Posted on 04/16/2010 3:09:25 PM PDT by dr_who
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Landing a man on the moon was a towering achievement. Now the president has given NASA an even harder job, one with a certain Hollywood quality: sending astronauts to an asteroid, a giant speeding rock, just 15 years from now.
Space experts say such a voyage could take several months longer than a journey to the moon and entail far greater dangers.
"It is really the hardest thing we can do," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said.
Going to an asteroid could provide vital training for an eventual mission to Mars. It might help unlock the secrets of how our solar system formed. And it could give mankind the know-how to do something that has been accomplished only in the movies by a few square-jawed, squinty-eyed heroes: saving the Earth from a collision with a killer asteroid.
"You could be saving humankind. That's worthy, isn't it?" said Bill Nye, TV's Science Guy and vice president of the Planetary Society.
President Barack Obama outlined NASA's new path during a visit to the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday.
"By 2025, we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first-ever crewed missions beyond the moon into deep space," he said. "We'll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history."
On the day the president announced the goal, a NASA task force of scientists, engineers and ex-astronauts was meeting in Boston to work on a plan to protect Earth from a cataclysmic collision with an asteroid or a comet.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
Bruce Willis is the leading expert.
“Obama’s asteroid goal: tougher, riskier than moon”
Back in the 60’s, people on acid used to come up with ideas like this. Paging Suzi Creamcheese.
Obummmer’s Hemorrhoid Goal: tougher, riskier than mooning it- but let`s face it- he is an ass.
I honestly can't think of anything dumber, as pertains to space flight.
How stupid are you people? Get a probe to Europa, already!
Why would you want to send men to asteroid?
IMHO, this is just busy-work to divert manpower and resources from doing anything that might directly or indirectly help the US defend itself from future space-based attacks.
Either that, or just busy work. Democrats are good at creating busy work. Republicans less so, but they’re good at it too.
Perhap Obama will take a trip to Uranus, and find the proverbial monolith that he seems to think government should become.
He ain’t takin’ a trip to my ...oh, forget it.
Uh no. He died on that asteroid, see Ben Affleck instead.
Q: Answering the question “What do you get when you cross Obama with a hemorrhoid?”
A: An Assteroid.
Marginally better.
Q: Answering the question “What do you get when you take President Obama on a long trip in space?”
A: An Assteroid.
Borenstein and the Science Guy act as if this is a normal proposal. Anyone but Obama or another elected Democrat propose this and they would be laughed at.
0bama has asteroids in his head.
Obama said he’d be around to see men orbit Mars, and rest assured he’ll rename the planet Marx before then.
Obama doesn’t know the difference between an asteroid and a hemorrhoid
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