What if you were given your country's space program?

[Skyrunner27]

NASA, okay lets see what we can do.

-Install research back into the Ares-I part of constellation.

-Pull out part of the funding for the ISS

-Put more funds into the SLS and Orion

-Request more funds from congress by instating a Space party into the system.

-Put out PSAs describing the cost each American pays for a launch compared to a military helicopter, describe how ISS reaserch has helpped us on the ground(Not spinoffs of construction)

-Request for the removal on the ban of China in space flight.

-Describe a long term plan.

-Ignore the Moon and go to Mars

-Build an all American space station incase of rising political tensions

-Launch unmanned missions to study the moons of Uranus and Neptune

-Continue the Crew development program including Sierra Nevada's Dreamchaser, SpaceX Dragon Rider, and Boeing's CT-100.

-Manned Flyby of Mars by 2019

Edited November 27, 2013 by Skyrunner27

[Nibb31]

NASA, okay lets see what we can do.

-Install research back into the Ares-I part of constellation.

Why ? Ares-I was a bad idea. Its only purpose was to give ATK a job in between Ares-V flights.

-Pull out part of the funding for the ISS

That would be silly now that it's finally finished and finally producing science, which is what it was designed for.

-Put more funds into the SLS and Orion

What makes you think they are underfunded?

-Request more funds from congress by instating a Space party into the system.

Huh?

-Put out PSAs describing the cost each American pays for a launch compared to a military helicopter, describe how ISS reaserch has helpped us on the ground(Not spinoffs of construction)

But you want to defund it?

-Request for the removal on the ban of China in space flight.

What ban ?

-Describe a long term plan.

Which is?

-Ignore the Moon and go to Mars

Which is the current plan. Many disagree with it though.

-Build an all American space station incase of rising political tensions

-Launch unmanned missions to study the moons of Uranus and Neptune

-Continue the Crew development program including Sierra Nevada's Dreamchaser, SpaceX Dragon Rider, and Boeing's CT-100.

With what money?

An International Space Station is actually a means of preventing political tensions in the first place.

-Manned Flyby of Mars by 2019

Zero scientific value.

[Nibb31]

This is what I would do if I was NASA.

- Cut SLS. It's going nowhere and its fixed costs are going to eat up most of NASA's exploration budget without even launching. NASA should not be designing launchers. The private sector does that pretty well and it's not groundbreaking technology any more.

- Instead, concentrate on mission requirements and procure launches as needed. If necessary, use the same process as CCDev to develop a heavy launcher, but I think it's possible to build an affordable infrastructure with current off-the-shelf offerings.

- Decide on an achievable destination and a roadmap to get there. If Congress or the Prez want Mars, then make it a Mars round trip, but I would rather go for a semi-permanent Moon base to develop technologies and validate experience for ISRU, closed-loop life-support, radiation mitigation and partial-gravity. These are strategic technologies that need to be developed if we ever want humans to survive elsewhere in the solar system.

- Develop the actual mission payloads: habs, landers, vehicles, scientific packages and tech demonstrator testbeds. The emphasis should be, whenever possible, on reusable systems and refueling. Ideally, this would be something like an Orion that would dock with a reusable EDS and then rendez-vous with a reusable lander in lunar orbit.

[p3asant]

With what money?

Nasa's budged would be doubled if it went to 1% of total (0.5 now). That'd be quite an increase.

As a Finn and with 1% of total budged, i'm thinking a sounding rocket a year. Maybe two?

[KOCOUR]

My country doesnt have spaceprogram fortunately. our economics does have enough problems even without it.

[Ravenchant]

Same here. I'm not going to touch our politics, but if we ever start a space program, many people would want the first rocket to point at somthing other than space...

[Kryten]

What ban ?

That at least is a real thing. NASA is barred by congress from 'working bilaterally with Chinese citizens affiliated with a Chinese state enterprise or entity.'

[Xetalim]

As i am dutch, I will invest in astronauts.

And if possible, design new rockets for the ESA.

[maltesh]

I'd exchange it for store credit.

I'm not an experienced administrator or a skilled politician nor a space scientist. If it was given to me, I'd probably wind up breaking it.

[Sternface]

Not sure what I would do, but if women were in charge, we would already have seen interstellar travel. How else would they reach extrasolar planets made entirely of diamonds?

Lots of samples would be brought back. For science.

Edited November 27, 2013 by Sternface

[Skyrunner27]

Why ? Ares-I was a bad idea. Its only purpose was to give ATK a job in between Ares-V flights.

That would be silly now that it's finally finished and finally producing science, which is what it was designed for.

What makes you think they are underfunded?

Huh?

But you want to defund it?

What ban ?

Which is?

