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dirtyfriesJul 11, 2011
The real travesty isn't that we ended the shuttle but that we never prepared the next step in its evolution. We let our programs die on the vine in lieu of spending money on stupid s**t like foreign wars.
norman619Jul 11, 2011
Even if we had we wouldn't have the money to fly it. We are broke. What part of that don't people get?
mistermillsJul 11, 2011
Perhaps dirtyfries is suggesting that instead of spending money on wars and other highly contentious endeavours that it is better spent on the frontiers of science.
Considering the economic issues of the US (and many other NA/EU nations), wouldn't it be prudent to stop engaging in military action and cut 'defense' spending to help curb the crippling national debt? Would it not also be prudent to decrease foreign aid, increase corporate tax rates, institute incentives for small and medium business to hire, and generally audit, review, and reform spending? Also, would it not help if your elected officials acted with a semblance of concern for the nation and the plight of the common man?
norman619Jul 11, 2011
He'd still be wrong. We could cut ALL funding to the military and STILL be broke.
Closed AccountJul 11, 2011
Define "broke"....
I think in the last 70 years the US government has run at a surplus only a dozen or so times, and has always had a debt obligation. If that's how you define broke, then the government has been broke since 1788. That doesn't mean the U.S. can't fund programs that are necessary for the country's wellbeing. Its all about priorities.
Does the US need to spend $690B on defense? No, but we still need a military.
Did the US need to spend $200B on the space shuttle? No, but we still needed a space program, and the space shuttle was a great achievement and logical next step from Apollo. I do think the program would have been well served to begin the next phase of exploration in the early 90s (about the time Endeavour was built), but the politics of it were too large at that time to overcome.
roddackJul 11, 2011
I would define broke as a situation in which tax receipts can only cover 66% of mandatory spending requirements
Closed AccountJul 11, 2011
I've seen the 66% concept thrown around a few times (mostly in Glenn Beck type blogs). Not sure that's correct, especially given the low cost of borrowing at this point. I think we can agree on one thing...with discretionary spending set to rise as the population ages (and the cost of borrowing likely to go up), the government will need to both raise taxes and cut discretionary spending. I don't envy the adminstration in office at the time that all goes down.
dirtyfriesJul 11, 2011
Precisely misermills. Military spending was just an example of how our priorities with our money are sadly out of whack. It's why I said "like" before "s**t like foreign wars".
rudegarJul 11, 2011
money is an illusion the world can't be broke
we should all join hands and sing Kumbaya and explore space together happy and having fun
or something like that :)Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
Unregistered_CowardJul 11, 2011
NASA was given billions of dollars to develop the next manned vehicle. All they managed to do was come up with was an upsized version of the Apollo, a program which we then cancelled only to resurrect under a different name with the same basic concept.
Why not just build an improved Apollo and be done with it. The Russians have been lobbing the same basic shape into space for decades.
NASA tries to hard to justify their budget by signing up for the impossible.
greedonvrfiredJul 11, 2011
Exploration is exploration and it's what humans do to advance their race. Wether it is inward exploration (discovering the cell,DNA and atoms) or outward exploration (new lands, the atmosphere and space.) It all done for the benefit of mankind. It is why we can cure viruses and warn of hurricanes.
If exploration were left to the cowards who say "why?" we would all be in caves eating bugs and shaking with fear at the sound of thunder. Have you people always existed? Thousands of years ago were your ancestors saying "why are we going into the jungle when we have people starving here in the cave?" "Why are we paying for ships to sail out into the ocean when we need that money here at home."
Or is it that you think we have gone far enough. And if that is the case where would you have stopped us. The mouth of the cave, the edge of the ocean, the sky? Its a good thing there have always been brave explorers to counteract the small cowardly minds that cannot see the big picture.
richidJul 11, 2011Staff
I urge everyone to watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ulkX-DA9BM
Specifically, the 35 minute mark is most relevant to this discussion. A salient quote:
"Do you think Einstein, when he wrote down his equations for stimulated emission of atoms, (that) he's saying to himself, "hey, one day this will be the foundation of a laser and we'll have bar coding"? Do you think this is on his -- "one day we'll have LASIK surgery"! No! No!"
diggit791Jul 11, 2011
great video
it does take some patience to sit thru, but like the guy says (im paraphrasing of course) the great scientists of our time didn't do their research with the thought of "how does this benefit joe schmoe?" on their minds or "how can slap a patent on this invention" and put this on a late night infomercial.
rbenhaseJul 11, 2011
This isn't the end of the Space Program altogether. The Shuttle Program had many benefits, but it also limited us to staying within Earth's orbit. Now, we can refocus our attention to bigger and better things, such as returning to the moon (or, more likely, landing on an asteroid) and eventually putting a man on Mars. To call this a step backward is a little off.
jqp123Jul 11, 2011
"The Shuttle Program had many benefits..."
I disagree.
