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American Leadership in Space -- Now or Never
americanthinker.com ^ | 11/12/2014 | Robert Charles

Posted on 11/12/2014 9:17:19 AM PST by rktman

In the Apollo and Shuttle eras, America was cooperative, but pushed international comers. We led. Our leadership was built on looking forward. We trusted ourselves, embraced risk, understood daring exploration, and saw the future as worth winning. We had an itch to learn, to be first -- in a word -- to lead. In that process, high-technology jobs were unceasingly created in all 50 states, with spin-offs from microwaves to GPS, synthetic fabrics to iPhones, helping advance every sector of the U.S. economy.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Government
KEYWORDS: nasa; spacetravel
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Space leader what? Sadly, more effort to embrace muslims and their contribution to the space program takes precedence. Costly to maintain and launch shuttles, and the orbiters only being used for about 25% of their design life, now we're waiting for mr. Tesla to get ready. Or we can go back to the past and start doing splash downs in the ocean again ala Apollo. Sierra Nevada had a flyable vehicle but lost out to folks who've been working with NASA for decades. Review of the process to pick the winner is underway but I don't expect SNC to prevail. A former astronaut buddy indicated he'd much rather land on a landing strip than do a splashdown.
1 posted on 11/12/2014 9:17:19 AM PST by rktman
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To: rktman

Space leadership will have to wait until the (hopefully) successful completion of CW-II.


2 posted on 11/12/2014 9:19:42 AM PST by Da Coyote
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To: rktman

It really is back to the future with Orion.

And Dream Chaser IS a good solution, what the shuttle should have been: just big enough for 6 to 8 people, focused on human transportation, not being an all purpose vehicle.

We supposedly learned the folly of multi-role vehicles with F-111.

But it’s fated to be like this if the government continues to monopolize space access.


3 posted on 11/12/2014 9:23:16 AM PST by Regulator
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To: rktman

The U.S. is leading the world in space. We’re just doing it through private enterprise via companies like SpaceX,Bigelow, Orbital Sciences, and others.


4 posted on 11/12/2014 9:26:38 AM PST by DoodleDawg
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To: rktman

But Muslims are feeling good about science now...


5 posted on 11/12/2014 9:31:36 AM PST by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: DoodleDawg

LOL! Can you say KA-BOOM? They may be leading the way but how much subsidy money are the getting? Special breaks on use of govt launch facilities? Has mr. tesla started building dikes to prevent the flooding that’s predicted due to glow-bull discombobulations at the Cape?


6 posted on 11/12/2014 9:35:43 AM PST by rktman (Served in the Navy to protect their rights so they can now try to infringe on mine. Weird huh?)
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To: DoodleDawg

Actually a combination of government contracts with private companies and fully governmental agencies.

The American Jet Propulsion laboratory is going to give us our first looks at Pluto in July. They’re also the folks behind the Dawn spacecraft that is looking at dwarf planet Ceres next year. NASA is behind the Juno spacecraft that will return us to Jupiter in 2016.

Anyone who says we aren’t leading is a fool. HOWEVER, we are well behind where we should be and that has nothing to do with muslim outreach.


7 posted on 11/12/2014 9:37:05 AM PST by cripplecreek (You can't half ass conservatism.)
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To: Regulator
We supposedly learned the folly of multi-role vehicles with F-111.

Hence the F-35. Oh, wait...

8 posted on 11/12/2014 9:39:22 AM PST by kosciusko51 (Enough of "Who is John Galt?" Who is Patrick Henry?)
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To: Regulator

“We supposedly learned the folly of multi-role vehicles with F-111.”

Then there is the F-35, so, obviously, we have not.


9 posted on 11/12/2014 9:40:24 AM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
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To: rktman

True enough, they may be private companies but they’re contracted to work on taxpayer dollars.

Probably quite advantageous to do things this way till private is ready to truly go it alone.


10 posted on 11/12/2014 9:44:50 AM PST by cripplecreek (You can't half ass conservatism.)
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To: rktman

I toured the Johnson Space Center last year. The whole place is a whitewashed tomb of a dead space program. There isn’t anything serious going on there. NASA is just another wasteful non-functioning bureaucracy. It epitomizes all that we once were, and have now become.


11 posted on 11/12/2014 9:49:19 AM PST by henkster (Do I really need a sarcasm tag?)
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To: Da Coyote

Dennis Miller made a clever observation some time back about NASA’s outreach to the Muslims.”The only times the Muslims will want to go to the moon is if the Israelites settle there.”


12 posted on 11/12/2014 9:49:38 AM PST by Don Corleone ("Oil the gun..eat the cannoli. Take it to the Mattress.")
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To: cripplecreek
The American Jet Propulsion laboratory is going to give us our first looks at Pluto in July.

Uh, no. The New Horizons spacecraft now on its way to Pluto was built and is operated by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel MD.

13 posted on 11/12/2014 9:52:01 AM PST by Cincinatus (Omnia relinquit servare Rempublicam)
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To: Cincinatus

You are correct not that it makes much difference since they’re all federally funded.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/


14 posted on 11/12/2014 9:53:58 AM PST by cripplecreek (You can't half ass conservatism.)
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To: rktman

I read the headline and hoped to find out we had finally built that giant clown cannon to launch our elected officials into the dark.


15 posted on 11/12/2014 9:56:34 AM PST by Pan_Yan
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To: Don Corleone

Yes, the Arabs will rush right in, build a mosque, and claim it has been a holy site for thousands of years.


16 posted on 11/12/2014 9:56:39 AM PST by DoughtyOne (The mid-term elections were perfect for him. Now Obama can really lead from behind.)
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To: DoughtyOne
Yes, the Arabs will rush right in, build a mosque, and claim it has been a holy site for thousands of years.

Then they'll lob rocks at Earth accusing us of trying to take away "their" land on the Moon. Then they'll all butcher each other in arguments on how to face Mecca during prayers.

17 posted on 11/12/2014 10:03:44 AM PST by roadcat
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To: henkster

Part of the problem is that this administration is not committed to space exploration. Actually, since the moon landing, no administration has given space exploration the necessary commitment needed to move forward.


18 posted on 11/12/2014 10:07:26 AM PST by kosciusko51 (Enough of "Who is John Galt?" Who is Patrick Henry?)
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To: kosciusko51

There are no voters on the moon.


19 posted on 11/12/2014 10:09:06 AM PST by henkster (Do I really need a sarcasm tag?)
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To: kosciusko51

The last scheduled moon landing was scrapped when Nixon was president and Skylab was born.


20 posted on 11/12/2014 10:10:25 AM PST by cripplecreek (You can't half ass conservatism.)
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