NASA To Drastically Cut Mars Mission Funding 191
DesScorp writes "Faced with budget cuts, and forced to choose between deep space observation or a mission to Mars, CBS reports that NASA will kill most of its Mars exploration programs. Sources in NASA say that of the $300 million being cut from the space agency's budget, two-thirds were for a joint US-EU program for Martian exploration. NASA spokesman David Weaver said that, just like the rest of the federal government, the space agency has to make 'tough choices and live within our means.'"
Good lord. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Clearly you missed the part which stated that two major manned systems are getting funding priority.
Re:Good lord. (Score:5, Interesting)
The total 2010 US Space budget was $64.6B. The entire rest of the world combined spent only $22.5B, including military space spending. NASA, the US civilian space programs 2010 budget was $18.7B, 83% of the spending for the entire rest of the world. All of Europe spent a paltry $4.6B on the ESA. Where is the spending from these enlightened, long-sighted countries?
Consider this as well, many space projects aren't actually funded by NASA. For example, GPS is funded and operated by the Air Force Space Command. The United States is, by a massive margin, the country most invested in space exploration.
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Your figures are a bit out of date, but the more important point is that other countries seem to be able to do a lot more for a lot less cash. The US space program has always been really expensive. I think NASA spends too much money making sure things will go perfectly first time, where as other countries (particularly Russia) do a lot more practical testing and just suffer the failures. Sure, stuff blows up, but it is a quicker and much cheaper way of developing the technology.
Re:Good lord. (Score:4, Interesting)
We're never going to Mars at this rate. Well, America isn't at least.
Baloney, Elon Musk is going to retire there. When he's not busy building electric cars or funding Ron Paul PAC's, he's building better rockets than NASA.
NASA just needs to keep buying rockets from SpaceX - he'll use that money to get us to Mars.
Oh, the government isn't gonna get us there. Yeah, that's been clear since the 70's.
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We're never going to Mars at this rate. Well, America isn't at least.
shame on you for believing it was ever going to happen in the first place
Good thing there are other, less short-sighted countries that will inevitably get there.
no, actually i think only the US is stupid and irresponsible enough to even consider such a pointless and wasteful exercise
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only the US is stupid and irresponsible enough to even consider such a pointless and wasteful exercise
and shame on the EU for tagging along with them in the first place, no doubt as a cooperative gesture, only to be butt-fucked by NASA when ESA has no doubt vested enough interest to make it difficult to call the whole thing off
Apollo got kids interested in science and tech (Score:4, Interesting)
... the past moon missions have birthed a lot of technology ...
More importantly the Apollo program got a lot of young kids interest in science and engineering. Which led to a following generation or two's worth of technology and economic activity.
Re:Good lord. (Score:4, Insightful)
Naah.. speaking as a European, I think you shouldn't see it as "a slap in the face of the US when it comes to technological competence". It just means, that the cultural "focus" of the USA is not aimed at its own *technological* competence any more. You could if you wanted, but you don't want those kind of things anymore.
From our perspective, it seems you're currently more aiming for euh... let's label it juridical competence and financial world supremacy.
Hold a questionnaire amongst USA schoolkids, tally how many want to become astronauts or doctors, and how many lawyers / rich. I'm curious.
Re:Good lord. (Score:5, Insightful)
If that's what it takes to convince the politicians to fund NASA instead of the DOD and entitlement programs, then sure, I'll play along.
[/unzips]
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Re:Good lord. (Score:5, Insightful)
Before you criticise national dick-waving contests, the usual form those take is called WAR . Space programs, high speed rail, big dams or just about any other ways of competing without applying communal skill at high energy physics just to deliberately kill people are much better alternatives.
See, you don't get to say "I've got a really brilliant opinion if the lion will just lie down with the lamb first to make it not a stupid opinion.". Fix war, and then you can criticise anythng that at least subliminates the normally violent dick-waving, for still having a dick-waving element.
