Which should it be? The moon, Venus, or a nearby asteroid?

[kelly]

" Choose your pick sir .. Moon,Venus, or a nearby asteriod" well this apparently could be an advertisement in your local travel agency for your summer/winter holiday stay....say after an 10-30 years

Why not ? NASA is working on it! It has chosen three options it will consider as its next target for future scientific space exploration--Venus, the moon, or an asteroid

# Venus: The Surface and Atmosphere Geochemical Explorer, or SAGE, mission designed by Larry Esposito of the University of Colorado at Boulder would send a probe to Venus. The probe's instruments would collect data as it descends through the planet's atmosphere, then collect and analyze geological and minerological content after landing on Venus' surface.

# An asteroid: The Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer spacecraft, called Osiris-Rex and designed by Michael Drake of the University of Arizona at Tucson, would instead set its sights on a nearby asteroid. Osiris-Rex would collect material from the surface of an asteroid and return the samples to Earth for NASA to analyze.

# Moon: The Lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return Mission, devised by Bradley Jolliff of Washington University in St. Louis, would entail dropping a lander near the south pole of the moon. The lander would collect material from the lunar surface, believed to have come from the moon's mantle, and return it to Earth for further study.

NASA will give $3.3 million to each of the three teams so they can conduct year-long studies to devise their mission's feasibility, cost, and management and technical plans. A final selection will be made in 2011 after those studies are complete.

Regards,
Kelly

Source:
NASA's next frontier: Venus, the moon, or an asteroid | Cutting Edge - CNET News

[SealLion]

That is actually really interesting, I thought after reading your post and the link.

It'll obviously take awhile, I gather since according to the article, the shuttle program is being retired at least until a replacement program comes into place.

Apparantly, NASA doesn't have much money, if any at all for the ISF. I'm wondering if they're re-directing attention from over the ISF over to this new venture now.

actually, now that I've mentioned it, I am beginning to wonder that since they're running out of money for the ISF and the retirement program mentioned in the article, that perhaps NASA is running out of directions on what to do??
YOu know what I mean??

[slikrapid]

" Choose your pick sir .. Moon,Venus, or a nearby asteriod" well this apparently could be an advertisement in your local travel agency for your summer/winter holiday stay....say after an 10-30 years

what a bunch of misleading propaganda by their PRs - this traveling idea may be an option in a distant future (100+ years at least) and still only to those that can afford to firstly pay it (a few million $), secondly the security of space travel yet needs to be proven (remember those shuttle accidents, all kinds of space radiation,...), thirdly there are no options for traveling in space yet (satellites/probes don't count) and so on - to make things even worse some alternative researchers have theories that no human can even travel beyond the moon ('etheric' barrier), and the reliability of NASA is also questionable considering the moon landings may not be genuine at all:

Moon Landing A Fake

Still Not Convinced?
Here's 33 things that need to be answered!

http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/cosmicapollo.html

even only from an economic standpoint one cannot expect serious advancements (tourist/traveling wise) from an industry that needs literally billions of $ & decades of time in order to make just small steps towards the exploration of universe (in 25-50 years all we have is what, two? space stations Mir & ISS, that have a crew of up to 6 persons, that are basically still prototypes, where user friendliness is a wish at best), thats the reality folks, space tourism will stay a sci-fi for a long long time

so, anyone for a space ride? maybe in some future reincarnation

[SBfreak]

I chose venus....wait wtf.You know..uhm it's space.If anything happens up there you don't stand a chance plus I'm afraid of heights.

so, anyone for a space ride? maybe in some future reincarnation

Not me.Btw awesome site.

[pekamp]

How many Month does it take to travel to Venus or Mars with a heavy spaceship? 38.900.000 km at minimum range (venus gets closer) - this should take some time. Guess it will be moon, that s going to be the first destination.

Mars Express (space probe 2008) for example needed approximately 7 month, one way. It was fast, 29.000 miles/h... But I'd bet I will never get such a long holisday^^.

[Snitlev]

I'll live o pandora

best regards

[kelly]

what a bunch of misleading propaganda by their PRs
Moon Landing A Fake

LOL! ..that agency thing was setup up by me just to add some spice! it was no way related to the actual news!