Which is the current plan. Many disagree with it though.

With what money?

An International Space Station is actually a means of preventing political tensions in the first place.

Zero scientific value.

I see you are upset from my mention of defunding the ISS. I guess I what I wanted to say is get the heck out of LEO. I mean nobody has gone past it since Apollo 17. A Mars flyby could do everything the ISS is doing and test the technology needed to reach Mars. The space party thing, yeah umm I was planning an even bigger thing but I don't want to ruin my chances to get into NASA later in life. Anyway that plan was mostly nonsensical. The Ares I as I always saw it was a cheaper alternative to the Ares V or SLS. If we kept the ISS fully funded it would allow the launch of the Orion for a lot less than launching the SLS or the Ares V which would be a waste. I kept the long term plan vague because the goal would be vague to avoid government cut backs from affecting it. Lets say launching a goal towards a Robotic grand tour or a Intersteller probe. Maybe even a plan for terraforming Mars and Venus or anything else that could be terraformed. Seeing your criticism now I would not change the funding but I would still attempt to get more funding from congress though. The PSAs I find the most important part of my plan as they attempt to attract public support. I also wanted to push for a nationalistic and less international view unlike what I personally would like to have because it draws more public support. Lets face it the public is the biggest hurdle Nasa has to face. Most people go to sleep whenever you mention science and NASA.

[Kryten]

What would be the point of launching Orion to LEO without something like SLS or Ares V available?

[Skyrunner27]

Since the commercial part of space flight is a thing I guess there is no point besides I guess launching it into space as part of a multipart space craft. I do think that since it already flyed it is close to being finished and therefore would shorten the gap between US spaceflights and allow crews to train for later missions to Mars, the moon, and beyond.

[Kryten]

No part of Ares I ever flew. 'Ares I-X' was a four-segment SRB left over from STS with a dummy upper stage; Ares I was to use a 5-segment motor. Even the flight computer was taken from an Atlas V.

[metalmouth7]

Canada has a LARGE supply of Uranium. Simply enough, we'd build up a supply of nuclear shaped charges, develop some Martian Colonial technologies (such as hydroponics, efficient construction equipment, ect.) and then fire off 40 lucky candidates on a one way trip to Mars, utilizing a modernized version of ORION. Perhaps we'll call it something more Canadian, like..... CANUPROP (Canadian-developed Nuclear Propulsion.) No need to waste time on the Moon - we've been there, we've seen that, and we REALLY need to move beyond LEO for a change. With that infrastructure in place, you could begin a large colonial effort within a few years.

[Bacterius]

Does New Zealand even have a space program? If it's anything like the rest, there probably isn't enough money to contract a launcher to make a single one-way trip to the ISS, so I guess nothing at all. Maybe repurpose it into a commercial suborbital flight agency, but that's too predictable. Nah, probably focus on research or astronomy or something, realistically other countries have the rest well in hand. I don't think I'm very proud of my country's space program, but then again, it isn't really my country - just the one I'm currently living in.

[11of10]

Well... I'd go bankrupt in two months by launching fireworks. I'm from Serbia

Jokes aside... If we even had anything in ways of space program, I'd use about 50% of MY budget in propaganda purposes, to motivate people, to get them all space happy. Motivated people can achieve a lot

Then, I'd see about a partnership with some commercial enterprises, to make going to LEO profitable, and take over that part.

Use the funds gained by that to make sort of a "space dock" and make a serious machine for further commercialisation of space. Including NERVA or NSWR ideas. If you can shove something into orbit cheaply, for a little more buck, you can shove it behind The Moon. Then, fire up the torch and go mine some rocks, haul it back home, profit.

That way, you actually do a lot of good for the entire world

[tom1499]

Pff, the Cyprus space program isn't really a space program as much as... not a space program. They don't have one. I think we inherit to ESA, but don't actually contribute. We have a space office though. I think. But the sad thing is rocketry is banned in Cyprus, so no model rockets for me. But say we started one, and no bans on rocketry existed I suppose I would start ACTUALLY BUILDING A ROCKET.

[Nibb31]

I see you are upset from my mention of defunding the ISS. I guess I what I wanted to say is get the heck out of LEO. I mean nobody has gone past it since Apollo 17. A Mars flyby could do everything the ISS is doing and test the technology needed to reach Mars. The space party thing, yeah umm I was planning an even bigger thing but I don't want to ruin my chances to get into NASA later in life. Anyway that plan was mostly nonsensical. The Ares I as I always saw it was a cheaper alternative to the Ares V or SLS. If we kept the ISS fully funded it would allow the launch of the Orion for a lot less than launching the SLS or the Ares V which would be a waste. I kept the long term plan vague because the goal would be vague to avoid government cut backs from affecting it. Lets say launching a goal towards a Robotic grand tour or a Intersteller probe. Maybe even a plan for terraforming Mars and Venus or anything else that could be terraformed. Seeing your criticism now I would not change the funding but I would still attempt to get more funding from congress though. The PSAs I find the most important part of my plan as they attempt to attract public support. I also wanted to push for a nationalistic and less international view unlike what I personally would like to have because it draws more public support. Lets face it the public is the biggest hurdle Nasa has to face. Most people go to sleep whenever you mention science and NASA.

