Funding the Salvation of Humanity?

spiderweb

spiderweb

Final Approach
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Ben
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/03/20/asteroid-threat-earthly-budgets/

NASA currently is only able to detect 10% of the near-Earth objects that are "wider than 87 miles across." That's not good, of course, but also note that it would take something FAR smaller to wreak horrible damage.

Space Agency Chief, Charles Bolden, recommends praying should we have but three weeks notice of something large coming our way.
 
spiderweb said:
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/03/20/asteroid-threat-earthly-budgets/

NASA currently is only able to detect 10% of the near-Earth objects that are "wider than 87 miles across." That's not good, of course, but also note that it would take something FAR smaller to wreak horrible damage.

Space Agency Chief, Charles Bolden, recommends praying should we have but three weeks notice of something large coming our way.
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As if there was much we could do about it if we did see it coming.
 
Jerry Pournelle

Know the name? He is a fascinating guy. Engineer, author, NASA consultant and much more. Wiki his name.

Anyway, I recently listened to an interview of him by Leo Laporte on his show Triangulation. In it Mr. Pournelle talked about NASA. He talked about how after Appollo we kept all the engineers and bureaucracy. We ended up with a Shuttle program using a shuttle that isn't at all reusable...it's reBUILDABLE. If we had gotten rid of the bureaucracy and focused that money into results instead of standing up a million engineer army at NASA we'd be half way to Alpha Centuri by now.

It was a great interview. jJerry is a regular on TWiT and one of my favorites.

Here's a link to the Triangulation interview.
 
Beyond our capabilities to see everything headed this way and to do much of anything about the bigger rocks even if we saw them coming. Doubtful we'll ever be able to do much of anything, especially with the rate at which we're investing in space science.

Ma Nature always wins. I'd think anyone who ever lived through a hurricane would recognize that.
 
Given sufficient warning I think we could do something about it. However that would require warning measured in years, probably decades.

I would propose that you allow someone like SpaceX to do it, allow them to figure out, and fund, a mission to get the object in to earth orbit, then as payment, they get the asteroid and mineral right to it!

I would trust them to figure it out long before congress quit arguing over funding it!
 
Captain said:
Jerry Pournelle

Know the name? He is a fascinating guy. Engineer, author, NASA consultant and much more. Wiki his name.

Anyway, I recently listened to an interview of him by Leo Laporte on his show Triangulation. In it Mr. Pournelle talked about NASA. He talked about how after Appollo we kept all the engineers and bureaucracy. We ended up with a Shuttle program using a shuttle that isn't at all reusable...it's reBUILDABLE. If we had gotten rid of the bureaucracy and focused that money into results instead of standing up a million engineer army at NASA we'd be half way to Alpha Centuri by now.

It was a great interview. jJerry is a regular on TWiT and one of my favorites.

Here's a link to the Triangulation interview.
Click to expand...

If he's really claiming NASA has a million engineers, he has absolutely no credibility whatsoever. The actual number is in the tens of thousands, counting all the contractors (and that's not usually done). With a <$20 billion dollar budget, those are really badly paid engineers even if you pretend the overheads are zero.

And no, we wouldn't be halfway to Alpha Centauri unless you believe science fiction is reality. The speed of light is a really big problem that those of us who make real devices have to worry about. With 1960s technology (contemporaneous with the space shuttle), that would take centuries.

The space shuttle was not funded sufficiently to meet its design criteria. If you wanted more results, you needed to provide the funding, and that reduced substantially after (and even during) Apollo. It's more important to hunt VC and teargas college students than to do space work. Nixon made that decision, and we're still recovering from it.
 
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According to Wikipedia, the average frequency of a 1KM object striking the earth is every 440,000 years.

"In the past 540 million years there have been five generally-accepted, major mass extinctions that on average extinguished half of all species." "The last such mass extinction led to the demise of the dinosaurs and coincided with a large meteorite impact; this is the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event (also known as the K–T or K–Pg extinction event); This occurred 65 million years ago."

Sounds like posturing to create or re-allocate resources to do nothing but waste tax payer money and stare up at the sky for these objects. The fact is, that if something the size of K-T is coming at us, there is probably little we can do but make peace with ourselves.

But then again, I'm a cynic.
 
kclimie said:
. . . .

Sounds like posturing to create or re-allocate resources to do nothing but waste tax payer money and stare up at the sky for these objects.

. . . .
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Like they need an excuse to do that?

-Rich
 
Maybe this isn't a huge risk but science and technology- especially space exploration IS our future. We really can't spend enough on this stuff IMO, it's more important than most of the other petty crap that gets squabbled over.
 
MAKG1 said:
If he's really claiming NASA has a million engineers, he has absolutely no credibility whatsoever. The actual number is in the tens of thousands, counting all the contractors (and that's not usually done). With a <$20 billion dollar budget, those are really badly paid engineers even if you pretend the overheads are zero.

