fergit it Buzz....we now have ta wait till after Zer0bama is excised.
They put their lives on the line to lead man space exploration and the agency and government has betrayed that sacrafice.
They’ve been frustrated at the opposition to manned space travel in the subsequent FORTY years. They’ll never live to see anything come of it.
We should get crackin’ on this. After all it’s only 55 years until Zephram Cochran invents warp drive in the Post Obama-Apocalypse era...
Ping
Hey means with the federal deficit. Right?
I admire his accomplishment and his motivation for advancement.
However, there are major obstacles:
1. The current majority party is busy cementing itself into power at the expense of the long-term health of the country. Fianacing exploration is now less important than financing organizations that engage in voter fraud.
2. The current administration is attempting to change our economy from capatalism to socialism. The result will be dependency, not innovation. The goal of most present day scientists is getting government financing, not discovery.
3. The current President is speaking at graduation ceremonies and is imploring our youth to forego personal enrichment and instead give of one’s self to community service. Engineers don’t do pro bono work. We’ve forgotten how to get to the moon, and the talent pool for the machinery is pretty shallow.
“...five years ago, NASA was tasked with returning to the moon by 2020, rerunning the moon race that we won 40 years ago. Not surprisingly, this new race has failed to ignite the imagination of young Americans — or their leaders...”
Well I have to agree with Buzz Aldrin about one thing, it’s hard to get fired up about going to the moon again...been there done that. The prospect of going to Mars, that really would be exciting, I would love it if we could do that, but at this point it sure looks like it would be prohibitively expensive.
Buzz, we’re borrowing money from the Chinese to fill potholes now. If you want a space program, better bring back an economy that can support one.
Maybe we can help by sharing technology with China or India - nations that can still afford it - send a mission to Mars. We’ve got too many voting-age dependents to care for.
Hey Buzz. What’s the carbon tax on a rocket launch?
Better than going to Mars... we should open up the moon (at least the far side) to mining. That way, we can get commerce to find some innovative ways to get to the moon at less cost, and safely, and that’s most of the work of getting to and from Mars. And then once at Mars, yes, we can study terraforming a bit and figure out how much our atmosphere really affects us.
Given the present state of US finances, any serious Mars program will need to be funded by a WW2-like program of collecting foil gum wrappers and grocery twine.
Or maybe the massive savings from moving to “single-payer” health care.