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17Sep/090

Budget Woes Could End NASA’s Space Exploration Plans

The nations space program can slip the surly bonds of Earths gravity. But escaping the bonds of budget pressures and logistical problems is another story.

Space exploration is at a crossroads. NASA is scheduled to retire the space shuttle next year, leaving the United States with no taxi of its own to get to the international space station, which itself becomes a 250-mile-high orbiting white elephant when it is decommissioned after 2015. The shuttle is an aging transportation system. Its first mission occurred in 1981, so now it is akin to a 30-year-old car that needs to be replaced. The shuttle still is functional, and the space station still allows astronauts to conduct research, but NASA had to make a choice between operating the old technology or starting a new exploration program. The current plan favors a new program, but all that could change. Under severe financial constraints, President Obama must decide whether to continue on the current course and infuse the space program with billions of dollars, or scale back the efforts and risk losing the leadership role the United States holds in space exploration.

NASA is retiring the shuttle so that it can build a new ride to space called the Constellation that will get astronauts to the moon again; a plan to go all the way to Mars someday is under review. But a special committee this summer said NASA does not have nearly the cash it needs to carry out that ambitious plan by 2020, the timetable laid out by former President George W. Bush. In 2004, Bush asked for an additional $1 billion in funding for NASA, but that's a drop in the bucket compared with the current shortage of $50 billion over the next 10 years.

The budget troubles were already well known when Obama took office. But rather than go full speed ahead with the plans, Obama, who has spoken fondly of the space program, appointed the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee in May to get an objective view from industry heavyweights on where in the universe NASA should be setting its sights and, realistically, what it can afford to do. As the committee—led by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine—gets ready to deliver its report to the White House and release it publicly later this month, the White House is finding out just how tough the choices will be. "Somewhere you had to take a timeout and admit there are smoke and mirrors here," says Rep. Bart Gordon, a Tennessee Democrat and chairman of the House Science Committee, which will hold a hearing on the Augustine report and the future of NASA on September 15. "Trying to put a thousand pounds of canaries in a 500-pound box is where we are now."

Once the advisory committee gives its findings, the White House and Congress will have to answer some thorny questions. Should the shuttle program be extended to keep the United States from having to rely on partners like Russia for transportation to space? Should the life of the space station be extended five years to give scientists and astronauts a few more years to use the $100 billion orbiting laboratory, as many in Congress favor? Should NASA step aside from the business of ferrying astronauts to space itself and help private companies fill that role? If NASA puts its own lunar plans on hold, should the United States worry that some country like China will grab a strategic advantage by setting up an outpost on the moon? And should NASA go to Mars to explore the fundamental question of whether life is present elsewhere in the universe?

These questions collide with the reality of a new administration with lots of other priorities on Earth and a tight budget environment brought on by a lousy economy. But some hope the Augustine committee, which plans to send the White House a short list of options for continuing the space program, will help clear things up. "The message is pretty ugly. The whole notion we are going back to the moon, given the current budget, is a myth," says John Logsdon, former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, who is writing a book on the space program under President John F. Kennedy.

Indeed, money shortfalls are nothing new. NASA has long labored under a mismatch between its exploration goals and its budget and has never regained the funding glory days that came with Kennedy's 1961 charge to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

NASA's current goal of another lunar landing was dreamed up by Bush. He also wants U.S. astronauts to use outposts on the moon as a service plaza on the eventual road to Mars. Bush, in proposing his vision for space exploration in 2004, argued for extending a human presence through the solar system. "Mankind is drawn to the heavens for the same reason we once were drawn into unknown lands and across the open sea," he said. "We choose to explore space because doing so improves our lives and lifts our national spirit."

But the first step to achieving that dream is creating a way to ferry astronauts to the moon. The Constellation involves a crew capsule atop a new rocket called the Ares 1 and a larger, heavy-lift rocket, the Ares V, to haul cargo. It looks different from the current shuttle, more like a rocket and less like a plane.

By Tamara Lytle

Tagged as: hubble, nasa, space No Comments

11Sep/092

New color images of the Moon!

On January 25, 1994, the Deep Space Program Science Experiment (DSPSE) (better known as Clementine) was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, on a mission designed to test lightweight miniature sensors and advanced spacecraft components by exposing them, over a long period of time, to the difficult environment of outer space. In addition to testing the various sensors, Clementine was given the complex task of mapping the moon. The mission results were spectacular.

By implementing the "faster, cheaper, better" management approach, Clementine was able to move from conceptual design to launch in only 22 months and at a cost of 80 million dollars (including the launch and mapping operations). This was the first time this particular approach was used in a space program. The costs of previous deep space missions had been significantly higher and took a great deal more time to develop.

