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Have you all run the recent numbers yet ? It seems NASA's VSE has a lot of baggage, and some high costs - hence the cuts to JIMO, Dawn and MTO.
Here are some of the big numbers
1Return the Shuttle, launch Japan's Kibo, Finish the ISS...costs 900million-1.2billion per Shuttle flight
2Do research studies, astrobilogy projects and robotic missions around the solar system Cost - more Tens of billions
3One cost cutting method is do a little gamble with outsourcing - ask for private help from the Falcon or alt.spacers or outsource some exploration to nations like India and such
Cost many millions or dollars at perhaps a few billion
4Do the Moon Rockets ( CLV, CEV, CaLV ) and return astronauts to the Moon
Cost 90-110 Billion, then in year 2015-2018 we see the first manned orbital test of full lunar-CEV and where does CEV-LEM2 go ? Build a Lunar colony or plant flags ? Establish a settlement or collect Moon rocks, put another footprint on moon surface ? In year 2022-2025 after CEV-17 or LEM2-17 the American public opinion and Congress ask NASA why spend so much billions only for lunar-rocks, meanwhile Euros, Chinese, Japanese or Russians are either doing stuff on the Redplanet or about to do it
( MarsExpress-5 ? Russia's PhobosGrunt, Shenzhou redplanet ? MarsExpress Sample return ? )
After spending 90-110 Billion NASA finally looks away from the Moon and at serious Mars missions but the American public and Congress are unhappy with their expensive Moon-rocks.
5 NASA will finally use the CEV and Ares-Magnum for other means such as Mars, Jupiter-Europa sample return, spacestations or Neptune. NASA finally looks at Methane Engines Mars-base designs and they will now try and explore the Red Planet with unmanned and do manned Mars missions, CEV finally looks larger. This whole Mars trip will also cost billions more on the VSE but might be much cheaper than the Moon. Other lobby groups want a new 'Shuttle' or cheap Station support vehicle - due to rising costs many want CEV-CaLV retired like the Saturn-V was. NASA finally wakes up and sees it spent to much money and the Moon and will now have to abandon Mars or Europa.
Rough estimate for VSE total $190-320 billion ( give or take the Pork and bureaucracy Baggage )
'first steps are not for cheap, think about it...
did China build a great Wall in a day ?' ( Y L R newmars forum member )
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others have mentioned the 900 billion or 1$ Trillion dollar figures
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others have mentioned the 900 billion or 1$ Trillion dollar figures
Thats BS, where did you get such an outrageous figure?
...I'll deal with Yang in a little while
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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A load of economists and beancounters had those kinds of numbers plastered all over newspapers and websites about a month after the VSE was given by President Bush. A figure like a Trillion dollars is very high, an exaggeration but when was the last time NASA stuck to its budget projections the 60s ? JWST has gone outrageous, Shuttle totally expensive and other missions have had inflated prices reaching astronomical proportions. I think the trillion figure is a lie but don't be too surprised if the VSE continues to go over-budget.
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Nonesense, typical Bush-hating / not-spending-on-welfare hating quote/unquote "journalists" and self-appointed "experts." They just picked a scarry number out of thin air and "justified" it by "extrapolating" somehow.
The biggest reason that I am not worried about massive budget overruns is that NASA can't afford them: you must really understand the political situation NASA is in, after Columbia, the debacle of Return to Flight, and the ongoing lack of fiscal dicipline agency wide have depleated NASA of something even more important than cash: credibility. Rockets fly on credibility, just as surely as they do money or rocket fuel, perhaps even moreso then the other two. VSE is, basically, NASA's last chance... they have enough credibility to try one more time to be worth something, and if they fail - and by fail I mean fail to control costs and deliver hardware - manned spaceflight dies in Earth orbit.
NASA is actually being pretty generous with its budgets, and not setting out totally unrealistic numbers like Shuttle or X-33 or whatnot this time. One of the common features about many of NASA's over-budget projects has been risk, that is, they have largely been high-risk projects that required alot of new technology development.
