The Dark (seriously, very dark) future of human space flight

[AngelLestat]

The US defense budget just got boosted this year by 38 billion dollars for 2016 as an "emergency war funding". More than 2 times the annual budget of NASA.

That is stupid, to fight what war?? They had 6 times more budget than arabia and like 20 times more army, and if arabia attack someone, all the other countries needs to answer, so is not USA alone.. which by the way they spent the same than the rest of the world combined.

Science isn't supposed to be a popularity contest or a gladiatorial sideshow. The MSL and Philae landings showed that many non space-minded people can get excited about robotic missions and maybe even be inspired by them. Maybe not as much as boots on the ground on Mars might, but at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'd rather that the limited budgets that are available be focused on the highest scientific ROI rather than "inspiring the masses" (whatever that means).

You dont need to remplace all probes missions with manned mission. The same that you can not remplace the need for manned missions with probes missions..

I can not say it any clearer than that. Probes already did what they suppose to did.. now is our turn to go venus or mars.

The same will be true for an under ice europa mission, first you sent probes, then after some missions if there is still a good potential for discoveries or goals, you sent a manned mission (in case you can deal with radiation).

And if NASA management are smart, they will do every once a while what people wants!

Because that is money from the US citizens, and they will allow huge budgets if they like what they see.

Also is a way to decrease army expenditures.

True. My point is that people usually mischaracterize US spending as being "50% military" when in fact only ~20% of US federal spending is military, and that drops a bunch of you include even just State spending. The US is better compared to the entire EU. Also, people fail to realize that the majority of US spending is social programs by a long shot.

from 50% to 20%?? you really believe that? sources?

Also the cost of welfare is to counter the weapons that they also sale to the zones of conflict.

Take a look what it will happen if US citizens keep voting wrong or ignoring this problem:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

This is the budget predicted for the 2045 in case USA dont reduce its budget..

The stupidest army race in the history.. And eventually USA will lost against China of course.

All that to what???? They can not enter in war... is silly. Nobody can today.. The only they can do is encourage civil wars in afrika to sale more weapons to them, and once every a while enter in those conflicts to said... stop fighting between you two (as excuse, to move all your army and show that is "usefull")

Meanwhile the real threat is terrorism which can not be stopped with armies, in fact is encourage by them.

And all the democracy countries who spent ZERO in defence.. had no problem and not risk to enter in any war or conflict.

To all US citizens... you need to pressure your goverment to stop this madness. Only then the world would be able to focus in the space.

[cpast]

from 50% to 20%?? you really believe that? sources?

Also the cost of welfare is to counter the weapons that they also sale to the zones of conflict.

"Welfare" refers to domestic programs. I'm unclear how that can be "to counter the weapons sold to the zones of conflict." As for a source, here is a think-tank source on a US budget breakdown for FY2014. 24% on Social Security, 24% on four major national health-insurance programs, 18% on *all* defense spending, 11% for more social safety net programs, 7% for interest on the debt, and the rest to all other federal spending.

High numbers for defense spending are the result of someone ignoring 60% of federal spending for procedural reasons. Essentially, most welfare programs are run as entitlement programs, in which the government must send X amount of money to people who show Y reason that they deserve it. These programs don't need to have Congress pass a law every year giving them money; such programs (there are other kinds as well) are called mandatory spending, because the money is spent unless Congress intervenes to change things. Discretionary spending is the opposite; Congress needs to explicitly pass an appropriations act every year to spend money on discretionary things. Here's the thing: Defense spending is virtually all discretionary, while welfare spending is largely mandatory. So, by ignoring money that must be spend and only counting money Congress explicitly voted to spend this year, you get defense as a huge part of federal spending. If you consider *all* federal spending, you get defense as less than a fifth of *federal* spending; it's even less if you consider that the feds spend just a bit over half of US government spending, and states spend almost nothing on defense (they do, however, spend *lots* on education, as do local governments).

Basically: Before you believe something you read about US government spending, look at exactly what it's saying. If it's talking about percent of discretionary spending, that means that it's excluding the spending that the US government will do if Congress doesn't pass anything about anything (which is largely welfare). If it's talking about federal spending in general, know that the US federal government specializes in different things than state governments and local governments; for instance, education, which gets *lots* of money but very little of it at the federal level (similarly, defense gets very little money at the state level).

[Mighty1]

It's simply the problem of money. Humans spend 1.7 trillion dollars just to kill each other more efficiently and quickly. Think what we could achieve with that kind of resources on the planet and beyond if it would be used in other areas (climate, education, production, space exploration).

