H.R. 3057: To the Asteroids, Moon and Mars

apsmith writes "Democrats have just introduced the Space Exploration Act of 2003 to the U.S. House of Representatives; the author is Nick Lampson of Texas, with 26 co-sponsors. The bill sets a vision and goals for the future of NASA, beyond the Low Earth Orbit of the Space Station and Shuttle, outlining a series of incremental steps for human spaceflight. These include development of reusable spacecraft for carrying people around in the Earth-Moon vicinity, including to the nearby Lagrange points; sending people to an Earth-crossing asteroid; establishing a lunar base, and sending people to Mars with a base on a Martian moon by 2024."

Comments

Oh I get it.

[Elphin at Warcry]

At first I thought, "why is this specifically a Democrat issue"? Then I remembered the X-Prize. The private sector is about to put NASA outta business. THAT'S why Democrats are struggling to prop NASA up now. They don't want the government to lose control of space! Of course the way the Republicans have been acting lately, it's a wonder they didn't beat the Dems to it...

OT to an OT thread. ignore please

[dfenstrate]

France's activities are not the point, agreed. France was never more than an annoyance.

Maybe you missed the news coverage, but the war was quick and decisive. Perhaps you missed out on history, but 300 dead soldiers isn't alot, even for an occupation. Perhaps you never heard of the Nazis who continued to perform guerilla strikes well after Germany had surrendered? The experience in Iraq is not new, nor unexpected.

I personally never expected a quick occupation, seeing as how Japan and Germany took nearly a decade each, and they had a little more going for them. In addition, we're still in both countries 60 years later.

I did expect the United States military to execute a thorough, decisive victory, and they did exactly that. Around 300 soldiers dead? In terms of War, that's an unprecidented effeciency in human life. That may sound cold to the families of those 300 dead soldiers, but it doesn't sound like a lot to anyone except irrational Bush-haters.

As for a revenge tragedy, I would call it defense. In the two years since we lost 2 buildings to Islamic Terrorists, we took two of their countries. The afghanistan economy grew by 28% last year, showing the phenominal capacity of a society freed from medieval Islamic rule. Things are going well in Iraq, too, and the recent bombings in Iraq against a Mosque and the UN (the islamic terrorists only friends until then) show how desperate they are to stir chaos. The more desperate they are, the better it shows things are for us.

Basically, there's no shortage of delusion around here buddy. The Bush hating left has it in spades.