US To Send Manned Flight To The Moon By 2018

[Guest darealdeal21]

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/lunar-05zi.html

 

US To Send Manned Flight To The Moon By 2018: Report

 

The United States plans to send four astronauts to the Moon by 2018, as a first step toward an eventual mission to Mars, according to NASA documents published by a US newspaper.

 

The plan also foresees crews building a lunar outpost, complete with living quarters and a power plant, and scavenge the desolate landscape for fuel and water aboard high-tech dune buggies, the Orlando Sentinel daily said.

 

The space travelers would blast off on rockets derived from the space shuttle, but would parachute back to Earth in capsules similar to those used in the Apollo program that landed the first man on the Moon.

 

The Moon missions would be a precursor to 500-day expeditions on Mars, the paper said, citing a study that it said would be made public next month.

 

President George W. Bush announced last year the National Aeronautics and Space Administration would return astronauts to the Moon by 2020 and conduct missions to Mars later. The study estimates a cost of about 217 billion dollars over the next 20 years.

 

NASA plans to retire its space shuttle fleet by 2009 and have its new spacecraft ready by 2011.

 

US space agency managers said the new craft would be far safer than the shuttle, which has come under renewed scrutiny after a large piece of insulating foam fell off Discovery's tank after liftoff on July 13, prompting NASA to ground the rest of the fleet. A similar chunk of foam damaged Columbia in 2003, causing the shuttle to disintegrate upon its re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.

 

The plan calls for two lunar missions a year from 2018.

[CanadianGuitarist]

* still doesn't see what the appeal to space travel is, especially when the money invested is considered.

[Art Sandusky]

It's for the greater betterment of our species.

[The Czech Republic]

And by 2019, we should have the technology to blow up the Moon!

 

Take it away, C.S. Lewis Jr.!

[SuperJerk]

* still doesn't see what the appeal to space travel is, especially when the money invested is considered.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

1) There are worse people the government can give a bunch of money to than scientists.

 

2) Think of space as an untapped natural resource.

 

3) The technology we develop for space travel has multiple applications for use on Earth.

[RepoMan]

Anyone alive in 1968 has got to be disapointed that the major space mission 50 years in the future is to the moon again.

[SuperJerk]

Someone just got my quote of the week.

[devo]

Call me crazy, but isn't thirteen years kind of ridiculous?

 

Pretty sure it only took eight the first time.

[CanadianGuitarist]

* still doesn't see what the appeal to space travel is, especially when the money invested is considered.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

1) There are worse people the government can give a bunch of money to than scientists.

 

2) Think of space as an untapped natural resource.

 

3) The technology we develop for space travel has multiple applications for use on Earth.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

All points made have been valid, but there's still that pesky cancer to deal with...

[Guest Vitamin X]

The study estimates a cost of about 217 billion dollars over the next 20 years.

 

At least it's cheaper than the war in Iraq, and probably more beneficial.

[Art Sandusky]

Call me crazy, but isn't thirteen years kind of ridiculous?

 

Pretty sure it only took eight the first time.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Compare the economical climes of the time. Gas was a quarter a gallon at most, we were only beginning to gear ourselves (foolishly, I say) towards a service economy, and we had the extreme motivation of "Communism = end of the world as we know it" being the feeling of the day by the vast majority of the population. The energy crisis, Vietnam embarassment, a grown generation having faced no real hardships, and Watergate changed everything within a short span of time.

 

EDIT: The last vestiges of the NASA of old were in the form of the Viking probes, Skylab, and the Pioneer program. Nothing particularly new or innovative came down the pipe after that.

[SuperJerk]

* still doesn't see what the appeal to space travel is, especially when the money invested is considered.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

1) There are worse people the government can give a bunch of money to than scientists.

 

2) Think of space as an untapped natural resource.

 

3) The technology we develop for space travel has multiple applications for use on Earth.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

All points made have been valid, but there's still that pesky cancer to deal with...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You're not actually splitting resources because no rocket scientist will cure cancer. Its possible to work on curing cancer and have a space program at the same time.

 

And by 2019, we should have the technology to blow up the Moon!

 

Take it away, C.S. Lewis Jr.!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

C.S. Lewis Jr. > Tobey Keith.

[MarvinisaLunatic]

Im guessing the Government wants to the moon because the first time was just fakery.

[AboveAverage484]

So man is finally going to walk on the moon, eh? Damn, I'll be 34 by then

[keith6601]

So today's technology is so advanced that it's going to take them 13 years to figure out what they knew how to do over 30 years ago???

[RepoMan]

Yeah but we need somthing sleaker and cooler this time.

[MrRant]

So today's technology is so advanced that it's going to take them 13 years to figure out what they knew how to do over 30 years ago???

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

No, it's because we have a bunch of pussies in this country that get all upset if someone dies doing something the know is a fucking risk.

 

Just being in space is a HUGE motherfucking risk.

 

God I hate our soft culture.

[Stephen Joseph]

concurs with Rant

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

No one complains about the scores of people the Soviets annihilated in their space program. Compared to the budgets in this country for education, infrastructure, and blowing up arabs, the space program runs pretty efficiently. Besides, there's all the technological side-effects that get worked out in space travel innovation and brainstorming. I don't have the info in front of me, but tons of modern day shit was invented during the last space craze.

[SuperJerk]

Compared to the budgets in this country for education, infrastructure, and blowing up arabs, the space program runs pretty efficiently.

 

Amen.

 

And we've accidentally killed...what? 17 astronaunts in 40 years? That's safer than riding the school bus.