When we start to look out instead of in then a new golden age will start for humanity. The problem is that human nature is not like that. We like killing each other. Even in KSP, which is a nonviolent game, there are mods which sole purpose is destruction.

[WinkAllKerb'']

Do you mean most bipede only act like animals, plant, smaller and bigger entity fighting each other for there terittory, feeding, and reproduction ? hum may be your right then, lot of bipede are not superior to animals in anyway, usually especially thoose who feel superior to animals or else and often, not human at all xD

[Red Iron Crown]

Ladies and gentlemen, please keep the discussion away from politics; military spending and this-country-vs-that-country talk leads to acrimony and hard feelings.

[ChrisSpace]

You're assuming that nothing will change between now and 2030, even though we have a decade and a half for things to progress.

Ah, the old 'everything will change and we all live happily ever after' trick. If anything, the American regime will become even more militarily focused and even less space focused over the next few decades.

The SLS will get canceled due to short-sighted politicians, and we'll be left with no manned spaceflight outside of Musk at all.

I agree, the SLS will suffer from the same fate as the buran or Ares-1X. I do not agree, however, that SpaceX will be the only manned space launcher left. While they will be the only one in North America, China and India will continue to fire people into space long after NASA, the ESA and the Russian space agency become virtually dead.

China and India aren't more likely to send humans beyond LEO than NASA, unless they get a big budget boost.

India and China need to boost their space budget by a large margin then and even though they could, they don't plan to. SpaceX doesn't have a budget like a national space agency has.

They actually do plan to increase their space budgets, both due to political interest, and as a side effect for the nations' rapidly growing economies. India is already building a manned capsule for launch in 2016, and China isn't putting any major barriers in front of its SLS-like mega launch vehicle.

As for SpaceX, they are already making enough money to begin developing the required technologies for their mars missions, and they will become much wealthier once reusability brings down launch costs. This is because launching satelites will be cheaper and hence more customers will do it. And since SpaceX will develop reusability sooner than other launch companies, they will get even more customers who would otherwise choose other companies for their satelites.

They will really invest money and time to do a Manned Mission on Mars only if it is financially interesting to do, and currently, it's not.

You really think that? There are so many ways the colonization of mars could bring SpaceX profits like it has never seen before. Some examples:

- Even if only one in a million people in the united states alone is capable and willing to live on the mars colony for an initial travel cost of $10 million, that gives SpaceX over $3 billion, just from people wanting to get to mars.

- Right now, soil samples from the lunar surface are practically worth their weight in plutonium, and mars rocks will be just as valuable. While the influx of mars soil samples will weaken its value, it will still be a commodity comparable with gold or diamond.

- If just grabbing the dirt isn't enough, mining the ore underneath could be very profitable. Remember, we are talking about an entire planet that has been left alone for 4.5 billion years, slowly building up mineral deposits from asteroid strikes.

- Even if mining minerals from mars itself isn't getting the trillions of dollars you want, mars would make a great waystation for spacecraft heading outwards towards the asteroid belt, which has hundreds of billions of dollars of minerals per asteroid

- Tourism could also be quite profitable. There have already been people who spent tens of millions of dollars just to get a joyride to the ISS. The surface of mars would be even more exciting, and there will inevitably be many millionaires wanting to go there

Right now countries needs to stop making new weapons or keep putting money in army research, because is completely pointless today.

I agree. Since when did peaceful diplomacy become so uncool? Right off the top of my head I can name three nuclear wars just waiting to happen..

The graphs that show a dire decline in NASA's budget are almost always showing NASA's budget as a share of the U.S.'s total budget, which is irrelevant.

It is completely relevant! It shows how much the American government values space exploration compared with everything else! I could even say it is more relevant than the budget itself!

Roscosmos's budget got a big boost in 2013 and has been steadily increasing for the last five years.

That graph shows the budget up to 2013, which is just before Sanctions, political unrest, oil problems and everything else blew a smoldering crater in the Russian economy.

The economic benefits for space exploration come decades after the investment. It's hard to justify spending large sums of cash for a return on your investment years down the road when investing in smaller scale infrastructure gives you an almost immediate, all be it much smaller return.

Elon Musk and Xi Jinping have both made it very clear they are both looking on the long-term end of the scale.

What USA budget should be:

10% - NASA

7.5% - military (gets higher in war time if war started by another country, goes to zero if we want to start a war)

35% - education

20% - infastructure

15% - other

everything left over - paying back debt

military overlaps with government

other is research and police/paramedics/firefighters

We should do this plan. I like this plan. Are you going to be busy with anything in 2016? If not, you should run for president.

Take a look in apollo program, at one point was cancelled just for one reason.. lack of public interest.

And a presidential change. And the Vietnam war. Mostly the war.

