Obama Seeks to Ax Moon Mision

[madanthonywayne]

The Obama administration is seeking to seriously cut back on NASA He wants to kill the planned moon shot, the Ares rocket that was to replace the shuttle, the Ares 5, and the moon base. So he pretty much wants to kill the entire manned space program for the foreseable future. What does he want NASA to do:

In the meantime, the White House will direct NASA to concentrate on Earth-science projects — principally, researching and monitoring climate change —​

Fucking global warming bullshit. What a surprise that Obama wants to kill one of the few government programs I support and change its mission from pushing the limits of science, technology, and human achievement to studying climate change. Unbelievable.

Read the rest: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/os-no-moon-for-nasa-20100126,0,2770904.story

 

[kira]

Think of this: who has the technologies to slow down global warming? I'm saying about solar photovoltaic, wind mills, biofuels, micro hydropowers, etc.? It's USA, Germany, and Japan (among the top ones). And where is the potential market? China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, etc., all developing countries (or countries in transition) that have huge pollution and major contributors of "anthropogenic global warming" (means: big market). Think about the sales, the job creations in this field, etc. Eventually it will benefit you.

I don't care, though. Whatever is good for environment universally, I am all for it..! =)

 

[Pandaemoni]

I personally like NASA and enjoy its missions greatly. I also enjoy large screen televisions and lavish parties. In tough economic times, though, these things need to be cut from the budget.

 

[Enmos]

What a surprise that Obama wants to kill one of the few government programs I support and change its mission from pushing the limits of science, technology, and human achievement to studying climate change. Unbelievable.

He's doing it to spite you! lol

Spaceflight is hugely damaging to the environment.

 

[cosmictraveler]

Remember that this is only a few years of cost cutting. The next step was a backward step like with the rocket powered Aries that was to take over the Space Shuttle when it retires. That is old technology so to speak so no new developments would have been done within the Aries program. As for returning to the moon that again is using old technology, only larger rockets and larger rovers to carry more people. A few years won't kill the thrust of NASA, only slow it down a little.

 

[draqon]

yeah what a sad day. Hopefully I can transfer my studies to Roskosmos.

 

[joepistole]

The Obama administration is seeking to seriously cut back on NASA He wants to kill the planned moon shot, the Ares rocket that was to replace the shuttle, the Ares 5, and the moon base. So he pretty much wants to kill the entire manned space program for the foreseable future. What does he want NASA to do:

In the meantime, the White House will direct NASA to concentrate on Earth-science projects — principally, researching and monitoring climate change —​

Fucking global warming bullshit. What a surprise that Obama wants to kill one of the few government programs I support and change its mission from pushing the limits of science, technology, and human achievement to studying climate change. Unbelievable.

Read the rest: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/os-no-moon-for-nasa-20100126,0,2770904.story

I suppose that is what you get for making a big deal over government spending. As others have said when times are tough the budget and more practical things have to come first.

I think NASA should have established a lunar base decades ago. In my book the entire space station project was big fat waste of time and money.

 

[fedr808]

I personally like NASA and enjoy its missions greatly. I also enjoy large screen televisions and lavish parties. In tough economic times, though, these things need to be cut from the budget.

It is so much unbelievable bull.

The things we learned in space have been so incredible. And the fact is that NASA developed ares because everyone was whining about the cost of the space shuttle.

The fact is that humans have an innate curiosity to explore, to discover, and as far as discovery has gone, we have pretty much hit the wall, if not, we are pretty damned close.

The fact is there is only one place we can go and that is up.


The US has 11 aircraft carriers each around 4 billion dollars, plus a few dozen assault carriers, probably near a billion dollars each.

30 some odd B-2's each around 2 billion dollars.

Every month in Iraq costs us 7 billion dollars.

And we cant afford to keep NASA's budget of 14 billion a year? what the hell?!?

The yearly budget of our armed forces is 804 billion to 1.04 trillion dollars for THIS fiscal year. And we cannot pull 1 billion from that to keep NASA at it's current operating level?

The navy is already working on the next aircraft carrier, and nobody else even USES a real aircraft carrier, and for some reason the military in its infinite idiocy believes that we can deter terrorists with big boats.

Right now the NASA budget is 14 billion dollars. Obama spent what was it? a few trillion dollars on the economy at the BEGINNING of his presidency, and he cant just leave NASA alone?

He seems so willing to build more super massive ships but when it comes to spending relatively pocket change he says no.

