NASA Faces Rough Road In 2013 132
MarkWhittington writes "With the National Research Council report that concluded that President Obama's plan for a mission to an asteroid has no support, either inside NASA or anywhere else, the space agency faces a decision point in 2013. The NRC suggested that the administration, Congress, NASA, and other stakeholders in space exploration come to a consensus behind a new goal. But the space agency's problems run deep, caused by a lack of direction, a lack of leadership, and a lack of funding."
NASA's budgets should be 5 years at a time (Score:5, Insightful)
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if they government truly got out of the way and let free market capitalism work the way its designed to, the government wo
If I was a president (Score:1)
NASA deserves 100b a year. Thats still a lot less than the FED gives away to euro banks.
I would tell the Doj/FBI- all pot is legal, let all the people out of prison. All previous records deleted. Base future arrests purely on tax avoidance, so no SWAT team needed, just a letter with a bill due.
Re:This president is no leader !! (Score:5, Insightful)
Fact of the matter is this - instead of being the leader of the citizens of the United States of America, Obama chooses to be a crowd pleaser.
Instead of concentrate the limited resource available to make America strong - by spending them on R&D and also space programs - Obama opted for spending the money for welfare to feed the crack addicts and those who are too lazy to work
The president doesn't make these decisions. You might think he's supposed to lead by telling congress what to spend money on, but you would be just another person enabling congress to continue to suck. The president is designed to hold back congress from doing crazy stuff. That's why he has the veto power - and nothing more. Congress sets the budget and congress fails when the budget is wrong. There are 535 people with their own leadership structure. When they fail it's not the presidents' fault, no matter who it is.
Blaming the president for Congress' failing through lack of leadership just enables the executive branch to assume more power and the legislative to point more fingers.
The POTUS is not a leader? (Score:4, Insightful)
The president is designed to hold back congress from doing crazy stuff. That's why he has the veto power - and nothing more.
AND NOTHING MORE ???
You mean to say, the role of the POTUS is not being the ***DE FACTO LEADER*** of the USA?
If the position of the POTUS is designed, as you said, "to hold back congress from doing crazy stuff", how come presidents such as Lincoln, JFK and Reagan managed to lead the United States of America to greater heights?
Or to put it another way --- Do you, Sir, really understand the true role of the POTUS?
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All a charade to keep driven by mass media and celebrity worship to keep people away from the lack lustre and boring congress and senate primaries where the real decision makers are elected by the corporations. President and his staff (unelected staff) is meant to be the administrator of the rules provided. Veto should be stripped away and all of the main staff positions should be selected from the senate and the congress. Of course tens of millions of idiot Americans need to start paying attention to the
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Even though I am not a member of the Ronald Reagan fan club, I gotta admit this one thing:
Neither JFK nor Eisenhower nor FDR has brought the USSR to its knees.
On the other hand, Reagan did - by playing the "space weapon poker" game that bankrupted the former Soviet Union, which in turn, led to its breakup.
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If anything, Reagan prolonged the cold war.
I will say this for him; Carter had cut off trade, esp. ag, with the commies. Reagan restarted it esp. ag. By r
Re:The POTUS is not a leader? (Score:5, Informative)
"Or to put it another way --- Do you, Sir, really understand the true role of the POTUS?"
Apparently he does. "And nothing more" might be a slight exaggeration, but not much.
The function of POTUS is to be the head of the executive branch. In other words, he manages the BUSINESS of government that has been mandated by Congress. He heads the executive (functional) departments of government (or appoints delegates to do so).
He is also the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.
Other than that, no, the position was not really intended as that of "leader" of the country. If the Founders had wanted that, they could have made it a monarchy rather than a republic.
Believe it or not, WE are supposed to be the leaders. Government -- all of it -- is supposed to follow.
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Believe it or not, WE are supposed to be the leaders. Government -- all of it -- is supposed to follow.
