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Congress Cuts NASA's Budget On Apollo Anniversary
colonist writes "A House appropriations subcommittee voted to cut NASA's budget request by 7 percent on the 35th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's first steps on the Moon. The panel also cut environment and science programs, but increased funding for veterans' affairs. NASA would get $15.1 billion next year, $229 million below this year and $1.1 billion below the President's request. Most of the cuts are on new initiatives. The subcommittee is the first step of a long budget process and major changes to the bill are expected."
FTA: A House appropriations subcommittee voted to cut NASA's budget request by 7 percent on the 35th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's first steps on the Moon.
I believe this happened for a few reasons:
1. War
2. Sympathy
3. Elections
War: The spending on the war has caused so many problems in the US that it's hard to fathom any budget increases for any program, other than a military one. Take into account the huge chunk of cash moved into Iraq and you have yourself some questions. Is it prudent to be offering extra money to spend on space when so much money is going to killing resistance fighters, terrorists and occasional Iraqi civilians? Not to mention the costs of rebuilding the country that was bombed into the stone age, for whatever reason.
Sympathy: Dogbert says that if you want to get more funding, you should have your funding publicly slashed and burned for about a year. The sympathy you get will cause your funding increases to double in the next year, and the year after that. Part of the problem with getting new funding is that the old funding can be perceived as too fat if it hasn't been cut recently. Having funding cut will help obfuscate your motives for even more padding in the years to come.
Elections: By cutting the funding to NASA, this will show people that it's an election year and it's important to vote. I'm not sure which party will benefit from these cuts more, yet it's important for everyone that more people go and vote. People everywhere love NASA for their space exploration because most human beings want to pretend they can be members of a space faring race, like on Star Trek. NASA's human rights injuries, be damned.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Sorry
How does this have anything to do with Apple ?. I thought this was Slashdot news from Apple.
I guess NASA will not be using those million dollar wrenches anymore.
It saddens me to see our proud government to decrease the investment in R&D, especially an institution like NASA which has produced some great technologies. This tech has now found its way into every-day use.
But instead we increase our military spending and restricts our citizen's rights and freedoms, for no sensible reason.
Yes, Osama has won, and our leaders are too dumb to realize it.
I would rather scrap the majority of other programs and focus on Man on Mars Mission.
But most likely not any changes that will actually help NASA.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Until they detect signs of oil on Mars, this trend will unfortunately continue.
It is unfortunate that the "leading" nation in the world has taken this step backwards. At a time when space exploration requires a major boost and research into space colonization as well as cheaper travel technology needs to be the priority, the cut might slow down these efforts. More worrying than the NASA budget cut is that of "environment programs". At a time when new inroads need to be made into environment presercation technology and practices, this cut may stall new developments
...is why we'll never make it to the moon or mars with the gov't: we're not prepared to pay the price.
I hold out hope for private enterprise, but that's still decades away.
In other news, Congress is now sponsoring the "Y-Prize", which awards 1M to the first private spaceship that safely lands on Mars surface.
They're also outsourcing NASA jobs to India, I guess.
Face it, during an election cycle, lawmakers would rather be percieved as budget-minded tax cutters than bold visionaries. If any major funding for NASA is to come, it will have to be shortly after the election, when a president is in a better position to advocate major change.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
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Well when taxes are lower, spending has to be cut somewhere. Many programs want more money, many people want more programs, many people (and corporations) want less taxes (there was a story in today's Chicago Trib about some new super-corporate-freeforall-taxloophole bill today, kinda disheartening, our government is 0wn3d).
Like the MS Word issue, where people with unrealistic demands drive software bloat, the unrealistic demands of people drive deficit spending.
And we elect the nice members of Congress to balance these needs. Better them than me.
sorry I support NASA to the end,
but they waste a lot of money, and i dont mean the "toilets, or wrenches" garbage.
I mean they are a large organization and its a government entity, they waste tons of money in managers talking to each other.
I think every government budget should be slashed, from schools to police. FORCE them to be efficient.
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There's a whole bunch of us who aren't 35+ and can't discuss where we were when it happened. It sucks.
Do I feel left out? Nope, because I can distinctly remember where I was during the O.J. white bronco chase.
Plus we went there 35 years ago and never went back. Why? Because it's boring up there.
and now Tom with the weather...
I doubt the US would have put men on the moon, if they were not scared to death that the russians would get there first. I saw an interview with Buzz Aldrin last night, where he pretty well said as much, saying that this was an element of the cold war that they had won. How sad. And once this was accomplished, the budget was cut, despite the fact they had the Saturn V's in mass production at the time, and could have finished the planned missions for a relatively small cost. The NRE was over, and next Apollo rocket and crew was primed and ready to go. Go watch "2001 a space odyssey" (released in 1970) to see where it was widely thought we should have been by 2001.
Setting foot on another world was THE #1 defining moment of human civilization. 10,000 years from now, when we are hopefully spread across the galaxy, what historial event will stand out? A revolution in country X, a war in country Y? The raize and fall of empire Z? No, it will be the first steps off our home planet.
I can only hope in the next few years China makes a dash for Mars, and the west feels a need to upstage them. We should have been there by now.
My rights don't need management.
Let's face it, the American people (on average, not your typical US Slashdot reader - I hope) just do NOT get the fact that you have to HAVE money to SPEND money. Apparently being suckled on credit cards has removed that concept from peoples' minds.
With Bush's multiple rounds of slashing taxes, that means we have LESS to spend. We've got record budget deficits and we have to cut spending correspondingly. Period.
So if you like deep tax cuts, quit whining about budget cuts. This is what the results are - the government HAS to spend less or we're simply pissing in our own well.
Whine all you want about "But they could just cut (Program-I-Don't-Care-About) instead!" The problem is that every other program has their own segment of the population screaming about the exact same thing.
Maybe some nation that understands the concept of debit/credit ledgers can get to Mars instead, and send us a postcard.
Sad.
The 'space program' needs a complete re-think.
Surely some focus and purpose could be brought to the opportunity presented by all that money and 40 YEARS NEWER technology by some new people.
Time for less bureaucracy and more entrepreneureal risk-taking. How incredibly gutsy was it to go to the moon riding on 1960's technology? NASA has done nothing like it since.
You, lp, are probably beyond redemption. For the rest of the irony-challenged contingent of Slashdot readers, here's a clue: nerds would prefer a space program to prayer, although they know they don't have to choose. It looks like you, lp, are going to have to rely on prayer, as your intellect won't be getting you off the ground.