The current projects getting started under VSE aren't aiming to achieve anything outlandish, they a technologically relativly simple and low-risk, so their budgets should be fairly reliable. The capsule aerodynamics, the engines and structures of all the launch vehicles, the facilities to build and assemble them, these are all fairly low risk, so the chances of a massive budget overrun are small.
We have now heard and admitted from even the unmanned science appologists that program budgets are under-estimated from the beginning: its not an overrun, JWST is a more ambitious and expensive project then it was billed as which should cost several billion. The reason why it costs more then what it was "supposed" to is because the JWST managers are didn't know just how complicated the thing would be and on top of that followed the "tradition" of lying about the cost to get aproved. Plain and simple.
The reason that NASA can't afford to do this with VSE is simple, either they are competant at making credible and truthful estimates about the complexity and cost of the program, or NASA is finished.
Edit: And on JWST, their lack of engineering dicipline about how heavy it would be is pretty bad too.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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You could say that the "three strikes" rule applies to NASA:
Strike 1: Building the Shuttle that doesn't work (~1970-1990)
Strike 2: Sticking with the Shuttle and building the ISS (~1990-2000)
Strike 3: Failing to manage to VSE competantly (2006+)
...and then they're out
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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You could say that the "three strikes" rule applies to NASA:
Strike 1: Building the Shuttle that doesn't work (~1970-1990)
Strike 2: Sticking with the Shuttle and building the ISS (~1990-2000)
Strike 3: Failing to manage to VSE competantly (2006+)
...and then they're out
They'll get the VSE done because NASA can't afford to drop the ball again.
What do you think would happen NASA if they messed this up : would the agnecy be broken-up GCNRevenger ?
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You could say that the "three strikes" rule applies to NASA:
Strike 1: Building the Shuttle that doesn't work (~1970-1990)
Strike 2: Sticking with the Shuttle and building the ISS (~1990-2000)
Strike 3: Failing to manage to VSE competantly (2006+)
...and then they're out
They'll get the VSE done because NASA can't afford to drop the ball again.
What do you think would happen NASA if they messed this up : would the agnecy be broken-up GCNRevenger ?
I think funding for the human side of the budget would get reduced if they failed.
Dig into the [url=http://child-civilization.blogspot.com/2006/12/political-grab-bag.html]political grab bag[/url] at [url=http://child-civilization.blogspot.com/]Child Civilization[/url]
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Human spaceflight would get defunded, politicans making noises about how our technology isn't really ready to send humans to space except on dangerous grand-standing missions (Apollo, Shuttle, Mir) and that space science is better accomplished by robots... which will be all thats left of NASA as a space exploration entity.
In such an event, barring the invention of a space elevator or a regenerative scramjet burning spiked slush hydrogen, man will stay right here on Earth for a long, long time... China will feel no need to rush anywhere, Russia/ESA won't be able to afford to do anything, and JAXA will pretty much be relegated to probes too.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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And now for you, Yang:
"hence the cuts to JIMO, Dawn and MTO."
One more time:
-JIMO was a boondoggle excuse to develop a space reactor, and now with VSE, we don't need an excuse. We don't need a mega battleship orbiter, smaller seperate missions would be much better anyway.
-DAWN, was managed incompetantly and perhaps fraudulently, its original pricetag doubled to about a billion dollars. NASA can't play this game with the space science people anymore, so Griffin rightly put his foot down.
-MTO, why? MRO does okay with its big antenna, and MSR will be nuclear powerd and have lots of juice to communicate with Earth, night and day. MTO won't have the lifespan to be around when manned missions might start either.
"Do research studies, astrobilogy projects and robotic missions around the solar system Cost - more Tens of billions"
Over how long? Between now at the mid 2030s, NASA will take in on the order of $400Bn, perhaps more. A few tens of billions is not a big slice of this.
"Moon Rockets ( CLV, CEV, CaLV ) and return astronauts to the Moon cost 90-110 Billion, then in year 2015-2018 we see the first manned orbital test of full lunar-CEV and where does CEV-LEM2 go ? Build a Lunar colony or plant flags ? Establish a settlement or collect Moon rocks, put another footprint on moon surface?"