At any rate, we all want more money. The problem is that increased funding simply isn't likely to happen. So if we were in charge of a space program, we simply couldn't have ISS and SLS and Orion and Ares I and unmanned exploration. The ISS is there and it cost a lot to build, so at this point, we want to really wring every drop of science we can get out of it.

Orion to LEO makes no sense. It's pretty much useless without some sort of mission module, whether that be a hab, a SEP tug or something else. It's problem is that it keeps being scrapped and redesigned. The SM design still isn't frozen and is being delayed yet again... The other problem is that no mission modules are being designed and Congress can't seem to agree on what the mission actually is, which means that NASA will have a spacecraft, a rocket that is too big and too expensive, and nothing for it to do.

Ares I was never really needed. It didn't have the performance to launch Orion and it certainly wouldn't have been cheap. Delta IV Heavy can already technically launch Orion to LEO, since that is how Orion will fly its first unmanned test flight. Of course, Delta would have to be modified for manned launches, but that would certainly be cheaper than developing a whole new launcher.

Terraforming is science fiction bull****. We are talking about using current space technologies (TRL > 6) with actual space agencies.

[Cheaterman]

Build cheap and small rockets like the MNMS from the americans - but even smaller, I want payloads in the hundreds of grams and I want operating costs to be as low as the price of a good car. Make it affordable enough to sell "NASA KITS" to KSP users to have their own satellite and run a space program from their garage. Earn loads of money contributing to the Kessler syndrome. Use this money to design lower weight life support systems, and send them into space using the R&D you invested for your small rockets - scale them up a bit (even JPL scales things down in the wind tunnel), and put a few humans into orbit. Oh and earn 10 extra millions as a prize if you can make it happen again less than two weeks later IIRC. Since these persons would be tourists, they'd pay much more for their ticket anyways.

[Yru0]

Well, Australia pretty much officially doesn't have a space program atm. But with 1% of the budget that'll give me ~3.5 bill to get stuff off the ground (probably kill the economy in the process, but SCIENCE!) I'd definitely start off by getting some Aussie-owned and run satellites into orbit, maybe use SpaceX as a launch-provider. Nothing spectacular, just the usual weather-sats, comms, etc, just a bit humiliating that we're still piggybacking on our allies' equipment even though we're the 12th richest nation!We had to ask China to borrow one to monitor bush fires...I mean, no offence to China but, really? After that maybe see if we could start getting our own science going. I'm not so sure if we'd have the weight to produce our own launcher, but I'd love to give it a shot. I read somewhere that the total development cost for the Dragon was 390 million or something (found it! http://www.parabolicarc.com/2011/05/31/nasa-analysis-falcon-9-cheaper-traditional-approach/ :3) so maybe it's feasible. I'd also definitely lease some of Bigelow's stations, just because I think its time they got some love, and it would definitely shake things up if AUSTRALIA had astronauts working on a space station. Maybe give some of the bigger boys a kick in the rear to get their act together, not mentioning any names.

Other than that, try to put something on the moon for national pride, try to do some Antarctic research considering we're meant to administer a fair chunk of it, and see if we can do some kind of partnership with other friendly countries, almost ESA style to help with funding. At 1% of their budget that'll be an extra cool 500 mil, or maybe a few more launches in a year - plus you know, international collaboration for the betterment of mankind and all that

[rasheed]

Well, Guyana pretty much officially doesn't have a space program atm. But with 5% of the budget that'll give me enough funds to start a tiny program and maybe send rockets to the edge of space.

[Mmmmyum]

I don't even know if 'my' country has a space program. "TaxiOrbital" (that probably won't make much sense to most).

On the other hand, if given the most promising space program, which is China's, I'd probably just continue what they're doing now

[crazyewok]

Id dump all my money into R&D and finding a easier cheaper way into orbit.

Things i would look at:

Restart NERVA and getting the engine up and working

Continue SKylon research

Orbital airships

Look into launch loops and space evelvators

Reopen project orion to see if it can be done safely given 2013 tec. This would be research ONLY until it can be proven safe.

Look at 100% fusion nuclear propulsion

[Skyler4856]

Daedlus and Skylon nuff said