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NASA In Financial Trouble
JoeGee writes "And it's not the Russian Space Agency. According to the Associated Press, as reported on Yahoo, NASA is looking at 4 billion US dollars worth of budget over-runs through 2006. This isn't surprising, considering the lack of budget increases, and the continued financial pressure.
Never blame on budget cuts that which its more appropriately attributed to mismanagement, miscommunication, and misfortune.
"Open the pod by doors, Hal" > "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" sudo "Open the pod bay doors, Hal" > alright
Looks likes the possibilty of selling trips into space to people in the private sector may become a necessary reality.
It sure sounds bad for NASA, but I'm guessing one of their accountants just swapped a dollar sign with a British pound sign, and their math is off by a few billion.
One one hand, I feel good about this, because it will encourage space exploration in the private sector. If profit-driven research finds new, cheaper ways into space, I might be able to take that tourist cruise before I'm 60.
On the other hand, do we really want corporations in charge of space research?
Lawyer 1: Oh, I'm sorry. You can't launch a ramjet spacecraft because we've patented the math you need to achieve orbit.
Lawyer 2: Yeah? Well your Ion booster-jets are based on our technology. We'll raise our rates so that we can afford to sue you.
Lawyer 3: Well you're all screwed because my company has patented any spaceflight using vehicles constructed on the ground or in orbit.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Not to mention all the crap that keeps crashing into Mars. ;)
The US spends about 1 billion dollars per day on the military. That's what some drunk guy in a bar once told me, and that's a pretty good source.
If something doesn't profit right away, AXE it, cut it, or just leave it to stagnate.
Vision is dead.
Screw 3...
And when our oceans get seeded with alien life that migrates onto land and reproduces by shooting little hatchlings into us which can't be removed and we aren't able to move into space chandeliers because we don't have the expertise to build them because building space stations were a complete waste of money....what'll that guy be saying then?!
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis hebes
That just happends to be about how much more money I will see every 2 weeks in my pay check after the "tax break"
I can do without the money if it means human curosity can not be fullfilled....
Burn Hollywood Burn
Maybe they should look into letting all the Titos of the world get a crack at Alpha. At $20M a pop, they'll be under budget in no time...
F'ing Bush..
Why dont you complain to the people who allocate the money, ie: your congressmen. Bush tells them what he wants, and eventually signs the bill, but they have the opportunity to control and the policy.
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
1. Cut yourself back to two launches a year
2. On each of those launches have at least 1 paid tourist. Instead of having this person pay directly for the trip, have the price of their trip go directly into the coffers of lobbyists to work Congress and the public on your behalf.
3. Spend the next 10 years putting all the money you saved from those launches into R&D. Focus on Single-Stage-to-Orbit and a Manned Mars Mission. These things will save you.
4. Once you put a man on Mars, you're golden, untouchable. Use the momentum gained from that to put us off this single solitary pinprick of a planet forever.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
NASA is and has always been somewhat of a supporting agency to US armed forces, so stuff about its budgeting should be considered along with military budgeting issues.
Remember that Bush is demanding accurate accounting from the Pentagon now about its needs for the year- it won't budget deliberately expecting supplementary spending bills in the middle of the year. Every agency, including NASA, will have to have tight budgets from here on in.
This is a manner of managerial control; without secret expenditures, there can be no secret activity with government money. The same applies to NASA
Nasa's unprecedented reporting of its true budgetary situation fits clearly into political context here. It's jumping the gun with full financial disclosure as well as pressuring congresspeople and scientists who support it to raise more money for next fiscal year, even if it has to function under a tighter accounting.
Of course, this may be the start of more privatization of space. NASA can do much more with private money than it can with public money. Remember a lot of the funds in Iran-contra affair were originally private money.
Goat sex free since 2001
If you read what scientists could have done in terms of real science it'd make you cry.
