1. Current missions under development should not be cancelled or
postponed to support the Vision for Space Exploration (e.g., CEV).
In other words, CEV, etc. should ramp up gradually using existing
ESMD funding wedges as the shuttle and ISS are phased out, not at
the expense of existing SMD programs. 2. NASA should pay more
attention to what the public appreciates as REALLY exciting space
news of exploration, as provied by the science missions. It is
pictures from the planets and good pictures of Earth and the
cosmos.Also the excited scientists talking about their work.
Shuttle and Space Station are intensely boring to the public. They
only make news in disaster, and the science is paying for it. This
is crazy. If jobs in districts are the reason for the Shuttle and
Station, surely more productive and long-lasting government
projects with benefits to the economy could be awarded instead. I
do not believe that the human spaceflight program is really
necessary for NASA science, or for the public to be interested in
space. It is a myth that has been sold over and over to the science
community. It needs frank discussion. 3. Our best science will be
accomplished when we live on a planet/moon/asteroid. We need to
make progress in that too. 4. End the space shuttle program. Zero
sex appeal. Minimal scientific value. Double the hubble! 5. The
manned program is a major cost sink. Its only useful science lately
was that worms survived the Columbia crash. 6. All efforts should
be integrated within a systematic and sustained program of
exploration and colonization of the solar system, with an eventual
goal of human-based exploration and colonization at the
interstellar level. Goals should be set at least 50-year increments
so as to overcome vagaries of sucessive political administrations.
7. Human space flight missions, particularly to Mars, is a
tremendous waste of both opportunities and resources that should be
available for the research community. 8. A similar survey should be
done on manned space flight, STS, ISS, etc. 9. The success - in
terms of science and of new discoveries -of NASA's smaller programs
is often ignored. All focus seems to be on manned missions to MARS.
I ask: why? It doesn't make sense. The radiation hazards to the
astronauts involved make the mission not worth the risks as far as
I am concerned. We can learn far more by sending rovers, cameras,
and other remote sensing instruments to do our exploration. My goal
of space exploration is to explore, to learn, and to inspire as
much as we can. 10. Manned space exploration should be a low
priority and should not impact research budgets. 11. The current
Moon & Mars initiative is a collossal waste of taxpayer dollars
and is doing irreparable harm to this nation's space science
program. 12. There is a lack of understanding from the science
community about the current state of affairs at NASA. The Shuttle
needs to be retired and a new vehicle needs to be ready as soon as
possible. We (USA) should be committed to a vigorous manned and
unmanned space program. The manned space program is in trouble now.
This survey says nothing about that and the hard time that the NASA
officials have to maintain a balanced program. 13. Without balanced
funding, the nation is liable to be left with a new vehicle with no
place to go -- another white elephant. Crewed missions are only one
aspect of solar system exploration, and they rely on precursor
science and exploration to establish mission objectives,
strategies, and procedures. 14. Continued humand space flight and
visiting Earth's moon are both expensive ways to learn almost
nothing. 15. R&A funding should be restored, MSL should be
delayed 2 years (technology isn't mature enough), CEV should be
delayed, finish the space station - do NOT abandon. 16. Manned
Flagship missions funnel substantial funds into a few large
corporations, cloaked with the PR flair, yet yield marginal
science. Manned missions are also inefficient if you were to
calculate a science per weight ratio, and a risk per cost ratio
that would ground any SMEX. Here's an idea: use all NASA funding on
unmanned science mission and R&A and divert military spending
to manned missions, which could be managed by DOD and/or NASA. Who
would benefit? -NASA can maintain respect -R&A will be
sustained -Science will be guaranteed -Many small groups and
Universities will get funding -Many more missions will go up -New
ideas are encouraged -Big companies will still profit from the
Military -Military can absorb the risk of death (which they are
doing a great job of currently) -Military and NASA can keep the PR
17. This survey does not address the REAL problem with NASA funding
at this time, which is the primary priority being given to the
manned space effort at the expense of all science (whether missions
or R&A). If we finally design and build a new shuttle and
finally finish the space station, but have decimated the US