Between February 26 and April 22, 1994, Clementine was able to deliver more than 1.8 million digital images of the moon back to the Clementine ground network, including the NRL satellite ground-tracking station located in Maryland. These images were quickly accessible to the general public via the Internet and World Wide Web. When scientists reviewed the data from Clementine, they made a major scientific discovery: the possible existence of ice within some of the moon's craters. This discovery was confirmed in early 1998 by NASA's Lunar Prospector.

The Pentagon announced on December 3, 1996, that radar data acquired by the Clementine spacecraft indicated ice in the bottom of a crater on the South Pole of the Moon. Although it is never lit by the Sun, there are a few images of the South Pole available for viewing.

The BMDO assigned responsibility for the Clementine spacecraft design, manufacture, integration, and mission execution to the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) provided lightweight imaging sensors developed under the sponsorship of BMDO. Clementine launched on a Titan IIG expendable launch vehicle from Vandenberg Air Force Base into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) in January 1994. During its two month orbit of the Moon it captured 1.8 million images of the Moons surface.

In 1994, President Clinton cited Clementine as one of the major national achievements in aeronautics in space. He stated "The relatively inexpensive, rapidly built spacecraft constituted a major revolution in spacecraft management and design; it also contributed significantly to lunar studies by photographing 1.8 million images of the surface of the Moon." The President was not alone in his praise of Clementine. In addition to the President's comments, Clementine and the people associated with the program were presented with the following awards:

Popular Science magazine: Best of 1994's Top 100 Technologies
Aviation Week and Space Technology: 1994 Laureate Award
National Space Club: Nelson P. Jackson Award
Rotary National Award for Space Achievement
Navy Award for Group Achievement
Discover magazine: 1994 Award for Outstanding Technological Innovation
1996 Induction into the Space Hall of Fame

Clementine was jointly sponsored by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and NASA. The BMDO assigned responsibility for the Clementine spacecraft design, manufacture, integration, and mission execution to the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) provided lightweight imaging sensors developed under the sponsorship of BMDO.

In 2003, NRL donated the engineering model of the Clementine satellite for display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

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My .02 - Now with all that NASA accomplished with the Clementine mission, why would they try to hide the actual truth about what they really discovered? Its no longer a secret that the Moon is not as we were led to believe. The color and brilliance of the lunar surface has been kept secret from all of us until recently. Most of the thanks for these new images and discoveries go to Jose Escamilla and his film Moon Rising which showed us for the first time what the Moon surface looks like and how it appears to our brave and heroic space warriors. I know this sounds crazy to some of you, but its true. Google Hubble NASA Moon Photography and find me just one Hubble Moon photo that is in COLOR! you never will because they dont exist, or they are kept secret. NASA doesnt want you to know youve been lied to. The below photo shows you that the Moon is not gray and colorless as we have been led to believe, but in fact it has earth tones and other dynamic colors that shine with obvious brilliance!

So this brings me to the structures that have been discovered on the lunar surface. Now if NASA has been bullshitting us about the simple basics, what makes you think they would share information about the structures and obviously foreign objects on the Moon? Well you guessed it, they have not. BUT, there are former NASA Executives prepared to testify before Congress to truth of these images and the truth about the NASA cover up. You can easily YouTube everything I am mentioning and figure it out for yourself. Im not trying to bash NASA, I love the space program and all our heroes in space, but I want to know what they know!

NASA leaves behind their antiquated editing from the past as evidence of their naughtiness. I submit the following two photos as proof of this. These are photos taken by NASA via the Clementine Satillite. The photos were blurred by NASA prior to release. At the time, I am sure NASA thought they were pretty savvy, but equally savvy people will not be denied the truth! Look at these AUTHENTIC photos and judge for yourself. Why would NASA smudge these images?

Please enjoy the real Moon photo as well, isnt it amazing!

Processed Imagery

Albedo Map of the Moon. About 50,000 Clementine images have been processed and mosaicked to produce a global map of the Moon's albedo - normalized brightness or reflectivity. (7/13/99)
42 Selected Images of the Moon and the Earth (posted 5/18/94)
A Clementine Collection, the catalog accompanying the exhibit of Clementine imagery that opened at the National Academy of Sciences is available on-line. All the images of the moon and earth are available at viewing resolutions as well as full publication quality resolutions.
Animation created from Clementine data.

Clementine Data Set

The Clementine Lunar Map 2.0 (Beta) is available. The Clementine Lunar Image Browser has been transformed and renamed with the release of this browser based map.
The Clementine Lunar Image Browser (CLIB) is available. Version 1.5 allows access to over 170,000 Clementine images and includes a new interface that allows the user to zoom in to any location on the moon.
The Lunar Feature Extension allows the user to make any of the over one thousand named lunar features the starting image in the Clementine Lunar Image Browser.
- Lunar Feature Extension Information

BLuDBLoG veterans stuff, gaming and other mad ravings…

Budget Woes Could End NASA’s Space Exploration Plans

New color images of the Moon!

Processed Imagery

Clementine Data Set

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