Big Changes In Proposed U.S. Space Budget

Guppy06 writes: "CNN has this article on some of the effects of Bush's budget proposal would have on the space program. To make a long story short, funding for the manned space program is being trimmed (there's talk about outsourcing the shuttle program) and some high-profile missions to the outer solar system have been cut (say good-bye to the Pluto-Kuiper Express). On the flip side, nuclear propulsion research is getting a boost. Love it, hate it, some big things seem to be in store." The Planetary Society has their reaction to the budget proposal. And because it's been submitted several times: the ISS suffered a computer outage but all is well now.

Comments

bad news for science

[supernova87a]

President Bush seems to forget that pure scientific research has been the most productive driver of American prosperity in the last 200 years. So many of the technologies we enjoy today are a result of research that, at the time of funding, could not be directly justified. Hopefully, universities and research institutions will be able to get through this budget crunch time intact, but the blow to students and scientists seeing their field attacked may be much more severe, I'm afraid.

I think that the most astronomy that's going to get done in these next few years is astronomy by the Air Force, with satellites that are pointing down at the Earth, instead of up at the skies. There never seems to be a shortage of funding for those projects, even though diverting 1% of that money would probably save NASA and the US space research program.

Space for Profit

[Com2Kid]

We gotta start making some MONEY up there damnit.

It is not like it cannot be done, the main issue (and granted a huuuge one) would be to build the initial stations in space for handling of various extracted resources.

Hell there are 8 other planets in this solar system, why do we have to tear apart ours? There are some darn valuable resources up there, *taps lycos on the head* go get'em!

Seriously though, hhhuuuge startup costs, but scaled, not likely too much more then the initial startup costs of getting resources from the "New World" way back when.