US Leaves Space For Russia

Space Daily ^ | Apr 10, 2011 | Staff Writers

[Salman]

By the end of this year, NASA will no longer be able to send humans into space. According to Barack Obama's plan, responsibility will go to private companies, which are expected to come up with cheaper ways to ferry astronauts to low-Earth orbit.

"They know they have a big step to take if they are going to put humans into space... They have a lot of work to do," says NASA Astronaut Sunita Williams.

No one can say for sure when the private American companies will come up with a new spaceship.

For years to come, it will be the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which is going to be the only means for people to reach the International Space Station, which is perfectly fine with the leaders of Russia and the US, but does not sit well with many Americans.

[thatjoeguy]

This is a bit troubling to me. Although I do believe Nasa has lost sight of its intended goal which is to put men in space.

Nasa has wasted billions looking for life in outer space, if they’d just stuck to their mission by putting man in space we’d have a station on the moon by now.

They’ve wasted half a century in ‘research’ looking for some stupid microbe on a floating rock billions of miles from earth when we already had the technology needed to accomplish a moon station in the 60s. For cryin’ out loud they put a dune buggy on the moon back then!!!

[June2]

out=our

sorry for the typo

“I would like to think that we did out part in helping to advance a step or two in either knowledge or technology towards that goal.”

[Mr. Jeeves]

Whether there is a secret military space program or not, it is pretty obvious that the government thinks we citizens are all a bunch of uneducated rubes who can't be trusted with any real information. Even the Congress appears to be a puppet show, run by a few members in-the-know with the rest just serving as unwitting actors in a scripted drama.

We stopped being citizens of a Republic a long time ago. We are subjects of an oligarchy.

[Dead Corpse]

End NASA.

There is a market for Space. Get the FedGov out of the way, including the EPA and any idiotic treaties we may have stupidly signed, and we'd have vacation hotels on the Moon before the end of the current decade.

[Big Bronson]

"The F-111 was a twenty year old program before we knew about it."

Can't believe I typed that - I meant F-117.

[utherdoul]

well I hope its the former rather than the latter. I wouldn’t mind seeing a few tiny Asteroids hammering Tehran and a few other places. Forget nukes if we controlled space we could dump whatever we wanted down the well. Whether it be raw solar energy, valuable metals, or the aforementioned asteroids which would make our nukes look like toys.

[K-Stater]

It would have been true no matter who won in 2008. Really, the solution is private industry and the federal government should be promoting that.

[LibWhacker]

"We are no longer in a space race. What was once a global competition has become a global collaboration," said President Barack Obama.

It warms the cockles of my heart to see how many Freepers agree with the genuflector-in-chief. The security of the country depends on the US playing a dominant role in space.

[K-Stater]

The US should unilaterally allow US companies to own parts of the Moon. If you can get there, set up a factory, and extract resources, it’s yours. Use the profit motive. I believe there are international laws that say that you can’t own the Moon. We ought to tell them to sod off.

And if the Chinese get there first?

[Former Proud Canadian]

“Throw rocks at them”, “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”, Heinlein, 1966.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

NASA lost its nerve after the 1986 Challenger explosion and has not done anything in the manned-spaceflight field except science fair experiments. We should have been to Mars by now, but NASA's feckless bureaucrats have never been able to get past the risk management part of such an expedition.

Cut it---it's become just another government jobs program.

[Norman Arbuthnot]

"No one can say for sure when the private American companies will come up with a new spaceship"

The answer is probably sooner than most people think. Space X, a private company founded by Elon Musk (who is also the CEO of Tesla ), is set to launch the Falcon Heavy in 2013 at Vandenberg AFB. The Falcon Heavy will be the largest rocket since the Saturn V and have a payload of 53,000 kg. The Shuttle only has a payload of 24,400.

SpaceX will also be making a Spacecraft called the Dragon, which can configured to support 7 passengers, and can be carried into orbit by the Falcon Heavy.

SpaceX will also have a launch pad at Cap Canaveral.