Moon landing is a complete hoax ! I completely agree.
The moon landing was done somewhere in 1960s ,if i am not mistaken.We all know what was happening between USA & the USSR. If USA had such an advanced technology back in 1960s why didn't they send a man to Mars by now? , heck forget Mars atleast again to Moon ??
Moon landing was just a publicity stunt more than that it was sort of " muscle flexing " sign against USSR.

Coming back to the topic, As Sealion has pointed out i seriously wonder where will they get the money from with this recession scenario still recovering modestly?

A presidential panel assessing U.S. manned space flight presented five options to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Tuesday, ranging from NASA's current plan to build outposts on the moon to a "flexible path" approach to explore a variety of targets in the inner solar system.


But in its executive summary, the panel warned that without significant new funding and a long-term commitment to exploration, none of the options is viable.

In fact, the Committee finds that no plan compatible with the FY 2010 budget profile permits human exploration to continue in any meaningful way."

[grebetu]

Moon landing is a complete hoax ! I completely agree.
The moon landing was done somewhere in 1960s ,if i am not mistaken.We all know what was happening between USA & the USSR. If USA had such an advanced technology back in 1960s why didn't they send a man to Mars by now? , heck forget Mars atleast again to Moon ??

apolo 11 is neither first moon landing, nor last man landing on the moon.
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing"]check here.[/ame]

the reason why nobody wants to send people there is because it's not worth trouble to send people to barren rock.

technology to launch cargo from earth and calculate correct trajectories are most important factors for space flight, they exist for over 50 years and are used in every space mission today.

[slikrapid]

LOL! ..that agency thing was setup up by me just to add some spice! it was no way related to the actual news!

oh, a little provocation is it?

nevertheless, other space tourism (nonsense) estimates are comparable to your numbers, example:

Tourists may land on the moon by 2020

AUSTRALIAN astronaut Andy Thomas says NASA's groundbreaking space rocket test could help put tourists on the moon by 2020.

http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/tourists-may-land-on-the-moon-by-2020/story-e6frfq80-1225791589484

i seriously wonder where will they get the money from with this recession scenario still recovering modestly?

they'll repeat what they always do, create a media-supported interest, some kind of new discovery (or 'research') to justify their budget and then drag it out a few more decades (expect some new 'exciting' estimates in the meantime) - essentially, all it takes is to let the fed print some more worthless banknotes

the reason why nobody wants to send people there is because it's not worth trouble to send people to barren rock.

the reasons may be a bit more obscure than that

technology to launch cargo from earth and calculate correct trajectories are most important factors for space flight

this (official) technology is still in its beginnings, ie. an early stage of a possible future transportation means - for it to become something relatively safe, commercial or even common, they will have to become much more proficient than nowadays

as for importance of the technology you mentioned, there are many other factors to consider, a simple example would be the need to have hundreds of people monitoring various flight aspects for a single flight, let alone multiple travels, not to mention the fact that no one attempted a tourist space travel yet so its still all theories without practical experience

[grebetu]

not to mention the fact that no one attempted a tourist space travel yet so its still all theories without practical experience

Space tourism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[slikrapid]

one 'tourist' per year in 8 years, the gathered data must be extensive

[SealLion]

one 'tourist' per year in 8 years, the gathered data must be extensive

LOL. tHAT's hilarious. Ya. I think that the data must be pretty extensive, too. ..Volumes!!!!!. l00l

[grebetu]

one 'tourist' per year in 8 years, the gathered data must be extensive

that's simmilar to what people were talking about first cars - silly things, they'll never catch on :)

[slikrapid]

that's simmilar to what people were talking about first cars - silly things, they'll never catch on :)

looks like you haven't been paying attention to the subject of discussion - no one said it will never be possible, rather that it will take much more time than the over-hyped media is claiming

[grebetu]

looks like you haven't been paying attention to the subject of discussion - no one said it will never be possible, rather that it will take much more time than the over-hyped media is claiming

it's already possible, you might want to avoid topics which you don't know nothing about