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For better or worse, humans are very competitive among themselves, and it goes all the way up to states and nations. There are many forms of such competition - ranging from wars and genocide to "dick-waving" in infrastructure, technology or science, but I don't expect it to go away anytime soon. Things being what they are, I would very much have US and China compete over who gets the first man on Mars, than over who has more ICBMs. The latter will, of course, happen in any case, but the former will take awa
Sorry folks... (Score:3, Insightful)
The days of America's manned space program are over now that Medicare and Social Security are running deep into the red.
Re:Sorry folks... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you cut the income level, where does the money come from?
The top tax rate in 1960 was 90%, now it is 35%. You need to pay and the Federal Government accomplished all of the great space goals like putting a man on the moon, building our highway system, and educating many.
Check out the facts:http://tcftakingnote.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54ffb9698883301543328d90e970c-popup
Medicare and Social Security are successful programs as well. You have plenty of opportunity to succeed in America and successful entrepnaures do not complain about the tax rate, they complain that we do not have enough skilled, educated workers to compete with other countries. Germany, which makes some great products has a higher tax rate than us and is still very competitive.
Blaming the decline of the space program on Medicare and Social Security is far too simple.
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Medicare and Social Security are successful programs as well.
Of course, they're successful. All they require is someone to write checks and someone to cash them.
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Sure. They didn't end poverty or provide medical care for everyone. And they're rapidly going bankrupt. Other than that, they're totally successful.
Re:Sorry folks... (Score:4, Interesting)
Social security, in and of itself, is a highly successful and worthwhile entity. The primary issue is that we let our government pilfer it for other programs/wars. So what was a good idea got ruined so we could buy more missiles.
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There's a huge difference between MARGINAL and EFFECTIVE tax rates. Simply looking at that percentage gives you nothing in the way of revenue. When JFK LOWERED the top marginal rate in his first year in office, the Federal Government got MORE revenue through taxation than they had in the last 20 years.
And blaming the decline of the space program (which is a bloated mess in the first place, thank you Space Shuttle) on lower taxes is far too stupid. Most of the
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Full free medical care, free education, disability/unemployment insurance, investment in a good retirement pension, amazing infrastructure (highways/rail), and overall the best, most efficient government services that I've see anywhere in the world. Not to mention the multitude of other social services available for free should I need them.
I wonder how many Americans back home would
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There's also that 19% VAT... (7% on food and the like, according to the World Factbook).Plus 4.5% or so property tax, a corporate tax of 15%. And according to figures, the marginal tax rate is 45%, with an average tax rate of 40%... Just like the fees and other levies the US government has, Germany gets you in one way or another.
I do not believe tax rates are the problem. It is the spending problems of the government. The United States government wastes a great deal of money, yet claims they need more all
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The 19% VAT isn't really as big of a deal as you might think... There are 8-9% sales taxes in most of the US as well. Things are more expensive, but I think alot of that is due to the exchange rate.
I agree that spending in the USA is problematic, but mainly because of where the spending is happening. The budget of the US military, for instance, is completely out of control.
My problem with the whole "spending problem" argument is that generally the proposed solution is to
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Re:Sorry folks... (Score:5, Insightful)
The days of America's manned space program are over now that Medicare and Social Security are running deep into the red.
Not that I particularly like Medicare and Social Security, but I prefer both of those to our huge military build up and foreign wars.
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Illness and joblessness aren't covered by either program for working age people. So your straw man doesn't even support your own point.
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I don't know about Medicare, but Social Security runs on a surplus and has always run on a surplus. The problem is Congress "borrows" SS funds and calls it a deficit.
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The bigger point here is that we don't define any other government programs as bankrupt or "deep into the red" because 25 years from now if they aren't adjusted a bit, they will be dipping into negative balances, if population growth follows one particular projected trend. We (as a nation) don't look at how fast the budget for homeland security services is growing, and say "25 years from now, funding the DEA will cost more than it would cost to just buy Columbia and make it into a giant Walmart superstore."
We just lost the Mars. (Score:5, Insightful)
If only there were a bank on Mars that needed bailed out... by god then we would get there! I wonder if there is enough atmosphere on the red planet to fly a helicopter from which we could drop money.. or lacking the funds... turkeys.