I'm sorry to see the Shuttle program ending and I wish we had a next gen Shuttle ready to go. But I'm happy to see that companies like SpaceX will be stepping up and providing the heavy lift capability our country needs.

Here is link to a video of the Falcon Heavy. Pretty cool imo.

Falcon Heavy video

[Norman Arbuthnot]

"No one can say for sure when the private American companies will come up with a new spaceship"

The answer is probably sooner than most people think. Space X, a private company founded by Elon Musk (who is also the CEO of Tesla ), is set to launch the Falcon Heavy in 2013 at Vandenberg AFB. The Falcon Heavy will be the largest rocket since the Saturn V and have a payload of 53,000 kg. The Shuttle only has a payload of 24,400.

SpaceX will also be making a Spacecraft called the Dragon, which can configured to support 7 passengers, and can be carried into orbit by the Falcon Heavy.

SpaceX will also have a launch pad at Cap Canaveral.

I'm sorry to see the Shuttle program ending and I wish we had a next gen Shuttle ready to go. But I'm happy to see that companies like SpaceX will be stepping up and providing the heavy lift capability our country needs.

Here is link to a video of the Falcon Heavy. Pretty cool imo.

Falcon Heavy video

[Slambat]

“A private company can achieve the same thing with just $1b/year”
Look for the Won to force regulations that would cripple
or outright ban the private aerospace industry. He may
also help the theft and transfer of technology from the
private industry to Russia, China and any other person
or country that is willing to make a contribution to his
reelection.

[Former Proud Canadian]

The US government space program has been a mission without a goal since 1969. Decades of research and billions of dollars have resulted in a situation where the US needs to contract with Russia to get astronauts into space. Isn't there something terribly wrong here?

NASA is just another sinkhole for money now. They are most concerned with "moslem outreach" and "global warming". What does that have to do with exploring space? Spin the critical science bits off to DARPA, Livermore, JPL etc. Just close down the rest.

Just as the nascent aircraft industry got off the ground with military contracts and airlines were created to service air mail routes, military and commercial necessities should drive the space industry.

Take the money you save by closing NASA and expand the military use of space. A crash program could produce a small a man rated space ferry in a very short time, especially if you build on past programs. Billion dollar prizes and tax incentives could result in a flourishing space industry in a few years, centered on the tourist and manufacturing sectors.

Beyond that, the holy grail is a colony/military post on the far side of the moon. This is the ultimate high ground, virtually unreachable with current technology. If the west doesn't claim this high ground, the Chinese will. If you have to rely on the Russians to get your astronauts into space, you won't get there.

[Conservateacher]

I too agree with cutting Nasa. Watch this...about twenty minutes. Riches below the ocean.

http://www.bigspeak.com/robert-ballard.html

[UCFRoadWarrior]

The only ones cheering this development are Obama and America-hating Free Trader Commies. They are the only people who hate America having any sort of technological know-how and ability.

I can just imagine the government out-sourcing space travel to some private company: It will be some Soros-run company in Commie China with Indian scientists working dirt-cheap....but with a Globalist American CEO whose salary is twice as much as what we spent for the NASA program

Wonder why the more we out-source our government...the more our taxes are raised

[Dead Corpse]

And you think a FedGov that can’t balance it’s own books, nor follow a simple ONE page document, is the best bet for maintaining space dominance?

[Dead Corpse]

Why should the FedGov be the one to pick the private company? How about your let each company wanting to put something in orbit decide who to use? Be it Loral, Boeing, Space X, Lockheed, etc...

Wanna compete? Do the job at the best price. Get the government out of the way and US ingenuity will take care of the rest.

[Will88]

They have kept a stranglehold on manned launch capabilities that has stagnated the entire industry for forty years.

Quite a sweeping statement with no elaboration; undefined personal opinions.

The initial space travel was not feasible for any entity but governments as potential direct profits were decades in the future. Some dreamers these days think they are going to set up mining operations on the moon, or have profitable space tourism in the near future, but few steps have been taken to actually bring any of it about.

If the US is to continue acquiring knowledge and advancing in manned or unmanned space exploration, it better still have a government program ongoing for the foreseeable future.