I do understand what you're saying, but then, my friend, the "WE are supposed to be the leaders" thing does not work in the reality.
Take a look around, my friend - Out of the more than 200 governments in this world, which one is led by the people?
Even in countries that have/had/had previously succumbed to chaos - Yemen, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Republic of Congo, for example - the "groups of people" who supposed to be "leading" the countries were/are nothing more than bandits/terrorists.
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"... the "WE are supposed to be the leaders" thing does not work in the reality."
It has worked, therefore it can work. The fact that our Federal government has become overweening and abusive of its authority over the past century (give or take) does not mean that it has to be that way.
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Wow. You're so very not right.
The President:
Has veto power, oversees the executive branch, is the Commander in Chief of the US Military (sometimes this doesn't mean that much, but right now we have military action going on all over the place), Is the boss of the top law enforcement officer in the country.
He also is supposed to send a proposed budget for running all that stuff he's responsible for. Now it is correct that congress is supposed to pass a budget that may or may not agree with the one the pres
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"... Is the boss of the top law enforcement officer in the country."
The Attorney General is only the head of Federal law enforcement, which is nowhere near as strong or ubiquitous as many believe. The FBI basically being the top Federal law enforcement agency, and the FBI's numerous incidents of playing Keystone Kops are well known.
Pretty much all the other Federal law enforcement agencies -- customs, immigration, border affairs, etc... are under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security today, which is headed by the Secretary of Homeland Security.
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s/officer/officers/g :-)
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"All in all the President's a very powerful guy."
But being a powerful guy is very, very different from being a "leader".
The last President who was worth a sh*t as a "leader" was John F. Kennedy.
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...crack addicts and those who are too lazy to work
Goldman Smack
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When I say, spend money on space programs, I don't mean spending money exclusively on constellations and/or SLS.
There are many more meaningful space programs out there and we should invest on some of them (I do understand that we no longer have the mean to do whatever we need, but we _still_ need to do something, don't we??)
I do support spending the limited amount of resources that we have on things that can advance our country in terms of technology prowess and in knowledge acquisition skills.
However, what
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The fact is, that he continues to push the private space. He actually was pushing for more money on NASA, but it was the God Damn neo-cons that gutted them, not O.
I think that in about 1-2 years, once Falcon heavy is up along with Dragon Rider's first test, O will kill the SLS. That boondoggle is costing us 3-5Billion / year. That is money that should be split into science as well as private space.
So, seriously, you gripe about O, but you a
Not only NASA. (Score:3, Insightful)
But the whole United States is locked in a situation where hope and optimism is starting to get rare.
The Democrats and Republicans seems to be blocking each other as much as possible causing a deadlock. Today it seems like the creationists are taking over step by step.
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seems like the creationists are taking over
First the creationists enacted their healthcare law. Now the creationists are proposing another AWB.
Those creationists sure are taking over.
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The Democrats and Republicans seems to be blocking each other as much as possible causing a deadlock.
Inevitably. Almost as if the system were designed with that outcome in mind.
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Re:Not only NASA. (Score:5, Insightful)
For some reason, science accepts certain theories as fact, even without real proof.
Mod this minus infinity, Bullshit. You seriously misunderstand and misrepresent science.
In science, the facts are experimental results, not the theories. If the results support a theory, then the theory is accepted. A theory can be overthrown or modified by any single contrary experimental result. If two theories explain the same result, then typically the simpler theory wins (Occam's Razor.)
The concept of "real proof" is more mathematical than scientific. One can speak of "scientific proof" as a high degree of confidence, arising from a mass of supporting evidence, that a certain theory or law is correct and is unlikely to be overthrown (e.g., the laws of thermodynamics, the kinetic molecular theory of matter.) But neither mathematicians nor scientists accept anything as established without proof.
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I don't think its really an anti-science thing. I think NASA gets yanked around primarily because everyone know what it is and knows (more or less) what it does.
