
NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars - chha
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/07/nasa-finally-admits-it-doesnt-have-the-funding-to-land-humans-on-mars/
======
habosa
In many science fiction books we assume that if an alien planet ever got a
whiff of us they'd quickly board their space ships and come see us.

It's somewhat comforting to think the alien planet could also be in a
perpetual bureaucratic budget crisis and they've dismantled their space
program to make more room for tax cuts.

Politics could save us from an alien invasion!

~~~
bluGill
Science fiction almost universally assumes the speed of light is not a hard
limit. At this time we have every reason to believe that it is a limit. Our
theories also say that if you were to go faster than light (which you cannot)
it implies time dilation and time travel - again science fiction just assumes
a loop hole so that doesn't happen.

Many talk about travel at 10 times the speed of light (warp-10) as if that is
fast, but if you actually notice that lack of aging during travel they have to
be traveling much faster than that. (at 10 times the speed of light the
nearest star to earth is just under a 1 year round trip - your kids would not
remember you very well when you return)

Which is to say that any aliens with space travel that discovers us now will
not be making the journey because the length of time it would take.

~~~
datr
Just an FYI. In Star Trek at least the warp system works like this: warp-1 is
the speed of light and it then increases exponentially with warp-10 being
infinite velocity.

Source: [http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Warp_factor](http://memory-
alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Warp_factor)

~~~
wanderingjew
> it then increases exponentially with warp-10 being infinite velocity

No, no, no. That was only in the Voyager episode _Threshold_. It is widely
regarded as one of the worst Voyager episodes, and the entire plot of that
episode doesn't make any sense. There are questions of if this episode is even
canon.

In any event, there are other Star Trek episodes where warp 10 is not a hard
limit. _All Good Things_ has ships traveling at Warp 13. The Kelvans modified
the TOS Enterprise to travel at Warp 11. Even within Voyager, transwarp
conduits allow for travel faster than whatever warp 10 would be if you
disregard _Threshold_.

Warp 10 is not infinite velocity. It's just a line in a terribly written
episode.

~~~
lgg
No, it is actually (mostly) correct. In ST:TNG they redefined the definition
such that it is infinite. It was documented in the _Star Trek: The Next
Generation Technical Manual_ , which was published in 1991 and was written by
the technical advisors for the series, who based it if the internal series
technical bibles[1]. This was a distinct change from the original TOS which
they never explained or formally retconned, but for all the series in that era
it holds.

That was the standard scale used ST:TNG, ST:DS9, and ST:VOY with the notable
exception of _All Good Things_. Obviously the point was to convey to the
audience "Hey look, in the future things go much faster." Unfortunately they
had originally chosen a scale that doesn't make that obvious to most viewers
(it is not intuitively obvious that Warp 9.999 is substantially faster than
Warp 9.99[2]). At a practical level it also very inconvenient to have a speed
scale where all of the speeds share the same prefix (IOW, it is much easier
for the captain to call out "Warp 9" and "Warp 12" then it is is to call out
"Warp 9.99" and "Warp 9.999."

I choose to believe that the in the _All Good Things_ timeline that once
Federation started building ships that consistently exceeded 9.9 they came up
with a modified scale that had better resolution and was easier to use, but
that doesn't change the fact that _Threshold_ (despite being terrible) is
actually consistent with the existing source content and _All Good Tings_ is
not.

1: [http://memory-
alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Next_Gener...](http://memory-
alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation_Technical_Manual) 2:
[http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Warp_factor](http://memory-
alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Warp_factor)

------
FiatLuxDave
I had a conversation a few years ago with Buzz Aldrin. He was talking about
his idea for a Mars Cycler which would travel continuously between Earth and
Mars. I told him that I thought it was a great idea (especially as it would be
investing in 'permanent' space infrastructure instead of a single-shot
mission) but that I thought it was unlikely that the government would allocate
enough resources to build it. He seemed very disappointed with me, as if by
making a realistic assessment of today's politics that I was voting in that
way. I'm all for spending money in Chryse Planitia instead of Helmand
province. So is almost everyone I know. But I feel like the chance of the US
government actually funding something serious in space is pretty much nil. And
I have no idea how to go about changing that.

~~~
mannigfaltig
I have trouble understanding the enthusiasm about space. Space hostile and
empty. Why not simply send space probes and rovers at a fraction of the cost
and spend the money more wisely, for example in projects which research aging,
cancer, overpopulation and disaster management in face of global warming. Why
do we need to make the exception for space and get drunk with nostalgia and
romantic ideas of exploration, when the rest of science is usually about
sobriety and utility. Where is the sober calculation that space exploration is
more effective than other ways of spending research funds?

