Posted on 02/01/2007 9:45:45 AM PST by Fitzcarraldo
PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Wednesday, January 31, 2007
< Source: Rep. Dave Weldon
If Enacted, Would Be Worst Cuts to Space Exploration Since 1993
Urges Senate to Reverse Irresponsible Choice by House Dems
In a fiscal year 2007 budget released today, the new Democrat majority proposed sweeping cuts to NASA's budget that could jeopardized the future of space exploration. U.S. Rep. Dave Weldon, M.D. (R-FL), who represents many workers from NASA and Kennedy Space Center, called the cuts draconian, saying the Democrat leadership is using NASA and our nation's space program as a piggy bank for other liberal spending priorities.
"The raid on NASA's budget has begun in earnest. The cuts announced today by House Democrat leaders, if approved by Congress, would be nearly $400 million less than NASA's current budget," said Weldon.
"Clearly, the new Democrat leadership in the House isn't interested in space exploration. Their omnibus proposal lists hundreds of new increases, including a $1.3 billion increase‹over 40% for a Global AIDS fund, all at the expense of NASA."
Much of the proposed cuts would come from NASA's Exploration budget, which includes funding for the new Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), the future replacement for the current shuttle fleet. According to Weldon, these particular cuts would jeopardize thousands of jobs in Florida, Alabama, and Texas.
Weldon today led a bi-partisan group of colleagues, including Reps. Ralph Hall (D-TX), and Tom Feeney (R-FL), in offering two amendments to the bill that would restore NASA's funding.
"Rank-and-file Democrats and Republicans alike are aghast at the treatment the Democrat Leadership has shown to NASA. To gut the exploration account in particular is clearly meant to be a stick in the eye to the President and the initiative he announced three years ago."
Speaker Pelosi is not expected to allow any amendments to today's omnibus bill, continuing the closed legislative process that has plagued the current Congress since its opening day. Consequently, Weldon said the future of NASA funding will likely hinge on the Senate.
"The Senate leadership, including Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), has yet to speak to the draconian cuts being proposed. I hope they're alerted to the message the House sent today and will propose funding in line with NASA's overall mission and the President's original request to ensure a smooth transition to the new launch vehicle."
"Protoplasm-based intelligent systems are hard to miniaturize!"
But they are very easy to manufacture!
:)
"Then we nip the problem now, on Earth, before they get moondust on their shoes."
Call it contingency planning, then. If we don't head them off at the pass, at it were, what's your fallback position?
< Spock > This much is certain. < /Spock>
The targeting phase is dictated by physics, more than anything else, and we don't know how to cloak it NOW.
But costs $1,400,000 a pound (in 1969 dollars) to get to the lunar surface!
Yep, and when Republicans become difficult to distinguish from Democrats they lose elections.
If we can hit an incoming ICBM with decoys and evasive capabilities, we can hit a Chinese moon rock. If it does try to avoid, it misses the target.
True enough, which is why the current program is not "flags-n-footprints, throw it all away when you're done". You cut your costs at least in half by building durable infrastructure.
Let's build that durable infrastructure using molecular nanotechnology and keep the amount of material we need to lift from the Earth's surface to a minimum.
The answer is easy, most NASA employees are conservative.
"If we can hit an incoming ICBM with decoys and evasive capabilities, we can hit a Chinese moon rock."
Explain the logical connection, please.
"If it does try to avoid, it misses the target."
You still don't understand the enormity of the problem. The number of interceptors are finite, and will always be finite. The virtual rain of moon rocks, as targets for those interceptors. is virtually unexhaustable. Even if your hypothetical intercept system has a 100% kill ratio, that ratio is overwhelmed by the target field. On the other side of the equation, the target field for the rocks makes it such that a specific target need not be specified. It's an interplanetary shotgun, and you propose to catch each little BB?
Now imagine hundreds of rocks just sitting in orbit until they give it a nudge. It doesn't have to be a close orbit.
Does it matter if it missed the ground target? It's going to hit somewhere and it's going to be a rather spectacular blast.
"If NASA manages to disprove GlobalWarming™, it will have more than paid for itself, IMO"
You may be onto something after the news this week that Mars may well be having Global warming issues as well.
Liberals will stop funding such "nonsense" and do whateever it takes to get Gore his just rewards.
I cannot pay much respect to any opinion that on the one hand complains about the Federal space programs and on the other hand does not see the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty as strangling the private space industry.
If you're talking self-assembly, I agree they need to be developed yesterday. I just don't agree that we can wait for that development to bear fruit. Trust me, this is coming from a guy who presented a series of lectures a few years ago on the promise of MEMS and Nanotech.
Florida Today is at least interested in space business. They don't agitate to repeal the Treaty, though, and should be ignored for that reason alone.
How big are these rocks? What is their composition? An iron ball has to be over three feet across before it will reach the surface of the Earth without vaporizing.
That's a circular argument.
Amazing! Well, agitate to get the Treaty repealed anyway since it is clearly enough a Global Socialist document.
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