Whats going on here is that the politicians think that when you need to say you're cutting budgets, NASA's a great place to take the cuts. Because people know what it is and so many people don't give a shit about what it does. Politicians like to cut the space stuff precisely because it is visionary and scientific. They put forth a position "we
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I have an understanding of the basic process of science that is only slightly higher than than that of a layman. You have to admit that part of the process doesn't make sense. Occam's Razor is only one of those parts. If the simpler theory wins, probability indicates that the accepted theory may occasionally, in fact, be the WRONG theory. Not often, I admit, but occasionally, you must be willing to admit. If you aren't willing to admit this, then your mind is set, indicating your unwillingness to accep
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Actually, I wouldn't say at all that "parts of the process don't make sense". I'll elaborate further down, but let's get one really important thing out of the way first.
Science is not about finding absolute truth. It's not really about finding what's "right", only what's "less wrong". This distinction is important.
A good example is Pluto. Pluto takes about 248 years to orbit the sun. But we've known of Pluto's existence for less than this period of time. This means that, no, we cannot say without a shadow o
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Since I'm tired, I'm going to make this short.
Creationists, which you mentioned earlier, have been around since, um, CREATION. =)
Evolutionists have been around since ~mid 1800's (Darwin), with a few fringe pockets prior to Darwin's existence.
You said that creationists are taking over, when it appears that you meant that creationists have lost ground but still have significant influence.
Macro-evolution is NOT a fact. Macro-evolution says that I arrived here via over a period spanning a few hundred million
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So called macro-evolution can't be "proven" any more than anything can be proven absolutely. Like I went to effort to explain, science does not offer absolute proof because as you pointed out, it's impossible.
Evolution is, however, backed by evidence (go to talkorigins.org to find it out). We cannot "prove" it to absolute certainty, but it is most certainly the "least wrong". It can be shown to be this. If you do not believe there is evidence for evolution, you haven't looked, because there is a mountain of
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Before I type another word, I just want to make it clear that I'm 100% on your side. However, I do have a mild quibble about your mild quibble.
Mild quibble regarding faith. I don't have "faith" in anything. I believe things. I believe that if I hold up a ball and let go, it will drop. I believe this because I have evidence of balls I've dropped before, the mathematics behind it bears out that prediction, and there's all manner of demonstrations we can do to prove that it will, indeed, drop.
Faith is belief that the ball will fall up despite evidence, and if it doesn't, you smile, shrug and say, "God moves in mysterious ways, doesn't he?"
Faith is about the belief in an outcome that cannot be determined absolutely from evidence. It does not necessarily mean the belief in an outcome that is contrary to evidence. A few illustrations, with varying degrees of faith required...
(1) I can understand a great deal about how the earth rotates, and have strong evidence that the sun will rise in the east tomor
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LOADS of support for it. BUT, until you can prove that the negative of it can not happen, it remains a theory.
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Yeah, science accepts fact, but as soon as politicians get a hold of it they twist it to their advantage.
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What? LOL! The creationists have had control for a VERY long time. The evolutionists are currently barking loudest, giving the impression that they have the upper hand. For some reason, science accepts certain theories as fact, even without real proof. Sounds to me like the same type of faith over which they berate creationists.
You clearly have no idea how science works, but I'll bite. What "certain theories" does science (as a concept I guess, but I assume you mean scientists here) accept as fact with no real proof?
Summary was pleasant, TFA was garbage. (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA (second link):
The dimensions of the train wreck that is the Obama space policy are impossible to exaggerate.
The dimensions of hyperbole in that statement are impossible to exaggerate, too. Reading that second link (possibly written by a very bitter pundit-turned-scientist Rove) was an absolute waste of time bemoaning everything from NASA considering too many options before making a decision, to Mitt Romney losing the presidential race. OP's summary was more educational and less biased than that pile.
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Actually you can [forbes.com] and there is a protocol for that.
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No he didn't. There was a battle between focusing on an asteroid mission or a moon mission. Congress and the prez are fighting that out, but it's ugly.
