Obama: 8 Billion For High-Speed Rail, 0 for NASA & JSC

I propose humans living on earth - we haven't really shown much capacity or necessity for living in space, further there's not really very much humans can accomplish in space of scientific value at the present time that can be done better by a non-human.

 

Your weird and unwavering defense of the science on ISS automatically puts other people in the position of being complete a-holes in response. And you compared the ISS to having the potential innovative character, popularity and technological impact of Apple's i-phone? Really?

Do you want to compare the scientific impact per dollar of an ISS experiment to your average NSF-funded or NIH-funded project?

You pretty much could only compare it to atom-smashing experiments, which are very controversial, and largely abandoned in the US anyway. I'm a physicist, and on similar principles, I argued against the superconducting supercollider as well. Too much $ for too narrow a field.

I just don't see the fundamental science of micro-g work. It's expensive applied science in search of a question to answer. It truly seems that way.

Okay, don't cure cancer but have the work apply to something other than further experiments in space.

 

I disagree. At worst, the Constellation project is on hold and will continue once we are on better financial footing. Obama did not zero out NASA's budget, much of the work will continue, the only thing that got axed were funding increases. Granted the increases were necessary to keep up full bore on Constellation, but much of the discretionary budget is receiving the same treatment.

We haven't tossed JSC "into a dumpster," we just haven't increased its funding.

 

Talked to a friend of mine last night who works for NASA engineering, and the mood is quite somber. Lot of contractors expecting to lose jobs or shuffle to new ones. Much of the money being sent to JSC and other centers is actually "pass through" to contractors, basically to assure that people stay employed doing....something. Boeing and Lockheed of course got the bulk of the money, most of it pre-arranged well ahead of time (cute, huh?).

KSC and Stennis are the worst off, IMO. Obama cleverly re-upped the formerly ransacked aerospace research budget so that Ames and Langley would have a reason to continue existing.

 

The data isn't gone, the research isn't gone, the designs that have been done to date aren't gone and, at least for now, the intellectual capital isn't gone. For now, the only thing that is gone is the funding for the program, funding that can be restored once the country is on better fiscal footing.

 

I'm not playing dumb and he's not my hero, I just have the ability to look at numbers, add them, and come up with the result that we cannot keep increasing spending at a time when budget realities are so bleak. I believe that the Constellation project is important and I also believe that funding for it will be restored once we have our fiscal house more in order. You are exhibiting incredible hyperbole when you claim that Obama has destroyed NASA by not giving the agency a funding increase.

 

And again following your example. About 12 years ago Apple released a product called the Newton, a PDA type computer with handwriting recognition. Apple had invested a lot of money into it for about 10 years of development but the product didn't work that great inititially and rather than continue pursuit of it they cancelled it. Apple didn't go down, in fact Apple had some of its most successful years following the cancellation of the Newton, Apple also didn't get out of the handheld computing market with the I-Phone and I-Pad showing that.

Manned space program isn't crap, personally I would like to see more manned space flight, but a lot of the programs have been of questionable benefit in regard to the costs. Anyway many of you arguing for continuation of the Constellation / Orion program are painting a dire picture regarding the future
of human spaceflight that strikes me as hyperbole. You are right that NASA's future will be hampered but that doesn't mean manned spaceflight isn't. The Russians are still going, so are the Chinese, heck the Indians and Brazillians are even getting into the game. At the sametime commercial ventures are still moving forward to. Its even possible that NASA cutting back might give a huge boosts to commercial ventures as NASA engineers and scientists go to the private sector.

I would like to see your figures. I strongly doubt that if the Constellation program was in full swing, especially with a Moon mission, it would only be .6% of NASA's budget.

 

So you weren't for the bailout of GM yet are arguing for increased funding of NASA along the samelines that GM's bailout was argued for, sans going to the Moon (although it wouldn't surprise me if some GM exec., UAW exec, Michigan Congressman brought that up to argue for bailing out GM). You don't see some hypocrisy in your situation?

