When I was a child and I read about the moon landing I assumed people would soon get to travel in space, not just astronauts, but common everyday people. Years ago there was talk about going to mars but with the economy and an excessively liberal new president you can be sure NASA is dead in the water.

I do get excited about the unmanned missions and I follow them with great interest. I just wish for more.
If the 60's space race hadn't ended I wonder how far mankind would have gone into space.

China said they are going to send a man to the moon. Let's hope so for nothing will get NASA more funding faster than a Chinese flag on the moon and the threat of another country going to Mars first.

There's a question in here somewhere. .....The title, there it is Anyone else disappointed in our space program?

Bonus question. What earth bound problems might we have solved if we had continued the space race? NASA has been responsible for some of the technology we have today.

I'm not disappointed in it too much, i just think space travel has hit a point where nobody is interested in it too much. =(

I think many people would be interested if NASA where doing more than sending out unmanned robots. Only people like me are interested in the unmanned missions. Many more when get behind a manned mission to Mars if they saw it actually happening.

I bet a lot of people would get really excited to be alive and to witness the first footsteps from man on another planet. Especially a planet so wound up in science fiction folk lore such as Mars.
The moon landing was an exciting moment for the people who witnessed it, or so I read and heard. A Mars landing would really inspire people.

It's time to take everything orbital away from NASA and turn it all over to private industry

Leave NASA for exploration

Private industry would work for giving people orbital rides around the planet and there are already companies gearing up for this.
For a mission as big as a Mars landing you would need the government's involvement.

If Obama where really intelligent he would inspire the country with a plan to go to Mars soon. The way Kennedy did with the moon in the 60's.
The amount of money needed isn't all that much when you consider how the government waste it's money now days. We spent all that money bailing out the banks and now the government doesn't even know where it went. ............ I know little yellow man, sorry.

I am disappointed that we're not having a weeks holiday on on mars or a day trip to saturn, however the clarity and detail obtained from the hubble images, as compared to the pictures in my old astronomy books are just amazing. These new pictures can serve as a great inspiration to the next generation of engineers and astrophysicists.

Another thing, we really need to sort out the state of affairs here on earth before we venture among the stars and leave our garbage strewn across the galaxy, or worse make war with our cousins in the universe.

The reason we aren't sending a manned mission to mars is far more than political.

The moon is only 250 thousand miles away. That's right here in our own back yard.

Mars is 36 million miles away.

That a huge distance.

The men who where sent to the moon when there in a little teeny tiny capsule. Very cramped and uncomfortable. They had to spend about a week maybe two in that cramped very uncomfortable condition.

With our current technology it takes about 14 months to get to Mars.

And that's ONE WAY.

We aren't going to be sending astronauts to Mars cramped up in a little tin can for 14 months, ONE WAY.

Then they'd need to make the return trip too. We'd be talking about spending two years basically living inside something the size of a typical SUV van. Never being allowed to open the doors!

That would surely drive any human to panic attacks and insanit before they ever even got to Mars.

So to go to Mars we'd need a much larger ship. People would need to be able to walk around. In fact, we'd probably need to provide them with gravity. We'd probably do that by basically sending something like a spinning space station to Mars. With quite a few people on it actually.

So just as a practical matter we had better build some larger space stations near the Earth for a while until we get all the bugs worked out of them.

In fact, we'll most likely build a permanent moon base long before we actually start to send humans to Mars.

The second problem with Mars is that it's quite a bit larger than the moon.

The capsule that landed on the moon was small and easily launched back off the surface of the Moon to get back to the command module.

However, on Mars the situation is more like Earth.

To launch from Mars to get back up to the command ship would be like launching a rocket on Earth!

You'd almost need to have a Nasa Space Center on Mars to launch the rocket.

So the problems of putting a man on Mars are truly astronomical.

I personally don't think it is something we should rush into just for PR. We can accomplish much more with automated probes actually.

However, I'm all for focusing our energies on building bigger and better space stations, and even encouraging private enterprise to get into the picture.

Having space stations that people can visit as a vacation oddity would do a lot toward hastening the pace of progress with space technology.

Nothing works better than getting commercial enterprised involved.

Before we start sending people long distance away from our planet (like to Mars), we should really settle in on practicing puttle large quantities of people on space stations in close orbit around the Earth.

In fact, that technology itself could grow to become something of a marvel.

Colonizing the moon with space stations would also be something we would do well to learn from before sending people 36 million miles out into space.