~~~
tynpeddler
Space probes may be cheap but they are slooooowwww. Most of the research done
by spirit, opportunity and curiosity could have been done by a trained
astronaut in an afternoon. As an example, in its 2623 day mission, spirit
traveled less than 5 miles. Rovers are great for low budget exploration, but
if you want to kick things into high gear, there's no substitution for trained
humans.

Some of you may be thinking, 'Hold on a second, if you took the money for
manned exploration and poured that all in to rovers, surely you would get even
more science done than humans could possibly do!" Perhaps, but I would argue
that the research done to support the manned exploration should be counted in
the scientific haul. Meaning that currently, for ten billion dollars, we could
shoot rovers to every corner of the solar system using current rocket
technology. But if we spent that ten billion dollars sending people to mars,
we would have to develop new rockets, new infrastructure, new habitation
technologies, cosmic radiation shields and much more. All that technology,
plus the knowledge we gain on mars would be more valuable than simply sending
rovers all over the solar system, partially because all that new technology
would probably make it easier to later send rovers all over the solar system.

In addition to the above, there is also the massive pr power of putting people
on mars. Everyone in the world knows Neil Armstrong, but no one cares much
about luna 2.

~~~
valuearb
NASAs manned space efforts have devolved into a scam to divert funds into the
state of Alabama. It literally can't build any manned space systems unless
they are gold plated and cost 20 times what they should.

~~~
nathancahill
The gold plating is for radiation shielding in space. It reflects more
infrared radiation than other materials.

~~~
sgt101
I thought it was to prevent corrosion in leo.. I understood that the upper
atmosphere's interaction with high energy radiation creates a corona of
ionized gas around the earth which is extremely eager to combine/corrode any
material it makes contact with.

------
maxxxxx
I have been watching this since 2000. New president comes in, scraps old
programs, declares new "vision". NASA does a few incoherent things and the
whole thing restarts after a few years. It's pretty sad. I wish they would
commit to something and actually finish it.

~~~
Nanite
NASA programs typically span multiple decades and run in the billions of
dollars, The political pendulum sways from one side to the other side every
4-8 years, every new administration is looking for ways to cut down taxes.
It's amazing they get anything done imho.

~~~
Thaxll
They should cut the defence budget. 611B/year it's a joke.

~~~
dTal
The funny thing is, with the kind of space presence that kind of money buys
you (we're talking Clarke-style rotating space stations here), nobody would
_dare_ fuck with you.

You don't need an official space weapons program to be able to drop heavy
things from orbit. Nor do you need a fancy anti-satellite ballistics system
when you can have one of your many astronauts sidle over and hit it with a
hammer.

~~~
dfox
Droping stuff from orbit is cool scifi weapon system, but in practice it is
surprisingly hard to do (you cannot just drop stuff, you have to impart it
with some deltav to cancel out orbital velocity of the station) and
inefficient (you have to get the stuff up there, which when you ignore
atmosferic drag requires same amount energy as the projectile would release on
impact)

~~~
gozur88
This. Land-based missiles are far cheaper and more effective.

~~~
dfox
Recently I've seen this quote:

"Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics." \- Gen.
Robert H. Barrow, USMC

And exactly this thing seems to be the major problem with essentially every
space-related weapons platform other than ICBMs. Simply almost every such
proposed system uses some expendable ammunition that is significantly more
expensive to deploy or even just manufacture than what it is supposed to
destroy.

