Posted on 08/23/2005 6:14:31 PM PDT by KevinDavis
The recent mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery dramatically points up the need for us to resolve how best to rapidly promote space exploration and innovation. One inescapable response: Abolish the National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) or drastically scale back its mission. Since the moon landings over three decades ago, NASA has become an obstacle to advancing space exploration and travel. If NASA had been in charge of developing the automobile, we'd still be riding horses.
Free-enterprise competition spurs innovation and brings down the prices of products and services, the plunging cost of computing power being one dramatic example. But like most government agencies, NASA has become immersed in bureaucratic procedures and is a stifler of innovation. It monopolizes U.S. space activities, inhibiting private-sector participation. In the 1970s and 1980s, for instance, Washington flatly refused to use private contractors to put payloads into orbit.
Or take the International Space Station. It was first proposed in the 1980s, with a price tag of $8 billion, and was to be completed by the mid-1990s. Today it's still under construction. Instead of housing 12 astronauts, the station's been scaled back to house 3. Instead of costing $8 billion, the tab could end up reaching $100 billion. And by the time it's finished, the station could be useless, outdated--a space-age white elephant by any rational cost-benefit analysis.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I agree as well - except for the fact that NASA also serves as a cover for a lot of "black project" work. Rather a "hide in plain sight" sort of cover.
Space elevator. Eventually.
What a helpful suggestion. Let's go tell our technology teams so they will understand that better!
Why not build better vehicles that can zip around anywhere and not be stuck in one place. A sizable fleet would also move more cargo up, and faster.
Count my vote for abolition.
Replace with a small space port authority.
Forbes often enough gets to the point of a reasonably good and pathfinding proposal. Has he thought of the Treaty?
It would explain alot of the bumbling.......if they have to keep their greatest successes secret.
By Jove, I think you're onto something. We could power them with those glowy light engines, too!
In July 1969 as I watched Armstrong's "small step for man", little did I know I was watching the high-water mark of the US space program. I truly thought by now we'd be mining on the moon.
RIGHT! Even Viagra, Calwhatever and that other one couldn't help NASA get it up! Time to spread the money out to those who can launch tin, not generate paper.
A prime example of "black project" work being suppressed.
If you have a thin skin when it come to racial humor, then don't look at this. Otherwise, enjoy!
http://www.negrospaceprogram.com/
Ditto on this..
Along with other people, he probaly thinks the treaty is going to die.... Basically wither on a vine...
The One Worlders won't allow that. Global corporations won't allow that. Global Civil Society won't allow that. Venezuela won't allow that. Republicans/Democrats won't allow that. Woe betide the first person who tries to ignore the Treaty.
ONLY if you put a 200-mile-radius "absolute, honest to God, we're NOT kiddin', okay - you're dead" no-fly / killzone around it.
ROFL! "NASSA" I love it!
That is terrible; and very, very, very, funny.
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