Brad_Hawthorne

shogon
GM needed wanted and got a bailout. 

There, I fixed it for you. What GM needed, is to die or get it's act together on it's own. The bailout was criminal.

Agreed 120%

I totally agree with you, this country has a very lack on educational system, and they still cutting budgets on it, well next generation will be dumber, people worry to much on doing they drugs and mass up they brains, that is all is important for the yang people, I sadly see no future on human kind if things will not change.

franbunnyffxii

The space program was eliminated from the National Budget because americans dont care about education anymore.
Stupify the nation, call it a free country, enslave the people to a flasehood of lies and religious domination.
Theres only one problem with that, there will still be intellectuals who choose to learn.

NASA will be only doing space exploration beyond low earth orbit. We actually have a heavy-lift launch vehicle in the works. Private companies will handle all LEO flight when they get their act together.

big_willie

The space program is a joke
Just a big waste of money
I don't know about anyone else but I could get  rat's butt about what's in space and how it was moved if we can't get to it

I'm sorry, but that is the wrong attitude.  If everyone thought like that, then there would be no USA.
"Do you think anything is out there? (talking about the ocean)
I don't care, I'm good where I am.
Yeah, screw it, I bet you would fall off the earth anyways."
 
Without people always wanting to know what's out there or how things work, we would be living in a whole different world.  One I would not want to live in.
 
I for one am all for exploration and finding new facts/worlds.  I wish we could get planet crackers like in Dead Space and mine other planets for more material.  Also the world we live on is finite, there is only so many people we will be able to fit on it.  Would be great to find a new planet that is habitable and then finding a way to make the transportation faster.

We did we start out with a space program at all?  The Soviet threat.  Why did we continue?  Enough people believed it was worth it.  What's happening now?  Space program is a scapegoat to our economic woes, yet we don't criticize our military expenditure, where cutting just 10% would save our space programs and still maintain our lead in the world.  Threats are all the reason anyone looks up anymore, whether celestial impacts or environmental issues.  We're not racing into space anymore, Americans have the biggest presense already, there is no political threat.
 
There is of course a scientific and exploratory reason to stay, but does it pay the bills?  Not really, which is part of the reason it is easily scapegoated.  It's a money drain, the rate that benefits come to average citizens takes decades. 
 

mistermister
I would like to know exactly what is wrong with privatizing the space program.

There was a time when ideas were paid for by dreamers and those ideas made our word.  But then the business industry took over and only ideas that make money are paid for, everything else is ignored.  If you get enough fans of those 'do what works' ideas, no one care about any real progress...at least in my experiences these fans inflate negligible improvement as revolutionary. 
 
Look what happened to aeronautics, are we supposed to cheerlead increases in range and decreases in fuel burn?  I don't and see it as an excuse of an improvement, but the industry loves it because it makes money with the least risk and investment.  I have nothing against the privatization of space, I'm just worried the same thing that happened to airplanes will happen to spaceships where things don't change yet everyone makes a big deal about it, that thinking outside the box or daring to dream just gets you stares.  
 
In a way, it is already happening, a majority of private space companies aren't going to the Moon, Mars or anywhere else.  Earth satellites and the prospect of a space-SUV make money, nothing else does because space is vast, return on investment is slim. 
 
You've heard the phrase "no market" or "no demand"?  It is a known fact that when the current demand and what that demand is willing to pay doesn't add up to the costs of providing to that demand, no company will budge until it is worth their investment.   Put it this way, USPS has to by law deliver mail to any postal address in the US, even if you live in a marshland in the middle of nowhere.  UPS and FedEx came into existence to provide most customers with faster delivery and more options than USPS-- but they won't deliver to "out in the middle of nowhere" folks for the reason that there is 'no demand'.  Not enough live out in the middle of no where demand alternative carrier options.
 
NASA does what it does similar to USPS, but there is no gaurantee whatsoever that a private space organization will do what NASA has done unless they see benefit.  This is probably my only issue with the idea of private space industries.
 
BTW, the reason computer technology progressed the way it has is because it was made personal, so each person could use the benefits of microprocessors.  If you want to credit privatization for making it personal, that's fine; now come up with a way of making space personal and beneficial for the average person.  It took a long time for airplanes...but there wasn't an aviation government agency way back in the day.   Ironically, NASA is that agency because it stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration, people just assume it is a space only thing...and yes it annoys me.
 
Summing it up, it is not that I disagree with privatization, rather the lack of risk-taking companies influences my confidence level.

And for all of those that talk about we who we should just survive the aftermath of a astroid, I have one thing to tell you. If the day ever comes, the goverments of the world will not tell anyone, they will hurd all the ppl with PH.d's into a little cave, and fill the big caves with billionairs and politians. and on the surface the only two things that will survive will be bacteria and chuck noris.

I have a NASA employee in my family i will get his input.

Now granted the Mothership will be coming back to us here next year to see how we have done, we just need to sit tight and buy a bunch of beer and wait for the parents to come back and kick our ass for trashing the "house" LOL
 
Really looking forward to this getting launched, since its been in "production" for a LONG time
http://en.wikipedia.org/w...s_Webb_Space_Telescope
 

Brad_Hawthorne

What people fail to also understand is NASA is a part of the US education system. Those that seek to prop up other entitlement programs seem to forget that NASA is also a part of those in the academic and aerospace manufacturing realm. America as a whole is eroding from the inside because people believe that things like manufacturing and science are taking money away from food stamp programs. I think a lot of people need to get their heads screwed back on straight and realize that without technology and manufacturing, the US is nothing but a gutted corpse cast off from what is left of the 20th century industrial age. China seems to understand what we don't want to see right now. Self-interest of politicians and tree-huggers are going to regulate this county into a huge gaping hole of nothingness.

+1 to all of your posts in this thread!
 
NASA is tied to congressional spending.  We simply cannot afford to explore space anymore.  It has zero to do with religion, or some vast conspiracy.  In the US as of right now.  48% of Americans pay no taxes.  That leaves 52% of Americans (of which the top 5% *aka the rich* pay over half of that amount) to foot the bill for everything.  This includes (or did include NASA), not to mention all the numerous entitlement programs, corporate bail-outs, the over 2 million civil employees of our government, and of course my all time favorite...foreign aid. 
 
We as US citizens need to wake up!  Our government isn't meant to be an employer, grocery store, auto manufacturer, or give us cell phones.  Government produces no goods, and barely does any services.  We as a nation are teetering on the brink of insolvency...We are entwined in MASSIVE DEBT.  Most of which of we owe to the Chinese.  Sooner of later they will stop buying our debt and want to collect.  What will we pay them with?  Our Monopoly money
 
I'm sad to see our space program die a slow death too.  It's sad that we as Americans are more interested in what's going on with the Kardashians than what Mars is like.  

Brad_Hawthorne

shogon
GM needed wanted and got a bailout. 

There, I fixed it for you. What GM needed, is to die or get it's act together on it's own. The bailout was criminal.

I concur and like your thinking Brad.

mistermister

shogon
Where'd Mercedes Benz come from?

http://www.autospies.com/...ip-in-the-works-21691/

Didn't know they had partnerships with them, or why they would anyways.  10/12/2007, no wonder GM plummeted soon after. 
 

That is why any major spacecraft would have to be built in space, and any ship building or construction/mining equipment would need to be aswell. a larger space station, refineries, and manufaction plants to follow. put that on the moon and you can build anything you need up there. And with all of that, first step is the ISS, now making it bigger, and putting manufacturing on it.(made in space)