Posted on 01/27/2010 7:07:00 AM PST by rightcoast
NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead. So are the rockets being designed to take them there that is, if President Barack Obama gets his way.
When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. The troubled and expensive Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for its bigger brother, the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to take humans back to the moon.
There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.
In their place, according to White House insiders, agency officials, industry executives and congressional sources familiar with Obama's long-awaited plans for the space agency, NASA will look at developing a new "heavy-lift" rocket that one day will take humans and robots to explore beyond low Earth orbit. But that day will be years possibly even a decade or more away.
In the meantime, the White House will direct NASA to concentrate on Earth-science projects principally, researching and monitoring climate change and on a new technology research and development program that will one day make human exploration of asteroids and the inner solar system possible.
There will also be funding for private companies to develop capsules and rockets that can be used as space taxis to take astronauts on fixed-price contracts to and from the International Space Station a major change in the way the agency has done business for the past 50 years...
See link for full article...
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
But, when a nation quits stiving, when it loses its dreams, its a ticket to 2nd world status. Seems to me, this is one of many signals the American era is coming to an end.
You should have no mixed emotions - this is a truly sad commentary on what America now is. Kind of a female paranoid aspect to things. (That's the only people BO can get to work for him).
In the practical sense it really would not be that comparatively expensive to go back to the Moon (compared to the vast expenditures for social welfare), and stay there at some level, reaping the long term benefits. Certainly cheaper than a given block of Shuttle and ISS operations.
As you say the real unquantifiable tragedy is our loss of man's quest for exploration, which was led for a brief period in human history by the United States. Think of all those millions of youth who are now plunged into the Dark Ages of the western world (by the Left).
We are a castrated society, the way Barabara Boxer, et al, wanted it.
It could have been all different.
Johnny Suntrade
Take a look at all the departments with a larger budget than NASA and you can say the same about them. So why don't we unfund them too?
(the links in the table below do not work)
US receipt and expenditure estimates for fiscal year 2010.
Leftists hate space exploration with a passion. I’ve always believed that it’s more than just “concern for human needs” or “the responsibility toward the people down here” like they say.
Deep down, I think, they hate anything that opens up the possibility of people escaping from their control.
The last week of January and first of February are just plain bad for NASA.
I knew he’d do this, and it was one of the sadder parts of it all. These leftists just don’t ‘get’ science and research. Look at how certain groups do in some subjects in schools, then put them in charge awhile. Well, they first thing that’s going to go is the stuff for ‘whitey’ which is anything of any intellect value.
Me too for pretty similar reasons.
NASA needs to burn down and arise like a Phoenix. That's hard to imagine right now.
But the country needs the pure science, the technology research and development and the high number of high-tech, high-paying jobs.
And this is exactly why zer0 is cutting the program.
I absolutely agree with you. Are we really going to tell ourselves that the Russians and the Chineese are going there JUST for the sake of ego? That's a pretty big risk to take.
NASA needs to be outsourced to private corporations, that can work freely of all the government red tape. Our space program is decades behind. Imagine what Rutan, or some of the other private individual organizations could do if they have half the funding NASA has.
Wass him gonna AX it?
Me too...
actually, it’s just being scaled back.
These guys will now be in charge (adult language warning, not safe for work link)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ITUYo7CRg0
TOTUS is like the anti-JFK.
Me too. The NASA of 2010 is nowhere near the NASA of the 1960's. Completely different mindset there now, as has been related to me time and again by a close friend who works on a shuttle refueling team. He was absolutely certain years ago that the Ares and the next moon shot would never get off the ground because of how bureaucratic and PC NASA has become. So many technological advances we enjoy today grew out of the technologies developed for the Apollo and Gemini programs it's ridiculous, but comparatively speaking, the current NASA can barely get out of it's own way because it's so top heavy with bureaucracy. It's a crying shame this country has turned its back on this sort of frontier pushing science, but we have. We'll look back in 30 or 40 years and regret taking the path of least resistance. Of that, I have no doubt.....
Now THAT I would watch.
Nations with the debt load we have have no business fooling with frivolities like manned space exploration. If our economy is so un-productive and our government so bloated that we're looking at trillion dollar deficits, forget it.
Manned space exploration is for nations with productive economies, positive balance-of-trade numbers, and so forth -- not nations on the fast track to Third World status. At the rate we're going, India will land on the moon before we will.
And it's our own fault.
Another opening for Scott Brown.
I should have know I wouldn’t be first?
Obama is going to destroy this country, if he’s not stopped!
I suspect that it's more like the unionization of scientists. Sure, politicization of research funding is bad for the science, as unionization is often bad for productivity, but on an individual basis it's great. More money, easier living, guaranteed consistent future. For the 'scientists' who want a career instead of a living doing science, this will win them over.
Good news everyone! We just ceded the high ground to the ChiComs!
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