Why obama has destroyed out NASA.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

http://www.wired.com/science/space/n...urrentPage=all
cience : Space
Race to the Moon for Nuclear Fuel
John Lasker 12.15.06
NASA's planned moon base announced last week could pave the way for deeper space exploration to Mars, but one of the biggest beneficiaries may be the terrestrial energy industry.

Nestled among the agency's 200-point mission goals is a proposal to mine the moon for fuel used in fusion reactors -- futuristic power plants that have been demonstrated in proof-of-concept but are likely decades away from commercial deployment.

Helium-3 is considered a safe, environmentally friendly fuel candidate for these generators, and while it is scarce on Earth it is plentiful on the moon.

As a result, scientists have begun to consider the practicality of mining lunar Helium-3 as a replacement for fossil fuels.

"After four-and-half-billion years, there should be large amounts of helium-3 on the moon," said Gerald Kulcinski, a professor who leads the Fusion Technology Institute at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Last year NASA administrator Mike Griffin named Kulcinski to lead a number of committees reporting to NASA's influential NASA Advisory Council, its preeminent civilian leadership arm.

The Council is chaired by Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Hagan "Jack" Schmitt, a leading proponent of mining the moon for helium 3.

Schmitt, who holds the distance record for driving a NASA rover on the moon (22 miles through the Taurus-Littrow valley), is also a former U.S. senator (R-New Mexico).

The Council was restructured last year with a new mission: implementing President Bush's "Vision for Space Exploration," which targets Mars as its ultimate destination. Other prominent members of the Council include ex-astronaut Neil Armstrong.

Schmitt and Kulcinski are longtime friends and academic partners, and are known as helium-3 fusion's biggest promoters.

At the Fusion Technology Institute, Kulcinski's team has produced small-scale helium-3 fusion reactions in the basketball-sized fusion device. The reactor produced one milliwatt of power on a continuous basis.

While still theoretical, nuclear fusion is touted as a safer, more sustainable way to generate nuclear energy: Fusion plants produce much less radioactive waste, especially if powered by helium-3. But experts say commercial-sized fusion reactors are at least 50 years away.

The isotope is extremely rare on Earth but abundant on the moon. Some experts estimate there a millions of tons in lunar soil -- and that a single Space-Shuttle load would power the entire United States for a year.
NASA plans to have a permanent moon base by 2024, but America is not the only nation with plans for a moon base. China, India, the European Space Agency, and at least one Russian corporation, Energia, have visions of building manned lunar bases post-2020.

Mining the moon for helium-3 has been discussed widely in space circles and international space conferences. Both China and Russia have stated their nations' interest in helium-3.

"We will provide the most reliable report on helium-3 to mankind," Ouyang Ziyuan, the chief scientist of China's lunar program, told a Chinese newspaper. "Whoever first conquers the moon will benefit first."

Russian space geologist Erik Galimov told the Russian Izvestia newspaper that NASA's plan to colonize the moon will "enable the U.S. to establish its control of the global energy market 20 years from now and put the rest of the world on its knees as hydrocarbons run out."

Schmitt told a Senate committee in 2003 that a return to the moon to stay would be comparable "to the movement of our species out of Africa."

The best way to pay for such a long-term mission, he said, would be to mine for lunar helium-3 and process it into a fuel for commercial fusion .

In a 1998 op-ed for Space News, Schmitt criticized the 1979 United Nations- sanctioned Moon Treaty, which forbids ownership of lunar territory by individuals or separate nations.

"The mandate of an international regime would complicate private commercial efforts," Schmitt wrote. "The Moon Treaty is not needed to further the development and use of lunar resources for the benefit of humankind -- including the extraction of lunar helium-3 for terrestrial fusion power."

Schmitt declined to comment for this article. But Kulcinski said their lunar helium-3 research is entirely separate from their NASA duties.




I knew that there had to be a great reason obama started limiting and weakening the NASA SPACE SHUTTLE PROGRAM.. Helium 3 harvesting from the moon's surface could solve our fuel needs for ten thousand years or possibly more! Now we see why obama has been dismantling our shuttle program! I've been discussing this as his reason for a few years now with my friends.
Just imagine, one shuttle load would power the entire United States for a full year!
Helium 3 mining could be worth many, many hundreds of trillions of dollars.
I started looking for reasons that obama would start dismantling and not funding NASA AND THIS IS IT IMHO.
Everything the guy does is against our future interests!--Tyr

[fj1200]

Now we see why obama has been dismantling our shuttle program! I've been discussing this as his reason for a few years now with my friends.
Just imagine, one shuttle load would power the entire United States for a full year!
Helium 3 mining could be worth many, many hundreds of trillions of dollars.
I started looking for reasons that obama would start dismantling and not funding NASA AND THIS IS IT IMHO.
Everything the guy does is against our future interests!--Tyr

The Bush Administration cancelled the Space Shuttle program in the wake of the Columbiaaccident.

