Posted on 11/15/2009 6:56:21 AM PST by KevinDavis
NASA, at age 50, is having a midlife crisis. What should it do after it retires the shuttle? Can it, should it, recreate the glories of its youth? Or should it mature into a wise enabler of technological and institutional leadership?
The 2003 Space Shuttle disaster, underfunding of President George W. Bush’s call to go to the “Moon, Mars and Beyond” and the advent of a new presidential administration have caused NASA to re-evaluate its mission at a truly fundamental level. The President’s Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, led by retired Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, was asked to develop feasible scenarios for the next steps in human space flight. I was privileged to participate.
First we asked what NASA can accomplish with its current budget. Our core conclusion is that, while the current budget can lay the groundwork for manned missions beyond earth orbit as Bush had envisioned, the present program or any other that aspires to send humans beyond earth’s orbit cannot be accomplished in the next decade. Additional funding of $3 billion per year would be needed. President Barack Obama has to decide whether it is worth it.
(Excerpt) Read more at signonsandiego.com ...
France has a small space program I think - but once NASA becomes NA_A, it will grow in the vacuum.
I still don’t know what France is. /s/s/s/s
“Grow or die”. Right now we’re committed to dying...
POTUS has no decision-making skills!
I don’t want another country (particularly one who is as big a threat as China) at the top of a gravity well over us. Guess I took the lessons of “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” to heart.
It’s the WATER..!!!
All my life and as a very serious sci-fi fan I have yet to see any references of an Islamic society in the future, I think the day mankind starts to seriously reach out for the stars Islam will stay behind and become a stagnant polluted cult of retroactive self destructive coalition that will restrict its followers from advancing to the future.
If by a remote chance we made first contact I swear Islam will go on a jihad against any new species, a total global Jihad as they cannot comprehend another species unlike their own kind, they cannot accept it, they must assimilate.
Islam is our Borg so to speak.
Earth’s Moon =
NASA blows 24 Gallons of WATER Ice out of a 60 foot wide Lunar crater
Well if you watch Chronicles of Riddick there is some mention that Islam is still around in the future..
I was going to mention that in my post, it was the second movie, yes they did have an Islamic style of culture, but they were not very technologically advanced.
Earth’s Moon WATER/Planet Mars WATER = Humankind’s Future
. A Gift from Heaven and the Heavens
Don’t count out the French. Without the inconvenience of a spine they will no doubt be able to fit any number of astro(franco?)nauts into a capsule. This advantage will prove most useful in the ever important arena of space saving.
So long as they don’t fart, I guess maybe it’d be okay.
Well, so long as they don’t fart in your general direction.
They will be in deep space(oops, did I just type that) so it won’t matter.
LOL
It would be worth it is all liberals were being sent, and hopefully there would be no return plan....
Gosh, if only we could figure out a way to put NASA and Obama on the same page. Maybe NASA could create a community organizer office, or start generating press releases condemning Israel and calling for the abandonment of missile defense system deployments in Europe.
Hansen et al at work here:
Space travel to save the environment makes sense in this time of climate change
San Diego Union Tribune | 11/14/09 | Kim Stanley Robinson
Posted on 11/15/2009 7:29:13 AM PST by KevinDavis
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2386871/posts
Thanks KevinDavis for both pings.
LOL, true enough!
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