http://www.space.com/news/obama-nasa-budget-moon-ft-100128.html

1/28/2010 3:18:51 PM

Not only that, but manned flight as well.

1/28/2010 3:19:18 PM

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/01/27/rumor-obama-to-axe-ares-and-constellation/#more-10799

Phil Plait's take on it. I love that guy.

1/28/2010 3:28:53 PM

Bush promised us Mars... turns out he meant it as latin for war.

But if the budget presented does scrap the idea of paying for another manned mission to the moon, then I understand it, but disagree with it.

^In that article the guy says space stations aren't worth the bang for their buck, but I think the idea of space stations and that "we’ve learned how to build large structures in space" is kind of cool, and an international space station at that does have some inspiration effects (although still not on the level as a another trip to the moon).

1/28/2010 3:41:17 PM

I don't think his point is that space stations are a bad idea, but the ISS is a bloated mess of a waste of money and is part of the reason why even have to consider not going to the moon/mars in the first place.

So much money spent on war...which some of it was spent on space exploration instead. It's sad that my child won't grow up watching Shuttle launches the way I did. in the same culture of Space flight that I did.

[Edited on January 28, 2010 at 3:51 PM. Reason : derp derp derp HURRR V]

1/28/2010 3:47:15 PM

The shuttle wasn't going to the moon

1/28/2010 3:49:08 PM

As much as every president over the past 40 years has loved doing a Kennedy-style declaration of our next goal in space, I'm not terribly surprised that Obama is putting it in the back seat.

Though I like the budget growing by a bit, I'd still like a set goal other than maintaining the status quo with outdated technology. Maybe our next several shuttle disasters will spur commercial space efforts a bit.

1/28/2010 3:50:55 PM

Science and technology aren't important, so Obama's decision here makes sense.

1/28/2010 3:53:03 PM

Quote :

"Bush promised us Mars... turns out he meant it as latin for war."

I LOLed at this.


While i can respect the decision to "reign in" government spending, I think his priorities are a little skewed.
Obama is trading all the investment in potential advanced technologies and other benefits a space program offers
in order to ensure we feed welfare queens and give every illegal mexican access to healthcare (just to generalize).

As palin would say science and technology are all "silly stuff"

[Edited on January 28, 2010 at 4:00 PM. Reason : a]

1/28/2010 3:56:54 PM

Ah, so we no longer want to lead the world in technological innovation? Good to know.


(have we already lost that distinction?)

1/28/2010 4:13:39 PM

Unfortunately I really disagree with axing it. We enjoy the benefits of many technologies that were developed from the first moon trip (like tang, space pens and space ice cream). Jokes aside, I consider this defense spending, so it should be kept up.

1/28/2010 4:22:09 PM

I was going to say Velcro, but then I actually looked it up. Oh well.

1/28/2010 4:38:50 PM

Bush 2.0

Fuck Obama

1/29/2010 12:40:09 AM

everyone knows the Vulcans gave us Velcro

1/29/2010 12:44:10 AM

this sucks. hopefully this fuckwad is out of office in 3 years anyways and nasa can get its projects back on track.

1/29/2010 1:09:58 AM

^yeah lets not pay for healthcare so nasa can waste billions of dollars not getting to mars

1/29/2010 1:16:25 AM

Look up the percentage of the federal budget that goes to NASA. Then think about what you just said. Then go fuck yourself.

1/29/2010 1:38:41 AM

Quote :

"Ah, so we no longer want to lead the world in technological innovation in space? Good to know."

1/29/2010 3:30:41 AM

^There have actually been a ton of advancements in commercial technology based on NASA tech.

...but really, you should know that already. And you probably do, but are just feigning ignorance to make a point in the previous post.


(http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/ ...obviously not an unbiased source, but it's the most organized thing I could find on the first page of Google results, and I don't care enough to look harder.)

[Edited on January 29, 2010 at 3:38 AM. Reason : .]

1/29/2010 3:37:06 AM

Quote :

"yeah lets not pay for healthcare so nasa can waste billions of dollars not getting to mars"

NASA has done more for this country than Juanita's 10 kids who occupy the ER every time they get the sniffle.

1/29/2010 7:28:37 AM

No one said cut nasa off completely, i love nasa and wish want to see a man on mars soon
but the fact is the return on investment has been going downhill for a long time in every aspect
in technology and socially, it means a lot when nasa can make the country proud, but its hard to have pride in then fact that we havent had a significant nasa achievent similar to landing on the moon for 50 years

so if the rest of the govt's budget has to be tightened then nasa should not have any special treatment, they have not deserved it

1/29/2010 8:46:51 AM

ITT people that rail against big government spending propping up industry and advocate technological advances through private companies,competition, and capitalism get pissed when NASA's budget is cut?

1/29/2010 8:50:11 AM

having a presence in the solar system is a long term national defense concern.