--
make install -not war
Well, that's the current political climate down here on earth. Much more interested in taking over earth. No money for NASA, how much did Iraq cost?
But don't worry, they'll find more money again once Bush is re-elected and Iran is the next big "terrorist threat".
I am a fervent liberal, but Republicans claim to be about smaller gov, and less taxes. Well, the tax cuts enacted earlier warranted great cuts in programs. I don't like seeing the space and science budgets cut, being a fervent liberal, but hey, they need to do things right, and it's about time. I have an 8 month old daughter and she will be paying for the sins of this administration for a long time after I am (possibly) retired. What they need are massive cuts around the board to protect her. They want to do big tax cuts, it needs to come out someplace. I am of the opinion, however, that the federal government should be nothing more than international relations and international science (these would include space exploration and military), and that would greatly reduce our national taxes. All other things should vary from state to state, and that would enable each state to model its own economy and laws that could overwrite the federal ones. Smoke up!
I think that Congress has the impression that more research should be done by the private sector. I tend to lean toward Libertarian values, but I can see how funding NASA helps us all.
After all, NASA doesn't need to turn a profit on its research. When the private sector pumps billions of dollars into something it's expecting to get billions in return. So why search for things that (seemingly) won't turn a profit right away.
NASA has benefitted this country so much its sad to see Congress shoving it aside. I guess they're hoping to offshore NASA.
This is just the first of the hard cuts that will have to happen to have social security for the baby boomers as they start to retire.
It's a shame this matter isn't being seriously addressed this election.
Yeah, but I sure as hell want to be able to say "I was there when it happened", talking about a manned mission to mars, be it onboard or in front of the tv... Well, all hope's not lost, ESA's "Aurora" Programm still runs fully as expected. Might well be that Europe will send the first men and women to mars... Would be ironic, don't you agree?
we will not make it to mars or back to the moon. I really think that the next time an American steps on another planet it will be a private effort or as a passenger on another countries missions.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Is that me, the voter, has no control over it. I never get to say what I think about something like this. Sure I could send a letter, but its never read, some staffer puts it in the "against" pile for this issue, and since its not well publicized, the politicians will ignore the letters on it. "Not representative of all constituents."
Sure I could vote for someone who says they won't cut the nasa budget....but when was the last time you heard a politician say that? Also, there's no guarantee a particular politician will ever be on the correct committee to cut/not cut the budget.
Its all very frustrating, but thats the price of our system I suppose. I still think its the best system around.
Moo.
Oh, boy. I just know I'm going to get killed here, but in IMHO Nasa has done more to harm space development in the US than anyone else. For decades, they went way out of their way to thwart private space ventures, and frankly, they invested in a lot of of programs that had awfull returns for the money. Do I even need to mention the two downed space shuttles, the hubble mirror, or the the ft vs meter fiasco for the mars mission? IMHO, if you love space, you should hate NASA and all the godawfull bureauocracy that has come with it. They're presence just keeps something better from replacing them.
While you have some valid points regarding environmental research, I just can't see how this country can justify spending so much money ($11B!) on space programs, when so many of it's citizens are starving and dying in the streets. Can you imagine how much even 1/10th of that budget could do to help raise the standard of living?
It's like putting your parents in an old-folks home as a golden wedding anniversary present. Oh well....worse things have happened.
I live in Huntsville, AL--Rocket City USA.
There's nothing sadder than engineers who've been chomping at the bit for years wanting to do some *real* space work hearing about Bush's Mars plan, maybe even getting to work on preliminaries, and knowing that it's all a political game and nothing will ever actually get off the ground.
I don't think we should give money to schools, exactly - I think we should spend more on education though, by building new schools in order to reduce class sizes. Some children (myself included, when I was in school) need more attention than you can get in a class of 30 students with only one teacher.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"As any economist will tell you, and as all you Linux people know, a monopoly of any kind is bad, and NASA has one on SPACE."
Hi, coward. This is the rest of the world; we took slight umbridge at the implication that NASA is the only space agency, and we'd like to invite you to check out Ariane, Long March and Huygens.
And it's 'monoculture'.
"but in order to do that it must obey the same laws as business and NASA will never do that."
You mean like charging people for satellite launch, repair and retrieval? Yeah, they'd never do that.
OTOH, I really like your thinking. California's never had power supplies this good, Litigation is at an all-time low and the media isn't trying to position itself as a government protected subscription outfit. no siree. None of that happening.
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
Forty years ago, we looked to the stars and put flags on the moon.
Now we spend all our time worrying about countries that tend to put the moon and stars on their flags.
"Skill shows through where genius wears thin." -Wittgenstein || Religion: uniting aviation and architecture.
Bunch of freeloaders...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
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And of course, the vote went along party lines. The 6 Republicans, led by Young, voted for the cuts; the three Democrats, led by Obey, voted against. At least they gave more veterans benefits than the pittiance that Bush requested....
Still, there's no way that this will remain in its current form. I can't imagine even the Republican-dominated house supporting this.
Windmills do not work that way!
In order to pay for Bush's deficits over the past 4 years, NASA would have to have its budget COMPLETELY taken away for about the next 50 years.
So enjoy those tax rebate cheques folks, the money had to come from somewhere.
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
Read the article carefully... The subcommittee recommended a budget for NASA of $15.1B, which is $229M below last year's budget of $15.329B. That means the subcommittee cut last year's budget by 1.49 percent. They did, however, cut NASA's requested budget, including a requested increase over last year, by 7 percent.
The Big News Page
According to the national debt clock, the U.S. is $7.2 trillion in debt. Even if you ignore the gov't-purchased "IOU" bonds, we're just about half that in debt. And of course, the entire Social Security system is running headlong into disaster. More budget cuts, please. Cut everybody. Defense, Space, Research, Healthcare, Retirement Benefits, Student Funding, Habitat Development, etc. We can't afford this any more. And to everyone here crying about these cuts: you are the problem.
