Bittersweet?!?
It is the unoffical END of Space Exploration for years. The people who are leaving NASA will take with them generations of knowledge; that cannot be immediately replaced.
After the shuttle returns, we will have NO space program - at all. Nothing. Zero has killed American space exploration efforts. It will take years to regain what he has thrown away.
But Obama said something about this being our Sputnik moment. We’re going to accept the challenges of the future, and all that.
I guess I tuned him out, because I really don’t know what he was talking about. We want to WIN THE FUTURE but who knows how he will accomplish it.
B-b-b-but, at least we had a stimulus package to get everyone back to work! That trillion dollars was well spent, no?
Does this mean the end of Tang and Velcro?
Considering how much money I still see NASA putting into Orion and a heavy lift vehicle, both of which were touted by NASA officials post-launch, I don't see NASA dead yet. Furthermore, unless a NASA engineer is being furloughed, I don't see him going into the private sector right now.
For those at KSC, the loss of manned flight will mean lean times, but even Pad 39A is still being refurbished for the heavy-lift vehicle.
I agree with everything you said.
Further, now it is the Russians that are in charge of space exploration efforts.
I watched the last launch this morning on NASA TV... after the launch the Black guy—the top guy for NASA gave a speech and it made me sick. It was as though Obama was speaking, right down to using the words, “Winning the Future”.
There is no wining of the future under Obama and his dems, the future is being killed.
No space program? Nonsense. Maybe no gummint space jobs program, but have you ever heard of the private sector? I mean SpaceX, Scaled Composites, and many others? And having worked with NASA for several years, I can tell you that maybe its better we don’t engineer stuff like they do. We used to say that when the weight of the paper equaled the weight of the flight article you were good to go. And you seem to forget the 9 year hiatus between Apollo and the Shuttle. We did fine then and will do fine now.
No space program at all?
Please tell that to all the good folks at the Wallops Flight Center who launched an Orion last week and will be trying once again tomorrow to launch sounding rockets (3 other attempts were scrubbed this week because of weather conditions and some other issues.) I think those good people would beg to differ with you.
Scaled back? Yes. Totally done away with? Absolutely not.