The fact is that NASA has so little left, there's no point in taking, theres no way NASA can fork up any more of it's budget and be expected to do anything.

What's the point of having a space administration if you dont have any god damn rockets to put us into space?!?

How bout rather than axing the rocket obama, you cut the crap and cut the whole damn thing.

"earth science" yah while were hear digging up rocks we could be on the f*cking moon pushing the boundaries of human science and technology, and but we are sending the best and brightest to dig up pebbles and take air samples.

 

[EmptySky]

Also worrying is China's rapidly advancing space program:

China's space program is poised to surge ahead at a brisk pace in 2010. In fact, over the next 12 months, China's activities in space may be such that when all is said and done, 2010 could well rank as one of China's top years thus far in terms of the total number and variety of missions launched.

Senior Chinese space officials have told their state media that China could be on the moon by 2022 at the outside. Other authoritative Chinese space engineers see a moon landing as a next step in the Tiangong program that will launch three Chinese space stations into Earth orbit between 2011 and 2015. In 2008, NASA scientists told the Bush White House that, with the technology currently available to the Chinese space program, Chinese cosmonauts could be on the moon by 2017.

 

[fedr808]

Also worrying is China's rapidly advancing space program:

Why is it a worry? Space belongs to no man and this common venture benefits all nations of the world, the fact is that the people whom envisioned the ISS figured out that we dont stand a chance seperate, and that if we all worked together, the sky is the limit.

 

[madanthonywayne]

It is so much unbelievable bull
What's the point of having a space administration if you dont have any god damn rockets to put us into space?!?

How bout rather than axing the rocket obama, you cut the crap and cut the whole damn thing.
.

Well said. I remember a dystopic short scifi story by (I think) Ben Bova. It featured a US made up of ghettos and welfare bums while space was being conquered by the Chinese. Now Obama is trying to make that come true. DAMN I HATE THAT GUY.

Imagine the 800 billion stimulus package had been dumped into NASA. Even a fraction of it. What could they have done with that? What kind of high tech spin offs would it have created? How much excitement might it have created among the public and how many children might have become more interested in science?

Instead he blew that money on a bunch of useless left wing pet projects. Fuck him. This may well rank up there in world history with the burning of Zheng He's fleet by the Ming Dynasty which set them up for centuries of stagnation just when they were on the cusp of conquering the world. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

 

[EmptySky]

Why is it a worry? Space belongs to no man and this common venture benefits all nations of the world, the fact is that the people whom envisioned the ISS figured out that we dont stand a chance seperate, and that if we all worked together, the sky is the limit.

That view is economically naive. Other worlds are no different to other land masses which must be colonized and exploited if they are to benefit us. The free market is undoubtedly the best way to do this.

 

[nietzschefan]

I personally like NASA and enjoy its missions greatly. I also enjoy large screen televisions and lavish parties. In tough economic times, though, these things need to be cut from the budget.

Ahh fuck it...let the bad times roll. It's seriously time to cull the weak and needy so we can get back to progress.

 

[spidergoat]

What the hell are we going to do on the moon? I'm sure there is a lot of science that can be done much more cheaply with robots.

 

[James R]

I'm glad Obama is a realist rather than a head-in-the-sand climate change denier.

 

[Pandaemoni]

It is so much unbelievable bull.

The things we learned in space have been so incredible. And the fact is that NASA developed ares because everyone was whining about the cost of the space shuttle.

The fact is that humans have an innate curiosity to explore, to discover, and as far as discovery has gone, we have pretty much hit the wall, if not, we are pretty damned close.

The fact is there is only one place we can go and that is up.

You are overlooking a few things, like all the vectors that do not point up. We can certainly stay put for a few years until we can afford it. The human urge to explore is not really universal, it's cultural. Most humans in medieval Europe never ventured more than a few miles from the place they were born. Empires like that of Ancient China explored and then stopped because they found no one else worth the effort. They turned inward. There is no evidence that it is a biological drive, and even if it were that is not necessarily a reason to spend beyond your means to attain it.

The US has 11 aircraft carriers each around 4 billion dollars, plus a few dozen assault carriers, probably near a billion dollars each.

30 some odd B-2's each around 2 billion dollars.

Every month in Iraq costs us 7 billion dollars.

And we cant afford to keep NASA's budget of 14 billion a year? what the hell?!?

