NASA legend Buzz Aldrin voices concerns about moon rocket

observer wrote:

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The Chinese plan to land a man on the Moon by 2024.

16 years from now? thats no race. No threat is posed.

You want to see US public get backing space related tasks, we need a threat to business or person.

Need something like China trying to launch a satellite which will harness energy from the sun and beam it back to a receiver in China. A State controlled project that US businesses can't bid on.

Actually, Obama isn't ignorant about the Space program - since the initial proposal that came out, concerning Constellation and education funding, Obama released a white paper about NASA. He also has had talks with Patti Grace Smith, who was the FAA/AST Associate Administrator. There are other people who have very good space cred who are working with Obama.

Obama's white paper about space - http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/12/9710/...

See Patti Grace Smith (and some other people) talk about liberals/progressive and space policy, including about Senator Obama - http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/19/16291...

Mike - another option is if the public itself can actually interact with space, as opposed to watching astronauts on TV - that is why I would argue there is such interest in things like Virgin Galactic/Scaled Composites SpaceShipTwo

We're not going to the moon or mars anytime soon. That was just something Bush said to fire people up.

Another lie from the Liar in Chief.

Mike wrote:

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I would suggest looking through these sites to see what the space program has provide besides just knowledge.
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/
http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.ht...

please! the reason you can even post on a website is due to the space program..wake up!!

Y'know, about how it said in the article that a Direct 2.0 can deliver an Orion capsule to the I.S.S., I remember looking at the illustrations in the first article the Sentinel ran about this proposal and how it struck me that using a shuttle stack that could lift about 100 tons of mass into L.E.O. to lift a space craft that is supposed to mass no more than about 10% of the shuttle to the I.S.S. was over-kill, and a waste of money & material (I believe that someone from NASA made that very point in a letter that was printed a couple of days later). Then I remember that in the same article in favor of Direct 2.0 was the argument that it's supposed to save the taxpayers money because it's more cost effective than Ares 1/5-Orion/Altair/Constellation (of course, the articles' primary argument in favor of Direct 2.0 was that it would save more jobs at KSC than Ares, which I'm sure really went over well in other parts of the country).
If this is the best that the Sentinel can do to try to de-rail Ares, then the supporters of the Ares program have nothing to worry about.
One last point while I'm thinking about it-
If you're going to say that one rocket system is better than another, then why didn't the first article contain a chart directly comparing the major components of Direct 2.0 against Ares 1/5 so that your average reader (probably 99% of whom had never even HEARD of Direct 2.0 before this, like me) had enough info to intelegently compare them & make up their own minds? After all, if you're in the market for a new car, then you go to magazines like "Road & Track", "Car & Driver" or "Consumers' Reports" look up the kind of car you want, & see their charts directly comparing the major systems & performance of each car. The same basic principle applies here.

sad to see the mythical Buzz Aldrin help the Direct-lobby of losers

David Collins wrote:

And you misspelled Sentinel.:-)

Mr. Collins, FYI, Peer One DIDN'T mis-spell "Sentinel." Over the years, the Sentinel has earned many an insulting nick-name, "The Slantinel" being the most polite.:-)

elvis wrote:

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please! the reason you can even post on a website is due to the space program..wake up!!

No, NASA doesn't get credit for the Internet. That was all Al Gore... no wait .. that was DAPA and then people wanting to share p0rn. Now it is mainly p0rn, music, and movies.

observer wrote:

Obama is totally ignorant about our space program. If we wait too long, we will have to ask the Chinese for permission to land on the Moon. But Obama is totally ignorant about a quality education program as well. Back in the JFK era, the space program was a major driver for high quality education from grade school up through university science and engineering programs. Obama will NEVER grasp how this works.

Quit putting words in people's mouths. If you're going to say something like "Obama can't grasp how a renewed national interest in space travel could pave the way to higher education programs and scientific innovation" you need to show your work. Gimme a quote. Gimme something. Anything.

Besides, it's not like McCain is some whiz kid with his finger on the technology pulse. He's admitted he doesn't even use a computer.

In other words, our moon hero, Buzz Aldrin, thinks NASA is off on the wrong track. Even so, why have a space exploration program if all we're going to do is go back to the moon and collect more rocks? Unless the moon is to become the launch site for Mars. Who cares if China wants to walk on the moon? We did that "long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away." It looks to me like NASA is just floundering around without any real purpose. What's wrong with a space gap if we don't know what it is we want to do? Or what we should do? I worked in the space program at Cape Kennedy. I was there for most of the moon launches. I recall the hype and the extravagant claims of the benefits of the space program, to get the nation and Congress behind us in that endeavor. We landed on the moon and walked around, several times, but all we got for it was the prestiege of being the first, and a few bagfulls of rocks. Then came the hype over the space shuttle program. Like the Sentinel story said, it never lived up to the hype, or even came close to it. We just liked having a space program. You know, soaring around the earth in the international space station with Russian cosmonauts, etc. The space shuttle returns right over my house in Altamonte Springs. I hear it break the sound barrier on every return---BAM!!!--and it rattles my windows. That tells me the boys and girls have returned safely again. And I love it... BUT, why get into a snit over a new rocket and capsule when we're not even excited about going to the moon, especially not AGAIN. Somebody at NASA has got to convince us that this time around it is WORTH it. The glory and the honor, we already have...right?

If that's what we like, soaring around in low Earth orbit with astronauts from all over the world, learning to fly and work and live in space peacefully with our international partners and neighbors, and that's what they want to, to fly on the space station with their own national astronauts and tourists alike, then that's what we should stick to doing until we can build the inverted pyramid of infrastructure necessary for the next step, which may or may not be the moon. We've certainly been happy to pay for it, as long as people understand the risks. What most people want is VALUE for their money, and VSE, ESAS, Constellation, Orion and Ares certainly are not that valuable.

The Earth science and solar power stuff is all added extra bonuses, as well as the post Sputnik education.

The rocket is broke, give it up.

Do it right the first time. Go back to our forefather's teachings. They always lived to get the most out of life without spending a lot of money or wasting time on something that hadn't been well thought out. Let's listen to the advice of an experianced person and take another look at the flight program before spending the money. He is the fore-sight so we don't have bad hinde-sight.

When the roll is called up yonder on Mars, I'll be laid back uner a palm lipping a martini. Anyone who'd spend six months tooling through the ether to keep a date with a barren orb is nuttier than ol Betty lu Culpepper's second cousin Elvira's pecan pie. A month on the planet, six months on the return leg? And what's the little missus going to be doing when she gets the itch? Why, she'll be parked on an Officers Club bar stool eyeballing the attendees for the dude she's going to waltz onto the sheets? Go to Mars? Fat chance, Leroy!