Posted on 09/22/2011 9:06:34 PM PDT by lbryce
Much of what NASA has done over the years has been an enormous waste of time and resources. It may very well be the case that two of the key items mentioned in this article -- lunar exploration and the space shuttle -- are among them (recognizing, of course, that hindsight is 20/20).
I expect that there will need to be a flight or 2 of the "Dragon" before it will be certified to rendezvous with & dock with the ISS.
You make a good point there, but as a follow-up to my last post I would suggest that human activity in space in recent decades has been limited to low-earth orbit because that’s the type of “space exploration” that represents the best opportunities for useful investment of resources. Just think of how much we’ve come to rely on things that wouldn’t work without having an extensive array of satellites in that region.
If you really believe that all we got out of the moon program was a bunch of rocks you are sadly mistaken. The Return on Investment was enormous.
What returns are we getting out of pumping BILLIONS into EBT cards?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o64Fz-KW1Dk
Elections MATTER.
America chose its own destruction, not SPACE.
America chose slavery of its children for the 57 States of
the undocumented Imam Barak Hussein, and not SCIENCE.
The Imam has said NASA must die in the desert
teaching Moslem how to blow up Western technology in orbit,
and the money? well, that is for more Mosques.
How absurd that such a thought even entered into a President's mind as part of NASA much less made it into writing as one of NASA's goals.
Slight correction. That was Apollo 8 in December of 1968. A very daring and inspiring achievement. Apollo 9 was in March, 1969, and was historic as it was the first manned test of the lunar module.
I see no hope for American space travel unless it comes from the private sector.
So you know where those dollars GO? They don’t stuff greenbacks up the engines and light them. The money is paid to smart and dedicated men and women who build infrastructure, research sciences, and improve the state of the art. And by maintaining leadership in space we assure that we will not wake up one day and find China or Iran threatening to drop a meteor on our heads. It is the ultimate highground. If we don’t hold it someone else will.
On a hot and humid July night so long ago, me and my brother sat with my mom and watched a grainy picture on an old B&W tv that was ready to give up the ghost.
We had all been praying for days.
And we saw the pictures of what looked like a ladder and saw the poofed up legs as they jumped down and heard the words “That’s one small step...”
Do not blame NASA.
The embarrassing part is that TWO GENERATIONS have gone by and they are MORE WORRIED ABOUT SOME DAMN SNAIL SOMEWHERE or MORE WORRIED ABOUT GETTING SOME REBATE FOR THEIR REFRIGERATOR or (fill in the blank!!!!!!! THERE ARE TEN THOUSAND THINGS THAT COULD GO HERE) than they are interested in seeing someone back on the moon.
I am so privileged to have watched it.
And I weep for those who will never see it.
But I guess there are alot of things America will never see again...
If people DO NOT DEMAND it, it’s not going to happen.
Neil it’s not the US Space program which is the problem.
It is your comrade fellow democrat, Obama.
Put down the koolaid, and open your eyes.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/06/nasa-official-walks-claim-muslim-outreach-foremost-mission/
BTW, there is a book out there called “1421” where it claim the Chinese came to Western America in that year. I don’t know how true it is but I am of the belief that from ancient times to before Columbus, Man has gotten around more than we think or have been taught. If you add the Kennewick Man into the mix, we find out that perhaps “Whitey” got around much more than we thought.
I agree with Armstrong, but the NASA of today is not the NASA of 1969 by a long shot. Layers of bureaucracy and waste. Get rid of that waste and NASA can go back to the moon and mars.
SpaceX has multiple new CHEAP rockets. Blue Origin has one coming. Likewise, we have multiple human rated vehicles on the way (Spacex, Blue Origin, SNC and Boeing).
Then you add all sorts of new capabilities. Multiple companies working on private space stations (Bigelow Aerospace and IDC Dover), and sub-orbital launchers (Scaled, Blue Origin, Xcor, etc).
Our biggest problem is that members of Congress are trying hard to keep NASA as their personal jobs program. For that, you can blame Shelby(R), Hatch(R), Hutchinson(R), Nelson(D), and a host of others.
What is needed is the neutering of these congressmen/senators who would rather NASA devote massive taxpayer resources to building a massive unneeded rocket, rather than allowing American industry to get us back into space.
That book is an entertaining historical speculation, but there's nothing to back up any of the author's claims.
We don’t have the money for space anymore. Too many hungry mouths to feed.
Even if we make it back to the moon, you can bet they'll never be allowed to quote from the Bible again.
Once they are all gone, then it will become a given that the whole thing happened in a Disney studio... A nation of pioneers becomes a nation of takers and fakirs.
Go to MIT and watch them do their laser finder.
Would be an interesting science project to try to do that in your backyard.
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