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." -Voltaire
The idea of having states control schools, etc., and not having the Federal Government control as much as it does today, was the original idea in this country. The Federal Government expanded its power with money: raising taxes to the point that states couldn't raise their own money without bankrupting their people, and then being the benevolent provider, giving money to the states for programs IF they did how the Feds pleased. This isn't entirely without benefit (and some stupid restriction that they put on funding would probably have been written into law by many states anyway, as would some wise restriction), but in my opinion it's not a very honest way of doing business. If the Federal Government went back to what they were originally designed to do, it would just move the problems around, push the vegetables around the plate. It wouldn't give NASA or anything else more money overall because taxes would have to be much lower.
Vietnam escalated after the majority of the Apollo costs were spent. Although, I agree, the main problem is the cut in tax revenue at the same time as a costly venture (war) was launched.
Windmills do not work that way!
In true proto-geek fashion I listened to "That's one small step..." on a crystal set.
The earliest mission I remember with any clarity is Apollo 8. In typical 7 year-old fashion I thought it would really suck to be away from home on Christmas Day.
The world forgot about space after Apollo 11, probably helped by the general lack of live video from Apollo 12. Pointing fancy new tv cameras at the Sun will do that. :-(
The world noticed Apollo 13.
After that nobody cared. NASA axed Apollo 18, 19 and 20. After Apollo 17 (no real media coverage, but great pictures in National Geographic), NASA decided it was more fun to go around in circles, and, with minor exceptions, that's all they've done since.
Sad.
...laura, space geek from very early on
Due to budget cuts, NASA has scaled back it's shuttle replacement program. Snip: 'Our new Space Shuttle design will be based on a modified Geo Metro. We feel using the Metro as a base will increase reliability and safety, while at the same time reducing the cost of production and fuel expenses.'
Apparantly NASA plans to use the Metro's excellent gas mileage to reduce the cost of orbital flights. When asked why they didn't consider using a hybrid vehicle, NASA replied: 'The cost of development is too high for our budget. Plus, those batteries have to be replaced every 10 years at a cost of $2000 a piece. This is simply out of our price range.'
Astronauts are furious at the selection, stating the Metro's horrible acceleration and pathetic top speed. 'It used to take us 8 1/2 minutes to achieve orbit, now it's a 12 hour trip' It's not like there are any rest stops on the way. I'm sure they won't be planning any vacations on the moon anytime soon either.
Juusssst kidding!
Better hope the current landers exploring mars have a duracell bunny close. With this budget if they don't keep going and going NASA won't have much to do for the next few years..
I like muppets.
Now reality sets in. All the talk and good publicity is over. The media has moved on to newer "news" like Jenna Bush sticking her tongue out at reporters and the latest Hollywood romances that has the people back to their glazed over state. Congress gets the job of deciding how to make up for the hundreds of billions we've spent on Iraq and anti-terror efforts and doesn't really have many options for cutting the budget at this point. So NASA gets hung out to dry once more, and Bush suffers little (if any) bad press. After all, he didn't cut the budget!
God...I hate politicians so much. And not just one party either. They'll all say anything to get re-elected.
-Shadow
Mod me down, and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Just because you don't agree doesn't mean I'm wrong, and I think this is a very real issue. Believing that the two things are unrelated is lying to yourself. There is no such thing as a bad coincidence.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Oversized military? We have approximately 1.2 million service people, in WWII we had we had close to 20 million. Weigh that against the population at the time being less than 200 million and it being close to 400 million now and you would have to be blind, stupid and arrogant to believe the military hasn't been cut to high heaven over the last 50 years. North Korea has 5 times as many military personel as we do, even Saddam had more people on the ground than us. The military has been the liberals whipping boy since Vietnam, so don't gimem this "The military is oversized" BS.
If you support space exploration then; WRITE YOUR FRICKIN' CONGRESSMEN AND SENATORS AN EMAIL AND TELL THEM THAT YOU DO! Part of participating in democracy is not just voting for the boobs but also telling them what you want them to do!
The thing is, Vietnam crippled the US financially for a generation or more; we would have been much, much more likely to keep going with Apollo (or its successor programs, which were quite well planned out at the time -- my Dad worked for NASA at the time, and talks quite bitterly about all the development that got done and then canceled because the war kept eating up all the available money) if it hadn't been for that giant fiscal sinkhole. And it wasn't just the space program that got crippled, of course, but all kinds of other ambitious ideas -- it is probably not too hyperbolic to say that the Great Society drowned in the Mekong.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
It's sad to see legions of /.ers using semiconductor-based memory, microprocessors, and advanced networking technology to diss the achievements of the Apollo program.
We got more out of NASA than Tang and some rocks, boys.
(Personal note: my earliest memory that I can date accurately is being five years old, watching Neil and Buzz hop around the LEM on that late Sunday evening.)
"Skill shows through where genius wears thin." -Wittgenstein || Religion: uniting aviation and architecture.
We go to Mars, put up one flag. w00t.
Go to Mars with an international group. Put up a hundred different flags. Causing a hundred times the environmental trauma to Mars' previously virgin soil!
Won't somebody think of the underground microorganisms' children!?!??!
NASA's human rights injuries, be damned.
There is pleanty to critisize about the government, so lying to support a tenuous point is hardly necessary. The link you supplied discusses abuses foisted on the American public by the Pentagon and a few other government agencies. NASA is mentioned once, in passing, with no direct references or credibile, verifiable sources to support their inclusion. The phrase you chose to reference the link directly implies otherwise.
Yes, Congress has to deal with paying for the outrageousness of the Bush administration's poor decisions regarding Iraq, and personally I think that is the real driving issue, along with the medicare fiasco. The rest is complete supposition. While I don't doubt some find it interesting, there's no need to create contention by being dishonest when we already have more than enough to go around.
My people, who bleed through the open check we your government write on, It is of grave importance to the Republican Corpor... er Government that we continue spending initiatives.
I am here to tell you of the threat Mars holds in shielding Al Queda training camps and Weapons of Mars Distruction.....
This is just the first of the hard cuts that will have to happen to have social security for the baby boomers as they start to retire.
.12 = 3% of your income) is being used for general spending -- it is a effectly an extra tax people under 80K are paying that those who are making millions don't. If we wanted to "shore-up" social security, we should stop using this money to pay the national debt; and start investing it.
Saying that we have to cut NASA funding to fund baby boomers is pure nonsense. The difference between what the boomers will need (in the trillions of dollars) is far far less than the NASA budget). Now... if you want to cut the military, you could make some headroom. But you mentioned social security; so,
Right now the social security "surplus" (about 25% of your payroll taxes, or 25% *
Where to invest billions of dollars? I'll tell you. In education, especially healthcare and initiatives for keeping care of retires. Why?