There was nothing the space shuttle ever "achieved" that could not have been accomplished by other means for significantly less money and with significantly less risk to human life.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
rbenhaseJul 11, 2011
I don't know that the benefits outweighed the costs or if there were better ways to achieve the same results. I don't work for NASA. But if nothing else, the Space Shuttle made space travel remarkably common.
jqp123Jul 11, 2011
"... Space Shuttle made space travel remarkably common."
And expensive ... and dangerous.
batwaffelJul 11, 2011
It's sad, but I also think it's a need at this point in time. Other countries have their own space programs, so not all is completely lost. However, this is one step of many we need to take right now to help recoup our losses. The next step (which really should have been the first step) is to get our troops home and stop spending so much money on a war that is accomplishing very little.
I'm thinking this might also be the boost we need to start considering the next step in space exploration. All things considered, there has been very little in the way of advancement in the past 20 years when it comes to how America does it. Not saying that there hasn't been some, but it seems like NASA bottomed out for the most part somewhere in the 90s where previously, they had come up with so many genius ideas that we use today.
joncumquatJul 11, 2011
this is a sad day for space exploration, if only they could stop spending on crap and keep more money for space
norman619Jul 11, 2011
Not really. Other nations have plans. How they are paying for it given the current state of the world economy is beyond me.
jqp123Jul 11, 2011
I'd say that creates an obvious dilemma since the space shuttle *was* crap.
The only thing we discovered as a result of the space shuttle was that the space shuttle made no sense. It was THE most expensive method ever devised for putting a payload into low earth orbit --- directly the opposite of what NASA originally promised.
blendercoreJul 11, 2011
I still don't understand what people don't get about this decision. If you want a moon base, you should be happy about turning over the direction of space exploration (and exploitation) to private enterprise. True it will cost a lot more for you as a customer but it will also show up (magically?) 20 yrs sooner. The government is a poor manager of funds and development. Private entities or even private entities funded by government grants (i.e. MIT, CARN, and my personal fave SpaceX) are more equipped and determinate about non-militaristic space exploration.
still, it's a well written blog with a lot of good info.
gdgochJul 11, 2011
I think it cool if everyone of us given the chance to be in the shuttle(f.o.c)...
Everyone deserve the chance but NOT everyone can afford it...fuh....
ImperatoreChicoJul 11, 2011
no comments
ricksiteJul 11, 2011
"Yes, there are massive budget problems here in the US, but, according to the New York Times, “general science, space, and technology,” of which NASA is only a fraction, was a mere 0.8% of Obama’s proposed 2011 budget."
Number 1: The government doesn't have the money. Number 2: The fact that something is just a tiny fraction of the budget shouldn't preclude it from being cut (See number 1).
charlesdkraussJul 11, 2011
Agree
crosstime_saloonJul 11, 2011
Science and the arts: programs which expand imaginations, enrich lives, and help define us as a society, suddenly considered too unimportant to find funding for. Yet legislators will spend billions to build planes and tanks, even if the military doesn't want them, just so long as they're built in the right district. It's an upside down world we live in.
bobd1eJul 11, 2011
There are way too many answers most of us want to know out there. Sad thing is we'll probably never find 'em out in our current lifetime. Sucks but hopefully they can figure their s**t out & explore unknown areas of the universe
chomskyknows2Jul 11, 2011
everyone that wants it should be required to pay for it. i'll pay for something else, like health care and social security...last time i checked, space is a meaningless, nothingness void. bunch of dumb dead rocks that do nothing for anyone...Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
norman619Jul 11, 2011
Space isn't meaningless. That just shows how short sighted and ignorant you are. Should we spend money on it now? Hell no. There are far more important things we need to spend the people's money on. Space can wait till we can afford it.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
touchy610Jul 11, 2011
You say that, until the aliens come and start lasering your family into nonexistence and probing your butt.
Seriously, the statistical probability of finding at least a planet *capable* of supporting life is almost certain, although it won't happen for quite a long time. Hopefully, this is more of a suspension of the space program, until the nation is in better financial shape, which may not happen anytime soon, either.
norman619Jul 11, 2011
Finding one of these planets and being able to get there are two very different things.
touchy610Jul 11, 2011
Which is why we should be innovating the means to travel in space. As I said, though, now is not the time for us to be doing that. We should be focusing on other issues at the moment.
norman619Jul 11, 2011
That innovation needs to be driven by the private sector at the moment not the government.
ennJul 11, 2011
see this:
http://digg.com/news/technology/30_years_of_innovation_2
greedonvrfiredJul 11, 2011
Ok you've convinced me. Can some of that health care money go to automatic blood pressure monitors. Oh wait NASA is responsible for those so in your world we dont have them. Okay how about todays advanced pacemakers and the batteries that run them... Oh wait, NASA again. Okay, I've got it breast cancer, lets cure breast cancer... s**t NASA created the CCD chips that now blow away the images of conventional x-rays and allow pin-point biopsies and treatment.
If we pay for the space program will you forego its discoveries. Trust me you and your children will suffer.