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To be or not to be (Score:2)
The question is whether you're from western Pennsylvania.
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Just follow Double Fine's footsteps (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Just follow Double Fine's footsteps (Score:4, Funny)
Put a SpaceX Mars mission on Kickstarter?
FTFY.
Private citizens pouring money in the bureacratic maw of NASA is futility incarnate, though if you could channel it directly to JPL it might work. At least JPL still has technical and engineering competence, is somewhat isolated from NASA's bureaucracy, and gets things done.
If you could funnel a few billion to SpaceX they could do some exciting stuff aimed at Mars. Since Elon Musk is aiming there anyway he just needs more funding. SpaceX has a truly phenomonal efficiency in getting engineering bang for their bucks. As I recall NASA spent a team their to study how they were doing so much for so little compared to NASA. Of course, one answer they probably missed is SpaceX probably doesn't squander money on doing studies on why other organizations are efficient, they just build stuff, efficiently, economically and quickly.
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NASA is pouring money into SpaceX and private space BECAUSE they want cheap redundant human launch, Falcon Heavy, and the RED DRAGON.
Cheap REDUNDANT Human launch should be obvious. It is not just for ISS access, but moon and mars. More importantly, if our launchers are busy and we have multiple companies launching monthly, then costs go down for NASA.
And for NASA, the FH and red dragon are HUGE to Mars. The red dragon is a contained landing system for putting more
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I think you are being a bit optimistic, but I understand. Elon Musk has done wonders with SpaceX (and not too shabby with Tesla), it is hard not to hope he really can pull all this off. I hope it doesn't happen, but I think at some point SpaceX is going to go the way of Boeing and Gencorp, and all the other big players and just become another subcon for NASA.
-nB
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I hope it doesn't happen, but I think at some point SpaceX is going to go the way of Boeing and Gencorp, and all the other big players and just become another subcon for NASA.
As long as musk is there, it will not happen. HOWEVER, as the saying goes, all good things come to an end. Boeing and L-Mart became this way because they are able to control CONgress which controls NASA. If we can get private space to be honestly profitable and not just fleasing the feds, then we will see expansion and competition.
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With the single exception of launching satellites, practically all the money for say a Mars mission is likely to come from Congress one way or the other. What they must stay out of is the government's cost plus contracts. They're certainly useful sometimes for experimental technology no company would risk putting a price tag on, but they give all the wrong incentives. It reminds me a little bit of the state lottery here in Norway, I've been to their offices. All the profit is distributed to various organiza
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I could be wrong but I dont think this is Elon's plan for Mars. He will, no doubt, take all the Federal money he can get to go to Mars but I think he trying to corner the market for LEO launches, turn it in to a profit center, and use that money to do the more advanced missions to Mars.
If you actually WANT to go to Mars you totally cant sit around and wait for Congress and the President to fund it. A) in the current budget climate they probably won't B) as soon as the Congress/POTUS change hands they will
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It's not particularly clever to have noticed that the word "con" can be found in "congress" - especially when you consider that you were by no means the first person to come to this realization, and have probably copied this from someone else.
It is most definitely
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As to L-Mart, I am not the one that gave them that name. Lockheed-Martian did. I have a number of friends that work at L-Mart Denver, and some others that work on the east coast. I have also been at various locations teaching for them. And internally, they call the
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Its a bit of an exaggeration to say NASA is "pouring money" in to SpaceX. They are certainly contributing substantial funds to develop the COTS and CCDev capability but its a LOT less money than NASA squandered on Ares 1 and they got nothing at all for that money wasted.
NASA is mostly contracting for the services SpaceX will be providing and they are pretty reasonably priced compared to old school NASA, Boeing and Lockheed prices.
SpaceX has a large contract to launch the nex gen Iridium satellites, it has
Re: Kickstarter (Score:2)
Actually, that is pretty much what the X-Prize does, except reverse the order to "do work first, then get money". You could use Kickstarter to collect money to establish a prize.