Well, its simple economics. In another 10-20 years the demand for retirement services (esp. nurses and doctors who specialize in geriatrics) will be fixed -- determined by the increasing retirement age. At that time, the supply will also be fixed, since it takes several years to "learn" someone a nursing degree (from High school all the way through). So, the price will be fixed, and we will have to raise taxes to cover that price. If we work hard at increasing the supply of services now (since they take many years to build-up), we will still pay a price, but a lower price, and hence we won't have to raise taxes as much. Further, if the money is used for general education, the average american will have more skills, and will need less time (due to productivity) to cover the needs of their parents and grandparents.
In short, we should not be using this 3% tax to pay for revenue lost from the estate tax and lower capital gains. We should be investing this 3% into education for the next generations of Americans. Education is the answer, and one frequently overlooked.
This is the typical trend of NASA and its budget requests, although a 7 percent cut is a little steep. This is also a big part of the reason why NASA is such a lame duck. Yes, they have had some excellent missions, Galileo, Cassinni, Spirit and Opportunity, but they've all cost way too much.
:)
Private space ventures, like Scaled Composites, have been able to reach the space boundary for very little money: $20 million. As the Economist pointed out, "NASA can't even launch a kite for 20 million dollars." The right stuff has been missing from NASA and Congress both for decades, and there's no reason to believe that either is suddenly going to be able to cut the fat and actually be efficient with anything.
What worries me about this is that it may (though I really don't know) kick NASA between the legs hard enough that people become even more disenchanted with it. Why should they be excited for an organization that spends 15 billion dollars a year on projects that should cost 150 million? And produces about as much? Then space exploration as a whole loses its luster, and private corporations, who are actually doing something useful, are hurt. From talking with them, it seems the majority of engineers working for these start-up rocket companies (XCor, Scaled Composites, SpaceX, Armadillo, etc.) can't stand NASA's bullcrap. But they still need public support, which gets flushed down the drain with NASA.
On the other hand, this may be just the ticket to get the attention over to those folks who need investment. Everybody wants to be an astronaut when they grow up.
Didn't bush make some big statement about a manned mission to Mars?
Why does everyone blame Bush? Since when was he the House appropriations subcommittee?
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
We also have a deficit that is rapidly shrinking as the economy wakes up as a result of the tax cuts.
Just like under Kennedy, Reagan, and now Bush tax cuts lead to increased government revenue within 2 years.
The problem I have with Bush is that he won't VETO anything! He spends just like the worst of the liberals he claims are bad.
Oh, our deficits are not record, especially when compared to the GDP.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
There are a lot of problems with that way of thinking. First off, it tends to reek of "newer equals better" syndrome. Recent technology addresses the issues of today, just as older tech addresses the issues of yesterday. Building on older tech address the issues of yesterday and today (even if it suffers from being kludgy). There are going to be bugs that newer tech introduces, whereas older tech has bugs that are understood, sometimes even fixed.
While this may not seem to be a big deal to some, when you start risking people's lives you begin to see why dependable technology is better than newer stuff. Even if the newer stuff makes gold from lead, it's safer to stick with the older, familiar tools of the trade.
In short, complete re-thinks should rarely, if ever, happen, especially in regards to areas which risk human lives.
Can you just imagine if we didn't spend half of the world's total military spending? If we spent merely, say, 1/4 of the world's total military spending, and allocated the savings to NASA, it'd 15x NASA's budget. Now, I wouldn't suggest cutting our military budget *in half*, and wouldn't suggest reallocating *all* savings to NASA, but still, our military spending is just huge. And that ignores our debt, of which most of it was accrued to pay for wars. While certainly some of them were worth it (such as WWII), others (such as Vietnam) certainly weren't.
Windmills do not work that way!
Moreover, you don't even have to read the article, just the slashdot summary, to see that Bush asked for an INCREASE.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
We tend to blow billions on contractors, "new and improved" weapon systems, and good old fashioned stupidity.
God help us if we ever had to fight a real war. These fancy weapons we use are paperweights once you start running low on spare parts. And they have really expensive parts.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
And when we do we will proudly rescue the martian baceria from their oppressive regime....whatever that maybe.
On a much more serious note, if oil was oozing from the ground you bet that we'd be there by now. However even though people lovingly claim that privitzation is the way to go fail to consider this.
If the US Government can't figure out how to make space exploration of innert rocks profitable the private sector can? Private companies love to throw away money evidently....
Didn't George Jr. announce that we were going to start getting back into the space race bisnuess again awhile back? I believe that it was a reactionary announcement made after the Chinese announced that they would take the socialist workers struggle to the moon within ten years.
While I don't really think that we need to try to compete with the Chinese in space, it seemed like a decent idea to get back to a real space exploration program again.
Someone ought to point out to JR. that space exploration isn't helped by cutting budgets. Ecenomic realitys are importan considerations, but wouldn't the administration have know that the money probably wouldn't be there?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
..across the whole of the US budget. Time to do the right thing for the country not for their congressional seat.
Greenspan Warns on Spending, Tax Decisions
Congress in notorious for misspending funds so I fully support having less funds for them to work with (tax cuts) and for that to force them to be responsible (well at least one can dream). To bad dot com tax revenue stream was a figment of folks imagination and that spending was not adjusted or spending increases even slowed much to make up for the difference, of course this compounded by the related recession, tax cuts, 9/11, etc.
With any luck, NASA will use this as an excuse to finally cut funding for the space shuttle and (temporarily) the space station. Seriously, these two programs have eaten up most of NASAs budget and have contributed essentially nil to either exploration or science (though I admit it was a nice way to improve foreign relatioÈ
When you include costs like veteran's benefits and the interest on the national debt (about 80% of which was caused by past military spending),the "defense" budget accounts for nearly 50% of the US federal budget each year!
http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
They did. And they lost. Poor Ross Perot.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
The US for the most part hasn't changed, but the world has. Instead of 1 or 2 countries that could threaten the prosperity of this country or any other for that matter, we now live in a world where technology has made it such that any crackpot with money or people can threaten anyone else.
