Obama Nasa plans 'catastrophic' say Moon astronauts

[Rekrul]

Former Nasa astronauts who went to the Moon have told the BBC of their dismay at President Barack Obama's decision to push back further Moon missions.

Jim Lovell, commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, said Mr Obama's decision would have "catastrophic consequences" for US space exploration...

...Nasa still aims to send astronauts back to the Moon, but it is likely to take decades and some believe that it will never happen again.

visit the link for the full news article

In the context of the current economic climate I for one applaud this decision. Yes, NASA has unquestionably developed a whole range of new technologies and enhanced the status of the US in many ways. But with people throughout the world - including the US - wondering how they are going to keep a roof over their heads and even put food on the table I believe some realism is well overdue.

The cost of manned exploration of the moon is cosmic. Could the cost ever be worth it when you take into consideration the need for investment in down-to-earth infrastructure and basic services such as healthcare and education? It emerged this week that Kansas City is planning to close nearly half the schools in the disctrict in an effort to avoid bankruptcy, for example.

More could be said of ballooning jobless figures, endangered savings/pension funds, tent cities, etc., but suffice it to say it's time to get real. The moon? How about earth first...

 

[titsrock]

I would rather see us send a manned ship to Mars in 20 years and send up a new Hubble telescope--with twice the range--in 5 years :thumbsup:

Obama would really help himself out if he would put the brakes on the Middle East occupations now. His sensible cost-costing rhetoric would be more believable if he would reign in on the greatest money drain right now--the occupations.

 

[lurkingdirk]

I'd rather see a small-scale death star built in orbit so that we can just blow entire countries right off the map rather than trying to resolve our differences.

 

[Trident1]

I'd rather see a small-scale death star built in orbit so that we can just blow entire countries right off the map rather than trying to resolve our differences.

Yeop. Start with Pakistan, Yemen, Iran, Saudi Arabia and all Hamas and Hezbollah controlled territory in Lebanon.

 

[Legzman]

why delay space exploration? For fuck sake. Its the main reason we have all the cool shit we have this day and age. It advances technology and technology gives us cool ass shit! Ever use GPS for a quick example? Its crazy how accurate that stuff is. Thats just one example of the thousands of things brought about as a result of space exploration.

Oh well, just one more reason to vote this prick out in 2 years! I'll vote this time, just cause I don't wanna see obama waste 4 more years of my time! Shit or get off the pot!

 

[calpoon]

Obama would really help himself out if he would put the brakes on the Middle East occupations now. His sensible cost-costing rhetoric would be more believable if he would reign in on the greatest money drain right now--the occupations.

This. :thumbsup:

 

[Ravenholm]

Someone once told me a NASA joke.

It goes something like this: What does NASA mean?. Need Another Seven Astronauts.

I didn't get it at first and the guy said it was because some shuttle blew up a few years back.

 

[Wizard Sleeves]

wtf are we gonna do on the moon anyway?

 

[Rey C.]

Obama isn't cutting NASA's budget, he's actually increasing it. And he's not cutting back on space exploration either. What he's doing is discontinuing the manned space flight program so that the money can be used for more "real" space exploration and research... this according to Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize winner in Physics.

Wall Street Journal
Obama Gets Space Funding Right
By STEVEN WEINBERG

We could send hundreds of robots to Mars for the cost of one manned mission.

In the federal budget released this week, President Barack Obama calls for increasing NASA's funding by 2% while cutting its manned space flight program. If enacted by Congress, the cuts will likely end plans to return astronauts to the moon. Some claim these cuts will damage America's capabilities in science and technology, but the president's spending plan will likely boost both.

The manned space flight program masquerades as science, but it actually crowds out real science at NASA, which is all done on unmanned missions. In 2004 President George W. Bush announced a new vision for the space agency: a return of astronauts to the moon followed by a manned expedition to Mars. A few days later NASA's office of Space Science announced major cutbacks in its important Beyond Einstein and Explorer programs of unmanned research in astronomy. The explanation was that they "do not clearly support the goals of the President's vision for space exploration."

Giving up on manned space flight doesn't mean we have to give up on the exploration of the solar system. The president's budget calls for spending $19 billion on NASA, and for much less than the cost of sending a few astronauts once to a single location on Mars we could send hundreds of robots like Spirit and Opportunity to sites all over the planet.

The only technology for which the manned space flight program is well suited is the technology of keeping people alive in space. And the only demand for that technology is in the manned space flight program itself.


Mr. Weinberg received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979 and the National Medal of Science in 1991. He teaches in the physics and astronomy departments of the University of Texas at Austin and is the author of "Lake Views—This World and the Universe," just out from Harvard University Press.

And Bruce Aldrin, a pretty well known astronaut (who's not a paid lobbyist for anybody, as far as I know) had this to say in an interview with Fox News:

Aldrin, speaking to FoxNews.com, says the next step for NASA should be to create a long-term plan for more ambitious efforts -- visiting Mars or a nearby asteroid -- aided by robotics and astronauts from other countries. "It's much better to take our experience and aid other countries in conducting their races," says Aldrin.

I've been on this topic on half a dozen boards since the story broke (well over a month ago). And it continues to amaze me how some people agrue that Obama is cutting NASA's budget, when, in fact, he is increasing NASA's budget. All he's doing is reversing Bush's fuckup that killed legitimate space research in favor of playing moon man/Buck Rogers.