And no, we wouldn't be halfway to Alpha Centauri unless you believe science fiction is reality. The speed of light is a really big problem that those of us who make real devices have to worry about. With 1960s technology (contemporaneous with the space shuttle), that would take centuries.

The space shuttle was not funded sufficiently to meet its design criteria. If you wanted more results, you needed to provide the funding, and that reduced substantially after (and even during) Apollo. It's more important to hunt VC and teargas college students than to do space work. Nixon made that decision, and we're still recovering from it.
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Agreed with everything. And this hyperbole about Alpha Centauri is just laughable, the trip would take about 150,000 years using the state of the art propulsion. The Shuttle had a clear purpose - to build the Space Station, you may argue that the goal of keeping 6 people in the Earth orbit is not perhaps as lofty as flying to Alpha Centauri but it was the goal. The guy clearly loves to flap his mouth but most of it is either his own invention or simply not very illuminating.
 
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I can't really argue that the space shuttle succeeded. It's descaled purpose was to build the space station, which it did. But it's proposal purpose was to make space travel safe, reliable, and cheap, like Part 121 air traffic. It is none of those. Nor will it be in the foreseeable future.

As for the "low risk" statements, those expose a serious misunderstanding of risk. The mean risk of dying from an asteroid impact is NOT negligible. The reason is that the event is very unlikely, but has enormous consequence. Multiply a really small number by a really big number, and you aren't guaranteed it remains small.

It's low probability. Not low risk.
 
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There is no reason to neglect risks but objectively they are exceedingly small regardless the size of an asteroid. An asteroid impact that could threaten life on Earth happens like every 20-40 mln. years or so. Frankly being hit by a lightning is hundreds times more probable.
 
I heard that there is sufficient periodicity in extinction events to hypothesize that the Sun might have an undiscovered dim star in a very long period orbit with it, which could be passing through the Oort cloud and pulling additional comets into the inner solar system every 26 million years or so.
 
Palmpilot said:
I heard that there is sufficient periodicity in extinction events to hypothesize that the Sun might have an undiscovered dim star in a very long period orbit with it, which could be passing through the Oort cloud and pulling additional comets into the inner solar system every 26 million years or so.
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That went out of fashion with the Cabbage Patch Kid.

It was a big area of research in the 80s; the putative star was called "Nemesis."

Infrared astronomy has largely refuted the idea, as the brown-dwarf type planets necessary to do that would be much more visible in the IR, and should have been found by several now-completed surveys including IRAS and 2MASS, had it actually existed.
 
MAKG1 said:
.........
The space shuttle was not funded sufficiently to meet its design criteria. If you wanted more results, you needed to provide the funding, and that reduced substantially after (and even during) Apollo......
Click to expand...

That is incorrect.....:yes:

The Space shuttle program was sold to the congress as a re usable orbitor with a turn around time of 5-7 days and 3 million dollars.... NASA was either totally incompetent or outright frauds as it turned out it cost 300 MILLION dollars and 7-12 months for each turn around.....

It was a great program but was presented and funded by highly over optimistic expenses.... IMHO..
 
spiderweb said:
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/03/20/asteroid-threat-earthly-budgets/

NASA currently is only able to detect 10% of the near-Earth objects that are "wider than 87 miles across." That's not good, of course, but also note that it would take something FAR smaller to wreak horrible damage.

Space Agency Chief, Charles Bolden, recommends praying should we have but three weeks notice of something large coming our way.
Click to expand...

What would be the difference if we had a years warning? Praying is all we have, however most likely it would lead to anarchy and mass looting to start the day of the announcement.
 
N801BH said:
That is incorrect.....:yes:

The Space shuttle program was sold to the congress as a re usable orbitor with a turn around time of 5-7 days and 3 million dollars.... NASA was either totally incompetent or outright frauds as it turned out it cost 300 MILLION dollars and 7-12 months for each turn around.....

It was a great program but was presented and funded by highly over optimistic expenses.... IMHO..
Click to expand...

You need to be careful analyzing the budget process.

It goes something like:

Proposer: We can build it for X hundred billion.
Congress: We don't have X hundred billion. We have Y billion. Build it with that.
Proposer: We can build it with Y billion.

Sometimes (even often), the President anticipates Congress' reaction, and does it too. I think that last step is dishonest, but it's taking orders from a higher pay grade, and it happens all the time in large organizations (it is NOT limited to government).

It's basically being told the answer based on fantasy, and then being told to produce that answer. As an engineer, I simply don't do that. That's why I'm an engineer and not a project manager.

The space shuttle that was built bore little resemblance to the one that was proposed. The original proposal was a fully reusable two stage design where the booster would fly back to the launch site. Restricting the budget meant cutting back on the new technologies. Such as using existing (nonreusable) missile technology for boosters and an external tank. This happened in several stages as Congress balked at the development cost of doing it right.
 
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