~~~
bluGill
part of logistics is the ability to do something. It doesn't have to be
practical for me to drop a heavy thing on you, I just need the ability to do
it if you push me hard enough. If I'm governor of a space station I'm better
off not turning half my space station into a bomb on your capital, but if you
push my hard enough I might feel compelled to do that so you will treat me and
my needs with respect.

~~~
dfox
Problem with this is that it has to be credible threat. Even when you would
fill ISS with conventional explosives and somehow arrange for it to land on
reasonably precise spot and explode on impact the damage caused will be many
orders of magnitude smaller than what you would expedite to do all that (and
this holds even when you take the expense as a fraction of relevant defense
budgets instead of absolute values)

------
thearn4
I'm a bigger fan of putting a semi-permanent ISS 2.0 on the surface of the
moon vs. boots on Mars. I don't work directly in exploration systems, but I'm
not the only one at NASA who feels this way.

But more than anything I think we and the other executive agencies would take
any strong commitment on an exploration and human spaceflight direction from
congress that survives across presidential administrations over any specific
technical consideration.

I.e. we're waiting for strong elected leadership.

~~~
computerex
I am a fan of that too, but I don't know how practical it is. What would we
get out of having a manned station around the moon? It's a desolate piece of
rock with little to no activity in the core. It's dead by all means, and the
probes we have in orbit + instrumentation that was left by Apollo and the tons
of moon rock we brought back I think already gave us an abundant amount of
data to work with.

But alas, I am a computer programmer and that's just what I think. I could
very well be wrong and there could be a lot of value in having a manned lunar
station.

~~~
CydeWeys
You misread the previous comment. The suggestion isn't a manned station around
the Moon (which would have more negatives than positives versus existing LEO
stations), it's a manned station _on_ the Moon. There are plenty of reasons
that having a base on the Moon would be useful. You can extract resources
(including fuels, water, and construction materials) which would reduce
resupply requirements, there's gravity which makes long-term habitation safer,
and we'd start getting experience with manned stations that would directly
transfer over to Mars. On a Moon base, if everything totally fails, you can
always still get back to Earth and survive, or survive long enough for help to
make it your way, so it's a lower risk than attempting to build a base from
scratch on Mars. On Mars if everything totally fails, you're dead.

There's also the propellant depot scenario -- mine propellant on the Moon and
use it to refuel ships that launch from the Earth. The Moon's gravity well
isn't that deep and there are no atmospheric losses, so you can do
farther/faster/cheaper launches using a smaller spaceship that reaches LEO
mostly empty, then refuels at the Moon.

------
Robotbeat
The main thing NASA needs to land people on Mars (or the Moon for that matter)
is a lander. NASA does not have one, nor is one being funded. All the other
details for Mars can be done with variants of what already exists or will fly
shortly (commercial crew vehicles or even Soyuz, ISS modules for a transfer
craft, launch vehicles like the EELVs used by the military or Falcon 9 or
Falcon Heavy, in-orbit docking and propellant transfer which is commonly used
on the Space Station, etc). If you see a lander being developed and tested,
then you know you have a serious human space exploration program.

NASA has sufficient funding for accomplishing a human Mars landing. But not
the political freedom to direct that funding where it's most critical (i.e. a
lander).

SpaceX, on the other hand, is developing this technology for a lander. Their
reuse technology for Falcon 9 proved for the first time the feasibility of
supersonic retropropulsion, a CRITICAL technology needed for a human-scale
Mars lander. A vertically landing reusable upper stage, which SpaceX intends
to develop next (after block 5 Falcon 9) as part of their Mars rocket plans,
is essentially a Mars lander prototype.

SpaceX, even though they have less funding and have to rely on funding from
commercial launches (as well as capital used for developing commercially
viable hardware, like the constellation) to develop their Mars lander, is thus
on a better and surer path to Mars than NASA.

This is SpaceX's Mars architecture in a nutshell:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qo78R_yYFA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qo78R_yYFA)

In order to pay for it, they will develop a smaller (but still tremendously
huge) and more economical version of the rocket shown in that video to replace
Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. They will use it to launch and maintain their
12,000 satellite megaconstellation (thousands of satellites per year),
something that would BARELY be feasible with their partially reusable Falcon
architecture (but not feasible with expendable rockets) but which fits nicely
and economically into the capability of their subscale Mars rocket. This way,
they can leverage capital they'll raise for their megaconstellation to build
the primary pieces of their human Mars transportation architecture.