On January 14, 2004, President Bush gave a speech in which he announced "a new focus and vision for future exploration."

http://spaceksc.blogspot.com/2010/03...e-shuttle.html

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48346414

New Mars rover hunts for life by 'cooking' rocks
When rocks are heated up to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, secrets may be revealed
NASA / JPL-Caltech
Technicians and engineers carefully install the 88-pound (40-kilogram) SAM instrument on the Curiosity rover. The picture was taken at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 6, 2011.By Elizabeth Howell

updated 2 hours 20 minutes ago 2012-07-26T23:41:15
The recipe for seeking habitability on the Red Planet using NASA's next rover will start with a pinch of Mars — either a few grains of soil or a wisp of atmosphere.

Scientists will then follow a simple recipe: Place the Martian bit into the rover's Sample Analysis of Mars (SAM) instrument, cook to up to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (980 degrees Celsius), then measure the result.

The new rover, Curiosity, is the centerpiece of the Mars Science Laboratory Mission, which launched in November 2011 and is due to land on Mars Aug. 6. The $2.5 billion project is aiming to learn whether Mars is, or ever was, hospitable to life.

NASA tried an experiment similar to SAM almost 40 years ago on its Viking Mars landers, and the results are still being debated today. For example, the landers' discovery of chlorine compounds in the soil was initially believed to be cleaning fluid contamination, but a 2011 study hypothesized these could have been leftovers of organic life.

SAM, says NASA, will produce far more precise results.

"The surface experiments on Viking were designed to do a home-run-swing-for-the-fences life detection experiment," said Ashwin Vasavada, MSL's deputy project scientist. "SAM is significantly more capable than Viking ... it can find much smaller molecules and it can detect things more sensitively." [11 Amazing Things NASA's Huge Mars Rover Can Do]

The microwave-size experiment package, wedged in the front of the Mini Cooper-size rover, is so complex that NASA considers SAM itself more complicated than many of its spacecraft.

.Samples inside the package must first be "cooked" in an oven, then analyzed using instruments commonly found on the shelf of respectable scientific laboratories on Earth.

"Different constituents in that sample will break down at different temperatures and become gas," said Vasavada.

Clay, Vasavada said as an example, begins to break down at 530 degrees Fahrenheit (277 degrees Celsius). Therefore, a puff of water appearing on a Martian sample cooked to that temperature would imply that it is partly made of clay.

SAM includes a gas chromatograph made up of six different tubes; each one is able to pick up a different kind of compound.

I bet they are looking for helium 3 more than anything else...--Tyr

[Thunderknuckles]

Tyr, please keep in mind that the moon's supply of Helium 3 is speculative. In addition, in order to best utilize it, we need fusion reactors and those are still a long way away from becoming a reality.
Not saying I don't want the U.S. maintaining center stage in space exploration but we aren't in a position to do it at the moment based on speculation, non-existent technology, and one hell of a costly bill to pay for lunar mining capabilities. I can't even imagine what that would cost to make a reality.

My suggestion: Prove we can manufacture power using Fusion safely and reliably first then go hell bent for the moon.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

http://spaceksc.blogspot.com/2010/03...e-shuttle.html

My understanding was the Constellation program was to replace the Shuttle program but --read this--------------------------------------------obama cancelled the Constellation program!---------------------------------------
Obama cancelled that not Bush.. And NASA has recieved far less funding! With obama instructing NASA to be a part of the muslim outreach program of all things!--Tyr

[Thunderknuckles]

With obama instructing NASA to be a part of the muslim outreach program of all things!--Tyr

I will usually argue with your zany Obama/Muslim conspiracies but in this case you are correct.
That's actually a fact!

[Anton Chigurh]

I knew that there had to be a great reason obama started limiting and weakening the NASA SPACE SHUTTLE PROGRAM.. Helium 3 harvesting from the moon's surface could solve our fuel needs for ten thousand years or possibly more! Now we see why obama has been dismantling our shuttle program! I've been discussing this as his reason for a few years now with my friends.
Just imagine, one shuttle load would power the entire United States for a full year!
Helium 3 mining could be worth many, many hundreds of trillions of dollars.
I started looking for reasons that obama would start dismantling and not funding NASA AND THIS IS IT IMHO.
Everything the guy does is against our future interests!