Shocked! (Score:3)
I'm just shocked by this. Who would expect that NASA would be underfunded by Congress and have to cut the grandiose plans NASA has been telling us about?
Seriously, who expects anything out of NASA these days? Congress has been trying to kill NASA off since the 80s. Now that private space flight is looking more and more like a reality, what good is a government run space program? ( I say that as a cynic. I know NASA is good for science. When was the last time science was a priority for the US government?)
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As a active supporter of commercial space efforts both within NASA and outside of NASA, as well as a someone who's paying job involves the unmanned Mars program, I will be the first to say that private spaceflight does not negate the importance of publicly supported exploration - they complement each other.
Government's job, in my opinion, is to do those things that private industry can't -- thinks that don't necessarily return an immediate profit (or shouldn't) but are nonetheless good or necessary for our
1.7% cut? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:1.7% cut? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is, but I'll let you in on a little funding secret:
If you adsorb the losses by being more efficient then no-one notices and you can't use that money as a last ditch buffer (we forgot we need this widget, tighten up the ship, so we can buy it out of our existing budget). If you instead cut something noticeable you "make them pay" for cutting your budget. Happened to our IT department where I work. They had a 5% cut to their budget so they cut a service that saved labs all around the world untold $$$ by being essentially an internal craigslist to connect surplus equipment with labs that needed the kit. it was run by two dedicated staff, that's it. The rest of the 5% cut near as I can tell was adsorbed, but they made sure everyone noticed that this service was cut due to the budget constraints.
-nb
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It's sad how much of the electorate underestimates the threat posed by those Atlantean bastards.
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JWST? (Score:3)
Re:JWST? (Score:4, Informative)
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Not surprised. (Score:3)
I expected the colonization of Mars to start in the 60's, atmospheric mining on Venus to start the 70's, and the U.S. to become proficient in math and science by 80's. Sadly, I have come to believe none of the above will ever happen.
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What do you mean? After the Moon, Mars is the next major astronomical body out, right? That means it's like halfway!
budget cuts? (Score:2)
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If you call a five year freeze "pushing hard to increase the NASA budget", then, I guess Obama has pushed hard to increase the NASA budget.
Alas, I'm not sure how one can see "freeze it at 2010 levels until I'm out of Office" as an "increase".
It should also be noted that since Obama got into office (and well before the Republicans got control of the House), NASA's budget has declined as a fraction of th
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Managerial Incompetence (Score:3, Insightful)
NASA is a bankrupt bureaucracy plain and simple. Instead of axing the funding (many billions) on space adventures for man (mars, moon, whatever) and 'heavy lift' vehicles they axe funding in the one area where one could say they have a legitimate role - pure scientific exploration. There are no good reasons to race to get men on Mars. And there is no reason any longer for NASA to be developing rockets when private industry can take over and perhaps profit now that the government funded competition is out of the way. Imagine taking just 25% of what is planned for manned missions and associated vehicles and applying it to basic exploration like voyager, cassini, etc. NASA would have more than enough funding to focus on the things they do best.
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Re:Managerial Incompetence (Score:4, Interesting)
The 2012 budget request is $5 billion for science (Earth Science, Planetary Science, Astrophysics, Heliophysics, James Webb Space Telescope) versus $9.6 billion for the manned program, which includes $3 billion for the International Space Station. That's a pretty staggering figure considering that NASA won't actually launch any manned vehicles into space in 2012.
There's your problem: everything meaningful that NASA has done in the past 20 years has come out of the science program- the Hubble, the Mars rovers, monitoring the earth from space- but we spend almost twice as much on the manned program, which has produced no meaningful science to speak of. Even from the whole inspiring-future-scientists standpoint, I would suspect that vastly more children get interested in science because of Spirit, Opportunity, and the Hubble than because of the International Space Station. At this point, the manned space program really serves no purpose, it is nothing but an entitlement program for the defense industry- welfare for aerospace corporations.
