Posted on 07/21/2009 7:13:45 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The greatest waste of wealth in American history! It's the main reason America can't accomplish anything significant anymore.
Well, the song needs some updating.
I suggest they change the lyric ‘Whitey on the moon’ to ‘Obama in da House’.
Listen to it , and do the substitution yourself. See how much sense it makes?
I know we do have people with that level of intelligence but many of them never made it into the best schools because there wasn't room for them after the race quotas were met. So these people are out in the private sector making their fortunes with the same ability, wit and drive that men like them once brought to bear on the Apollo moon shot program.
But most men of that caliber would never make it into the Space program today in spite of their inteeligence and qualifications. There wouldn't be room enough after NASA met all the hiring requirements for Affirmative Action hirelings. And they would be reporting to bureaucrats and people promoted for all the wrong reasons.
The Apollo program was primarily staffed by the same demographic that made the USA the greatest nation in the world. As society was forced by the government to make hiring decisions on the basis of skin color and sexual plumbing instead of ability and competency the entire US has been slowly crumbling.
Today, even with the aid of cutting edge technology, you can rarely get anything done correctly the first time from a large organization. In 1969 we put men on the moon with electro-mechanical technology only a little more advanced than a 1970 Corvette.
Celebrate diversity if you like - but don't bet your life on it.
This is misleading.
The Space Shuttle’s casualties did not occur in space either. They occurred in the atmosphere. Perhaps not on the launch pad as did Apollo 1 which claimed 3 lives. But never the less not in space.
The Challenger’s external fuel tank exploded during launch destroying the Challenger in the process. The Columbia broke up when it reentered Earth’s atmosphere. Neither accident occurred in space.
Yes the Shuttle program has claimed 14 lives, but the program has had far more launches than the Apollo program. Apollo lasted about a decade. The Shuttle program has lasted 28 years.
I think how ever you would want to figure it the Shuttle program has been safer.
“The technology (manned landing on moon)is no longer available, and even if it were, it would be primitive and obsolete. The first high-tech layoffs began at Cape Canaveral at about the time of the Apollo 11 launch in 1969. NASA knew what was coming. As a nation we were about to become the dog that chased the car and finally caught it, and then didn’t know what to do with it.”
I had a dog like that once; he chased every car that came by only to straggle back home a half hour later panting like a dog — one day he leapt off the porch with a mighty thrust and had that old, smoking clunker right within his reach as they turned the corner out of sight.
Imagine my surprise and delight when came trotting back, head held high and from his grinning, slobbery jaws there dangled a mangled stub of an exhaust pipe.
He never chased another car after that, just sat there on the porch with the smugest look on his face you ever saw.
He’s out back now, resting under his favorite shade tree, the old pipe stub forced tight against his still chest from the weight of the cool earth above him.
It always cracks me up when I hear democrat plantation blacks talk about how whitey wants to keep the black man down so whitey can do spectacular things.
The fact is that whitey (me) wants the black man to succede on his own so we have the money to do spectacular things as Americans.
State the "facts" which prove this.
Until our species has traveled far and wide exploring (at least) our own home galaxy, that can't be stated with any authority.
I do like those sentiments you posted, but I think they would be far more applicable to terrestrial exploration than anything else. The big problem with space exploration is that it involves the movement of human beings into places that are utterly hostile to human existence by their very nature. If Columbus had arrived in the New World and found that he couldn’t breathe the air here, I am certain that the Americas would have remained a desolate, unsettled place 400+ years later.
He never chased another car after that, just sat there on the porch with the smugest look on his face you ever saw.
He’s out back now, resting under his favorite shade tree, the old pipe stub forced tight against his still chest from the weight of the cool earth above him..
Thank you for that incredible word picture that you painted.
And there is a reason.
we need to start figuring out how to live here without killing each other or the future is going to be a miserable place to live.
That's the reason.
Check out the Hoover Dam Bypass bridge project.
Click on the live WebCam icon on the left sidebar.
http://www.hooverdambypass.org/
As others have mentioned, other countries, most notably, China, Russia and India will most likely pass us on the way to Mars simply because those countries continue to make investments in cultivating scientific and engineering talent in college, while we just pop out community organizers.
Yeah, we need something much bigger...like a Ringworld.
...but it ain’t gonna happen with the current technology of chemical rockets and anything else that might work is generation(s) away...
Now, if your going up to install a lunar missile base to give first strike capabilities.
Then, lets get-r-done.
Otherwise, just to go just say we did.....nah, waste of money.
It IS a sad commentary that the electric excitement Kennedy ignited with his challenge to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade (which we achieved), is now relegated to the dustbin of old people’s memories (and I’m one of them!).
It is worse that, in order to reinvigorate the space program to return to the moon (IF we ever do, and I’m not convinced that we will), we have to reinvent the technology to get there.
Finally, how much maoney have the American taxpayers pored into this program?? We paid to develop the technology once, THEN we paid to develop a space-going truck that has never succeeded in going beyond earth orbit, and NOW we have to pay to RE-develop the technology to return to the moon!!! Why??
I’m all for space exploration, what I oppose is politicians who keep changing the priorities AFTER the money has been spent!! How much money has our Congress pored down a rat hole with the on again, off again, Star Wars missile defense program, for example??
This is one practice in Congress that needs to stop. When the Congress appropriates funding for a project, REGARDLESS of which political party is in control (yes, I KNOW that’s potentially VERY dangerous, thank you in advance for telling me!), the project should be continued through to completion unless/until, WE the PEOPLE who OWN the government put forth an initiative to kill it!!! We just keep throwing more money down the same rat holes and getting NOTHING in return!! IOW there’s NO fiscal responsibility from one Congress or one administration to the next. And, WE keep getting stuck with the bill!
It used to be that NASA could solicit ideas from these companies. Now NASA pretty much issues the specifications. There's a lot less imagination in the latter process.
“The second reason is there just isn’t anything up there worth the time and money.”
I’ve read that Helium-3, rare on earth, may be plentiful on the moon. Helium-3 could be our best chance for making a commercially viable fusion reactors for energy production on earth.
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