Then NASA claims Tito can't visit because of safety concerns, concerns cause by, guess what, their unwillingness to train him for two days because they deceided at the last minute they needed to be re-imbursed training costs. Did they think he wouldn't pay? A naked ploy to keep him off the station, which not only backfired, but damaged whatever remaining reputation they had for honesty. They should have said, "We are not going to train you so that we can say it's too dangerous for you to go." instead of coming up with reams of BS.
Money that in 5 years NASA has flopped on this issue totally.
With the ISS, what makes it worse is that NASA has been blaming the russians, when the delay allowed them to catch some HUGE problems, including a return to earth problem with the gear they were sending up. Mix in the most attrocious budget forcasting imaginable, stir in a touch of arrogance and redacted astronought logs, and spit out giant boondogles.
Of course, all this will luke puny when compares to the fortunes spent persuing technicially infeasible missle defense systems.
This strategy to meet President Bush (news - web sites)'s budget would limit the international space station to a crew of three, its current number, rather than the intended six or seven. That would drastically curtail research aboard a laboratory described by NASA as the most sophisticated one ever flown.
Isn't this like the National Park Service's threats to close the Washington Monument in case of budget cuts? Target the most politically popular programs first, so Congress will restore all the money, instead of cutting less important stuff.
Of course, I would think they should cut back ISS as far as possible and use the savings for more unmanned missions around the solar system. But manned flight is popular, so we keep sending 'em up there to do that oh-so-valuable zero-gravity research.
sulli
RTFJ.
What really piss me off with this space station is that with the same budget we could have sent somebody to Mars. All this space station crap happens because NASA still believes into Korolev's vision: step by step exploration of space.
First you built a space station, then you built a permanent station on the Moon, and finally you can shoot for Mars.
Guess what. The lunar program just went directly to the Moon, without stopping at an expansive space station.
There are some similar project concerning Mars, but the space station eats of lot of money, so there's any left for such "farfetched" programs.
Even if it can be argued that the scientific fallouts of a Mars program and of the space station station are roughly equivalent, going to Mars is still a lot more exciting (read good PR) than this "just above our heads" station.
Nobox: Only simple products.
...how much will Dubya's revival of Star Wars cost, and will there be a 100% guarantee that nuclear weapons will not touch American soil as a result?
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Maybe this means that NASA will look into sending citizens into space now
That would be stupid. The total price of the trip (when including its part of the fixed costs) is much more than what he paid. Since these fixed costs have been paid, NASA needs to get as much research and testing done as possible for this money. Space Tourism the Tito way is not the way to go.
I don't think this is a Republican vs. Democrat issue. Neither side is championing space exploration or more NASA funding in anything other than a token way.
One problem is that it isn't as easy to answer the "What's the point?" question as it is for funding for life sciences research like fighting cancer, a vaccine for HIV, etc.
Why explore Mars? Personally I haven't a clue. Why try to find a cure for cancer? Because I might get it. When political pollsters get the mood of people I think Space Research is near the bottom of the list.
They've mistaken millimeters and inches in the past, perhaps it's dollars and sense this time.
----------------------------------------
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the former USSR (and present-day, Russia) has had exactly one casualty during a space flight. They are horribly underfunded, and lack a strong central government, like the USians have, but they've been far more successful in their space program.
What does this mean? Well, I'd say that throwing money at something doesn't always make it work. You could also say that Americans are lazy and lack the strong work ethic needed to overcome adversity. Additional funding will not solve NASA's problems.
"Technically, a cat locked in a box may be alive or dead." -Kurt Cobain
... and pray tell me who is going to analyse those Terabytes of data that your multimillion satellite has collected? And no, this is not a SETI@home project as image processing is data-intensive and the datapath and memory hierarchy within a PC is not exactly well tuned for these high throughput systems.
The NSA has similar issues in that irregardless of Echalon, they still need skilled analysts to interpret the information, computer filters notwithstanding. Could you perform a vegetation cover auto-correlation with the spatial extent and connectivity of basin drainage? If so, volunteer your computer and expertise.
LL
$97M = $0.097B. Less than one-tenth of a billion.
sulli
RTFJ.
