NASA's moon plan too ambitious, Obama panel says

Miami Herald ^ | 8/14/09 | JOEL ACHENBACH

[El Sordo]

: )

I’m in Oregon, so I have to say Freightliner.

[newguy357]

Somebody needs to remind these luddite communards that the Soviet Union had a large space program, and Red China still has one, so it is ideologically acceptable after all.

Really, honest, lefties, don’t let all that industry and US military involvement fool you, spaceflight is politically correct.

You've hit on the difference between nationalistic socialism and intellectual self-loathing socialism. Unfortunately (?) ours is the latter.

[hopespringseternal]

The top marginal tax rates were 91% when Kennedy made that announcement and it was at least 70% for most of the 60s. We don’t have that kind of revenue anymore. Are you willing to trade another landing on the moon for tax rates like that?

Pure, unadulterated BS. Take an across the board 10% cut of the federal budget and devote it to space. It would be more money that we could even think about spending if we wanted to go to the moon and mars.

Anyone not on the DNC payroll knows that revenue goes up when tax rates are cut (assuming any cut within the realm of political possibility.)

[hopespringseternal]

I also find it interesting that the late 19th and 20th Centuries saw rapid inovations and major inventions, most of which seemed to come to a screeching halt around the late 60s; now days inovation and invention move slowly with few really new things poping up - and those all seem to be refinements on existing tech - ex: computers, cell phones.

Actually, flight hardware became a mature technology in the 50s and 60s, which is why the air force is still flying so planes built then.

Likewise with internal combustion.

Electronics, including computers are still rapidly advancing, and driving a lot of advancement in a lot of other areas, such as managing internal combustion engines.

All these things were created, financed, and consumed by the private sector.

Space hardware, has never really made it big in the public sector. The reason is simple: It was coopted at the outset by the public sector. Once the big aerospace latched on to that government teat, innovation and progress stagnated with public funding. As a result, every launch vehicle from the fifties to the nineties was essentially a refactored ICBM, just like the first effort.

The only notable exception is the space shuttle, and it represents a failed effort that has been brute forced into operations for nearly thirty years. Private enterprise would have moved on long ago, but 1)bureacracies never admit failure and 2) as a result congress hasn't seen the need to finance a replacement.

You are just now starting to see private enterprise inch up to the water and dip its toe in the launch vehicle business. And the truth is, NASA needs this even if they would never admit it.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

You can have a program completely under the Petagon. The Russian space program for decades under the military and it worked. The Chinese space program is exlusively under the military and it works. Why can it work for the United States?

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

To me, in my humble opinion, NASA would thrive under USAF command.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

bump

[Impy]

I claim the moon for the Empire of Impy. And the UN can stuff it. ‘)

[ALOHA RONNIE]

.

First, Presidential Candidate OBAMA reaches out to remind the American Electorate about how a President JFK told us “Yes We Can” get to Earth’s Moon before anybody else did.

Second, a now President OBAMA makes sure that things are completely reversed this time around.

NUTS.

.

[tet68]

They decided there was only enough money in NASA’s
budget to reach Detroit...with a trillion dollar
“stimulus” package.

[Ricebug]

I’m in. Put me on your list.