scientific community by draining their funds for these manned
projects, exploration will be a joke. This is the issue we should
be polling the community about. 18. NASA is aligning to carry out
Bush directive : send people back to the Moon, NEOs, Mars and outer
solar system in a cost effective and evolutionary manner. It is a
good idea to support this with all we got so that when hard data is
returned(as samples), we can do good science on these specimens. So
science, both Astrobiology and human biology might consider
marching in tune with NASA's new directive, without which the
agency has been floundering for the past 3 decades ! By now, we
should all know that without the awe inspiring human space effort
to fire up public interest, space science projects and budgets
cannot grow in a healthy manner. 19. No funding for human flights
to Moon or planets until solution to shielding astronauts from
radiation is found. 20. Instead of going back to the moon, which we
have already done, we should aim for Mars and beyond. Going to the
moon will only drain resources that we could use for landing humans
on Mars. 21. Budgets for Human Space Flight should come from
Defense sources, NOT at the expense of science R & A. 22. The
space shuttle should be retired. There is no use in pouring money
into it to make it last a few more years. This is valuable money
that could be spent 1. developing the shuttle's successor 2. on
science. The ISS is at this point also sucking money needlessly. If
the other participating countries are not living up to their ends
of the bargain, why should we? I support the missions to Mars and
the missions to the moon only in that they may lead to human
exploration of Mars. Lunar missions should not be advertised as
stepping stones to Mars because much of the technology and
resources available differ between the two bodies. 23. The science
program should not be decreased to fund an increased spending level
in the manned spaceflight program. These programs should be
complementary; not in competition with each other. 24. Expanding
our knowledge of the solar system in a fair and balanced way --
without placing undue emphasis on a single planet or line of
missions. Also restoring the budgetary 'firewall' between manned
exploration and robotic exploration to prevent enormous cost
overruns in manned exploration from jeopardizing low-risk or
no-risk activities like R&A and robotic exploration. 25.
Astronauts will be tourists without the research and mission
programs. There is far too much to learn at this point to shift the
focus to manned missions. I think the focus should be on the
research and mission programs. 26. Past experience show that manned
missions are not particularly beneficial to expand our knowledge.
The ratio of 'new knowledge to $ spent' gathered from robotic
missions and satellite observation surpasses that of manned
missions. The scientific value of the international space station,
a permanent human presence on the moon, or a human visit to Mars a
is moderate considering the cost involved. 27. Science should not
be sacrificed for manned space missions. This especially true given
the staggering (unbudgeted) costs of failures in the manned mission
program. 28. NASA should not continue to pursue big-ticket manned
space programs like those listed here, or Space Shuttle, or Space
Station, at the expense of a balanced and vigorous rest of NASA. If
these large projects are desired by either NASA, the President, or
Congress, then the required additional funds must be provided. We
scientists are tired of being taxed for continuing cost overruns in
these large programs; it is bad enough to be taxed in our NASA
budgets for non-NASA expenditures, like Wars and hurricanes. These
can and should be paid for by Congress under the appropriate
categories- not buried and hidden from the public by taxing
unrelated Federal agencies. 29. I give manned space exploration
much higher priority than unmanned probes. I would fund no probes,
no data analysis, and no scientific research that did not
contribute to manned exploration, and I would assign priorities to
such programs strictly according to the contribution they made to
manned exploration. 30. I think that the focus on manned
exploration is severely diminishing the return from science
missions that are already operational, to say nothing of those that
could fly in the near future. The benefit, to the nation, of
putting humans on the Moon or Mars is much less than the benefit
that could be reaped by putting the same money into science or
robotic exploration, or any number of social or infrastructure
programs having nothing to do with science. 31. We should stand and
fight the manned Mars missions. - Tom Gehrels 32. The 'Vision' for
Exploration was created by a blind man and will not survive this
administration. We cannot sacrifice science in order to waste money
on this. 33. The real problem is the breaking down of the firewall
