O'Keefe Under Fire for Hubble, ISS Decisions

chuckpeters writes "The battle over saving Hubble is just starting to heat up! The House Science Committee Democrats released their views and estimates report. Recommendation number two was that until Congress gets better information on the long term costs of Bush's Moon/Mars initiative, NASA's 2005 funding requests should go to existing programs. The House Science Committee has also decided that they want to hear from outside experts on Bush's space initiative. Just as Hubble isn't going quietly into the night, Bush's Moon/Mars plan isn't going quickly into space!"

Comments

follow the money...

[Roger Keith Barrett]

Has anyone looked into what outside contractors stand to benifit from a trip to Mars?

Does Halliburton have a space division? (Maybe they will charge 20x more than usual for each packet of Tang and freeze-dried iced cream!)

Re:We need Mars

[Ars-Fartsica]

I think we need a manned Mars mission badly,

Good thing we are already there, doing research. What else do you want? Do you want to go there? Why? The costs are ridiculous, the technology unavailable, and the results dubious. In fact humans are vastly inferior to robots for data collection, which is what any scientific mission is going to amount to unless you intend to fly the entire staff and facilities of the JPL, CalTech, various NASA labs etc. Unless you think you can stand in one place unattended for a week awaiting orders, you may want to consider giving the rock collecting job to a disposable robot.

I am convinced that the ultimate result of this wrangling will be a far more realistic view of the facts regarding human exploration in space. Far too many of society's views have been shaped by media (scifi etc) that portrays space travel as healthy, fruitful, and inevitable.

See anti-slash.org--this is a repost

[Overly Critical Guy]

People, this is a troll repost from anti-slash.org.