But I do agree that we should be doing far more to encourage interest in space travel.

In fact, if we focus on building space stations and colonizing the moon, we might eventually design a far better propulsion system that would make a journey to Mars much more feasible than it currently is with our normal rocket technology.

Abracadabra, I am sure the Trip has a lot of science that needs to be solved first and the steps you mentioned, moon base, better transport, are all necessary.
It just seems we are not making any progress in that direction.

NASA needs clear cut goals and something to focus on. They mostly seem to flounder around right now because of lack of funding and their own mistakes. There's even going to be a huge gap between the old shuttle and the new shuttles so we have to have the Russians provide us with transport to the base. How bad is that?

I'm disappointed they're scrapping the shuttle too soon and relying on other countries while they finish the next one, I don't think that's a good call at all.

They are not scrapping the shuttle too soon. It's too old and needs to go. We only have 2 of 4 left and we can't risk any more terrible disasters like Columbia and Challenger. The problem is they didn't get the new one up and running fast enough.

I just don't like the idea of relying on other countries to get to the space station, granted it is old and needing replacement, I wish they would have handled replacing it better so we're not stuck etc.

I'm disappointed in a lot of things.

And of course, our progress with space exploration is one of them.

You're young yet though. You can become a SCIENTIST!

Or maybe an astronaut?

You can MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Write books and articles to psyche people up.

Make a web page to promote that sort of thing.

Make it your dream to go to Mars.

Who knows maybe it will come true?

With the LHC up and running we might discover some new propulsion system that will change things dramatically!

My God when I was your age, computers were just being invented. I was born with the transistor in 1949.

Things have changed dramatically in the 60 years I've been on this planet.

Your future will be TOTALLY DIFFERENT from what's possible today.

You may very well stand on the surface of Mars yourself.

Keep an optimistic view and realize that time is miraculous! A presidency only last for 4 to 8 years for example.

If you're 20 right now, by the time you're my age (60) you will have lived through TEN adminstrations!

And trust me 60 is NOT OLD.

And it will even be less old by the time you're 60!

(Because of advances in medicine, etc.)

Yes, it's very feasible that you could stand on the surface of Mars!

Assuming that you truly desire that.

Just assume you will, and go with the flow.

When you're there look up into the Mars sky and say, "Abracadabra"

That won't be too hard to remember will it?

I agree, we could be doing more. I would approve of my taxes going toward this, but do not approve of a CEO getting a bonus after ****ing up so bad I had to bail him out.

I'm not the going to Mars type at least until they invent a way to do it as easily as getting on an airplane and flying to Warsaw.
I'll be just as happy to see an astronaut step foot there in my lifetime.
Who knows what wonders we may discover on Mars once we arrive?

Back in the late 60's / early 70's Ballantine came out with a set of blueprints for the USS Enterprise, from Star Trek, to look at the possiblity of building such a vessel.
Conclusion....Entirely possible. Only thing that was beyond capability is the warp engines. Things are slowly changing.



Ion Propulsion: From Star Trek to NASA
When Scotty mentioned it in the 60s, Ion Propulsion was possible, just not practical. NASA changed that this decade.

http://www.scienceray.com/Physics/Ion-Propulsion-From-Star-Trek-to-NASA.115601


NASA's Star-Trek-like Main Ship Computer

http://www.primidi.com/2004/08/19.html



Long listen but worth it. From Nasa Institute for Advanced Concepts.

http://www.planetary.org/audio/avfiles/pr20050725_64kb.mp3

Current NIAC studies.

http://www.niac.usra.edu/studies/studies.html


So even if there is no fanfare or obvious, visible advancement. It's there!

Yes but the only way currently to simulate gravity is with spin, or using centripetal force . . same thing.

So any vessel shaped like the star trek version would be impractical for such a thing.

We have conclusive information that weightlessness is damaging to the cardiac system and contributes to muscle atrophy.

For long trips out to a place with no medical facilities simulated gravity would be important even if only periodically.

But again our understanding of how the different aspects of a weightless environment effects our physiology is not well (enough) known.

Hell yeah, we should be able to build ships capable of warp propulsion and teleport a pine needle to Alpha Centauri by now. The fact that we cannot disconcerts me greatly.

Most interesting space question to ponder:

Can spiders be fitted into little space suits and used to sort tiny screws in space?

Our space program is the bee's knees. It has been since the 1950's. I just wish we were allowed to acknowledge that "our" ships existed. sigh.