Alas, its these countries with moons and stars on their flags that have yet to advance into the 20th century. There way of thinking is what is holding the whole world back.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Of course, if he asked to cut the budget you'd complain too, so it's not even worth arguing about.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
The first law of holes is to stop digging. All of these problems were glaringly obvious in 2002. Checking my calendar, it is now 2004. That is a term in the House. And they still aren't effectively dealing with reality.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Maybe ENRON could do the job for us?
emt 377 emt 4
He has rammed spending down congress's throat for wars. A fraction of this effort would be required for space. No, space is not a priority for this president.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
The topic sounds more like a budget issue than a science issue. Is slashdots primary focus shifting to politics now?
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Fuck deficits and the national debt. Why don't we just keep spending money we don't have until we eventually go extinct. Oh, sure, a big equals sign will come flying out of the sky demanding we balance the books, but (and here's the kicker) WE'LL BE DEAD so fuck him too!
Only trouble'll be for those that believe in an afterlife, spending eternity in Hades with a credit card bill of several trill...
But the budget was essentially balanced when Clinton left office (remember the surplus?). I don't credit Clinton fully with it (rather crediting a solid, stable job market for part of it, in addition to Clinton's upper class tax increases without major corresponding spending increases), but I credit the Republicans even less (who *unanimously* voted against his early budget proposals, which passed anyway).
Windmills do not work that way!
ACtually, most of our debt was accrued in the Regan era. No war did it- massive cold war military spending brought it about. Check out our national debt through the end of the 70s- it was non-existant or a few billion, not a few trillion like now.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Ahhh.. to dream.
Would be nice, wouldn't it? I have my doubts that we'll see that sort of enlightened thinking in the government within my lifetime, however.
Nasa made a _lot_ of promises that weren't really delivered by the shuttle. The X-prize entries have gotten a lot further for the amount of money expended than has Nasa. Now you can argue-well Nasa already built the shuttle. Still, is a politically correct bureacracy like Nasa _really_ the way a society ought to reach for the stars? I'm not sure that greedy corporations doing it for money is quite the right way either. This stuff really doesn't inherently need to be expensive. Thirty years ago, it looked like something was going to happen. What went wrong? Was it simple bad luck or a fundamental societal organizational problem? By now organizations like the National Geographic Society really _ought_ to have a space program. If the nascent Mormon church could organize colonization of Utah 150 years ago, why isn't anyone similarly motivated today? The folks running the USA today seem very, very different than those running the USA 100 years ago.
My guess here: if the USA were to go away, somebody else would pick up the ball-maybe the Russians or Chinese. Hell, I can even believe that if the US government were fundamentally restructured(ala Yugoslavia), it might have a better shot at space than this bunch of looser attorneys/media folks that will spend $1.2 trillion protecting an antique energy source in the Middle East-and not consider having a few hundred billion in prize incentives for a new energy sources to stop that bleeding.
Well the thought is that decreased taxes, actually increases total tax revenue. Suppositivly it has worked in the past. But definatly hasn't been proven.
t ot 2al gross tax revenue did go down in003, but stan ill were higher th1999 but remember earning were way down that year too. So it will be interesting to see figures for 2004 and 2005. But time will only tell you know.
According to
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/03db07co.xls
Hear hear! Drinkypoo's comment has merit.
And now for a few hundred words to soak the brains of those who like to read.
There are ways things are done in order to make people in power look good no matter what the outcome is. Politics is a team sport in a government controlled by a majority party. In an election year, this more than most, we sometimes don't just see the puppets, but the hairy-wrists and the odd hand controlling some sticks. Sometimes we as an audience are less tolerant of the hijinks. In this instance, checks and balances make for the perfect way to duck and run, a necessary part of talking up something for the kids, while still keeping the peace.
A "War" president isn't necessarily a "space" president. It's nice to evoke two cars in every garage, cheap clean power, a trip to mars, and dead terrorists in every evil country around the world. It makes the press happy to posit more WhiteHouse newscrack, and for the President to record a prepared statement. It's all just part of being in office. I heard the "Mars Initiative" statement and watched the nifty presentation NASA made to go along with it (chicken/egg/whatever). This is something a U.S. President is supposed to do. And for those who must ask why, it's simply a bone to throw the education system, something gradeschool teachers can have kids write about, something science teachers can form a lesson plan on, and something NASA can do to justify their role/budget as a vector for science and engineering in education.
The reality of what our government does is veiled behind bought-and-sold opinion, consented to by businesses that control just about every high-visibility "free" vector short of the local "free as in beer" paper that's printed every week and dropped wholesale in convienience stores and on street-corners. Citizen-criminals in this land of the free-to-shop are encouraged to simply pay attention to the news that's been made for them and to play with their toys, watch their tv-shows, and don't talk back to authority. In our government, the gloves are always on, unless a certain acerbic Vice President gets snippy.
Apparently a moderator was offended that someone would drop so blatant a comment which succinctly approximated the situation.
"Getting those who tell it like it is won't make the problem go away."
-Jello Biafra
What makes the idea that the President (regardless of political affiliation) would do this seem so repellent? This is business-as-usual. It's very insightful for someone to see through the "BS" and say something all the adults in the room know to be true. The parent of this thread isn't a troll or flamebait. It's a pithy statement that is self-evident truth.
Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
Congress Cuts NASA's Budget On Apollo Anniversary
How insensitive! Where have all the good times gone? And I'll bet it's been awhile since Congress last sent NASA flowers.
They better sit down and have a heart-to-heart before this relationship gets any worse.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Yeah but whose fault is it if we keep voting these folks into (or back into) their seats. :-(
The electorate needs to more universally realize that we have to allow congress to make decisions that potentially adversely affect them [electorate] because it is more important for the country as a whole. We should be voting folks out if they don't do the right things for the country as a whole first and locally second not the other ways around (at least in my opinion).
We also need to boot folks that don't want to compromise and work more with each other across party lines... voting blindly along party lines (as appear to happen all to often) serves no purpose since the "right" path often lies at the cross roads between the party platforms.
The 1940 US Census counted 131 million people. The current figure is something like 290 million, so your figures are off by 1/3rd. The proportion is about the same so it doesn't affect your argument. I agree with your basic thesis that US military spending is small by cold-war standards. As a fraction of GDP is has been declining since WWII, with only a small upward blip near 1970 for Vietnam, and a leveling out in the Reagan 80's, before falling again. It is a hopeful sign for humanity that US military spending can decline so much and still deliver effective security.
But you really should be more careful with your statistics, there.
That's an absurd statement. NASA isn't the only SA that can shoot stuff into space, if they were the only SA that could do that thén they would have a monopoly.