~~~
beisner
Lander aside, the biggest limiting factor is getting astronauts back from
Mars! We already know how to get things there, and I think the lander issue is
relatively easy to solve, but getting all the equipment and -- most
importantly -- fuel for the return flight is the hardest problem to solve
economically. Of course we could send like, 12 missions to deliver all the
required components, but coordinating the assembly of a rocket on Mars is no
walk in the park.

~~~
Robotbeat
Correct. In my post, I was assuming "lander" would either be a two-stage
vehicle like the Apollo lunar lander capable of both landing and later
ascending (with or without refueling) or a single-stage vehicle (like SpaceX
is developing with ITS/BFS) that is capable of being refueled on the surface
for ascending.

And yes, fueling up on the surface is a difficult problem to solve. It will
involve at least extraction and electrolysis of CO2 from the Mars atmosphere
(as NASA is going to demonstrate on the Mars 2020 Rover), but most probably
will also include extraction of water, probably by using a robotic machine to
dig up regolith (which contains at least 2% absorbed water almost anywhere on
the surface of Mars) or buried ice, electrolysis of that water and reaction of
the resultant hydrogen with CO2 from the atmosphere to make methane. (And in
both cases of electrolysis, you'll be producing sufficient oxygen.)

This is, of course, partly why SpaceX is developing a methane-based engine for
their next-generation launch vehicle.

But you have to develop the lander first otherwise you can't feasibly land
enough equipment (using existing techniques limited to just a single ton) to
refuel.

------
John23832
I think anyone who remotely follows space exploration or NASA knew this.

~~~
52-6F-62
Definitely. I've been in a number of discussions (read: arguments) about
NASA's state of funding -- with some preferring to claim Trump has raised
NASA's funding for space exploration substantially.

It takes 5 minutes on Google to find historic data of % of spending budget. To
get to the moon ("and the other things") Kennedy/LBJ-era funding was between
1.19% and 4.7% if I recall correctly. During Obama's admin I think it reached
a low of 0.46% after the recession. Trump raised that to 0.5x% I believe. Not
exactly a windfall on NASA's scale...

I know I'm using relative figures here, but maybe somebody who's more informed
can assess the reliability of a % of budgetary spending's impact on r&d in
these cases vs. hard dollar figures which are probably a bit easier. USA
budgets are not my strength. I just want to see Mars happen ("and the other
things").

~~~
valuearb
more manned money for NASA is just more pork for Alabama.

------
Tepix
NASA has enough funding, they are just spending it on SLS and Orion(¹). It
appears that if they were to pay the "new space" companies to get them to
Mars, the money would be enough.

(¹) because Congress wants them to, because ... jobs (as if "new space"
companies weren't creating jobs, too... even competitive ones)

~~~
RugnirViking
How do you propose we would get man to mars without a heavy lift rocket or
manned capsules?

EDIT: the previous comment used to say that SLS and Orion was a 'waste of
money'. I accept that spaceX proposals among others are cheaper, however NASA,
the US government, and many scientists also have a vested interest in keeping
at least some orbital capability in the public sphere, even if only for
military reasons

~~~
Tepix
Use Falcon Heavy by SpaceX or New Glenn by Blue Origin for a fraction of the
cost of SLS.

Orion may be worth keeping. It is limited to 4 astronauts which is probably
too small a crew for a 2.5 year Mars mission. I do think that it could be
built much cheaper, however.

~~~
DiThi
I don't think FH is enough for manned mars missions. It has enough delta V to
land there but not to come back.

~~~
valuearb
A Falcon Heavy has close to the capacity of the first SLS version, and about
half the later versions. But you can launch 20 Falcon Heavies for the cost of
one SLS.

------
jankotek
Better science could be done with automated machines. We could explore entire
solar system for a price of single mission.

~~~
ceejayoz
As automation and robotics advances, I'm sure that'll be true.

