Posted on 02/09/2010 7:15:40 AM PST by outpostinmass2
While discussing his spending priorities, President Obama used an image we can all understand: the shrinking family budget. We have less money to spend, he explained, at home and on Capitol Hill. So good on him for ditching the manned (shouldn’t that be “personned’’?) space program. It is the unneeded and extravagant lawn service of the federal government. I grew up with the fairy tale of the space program: brave men with crewcuts, such as the tragically (and pointlessly) martyred Gus Grissom, launching themselves into space, um . . . because it was there? Because the Russians had done so first? Because Life magazine and the nascent, already powerful medium of television marshaled huge audiences for the flights?
If space flight had a reason to exist, that reason ended, dramatically, on July 20, 1969. Mission accomplished, as my old pal George W. Bush memorably stated. Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon represented the apogee of American civilization, and the fulfillment of an ambitious technological and economic commitment undertaken by President Kennedy. We should have quit while we were ahead.
But we didn’t. Late-20th-century America was a land of plenty, so we financed silly, follow-on moon missions, the Lost-in-Space charade of Skylab, the absurd, US-Russian Apollo-Soyuz, the ill-fated shuttle missions, and the International Space Station. Nothing has been quite so cynical as NASA’s propaganda war to preserve the thousands of jobs at its taxpayer-funded outposts in Alabama, Florida, Texas, and California. In 1986 a New Hampshire school teacher perished in an elaborate and pointless NASA publicity stunt, sending an “ordinary’’ American on the space shuttle. Her six crewmates died, too, and 17 years later seven other astronauts died when the Columbia disintegrated on reentry into Earth’s atmosphere.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Life finds a way.
We have less money to spend, he explained, at home and on Capitol Hill.
Glad they understand. When will the tax cut be coming to put MORE money into the HOME budget? waiting..waiting..waiting..waiting..
Yup, let’s quit spending money on all those foolish idiots who spent time in college getting real degrees in complex subjects. It’s far, far better to spend dollars on “educating” folks for the upcoming govt jobs (none of which require an IQ above room temp).
And, given the low quality of our university education, perhaps some can even write for the Boston Globe (if it’s still around).
What are the implications for jobs lost in the space industry?
Why we might not even have our current president without those trillions! The advances in science and technology produced by the moon program are nothing compared to the emergence of Zero!
I wonder if this moron was using his cellphone, as he typed this on his computer while his coffee was warming in the microwave?
None of those things wouldn’t exist in their current form without the knowledge gained in NASA missions.
Lefties are ignorant, have no vision, hateful, intolerant, and dangerous.
In going to the moon, Kennedy challenged Americans to be our best. Yes, it cost a lot of money, but much of today’s technology is due to the money spent in the 1960’s putting a man on the moon.
Today, Obama wants to discourage Americans and instead spend our money on losers.
Quite a contrast between two Democrat Presidents.
Progressives are regressive morons.
This generation was not worthy of its inheritance.
PHOOEY!
It’s always “cut something else”. Which is why nothing gets cut.
Forget that Spain should have cut their exploration budget and kept Columbus in Europe. What good ever came exploring America. The people should still live in serfdoms huddled around a cauldren searching for scraps of food for their stew.
The more these leftist speak the more I see what complete dolts they are. NASA receives a fraction of a percent of the budget and yet he wants to cut that program. The real reason is that NASA doesn’t vote democrat in high enough numbers.
FUBG!
LLS
Zero has, yet again, killed ‘American exceptionalism’ and handed the moon over to the commies. Oh, and did anyone notice the report this morning? GM and Nasa (I repeat....GM) are working together to develop a ‘spacewalk robot’? How convenient.
Alex Beam is one of the resident editorial asses in the huge herd which has been so lovingly maintained by the Boston Globe on its well-fenced Morrissey Boulevard plantation estate. This “opinion piece” is a depressingly typical example of his depth of introspection.
But let us be grateful he earns his keep writing nonsense for the Bosto Globe. One need only imagine the consequences if Beam had been an advisor to Ferdinand and Isabella, or Ferdinand of Portugal, or the Phoenician court, or any other entities approached for funding by visionary and forward thinking people of any age.
I may not agree with this moonbat - but...
Just how much science has come out of the white elephant called the ISS.
I dont recall any ‘breakthru’ new anything related to the space program.
Face it in 1960 NASA was cutting edge, now they are mostly COTS - Commercial off the shelf systems.
Anyway, NASA is toast, if you think space is still a viable industry, start looking to buy stock in one of the new startups...
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