Posted on 09/22/2011 9:06:34 PM PDT by lbryce
Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, told lawmakers Thursday that the end of the space shuttle era has left the American human spaceflight program in an "embarrassing" state.
"We will have no American access to, and return from, low Earth orbit and the International Space Station for an unpredictable length of time in the future," Armstrong told the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
"For a country that has invested so much for so long to achieve a leadership position in space exploration and exploitation, this condition is viewed by many as lamentably embarrassing and unacceptable."
Armstrong was part of a four-member panel of space experts who told lawmakers that NASA needs a stronger vision for the future and should focus on returning humans to the Moon and to the International Space Station.
"A lead, however earnestly and expensively won, once lost, is nearly impossible to regain," said the US astronaut, now 81, who was commander of Apollo 11 and walked on the Moon in 1969.
President Barack Obama canceled the Constellation program that would have returned humans to the Moon and called on NASA to instead focus on new, deep-space capabilities to carry people to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars by 2030.
The retirement in July of the three-decade-old space shuttle program brought an end to the US capability to send humans to space until private industry can come up with a new commercial space capsule to the ISS, maybe by 2015.
In the meantime, Russia's Soyuz capsules are the only taxis for the world's astronauts heading to low-Earth orbit, and a ticket to the ISS costs global space agencies between 50 and 60 million dollars each.
(Excerpt) Read more at space-travel.com ...
"You want a launch vehicle today that will service the ISS? We've got it sitting down there. So before we put it in a museum, let's make use of it. It's in the prime of its life, how could we just put it away?"
It is with grave sorrow, regret we all mourn the US space program, its days of incredible national pride, glory as much for the exhiliaration, anticipation of dreams in space never fulfilled coming to fruition.
No greater admired a figure as Neil Armstrong, elder statesman of the US space program, first man to walk on the moon, has the authority, credibility to make the statement that the US space program is embarrassing to the US, embarrassing to all Americans, fundamentally, embarrassing to the American hero, whose very name, legacy in the realm of space travel, lunar landing has come to be known as one and the same.
The ISS is close to being abandoned apparently. There is a European supply pod in Fr Guiana where they launch from but it apparently won’t be ready until January or so.
It’s embarrassing because there’s no goal. Where are we going? What are we doing?
What space program?
Obama's legacy.
Ping.
Thank heaven he has spoken out. We were the best space faring nation now we are now the worst!
Returning to the moon as was called for in Constellation program would have been a most challenging, worthy space project. It would have fulfilled all the neccessary requirements appealing to the scientific community, the curiosity, interest of the public to keep it going for decades to come, but the project was not permitted to ever get off the launch pad.
Irwin is gone.
Shephard is gone.
Conrad is gone.
9 remain
The youngest is Duke who was born in 1935, and he’s 75.
Soon we won’t have anyone who remembers what it was like to walk on the moon.
The youngest boomers in 1960 are now older than Shephard was when he flew. Extend it another 5 years and the youngest boomer will soon be older than Shephard.
What have the boomers been doing for the last 40 years? It will be 40 years ago that someone once set foot on the moon.
I think it’s telling that the generation that had no presidents, put 12 men on the moon, and the generation that has spent the last 20 years in power has put nobody on the moon.
It’s not just Obama. We’ve been taking steps backwards and backwards. Is it a coincidence that in 1972, abortion was legalized, and the last moon landing took place?
ISS is not close to being abandoned, there were fears after the unmanned Soyuz mishap. That has likely been resolved.
The last Soyuz supply mission failed. Another is not ready.
They may have to “evacuate” the station, do you like that word better?
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/08/nasa-space-station-soyuz.html
Will the International Space Station actually be abandoned this fall after $100 billion and 10 years?
That’s one of the questions being pondered by NASA and Russian space experts following last week’s failure of an unmanned Russian cargo rocket. The U.S. fleet of space shuttles is retired and the Obama administration has no American alternative coming online for years
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I remember Gene Cernan was told my President Nixon that “he would be the last man to walk on the Moon in the 20th Century.”
I was a tyke when during a shopping trip with my mom some lady asked my mother if I could try some new product. Well it turned out to be tang.
I was a test subject for NASA. True story.
You Suck ubama.
So did we bring anything back from the moon other than rocks? What about Mars? I love the Mars rovers but please...we need to have a *financial* reason for pumping billions into the space program.
sarc/
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