
U.S. President to sign space policy directive Monday - daegloe
http://spacenews.com/president-to-sign-space-policy-directive-monday/
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vermontdevil
Third president in a row to offer something like this related to the Moon.

Obama: He endorses the goal of sending human missions to the Moon by 2020, as
a precursor in an orderly progression to missions to more distant
destinations, including Mars.

Bush: President Bush has unveiled a new vision for space exploration, calling
on NASA to "gain a new foothold on the moon and to prepare for new journeys to
the worlds beyond our own."

In other words - same old unless $ is put in the budget and approved.

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azemetre
Seems like the issue is that Washington changes the mission directive every
voting cycle. Hardly sustainable. Is there a reason why we can't let NASA be
NASA and pursue objectives they want without a butting President or Congress?

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dmode
I am curious how other countries operate their space programs that gives them
some autonomy from voting cycles. You cannot run a space program with budgets
and priorities changes every 4 years.

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wil421
Yes you can and NASA does this today. Otherwise we wouldn’t have any of the
mars rovers or the late Cassini Saturn probe.

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Rooster61
Cassini-Huygens wasn't purely NASA. The ESA and ISA were heavily involved. The
Huygens probe was purely European in origin.

Doesn't really take away from your argument, but it's worth mentioning.

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azurezyq
Politics aside. American people need a new dream to strive for. Without major
infrastructure construction going on, people will soon find them living in the
past in a few year. Whether to go back to "Moon" is not important but we need
to go to "Somewhere".

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bb88
There are other ways to keep people from living in the past other than say,
going to the moon.

* High speed internet service everywhere in the country.

* Cheap access to telemedicine to help those that can't get to a doctor.

* High speed rail

(etc)

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gozur88
I'd love to see a usable intercity passenger rail system of any kind. We could
build out a low speed network for a fraction of the HSR cost and then up the
speed on routes where it makes sense on a piecemeal basis.

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bluGill
What is wrong with airplanes?

High speed rail makes sense on the coasts. Making a train from New York City
to Boston is a good idea (guess what, we have one, and it is the only Amtrak
route that is profitable). However a high speed train from New York to LA
would be a trip far too long for people to willingly take.

The point is don't try to make a solution fit all needs. Rail in the US is the
best in the world in large part because it doesn't deal with humans. This
allows efficiency that you can't get when dealing with people. (people don't
like sitting in a siding for an hour waiting for an oncoming trail so you have
to build more track...)

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gozur88
Frankly, airplanes suck. You spend endless time in security lines, get packed
in like sardines during the flight, and have stringent restrictions on what
kind of luggage you can take, how large it is, and how heavy.

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junkscience2017
Why do people assume HSR will not have TSA lines? All it will take is one
credible threat. Indeed, given the inevitability of a threat emerging, it
seems obvious that a TSA line will be part of the model from day one.

People will probably end up "packed like sardines" on HSR as well, as HSR will
inevitably have to be made to be economical.

~~~
gozur88
The economics are different for trains, though. The economic benefits of
shrinking seat sizes are far smaller. And no, the TSA line is not inevitable.

Other countries that deal with terrorism operate train systems without people
groping your privates. Yet another problem with airplanes is a tiny bomb can
cause explosive decompression. That's not a worry with trains - you're not
going to kill 300 people with a bomb you can hide in your underwear.

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bluGill
Explosive decompression is a myth. Been debunked many times, including a
commercial flight that landed after a large part of the top came off (I think
some people blew out - but this is a failure that isn't unique to planes so I
won't count it).

We have the TSA because people are afraid, and we don't travel by plane enough
to care.

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polyfractal
If anyone is into Space and Politics/Policy, the Planetary Society has semi-
recently started doing monthly "Space Policy Edition" episodes. Here's the
most recent:

[http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-
radio/show/201...](http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-
radio/show/2017/space-policy-edition-19.html)

They dig deep into the current political landscape and how that affects
current and future funding of various projects at NASA. Recently they started
doing interviews with people which is usually quite interesting too.

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JustAnotherPat
Baby Boomers giving up on space exploration will be one of their many, great
embarrassments.

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berbec
This generation's list isn't short, either. While progress continues to be
made on many fronts, quite a few things stick out like a sore thumb over the
last 40 years: tax cuts that pay for themselves, Clinton's impeachment (from
either side's viewpoint), dot-com bubble, tax cuts that pay for themselves,
Iraq, massive deficits, great recession, insane partisan gridlock, tax cuts
that pay for themselves.

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DubiousPusher
I think our money might be better spent on multiple machine only missions that
accomplish some difficult task through automation on the surface of the moon.
For the cost of sending a few people we could probably pay for machine only
missions that build structures, drill functional water wells and grow food.

Those kind of things would prepare us for future colonies off this planet
wherever they might be. And we'd gain a lot of value in important emerging
industries that could be quickly applied to great benefit here.

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shkkmo
I don't see any mention of funding in this article. Any such directive is
ineffective without a commitment towards increasing funding for NASA over the
short and long term.

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zeveb
The President doesn't fund things; the Congress does (which is part of the
reason that the way Americans look at their president as a kind of elected
king is just so _weird_ : he's simply the guy charged with executing the laws
as they are written, not the guy charged with writing them).

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shkkmo
The President's ability to veto and the vice-president's tie breaking vote on
the Senate give the President a great deal of potential to affect the
legislation that Congress passes. The President could certainly make a
commitment to increased funding for NASA by threatening to veto any spending
bill that doesn't boost NASA's funding.

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antaviana
Given the highly controversial nature of Trump's executive orders, often
escalating into violence, I thought that this was a tabs-versus-spaces thing.

