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2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/sci/ - Science & Math

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6503298 No.6503298 [Reply] [Original]

Year Launch Budget Plan
1997 2007 0.5 Billion USD
1998 2007 1
1999 2007 1
2000 2009 1.8
2002 2010 2.5
2003 2011 2.5
2005 2013 3
2006 2014 4.5
2008 2014 5.1
2010 2015 6.5
2011 2018 8.7
2013 2018 8.8

>NASA has now scheduled the telescope for a 2018 launch, though outside analysts suggest the flight could slip past 2020.

>In May 2007, a full-scale model of the telescope was assembled for display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall, Washington DC. The model was intended to give the viewing public a better understanding of the size, scale and complexity of the satellite, as well as pique the interest of viewers in science and astronomy in general.

Will this get cancelled?

>> No.6503329

>>6503298
8.8 billion dollars `<(┌_╖)┘

We could have been on mars for the cost of that star camera.

>> No.6503364

>>6503329

Try 500 billion, you'll need a rocket that can carry another rocket that can land safely on an rocky alien world and go back up. The R&D would be insane.

>> No.6503400

>>6503364
SpaceX can do it for about $3.50

>> No.6503411

>>6503364
He never said anything about getting back off mars.

Who wouldn't want to spend the rest of there life with this sex basket?

https://community.mars-one.com/profile/d905d992-0bb5-40da-8454-18649bf593ae

>> No.6503420

>>6503364
>Try 500 billion

LOL… F-35 will cost $1.5 TRILLION and you think 500 billion will be enough to send people and supplies to a faraway planet? Good luck with that!

Realistically, humans will never end up on Mars for the simple fact that economics simply doesn't work that way.

>> No.6503424

>>6503420
>for the simple fact that economics simply doesn't work that way.

For the simple fact that government procurement doesn't work.

>> No.6503430

>>6503420

As technology advances costs will go down. It'd never be as cheap as a plane ticket, but it will be feasible to deal with such things for large organizations (such as the government or megacorps).

>> No.6503553

>>6503298

Nah, Europe and Canada have invested too much for the U.S. to just scrap it like that, if nothing else international pressure will keep the project going.

>> No.6503578

>>6503430
>It'd never be as cheap as a plane ticket
It might not be as cheap as a plane ticket at the time, but it could be as cheap as a plane ticket is now.

Imagine what conversations were like about intercontinental passenger flights before the first intercontinental flight.

The energy cost per passenger of an intercontinental flight is actually quite comparable to the fuel cost of putting a person in orbit with a chemical rocket (assuming you're sending him up in a sardine-packed dude can which is going straight to a space station without delay, rather than a space capsule with all sorts of mass for abort, days+ of life support, and reentry).

>> No.6503847

>>6503420
>F-35 will cost $1.5 TRILLION and you think 500 billion will be enough to send people and supplies to a faraway planet?
That's not for one F-35, you know. That's the total program cost including all the fuel burned, all the ammunition expended, all of the pilots trained, all of the maintenance etc. for over 2,400 aircraft, the backbone of America's air power for fifty years.

This isn't the 60s. $50 billion might be enough to put the first man on Mars. $5 billion might be.

We have the rockets. We have experience with long stays in space. We have experience with landing payloads on Mars. There's really nothing missing from the picture, except the will to do it (and, arguably, the value proposition).

You can get 7 Falcon Heavy launches for $1 billion. They advertise 13 tons to Mars and 53 tons to LEO. So if you're working from a $500 billion budget, you're not terribly limited on how much you send.

The big questions are what you're trying to actually accomplish and how clever or wasteful you're going to be about it. Do we go nuclear or solar power? Chemical or nuclear rockets? Do we make any propellant on Mars? On the moon? Do we grow food on the way? You can throw as much money as you want at this for a flag-planting mission, or you could get very clever and pragmatic, and establish a viable colony quite inexpensively.

>> No.6503877

>>6503847
>establish a viable colony

Gravity over there is 0.3g, until you terraform that shit the only "viable colony" is a robotic one. Scientific post maybe, but not a colony.

>> No.6503914

>>6503877
>Gravity over there is 0.3g, until you terraform that shit the only "viable colony" is a robotic one.
You've got me curious.

Do you think that the goal of terraforming Mars would be to give it 1g gravity?

>> No.6503932

>>6503914

It'd be a lot complex than that, but the gravitational difference is almost always ignored in "Terraform Mars" discussion. While the goal will obviously be more complex than giving it 1g, the human organism cannot cope with long stays in a 0.3g without deteriorating. Ergo, we need to find a way around that (among other things), before we can actually have a settlement on there.

>> No.6503943

>>6503932
>the human organism cannot cope with long stays in a 0.3g without deteriorating
Who says?

>> No.6503946

>>6503847
>This isn't the 60s. $50 billion might be enough to put the first man on Mars. $5 billion might be.

You're completely delusional. Either stupid or you're trolling us.

Do you have any clue how much Mars Curiosity mission cost? Sending a small robot is super-expensive. It cost $2.5 billion and the budget is still rising due to support costs.

>> No.6503952

>>6503946
>the budget is still rising due to support costs

Ok, I see this coming up often, what is there to support? A radio and a programmer, it's not like you're sending engineers and spare parts.

>> No.6503958

>>6503943

Biology. Hopefully the 2015 ROSCOSM/NASA joint venture will help us understand the harmful effects of low-gravity better.

