Posted on 06/13/2010 9:18:32 PM PDT by Mad Dawgg
Nasa has begun to wind down construction of the rockets and spacecraft that were to have taken astronauts back to the Moon effectively dismantling the US human spaceflight programme despite a congressional ban on its doing so.
Legislators have accused President Obamas Administration of contriving to slip the termination of the Constellation programme through the back door to avoid a battle on Capitol Hill.
Constellation aimed to build upon what was arguably Americas greatest technological achievement, the first lunar landing of 1969, by launching new expeditions to the Moon and to Mars and worlds beyond. Mr Obama proposed in February that it should be scrapped because it was over budget, behind schedule and lacking in innovation, but he has met opposition in Congress, which has yet to approve his plan.The head of Nasa, Major-General Charlie Bolden an Obama appointee has now written to aerospace contractors telling them to cut back immediately on Constellation-related projects costing almost $1 billion (£690 million), to comply with regulations requiring them to budget for possible contract termination costs.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Richard Ingvaldsen wrote:
“As much as I hate to agree with Obama he is right. The Constellation program is a joke, it is nothing more than a forty year old Apollo capsule on steroids. What a shame advances in manned space flight technology stopped advancing in 1979 with the shuttle program. As someone who is old enough to remember all the advances made during the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs its hard to believe that the only manned vehicles left will be Soviet era capsules that are almost as old as the shuttle. Guess the government figures the money needed is better spent on Depression era agencies or continuing the mohair subsidies.”
(I’m with Ingvaldsen on this, as far as I could see the Ares was just a larger version of the Apollo command & service modules and updated lunar lander with absolutely nothing new about it. Plus that part about the problems of exposure to Galactic Cosmic Rays and high-energy protons from large-scale solar events has not been solved.)
those who currently hold power do not want mankind to explore...
Along with a good number of FReepers, too ... LOL ...
We have a lot of conservatives that have a lot of ideas on where and where not to spend money.
I think I've come to understand the only basis of agreement with a lot of FReepers here ... it's that we won't spend any money on any programs ...
FReeper A agrees to not spend any money on programs that FReeper B wants. And FReeper B agrees to not spend any money on programs that FReeper C wants and both FReeper A and C agree to not spend any money on any programs that FReeper B wants ... and so on and so forth ... LOL ...
Guess we shoulda got it while the gettin’ was good.
It’s been how many years since we went to the moon? The last mission was when? Too bad they stopped going. Apparently there isn’t much there to interest us anywas...
Sad.
I am all for Private space flight. But for such you need a destination. AND no country on Earth will stand for a Corporation OWNING the Moon. SO this is why you need the US Government (NASA) to go and establish a Moon Base.
Build a Hub with Government Buildings for Science and Research and then Sell Real estate to Corporations and Private individuals CHEAP! Whomever buys property must develop it to keep it. No speculators buying up property to try and resell it UNLESS they develop it and that means viable habitats for living and working. Said habitats must be built to specs approved by a Department that is responsible for SANE safety standards not just make-do work for bureaucrats.
The Government would be responsible for infrastructure and emergency habitats. We would need a Space Station Orbiting the moon as well. With many docking bays (It would make sense to have specialized vehicles for landing on the Moon and docking with the Moon Orbit Space Station. and Vehicles to travel from the much Bigger Earth Orbit Space Station that would need built Where we could dock many Cargo Haulers that would travel between the Space stations.
I would imagine that Water would be the major item transported.
Good! Great! We don’t have the money! It is our money anyways and I am sick of paying excessive taxation for crap that is not absolutely needed.
Good! Great! We dont have the money! It is our money anyways and I am sick of paying excessive taxation for crap that is not absolutely needed.
Ahhhh..., I knew someone would soon show up like this here ... LOL ...
Why go back to the moon? It’s been done before. Nothing but a reality show publicity stunt. Who’s going to pay to rescue them when something goes wrong? It’s selfish and would prove nothing. /0bama Weenie Nation rant
I see so taxes bother you right?
Understand WEALTH comes from the land, not little green pieces of paper printed by the fed.
The Moon is a whole planet to draw Wealth from.
The Government can tax the land there and pay for the cost of running the bases. Once the Infrastructure is in place you have nearly unlimited income potential. Tourism alone would be a goldmine. But whining bout the money spent on such is like whining about the gold Columbus used to Discover America. That investment worked out fairly well I am thinking. Luckily the people who invested their Gold in Columbus's Voyage didn't listen to people with your views.
And if we are talking about cutting the Budget Consider this: The First Stimulus plan would have paid for NASA to establish a Base on the Moon with two new space stations and the ships to get there and back and land on the Moon with money left over AND would have actually created Jobs.
I always liked Rush’s idea that the first person/company/country that plants a flag on Mars OWNS it. Something like owning a planet would be a cool project.
★ FREEDOM! ★
Wise.
The current generation can’t accomplish with super computers, what that generation did with slide rules.
Before Obama was elected President we were the leader in space exploration and heading back to the moon and then on to Mars. Now with the last Shuttle flight soon to come the Shuttle fleet will be retired and we then won’t even have a craft available to get us into low earth orbit Let alone travel back to the Space Station that billions of dollars of tax payer money went into building.
WOW WORTH REPEATING!
For me, it isn’t a libertarian thing to eliminate the manned space program.
The fact is, NASA has bungled the job since the end of Apollo. The Shuttle program has been a huge money pit, Skylab augered in, and now we’re flinging money into a space station that is being used more as a piece of international relations than a space program.
NASA does far better at unmanned space exploration. As soon as you put a man into a mission, the complexity and cost go up exponentially. For what we’re pissing away on manned space shots, we could be sending probes all over the place, developing hard science.
NASA isn’t anything like a “manifestation of our pioneer spirit.” It is an outgrowth of the defense sector from WWII, where they carved out a “civilian” space program to make it look like it wasn’t being run by the military (ie, USAF).
Get used to this one over-riding fact of our future: We’re broke. Utterly and completely broke. Serious cost-cutting is coming, because the alternative will be a devaluation of the US dollar that will destabilize the world.
“Nasa ends plan to put man back on Moon.”
#######
The dismantling of the US Space Program, (with its accompanying de-emphasis on American ingenuity and technology), in favor of Communist redistribution schemes such as the openly racist “War on Poverty”, began not after Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface.
Actually, the destructive, anti-American Leftists BEGAN the propaganda long before even that historic triumph.
Most Freepers are very PRO-NASA. Your the only one I see saying something negative about it. I say attack obambi on this with 100 percent conviction. Hi Tech Jobs going to other countries.
If we can spend a trillion dollars helping ...BANKS! We can spend billions helping NASA.
Only the Post Office can deliver packages, eh?
The federal government has no more business running a space program than it does running a railroad. NASA should go back to its original mission of R&D and leave manned spaceflight to private industry.
yup, that be’s the plan!
This bastard is killing NASA because it is running 3 billion over budget, when he pisses away a trillion like water.....this guy must go....before he destroys the country
There is not one cent left for the children of the American people.
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