Right now, if you compare something like Curiosity against a geologist with a
shovel and access to a small lab, the geologist's gonna win.

~~~
mcguire
Keeping a geologist alive on the way and while there, and returning them, are
a little expensive, though.

------
Asdfbla
While this would certainly be a blow for science in general, I don't
understand why people are so enamoured with human space travel and think it's
a realistic avenue for humanity to get out of the responsibility we have for
Earth (there's the strange defeatist sentiment on the internet that we have to
leave this planet in the foreseeable future).

Fact is, the laws of physics probably dictate that we won't ever leave the
solar system and in our solar system there's not much we can work with to make
the other planets habitable. It's comparatively soooo much easier to simply
make life sustainable on Earth and then figure out space travel in the
thousands/millions of years we have left until some external disaster
(asteroid, exploding sun, whatever) threatens us. In the meantime, we can
explore space efficiently with robots.

~~~
Tepix
You don't know how much time we have left before desaster strikes.

Also, don't take it for granted that humanity has enough resources to build a
colony on another planet in the far future. Resources are only getting more
scarce. Technology doesn't advance by itself. It's smarter to start right now
instead of waiting.

------
princetontiger
Last I checked, Bolden/NASA has spent time gallivanting around the world
trying to be inclusive (Middle East, Asia, Africa, etc.). NASA is a larger
allegory for the USA. This entire country is toast in 100 years. It's similar
to the last Spanish galleons leaving Cordoba. In 2011, we have a similar
Galleon Moment. STS-135 will end up being the flight from NASA, ever. To
digest this fact makes me extremely sad.

There is a reason that the UK did not have a space program, but lead the
exploration of the West in the 1800s. Britons had intestinal fortitude during
the Victorian era, and this same urge moved to Americans after WW2.

------
kilroy123
Of course, they don't have the money. They literally need up to 100 billion
UDS to make it happen. Alternatively, partner with China and a few other
countries.

We could wait until private enterprises can get us there but that probably
wouldn't be a far a long time.

[http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-
texas/houston/a...](http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-
texas/houston/article/NASA-finally-talks-Mars-budget-and-it-s-not-6562388.php)

------
Kazamai
I don't see the purpose of landing people on Mars. Just to say, "we did it".
Wouldn't it be a much more rewarding goal to research and execute systems that
could send humans one way to planets in our galaxy. Even seeding organisms on
other planets in the hope that they evolve into intelligent life.

~~~
CydeWeys
I don't see much purpose in the Wright brothers' airplane either, but it was a
necessary intermediate step between not being able to fly and today's modern
commercial jetliners.

In space travel as in software engineering, you need incremental progress.

~~~
gorkonsine
Very soon after the Wrights demonstrated their warped-wing technology worked,
they were already trying to sell planes to the military. It didn't take long
at all for people to figure out they could use airplanes for surveillance and
bombing.

There's no such obvious commercial use to going to Mars. If you want
resources, they're much more easily available in nearby asteroids.

------
beachbum8029
Shouldn't we be researching ways to terraform Mars from afar rather than ship
a couple humans to go live in the middle of red rocks for a few decades and
then die?

~~~
Tepix
That's even more expensive.

------
squarefoot
If the bean counters at NASA read "Buy Jupiter!" by Isaac Asimov they'd
already have the solution at hand. Ok, building flying billboards is still a
bit hard, but advertising is the point. What about sending probes and ships
named after the highest bidder name/company? Of course they would have also a
name for the scientific community and those of us who would never ever accept
saying "Coca Cola has landed on Mars".

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Just doing sponsors like in auto racing would go a long ways.

"Mobile 1 the official grease of $a_bearing_on_mars!!!!" is pretty damn good
advertising.

------
veeragoni
Bill Nye have a different argument.
[https://youtu.be/5ekUbzciyKg](https://youtu.be/5ekUbzciyKg)