Re:Managerial Incompetence (Score:5, Insightful)
The only really significant thing the manned space program has done in 20 years is fix the Hubble. That was pretty awesome, and you couldn't have done that without a manned program. But according to the numbers on Wikipedia, building the Hubble cost around $2.5 billion, whereas the Shuttle program cost around $170 billion. For the cost of two shuttle missions you could have built a replacement Hubble.
Astronauts are basically a PR stunt, a way of literally putting a human face- and in particular, an *American* face on space exploration. Putting a man on the moon was a PR stunt, a way to show off America's power. The Saturn V was a monument to the power of the United States in the same way that the pyramids were a monument to the dynasties of the Egyptian pharaohs. I'm not arguing that this kind of stuff is meaningless. On the contrary, it's really important. The space program is a form of soft power that compliments the aircraft carrier. The aircraft carrier projects power in the form of threat; the space program projects power in the form of inspiration. The aircraft carrier says we're more powerful than the other guys, the space program says that we're ultimately about something more than just brute force.
Here's my argument: the manned program has outlived its usefulness as an instrument of soft power. When you're flying Lord British and the dude who developed Microsoft Word on the ISS, the manned space program has degenerated into a form of adventure tourism for the superrich. That doesn't inspire the nation, and it doesn't inspire the world. The unmanned program, however, continues to project what's best about the United States as a country- our ingenuity, our creativity, our daring, our need to explore, and our refusal to settle for second place. I'm not arguing we should give up on space- I'm saying we should double down on the unmanned program, because that's where the real exploration, inspiration, and science is all happening.
So, how much do they spend on... (Score:2, Informative)
"Anti-Piracy" campaigns, handouts to religious organizations, wellfare for illegal aliens who don't even pay taxes, bailouts, corn/pork/cheese subsidies, etc.
But fuck it America, throw away the future! Live in the now! Run up your debt while you throw away anything related to education and science. Maybe you could go loan some money to the arabas again and then start some wars with them again. How about you keep bitching about communist China while you increasingly become a socialist nanny-state. Set your f
Re:So, how much do they spend on... (Score:5, Insightful)
Illegal aliens can't take advantage of welfare, if by welfare you mean TANF [wikipedia.org]. They pay property taxes, sales tax and the federal gas tax. Existing outside the federal income tax system they're also unable to take advantage of the EITC [wikipedia.org], which many would qualify for if they were filing federal returns.
I also like how you simultaneously complain about a lack of federal education spending and rail against the socialist nanny state. What do you think free, compulsory public education is?
Re:So, how much do they spend on... (Score:5, Informative)
In addition, by having illegals work here, they lower the salaries/wages, which lowers the taxes paid.
Finally, look at alabama. [google.com]They enacted a anti-illegal bill. Now, I am not in favor of how harsh it is WRT privacy. The ability to stop a car and haul ppl in just because they 'look' illegal, is just plain wrong. BUT, the requirement of e-verify on ALL businesses has had a telling impact. Namely that for the last 6 months, they have fallen from 10% unemployment to 8% unemployment. In addition, gov. assistance PLUMMETED. Not only is taxes up, but they have said that they can now start increasing money back to education and other programs that had to be cut before. So, to say that illegals are useful to America, is just plain wrong.
Re:So, how much do they spend on... (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. If they occupy space in a rental or apartment the owner pays property tax and rolls that into their rent. If none of them had ever immigrated then the overall population would be lower, less apartment complexes would have been built, meaning less property tax would be collected.
This may not be true for those states with the largest illegal immigrant populations. Texas, for instance, derives almost all its revenue from sales and property taxes. There's also the question of how much income the state would actually collect from illegal immigrants if they filed, given the prevalence of low incomes among that population. The biggest "hit" would be that they'd have to pay federal payroll taxes. However, since they can't take advantage of SS or Medicare anyway...
And by lowering wages they increase the profit margins of their employers and lower the price of goods to consumers.
Driving out the illegals may also put many Alabama farmers out of business. You point out that unemployment is down and revenue is up. That's the case everywhere. The national unemployment rate is down as well, and most of the illegals who left Alabama are still living in the U.S. Another thing to consider is that the effectiveness of Alabama's new policy is enhanced by the fact that none of its neighbors have a similar policy. Illegals are leaving Alabama because there are better options nearby. If such a policy were enacted at the federal level, and enforced, then it would probably result in fewer illegals in the country, but the steady-state level would not be as low as it currently is in Alabama.