This is sad by the way:

Military expenditures 2014.

I have seen this statistic many times before. When one country has a higher military budget than every other country on earth combined, you know we have a problem.

And the things they are doing with that money is... horrifying.

Take a look what it will happen if US citizens keep voting wrong or ignoring this problem:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...y_expenditures

This is the budget predicted for the 2045 in case USA dont reduce its budget..

The stupidest army race in the history.. And eventually USA will lost against China of course.

This... is terrifying. To be fair, the growing budgets of India and China are largely just because they have rapidly growing economies, so expect the same kind of growth with their space programs. Also, when china transitions towards a democracy they will inevitably ease off on their military force, persuading its rival India to do the same. India also won't have to worry about Pakistan any more, so its military will be weakened further.

Anyway, enough of my ranting for now, what's your opinions?

[Red Iron Crown]

My opinion is that you should have read the post immediately previous to yours.

Edit: Sorry, ChrisSpace, that was harsher than I like to be. I can see that you were probably composing when I posted before, and either way you didn't deserve that sort of snark. My apologies.

Edited April 29, 2015 by Red Iron Crown

[billbobjebkirk]

I say that a space race with China is not only improbable, but also unhelpful, as it would only lead to a crash program that would never go anywhere.

[stellarator]

One curious story abiut moon race was that Von braun didn't like the Lunar rendezvous trip for one reason: It was too simple. he liked the earth-rendezvous Trip for the contrary reason: It was difficult, expensive... and it will require an orbital infraestructure. If US would follow the Von barun model, probably were more difficult a cancellation, because it was an infrastructure assembled and working and it should be used...

What do you think about that?

[billbobjebkirk]

That's one reason I like Boeing's mars mission proposal, it gives us an SEP tug that practically begs to be used more than once. My ultimate scenario would be a mars mission similar to the one proposed for STS, but i recognise that that will not happen.

[Wesreidau]

So if every dollar spent making rockets for NASA produced $7 - $40 of economic benefit then every dollar spent making rockets for the DoD would also pay itself off. Yet this thread treats military budgets like taking money from homeless beggars, throwing it into a hole and burning it. I'm confused.

The one thing I do know is that the military considered the moon to be 'high ground' worth sticking a few flags on. The far side of the moon was seriously considered by both powers for a missile base from which undetectable first strikes could be made against the other's terrestrial military targets. One of the major objectives of manned orbital flight was to demonstrate the technical prowess needed to operate reliable and accurate ICBMs. Before Hubble looked out, Hexagon looked down. Even today, the Air Force has over three billion dollars a year in space program procurement and RnD. That's a pie aerospace companies get slices of. And who built NASA's rockets? Raytheon, Grumman and Lockheed. How did they learn how to make rockets? How did the human race learn how to make rockets? Gunpowder in bamboo, fired over troops to scare them. Gunpowder in an iron tube, fired over ships to scare them. Alcohol in a steel tube, fired at London to scare them. Kerosene in an aluminum tube, fired over America to scare them. Apollo wasn't aimed at the moon, it was aimed at Moscow. We'll reach Mars when we aim for Beijing.

There's your dark future of space flight, but its no worse than its ever been.

[Robotengineer]

So if every dollar spent making rockets for NASA produced $7 - $40 of economic benefit then every dollar spent making rockets for the DoD would also pay itself off. Yet this thread treats military budgets like taking money from homeless beggars, throwing it into a hole and burning it. I'm confused.

The one thing I do know is that the military considered the moon to be 'high ground' worth sticking a few flags on. The far side of the moon was seriously considered by both powers for a missile base from which undetectable first strikes could be made against the other's terrestrial military targets. One of the major objectives of manned orbital flight was to demonstrate the technical prowess needed to operate reliable and accurate ICBMs. Before Hubble looked out, Hexagon looked down. Even today, the Air Force has over three billion dollars a year in space program procurement and RnD. That's a pie aerospace companies get slices of. And who built NASA's rockets? Raytheon, Grumman and Lockheed. How did they learn how to make rockets? How did the human race learn how to make rockets? Gunpowder in bamboo, fired over troops to scare them. Gunpowder in an iron tube, fired over ships to scare them. Alcohol in a steel tube, fired at London to scare them. Kerosene in an aluminum tube, fired over America to scare them. Apollo wasn't aimed at the moon, it was aimed at Moscow. We'll reach Mars when we aim for Beijing.

There's your dark future of space flight, but its no worse than its ever been.

There is absolutely no military advantage achievable by going to Mars. If China were to challenge the USA to go to Mars, then we might go to Mars just to prove our 'Exceptionalism'.

