[alisasny]

This blaming Clinton for everything is getting old and taking on a new meaning in a comical sense hence missing the very serious misdeeds of Clinton.

This is another reason why the left still gets away with their "ITS OLD NEWS" garbage.

Frankly it is not helping our cause at all IMHO!

[Galtoid]

Sorry, but you can't lay the blame on Clinton for this one. Bush has been president for over two years. The underfunding of NASA also occurred on his watch, which doesn't make either man guilty. It is just that our government is so bloated, so complex, and so overreaching that we simply have lost the ability to decide where the money should go to protect fellow citizens.

[Types_with_Fist]

It's for certain that Clinton did much damage. But, I sure hope we're not going to run against his administration in '04.

[Karsus]

What about the GOPers in congress who didn't restore funding to NASA?

[alrea]

Russia, with its eagerness to sell private tourist tickets to the Space Station, has been more capitalistic than has America

capitalism is the only economic system on earth. the difference is in the various ways of dividing up the ownership/property.

[ContemptofCourt]

I'm looking forward to the thread titled "WWII: Its all Clinton's fault!"

Seriously, in the late 80's and early 90's, NASA needed something to justify its existence, and came up with the current ISS plan -- this also justified the Shuttle's existence. Both are married to each other....becuase the Shuttle is an outdated piece of machinery.

If the agency were forward thinking, it would be looking into getting to Mars or beyond, not blowing money on the ISS and the shuttle....

[BIGZ]

Any Freeper have the actual budget numbers 90 thru present?

[KC_Conspirator]

Sorry, but you can't blame ze Klinton for this and I have been excoriating people blaming Bush. Flying at 11,000 mph is a very dangerous thing, you know.

[KevinDavis]

As much I hate Clinton, this is the wrong thing to pin him on. In fact it is getting imho and it hurts our cause.

[retiredtexan]

I am Clintoon hater from the first time I heard his name and saw his smirking face, but this thread and others like it are ridicolous.Even if you pin anything on him, it would not affect him, for he no remorse for any of his actions.He is amoral.

[Atlas Sneezed]

Clinton blame aside, here is the real point of the article:

Ironically, NASA should be downsized – or, better, completely privatized. NASA, despite the dedication and heroic efforts of thousands of its workers and astronauts, is a socialist institution. The wonder is that the Clintons did not love it more.

By its very nature, NASA monopolization of space for government is a violation of the deepest pioneering, free enterprise values of America.

What sane person wants to see the Moon, Mars – indeed the whole human future as we migrate into outer space – undertaken on NASA’s socialist model?

[Brytani]

As much as I dislike Clinton and do blame him for the security/intelligence failures and the like that lead up to September 11, I can not justify blaming him for this tragedy.

During Clinton's administration we had a GOP congress that continued to cut NASA's budget. Both sides of the political aisle have used money earmarked for space research for other pet projects.

From all indications, the Challenger and Columbia accidents were caused by mechanical failures of some kind. That is where the blame lies, not on any one person.

[timestax]

Nor should we. The Clinton Administration did more than gut America’s defense budgets and devastate our military as no foreign enemy has ever done, tempting terrorists to exploit our weakness. Presidents Bill and Hillary did more than choke off America’s intelligence budget, greatly reducing our ability to detect what potential enemies were preparing to do to our World Trade Center and Pentagon. Bill and Hillary Clinton deserve a large share of responsibility for the destruction of the World Trade Center and the deaths of more than 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001.

You're darn tootin!!

[My2Cents]

There's an entropy at NASA that has been steady and prevelant since the middle of the Apollo program. Despite all the talk of "America's love affair with the space program," it hasn't really fired the imagination of the nation since Apollo 11. Budget reductions (in comparable dollars) have gone on since the Nixon Admistration, and maybe that's justified since the space program through the Apollo program was involved in a "race" to the moon. Once we'd won the race, the fevered pitch of space exploration subsided, understandably.

But inspite of insipid declarations from previous Administrations (wasn't it George H.W. Bush who set the goal of sending a manned mission to Mars?), space has not been a high priority for any Administration since Lyndon Johnson's. Perhaps George W. Bush should consider what the nation's goals are in space and rededicate the nation to a clear mission.

[Jael]

"NASA knew from the second day of Columbia's 16-day research mission that a piece of the insulating foam on the external fuel tank had peeled off just after liftoff and struck the left wing, possibly ripping off some of the tiles that keep the ship from burning up when it re-enters Earth's atmosphere." http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030203-87326768.htm

http://ltp.arc.nasa.gov/space/team/journals/katnik/sts87-12-23.html
"Damage numbering up to forty tiles is considered normal on each mission due to ice dropping off of the external tank (ET) and plume re-circulation causing this debris to impact with the tiles. But the extent of damage at the conclusion of this mission was not "normal."

The pattern of hits did not follow aerodynamic expectations, and the number, size and severity of hits were abnormal. Three hundred and eight hits were counted during the inspection, one-hundred and thirty two (132) were greater than one inch. Some of the hits measured fifteen (15) inches long with depths measuring up to one and one-half (1 1/2) inches. Considering that the depth of the tile is two (2) inches, a 75% penetration depth had been reached. Over one hundred (100) tiles have been removed from the Columbia because they were irreparable.

During the STS-87 mission, there was a change made on the
external tank. Because of NASA's goal to use environmentally
friendly products, a new method of "foaming" the external tank
had been used for this mission and the STS-86 mission. It is
suspected that large amounts of foam separated from the external
tank and impacted the orbiter. This caused significant damage to
the protective tiles of the orbiter."



http://www.arnold.af.mil/aedc/newsreleases/1999/99-041.htm
"According to NASA, during several previous Space Shuttle flights, including the shuttle launched Nov. 29, 1998, the shuttle external tank experienced a significant loss of foam from the intertank. The material lost caused damage to the thermal protection high-temperature tiles on the lower surface of the shuttle orbiter.

Although the AEDC Tunnel A tests did not replicate the in-flight failures, they did provide detailed measurements to better understand the flight environment and fundamental failure mode. From these tests, NASA determined the failure is caused principally by foam cell expansion due to external heating at approximately Mach 4 combined with pressure change and aerodynamic shear. Specialized miniature shear gages and other instrumentation were installed during the test to measure these forces."

[snopercod]

bump

[nightdriver]

"Today, as a result, we should regard the Democrats no longer as an "American" political party, but as the wholly-owned subsidiary of a foreign power."

This has been true for the last 50 years at least.

[fish hawk]

If Bush can be blamed for the Hurricanes in Florida why not make Clintoon responsible for the NASA failure?

[r9etb]

Dan Goldin gets my nod as The Biggest Cause of NASA's recent problems. He was appointed by Bush I in April, '92, and was a noted Clinton butt-boy through that administration. He finally left in November, 2001, having left behind him the scattered debris of his "faster, better, cheaper" approach.

[RightWhale]

It isn't just Clinton who shares responsibility for the incoherency of NASA's programs that resulted in the Algore Earthsat. Every President from Nixon on was involved. Dubya has finally restored coherency to NASA, but you need to be a systems analyst to understand what NASA is today. Equal blame can go to Congress as a whole--the monstrous committee. Sagan can have the rest of the blame.