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Government Mars NASA Space The Almighty Buck United States Politics Science Technology

Senate Panel Authorizes Money For Mission To Mars (usatoday.com) 137

An anonymous reader quotes a report from USA Today: With a new president on the horizon, a key Senate committee moved Wednesday to protect long-standing priorities of the nation's space program from the potential upheaval of an incoming administration. Members of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee passed a bipartisan bill authorizing $19.5 billion to continue work on a Mars mission and efforts to send astronauts on private rockets to the International Space Station from U.S. soil -- regardless of shifting political winds. Under the Senate bill, NASA would have an official goal of sending a crewed mission to Mars within the next 25 years, the first time a trip to the Red Planet would be mandated by law. The legislation would authorize money for different NASA components, including $4.5 billion for exploration, nearly $5 billion for space operations and $5.4 billion for science. Beyond money, the measure would: Direct NASA to continue working on the Space Launch System and Orion multi-purpose vehicle that are the linchpins of a planned mission to send astronauts to Mars by the 2030s. The bill includes specific milestones for an unmanned exploration mission by 2018 and a crewed exploration mission by 2021. Require development of an advanced space suit to protect astronauts on a Mars mission. Continue development of the Commercial Crew Program designed to send astronauts to the space station -- no later than 2018 -- on private rockets launched from U.S. soil. Expand the full use and life of the space station through 2024 while laying the foundation for use through 2028. Allow greater opportunities for aerospace companies to conduct business in Low Earth Orbit. Improve monitoring, diagnosis and treatment of the medical effects astronauts experience from spending time in deep space.
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Senate Panel Authorizes Money For Mission To Mars

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  • by tlambert ( 566799 ) on Friday September 23, 2016 @02:22AM (#52944911)

    "an unmanned exploration mission by 2018"

    It's too bad no one thought of that 40 years ago. We could have had an unmanned exploration mission on Mars back in 1976 or so.

    Oh. Wait. Viking landed on Mars in 1976, didn't it.

    40 F'ing years ago. Are we maybe kind of done with the exploratory crap, and ready to send people yet?

    Let's see... we went from the first autogyro to landing on the moon in 40 years. Now it looks like we've moved from an unmanned landing on Mars ... to Yet Another Unmanned Landing On Mars(tm) over the last 40 years.

    Good job, dudes.

    • by Viol8 ( 599362 )

      God knows why you've been modded flamebait - you're spot on. Its just more of the same. And if the current rovers trundling around on mars arn't already exploratory then what the f*ck are they?

      • Current rovers are just technology demonstators.

        If you want real exploratrory mission, you should drop tens or better hundreds identical rovers in different parts of planet, make them not depend on remote control and just send reports to Earth each day or so.

    • by Rei ( 128717 )

      As far as I can tell, they're not actually "giving" NASA any more money of relevance, they're just telling them how they need to spend it. Standard congressional stuff, except this time they're amusingly trying to say "nobody can change this in the future"

      I'll take the concept of a government-funded mission to Mars seriously whenever they actually give NASA billions more in annual funding at the same time as mandating it.

  • by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Friday September 23, 2016 @02:37AM (#52944965)

    Senate Panel Says "Get Your Ass to Mars."

  • Since the coming president ( R, according to recent polls ) is likely to inject a lot into the military (thus less for the rest), better to save a bit for NASA now.
    • by SeaFox ( 739806 )

      LOL. The only people saying the coming president is going to be an R is deluded R supporters. The Republicans thew away the Presidency the moment they made Trump their candidate.

      • You can say the same thing about Hillary. According to recent polls, they're pretty close, and neither one of them is liked at all by the general public. There is a chance that Trump will win, and if that happens, it's the fault of the Democratic voters and the DNC for picking Hillary. They did the same stupid thing back in 1999 when they picked wooden Al Gore and his shitty neo-con running mate Joe Lieberman, and his shitty wife who tried to ban curse words in music.

    • Since the coming president ( R, according to recent polls ) is likely to inject a lot into the military (thus less for the rest), better to save a bit for NASA now.

      The Senators aren't actually saving money for NASA, but the related projects funding their local constituents.

    • I'm not sure what polls you were looking at. It looks like 3 of the 5 polls for Sept 23 showed Hillary leading.

      http://www.realclearpolitics.c... [realclearpolitics.com]

  • this can not be done in Europe: mandate historical space missions by law. We for sure, over here in the EU, have the dough for it...

    • by Rei ( 128717 )

      I'm not in the EU but I am in Europe, and I find it unfortunate how little we spend on space.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Egon Musky wants public funding to help plant his manly seed on Mars.