To build a small research base (we still have quite a bit to learn from the Moon, Apollo didn't accomplish that much you know), prospect for PGMs/He3/H2O/Ilminite, then probobly set up life support and LOX fuel facilities. This will also be as good a practice for Mars - not any particular system, but rather the entire business of interplanetary manned travel - as NASA will get.
"In year 2022-2025 after CEV-17 or LEM2-17 the American public opinion and Congress ask NASA why spend so much billions only for lunar-rocks, meanwhile Euros, Chinese, Japanese or Russians are either doing stuff on the Redplanet or about to do it"
Unlikly. Russia and the ESA have neither the funding nor the willpower to do anything except plant flags on Mars. China isn't ready technologically to go at all, and the best they could do is licence foreign hardware, which they won't do to that extent.
"This whole Mars trip will also cost billions more on the VSE but might be much cheaper than the Moon."
Mars missions will bennefit from many major componets already exsisting, the CaLV and CEV capsule could be used for launch and a crew acent/return capsule, a stretch EDS stage would do for the TMI boost rocket, and LSAM landers might be adapted to Mars landers... Then all you really need is the HAB module(s) and the Methane engine.
"Other lobby groups want a new 'Shuttle' or cheap Station support vehicle - due to rising costs many want CEV-CaLV retired like the Saturn-V was. NASA finally wakes up and sees it spent to much money and the Moon and will now have to abandon Mars or Europa."
What lobby groups would these be? The USAF's space budget is already bigger then the whole NASA budget combined and rising, if they need cheap lift, they can do it themselves. Nobody will call for retiring CEV/CaLV as long as they can do the job and nothing better is available.
What do you mean "finally wakes up and sees it spent too much on the Moon?" I think you just made this up, I challenge you to justify this remark. NASA is doing the best it can given the circumstances, and there isn't a good less expensive way to return to the Moon.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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I think funding for the human side of the budget would get reduced if they failed.
Lunar missions is where the future lies according to NASA, Mars is getting cut back the focus now is Moon. So they better make good use of this budget for lunar missions.
U.S. plans moon base on path to Mars
Despite lack of fanfare, scientists work on technological hurdles
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12018911/
Harder than Mars
In some ways, the moon will be harder than Mars. Moon dust is much more abrasive than Mars dust; Mars has atmosphere; Mars has more gravity (one-third of Earth's); Mars has plenty of ice for a potential water supply, while the moon may have some, but probably not very much.
Still, the moon is ultimately much more forgiving because it is much closer — 250,000 miles away, while Mars is 34 million miles from Earth at its closest point. If someone needs help on the moon, it takes three days to get there. By contrast, Mars will be several months away even with the help of advanced — and as yet nonexistent — propulsion systems.
Not having to pay as dearly for mistakes is one key reason why the moon is an integral part of the Bush initiative. The other, as even scientists point out, is that if the United States does not return to the moon, others will.
"The new thing is China, and they've announced they're going to the moon. The Europeans want to go; the Russians want to go; and if we don't go, maybe they'll go with the Chinese," Mars Institute Chairman Pascal Lee said in an interview. "Could we bypass the moon and go to Mars while India and China are going to the moon? I don't think so."
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NASA will take in on the order of $400Bn, perhaps more. A few tens of billions is not a big slice of this.
So it may cost a liitle more than 400 Bil or a little less, the 1.0 Trillion figure was wrong although 1/2 a trillion might not be a far off guess on the cost of VSE
Human spaceflight would get defunded, politicans making noises about how our technology isn't really ready to send humans to space except on dangerous grand-standing missions (Apollo, Shuttle, Mir) and that space science is better accomplished by robots... which will be all thats left of NASA as a space exploration entity.
In such an event, barring the invention of a space elevator or a regenerative scramjet burning spiked slush hydrogen, man will stay right here on Earth for a long, long time... China will feel no need to rush anywhere, Russia/ESA won't be able to afford to do anything, and JAXA will pretty much be relegated to probes too.
What out the other space plans, Soyuz to the Moon, Brazil, India, S.Korea and Iran advancing their rockets...., Space tourism, Private sector moves, Russia's Kliper, ESA's ATV, Oural and Soyuz from Europe's spaceport ?