And I think it would be cool to have supersub ala Seaquest to explore the underwater world, a lot of which we know as little about as we do the Moon.


Exploration and construction of a supersub will likely produce many technologies, discover new resources, and produce many jobs. If this sub is built at the New London shipyards it will keep New London being known as "Sub City" and also provides lots of needed jobs to an area with a very depressed economy.

You see that that works?

 

L O L

 

I'll read your response as you are the blind one. You linked an article that had some questions. You had no idea of what those questions were really asking. Again, you googled "why ISS sucks" and picked an article randomly. I provided you responses that proves that the article had extreme fallacies. I have proven you wrong in terms of debate and you are left with your argument that "You just defend this bureaucracy because you are in it". I'll accept that as your final answer.

Again, I think if this thread was started by legit person instead of Shovel Face, things may have been different.

You think I'm being righteous and I think you're being ignorant. I don't see this going anywhere. How about we leave it at that?

 

Good example of a cinderella story. I truly hope that this is what will happen for NASA and our manned space program. But chances are it won't. Yes, manned space exploration needs a kick in the butt but doesn't need a slit on the wrist. We can agree to disagree on this one as we both can't tell the future.

I agree, manned space programs aren't dead. As I pointed out earlier, it's the fact that USA will not be at the forefront. The idea of commercial ventures is a bit too young by many experts' opinion. You still need a federal program while the commercial sector is still growing. The transition is a slow process. It's just not feasible to switch one off and the other on seamlessly.

Proposed total budget for 2011 is ~$3.7 trillion. NASA budget is less than $20 billion. Divide those and you get .54% giving a round number of .6%.
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/420990main_FY_201_ Budget_Overview_1_Feb_2010.pdf

 

That was the previous Administration. While I will agree Obama did make some statements regarding supporting further manned space exploration in the link to the article I posted earlier he never specifically said the Constellation program. Also he is on record since 2007 as saying that he would consider cutting NASA funding.

 

Yes of course, another SamFisher generalization that supposedly is fact.

What part of "In space researchers can grow larger more advanced..." did you not understand? The word "larger" implies that it is different compared to something else. And the something else in this case is non-zero-g environment like Earth!

The other part of the experiment is to see if the hypothesis that "there is a difference in cell function between microgravity on earth and the real thing". Testing of this hypothesis is the experiment.


Again, I guess there's really no point to debating about this anymore. I think we're sorta just beating a dead horse and I sorta don't have the time to keep it going.

Thanks for yalls insight.

 

True we don't know the future but at the sametime I'm not seeing other countries pulling out of manned space flight and commercial ventures are still continuing. While there may be a tough transition if pioneering space is ever to become practical this is a needed transistion. Also NASA is hampered, no doubt about that, but that doesn't mean space fligh will stop or even that things won't change in regard to NASA in the future.

Sorry my mistake I thought you meant the NASA budget regarding manned spaceflight not the whole US budget. Leaving that aside .6% doesn't sound like much but consider then the bailout of GM is around that much too along with lots of other programs. I forgot who said it but "A billion here, a billion there and now you are talking some real money."

 

How long have you worked at NASA?

I worked there five years and I was personally part of three cancelled projects. ****, that was all they did from ISS onwards. Heck from shuttle onwards for the most part.

Cx even joked about it - they had fake NASA timelines to illustrate it; I just pulled one out from my file cabinet (i kept it because it was hilariously depressing)

Meteor Impact (dinosaurs) -> Moon Landing (Apollo) -> Back to LEO (Shuttle/ISS) -> (2 < Studies/Cancelled Projects < 200) -> Cx

I know guys who have made a career out of doing nothing more than designing never-to-be-utilized spacecraft or robots or engines.

Seriously, welcome to NASA. If you're heartbroken about this, you really have not been paying attention.