Posted on 09/20/2012 2:43:37 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden dismissed rumors that the future of U.S. space exploration is in jeopardy and rejected speculation that his agency has no plans for future human spaceflight.
“Those who perpetuate that myth only hurt the space program,” Bolden told businessmen, academics and journalists Tuesday afternoon at the National Press Club.
“Such talk undermines our nation’s goals at a very critical time,” he said. “The truth is we have an ambitious series of deep space destinations we plan to explore and we are hard at work exploring the hardware and the technologies to get us there.”
....“If you look at what we do for the money that we get I think we’re doing very well,” he said. “The prospect for the future is good unless your a pessimist and you believe that the people we hire, that we elect to run the government won’t rise to the occasion and run the government. But I’m an eternal optimist.”
The future of NASA’s budget remains a question heading into potentially a new presidential administration. Bolden said he has not given much thought to the idea of a Mitt Romney White House, saying that he “loves” and “admires” President Barack Obama, who in 2009 chose Bolden to be NASA’s 12th administrator.
....He also expressed support for private flights and privately owned space stations for tourist purposes.
“Commercial space is not a national priority, it is an imperative,” he said. “NASA can’t go to the exploration that we want to do if we don’t have a viable, sustainable commercial space program with US capability to get humans into orbit.”
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.chron.com ...
It’s been a “perfect storm” for Obama. The “grow-government, hate capitalism” Marxist dropped a bomb on NASA that would stop us from being competitive alongside the rising ability of other countries, who are catching up and will pass us.
“Commercial” has been the smoke and mirrors he’s used to get it done. Once the idea that there isn’t enough market for “commercial” (that our tax money is subsidizing out of NASA’s dwindling budget), all the infrastructure and specialized, technical workforce will be history. Then they will pull the plug on the new space companies and our superpower status will be one giant leap closer to being a bad joke and our enemies will be closer to overtaking our technical prowess.
All our satellites (commercial and military) will be in reach of those who still plan to fly in space (to ISS and beyond LEO) to service or what ever they choose - while we will have to now depend on “treaties” and UN agreements about how they should “play nice” in space.
You should put a Chinese or Russian or Iranian handler behind that empty chair.
NASA’s mission was changed to appeasing muslims.
7th century murderers have no use for space except for howling at the moon.
.....”Tesla’s founder and CEO, Elon Musk, is a hearty political contributor who has primarily backed Democrats, including Obama. According to published reports, another Tesla investor is Nick Pritzker, a donor to Obama and a cousin of Penny Pritzker, the national finance chair of Obama’s 2008 campaign.”......
“....Very quietly, Obama’s chief financier, Penny Pritzker, has entered the Hawaii housing market to buy a retirement home for the president and his family that will be available not in 2016, but in January 2013, according to a confidential source within Pritzker’s Chicago organization
Pritzker, a wealthy Chicago business executive and heiress to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, served as national finance chairman for Obama’s 2008 campaign and is the co-chairman of his 2012 effort.”.......
http://www.wnd.com/2012/09/secret-retirement-plans-does-obama-expect-to-lose/#
I truly hope that it can come back to its former glory. I was so proud of what America did. Now, we have to “hitch rides” w/ Ruskies. Sad.
"Commercial" space is not ready for prime time.
There are not enough trees or rope for those that need to hang.
LLS
I so hope this is true. The devastation to the space coast economy after all the workers at the Cape were fired; the joy and excitement of watching the shuttles go up (we could see them from our front yard); the pride of what America has accomplished in the way of space exploration and the off shoots of the space program (the automated external defibrillator for one thing) are now gone. Now we have Muslim outreach. Whoopee!
I think you’re probably right about that. Not just people working there now but guys like Gene Cernan, Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, Frank Borman, Bill Anders, Harrison Schmidt, Buzz Aldrin, John Young, John Worden, Charlie Duke, Dave Scott, Gene Krantz, Chris Kraft, Steve Bales, John Aaron, Joe Kerwin, Walt Cunningham, Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper,...among other “old school” NASA guys who walk the walk and sometimes talk the talk.
FREE LADY LIBERTY!
Amen!!!
LLS
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