Here are a couple articles that allege the new law has had less than beneficial effects:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec11/alimmigration_10-13.html (See Jerry Spencer's comments)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-15/alabama-s-imperiled-immigration-crackdown-clogs-machinery-of-government.html
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And by lowering wages they increase the profit margins of their employers and lower the price of goods to consumers.
Which is more or less compensated by those consumers having lower wages. In effect, it just makes money cheaper.
The real problem is not lowering wages, though. It's lowering labor standards. If you have people who are willing to slave away for 14 hours a day in horrible conditions, market-wise, that's more "competitive" than a person who's actually asking for what the law demands he gets, like 40-hour work week. So if businesses can get away with it, they'll pick the first over the second, and hence the sec
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I meant things like this: http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/4132598-california-has-quarter-of-the-american-illegal-immigrant-population-an-essay-on-healthcare-and-illegal-immigrants [allvoices.com]
That's just the first hit on a google search. There's plenty more.
And you can have free education without the nanny state. But my point on education wasn't that it was a "socialized" venture it was that the education in America has become increasingly more awful, especially when compared to the rest of the world.
Kickstarter (Score:2)
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Budget constraints and people persons (Score:2)
I suspect it's being strangled, like most oversized organizations, by people in the administration who focus on preserving jobs, salaries, and benefits of all the little people whose fate is in their hands, rather than the goals of the organization.
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Some of you are too excitable (Score:2, Insightful)
OTOH, if we halt major projects for a short time, AND get private space going, THEN, we can obtain CHEAP ECONOMIC LAUNCHES. In addition, we would hav
It's Disney's Fault (Score:4, Funny)
They released that damned "John Carter" trailer. And now it's perfectly obviously that there won't be ANY naked slave girls [sniff].
Adios, Barsoom! Alas, we'll never see those wondrous canals, the city ruins, the four-armed barbarians, Dejah Thoris in all her buxom fleshy glory ..
http://www.cartermovie.com/borisjc10.jpg
Sigh ...
How about cutting the budget of some Bureaucrats? (Score:2)
I think NASA should get rid of its cadre of bureaucrats who do NOTHING but squabble over budgets, kill programs, and buy staplers. That way, they can let the brilliant (and I do NOT mean this sarcastically) engineers who still work there do their job.
Here's a rule of thumb:
If you're a civil servant and you have not worked on anything that has left the ground in the last 5 years, you get fired, and the engineers you manage get assigned to someone who HAS worked on something that has gone into space.
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So that would eliminate many active missions. MESSENGER, for example,left the ground over seven years ago and is doing fantastic science, but has been in Mercury orbit less than a year. Cassini is still doing all kinds of stuff at Saturn, but it launched fifteen years ago.
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Good point. Perhaps restrict this to Civil Servants who have NEVER worked on a flying mission -- it'd still either get rid of a lot of useless people or give them incentive to be useful :)
Thus the cycle repeats (Score:2)
20 Come budget review time, constituents aren't asking their representatives to fund NASA, corporations aren't lobbying for it either
30 NASA's budget is again cut
40 GOTO 10
Now, to be fair, NASA is favoring more cost effective programs. Discovering planets lightyears away is of great use to fields outside of astronomy and causes advancement in human-usable technologies I'm sure. But garnering fundin
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Look, I'm all for NASA swapping budget sizes with the Pentagon, and I gladly pay NASA's share of my taxes. But I don't know how any field outside of astronomy benefits at all from discovering planets lightyears away (excepting the remote possibilities of colonization and discovering intelligence or life there).
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You're not getting me. I favor funding NASA 10x its current budget, even raising my taxes to do so, but preferably at the expense of waste like the Pentagon.