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/m … 31209.html
Human Spaceflight Without NASA?
' Meanwhile, there are new political factors that go beyond votes.
China is suddenly on an aggressive path toward the Moon and Mars after launching its first man into space in October. India on Friday announced it had developed a rocket capable of putting a man on the Moon, a goal the country has set for itself.
In a black void where the U.S. government sees the laurels of Apollo, others eye rich, endless opportunity. If President Bush does not decide the future of human spaceflight, perhaps the leader of another country, or the chief of an online book-selling empire, will. '
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-DAWN, was managed incompetantly and perhaps fraudulently, its original pricetag doubled to about a billion dollars. NASA can't play this game with the space science people anymore, so Griffin rightly put his foot down.
Well DAWN is back on the programme list again as of today
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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"Soyuz to the Moon"
Wrong, its Soyuz around the Moon. Strapping a hypergolic rocket to the back of a Soyuz and sending it free-return around the Moon isn't "going to the Moon." Its about as far from it as you can get because of the vast amount of fuel needed to stop, land, and return.
"Brazil, India, S.Korea and Iran advancing their rockets..."
From suborbital sounding rockets derived from theatre ballistic missiles to light satelite launchers. Big deal.
"Space tourism, Private sector moves"
Space tourism is going nowhere fast, nobody can afford orbital tourism. And the private sector could never afford a Lunar program, the cost and risk of the technology and building a fuel depot would be untennable.
"Russia's Kliper, ESA's ATV..."
Go exactly nowhere, other then low Earth orbit, and can't go anywhere else. Klipper itself, without a heavy and dangerous active cooling system, probobly can't survive the heat of reentry from Lunar velocities, and does absolutely nothing about the problem of getting there and back.
"China is suddenly on an aggressive path toward the Moon and Mars after launching its first man into space in October."
Which they won't do because they don't know how, not for a while anyway, nor can they afford it with the infrastructure crunch most likly. They might be able to plant a flag on the Moon or send a crew around Mars, but thats really it, they can't do anything worthwhile like we could.
"In a black void... others eye rich, endless opportunity"
Then others are stupid. There is no "endless opportunity" because of this little issue called gravity. Until our basic materials technology advances and advances alot (barring a fuel breakthrough, eg slush spike hydrogen and cyclic ozone) there will never never be anything profitable in space besides a little Lunar mining or limited specialty chemical manufacture. It just can't be done, it can't be done without cheaper lift, which cannot be provided without better technology, which we don't have and won't have for a long time.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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"Russia's Kliper, ESA's ATV..."
Go exactly nowhere, other then low Earth orbit, and can't go anywhere else. Klipper itself, without a heavy and dangerous active cooling system, probobly can't survive the heat of reentry from Lunar velocities, and does absolutely nothing about the problem of getting there and back.
ESA and Russia are starting to focus on LVs like ideas for an Ariane-M, Angara and Ariane-2010
NEXT LAUNCHER ?
They might also have plans for Venus ( Venera-D or Venus Sample Return ) and Mars missions
MSR ESA
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Neither Ariane nor Angara have enough payload for a practical Mars program in any derivitive or iteration, and only a massively modified and souped-up Ariane (Ariane-2015?) - with multiple flights - be able to put man on the Moon. Ariane-M, a completly new rocket using old engines, exsists only as a few slides in an ESA powerpoint presentation that wasn't solicited in the first place, for a mission to Mars that they aren't comitted to nor can probobly execute for several decades.
Venus? Um, nobody can do anything on Venus except a little science. Big deal.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Little science on Venus ? A sample return looks very possible - infact NASA, ESA and JPL have done a number of studies on this, and a sample return would be a major techological achievement.
The squyres/JPL MERs are great robotic rovers, I have been watching the missions for a while now. Euros might be able to do a MSR as things stand, the Ariane launcher is growing with each launch and is a lot more powerful than those Delta-2 sounding rockets that delivered the MERs, if a European MarsSampleReturn were to find life on Mars before the USA did it would be a major embarrassment for NASA
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Little science on Venus ? A sample return looks very possible - infact NASA, ESA and JPL have done a number of studies on this, and a sample return would be a major techological achievement.
