NASA - stuck on rockets

The answer is simple...quit worrying about going into deep space, the moon, Mars or other planets. They look like a Chinese firedrill trying to plan for off world projects but still using childrens toys as the propulsion and energy systems.

Instead, FOCUS all space related efforts here on earth to discover new propulsion, new energy and life sustaining techniques.

It's clear that many discoveries and inventions related to our space efforts have filtered down to the private and consumer sector to make our lives better.

Now if NASA used what talent they have to come up with new propulsion and new energy, it would directly affect our dependence on oil and the introduction of efficient electrical or other energy and transport technologies.

NASA's moon plan too ambitious - "A panel reviewing NASA's current plans for human space flight will report that there is no realistic way to return to the moon by 2020 -- or even 2028.

The final list of options being explored by the Augustine group will include some variation of a lunar base down the road. But the committee is most animated by what it calls the ``Deep Space'' option, a strategy that emphasizes getting astronauts far beyond Low Earth Orbit but not necessarily plunking them down on alien worlds.

Instead, the ``Deep Space'' strategy would send them to near-Earth asteroids and to gravitationally significant points in space, known as Lagrange points, that are beyond the Earth's protective magnetosphere. Astronauts might even go all the way to Phobos, a tiny moon of Mars, where the spaceship wouldn't land so much as rendezvous, in the same way that a spacecraft docks at the International Space Station.

The Earth's moon would be a possible ``off-ramp'' of such a strategy but not a central target for exploration. Putting astronauts on the surface of Mars, and then returning them to Earth, would be prohibitively expensive, according to an analysis by the committee, which will send its report to the president by the end of this month."

Just think how much research and development could be accomplished with all the money NASA pisses away every year, but devote it to energy and new propulsion. NASA gets a bit over 17 BILLION dollars for its yearly budget.

We need to get away from primitive rockets and discover how to control gravity or use field forces to propel our spacecraft and other transport methods.

Space panel considers alternatives to NASA's plan for moon base - "Instead of trying to set up permanent moon base as Constellation envisioned, Crawley called for a phased exploration program starting with flybys and scouting missions, building up to longer visits and eventual bases.

That, he said, is more affordable and achievable.

When Constellation was conceived in 2005, NASA envisioned spending about $100 billion to return to the moon by 2020. But the program has been squeezed by congressional budget cuts, cost overruns and technical hurdles.

"It is unclear whether NASA has the funding for any scenarios that do anything important beyond low-Earth orbit prior to 2020," said Christopher Chyba, a panel member who is professor of astrophysical sciences and international affairs at Princeton University.

So the panel is trying to devise scenarios that could work with roughly $80 billion, although no price tags were put on the alternatives discussed on Thursday.

But even ideas the panel seems to support -- like extending the space station's life by about five years until 2020, or flying the shuttle into 2012 or beyond -- cost billions that NASA doesn't have.

"NASA has a chronic problem: it does not have the budget to develop new systems and operate existing ones," Chyba said."

Original Moon tapes Erased, how convenient!

Come ON...the amazing things you can do with video these days make it a walk in the park to put whatever they want on the new tapes, especially even if remastered digitally. Wonder how much Spielberg and Pixar got to help NASA do this?

With the originals, it would have been hard to hide imperfections easily discovered with modern technology to show how much of the lunar landings and space program were faked to build national prize as the first there.

"The original recordings of the first humans landing on the moon 40 years ago were erased and re-used, but newly restored copies of the original broadcast look even better, NASA officials said on Thursday.

NASA released the first glimpses of a complete digital make-over of the original landing footage that clarifies the blurry and grainy images of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the surface of the moon.

NASA admitted in 2006 that no one could find the original video recordings of the July 20, 1969, landing.

The bad news is they were part of a batch of 200,000 tapes that were degaussed

-- magnetically erased -- and re-used to save money.

"The goal was live TV," Nafzger told a news conference.

"We should have had a historian running around saying 'I don't care if you are ever going to use them -- we are going to keep them'," he said.

They found good copies in the archives of CBS news and some recordings called kinescopes found in film vaults at Johnson Space Centre.

Nafzger does not worry that using a Hollywood-based company might fuel the fire of conspiracy theorists who believe the entire lunar program that landed people on the moon six times between 1969 and 1972 was staged on a movie set or secret military base.

"This company is restoring historic video. It mattered not to me where the company was from," Nafzger said.

"The conspiracy theorists are going to believe what they are going to believe," added Lowry Digital Chief Operating Officer Mike Inchalik." - Source

Russia beat us there ANYWAY but that too has been covered up for all these years;

Russian spacecraft landed on moon hours before Americans - "A previously unheard recording of a Russian spacecraft attempting to beat NASA's Apollo 11 in 1969's race to the moon has been released.

The recordings from Jodrell's Lovell radio telescope, which were hidden in archives until researchers found them, show the Russian craft orbited the Moon and crash-landed onto its surface at 15:50 on July 21 - just a few hours before the Americans lifted.

In the newly released recordings, which were made over three days, Sir Bernard, the founder of Jodrell Bank, can be heard narrating events with conversation from the Apollo 11 astronauts in the background.

Sir Bernard notes a change in the orbit of Luna 15 to take it closer to the US landing site and later reports a rumour from a "well-informed source in Moscow" that the craft is about to land. People in Jodrell's control room can then be heard shouting "it's landing" and "it's going down much too fast" as they track Luna 15's final moments before it crashes. A voice is later heard saying: "I say, this has really been drama of the highest order." -