The problem with NASA is that it's a juggernaut. It uses outdated technologies and procedures, and has a spending mentality that goes back to the sixties. Instead of trying to be tight and practical, they're asking for vast quantities of money to throw at poorly-realized projects.
They need to take a lesson from Aerospace corporations who have learned the hard way to slim down their operations and work more efficiently.
Got Rhinos?
The end result is that alot of alternatives to payload launchers, etc have been scrapped over the years.
Thus the primary mission of Nasa is to cover their butts and protect their jobs. Then to get something done.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
NASA will have to make due. At this point it is absolutely unreasonable for the Federal Government to ask taxpayers to provide more funds. If the Feds really wanted to supplement NASA, it could simply pick one of the many client states that receive billions of dollars a year in US military aid, cut them off, and bring the dollars home. May I suggest South Korea? Maybe Egypt.
Instead of just sending money, why not send them some recyclable bottles and cans? Hey, they could fill a shuttle booster with beer cans and take it up to Michigan where they pay more.
Bike enthusiasts could send last year's titanium frames.
And if you've got any hydrazine left over from the 4th of July, I'm sure NASA would take it. (Be careful how you ship it though, it's kinda unstable in the back of a UPS truck.)
Whenever a NASA article comes up on slashdot, the user comments always break my heart.
Fact: Good engineering is EXPENSIVE. Building, testing, and operating a manned spacecraft is a tad more complex than writing a perl script or configuring a linux kernel.
Add to those pressures a dwindling budget (a fraction of what it was during the Apollo era) and very little public support, even from those who would present themselves as forward-thinking technical types, and I'm frankly surprised that NASA's track record in the 1990s was as good as it was.
Alas, I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that modern American culture is probably incapable of supporting a serious and useful space program, and I can only hope that I am still alive, and useful, when other nations get their act together to pick up where we left off.
:Michael
Well, Nasa, quite honestly, works out to the ultimate missile defense system (well, lets neglect the fact that they directly help the military right now, I'm not looking at that ;) ). Colonization is the key to the indefinite survival of the human race. Right now, we can get an ICBM to any point on the planet in under 30 minutes. It is quite easy to destroy us all. Once we blanket space - not just close stars, but random, scattered outposts in the darkness, in the void... we become near impossible to destroy, if not completely impossible to destroy. Sure, we'll begin to diverge as a species in places... but. Some form of sentient life will carry on. That is the reason for NASA (in my opinion :) ).
:) (it was our fault a few years back).
-= rei =-
P.S. - I just have to add this - this time, its not the fault of the company I work for that NASA is over budget!!!
"This may be presumptuous..." "That's my favorite kind of 'This'."
Given that this is the "Now The Hendersons Have The Bomb" age, thanks to Russian nonchalance towards nonproliferation, we pretty much have a choice between strategic defense or massively building up the nuclear arsenal or surrender.
Communism fell, but everyone forgot to tell the Russians.
Maybe Star Wars will give us a real launcher program. SDIO was the last group working on one, before Clinton killed the group and turned over the launcher to NASA for strangulation and burial.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
40 years ago, we had a goal, or three. We were in a race with the russians, one that defined america's character, to a point. Space was the newest and niftyist thing out - everything in US culture there for a while somewhat focused around space, and what space could do for them.
Now that group of children have grown up, and as adults, have come to accept space travel as the norm. Nothing special about it, why spend money on it? There arent any more hyped-up goals. There really hasn't been. Closest thing in recent times was the hubble, and most people were too short-sighted to see the benefits of such a device. The IIS isnt generating the kinds of emotions from the public NASA should be looking for.
IMHO, what i think would be nice, to rekindle the "spirt" of the space program - go back to the moon. Go to mars. Send a human bean somewhere beyond the van allen belts, once again. The world has no more great adventures.
Maybe when the children and teenagers of the computer age reach their 30's and 40's, some of their knowledge and wonder generated by their youths will inspire them to create new adventures, and NOT be concerned with the financial aspects of every little thing.