~~~
hueving
Does Bill Nye have any relationship to NASA that would give him more knowledge
than what is in this report?

~~~
FiatLuxDave
Bill Nye is CEO of the Planetary Society, which has a very close relationship
with NASA.

------
valuearb
If NASA built their manned space program around the SpaceX Falcon Heavy and
Blue Origin New Glenn (and future uprated versions of both), they could start
launching crewed vehicles into deep space next year at less than 1/10 the cost
of the SLS that won't be launching humans for at least 4 years.

It's not just that they have been held hostage by congress to build the SLS as
a pork delivery service. They've also become risk averse. The Saturn V was
built with "all up" testing, rushed to testing a completed rocket instead of
focusing on component testing. They only flew two Saturn V unmanned missions
before they launched one with men on it. Today, SpaceX has launched the Falcon
9 over 20 times, and has a capsule with the safest abort mode ever, and NASA
still hasn't man-rated it.

NASA could take a fraction of the money they are spending on the SLS, and
start doing monthly deep space launches by the end of next year. They could
use 140,000 lb capacity Falcon Heavies and Dragon Capsules to do lunar
missions. They could put astronauts back on the moon, build a constantly
manned moon base, develop and test rovers and other equipment they want to use
on mars.

Astronauts would be lined up to volunteer, even if the Falcon Heavy only has
unmanned two test flights. They are far more rational judges of what the
safety levels should be than the PR department at NASA.

Then within a few more years, NASA could shift to doing Mars missions when
SpaceX and Blue Origin or anyone else can start giving them 300,000+ lb cargo
capacity launches for less than $1,000/lb. At that price again they could
average a dozen or two dozen launches a year. All that launch capacity would
enable them to launch a group of Aldrin Cyclers to provide regular transport
to mars and back with heavy radiation shielding, supply storage and room for
big crews. Other robot launches can pre-cache supplies, equipment and return
fuel on Mars.

But they can never do it using the SLS path. It's going to start off costing
near $20,000 per lb for LEO access, and even the later versions will still
cost over $10,000 per lb. That just makes Mars missions almost economically
impossible. The SLS could only do an Apollo style program, where a decade from
now they launch a handful of all-in-one missions (two orbiters, a couple that
land) before congress wilts under the enormous costs.

------
ninguem2
From the body of the article, it seems that landing humans on Mars is not the
problem. It's bringing them back.

------
tdsamardzhiev
No, they just said they can't give you a date. When did ArsTechnica start
abusing clickbait titles?

------
coss
I like to imagine a world where tax payers can choose where they wish to
allocate their taxes.

~~~
criddell
Would one of the options be _return to sender_? If so, I can tell you the box
most people would check.

~~~
droidist2
It would all go to my foundation.

~~~
criddell
And what exactly does the "Return to Sender Foundation" do?

~~~
droidist2
It promotes use of the song "Return to Sender" by Elvis Presley

------
louithethrid
NSA admits it does have the funding to land humans on Mars - but lacks the A
to go there

------
indigo0086
And it should never have the funding. Let the private sector invest in that
venture.

~~~
ncallaway
The private sector can only make significant moves in this area (at the
moment) with investments and funding from NASA.

NASA has been a _massive_ customer / subsidizer for entrants in the new space
arena.

I'm a huge fan of private sector space innovation, but having a large and
well-funded public entity helps make that innovation possible. Advocating
blanket defunding of NASA would put the private space sector into jeopardy.

~~~
indigo0086
NASA is made up of people, they can move freely. I just don't beleive in blind
forced investment in a stagnant organization.

~~~
skinnymuch
When NASA funds private sector projects, the people aren't the funding, the
money is. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point. I don't get what you're
saying.

~~~
indigo0086
I quickly and poorly tried to make a point, so let me just state what I
envision. NASA is one giant government entity bogged down by bureaucracy like
any other govt org. The private sector can grow, and become competitive for
the greatest minds, more efficient tech, and more networked understanding of
what is needed to accomplish this mission. Each company will do what is in the
best interest of their company and invest as such. NASA will take the money
out of our pockets, dump it in these projects, and will waste a certain
amount, and may not even come out with tech as effective as had the private
sector had done it.

The reason I trust the private sector over NASA is that NASA is a "too big to
fail" org. It can lull for a few decades but because it's a federal org, if a
new need arises they'll try to solve it by dumping money into it. I mean I'm
sure persistence is a great quality on an individual level, but when our
dollars are at stake, I'd at least like to be ensured that the entire process
up until the final product is created is invested privately as it puts
pressure on a smaller scale. If they fail at doing it then we waisted the
dollars that could have been spent elsewhere more effectively, while a private
company will be able to re-structure, support and collaborate with others with
their knowledge.

I just don't have this blind trust that dumping money into NASA will produce a
result, let alone the best one. The people at nasa if they are smart can
freely go to a company that can do it better without the government waste or
abuse, NASA is merely a department with people, they're not shackled to their
desks and must only use their minds on American Space Ventures.

