Posted on 04/14/2011 5:46:51 PM PDT by Kaslin
NASA: Instead of awarding our retired space fleet to museums, we should be awarding contracts to go to Mars and beyond. Once we triumphed over the vacuum of space. Now we face a vacuum of leadership.
A nation whose world leadership was unquestioned once held its breath as an American spacecraft placed American astronauts on the surface of the moon. It was a triumph of exceptionalism that was officially laid to rest this week as a nation held its breath to see which museums our space shuttle fleet would be awarded to.
In these difficult economic times and with a nation burdened by unsustainable debt, a robust space program may seem like a luxury we can't afford. But it was no less a luxury in 1961, when a young president pledged we would go to the moon not because it was easy but because it was hard.
America had a crisis of confidence. We had just suffered a genuine "Sputnik moment," not the one recently conjured up by President Obama for political purposes. The Bay of Pigs fiasco was still fresh in our memory. We needed a challenge that would raise our spirits above our everyday problems.
As even Obama noted in his State of the Union address, "Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik, we had no idea how we'd beat them to the moon. The science wasn't there yet. NASA didn't even exist."
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
We do have assets in orbit about the Earth, our communications, weather and observation satellites. Soon we may will be obtaining power and materials from beyond Earth, and we will need a branch of the military to protect them from foreign interference, much as our Navy is supposed to protect the seas. I do not take credit for the idea of such a fleet, but it might be in the interest of the next American President to make it so.
When yearly interest payments are > yearly GNP then the house of cards fall.
No bucks, no Buck Rogers.
John Kennedy inspired, Barry Soetoro expired.
Space exploration without science is merely tourism.
Well said.
The world gov't we have now wants nothing more than control and allowing humans off world, is a release of control.
We are planet locked until the anti-capitalist are removed.
In space, no one can hear you PING
When I was in college I used to dream of a Mars mission after reading a special edition of Discover on the idea. Maybe it was because in 4th grade I wrote a science report for a school assignment on Mars.
Now I am grown up. No country is sending people to Mars and certainly not the USA. We would be lucky to get a person to the Moon again. I dont even see that happening again. Can the USA even get a person in orbit anymore?
I was pretty young in the 1960s but since they actually made it to the moon (to beat the USSR there primarily) it must be that something changed dramically since then. The most obviously is that US skilled human labor has become extremely expensive and computer controlled machines have become much cheaper. That is why we send unmanned probes. The other is that the Federal government is very expensive.
Last: The US had money then (but not for long.) Now we are completely broke trying to figure out how much red ink we can run before the implosion, by doing it.
I don’t think I complained about Ethanol yet today, a classic government fix.
Our Space Program IS a matter of national security, and we’re just pissing it away.
WE aren't pissing it away - our POS POTUS is GIVING it away - along with shoving upwards to 100,000 AMERICANS out of work - their paychecks disappearing to 'mostly Muslim countries" where our president's heart really is.
And no one dares utter the word 'TREASON" -
Well, I'll say it: TREASON!
and where the HE*L is Congress on this? The president has NO LEGAL power to do this. Congress has charge/authority over decisions concerning NASA
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