The squyres/JPL MERs are great robotic rovers, I have been watching the missions for a while now. Euros might be able to do a MSR as things stand, the Ariane launcher is growing with each launch and is a lot more powerful than those Delta-2 sounding rockets that delivered the MERs, if a European MarsSampleReturn were to find life on Mars before the USA did it would be a major embarrassment for NASA
No doubt that Europe has the potential ability for something like a Mars Sample Return (MSR), the NASA boys were going to try it with Delta-II and Deltas-III's using a Micro Mars Ascent Vehicle ( MAV ), one of USA's MAVs was like PILOT microsatellite launcher. The only real thing missing from Europe is experience of Mars landings ( Beagle crashed like Russia's Marsprobes or the USA's Mars Polar Lander ) and as the USA turns away from Mars and looks at the Moon there are a number of future European Mars missions such as Exo-Mars and MSR planned for 2010-2016 window. Studies for these Mars Mission are being carried out by industrial teams that include companies from ESA member states and Canada like Alenia Spazio (Italy) with subcontractors OHB (Germany), GMV (Spain), SEA (UK), SSC (UK) and Laben (Italy) EADS Astrium (France) with subcontractors Astrium Ltd. (UK), EADS LV (France) and SAS (Belgium) Alcatel Space (France) with subcontractors Deimos (Spain), ETCA (Belgium), Fluid Gravity Engineering (UK), Kayser Threde (Germany), Laben (Italy), MD Robotics (Canada), NGC Aerospatiale (Canada), QinetiQ (UK), Vorticity (UK). Russia is still planning to launch its Phobos-Grunt probe, and the European Space Agency has the long-term vision ofor Mars with the Aurora Programme.
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Neither Ariane nor Angara have enough payload
The Angara Family looks to have a very wide range of payloads AngaraKVRB and Angara-5-UOHB look to be in the range of 20-40 T in LEO or perhaps 8,000 Kg to 16,000 to GTO. I suspect the CLV might be more exciting that the Gemini of the 60s but Assuming there are no more NASA budget cuts and assuming the CEV and CLV'Stick' ever gets built, they might be able to launch the payload of a Proton, TitanCentaur or Angara.
'first steps are not for cheap, think about it...
did China build a great Wall in a day ?' ( Y L R newmars forum member )
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"in the range of 20-40 T"
That is a huge range, which is it closer to? Oh wait, the rocket doesn't exsist. The Ariane-V "2010" model is supposed to hit about the 30MT mark.
I don't think anybody should even talk about doing Mars with a launch vehicle under 80MT. 80MT is what it takes to execute a NASA DRM-III style mission to Mars, which I reguard as the smallest productive arcitecture, and even it assumes nuclear rockets and signifigantly lighter equipment.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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I don't think anybody should even talk about doing Mars with a launch vehicle under 80MT. 80MT is what it takes to execute a NASA DRM-III style mission to Mars, which I reguard as the smallest productive arcitecture, and even it assumes nuclear rockets and signifigantly lighter equipment.
The launchers are on their way, but China, Russia, Europe or anyone else doesn't need to race out their Heavy-Lifters yet because NASA's CaLV/Ares and the Stick are just limited graphical presentations or a fancy powerpoint shows and probably won't be built until they can get a real start on it until the year 2010. So Russia and the Chinese would have a very an unfair headstart. The Ariane-2010 or Ariane-6 aren't the only studies going on, an Ariane-2020, there is the unsolicited Ariane-M study ( 120 T ) or one could use a single launch of the Super-Ariane or HLLV-2020 seems to match your mark exactly 80T to LEO. The large problem is a lot of people think President Bush's Vision for going to the Moon, doing robotic Mars missions and landing men on the RedPlanet may never happen. Its true he gave NASA a vision for Mars and a SDLV or Magnum but there are a lot of people who aren't sure if his vision will continue ( he didn't mention the word NASA since ). I'm sure a lot of people don't want to knock or praise the vision yet, international groups aren't ready to buy into it yet. It's now 2006 and despite what the fans of Plan-Bush say there are infact already some major cuts to the vision. A lot of people are unsure if Plan-Bush will go from 2005 and right up to 2020, so they'll sit on the fence and wait and see if it goes past 2008.
http://www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/phpB … highlight=
http://forums.futura-sciences.com/thread25593-3.html
Any of the other smaller European versions of Heavy launchers should have enough payload for an MSR and other robotic Mars missions, I'm sure China have some Heavy lift in study phase or in the works but I'm not sure if they are looking at the Red-Planet yet.
