Posted on 04/29/2012 3:18:06 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Those lucky enough to still be here to look back at history post Barack Obama will recognize the last sight-piggyback funeral dirge of the once noble Space Shuttle as the Obama Regime’s defining moment.
Were an artist to paint a picture of a small boy looking at up at his flying kite as the space shuttle passed over Manhattan yesterday, no portrait of the story of America’s deliberate ruin at the hands of a single politician could ever come closer to the truth.
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Few will remember that it was on the fullest moon of the year last January when NASA scientists were told they wouldn’t be able to visit any longer and that in his new budget, President Obama planned to eliminate the space program’s manned moon missions.
Now that it’s all over, NASA is left behind with its glory days fast fading as the shill to entice companies to build private spacecraft to ferry astronauts to the space station after the space shuttle retires.
In Obama’s Ban Free Market world, how many volunteer entrepreneurs will build private spacecraft to ferry astronauts to the NASA-abandoned space station?
The American moon mission was America’s finest moment in time, signaling to the world not just proof of American ingenuity but keeping aflame man’s dream to reach the moon.
In this final chapter, Obama didn’t just gut the space program’s manned moon missions, he flew proof of America’s dead dream over Washington and New York landmarks.
The American astronaut and the concept of space shuttles have been relegated almost overnight to the obscurity of museum relics.
Every child who flies a kite with big dreams of someday reaching the moon will look to the space missions of other nations now and not their own.
(Excerpt) Read more at canadafreepress.com ...
"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." ... Neil Armstrong
"NASA and the present Administration's now obvious agenda to dismantle a space program that has been five decades in the making." ... Eugene Cernan
And from Cernan and Armstrong's point of view, the US space program is headed down the extraterrestrial crapper.
There’s only one candidate who’s advocating the revitalization of the USA’s Space Program.
3 2 1...Blast Off. Go Newt Go!
Exactly right! And you are in good company. Neil Armstrong argued this same point in his Congressional testimony last Fall ...
Without an inspirational space program, Armstrong argued, the US stands to lose its engineering edge. "A substantial current and long range threat is, and will be," he said, "the downward trend in engineering degrees granted in this country and the substantial increase in such graduates in other parts of the world."
I find it sad that you would have to debate this point or counter spurious allegations that the best and brightest engineers are motivated by government handouts, on a conservative website.
While on the level of national pride and symbols of aspiration, I think the author is spot on. However, on the rational level, the STS program is an acme example of big government. It costs about $1 billion per launch cycle. Because of its architecture, what it can haul is limited from the standpoint of dimensions, hazards and weight.
One of my college professors worked on STS planning. He stated that the risk of loss of a given mission was 1/100. We lost two craft and crews in 135 launch cycles.
Manned space launches should have been privatized long ago. We would have more people in space for less money and we would have had a diversity of launch capabilities.
I am happy to see that money-sucking monstrosity retired to the big government museum of big government program artifact.
True that the NASA replacement will never fly. NASA cannot produce such science today, it is an agency of EEO numbers and social goals (Muslim outreach now) and will never get back into space unless it pays somebody else to get them there. Years of Affirmative Action hiring and promotions have consequences. NASA employees drink coffee, read the paper, and try to impede the work of others.
The space shuttle was the result of work from 4 decades ago and far outlived it’s original design goals. The capable NASA employees are long gone and their experience is wasted. Don’t blame Obama, US people can go look in the mirror, it’s taken decades to slowly achieve this state.
The shuttle was old and it wasnt really designed to last as long as it did. NASA really got its moneys worth.
But Obama took a knife to the whole manned space program and with it killed a lot of American jobs.
Now we have to hitch rides with the Soviets. Thats a disgrace IMHO.
The shuttle was old and it wasnt really designed to last as long as it did. NASA really got its moneys worth.
But Obama took a knife to the whole manned space program and with it killed a lot of American jobs.
Now we have to hitch rides with the Soviets. Thats a disgrace IMHO.
Actually, it was a good idea, but so badly executed
—
The Air Force design was the good idea, the actual design was the poor execution. Both decisions done for political reasons.
ML/NJ
...AND as the shill for global warming propagandists.
Powerful stuff.
Just another example of how delusional the pro-Obama MSM is. Calling the funeral of our space program a victory lap is mind boggling.
I went fishing. Caught some too! Thanks for asking.
The issue of safety is a bigger issue than most consider.
Would you insure a private company that flew people into space?
As it is now commercial has no customer but government (and that’s being quickly strangled by the Obama administration).....so where is the profit for the commercial companies??????
Our science and technology is going down the tubes and the happy campers pushing “commercial” aka subsidized Obama picks are lapping up tax dollars while the lapping up is still possible.
Anyone who fails to see that this has been orchestrated deliberately to dismantle the U.S. manned space program, doesn’t know what has been happening, or is happy to see it gone.
Exactly. The watermelon is the Obama national emblem.
You should see how many people have signed up to go to space in the Branson/Rutan venture, and then there is this:
Bigelow Aerospace Soars with Private Space Station Deals
A private space company offering room on inflatable space habitats for research has found a robust international market, with eager clients signing up from space agencies, government departments and research groups....
http://www.space.com/9358-bigelow-aerospace-soars-private-space-station-deals.html
That’s nice. Can they turn a profit with that? Where’s the ride?
Bigelow had to lay people off recently because there is no rocket he can use.
Insurance! Who will insure these trips?
The government needs to foot the bill (it needs to focus on REAL work not all the bureaucracy it’s loaded itself down with that’s eating its lunch, nor the green direction it’s employing). There was (is) money but the powers that be want to kill manned space. Commercial can’t afford to fund such high risk projects — investors see too much risk.
These programs push technology and science (look how the space program has touched every aspect of our lives — almost minute by minute). If we turn our backs on pushing outward, America will fall back while other countries fill the vacuum (countries that do not like us or our form of government). Growing countries fund these programs because they’ve seen how it helps build their commercial, scientific and technology power.
Once a market is recognized (a profit to be made) then TRUE commercial companies scramble to join in on the effort.
This is more than a few billionaires buying a ride.....and what are they riding — where is their transport?
Everyone bought into the drive by medias “we were great once theme” and seemed to be satisfied. These cretans will have no resistance with thier final assualt
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