But even a committed NASA booster like me doesn't see how discovering exoplanets benefits any field but astronomy. Which for me is plenty worth it. But exoplanets don't improve electronics, medicine, medical sensors, weather reporting/prediction, orbital imaging for terrestrial resource exploration, materials. Nor does the instrumentation or science dev
The bleeding continues. (Score:2)
Newt Fscked Us (Score:2)
That corrupt gasbag New Gingrich screwed it all up for NASA by pandering to Florida Republicans with lies about how he'd establish a permanent Lunar base (by the end of his "second term" - what a jerk). Yet another good programme that's good for the country, and so popular with voters, grabbed by a lying megalomaniac who'd never do it once elected.
Newt collapsed in the Florida election that week, and gave a Moon base a bad name. It's easy now in DC to mock NASA expansions, and Newt helped make that happen.
Slashdot: News for Libertarians. (Score:2)
These are the type of people that would have been fighting as mercs for the East India Company.
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You must be new here. Or, for that matter, on any tech blog / website / discussion board. Geeks tend to be more politically extreme on average, on both sides of the spectrum. On the right, this means more libertarians. You can find a few real communists hereabouts, too - who'd have thought? Heck, we even have a resident fundamentalist Muslim, who will gladly explain to you how that whole worldwide Caliphate thing will work once it's established.
"Just like the rest of the federal government" (Score:2)
Except the military, who gets to spend as much as they like making the world a more dangerous and exploded place.
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the U.S and Canada will realize they'll have to step up in order to maintain or become world super powers
Canada? I'm Canadian - We're fun and have good beer and all, but we'll never be a 'world super power.'
Re:This is why we need China.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Our politicians btw are just as corrupt as the states and civil liberties erroding just as fast
You, my friend, need to take out a subscription to Macleans and start reading - Canada's system is so much better than the USA in so many ways. Why is America so broken? Campaign financing rules that are illegal in Canada. Our judges aren't elected, which means they don't pander and our Supreme Court judges don't go through the wringer like they do in the USA. Most MPs are hardworking Joe and Jane Averages - I know mine is, and I don't even support his party. As for civil liberties, I can still leave my shoes on when I fly to Toronto - I ride the SkyTrain daily and I have never once seen the police looking through people's bags and on and on.... Could Canada do better? Sure, but so could every Western democracy.
However, the fact remains that we're no superpower and never will be, eh?
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Our judges aren't elected, which means they don't pander and our Supreme Court judges don't go through the wringer like they do in the USA.
1) Federal judges are not elected in the US and most do not encounter serious opposition in the Senate. Even when they do, it is not *always* political theater. State and local judges many times are elected, however.
2) Elected judges may result in pandering, but appointed judges are prone to "bench rot" (basically getting out of touch with reality because your job is guaranteed--similar
Re:This is why we need China.... (Score:5, Interesting)
We're not a superpower but we act like we are. If our system is so much fairer than the States then why was a Canadian Muslim detained by the Quebec Provincial Police (and no cracks about, "well, it was in Quebec, then.") his house searched, his wife browbeaten with statements that her husband was a terrorist just because he tweeted a "let's blow up the competition" rah-rah statement to the rest of his sales team before heading to some sort of trade show in New York. We're all going to have to learn to communicate in passive politically correct phrases or find ourselves being arrested for things we might do not for things we've done.
Oh, yeah, it is post 1984, after all.
No, we're just as paranoid, just as terrified and just as over reactive as the folks in the States. God help the whole damn world. With any luck, the paranoia will finally lead someone to press the big red button and we'll have an end to all this. People, if there are any left, can get back to just scratching out a living without worrying about what someone is thinking on the other side of the planet.
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Human Rights Commission [wikipedia.org] - 'nuff said.
Please don't fall into the same trap of "we're better than X, so all is good", that Americans are so prone to.
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Today marks a glorious day of initiative reassessment! Rejoice, Democrats, Republicrats, and Bureaucrats alike, for today, NASA embarks on a new mission - the maximization of the achievable through the reassessment of initiatives! ONWARDS TO RE-
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If you're so upset about it, why don't you document how much of Nasa's resources were actually spent on that? Any at all?
Your broade
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