I do agree though with those that say nasa is absorbing a lot of tax dollars - but so is the military (arguably). So are government employee overhead. I bet they all put premium unleaded in their lawnmowers, golf carts, and 400HP marital aids. Space is just one of several budget concerns, but it seems to be the one that always gets the most heat from the public, perhaps since its probably one of the newest broad-categorys of expense, and still considered "newfangled" by 50-something year old people who use GPS mapping, cell phones, satellite television, etc, etc, etc.
Slashdot something useful.
Management is not a tunable parameter.
I once considered drawing a few Captain Obvious comics :) Your typical looking superhero.. has a big "O" on his uniform, with, in subscript, the "bvious", just in case people couldn't tell. Has a secret identity, its him, still in uniform, just wearing glasses.
-= rei =-
"This may be presumptuous..." "That's my favorite kind of 'This'."
Don't knock the Mil spending. Its one of the few area's you can get funding for things that look even close to pure research - be that physics, biochem, whatever. It does not _HAVE_ to make a profit - the first time in is always expensive. If your lucky, the tech/knowhow will work its way back into your lives.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
They should just go through all their Mars research finding anything that could be interpreted as evidence for life on Mars, no matter how tenuous, and then make lots of press releases about it to agencies like CNN. They should also encourage their partners to do the same. All these stories are bound to catch the public eye and raise overall interest in, and willingness to spend on, space research.
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-- SIGFPE
And a big *ppbbffttt* to the moderators who don't have more constructive uses for their points than to mark me down. You make what is obviously a mistake and you get slammed. Geesh.
tokengeekgrrl
I don't think this is a Republican vs. Democrat issue. Neither side is championing space exploration or more NASA funding in anything other than a token way.
Space exploration really isn't a priority for congress. What is a priority is getting as many government projects for your home state as possible, this is the reason NASA is still in business. NASA has made it a point to spread their contracts all over this nation so that a large number of senators and representatives are benefiting politically. So while no one seems to care what NASA actually accomplishes in space, they care very much what NASA spends here on Earth.
The side effect is that without widespread public support, NASA is just another government program looking to get cut. I wonder how bad of a thing these cuts will be, a drop in budget could cause NASA to stop playing the political game and just focus on unmanned research. I'm all for manned space exploration but there's got to be a better way...
You forgot three who died on the pad with Apollo 7. The loss of Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee hit hard. That's the American side.
On the Soviet side, you missed no fewer than 170 deaths:
Komarov: 1967
Testers of Baikonur (you've probably seen the film of the explosion)
Gagarin and test-pilot Seryogin, lost in air flight in 1968)
Georgi Dobrovolksy, Vladislav Volkov, Viktor Patsayev, Soyuz 11, June 6, 1971 (died during re-entry)
Science is expensive, and pure research even more so. "Pure research" is the attempt to find out something without any other goal than the knowledge itself. That means there's no expected profits. Universities used to be the primary resource for this, but the way things have been the past couple decades, most research is done on behalf of a corporate sponsor, which means that 1) if you can't show a profitable motive for the intended result, you ain't doing it; and 2) If what you find upsets the sponsor, the plug is pulled quickly.
NASA has been incredibly successful, despite having both arms tied behind its back, one leg hobbled, the other knee immobilised, and forced to wear an eye patch AND headphones blaring N-SYNC and Shitney Spears 24/7.
The people who have died through their direct involvement in space programs all knew there were risks involved and were willing to take those risks. We can split hairs and say that no one told Krista McAuliffe that the Challenger was really a 1.5 million pound bomb, or that Apollo 7 wouldn't have burned if NASA read the label and followed the manufacturer's instructions, but they were still better informed than their Soviet counterparts.
Science ain't cheap, but when's the last time you thought about the price of ignorance?
woof.
"Eppur si muove" ("Nevertheless, it moves") -- supposedly said by Galileo after his recanting of his book.
One thing that I find scary about Bush's policies is this: have you looked at his budget? After passing a 1.3 billion dollar tax cut, his budget proposal for next year is almost exactly the same as this year's, just shifted around a bit (mostly little bits away from everything except defense, which gained a lot). In short... remember that budget surplus? Well, it's already spent, and we're spending into debt again.