between manned space flight and science-driven missions. How do we
put that firewall back? 34. It is easily possible for manned
programs to consume all of the unmanned budget and not make very
much additional progress. However, the record is clear that the
unmanned program, including R&A, produces far more long-term
benefit for humanity per dollar spent (or even in absolute terms)
than the manned program. It is thus a dangerous political game to
take from the unmanned program to pay for the manned side. At best
the unmanned program whithers. At worst, the unmanned program
disappears and the public, now seeing no long-term benefits from
NASA, calls for the agency's termination, saying that private
industry will do better. Private industry will fly tourists, but it
will not do science. Transferring money out of the unmanned program
is thus Russian roulette: no benefit combined with big risk. 35. We
are currently being eaten alive by the manned space program, not by
planetary missions, large or small. The other hungry tiger in the
room is Webb (NGST). It is proving to be un-doable at any
reasonable budget -- it may be time to cancel it and start over
with something less ambitious. The cost of Webb has reached >$1M
per member of the AAS -- that's just plain stupid when there is not
enough change left in the till to pay their salaries. 36. I'm not
big on 'human spaceflight' missions at all... 37. Human exploration
of Mars is more important than anything else NASA could do in the
near-term future. The present R&A program has been a disaster
and greatly retarded the advance of science. 38. Robotic missions
have been highly successful in furthering our understanding of the
solar system. Manned missions have only made a minor contribution
to such knowledge. Therefore, I would not sacrifice our most
successful approach to fund manned missions. For the latter, I
would find independent funding and stretch it out if necessary. 39.
Interplanetary spaceflight by humans should not be attempted until
the problem of cosmic ray exposure to astronauts is solved, OR a
propulsion system with a much higher specific impulse (Isp) is
developed to shorten the transit time to Mars to weeks instead of
months. Astrobiology has been overemphasized. 40. There may be
significant opportunities to piggyback real planetary science
research on the future human missions that are threatening science
funding today. The planetary science community might want to start
preparing now to maximize those opportunities when they arise. 41.
The reasoning behind the development of manned space missions
contains no supportable scientific goals. Costs will ultimately be
insupportable. Space Station has been drastically scaled down from
the original design because of uncontainable cost. The
establishment of Space Station has no scientific justification. The
man-in-space program cannot be justified on a scientific or cost
argument relative to robotic missions. NASA is a highly politicized
agency supporting the pork barrel and public relations needs of our
legislators and the executive. The man-in-space activity has
virtually nothing to do with scientific research, and I believe is
rapidly advancing the destruction of research in the physical
sciences that has been going on for the past two decades. Research
in basic atomic and molecular physics in the USA was surpassed in
quality and volume more than 10 years ago by researchers in Japan
and Europe. Recovery from the benign (or ignorant) neglect will
take decades, assuming that a recovery will actually be attempted
in the near future. 42. Eliminate funding of manned missions to the
Moon and Mars over then next 10-15 years. 43. I believe the push to
put crewed missions on the Moon and Mars is deleterious to all
other space science. These missions will be hugely expensive and
pose considerable risk to the crews. I think the potential science
return from crewed missions does not justify their cost or the
damage to other missions and the R&A programs. Orbiter, lander
and rover technology already provides superb science return at
minimal cost/risk. I therefore think NASA should prioritize the
more modest-sized missions and the R&A programs. After all, if
there is no R&A, what are we sending missions for? Thanks for
the opportunity to get our voices heard. 44. I actually want to see
human exploration of the Moon and Mars (and asteroids, and other
bodies in the solar system), so I would be willing to focus more
emphasis on the Moon and Mars, and to conduct types of research
that are not only of value in their own right, but would support
human exploration in some way. 45. US Solar System exploration
should aspire to not be robbed by the ISS, Shuttle, and proposed
Lunar Bases. 46. Scientific research is the fundamental reasons
there are missions; we don't go in to space for tourism 47. Retire
the space shuttle sooner than later (now!) and put the money
towards developing the new crewed-spacecraft and other dwindling
missions.