1/29/2010 8:56:15 AM

Oh I agree with you. I'm all for NASA funding. I'm just confused by some of the responses, unless everyone else claims the national defense argument as well.

1/29/2010 9:01:27 AM

not only that, but manned space flight has given rise to an industry that employs (directly or indirectly) tens of thousands of people. it is not like handing out a check to people who are too lazy to work.

1/29/2010 9:06:02 AM

It's a good thing that India and China are leading the way in space now. They'll make the massive initial investment, but we'll eventually benefit from whatever technology they develop. I think it would be better if major industrialized countries collaborated more, but I don't know how likely that is.

There are already private enterprises getting into space visitation and travel. As the technology gets better, it will become more affordable to visit space. The best thing we can do is allow and encourage competition.

1/29/2010 9:07:10 AM

Quote :

"It's a good thing that India and China are leading the way in space now."

I don't know if they're really leading... more playing catch up by making the large financial investments now that we had already made back in the 60s and 70s.

I think the real question we can ask too is whether or not returning to the moon really nets us anything more than an ego boost, especially compared to other projects such as unmanned exploration.

1/29/2010 11:58:31 AM

obama is a fucking moron and will ruin this country if he gets his way

1/29/2010 11:59:56 AM

There's a possibility that he isn't stupid, just evil. Anyone with a basic understanding of math should be able to understand why our debt will bury us. I have a hard time believing that Obama is naive enough to believe that he is capable of saving the United States.

1/29/2010 12:05:35 PM

Quote :

"not only that, but manned space flight has given rise to an industry that employs (directly or indirectly) tens of thousands of people. it is not like handing out a check to people who are too lazy to work."

For fuck's sake. If these people lost their jobs they would not cease to exist. In many ways, NASA is cannibalizing the engineering talent from the rest of the economy. NASA consumes a lot of engineers, bidding up their wages until private industry abandons its own research and development to fulfill the demand.

To put it another way, if NASA consumed all the aluminum the world produced, then Boeing would not be making airplanes. Well, when NASA consumes all the rocket scientists, then none are left for private space activities.

Now, this would not be a 'problem' if either of two things were true:
#1. the supply of engineering talent is highly elastic, which is unclear to me, as really good engineers tend to only be happy doing engineering, so they would do it regardless of our current above average salaries.
#2. if NASA was employing the siphoned labor at least as efficiently as private industry would, an idea I find laughable from talking to a few NASA engineers. They find themselves trapped within government work and union rules which have them spending much of their time (very expensively) doing work that should have either been contracted out or not-done at all, such as spending thousands of man-hours figuring out how to keep using outdated equipment when new equipment is readily available for a fraction of the cost, but burning the time is free while the new equipment would take an act of Congress.

1/29/2010 12:34:24 PM

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/01/27/rumor-obama-to-axe-ares-and-constellation/#more-10799

Quote :

"1) According to the rumors, NASA will drop Ares and look for a different heavy-lift vehicle. That means we aren’t going back to the Moon any time soon. The Orlando Sentinel (linked above) says this: "We certainly don’t need to go back to the moon," said one administration official. I disagree with this, strongly. I think we do need to go back. I also think we can do this even in a recession; the money involved is trivial compared to things like the bank bailouts and the two wars we’re fighting. And this will create jobs, high-tech jobs, employing tens of thousands of people. And don’t give me any baloney about spending the money here on Earth rather in space. That’s a false dichotomy, and totally wrong. "

Comparing costs to bank bailouts is becoming like the new Goodwin's law.

1/29/2010 12:44:11 PM

I was hoping this thread was about Obama waving his butt at a Chinese person.

1/29/2010 12:54:51 PM

i guess all those laid-off nasa guys will have to stare into a half-empty glass of tang and cry themselves to sleep on their tempurpedic memory-foam mattresses.


but seriously, i'd like to see some of the resources given to nasa to be used for the discovery-implementation of alternative energy sources.

[Edited on January 29, 2010 at 2:59 PM. Reason : ]

1/29/2010 2:46:23 PM

Did you guys actually read the article?

Quote :

"Despite a fiscal freeze on most discretionary programs, NASA's budget will be increased by $6 billion over the next five years... "For NASA to be getting new money over the projections is to me an indication of how seriously this administration takes NASA and our goal of future innovations for this country.""

He's increasing not decreasing nasa's budget.

1/29/2010 4:00:37 PM

he is effectively killing manned space flight.

1/29/2010 4:20:34 PM

I approve.

1/29/2010 5:32:00 PM

the fact is nasa has way too many projects right now, they are not concentrating on one major project like during the time of JFK
so to cut their budget is not going to derail some grand plan
all they'll have to do is decide which projects are the most promising and dump the rest

1/29/2010 8:18:06 PM

and yet they devote more money to the money pit ISS?

1/29/2010 8:45:28 PM

The money to go to the moon was a fraction of the bank bailouts realistically.