Welcome back, Reaganomics!
-= rei =-
"This may be presumptuous..." "That's my favorite kind of 'This'."
You must not be aware of the tremendous list of technological achievements NASA made towards getting us to the moon, which have drastically improved our lives. Everything from integrated circuits to ketchup packets, from satellite communications technology to Tang. .V / _` (_-<_-<
.\_/\_/\__,_/__/__/
__ __ ____ _ ______
\ V
make world, not war
Hey, why not set up a PayPal account for 'em! ^_^
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1) Instead of disturbing the only biosphere we know of in the universe to mine metals and minerals here we could mine the nearby lifeless orbs. But only if we get to space. The environmentalists should be for this.
2) Deconstruction of molicules one atom at a time and the construction of other molicules at all require microgravity or less. We currently have plenty of opportunity to do this *ONLY* if we want to pay attention to one disease/issue at a time and if the correct people, as opposed to the politically empowered people, get to do the research. A large accessable habitat at an Legrange point is needed to address the medical needs of the world today. All the cancer-x vs. cancer-y vs. AIDS people should be demanding space in space for research.
3) Generating power in space is "better". It (again) doesn't impact the biosphere and solar can work nicely and if we could GET OUT OF LOW EARTH ORBIT the whole "what about when it falls out of the sky" garbage goes away because things don't fall here after a certain distance. So the ecology people and the Californians should be for space right now, with the rest of us to follow.
4) Spending money on space stuff is like getting to spend your money twice or more while shelling it out only once. The thermous bottle, kevlar, and countless things we use every day around the world were invented in the persuit of space. This is a bargan and a half, the budget concious and the cheap should be behind going to space.
5) In space things like air are commidities. For the first time ever air is a comodity (sp?). Think of the new markets for the old products... The business people should be for going into space.
6) Some fraction of everything we make up there has to come down here and be spread around, and some fraction of everything we make down here has to be gathered up and sent up there. The shipping and receiving people and the Teamsters(tm) should be for establishing ourselves in space.
7) Real estate.... need I say more?
8) Space is really big! We would have someplace to put all extra population. The Catholic Church and the anti-choice lobbies should be for space. So should all the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) people on virtually every topic. Once again, if you send garbage high enough it doesn't come back down.
9) Space is really big! (again) So if we had colonies on the moon and mars you would finally have a place to move to or send your inlaws to that is far enough away for them not to be comming by or calling you up on the phone. You know who you are if this one applies to you, and you should be for space exploration.
10) In space vacuum is free and the value of free suction and the varried possible uses for same boggles the immagination.
You think I am joking but I am not. (ok, maybe number 9 and 10 were a bit over the top.) Everything in our entire sphere of experience as a species has to do with occupying and controling space here on earth. It should surprise nobody that space not-here-on-earth and the acqusition, occupation, and control of same is a natural progression, a NECESSARY progression. Not only is the total value of being there quite high, the total value of the work involved in getting there is higher than you might immagine.
Remember, if they do invent a cure to cancer, and it has to be made in micro or near-zero gravity then, if we don't have the manufacturering facilities up there already only a dozen people every six months (or so) will be able to get/afford to be cured. You think AZT costs a nut? Wait till Pfizer(etc) gets to mark up the cost of your colon-cancer treatment pack that has to be made, or god forbid *administered*, at L5.
--
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Now the other major cost is their management structure. Let me inform you their engineers ergo the people really doing the work, are way under-paid. The going rate at Nasa is about 1/2 the industry rate. SO you end up with the older good engineers waiting for retirement being overworked and a bunch of college graduates who can't function without matlab holding their hands.
EXACTLY CORRECT! The easiest way to tell the difference between competent and incompetent NASA engineers: After one year, the incompetent engineers are still working with NASA. Actually, some of the old guys are pretty sharp, but just about any engineer at NASA under 50 years old has to be either really dedicated to space exploration or such a bad engineer they can't get work in the real world.