I agree with the asteroid plan. We already did the moon thing. And there will be budget cuts because there is not enough money to go around.
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Baloney! All Obama did was carry through the plan initiated under Bush to retire the shuttle fleet. There were some who wanted to continue flying the shuttles for a few more years, but they were so damned expensive to service they would have chewed up most of the NASA budget, putting other more important projects at risk, such as the JWST.
"Shut down the manned space program"... yeah right, I guess all those ASTRONAUTS are just figments of our imagination then. Hm?
Certainly it's a bit embarrassing to have al
Un the USA, *everything* is lacking funding ... (Score:1)
... except for the big war and corporate profit machine. In other words: Leeches that mooch on the luxuries and work force of a country, but give nothing back in return but a big fat "fuck you"... and insult the very people that got poor *because* of their corporate greed that has no purpose but itself.
It's just a matter of when it breaks because of a lack of a working country behind it, not if.
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the country won't break, it'll just change: they'll enslave some, imprison others (big business that), and kill the rest. you're right about the main thing though, we'll all definitely be fucked over. It's called a fascist police state.
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but the good news is (Score:4, Insightful)
we'll spend ten times that amount occupying, maiming and killing people who did not attack us on 09/11/2001. because that's important and of lasting benefit to humanity.
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I was worried Ender would have no targets in his drone
the whole govt is a bunch of murderers (Score:1)
Medline Albright was asked
"Was it worth kill 500,000 babies in Iraq for the war?"
She said, "Absolutely!!!"
She typical of govt, zero compassion and ends justify the means.
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I'm game (Score:2)
Re:but the good news is (Score:5, Insightful)
Only ten?
Where in the world did you get such a staggering discount? Or are you counting on a massive boost to NASA's funding?
NASA budget in 2012: $3.5-$8.7 billion
DOD (not including the FBI, international affairs, veterans affairs, homeland security, many other things): $707.5 billion
Ten times would be a huge change. I mean, the interest on debt for past wars was $109.1–$431.5 billion itself.
Lemme put that into perspective for you: You're spending about 30x as much repaying the debt for the last wars than you are putting stuff into space.
I'll type it again so it's really really clear.
The budget for repaying the debt, not necessarily the whole debt itself, just the interest on the debt, for Iraq/Afghanistan, is around about thirty times the budget of NASA. The defense budget itself is two to three times *that* amount.
Ten. If only, mate. If only.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Budget_breakdown_for_2012 [wikipedia.org]
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Lets keep this discussion fair at least. here [usgovernmentspending.com]
For 2012: Pensions $805 Billion Medicare $432 Billion Welfare (Medial and handouts) $764 Billion Deficit $1.1 Trillion (Remember how unacceptable Bush's $500 Billion was?)
So yea, we can keep hammering defence and ignore other areas, but that just shows you as a partsian shill.
Really? Please show some honest links on those. You will find that the 'welfare' section includes Medicare as well.
Here is a nice pic [federalnewsradio.com]
here is another. [nytimes.com]
The fact is, that the items that YOU hate (wic, medicaid, HUD, etc) are next to NOTHING. If you wipe them out, we would still have about 3/4T deficit. Worse, our costs would rise elsewhere. So, you COULD go after Medicare and SS, but good luck with that. I noticed that even the republicans that voted for the neo-cons expect that THEIR ss/medicare will c
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why are you calling war on innocents "defense". the cost of our "wars" aren't in the "budget", do you get that? PARTISAN??? I'm a real conservative, not a democrat but the Republicans have become the party of fat cats, genocide, and fascism.
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whose numbers do you use? wikipedia says $17 billion for NASA in 2012. I only counting direct budgeted Iraq and Afghanistan "war" costs ~ 160 billion for 2012.
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off book accounts
secret black ops
secret drug sales by cia
trillions missing in accounting records
They spend 1000x NASA budget to kill.
dudes, your country has been robbed by the banks and the CIA.