Umm.... This doesn't have and couldn't have anything to do with the shuttle, since it is and always was, totally incapable of travel to the moon. Furthermore, the phasing out of the shuttle fleet started WAY back, during Bush's tenure. Because they are ancient and costly.

World Net Daily really is a stupid source of information.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Tyr, please keep in mind that the moon's supply of Helium 3 is speculative. In addition, in order to best utilize it, we need fusion reactors and those are still a long way away from becoming a reality.
Not saying I don't want the U.S. maintaining center stage in space exploration but we aren't in a position to do it at the moment based on speculation, non-existent technology, and one hell of a costly bill to pay for lunar mining capabilities. I can't even imagine what that would cost to make a reality.

My suggestion: Prove we can manufacture power using Fusion safely and reliably first then go hell bent for the moon.

http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/...-3-fusion.html

Professor Dennis Kulcinski

Prof. Kulcinski has a working helium-3 fusion reactor in his lab:
Professor Kulcinski's lab is running the only helium-3 fusion reactor in the world. He has an annual research budget that is barely into six figures and allows him to have five graduate research assistants working on the project. Compared to what has been spent on other fusion projects around the world, the team’s accomplishments are impressive. Helium-3 would not require a tokomak reactor like the multibillion-dollar one being developed for the international ITER project. Instead, his design uses an electrostatic field to contain the plasma instead of an electromagnetic field. His current reactor contains spherical plasma roughly ten centimeters in diameter. It can produce a sustained fusion with 200 million reactions per second producing about a milliwatt of power while consuming about a kilowatt of power to run the reactor. It is nuclear power without highly radioactive nuclear waste.

Already a working reactor going and considering the multi hundred trillion dollars to be harvested the money to research and go get it is there as well my friend.
Produces about a milliwatt of power while consuming only a kilowatt of power. Thats quite a ratio ,is it not?
And this is only a prototype, one would expect later even better results IMHO.
Who cares 30 or 50 years away, the earth should still be here if we havent nuked it into oblivion by then .--Tyr

[red state]

I like the word "OBLIVION".

[Noir]

...some posts just beggar belief.

[Noir]

http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/...-3-fusion.html
Produces about a milliwatt of power while consuming only a kilowatt of power. Thats quite a ratio ,is it not?

You are aware that a milliwatt is a thousandth (1x10^-3) of a Watt , and a Kilowatt is one thousand (1x10^3) Watts?

i.e. there is a 10^6 differnce in consumption and production. So currently you are putting in a million times more energy that you are getting out...yeah, quite a ratio...

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Umm.... This doesn't have and couldn't have anything to do with the shuttle, since it is and always was, totally incapable of travel to the moon. Furthermore, the phasing out of the shuttle fleet started WAY back, during Bush's tenure. Because they are ancient and costly.

World Net Daily really is a stupid source of information.

What does muslim outreach have to do with shuttle, NASA or anything regarding the space research program and/or exploration? Why did obama divert it that direction if not to further weaken it and take it off course.
To mine and bring back helium 3 we need a shuttle that could make multiple trips to and from the moon, so why scrap the shuttles we have , then why scrap the Constellation program that was designated to furnish the replacements? My point still stands methinks. Obama wants America out of the race but China, Russia and India are all in and gaining fast.-Tyr

[Anton Chigurh]

What does muslim outreach have to do with shuttle, NASA or anything regarding the space research program and/or exploration? Why did obama divert it that direction if not to further weaken it and take it off course.
To mine and bring back helium 3 we need a shuttle that could make multiple trips to and from the moon, so why scrap the shuttles we have , then why scrap the Constellation program that was designated to furnish the replacements? My point still stands methinks. Obama wants America out of the race but China, Russia and India are all in and gaining fast.-Tyr

Nonsense. Utter crap.

What part of "the shuttles could never go to the moon" do you not understand? They are ORBITERS.

[Anton Chigurh]

Reagan/Bush Used NASA for Muslim Outreach Before Obama



First person account. Know who she is?

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

You are aware that a milliwatt is a thousandth (1x10^-3) of a Watt , and a Kilowatt is one thousand (1x10^3) Watts?

i.e. there is a 10^6 differnce in consumption and production. So currently you are putting in a million times more energy that you are getting out...yeah, quite a ratio...

What you fail to get is that helium 3 has already been proven to have the capacity to fuel for tens of thousands of years our nation. We just have to find enough of it and the moon has a huge supply!
The moon which practicly sits on us! This helium 3 is our future and that is why America is being cut out of the equation.
Dont worry about the math ,his first reactor is a very small prototype. They already know helium3's potential as a fuel.
You should perhaps reread my first post in which it states a shuttle load could power our nation for a year!-Tyr