NASA has become an ineffective, politics dominated government agency. Funding them is throwing good money after bad.
But, when a nation quits striving, when it loses it’s dreams, it’s a ticket to 2nd world status. Seems to me, this is one of many signals the American era is coming to an end.
I really do not see it that way. Frankly, I see little use for NASA going to the moon. During the Space Race with the Russians there were military objectives involved. Also, space was a great unknown. The early space programs were like the explorations in the 15th - 16th centuries in which America was discovered and explored.
However, once the New World was discovered, and every inch of it mapped, there was no point in voyages of exploration. We've been to the Moon. It was important back then, but now that we've made several missions and discovered that it's really just a big rock in space, there is no point in spending taxpayer money to go there again. I agree we should continue striving, but we need to strive to do something that has never been done.
The only thing that gripes me about this is the the money being wasted on a redundant moon shot will be wasted instead on glo-bull warming.
The moon actually is of military importance, especially if you look at how the 21st century is shaping up. The moon is beyond the range of any existing terrestrial anti-satellite weapons, but a railgun or linear accelerator on the moon has a practically unlimited ammunition supply and can hit any spot on the planet Earth.
Do you have ANY idea what this is going to do to the local economy? We have already had 15% of business close in the area and projections are if the moon and mars programs go under and get axed that we will lose 55% of businesses and home value’s will stay where they are or sink even further.
I live here...I watched this man tell everyone around here to vote for him because he was going to keep it in his budget.
NO F-CKING WAY HE WINS FLORIDA IN 2010 in the mid-terms or in 2012 when he looks to be re-hired.
What is your plan for defending the USA if the Chinesse or Russians decide to start hurling rocks at us from the moon? I wonder what the kenekic energy would be for say a hard 1 ton rock falling 240,000 miles? Bet that would make one hell of a big band when it hit. And no pesky radioactive fall out either.
I also wonder what useful resources might be found on the moon in abundance. I do know there is lots of H3 there and H3 is something like 1000x more valuable then gold. Wonder what else might be there?
If Obama manages to implement his vision of a space program then the USA will have no man capable rocket or space craft (unless the Air Force has one they are not talking about). The Chinese will have one, the Russian already have one and the EU is very close to having one. And if I am not mistaken the Japanese are working on one and maybe even India is too.
This is going to be very bad news to the folks at JSC in Houston and bad news for the folks at KSC in Fla. I might be willing to go along if every other federal agency is similarly cut or eliminated to balance the federal budget.