And the primary purpose of the space station is haviing a place for the shuttle to go - as far as useful science being contributed by the space station the answer is almost nothing. But hey it is a place for the shuttle to park.
This is what happens, we've aloud our country to live recklessly these past 8 years and now we don't have the money for these things. We have to priortize and education should be high on the list, otherwise, the talent pool necessary to continue supplying NASA with the "best and brightest" will get shallower and shallower.
The shuttle has been a boondogle from the beginning. LEO at like 20x the cost of the Saturn V. Real step forward there. The US space program has been like a chicken with its head cut off since Wernher von Braun retired in '72 and they started the shuttle. If you want to do anything besides visit places in space you have to send people. If the space program is just about dropping science packages on rocks, then it is the money sink everybody complains it is. That having been said, you people who want to scrap the space program and pump the money into the black hole that is DoE are self-destructively short sighted, which is 10,000x the crime of being wasteful with spending. You will micromanage us for the short-term until we disapear up our own rear ends. There is money, environmental benefit, and a future in space. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_satellite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining
I wonder how many of you would feel the same way if GWB had proposed this (besides Meowgi). Also, I always love how we think throwing more money at something like education is going to fix anything. It's not going to go to raises for teachers (which would be a good place for it to go). It's going to go to things like putting more computers in the classroom when students never get to use those computers. It's all about making people look good without providing any real benefit to students or education.
Hey, I am throwing the dog a bone We should be able to build a transport to get humans and small supplies to the space station (and back ) for on the cheap.
Not entirely true though. A lot of NASA grants end up going to universities for research and development into various concepts to be used in space. A lot of this generally filters its way down to students. Also, a lot of students get in on the research process. Federally funded research grants whether from NASA, the NIH, or other government agencies has tremendous impact on higher education. There's plenty of benefit derived from these programs. I'd go so far as to say that one of the reasons why our institutions of higher learning all falling behind on science and technology has been the misapplication of government grants and the failure to correctly fund the right programs. That being said, manned exploration can wait. I'm not totally opposed to it but its lower on the list of priorities.
The Cold War is over. NASA is a dead dinosaur. National Security, energy crisis, nuclear proliferation, education, healthcare etc...are all bigger issues than sending a few guys up in space to explore stuff. Cost to benefit of space exploration is very little and contributes nothing to the average American taxpayer. We have bigger fish to fry and frankly we need the money for other things. If people want to waste money in the name of science then let them indulge from their own pockets. Let private sector take over and find yourself private investors. How many investment firms would really put billions of dollars in something with very little in return?
what's your point as much as public education gets criticized in this country, its probably one of the few true successes of government spending.
If you are going to cut something, cut funding to nuclear weapons or the war on drugs etc. NASA and space exploration is one of the good things. Actually it is one of the great things. Killing it would sickening.
Philosophically, I tend to agree with this - NASA research seems more like an investment in the future, and that type of spending generally comes back to pay for itself. However, when the whole Man-to-the-moon thing was first proposed, it seemed like a lot of it was politically motivated "rah-rah" type stuff and many scientists said it was a silly waste of time/money. I don't know if that's still the case or not? Why does it cost $100 billion to get to the moon anyway?? We got to the moon much cheaper and quicker with substantially inferior technology 40 years ago!
I'm against permanent bases. Our extended presence will just inflame the locals more and prevent a political solution to the problem.
The geek in me isn't pleased by this but if we have to get spending on credit under control. Budget cuts and reprioritization of spending have to be made and for every cut there is going to be someone upset about it. With the success of Spaceship 1 and space tourists I don't think we are going to see the end of manned space flight even if it isn't under NASA. For that matter if the PRC puts a Taikonaut on the Moon you will see NASA getting back into manned space flight.
To do what? NASA can't identify a purpose. If we really need to study moon rocks more, that badly, it is much cheaper to just send a robot. Is this a step towards terraforming the moon? If it costs 1 billion to send a robot to mars and 1 trillion to send men to mars to do the same work the robot could do - which is the bigger money sink? Anyway, as has been stated before - there's plenty of work for NASA to do in our immediate neighborhood that it has been abdicating its responsibility to do. Why? Why not just build a missile or laser to kill the Taikonaut? The direction of national defense seems to be towards using less men than more men.
For the same reason we didn't build a laser or missile to shoot down Yuri Gugarin and the Soviets didn't build one to shoot down Apollo 11.
not to be jerk but there was probably less chance of building a laser than going to than man going to the moon
Obama lived outside of the United States from ages 6-10. So that qualifies him to be an expert on this topic as well.