Before I did projects for NASA, I never met anyone who thought of LabVIEW as an excellent programming language for mission critical embedded controllers. God's own truth. There are "engineers" at NASA who can not do with a $5000 industrial embedded PC running LabVIEW on Windows what can easily be done by a real engineer with a $5 M68HC05.
Could be a troll, but oddly enough it's still the majority attitude in America. Just look at the popularity of the Fox News Channel.
Actually, the real goal of NASA is to get to Alpha Centauri before the Zulus do.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
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Both you and the people who modded you up need need to go back and retake some of your high school civics courses.
The President doesn't just "eventually sign the bill", he also has the ability to veto it. He also has the ability to control administrative policy. All of this gives him emormous leverage over Congress, because he can threaten to veto bills that are highly important to the districts (and thus careers) of individual Congressmen, unless they give him what he wants.
Even in the highly divided Congress we have today, Congress gave Bush most of what he asked for. Clinton was even more effective, considering he faced hostile majorities in both houses.
Whether you are cheering for NASA's demise, or reacting in horror to their budgetary problems, this was Bush's decision. (Or someone he delegated it to.)
Regardless, the whole situation doesn't help NASA's already existing difficulties in securing funding.
- tokengeekgrrl
> Not only did he advocate building a stadium at the public expense, he made a shitload of money off it happening, when he sold his team with a shiny new stadium.
References to Goober Bush aside, I think it is an outrage, the way teams have been blackmailing cities with the "buy me a new stadium or I'll go somewhere else" scam.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Just a few examples of the useless stuff that we've attained from NASA and the military. Though I should mention it after reading some of these posts... After all, pure research is worthless and expensive, and if the military does it, well then, it must be bad.
Plastic, modern ceramics, nuclear power, fuel efficient car engines, wireless anything, teflon, semiconductors and superconductors, transistors, the Internet, microwave ovens, GPS, computers, engine emissions scrubbers, and more and more....
So lets cut research, great idea. Way to invent things that people haven't already thought of, because we all know that we got were we are by improving existing things.
As I stated, I misread 97 to be 970 and apologized for my error. I know perfectly well how much is in a billion and the waste of government agencies. NASA is one of the only agencies I had hoped was more careful with their spending since it consists of mainly scientists and academics, and not politicians.
And now we all know you're really an asshole, not like there was any doubt to begin with. Bugger off.
- tokengeekgrrl
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Here's an interesting article:
"I'm on board with them that a supplemental appropriation -- $300 million or so -- is required to maintain value of the ISS project. But I'm coming to think that in exchange, the space industry should be forced to confront reality and see that their problems aren't caused by Bush, they're caused by a consistent policy of make-believe and tolerance of mismanagement. Acknowledgement of that -- and a sound get-well plan -- strike me as a reasonable requirement for approval of the extra moneys. But at the rally there was no trace of any notions that the problems were self-inflicted, or that it wasn't much more fun to blame yet another outsider for the mess NASA finds itself in. That was the saddest part of the event -- that and the pitiful, exploited 8-yr-olds with the anti-Bush posters."
http://www.nasawatch.com/jsc/06.30.01.meeting.note s.html
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
You've got taxpayer dollars being spent to study cow farts.
You've got industrial defense contractors in key Congressional districts being given billions of dollars to build aircraft carriers that the Navy doesn't even want.
And then you've got NASA, whose budget is a fraction of one percent of the total federal outlay, and that's what these "waste-watchers" complain about.
Jesus suffering fuck. Sometimes people baffle me.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
The problem with Star Wars, though, is that the real threat isn't from an ICBM from a rogue state (such as N. Korea or Iraq or Libya), but from terrorist NBC (Nuke/Bio/Chem) weapons, which are man portable.