  • same bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by whodunit ( 2851793 ) on Friday September 23, 2016 @05:26AM (#52945301)

    The bill includes specific milestones for an unmanned exploration mission by 2018 and a crewed exploration mission by 2021.

    So in other words its a ton of hot air and complete horseshit. At best it's a way to secure funding for NASA under a label that'll be hard to attack - HAY U GUIES LETS GO TO MARS!!1! is the latest pop-sci meme after all. The Lunar missions only happened because of the most intense military/industrial standoff in human history - and even then there were Presidential advisers doing their damnedest to kill the Moon missions. The political will to undertake the Apollo program was purely the result of the Cold War standoff - where two superpowers were locked in an existential deathmatch - and the specific technology to deliver astronauts could also deliver thermonuclear warheads to enemy territory.

    The likes of Apollo will never happen again. If you weren't convinced that "25 years to Mars" is a horseshit timeframe, its appearance in a Congressional budget bill should remove all doubt.

    • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Friday September 23, 2016 @06:55AM (#52945575)

      In a nutshell, to get people to the moon it took a former Nazi to put pressure behind it, the urge to one-up the Soviets and a prez had to croak.

      Holy fuck, to get to Mars we'd probably need to nuke the Capitol.

      • by Rei ( 128717 )

        Russia doesn't seem to be looking to restart a space race. As usual they make grand pronouncements, but meanwhile their funding just keeps getting cut further. On the other hand, China might bring one. We're far from there now, but China keeps trying to push themselves rapidly forward in regards to space; they see it a way to mark themselves as being a legitimate, technologically advanced superpower rather than just a country of factories churning out trinkets. Right now it's things like space stations

        • Russia? No. China. China is quickly trying to catch up, no matter the cost, and that includes space technology. They have probes, they have labs, they have astronauts. All within rather little time. And don't forget, China doesn't have pesky elections, the chairman says, the country does. And unlike Russia, which had the same advantage, they also have the economic muscle to do what they want.

          Imagine the freedom to do it without people asking pesky questions like "why do we need that?", like Russia during th

    • The bill includes specific milestones for an unmanned exploration mission by 2018 and a crewed exploration mission by 2021.

      So in other words its a ton of hot air and complete horseshit. At best it's a way to secure funding for NASA under a label that'll be hard to attack

      This is the authorization bill, not the funding bill.

      It tells NASA what to do. Funding them to do that is separate.

      The "unmanned exploration mission by 2018" refers to the Insight [nasa.gov] lander; the "crewed exploration mission by 2021" probably refers to SLS launch EM-2 [nasaspaceflight.com] (testing the launch system with a crew.)

      If you weren't convinced that "25 years to Mars" is a horseshit timeframe, its appearance in a Congressional budget bill should remove all doubt.

      This isn't a budget bill.

      • I really wish I could mod you up for this. There's enough people posting angry shoot-from-the-hip comments on /. that correcting them is a sisyphean undertaking, but it's worth doing. The difference between authorizing funds and allocating them is pretty significant to the import of the original article, but I didn't even think of it till you corrected me.

    • Maybe, thought this time we do have the Private sector who is looking to get there as well. NASA likely won't get there first.

      • I personally doubt it. Elon Musk dreams big, and more power to him - but rationality rarely impinges on his lofty aims. Private sector is currently doing (with SpaceX) what it does best - improve efficiency and reduce costs. NASA, on the other hand, blows scads of money on breaking new ground to do things with no practical value - such as landing a two-ton rover on Mars to return amazing amounts of new science. NASA should be tasked with breaking new ground (including on Mars) and private sector should be e

  • Trump will build an habitat on mars and claim a 20 billion tax break for himself.

    • Did you know there is no income tax collected on Mars? No property tax either. And not one cent collected for welfare or healthcare.
    • Trump will build an habitat on mars and claim a 20 billion tax break for himself.

      A habitat for what? Human feces? /humor

  • We do not need NASA if they are just going funnel tax money into the pockets of oligarchs so they can smash pretty looking rockets that do not work into the desert or the ocean.
  • There is no legitimate reason for spending 10s of billions of dollars on manned missions to Mars, unless you count aerospace/defense corporate bottom lines.

  • >> Beyond money, the measure would: Direct NASA to continue working on the Space Launch System and Orion multi-purpose vehicle that are the linchpins of a planned mission to send astronauts to Mars by the 2030s.

    REALLY dumb to lock them into a particular vehicle and program. Especially one that is so outdated already. There are FAR better, cheaper and quicker alternatives to get to Mars already out there:
    http://www.marssociety.org/ [marssociety.org]

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