tito, was supposed to go to the Soviet era Mir space station. Under
pressure from NASA, Russia de-orbited the Mir which resulted in Mr.
Tito going to the ISS instead. Now the Mir was a terrific space
station, but by the time of Tito's trip it was also old, smelly,
crowded and probably not all that nice. The ISS was brand new, shiny,
much more roomy, etc. Mr. Tito came back to Earth with glowing accounts
of how great space is. Would his experience have been as good on Mir?

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

On Jan 9, 2004, at 1:56 PM, Rick Fischer wrote:

> P.S. Estimates of a program like this would generate a million new
> jobs.
> Something to think about if you are looking for viable employment.
>

Considering that Bush will borrow about $1 trillion in his first 4
years and plans to borrow another $1.5 trillion in his next term this
may be a problem. That's $2.5 trillion in future taxes someday plus
(at 5% interest) $125 billion per year until then to service the debt.
If we want to hire another million people, lets make the hard decisions
now and cut something or raise taxes.

If the dinosaurs had a space program, they'd still be here.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

> From: Al Globus [mailto:aglobus@...]

> This is a good thing (I think). If they had gone to Mir the
> experience
> would have been quite different. Mir was a great project, but by the
> time Tito went up it was old, smelly, cluttered, and probably
> not that
> much fun. ISS was nice and new, shinny, and Dennis had a
> great trip.
> This was also important.

I can't help but wonder how difficult it would be to put another Mir up there. Surely it would be reasonably profitable.
Mir cost: $80M
Launch cost (proton): $120M

Soyuz cost (manned): $40M
Ticket cost: $5M

With two passengers and one pilot, launch costs could be recooped after twenty launches. Now all you need is a few dozen rich nuts who want to go up and a bigger nut to pay for the whole thing.

ANTIcarrot.

--- ANTIcarrot wrote:
> I can't help but wonder how difficult it would be to
> put another Mir up there. Surely it would be
> reasonably profitable.
> Mir cost: $80M
> Launch cost (proton): $120M
>
> Soyuz cost (manned): $40M
> Ticket cost: $5M
>
> With two passengers and one pilot, launch costs
> could be recooped after twenty launches. Now all you
> need is a few dozen rich nuts who want to go up and
> a bigger nut to pay for the whole thing.
>
> ANTIcarrot.
>
There is also the costs of the progress resupply
missions, the price of a cosmonaut to live in and
maintain the station, and the marching army of
engineers on the ground to ensure safe operations,
cost of maintaining star city training and not least
of all, insurance costs.

Currently even the soyuz venture has many hidden costs
which are paid for directly and indirectly by both the
Russian government and the US government (via
subsidies).

Don't mean that it can't be done, but I think it would
take a lot more launches than 20 to recoup the costs.
I'd be really interested to see the profit margin
associated with each tourist.

Ryan Z

On Jan 9, 2004, at 2:04 PM, Arthur P. Smith wrote:

>> This group refers to itself as "Spacesettlers", and it irks me why the
>> populous here doesn't want to take advantage of another direction in
>> space
>> travel, or space colonization when its staring you in the face,
>> instead of
>> anguishing in low earth orbit for another 20 years.
>>

Some of us think the nation would be better served supporting large
numbers of people in low-Earth orbit (presumably tourists at first, but
NASA supports the airline industry and they fly a lot of tourists)
rather than putting a very small number of people very far away at
great taxpayer expense.

That said, the Moon mission (if it actually happens, note that the date
is AFTER Bush won't be president, for sure) could be very useful if it
focuses on developing better Earth-to-orbit transportation and using
lunar materials. If a solar power satellite were used for power at
night that would be great too, but the Bush administration really likes
nukes so they'll probably go that way.

If the dinosaurs had a space program, they'd still be here.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

On Jan 9, 2004, at 4:38 PM, Ryan Z wrote:

> --- Ed Minchau wrote:
>> Furthermore, for tourism to succeed, it must make a
>> profit and be
>> done privately; NASA is ill-suited to the task (and
>> it is well
>> beyond NASA's mandate).
>>
>>

NASA provides significant support to the airline industry. Many of
their flights are filled with tourists.

The dinosaurs were destroyed by an asteroid because they weren't
space-faring. It's almost as if Gaia then thought "Well, dinosaurs
worked pretty well, but space-faring is necessary. Maybe I'll should
try mammals this time." Humanity is now developing systems to detect
and deflect asteroids, and could build orbital space colonies to spread
beyond Earth to insure life would survive a planetary catastrophe.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

On Jan 13, 2004, at 11:00 AM, ANTIcarrot wrote:

> I can't help but wonder how difficult it would be to put another Mir
> up there. Surely it would be reasonably profitable.
> Mir cost: $80M
>

Where's you get this number?

Don't forget operations costs. The shuttle was actually developed with
only a 15% overrun, but accomplished this by pushing costs out to
operations with disasterous results.
The dinosaurs were destroyed by an asteroid because they weren't
space-faring. It's almost as if Gaia then thought "Well, dinosaurs
worked pretty well, but space-faring is necessary. Maybe I'll should
try mammals this time." Humanity is now developing systems to detect
and deflect asteroids, and could build orbital space colonies to spread
beyond Earth to insure life would survive a planetary catastrophe.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

--- In spacesettlers, Al Globus wrote:

> On Jan 9, 2004, at 4:38 PM, Ryan Z wrote:

>> --- Ed Minchau wrote:

>>> Furthermore, for tourism to succeed, it must make a profit and be
>>> done privately; NASA is ill-suited to the task (and it is well
>>> beyond NASA's mandate).

> NASA provides significant support to the airline industry. Many
> of their flights are filled with tourists.

More on this, please. Not the "filled with tourists" part.
The "NASA provides significant support to the airline industry"
part. I did not know about this.

Xenophile (just when I think I've got it all figured out...)

--- Xenophile wrote:

> More on this, please. Not the "filled with
> tourists" part.
> The "NASA provides significant support to the
> airline industry"
> part. I did not know about this.
>
Remember the first A in nasa is aeronautics. They are
very involved in the creation of air traffic control
systems, testing new engines, plane design, wind
tunnel modelling, fluid dynamics, etc. It doesn't get
alot of attention on this discussion group but its
fairly well documented at
http://www.aero-space.nasa.gov/.

I think John Lewis center is big on this. I know for
a fact that Ames is heavily involved in air traffic
control (alas their wind tunnel was retired a year or
two ago).

Ryan Z

--- Xenophile wrote:

> More on this, please. Not the "filled with
> tourists" part.
> The "NASA provides significant support to the
> airline industry"
> part. I did not know about this.
>
I'm sorry, I said lewis before but I meant Glenn
Research Center (GRC is at Lewis field). Dryden is
also very heavy in the aeronautics field.