Sorry for the messup in last post, copy pasting hell :)
t otal gross tax revenue did go down in 2003, but still were higher than in 1999 but remember earning were way down that year too. So it will be interesting to see figures for 2004 and 2005. But time will only tell you know.
Well the thought is that decreased taxes, actually increases total tax revenue. Suppositivly it has worked in the past. But definatly hasn't been proven.
According to
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/03db07co.xls
See my post below
Apparently from Oct - Jun, federal revenue is up over $47 billion over the same period last year. (But spending has increased by over $100 billion).
I had heard that the deficit was decreasing due to increased revenue but the page I linked below was the only hard data I could find for 2003/2004.
I want to redirect our tax money to invest in American people, rather than some other priorities - starting with corporate welfare, and continuing with the "military". But I don't understand that "child poverty" stat. Does that mean "children in poor families", or actually "poor children", without reference to their families' wealth? Most kids are poor, but don't have required expenses. Where does that stat come from?
--
make install -not war
The Bush/Cheney team has an overriding concern:
preserving their constituents' (the HAVES and
HAVE MORES) big tax breaks!
I always knew that Bush's much touted space
initiatives (back to the Moon, and on to Mars)
were pure hogwash. There is no way that these
"neo-conservatives" would spend big government
money on such esoteric matters. Not more money
for pure research, either. If there isn't a
quick commercial payoff for his corporate pals,
then it is a big negative.
Too bad, but it looks like Bush (excuse, Cheney)
will be pulling the plug on the rescue and repair
of the Hubble Space Telescope. (Not an area of
Halliburton proficiency.)
With no accountability, there's no performance. Cf. Congress and Supreme Court; results pending for White House.
--
make install -not war
I cannot say that a NASA budget cut is a big surprise. It's only a matter of time before the full effects of our misadventure in Iraq comes home to roost. But there may be a silver lining in here for NASA.
At the core, the scientists and engineers at NASA are very smart and clever people. They've done some incredible work on budgets that seem little more than spit and lint compared to the outlays the military typically gets. I think that they'll do great work no matter what the budget is because in the end they have great passion for their work.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
During Vietnam, the government avoided a "guns or butter" choice. But things are differnet now. We are rapidly coming to a choice - we can either run the Iraq war and cut the crap outta every other project, or, fund the services that the people want/need and cut the $$$ to Iraq war. Wonder where the feds will get the funds for our next war - Iran.
Maybe we should cancel SocialSecurity/Medicare. Take the money and fund our wars. Yeah, that makes sense.
No way! This is a Xtian country, remember?
Hmmm. On the one hand, a transcendent moment in human history that united the world and showed us a glimpse of our future. On the other, a dumb former celebrity "on the run" slower than I can walk, the first act in a legal comedy about the end of our civilization.
Yeah, I can see how you'd equate the two.
*Sigh*
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Time for less bureaucracy and more entrepreneureal risk-taking. I thought that was what Burt Rutan and his group were doing. I agree that NASA needs to rethink the space program, but alas it has just become a large slow government agency.
"The problem I have with Bush is that he won't VETO anything! He spends just like the worst of the liberals he claims are bad."
I agree with you 100% there. Shameful from the party that claims to be for smaller government and fiscal responsibilty.
"Oh, our deficits are not record, especially when compared to the GDP."
We have record deficits alright. Even the White House and Congressional budget offices say so. $521 billion deficit in the 2004 budget alone.
CBS says so. MSNBC says so. CNN says so.
Just because it doesn't make the GDP Triple Crown doesn't remove the fact that we're bleeding cash like a gored hemophiliac matador.
I'd agree with all of that, especially the last point. What happened? How did the Republicans get taken over by the religious right? If this keeps up, are they going to have anything to do with their original base anymore?
Windmills do not work that way!
I'll feed the troll.
Bush was the one presenting his grand vision of going to the moon and to Mars. Congress didn't do that. My comment alluded to the fact that all the engineers around here knew that it wasn't really going to happen, and that their dreams and careers were being used for political gain, to be discarded after the election.
And, yes, I'll be pissed off at Kerry if he does that, especially if the money is spent in such a way that it encourages bums to stay bums and doesn't really help them. But, since I doubt he'll be hemorrhaging money to the military like Bush is, there should be more cash to go around.
So the federal government, with its $1 TRILLION annual budget, can't afford a $20 billion space program?
Yet we spend over $450 billion on the military, almost twice as much as with under Bill Clinton. So in 4 more years it should be double the current amount...
I say scrap that idiotic missile defense system that can't shoot anything down, saving ~ $60 billion, and send 3 manned missions to Mars.
I believe the states are much more effective in fighting poverty than the federal government, since they are either local issues or problems with our economic system - in either case, more easily solved by actually creating jobs, locally or nationally. Simply throwing money at poverty is a band-aid.
I think you're wrong, and it's one of the many problems I personally have with Bush... he's never met a spending bill he didn't like. I don't think he's vetoed ONE damn thing since he's been in office. And while I agreed with the tax cuts, I also agreed with many others who argued it doesn't make sense to cut government revenue while increasing spending at the same time.
I think he sincerely wants funding to NASA. Might be his fondness of the states NASA operates out of, or it might be a sincere desire to expand our horizons... but I do think he wants it to happen.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
The Ariane space agency? You mean ESA, CNSA etc. While the original poster is probably an American and can't see anything outwith the US borders, he does basically have a point that governments currently monopolise space access and by doing so they are artificially restricting development and keeping costs high.
Your analogies of the Californian power utilities and US media are not particularly apt, much better would be the airlines. Deregulation of those across Europe in the last 20 years has lead to massive competition from many new companies like RyanAir, EasyJet. I can now fly to Milan from London for £30, I can't even drive to Manchester for that amount. This would simply have been inconceivable in the days of the government monopolised, flag carrying airlines.
The time for the government monopolisation of space is past. In order for ordinary people to gain access to space travel, it must be deregulated.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
And of course, the vote went along party lines.
That just tells me that none of them in the room really gave it much thought. It was more about fighting eachother than about NASA.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
The ONLY MEANINGFUL MEASURE of the Federal Debt is as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Ever get a raise? Did you move to a nicer apartment after said raise? And did you then balk at how much you were paying? No, you probably said, "I can afford more apartment now because I make more money!" IT'S RELATIVE!