>> No.6504023

>>6503946
...and do you suppose that NASA did that in the most cost-effective way possible? Or do you think they used it as an excuse to spread a lot of taxpayer dosh around to politically-connected contractors, and to inflate the budgets, and therefore importance, of various managers in the bureaucracy? Do you think costs haven't come down, and won't in the coming years?

Let's start with the launch vehicle. An Atlas V 541 rocket costs around $400 million, all told. This launched under 4 tons to Mars transfer orbit. A Falcon Heavy costs $135 million for 13 tons. That figure is very likely to come down dramatically over the next few years as they get the system working reusably, as intended.

Do you think the rest of it isn't inflated tenfold or more? We're talking about a big remote control car that rolls around, takes pictures, and picks up rocks. After paying for the launch, the remaining $2 billion pays for 10,000 man-years of effort by people earning $100,000/year, with $100,000/year overhead, equipment, and supplies for each. How do you even spend 10,000 man-years on a 4 ton gizmo, no matter how fancy it is?

Besides, a lot of costs are going to be the same no matter how big the mission is, such as maintaining a communication link.

What a government agency spends on a project is no indication of what its necessary costs actually are.

>> No.6504028

>>6503958
>>Who says?
>I'm just guessing.
Thanks for clarifying that.

>> No.6504355

>>6503298
it looks like a futuristic sex toy

>> No.6504366

>>6503298
i hope not. it is far more important than a useless manned missions to mars.

>> No.6504373

>>6503420
and to think the chinese will get it for free. tfw

>> No.6504375
File: 24 KB, 350x359, 1398301511932.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6504375

>JWST is this much over budget
>JWST is this much over schedule
>JWST is this much ambitious
I'm getting flashes of Skylab, the HST, and the Shuttle.
Who's betting that it fails to deploy properly? Since it'll be in an L2 point, there'll be no hope of a manned rescue mission either.

>> No.6504378

>>6504375
no joke. that documentary about nasa fixing hubble is god tier tho. those people have balls of steel.

>> No.6504382

>>6504375
>Since it'll be in an L2 point, there'll be no hope of a manned rescue mission either.
Actually, that would be about the closest thing to a valid mission for SLS that's ever been brought up.

>> No.6504388
File: 89 KB, 850x1133, robonaut2-comeatmebro.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6504388

>>6504375
good thing we won't need people to do space servicing soon...

>> No.6504399

>>6504388
>another JWST-style project
I remember hearing about this 10 years ago. I was insanely surprised it ever went into space.

>> No.6504430

>>6503952
>Ok, I see this coming up often, what is there to support? A radio and a programmer, it's not like you're sending engineers and spare parts.

PEOPLE! Biggest cost of any project are salaries. Unless you can find some morons to work for free.

>> No.6504436

I still have no idea why we wasted 160 Billion on the ISS when for that price we could of had a moon base

A FUCKING MOON BASE!

>> No.6504446

>>6504028
Yup there are exactly 0 studies on the effect of martian or lunar gravity on embryonic development.

Even if it is an issue it is one that was solved by carnies, the second lowliest of human sub species.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0H7TYzcMaY

>> No.6504469

>>6504388
my god its ugly

>> No.6504476

>>6504430
>PEOPLE! Biggest cost of any project are salaries. Unless you can find some morons to work for free.

There called students, and its better than working for free they will pay to get to work.

>> No.6504486

>>6504476
>There (sp) called students, and its better than working for free they will pay to get to work.

Uh oh, yeah… I'd put my life in the hands of a bunch of mj smokers who know fuck all.

>> No.6504517

>>6504436
We needed it to do studies for unspecified future missions.

>> No.6504527

>>6504486

I also don't have a problem with marijuana and prefer to put my life in the hands of people who know all. Now that that's settled we can move on to important matters like who keeps stealing my lunchables.

>> No.6504593

>>6504436
The ISS is where it is because that was the highest orbit that the shuttle could take a reasonable payload to.

The horrible cost-ineffectiveness of the shuttle was obvious before the shuttle launched once. The design went completely out of control, with top-down management throwing more and more requirements to the engineers until the concept lost all of its meaning. It was a truly amazing achievement to make it work at all, and it was truly insane to use it at all.

To have a moon base, we would have had to ditch the shuttle, and the shuttle was kept flying on pure politics. The ISS is there only because the shuttle needed a mission. The shuttle kept flying because it was an important piece of pork.

So instead of a moon base, a lot of politically-connected people got money.

A proper moon base program would almost certainly have involved a LEO station, so don't blame the cost of constructing a LEO station for the fact that we don't have a moon base. It was the cost of all that pork that did it.

>> No.6505019

>>6504486
>I'd put my life in the hands of a bunch of mj smokers (airline pilots) when I board an airliner
you so brave man, Anonee

>> No.6505056

>>6504375
>there'll be no hope of a manned rescue mission either

JWST is not designed to be serviceable, if anything happens mission goes tits up, just like Kepler.

>> No.6505059

>>6504436
>A FUCKING MOON BASE!

And pray tell, how would we got to those moonbases? Regular trips would have costed us more than the ISS.

>> No.6505066

>>6504436
Oh, you're going to fucking love this...

>The US Congress and NASA spent more than US$192 billion (in 2010 dollars) on the shuttle from 1971 to 2010

>During the operational years from 1982 to 2010, the average cost per launch was about $1.2 billion.

Source: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v472/n7341/full/472038d.html

Now imagine how much of those 160 Billion is just sending the shuttle there.

>> No.6505071

>>6504446
>A giant city-wide rotating cylinder

>> No.6505089

>>6504388
>We will stop sending people into space for this.