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-DAWN, was managed incompetantly and perhaps fraudulently, its original pricetag doubled to about a billion dollars. NASA can't play this game with the space science people anymore, so Griffin rightly put his foot down.
Well DAWN is back on the programme list again as of today
It's good to see Dawn back
However we should not over-estimate China, the Chinese are saying a lot of stuff for bravado, national pride or propaganda reasons.
Also we should not under-credit them, today the Chinese are doing great work and China is now in the 'Gemini' phase of their program, it only took the USA four years to from the Gemini position to achieving a moon landing. Even if China moves twice as slow as the USA did - say 8 years to the Moon. It means the Chinese land on the to build their red-LunarBase in year 2014 while the US is still grounded by the 2010-2015 Shuttle space gap.
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Any of the other smaller European versions of Heavy launchers should have enough payload for an MSR and other robotic Mars missions, I'm sure China have some Heavy lift in study phase or in the works but I'm not sure if they are looking at the Red-Planet yet.
Actually the Chinese heavy lift option has been removed from there plans. This is simply down to cost. The problem is that a heavy lift is only needed for manned flight and unlike the lower cost options does not bring any capital return even if in national defence interests. No heavy lifter rockets will bring about ne engines for intercontinental missiles and they will not be needed to provide satelites. Heavy lift only has one purpose and that is manned exploration and that as a political decision is expensive in both political capital but also in funds.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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"...to build their red-LunarBase in year 2014 while the US is still grounded by the 2010-2015 Shuttle space gap"
No! There is a BIG difference between simply being able to land on the Moon and being able to build anything!
Even the Apollo system probobly wouldn't have been able to build a base without radical changes to the Lunar Lander and probobly upgrades to the Saturn-V to make it a ~200MT+ class rocket given the lower tech level.
Without a rocket at least twice as powerful as the Atlas-V class vehicle China was considering but now canceld, a base is just out of the question. China is nowhere near being able to build a Lunar base.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Any of the other smaller European versions of Heavy launchers should have enough payload for an MSR and other robotic Mars missions, I'm sure China have some Heavy lift in study phase or in the works but I'm not sure if they are looking at the Red-Planet yet.
Actually the Chinese heavy lift option has been removed from there plans. This is simply down to cost. The problem is that a heavy lift is only needed for manned flight and unlike the lower cost options does not bring any capital return even if in national defence interests. No heavy lifter rockets will bring about ne engines for intercontinental missiles and they will not be needed to provide satelites. Heavy lift only has one purpose and that is manned exploration and that as a political decision is expensive in both political capital but also in funds.
Fly Me To A Red Moon
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Fly_M … _Moon.html
t's possible that technical and economic factors have caused China to adopt a different approach to developing the first Chinese space station. But has China decided to drop space stations as the principal goal beyond Shenzhou 7, which will carry out China's first spacewalk in 2008?
It's possible.
Chinese statements are so vague that they are open to various interpretations. One possible interpretation is that the missions planned after Shenzhou 7 represent a new direction for China's short-term plans. China could be planning to send astronauts to the moon much sooner than the international community may think.
2Do research studies, astrobilogy projects and robotic missions around the solar system Cost - more Tens of billions
Where did you get those numbers ?
Over how long? Between now at the mid 2030s, NASA will take in on the order of $400Bn, perhaps more.
Guys your numbers are way off on the unmanned robotics budget, JWST is already cost over-running and Dawn got both cancelled and re-awakened. The whole Dawn nonsense means that it might miss its launch in June 2006, people that were getting the boot now have to be re-hired the whole thing could cause a 13 month delay putting it even more over budget
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