Gross Domestic Product is not produced by the President; GDP is produced (and consumed) through the TAXPAYING PUBLIC. Thus, the way to increase consumer demand and increase GDP is to PUT MORE MONEY IN THE HANDS OF THE PUBLIC.
Yes, the Deficit has gone back up... well, what do you expect, after terrorists blew the hell out of the heart of the finanical center in New York and we pursued two wars to defend ourselves and our interests. But does that mean we now have to suck more money out of the economy? No, because the same principle holds true, that more money in the hands of the public will increase the GDP and thus increase tax revenues as a default.
Check the news, the economy is growing pretty strong right now. The tax cuts are working. To kill the tax cuts would only slow the recovery.
Close. Replace all references of "liberal" with "conservatives" and you hit it right on the nose. :)
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
I have to admnit, I am not a fan of our current president, but he really did have a good idea! His space initiative, while lacking in details and funding it really was well placed and showed great direction. It just amazes me that people in congress are so pety over such a small amount of money that can do so much good and insteady use it as a political weapon. It just amazes me that they cannot even get along on an issue like this that is so bipartison... it truely is depressing ...
My Web Site - www.ocean-liners.com
We need more money from congress and NASA needs to DUMP the shuttle.... What do we realy need? A:
Big Ass Rocket
Something that can lift 100 tons so we can build something cool to travel between the planets, with PEOPLE.
Come the revolution, the Bourgeois, Capitalistic, "A PARKING STICKER HOLDERS", will be first against the wall!
Bush is "hemhorraging money" to folks like Halliburton, which is merely a bizarre sort of multinational nightmare to do with the military industrial complex, not the military itself. The military proper, well, that he's positively decimating -- engaging our soldiers in reckless policy ventures and cutting their bennies at the same moment, and so on.
Even the things the guy says he's about, he's not really about. (As you so adroitly observed of the Mars announcement.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
NASA is a canary in a coal mine. The Congress, especially the House of Representatives, is filled with people following a bold corporate agenda: removing the US government completely. They call it "starving the beast", an attempt to reduce government budgets slowly enough not to alarm the people, but undermining it enough that its collapse is inevitable. The military and other unaccountable corporate welfare systems, also protected by bundling with undeniably necessary services, are safest longest, but their move to privatization ensures the business continuity of their recipients.
A broad coalition of stakeholders in the succeeding anarchy has been collected by the corporations: religious cults (of many denominations) and their penumbra of fellow believers, survivalist militias and their sympathetic libertarian idealists, less educated traditionalists fearful of change, and all the interstitial people who relate to one or another issue, without realizing the big corporate picture to which they're sacrificing their overall self interest.
Government is produced by the people, for the people. Its worthwhile function is to protect the people, especially from other powerful organizations, like corporations. The rise in power of corporations threatens that government. NASA budgets compete with private corporate interests, and don't produce enough profits exclusively for the most powerful, competitive corporations to justify keeping it alive. It's just one example of the "unnecessary" government services being starved out of existence, creating a power vacuum into which corporations move. Its endangered fate is a blinking red light on the government survival dashboard.
--
make install -not war
And which party controls Congress? Oops. There goes your arguement. Bush: Watch me, I got this vision thing, "Go to Mars!!!" Oh, on the other hand, let me cut your funding.
... and good riddance to it!
... as Gerard K. O'Neill tried to point out, lo those many years ago.
Credit where it was due, when it came to interplanetary probes and the Deep Space Network for retrieving the data, NASA shined like the stars it allegedly reached for. NASA did a good job and continues to perform very well in that limited area.
But for space colonization and general access to space, Tom Ridge could do a better job, and he's kind of a jackass.
NASA's time is certainly over. It must shrink into a probe agency with a couple of small sites, some launch pads, a sensor net across the world, and finally a core of dedicated engineers who I don't mind paying for. The real meat of space access and colonization is now up to the rest of us. Private industry must bring the concept of investment and profit to the equation
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
Yes, NASA cancelled the remaining Apollo missions, but I think it's only fair to point out that the cancellation was mainly the result of Congress reducing the FY1971 NASA appropriation. Without the budgetary issue, Apollo 18,19, and 20 would almost certainly have flown.
NASA's main problem now is the same as it's been for many, many years. Support for the space program is "a mile wide and an inch deep". Most people are in favor of having a space program, but few ever let their representatives in Congress know.
Look at what we did with the technology of the 1960's. Can you imagine what we could do our current level of technology??? It would be astounding, if only the funding was available.
Some professors from Harvard, Frank Levy and Richard J. Murnane, say our goals should be
> teaching a fourth grade class or detecting U.S.
> marketing trends rather than solving physics
> problems that might be solved equally well in China.
The house of repesentatives is only doing what's in the best interest of most of the country. People in the United States have made a decisive, calculated decision not to be a player in science.
If they want to do things which don't earn much money then it's their right to do so. Lots of people in the world don't know a thing about science, never become very rich, yet live normal lives.
About meeting any of those Mars chicks, now, huh?
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
Wow, your post was loaded with all kinds of flamebait and trolling, but I actually hope you don't get modded down, because I sincerely believe that you believe what you're saying. As scary as that is, I'll respond to it anyway, just to see if I can open your eyes even just a little.
Yes if you as a person did not save enough during your lifetime to take care of yourself, then the rest of America should not have to flip the bill for you.
How about if someone develops Alzheimers at age 60? That's not really their fault, but should they have been saving like crazy in their younger years, just in case they developed a disease which would eventually require round-the-clock personal homecare?
What about someone who develops diabetes at age 50 because of their genes? What if someone develops it at age 45 because of their poor diet? What if someone gets hit by a bus at age 40, and needs prescription painkillers for the rest of their life?
What about people who develop mental illnesses such as manic depression or anxiety? What about erectile dysfunction? Birth control? Where do we draw the line? To me, clearly the people near the beginning of this rant deserve help through public funding, particularly when they suffer a catastrophic illness or accident that is not their fault. However, it is equally clear to me that I as a taxpayer should not be paying for Grampy's Viagra. You, moreover, appear to believe that no tax dollars should go towards any of these examples, and in that case, all I have to say about that is "Thank the Good Lord that you're not in charge." That's not a country I'd want to live in.
Re:Mod the Parent Down
Re:Mod the Parent Down (Score:1)
by FatherOfONe (515801) on 01:49 PM July 21st, 2004 (#9761562)
this has nothing to do with NASA getting more or less funding, but I will respond to your post.