~~~
skinnymuch
Wouldn't SpaceX most likely not be around, at least not close to where it is
now, without NASA being such a big source of money?

------
spiritomb
such a waste of time and (other ppl's) money.

~~~
snappyTertle
Agreed. There's more important things to spend public money on at the moment
(like servicing the $20T in debt). Let private companies, like SpaceX,
voluntarily spend R&D on it.

~~~
giobox
Given the huge investments NASA has made in SpaceX to date, I'm not entirely
convinced that the split between public and private money in this space is as
black and white as you suggest.

SpaceX arguably wouldn't be here today without NASA's cash.

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/without-nasa-
there-w...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/without-nasa-there-would-
be-no-spacex-and-its-brilliant-boat-landing/)

~~~
theseatoms
Oh wow. That's disappointing.

~~~
ceejayoz
Why is that disappointing?

NASA today exists, in part, to do exactly that, and has benefitted
tremendously from their SpaceX partnership.

~~~
theseatoms
Just thought SpaceX had other revenue sources, I guess.

~~~
ceejayoz
They do?

[http://www.spacex.com/missions](http://www.spacex.com/missions)

About half the missions on there are non-US government flights.

------
Navigator
Considering NASA costs next to nothing (about 0.5% of the US govt's total
budget), and the studies I've seen referenced show its return on investment to
be about $10 for every $1 used (granted, it's a difficult figure to calculate,
but even if assuming a huge error margin that's still great ROI), it's no
wonder you chose to post that anonymously.

~~~
Tepix
A $10 return for $1 spent sounds nice.

As far as SLS is concerned, the numbers are probably not that great:
[https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/new-report-nasa-
spen...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/new-report-nasa-
spends-72-cents-of-every-sls-dollar-on-overhead-costs/)

------
MightyPowerful
Come on Trump! Are you a man or what? Are you really going to allow other
countries to beat us in yet another thing? Get these guys the funding we need
to make America great again!

------
BlackjackCF
Is it possible for NASA to Kickstart this? I'd throw money at them.

~~~
paulcole
Goal: Land humans on Mars.

Stretch Goal: Bring them back!

~~~
0xffff2
You jest, but if I ever get the opportunity I will take a one-way trip to Mars
without hesitation.

~~~
nobleach
I don't doubt your dedication.. I just try to imagine a week later after the
initial "I'm standing on MARS!!!" wears off... ok... so... there's nothing
here...

~~~
0xffff2
Ok, fair point. There would obviously need to be a mission plan that involved
a bit more than "go to Mars", but I think even thoroughly monitoring my slow
death by radiation over the course of a few months would be sufficiently
scientifically worthwhile that, along with the sheer fact of going to another
planet, for me to volunteer.

~~~
qbrass
It's not worth it to science to justify the cost of sending you.

------
shams93
Landing humans on other planets is the wrong way to go, at least at this stage
of technological development. You combine tele-present robots with upcoming
quantum teleportation of photons and you have instant communication between
the drone on Mars and the human operator on Earth. Its going to cost even more
to terraform Mars to make it even remotely do-able for human habitation.

~~~
clxsi
I don't think we've proven that quantum mechanics will allow for FTL
information transmission.

------
hildaman
If NASA doesn't have the funding for landing humans on Mars, this isn't "news"
to them.

This is whole article is actually designed to get attention at a time when the
CJS (Commerce Justice and Sciences) appropriations bill is being marked up[1].
The CJS subcommittee (of the House and Senate Appropriations committee)
decided how NASA money is spent.

It is no surprise that articles like this are popping up - at literally the
same time as CJS Appropriations bill is being marked up.

The way things work, is at times like this, even if NASA had the money to go
to Mars, they would never admit to it - because appropriators might start
cutting (do more with less... yada yada yada...)

I say this as a big fan of science and space exploration, but thought that
fellow HN'ers might appreciate a look behind the curtain to better understand
what is really going on here.

[1]
[https://appropriations.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?E...](https://appropriations.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=394933)