[Wesreidau]

there is absolutely no military advantage achievable by going to mars. If china were to challenge the usa to go to mars, then we might go to mars just to prove our 'exceptionalism'.

q.e.d.

[xenomorph555]

One curious story abiut moon race was that Von braun didn't like the Lunar rendezvous trip for one reason: It was too simple. he liked the earth-rendezvous Trip for the contrary reason: It was difficult, expensive... and it will require an orbital infraestructure. If US would follow the Von barun model, probably were more difficult a cancellation, because it was an infrastructure assembled and working and it should be used...

What do you think about that?

Von Braun and Korolov both had the same idea; build a giant space station->build expedition ship in orbit->fly to the moon.

I guess it pays off in the end, having cyclers and stuff like that.

[stellarator]

Von Braun and Korolov both had the same idea; build a giant space station->build expedition ship in orbit->fly to the moon.

I guess it pays off in the end, having cyclers and stuff like that.

What a fantastic future could it be... But here we are, stranded on a blue ball near to its destruction because a monkeys with superiority complex

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

To bring up robotic exploration again - you're right. There is 0 things a human can do, that robot can't. Except one thing - Bring a sense of achievement. It's a better feeling to hear "Man lands on Mars!" instead of "Curiosity Rover lands on Mars!".

It would ultimately boost morale for space flight, and in turn boost funding.

[Kibble]

There is 0 things a human can do, that robot can't.

Actually robots are absolutely terrible at doing things they weren't built to do. Since humans were built (evolved) to survive unassisted in the unforgiving dynamic world of nature, we are pretty good at finding ways to use what we have to do things we weren't specifically meant to. Canadarm can interact (precisely) only with things that have a PDGF on it, a human can interact (sloppily) with anything we can get our fingers around.

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

Actually robots are absolutely terrible at doing things they weren't built to do. Since humans were built (evolved) to survive unassisted in the unforgiving dynamic world of nature, we are pretty good at finding ways to use what we have to do things we weren't specifically meant to. Canadarm can interact (precisely) only with things that have a PDGF on it, a human can interact (sloppily) with anything we can get our fingers around.

But you still get my point, right? I mean, that was to please the anti-human crowd. (JOKE. THAT WAS A JOKE)

[PakledHostage]

What a fantastic future could it be... But here we are, stranded on a blue ball near to its destruction because a monkeys with superiority complex

But maybe if more of those "monkeys" (we're more closely related to apes than monkeys, BTW) appreciated how extremely precious this blue ball is and that we're not going to be able to live anywhere but its surface for many generations to come, we wouldn't treat it so poorly. The idea that we could teraform another planet and live there after this one is trashed is nothing more than science fiction at this point.

Edited May 15, 2015 by PakledHostage

[Mr Shifty]

It's a better feeling to hear "Man lands on Mars!" instead of "Curiosity Rover lands on Mars!".

It would ultimately boost morale for space flight, and in turn boost funding.

This argument gets used quite a bit. Here's a chart of NASA's inflation adjusted budget for the last several decades:

Note particularly that after the moon landing in 1969, the budget decreased every year throughout the whole time people were walking on the moon. That gigantic accomplishment did not result in a long-term renewed interest in space and more money for space travel.

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

This argument gets used quite a bit. Here's a chart of NASA's inflation adjusted budget for the last several decades:

https://spacedoutclass.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/nasa-budget-chart-s.jpg

Note particularly that after the moon landing in 1969, the budget decreased every year throughout the whole time people were walking on the moon. That gigantic accomplishment did not result in a long-term renewed interest in space and more money for space travel.

Sure, there wasn't a budget increase, but people started dreaming of the future. Think of all the organizations that where made because humans saw the Earth as it was. People where excited for the future.

[alexman142]

Sure, there wasn't a budget increase, but people started dreaming of the future. Think of all the organizations that where made because humans saw the Earth as it was. People where excited for the future.

I think that if that were the case, then we'd be on mars at this point.

I don't get all the pessimism in this thread regarding NASA. Sure, China is doing cool things, but I doubt that they can get to the moon anytime in the near future; they are all talk right now. Their budget is lower than even Russia, so I highly doubt that they can do it. Even if by some miracle they manage to get to the moon, who would really care? We have done it already and the moon offers nothing of value. We can't colonize it, we can't terraform it, heck, we can't live on it. We've done it already, lets move on.

India doesn't even want to.

Space X? Space X is basically NASA at this point. Them and and United Launch Alliance would not be around if it weren't for the United States as a customer for their services.

NASA is taking it cautiously, which I support whole heartily. As much as I hate to say it, we need to take our time. We needed the ISS to learn how to live in low gravity for long periods of time. The whole Space Shuttle debacle taught us many things. Now we are ready to go to Mars. Mars is not going anywhere.