The yearly budget of our armed forces is 804 billion to 1.04 trillion dollars for THIS fiscal year. And we cannot pull 1 billion from that to keep NASA at it's current operating level?

All fine points, if we rip those aircraft carriers apart, and recollect that money or if we invent a time machine, stop the fighting in Iraq and save ourselves those dollars, then Hell, let's spend it on NASA. At the moment though those fall into categories that are "sunk costs" and programs that are even harder to cut, like the War on Terror, either because the spending is more critical, or because *someone* thinks it critical and so it is politically impossible to cancel.

The navy is already working on the next aircraft carrier, and nobody else even USES a real aircraft carrier, and for some reason the military in its infinite idiocy believes that we can deter terrorists with big boats.

New weapons systems should be cut, I agree, but they should be cut TOO, not INSTEAD OF. The recession has left us in a massive hole and your plan is basically to ignore it when it comes to spending you like personally and solve the problem by...what? complaining that you wish there had never been a hole in the first place?

As plans go, I think it leaves something to be desired.

Right now the NASA budget is 14 billion dollars. Obama spent what was it? a few trillion dollars on the economy at the BEGINNING of his presidency, and he cant just leave NASA alone?

That was stimulus money, and the Keynesian thinking is (and was) that he did not spend *enough.* In fact, he's likely to spend way more this year. The truth is whether or not people have incomes is more important in everyday terms than whether we discover dark matter or find extra-solar planets, or whatever. Those things may be far more important in the extremely long run (a century or more), but as Keynes said, in the long run, we are all dead.

"earth science" yah while were hear digging up rocks we could be on the f*cking moon pushing the boundaries of human science and technology, and but we are sending the best and brightest to dig up pebbles and take air samples.

We get more scientific and technological benefit is we poured money into basic research rather than NASA. If we just want science, then we should fund other things. Economics works in labs too, so it should be that the worse and least efficient research programs are those being run by less efficiently motivated government scientists. Plus NASA is forced to waste money that could have been spent on research on more mundane things, like elaborate control mechanisms, non-cutting edge propulsion, robotics, fuel, etc., all designed to get their more interesting projects into space where they can be of value. Terrestrial research has less overhead.

 

[ElectricFetus]

Rumor until we hear from the president him self, besides congress put a requirement that they must approve of any budget changes to NASA. More so this may not be an end to the moon shots rather an end to the much waste constellation program, hopefully for something cheaper like a shuttle derived launcher like Direct.

 

[Billy T]

There is a closely related thread about where NASA should go next*. Here is last part of my post in it at: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2452780&postcount=85

“…Private industry can put useful things (com sats, weather sats, etc.) in orbit now. Man has never been useful in space, but his presence there increases the cost of every useful project by more than an order of magnitude. Also the money wasted on making "man-qualified" spacecraft could have been spent on AI and robotics with much greater benefit to those of us bound to the Earth.

Man in space (or going to the moon) was a politically motivated stunt. Time to stop being so stupid - USA cannot afford it now. Kill NASA ASAP. …”

Then pinwheel agree with me but asked me: “How do you feel about the ISS?” Here is part of my reply:

“Even if we assume that in the very distant future man is to "colonize space" we certainly will not need or use a manned space station and certainly not send any men into deep space. (A 25kg tank of frozen sperm can replace 100,000 men.)

I doubt even a single woman will ever go there. If we go into deep space it will not be stupidly. Instead robots will go first and a few thousands of years later, after a suitable for human life planet has been confirmed to exist, some "baby factory" will be established by other robots and at most some frozen DNA will go into deep space. (Much more likely even that will not go as only the information it contains is needed.) Probably, before this can be done, the robots will be so much smarter than humans; they may not want to bother populating other planets with such an irrational and delicate life form; …”
From: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2453443&postcount=89

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*My first post in that tread was “Home.” But later I expanded to state they should sell the office furnature and computers first. As far as man’s urge to explore, if it is not just cultural bias, then go to the sea bottom. – There are things there worth bringing to land. Exploring it is much less costly than the moon which has nothing worth bringing to Earth. (even if by magic the cost of doing so were reduced 100 fold!)

 

[sandy]

I don't like Obama but I have to agree with this cut. Even though I like science and exploration, the country is broke and should not be spending on moon stuff.

 

[ElectricFetus]

I don't like Obama but I have to agree with this cut. Even though I like science and exploration, the country is broke and should not be spending on moon stuff.

We will be regretting that when China takes the moon.