I’d be fine cutting our manned space program entirely and spending the savings on propulsion research. I do think we need to reach for the stars, but it makes no sense to waste resources getting to places (like the Moon or Mars) just to get there. If we can’t take useful things (and people) there, or bring resources back – why go? We need propulsion advances so we can lift big things to space as well as build big things in space.
Ion Propulsion, described in this NASA article, is the sort of idea I’m talking about:
Using solar arrays spanning 65 feet, Dawn collects power from the sun to ionize atoms of xenon. These ions are expelled by a strong electric field out the back of the spacecraft, producing a gentle thrust. The weightless and frictionless conditions of space flight allow this gossamer force effect to build up, so the spacecraft gains speed slowly and continuously.
Most of our space program, IMHO, wastes money and resources (brain talent especially) in support of efforts that may be exciting to be part of but are of little long term use to the nation or humanity.
May 5th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
There are a few issues with Ion based propulsion. For instance, it doesn’t have the umph to lift itself off of the surface. Long distance it is a very efficient method. (at least, that was the state of the theories last time I read up on them.)
The whole situation would also be greatly improved by focusing on power generation as well as efficient use of that power for propulsion. For instance, clean and efficient fusion reactors would go a long way toward making space accessible.
May 5th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
correct. I just mean that ion propulsion is the kind of thing we should investigate, not that it is the end all for space travel.
May 6th, 2010 at 5:29 am
Ion propulsion has been long studied. Its very low thrust, although high specific impulse, means that it can be used only for accelerating small masses very slowly. No matter what propulsion scheme you use, Newton’s F=ma law still applies. It is useful only where solar power isn’t available since solar requires no fuel to be burned and expelled.
May 6th, 2010 at 7:01 am
Nuclear seems the only way to go. Anything else is stuck with F=ma. E=MC2 trumps that.
May 6th, 2010 at 9:19 am
As a self-professed practical man of small government, what gain do you see from exploring beyond our solar system to justify the huge government expense of doing so? Subsidies for scientists? Jobs for Huntsville, Greenbelt, and the Florida Space Coast? Spin-off from nuclear engineering into terrestrial power? And I don’t suppose you would volunteer a little more tax to pay for the effort?
May 6th, 2010 at 9:30 am
I’d gladly cut the benefits of civil service retirees to pay for this important investment (-:
I think something like NASA, DARPA, so forth is needed. Just not focused wrong. I don’t see Tennessee or Utah doing it. And it needs done.
May 6th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Excuse me, Ken. Now you have made me mad.
Why is cutting the civil servant retirees benefits to fund anything OK. I worked hard for 26 years to earn that pension and every month, I hold my breath til it gets posted.
You piss and moan and groan every day about how much its costing you but apparently not enough to cut into the standard of living you now enjoy.
That you would you even think of “gladly” cutting my benefits so the govt can waste it. Check into how the pension is handled. You seem to have access to everything else.
1. When started it was employee put in a % of the gross pay
2. Government will match dollar for dollar and invest in a “TRUST FUND” used only for the pensions. (sounds like SS doesn’t it)
3. The government paid for a while and now its the biggest unfunded liability on that debt clock. They only put in IOUs and we don’t get cola’s to keep up with inflation, IOU’s collect NO interest and the corrupt government can cut it off entirely anytime they want to.
AND only the executive paylevels and GS14 and up get over $75.000 per year starting salary. What do you think the Czars get?????
I hate being the government’s back up. “Medicare is going broke, well, we have 2 million federal employees that don’t pay in” so we suddenly came under medicare, paying into it since 1984., no choice, and have to wait til we are 65 to collect on it. Whoa, social security is hurting, “so we will offset the federal pension so they cannot double dip and create a new pension plan which includes SS. We also have to pay BC/BS $175 to $375 for medicare supplement to cover what medicare doesn’t cover or only partly covers.
Need I go on. Look for another scapegoat to fund some BS the government is touting.
Had they not used SS for anything else, it would be flush. If they had paid into the CSR as promised, we would not be getting, “sorry no cola this year” notices but a pension a person can live on and I would be collecting the SS that I am entitled to not 1/3 of the amount owed me.
Some federal employees collect no SS in spite of paying in the max for 30 years because their Fed Pension is “TOO: much.
Congress collects both as do the other hogs in DC.
May 6th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
I wasn’t serious about it. Just a tongue in cheek reply to a civil service pension collector.
May 7th, 2010 at 6:58 am
Someone had their joke detector turned off, it appears.
May 8th, 2010 at 7:08 pm
Why did the federal government fund the Louis and Clark Expedition? The Louisiana purchase or the purchase of Alaska?
We don’t have any more “frontiers” to expand on. It is up or nowhere. That goes for the human race as well as America. If we don’t break the bonds of our planet and expand into the universe we are destined to stagnate and die as a species on this tiny little rock.
May 8th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
By the way, there are 10,000 immoral, illegal and ill-advised ways the government is spending money that should be cut before one should even think of pensions or retirement.
Unless, of course, you are talking of senators and congressmen who put us in to debt while collecting massive paychecks. Those we can start on now.
May 10th, 2010 at 8:55 am
Do I hear that Ken would like to revoke public pension plans. Does he therefore think that promises are only as good as long the promiser wants, and that they can be unilaterally revoked without penalty? That’s not sound public policy, and it’s not what governments have traditionally done. A public promise is for keeping, even down to the last beneficiary, as for example Civil War veterans’ widows who lived well into the late 20th century. It is however fair to promise a new scheme to new hires, as the federal government did in the Reagan administration.
May 10th, 2010 at 9:08 am
so you worry about sound policy now?
I was kidding about pensions, but frankly, why should MY PENSION that I PAID ENTIRELY FOR be the only one robbed?
Riddle me that “sound policy” people.
May 10th, 2010 at 9:44 am
I find this argument similar to the Social Security argument.
We can not, in good conscience deprive the people who are already dependent on Social Security or those who soon will be of the ‘safety net’ they have come to expect.
What we can do, is prevent more people from becoming dependent on it. Phase out the problem. In this case, public sector pensions would be far less offensive under the following conditions:
1) Public sector employees made comparable wages to public sector employees.
See “http://reason.com/blog/2010/01/05/public-sector-vs-private-secto” for an explanation.
2) Public sector employees be terminated for poor job performance just like any private sector employee has to face.
May 10th, 2010 at 10:38 am
I feel no obligation to honor past politicians bought votes.
Let them firebomb if they like. Or let them recognize their deals are part of the problem, were not honestly arrived at, and should be adjusted.
May 10th, 2010 at 10:55 am
Since there is no objective standard for “past politicians bought votes”, there is no standard on which to judge promises as valid or invalid. It would simply throw every promise into the scrum of public budget competition. The government’s word would be judged worthless and the public could rely on nothing.
May 10th, 2010 at 10:58 am
Is that somehow news?
Habeas Corpus, Freedom of Speech, the right to private property and self determination. All these things we were promised and all these things have been or are in the process of being stolen from us.
May 10th, 2010 at 11:02 am
What standard? My vote, my standard.
When they seem concerned for my social security, I’ll care about their pensions.
May 10th, 2010 at 11:09 am
Lets just all sides remember: Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner.
May 10th, 2010 at 11:17 am
Exactly. Commenter Carl talks about “principles”, but they went out the door in 1913.
May 10th, 2010 at 11:32 am
Really? You think it took that long? That was just an abnormally large boulder in the landslide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War