How is Star Wars going to protect anyone from a suicide bomber with a suitcase nuke?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
NASA's hard times are in part due to it's success, the Gee Whiz isn't there as much as it once was, not the questions hitting NASA are, "So where's the profit in it?" Land on Mars, big deal, it'll be 50 years before anyone's actually commercially exploiting Mars. Americans too often expect instant results and it's just not there, especially with a 2 year trip to the red planet (July 10th news: Launched rocket, August 10th, still going, Sept 10th, everything going fine, January 10th Astronaut invents revelutionary new version of Freecell, March 10th, still going well, July 10th, celebrate halfway there, September 10th , still going...yawn)
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
NASA's monopoly on America's interests in space is killing the industry. While the cost to fly commercial airlines has declined 40% from the 1970's since deregulation (putting air travel within reach of the working man), and the cost to ship oil has similarly declined from $7 a barrel to $1 (I don't know of a time when it was ever regulated), the cost per pound to put stuff in space has gone from somewhere around $3,800 during the 60's to around $6,000 with NASA's numbers or $35,000 with what some people think are the REAL numbers (inflation adjusted of course) (sources: David Gump "Space Enterprise: Beyond NASA", Alex Roland of Duke).
NASA has rejected several attempts in the past to privatize portions of the industry (American Rocket in the 70's and Space Industries in the 80's). In Reagen's Commerce Department, a call went out to the private sector to look at the feasability of making a moon base. The answer came back that yes it could be done with the budget given, but not with NASA! Special Interests put an end to that plan.
NASA is a blight on the space industry and a hinderence to American comercial dominance above the atomosphere. I'm sure the Europeans and Chinese love the thought of NASA crippling itself with cost overruns...
It's time to cut NASA loose, and let private industry do to commercial space enterprises what they did to computing, shipping, airline travel, etc.
What good is a baby? they make a mess, they wake you up in the middle of the night, they drain your pocketbook, and all they do is sit there and make noises and mess themselves all day long. I say we kill all the babies, because theyre useless and a huge drain on society. Think of all the other more worthy things people could spend their money on if there werent any babies.
You dont see the value of the ISS now, nobody does, its just been born. The technology will advance, and just as babies grow up to become valuable members of society, the ISS will grow up to become a valuable scientific outpost, if people will keep from offing it.
Second, why is the Federal government funding education? That is a local/state issue. Federal funding takes more money from the states (in the form of less ability to tax their own citizens) and throws it into the government waste bin, out of which only some 27 cents on the dollar returns to actually be used in schools!
Jonathan Kozol is an education activist and has been a a teacher in some of the poorest schools in the country. What does he say?
More of this speech.Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
Trying? you do realize that the US occupies most of western europe, and all of japan, and the middle east, and the phillipines, and korea. We have military bases all over the place. We rule the world. Just look at what happened when we pulled out of kyoto: Europe made some indignant noises and called on japan and the rest of uerope to sign the treaty on their own, now japan looks like it will pull out too. Any agreement or action by the international community has to have US support if it hopes of getting enacted, end of story.
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Hey install a electric chair in the new spacestation and I'll bet Bush will be more than ready to throw a lot of money their way.
I am sorry that we can't execute him today, the chair is solar powered.
Solar powered, when will people learn,,
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I love how the right wastes its moderation points suppressing political statements.
--Blair
"The second thing the Nazis did was outlaw guns. The first was to bomb the opposition press. Six years later, they hijacked the government (cf. November 2000). Then they outlawed the guns."
Yeah right, like they're going to cut the damn budget for NASA. Look who the president is. GWB. Republican. Big spender. Nuff said.
Well, Nasa, quite honestly, works out to the ultimate missile defense system (well, lets neglect the fact that they directly help the military right now, I'm not looking at that ;) ). Colonization is the key to the indefinite survival of the human race. Right now, we can get an ICBM to any point on the planet in under 30 minutes. It is quite easy to destroy us all. Once we blanket space - not just close stars, but random, scattered outposts in the darkness, in the void... we become near impossible to destroy, if not completely impossible to destroy. Sure, we'll begin to diverge as a species in places... but. Some form of sentient life will carry on. That is the reason for NASA (in my opinion :) ).
:) (it was our fault a few years back).
-= troll =-
P.S. - I just have to add this - this time, its not the fault of the company I work for that NASA is over budget!!!