The true test of Space Flight is making it affordable. NASA is on a clear sustainable path, which I applaud them for.

[B787_300]

I think that if that were the case, then we'd be on mars at this point.

No, no, no, no, no. This is a TERRIBLE argument. Remember WHY we went to the moon. It was to beat the USSR to the moon. Once it was obvious that we had reliable rockets and that we landed on the moon and the USSR had 3 explosions of their moon rocket and cancelled it there was no reason for the US to continue to go to the moon or to push on to mars. As a side note, the USSR severely beat the US in the Space Race. The only thing that we beat them in are some long term spacecraft (voyager, surveyor) and getting to mars (and doing !SCIENCE!), and landing on the moon.

Space X? Space X is basically NASA at this point. Them and and United Launch Alliance would not be around if it weren't for the United States as a customer for their services.

SpaceX is NOT NASA. and they are two different organizations and have different goals. Without getting too much into the politics. NASA is very constrained by the US government, who controls the budget (congress) and the direction (executive). NASA's goal has been changing about every 8 (sometimes 4 years) as the presidents change. Also NASA has to cover almost all of Aerospace Science. So NASA does not have a bunch of money to spend. SpaceX on the other hand is (currently) a launch provider. They provide the rocket, they don't really deal with the payload design and manufacturing (yet). YES they are making Dragon V2 (DragonRider) and have made and flown Dragon (cargo only). They are not responsible for large amounts of aerospace science. So SpaceX is NOT NASA.

NASA is taking it cautiously, which I support whole heartily. As much as I hate to say it, we need to take our time.

This is the wrong idea. In the 50s and 60s most of the rockets NASA launched failed. Even the great Saturn V had tons of development issues. NASA needs to stop being so worried about the safety and being OVERLY cautious and get back to testing things. NASA should be pushing the leading edge of space technology, not having other companies do it for them. And if NASA is not going to push the edge they are going to end up being a regulatory agency like the FAA or the FDA. I am not saying they should throw caution to the wind, but they should NOT be afraid of failure and they should be less cautious development.

The whole Space Shuttle debacle taught us many things.

it was not as much as a debacle as people thought it was. It did not live up to its design or press requirements but that is because there were too many cooks in the kitchen. The main reason why the shuttle was designed the way it was was because of the USAF. Originally all military payloads would have been launched on the Shuttle. As such the payload bay was much bigger than NASA wanted it to be. (The USAF getting involved was because of funding issues) The shuttle also had to have the capability to land AT the launch site after ONE orbit of the earth. This was a hard requirement to fulfill and thus caused the design to be bigger and heavier. Over all if NASA had been able to design the shuttle it wanted and not the one the USAF wanted it MIGHT have been better than what it ended up being.

Even though the shuttle had issues it could do things that no other spacecraft can or could. It could take off with a large payload and then land on a runway with said payload still in the cargo bay. It had a great UP mass capability and an astounding Down mass capability. It was the only craft flown to ORBIT that landed like a plane. and it helped do a ton of science that would not have been possible without it. Also the ISS would have been a LOT smaller and made up of more pieces had the shuttle not aided in the construction.

The true test of Space Flight is making it affordable.

Yes it is, but NASA is a research organization. The bill should be second or third on the list of priorities, not the only thing on the list like it is now. Let NASA do the research and companies like SpaceX and ULA and Ariane make cheap, reliable launchers.

NASA is on a clear sustainable path, which I applaud them for.

no they are not. The path of nasa changes every 4 or 8 years. sometimes faster if congress gets involved because of pork barrel politics...

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Over all the future is not TOOOOOO dark. I mean Mars One is a Scam, but we have Virgin Galactic for the tourism, Blue Origin (who just tested their rocket) for some more tourism and possibly crewed missions to orbit, Bigelow for large inflatable habitats and stations, SpaceX for launching on the inexpensive side of things, ULA for when cost is no object, SNC for their Dreamchaser (if it gets more funding), Boeing and the CST-100 for some LEO crewed missions, Lockheed Martin and the Jupiter Tug for servicing and maneuvering, the up and coming ISRO, heck even Iran's space program is starting to get interesting.

[Kibble]

Note particularly that after the moon landing in 1969, the budget decreased every year throughout the whole time people were walking on the moon. That gigantic accomplishment did not result in a long-term renewed interest in space and more money for space travel.

One example is hardly a pattern.

[Mr Shifty]

One example is hardly a pattern.

Never said so, but when the only example we have runs counter to your argument, you have to do more than wave your hand at it to make your point.