Might I also mention that the greatest, successful endeavor involving multiple nations is the International Space Station. Oh, wait, I should say greatest, PEACEFUL, successful endeavor.
chomskyknows2Jul 11, 2011
everybody that loves NASA always makes these dumb ends-justify-the idiotic-spending-means arguments. i'm sure war, torture, etc have also produced some kind of useful peaceful things too. so? ends-justify-means arguments always sound dumb.
no reason you couldn't have funded those things more directly. i'm sure it would have been much cheaper.
i have no experience in space crap and don't care. my guess is, half of all shuttle launches are to fix broken crap in space (space station, hubble scope, etc.) from the launch before...are you USING the International Space Station? Is anyone? Can it fix me a sandwich? Can it cure diabetes or cancer or give me a blow job?
you want it? YOU pay for it. with a country on the brink of bankruptcy and credit default, unless there's a bunch of money up there, space is a useless luxury tax to the average human being...Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
greedonvrfiredJul 11, 2011
Weather satellites have and continue to save millions of lives and billions of dollars. Mapping satellites have made companies billions of dollars. Can you even begin to comprehend the financial benefits of communication satellites? Yes, turns out there is "a bunch of money up there." Now you might say "but why go further?" Problem is you also would have said that when they were building those satellites.
Unregistered_CowardJul 11, 2011
The really cool part is that the majority of those satellites are private enterprise.
mtownJul 12, 2011
If it wasn't for NASA, those satellites would still be sitting on the ground. The private sector hasn't been diving into rocket technology until very recently. Those satellites were launched up there using NASA's rockets, or rockets built based on research already done by NASA.
Unregistered_CowardJul 12, 2011
NASA doesn't build those rockets and satellites. They give money to contractors who build them. Most of NASA launches, well the ones not farmed off to Ariane, are sent aloft on rockets developed for the military.
laborerJul 12, 2011
Please Digg:
http://digg.com/news/world_news/ron_paul_2012_the_high_tide
dirtyfriesJul 11, 2011
There was recently a reddit thread that asked if you would be willing to pay an extra $100 a year for NASA.
I sure as s**t would as long as it was guaranteed the money was going to space exploration.
greedonvrfiredJul 11, 2011
I would check that box twice.
laborerJul 12, 2011
Please Digg:
http://digg.com/news/world_news/ron_paul_2012_the_high_tide
crosstime_saloonJul 11, 2011
One giant leap back for mankind.
hamdusaJul 11, 2011
Does any body realize why holywood make space movies? allians movies. they really know the importance of the space programs.
hotelogix1Jul 11, 2011
Because we don't have a single space program
norman619Jul 11, 2011
That's not a legit reason to spend money we do not have.
superdrew0413Jul 11, 2011
You're thoughts that we should fix what is wrong on earth first before we go into space is naive. There will ALWAYS be problems on the earth and with our country. We went to the moon in the 60's with all the civil rights issues and the Vietnam war. If we waited until every problem "at home" was solved we never would go anywhere.
How much money was spent during the Vietnam war? We still went to the moon. You're argument that the space program should be cut because it is expensive is, in my opinion, weak. Of course it costs a lot of money. It's not easy to go into space. There are asteroids, you're being launched on a pillar of fire and jet fuel, there is no air, and one little mistake and you're dead.
I, also, ask you what is a legit reason to spend money we don't have?
If going into space for the betterment of our country and of mankind is not a good reason to spend money, what is? Politics of the war aside, what programs do you feel have value? One could argue the value of every single government program in existence.
Welfare? Social Security? Unemployment benefits? Park Rangers? Conservation of historical sites? All of these programs cost more money than they generate. Lets cut all them according to your reasoning.
Also, you fail to think of the chain of events if one were to cut the entire space program. How many people would be unemployed? Not just NASA employees, but think of all the contractors that are employed. There are also the people who work near the space centers. If NASA goes so do they. You would just shift the cost around from NASA to unemployment benefits and welfare.
chomskyknows2Jul 11, 2011
it's not naive. you have misplaced priorities in my opinion. i want to take care of our people, not have idealistic sci-fi fantasies...save that for hollywood.
we should fund things like NASA and foreign aid, after everything you mentioned, not before. people need houses, jobs, education, health care and dignity. they ain't gonna get that from space.
superdrew0413Jul 11, 2011
We need all of the things that you mention. I'm not arguing that. What I am saying is that there will always be something at home that can be improved upon. If you wait until all the problems at home are solved we will never have a space program.
If we get unemployment back to 7% is it ok then to go into space? 5%? 3%? Does everyone have to be employed? If I take your point to the extreme then everyone has to have a job, a house, be college educated, and never be sick. While I don't think that you would take it that far, when is the problem solved? If Spain had waited until all of their problems were solved, this country would not have existed.
NASA could be run better. NASA needs a goal. If the President said put a man on Mars by 2025 the space program would be better. Right now, it is trying to do to many things. It is unfocused. This country has show you give the smartest people in the country a goal to get to and a deadline to do it, they will. The Manhattan Project and the Apollo programs show this. The only difference now is that we have no clear enemy. No Nazis to kill or Commies to beat to the moon.
mtownJul 12, 2011
That's never stopped us before.
womedtraJul 11, 2011
This program for back to Future