But if youre talking about cutting government spending, this is the type of thing that’s going to happen.

People can’t expect the government to cut spending and not have services cut. NASA is just a very visible example of this.

1/29/2010 8:55:50 PM

Of course they're going to cut NASA, it's high profile and easy for them to point at while saying, "see, we're making the tough cuts!" Meanwhile the things that eat up a huge portion of the federal budget and contribute most to our growing debt; SS, medicare/medicaid and other entitlement programs, and military spending go untouched.

It's about as useful as trying to lose weight by getting a large diet coke while still eating McDonald's 4 times a day.

1/29/2010 9:19:56 PM

^ it remains to be seen.

But the bitching about this is a good prelude to the bitching when actual services get cut.

If SS is scaled back in the TINIEST BIT, the AARP will have smear campaigns all over TV for whatever politician is supporting it.

1/29/2010 9:22:16 PM

Quote :

"^yeah lets not pay for healthcare so nasa can waste billions of dollars not getting to mars"

fuck your healthcare asshole. i don't want to help pay for your sex change you are probably going to get by the end of the year either.

and you are a fucking ignorant asshole if you think good healthcare can't exist with nasa at the same time.

[Edited on January 29, 2010 at 9:40 PM. Reason : 5]

1/29/2010 9:38:08 PM

^thanks for completely fabricating your version of what i said

its almost as if obama just closed nasa altogether the way you ignorant "dont tread on nasa" assholes are responding,
even the spending happy obama has agreed to make cuts in many other areas therefore why should nasa be excluded?

1/29/2010 11:04:08 PM

Why not.. I mean.. He's going to give the USA to China...

1/29/2010 11:53:39 PM

wal-mart set those wheels in motion a long time ago

1/29/2010 11:54:41 PM

He's simply using executive privilege to nix a wasteful program within NASA. Manned spaceflight is arguably within the realm of private enterprise right now. The money NASA will save from scrapping their program will likely get spent contracting out to a private company, which will have the sole goal of getting people into space at the lowest price possible. A clear objective for a private company to make the most efficient decision. There are already several firms set up to be able to realistically do this in the next 5 years or so. Especially if they get more funding from NASA.

The reality of the situation is that manned spaceflight is not going to be profitable anytime soon without some reason for people to physically work in space. The only thing manned spaceflight really does right now is let us study the effects of manned spaceflight, which we understand pretty well already. This can be mostly accomplished in orbit on-board the ISS. The fact is, until we get to the point where we're ready to start colonizing Mars or we find Hydrogen-3 on the moon, it won't be cost effective to continue to train astronauts to do things in space that robots can do more safely and cheaper. Getting back to the moon and achieving something we did over 40 years ago would be counter-productive and very costly. What are we going to realize now, that we haven't realized since 1969? "OH SHIT, WE ACCOMPLISHED SOMETHING WE ACCOMPLISHED 40 YEARS AGO. WE CAN DO ANYTHING WE PUT OUR MINDS TO THAT WE'VE ALREADY DONE BEFORE."

This is really a good thing. The fact that we can even have a discussion about the feasibility of a commercial space industry. What other country can really say that? Any money NASA saves from scrapping the new rocket can be put towards studying the sun, or building telescopes, or researching new propulsion technologies, or developing cryo-stasis for when we have to launch 50,000 humans 50 light years away to the nearest habitable planet. (Sorry, I just watched Pandorum) But you get the point. The primary goal of NASA, at this point in time, should be researching technologies that will keep us ahead in the space race when technology catches up with what we expect out of the space program.

We've been spoiled with grand visions of the future and we think we live in a highly technological society. The truth of the matter is that we're nowhere near where we would like to believe we are and it's going to be quite awhile before any grand tangible goals in space can be accomplished. I like to call it 1980's Syndrome. If we focus on research it will help bring that day about sooner.

[Edited on January 30, 2010 at 6:10 AM. Reason : 1980's Syndrome]

1/30/2010 6:07:50 AM

^do you not realize that without a goal of sorts (such as getting back to the moon and to mars) the research will be haphazard and will not produce nearly the amount of usable technologies than a real mission would.

1/30/2010 10:11:26 AM

Quote :

"WE CAN DO ANYTHING WE PUT OUR MINDS TO THAT WE'VE ALREADY DONE BEFORE."

Nice. My thoughts exactly.

1/30/2010 10:12:59 AM

^^ I don't accept that as true.

It is also unclear to me that the technology we credit to the space-program would not have been invented otherwise (with the obvious exception of pure space technology, such as space-suits and the like).

1/30/2010 10:48:06 AM

I know.... let's shit-can a state of the art space shuttle fleet, and an armada of satellites and current space research to replace it with an even cheaper and reusable space fleet... in order to let some wild west cowboys launch us in their expirement bottle rockets into the upper atmosphere for 30 or 40 seconds.

1/30/2010 11:07:37 AM