As long as we have governments who’d rather direct resources to socialized “health care,” various “stimuli,” and other massive, debt-exploding misadventures, we’ll never have the ability to pay for it. Maybe our astronauts could hitch a ride with the Chinese when they go. That’s as good as it’s going to get for us.
Actually, the USA is worse than broke. If private enterprise can’t finance space exploration, the government certainly can’t fund it. We are going to struggle under the weight of tens of trillions of dollars of debt for generations just trying to pay for Obama Care. There will be nothing left for the military, much less NASA.
There are many in our government, including Republicrats, that I’d like to see walking on Mars, but without a return ticket.
As long as we continue to allow frivolous lawsuits, the wussification will continue.
Congratulations Boris! A new word for me. I had to get out the dictionary. And it’s the perfect word for that situation!
“fossick”
There will be no money to do anything but earthly social programs.
It wouldn't be a man anyway; it would be a wise Latina woman...
nor even because we lack the money.
Wrong. Socialist countries can’t afford anything.
Now, even if I live to see it, the report will be in Mandarin.
There is no way on Earth, that we could engineer ourselves out of a paper bag, let alone go back to the moon or Mars. There are so many rules, regulations, red tape, political payoffs, environment impact, corruption by everyone involved, bribes, cost cutting, that it is impossible to even build a bridge across a creak, let alone go to Mars! American engineering was once the best in the world. But now, to even find engineers who know basic math is a major challenge. And, even if you found them, you couldn’t hire any of them because it wouldn’t be fair to the minority engineer with a D average puffed into an A. Face it, we are not going to be building anything more than more low income housing for the next 100 years.
The Voyages of Discovery in the New World weren't done by people with a selfless interest in science, they were done by people looking to get rich, and only later to raise families exempt from old oppressions. We marvel today at the willingness of people to coop themselves and their families up in cramped, dangerous wooden ships and launch themselves over the vastness of the ocean in order to settle the New World. A lot of them didn't make it.
Unfortunately it isn't particularly difficult to imagine what conditions a similar group of people would be fleeing on the Earth. We're creating them now in the nanny state socialist "paradises" from which the only escape may well be the sort of roll of the dice that landed the Mayflower on a far shore. Heinlein certainly thought that would be the motivating factor. He was an optimist.
40 years ago I wanted to believe that even I would be able to walk on Mars and/or the Moon before I was 60 or 70.
Maybe there is some explanation other than our astronauts (NASA) were warned by Aliens working on the Moon not to return to “their”base.
I can think of no other logical explanation as to why we have not returned and have nothing scheduled anytime in the near future then the Alien warning theory.
If there were human colonies on other moons/planets, then there really couldn’t be one big, happy global government, could there????????
NASA is so engulfed in political social engineering that man would probably be transgendered, anyway.
We might never get to Mars, but our national debt will get there and back in the next fiscal year.
We might never get to Mars, but our national debt will get there and back in the next fiscal year.