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our interests, or certain mega-corporate interests (big oil & other resource, banking cartel, etc.)?
Race Condition (Score:1)
There is currently no race condition between competing super powers. Just wait until China shows a 50% chance of actually sending a man to the moon again. Then of course we'll need a charismatic young POTUS to inspire strong protective feelings of our national pride.
Rough Road? (Score:3)
Well then, fly!
That way, you'll encounter severe turbulence.
neither party likes them much (Score:2)
NASA has bipartisan regional support (Score:2)
NASA is very popular in certain portions of Florida, Texas, California, Maryland, Alabama, Utah... pretty much any state with a significant NASA facility. All those places have Congresscritters who will push for pretty much anything NASA wants to spend money on.
Individually they're not much, but collectively they can legislatively logroll remarkably well.
LOL (Score:2)
The great news is that in 201[34], Falcon Heavy WILL launch. And once it does, a large cheap cargo carrier is ready to go to space. SLS will be redundant, and more importantly, wasteful.
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Problem with robots (Score:4, Interesting)
This is why sending robots to Mars, while scientifically interesting, doesn't really help rally the nation. Do you think sending a rover to the moon instead of an astronaut would have created the same excitement and motivation? How far behind would we be with technology had that excitement not lead to all kinds of collateral innovations along the way?
Set a vision for sending a team of scientists and engineers to Mars, within 10 years, with the goal of setting up a basic outpost. Nothing huge or complex, just some FEMA-type structures large enough for storage and manufacturing. Mars has a ton of iron, so there's little reason a foundry couldn't be setup up there.
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This is why sending robots to Mars, while scientifically interesting, doesn't really help rally the nation. Do you think sending a rover to the moon instead of an astronaut would have created the same excitement and motivation? How far behind would we be with technology had that excitement not lead to all kinds of collateral innovations along the way?
There haven't been any manned missions to the Moon in 40 years. We can send dozens of robotic missions to Mars for the cost of a single manned one, making it sustainable.
Re:Problem with robots (Score:5, Insightful)
The American public doesn't give a shit about robotic missions to Mars. Curiosity's complicated landing, yes the public was tuned in because it was drama and the whole jet-powered crane thing was pretty frackin cool. Then most just got on with our lives, the same way Americans stopped caring about the Apollo missions. The public perked their collective ears up again when NASA made a blunder with that "one for the record books" comment and all kinds of people I know were suddenly gushing about the possibility of Life On Mars.
Putting people on Mars and starting a colony, well that's something people can be excited about and identify with. But it's a long-term goal. A shorter-term and ongoing goal that people are invariably excited about is finding life on another planet. The problem is, we keep sending robots to search for long-dead life, not current life. Let's get robots out to Europa and Titan and explore the seas, to Martian caves, and polar regions. Let's make finding existing extraterrestrial life a priority. Because if NASA strives for scientific discoveries that the public cares about, the public is more likely to demand NASA be funded adequately. This kind of thinking might not sit well with planetary geologists who want more rock-hunting missions, but NASA has to play a PR role as much as it focuses on hard science. Making a Twitter account is not enough. Inspiring the public must be part of the primary mission, if for no other reason than self-preservation.
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This kind of thinking might not sit well with planetary geologists who want more rock-hunting missions, but NASA has to play a PR role as much as it focuses on hard science.
Those "rock-hunting" missions (including Curiosity) are providing valuable information on where future missions should look to find life. It may not be as immediately exciting to the general public to work that way, but it's more productive in the long run, and without that, both NASA's results and its funding may dry up.
Besides, it's not true that the public "doesn't give a shit" about robotic missions. Spirit and Opportunity got significant publicity, for years, on a relatively small investment. (Widespre
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The cost of one-way would certainly be much less than round-trip, but both are speculative, and would probably exceed estimates. We know how much robotic missions cost. The big advantage to having humans on Mars would probably be that they could operate rovers remotely with essentially zero latency, much more productively than from Earth. The rovers could be anywhere on the planet, whereas at least in the beginning the humans would all want to stay together, limiting their ability to explore directly. For t
The US is Losing Sight Of Fundamentals (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not just talking about "more science is good" but a thriving Space Program through NASA pumps something quite literally vital back into the economy.
Confidence In And Hope For The Future.
Almost NOTHING that NASA does is "for today", everything is long term, future thinking, "some day you will thank me for this" work.
Problems with lack of direction (etc) at NASA are mostly a reflection of uncertainty in funding (both current and future).
You can't blame the Captain of a ship that he's not steering anywhere useful when you won't put fuel in his tanks.
There's one planet that may warrant NASA attention (Score:2)
It may be a rough road you'll find, but then again you won't
need rockets or runways.
Alpha Centauri (Score:2)
They can't decide what goal to move toward? I have one. Alpha Centauri via pulsed nuclear propulsion and lunar mining and manufacturing. First, a permanent lunar base. Establish some photovoltaics and RTGs. Then a full fledged fission reactor. Some solar furnaces for melting ore. Then design/build some lunar rovers intended for carrying ore and some battery powered mining robots. Ideally some pitchblende or other uranium ores could be found. Locating the settlement within driving distance of such uranium so
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You need to explain to the population of Earth (or to the population of the USA) what exactly they will *personally* gain from all this. Considering that they will get nothing, I just don't see where the budget for this space opera would come from.
This society is not ready for operations in space and on other planets simply because there is no reason to do so, outside of a very far-fetched possibility of the global catastrophe. But even then who will be dying happily, knowing that there are a few Earthli
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Apparently you don't really get the concepts of 'frontier' and 'colony'. My great-great-grandparents went to homestead in the wilds of northern Michigan. They and their children faced bears, Indians, wolves, TB, starvation, sub-zero winters, Mormon marauders, tornadoes, and wildfires, all two days' travel from the nearest (incompetent and generally drunken) doctor. There were many ways to die, and I'm sure that their families back
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There were many ways to die, and I'm sure that their families back in Cleveland and Paris wondered, "What is the purpose?"
I'm sure your ancestors did have a purpose. Perhaps they wanted to get away from the old way of life and religious persecution in Europe; perhaps they wanted to get their own land and set up a ranch or a farm; perhaps they had other reasons - but the important part here is that they did have a reason. Only drunken men wander around without reason; everyone else's actions are driven by
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The lust after a frontier has always been found in the minority of people, that's why the majority stayed in Cleveland, or Europe (or for that matter Africa if you want to look 'way back.) Did you know that as a portion of national economy the voyages of Columbus and Magellan were more expensive for their sponsor countries than the Apollo program was for ours? That is the problem with representative government though, the mob rules, even on b
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That is the problem with representative government though, the mob rules, even on budgetary issues, and the mob wants bread and circuses.
I fully agree. A benevolent dictator would be better than the mob rule. Unfortunately dictators rarely come in benevolent form; that's why democracy is a safer way to live your life these days.
If I were the dictator I would definitely give you all the money you need to fly to the Moon and live there. That would be bad news for the entitled crowd (modulo geniunely sick
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The last of the conquistadores, Marcio Serra de Leguisano, declared in his deathbed confession, "The I
eat your vegetables, THEN you have have dessert. (Score:3)
If you're short on money, stop wasting it dreaming about putting people on the moon again, or going to Mars with a human crew.
1)There is no practical purpose in placing humans on the moon; certainly nothing that justifies the tenfold jump in complexity. There wasn't back in the 60's, either - it was done for patriotism and xenophobia.
2)We have real problems right now, like the lack of replacements for aging weather satellites, in an era of accelerating climate change and instability. In case you all hadn't noticed, the last hurricane hit one of the largest economic centers of our country AND our eastern ports. In case you hadn't noticed, the midwest suffered the worst drought since the dust bowl.
I've been saying it for more than ten years, any time Slashdot starts getting romantic about human space flight: Stop eating your dessert and start eating your vegetables.
What's really pathetic is that we make fun of North Korea for lofting a satellite while people starve. We live in a country where 20% of our students go hungry, even more don't have enough textbooks to go around, and teachers are spending personal money on supplies...but hey, they get to watch some video of an incredibly privileged, elite person floating around on a space station doing science that nowhere near justifies its cost (NIH's budget is about 3x the annual spending of the ISS, but yet the NIH manages to fund more distinct disciplines than the number of ISS research projects.)
Our public transit system is pathetic, our court systems are vastly underfunded, our retirement system is essentially a pyramid scheme, we have a huge homeless population, the world's largest (both by percentage and total headcount) prison population, and we're one of a shrinking pool of countries which doesn't provide health care services for all.
We need to at least get to the point where we're not damaging the environment and climate further, and maybe even starting to restore it. THEN, and ONLY THEN, you can have your rocketships for human space exploration. Don't give me that "we'll use space technology to escape our doomed planet" bullshit - we have a population of 7 BILLION. Even if you think we have any hope of lifting even just 1% of the world's population, how do you morally justify screwing over everyone else to save those 1%? Further, if we can't co-habitate with this planet's ecosystem, why should we just start fucking up another planet?
Time to start over with a new agency (Score:2)
NASA has turned into a disorganized formation of risk-adverse contract managers loosely connected to a rusting theme park playing endless reruns of their glory days. Their big accomplishment these days is dismantling some of the old launch platforms.
They are not the agency that's going to make the next leaps in space technology. Hell, the fricking electric car guy is making faster advances than NASA. Put him in charge. They had their day, it's time to start over.
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Elon Musk IS in charge. Of precisely what he should be in charge of. A rocket company. The only thing wrong with NASA is they keep thinking they should be a rocket company. When they do science, and contract out the solved problems, they do well. When they try to revisit the glory years, they get all confused and stupid. The "electric car guy" is doing what a business does best—optimize production of a machine that is a known quantity. We're lucky somebody like him came along. Somebody with th
Mars (Score:1)
The Space Shuttle, Please (Score:1)
I love space exploration and think it has tremendous potential for mankind. But I have often thought that the Space Shuttle was a kluge designed by a committee. It was also a huge government make work project. Thankfully, projects like SpaceX and private industry is taking over from where NASA blew it. Though there were plenty of hard working and smart people there. In the end they remind me of the DMV or Post Office of space technology.
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The same is true of SNC's DreamChaser, Boeing's CST-100 (though to be fair, I doubt that NASA is providing tech help, but 100% of their funding, as well as future missions), and others.
These com
Vision (Score:1)
The Republicans have a vision. The space shuttle pork still flowing despite the cancellation of the space shuttle. The republicans call the lack of pork lack of vision because the can't see anything to eat. The Republicans want a return to Apollo where the pork flowed more freely.
Now if someone really wants vision let me propose this. Charge NASA with laying the groundwork for colonizing the solar system. This should include the resear
Obama talks a big game but (Score:2)
That's all it is. For all his twaddle about teachers this and education that he's successfully dismantled most of what makes US science and exploration great in the past. He turned NASA into an Islamic outreach program. He's turning higher education into another forum for social work to benefit to the poor and brown. US graduates in Advanced degrees in STEM has fallen to something like #3 while half of all programs are populated with foreign students who will soon go back to their home countries.
Let's face
Over budget but politically thrashed. (Score:1)
I'm going to rip on NASA and then politicians. You forgot to add over budget and over designed to the list. almost all of their projects are overbudget, because they don't know when to stop adding features or designing. Take JWST, and many other big projects, they almost don't fly because they miss their goals. This is extremely ironic because NASA has written the book on system engineering and project development (I've studied the subject). This is one of their problems, the other has to do with the politi