Yes medicare/medicade and social security should be removed from the U.S. government. Yes if you as a person did not save enough during your lifetime to take care of yourself, then the rest of America should not have to flip the bill for you. Or better yet all the extra money that you would have earned in that lifetime without the additional taxes on you, you could have invested and been far better off than what is currently provided.
Now having said all this, we (America) have an obligation to those people that are currently on medicare/medicade and SS, and to those about to get on it, BUT for those that are under 40, we do NOT, AND if you asked those people if they would rather have their money now, to invest (or waist) almost all of them would want it now.
So when the people that are say in their 30's now get to be 65, (me) they will have to be RESPONSIBLE enough to put money away.
No matter how "responsible" a person is, they can't possibly save up enough to live out 25-or-so "twilight" years while paying $1200/day for personal homecare due to a catastrophic illness. The number one cause of bankruptcies in the United States is unexpected catastrophic illness.
Let me ask you this. If you are under the age of 40 and the government offered to lower your taxes by say 15-20%, but you would not be eligable for any social programs later in life, would you take it?
Now that is an extremely dangerous option to give people. The vast majority of people would say "yes," and they'd take it, then they'd not change a damn thing about their lives. They'd take that extra money and spend it. And when the time came that they needed social assistances and medical care, and they didn't have the money, they'd hold their dying hands out, and coldblooded beancounters like you would slap them away and say "tough cookies!" You'd probably smugly pat yourself on the back while you were at it, for being such a good planner and putting away a few thousand bucks yourself, when in reality, all you've done is simply been fortunate enough not (yet) to suffer the same expensive illne
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
That's what George Sr Called it. Reagan tried it and it failed...miserably...at boosting tax revenue to balance the budget. The boost we got in the late 90s was an anolomly. Bill was a lucky SOB - always has been, always will be - ask any Republican. George Jr was a fool to think it would continue. There is no magic rate that maximizes taxes, but constantly changing them trying to chase some revenue holy grail is guaranteed to be a foolish endeavor.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Mods: I shoulda used Preview. My bad, mod my other post down if you want. Here's an eaiser-to-read version of my comment:
Wow, your post was loaded with all kinds of flamebait and trolling, but I actually hope you don't get modded down, because I sincerely believe that you believe what you're saying. As scary as that is, I'll respond to it anyway, just to see if I can open your eyes even just a little.
Yes if you as a person did not save enough during your lifetime to take care of yourself, then the rest of America should not have to flip the bill for you.
How about if someone develops Alzheimers at age 60? That's not really their fault, but should they have been saving like crazy in their younger years, just in case they developed a disease which would eventually require round-the-clock personal homecare?
What about someone who develops diabetes at age 50 because of their genes? What if someone develops it at age 45 because of their poor diet? What if someone gets hit by a bus at age 40, and needs prescription painkillers for the rest of their life?
What about people who develop mental illnesses such as manic depression or anxiety? What about erectile dysfunction? Birth control? Where do we draw the line? To me, clearly the people near the beginning of this rant deserve help through public funding, particularly when they suffer a catastrophic illness or accident that is not their fault. However, it is equally clear to me that I as a taxpayer should not be paying for Grampy's Viagra. You, moreover, appear to believe that no tax dollars should go towards any of these examples, and in that case, all I have to say about that is "Thank the Good Lord that you're not in charge." That's not a country I'd want to live in.
So when the people that are say in their 30's now get to be 65, (me) they will have to be RESPONSIBLE enough to put money away.
No matter how "responsible" a person is, they can't possibly save up enough to live out 25-or-so "twilight" years while paying $1200/day for personal homecare due to a catastrophic illness. The number one cause of bankruptcies in the United States is unexpected catastrophic illness.
Let me ask you this. If you are under the age of 40 and the government offered to lower your taxes by say 15-20%, but you would not be eligable for any social programs later in life, would you take it?
Now that is an extremely dangerous option to give people. The vast majority of people would say "yes," and they'd take it, then they'd not change a damn thing about their lives. They'd take that extra money and spend it. And when the time came that they needed social assistances and medical care, and they didn't have the money, they'd hold their dying hands out, and coldblooded beancounters like you would slap them away and say "tough cookies!" You'd probably smugly pat yourself on the back while you were at it, for being such a good planner and putting away a few thousand bucks yourself, when in reality, all you've done is simply been fortunate enough not (yet) to suffer the same expensive illnesses as those who you snub your noses at.
Given the choice, those people would take the extra cash, and they'd still need help when they got old. If people like you were in charge, and turned them away, or told them, "well, Sicky, I guess you should've saved that money instead of blowing it on rent and groceries, Hmmmmmmmm????" While your smug dismissal may in fact have a grain of truth to it, it doesn't change the fact that at that moment, it would be too late for that person to go back in time and make different decisions, and they still need help now. What do you propose be done? Let them die on the streets because they didn't plan as well as you?
Again, I repeat: That's not a country I want to live in.
Thankfully, I'm in Canada. Most people up here are far, far too civilized to even consider such a barbaric
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
To quote: "Let me explain something to you, son: noone reads the bills." It's always about party politics. If Pres. Bush really wanted this, it would have been 6 to 3 the other way. Now wake up and recognize that when it comes to NASA, there are two parties: the one that wants to cut their budget and says so, and the one that wants to cut their budget and lies about it.
I'll readily admit, I had to google for the meaning behind your post. Here's some info for those more lazy.
The spiel mentioned above is the message that the Yucca Mountain design is intended to convey to future civilizations. Namely to those that show up 10K+ years from now. (Yucca being the designated site for the United States' Radioactive waste. It will be quite hazardous for an amazingly long amount of time.) The text is not really supposed to be an inscription per say, but simply the overall concept behind the structure of the entire complex.
The original research was done by Sandia national labs. A significant portion of the document can be found here.
Madcap googling resulted in an easy to read summary here. May god have mercy on the poor soul that gets slashdotted.
BTW Tackhead, kudos on the obscure (?) reference. Forced me to learn. =)
--LordPixie
I seem to remember that, in the recent past, we were running budget surplusses.
I feel dirty for posting a link to a geocities site on slashdot.
You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake -- but you could be if you got off your ass.
There's still the senate's subcommittee, the the congressional appropriations committee, then voting in both houses.
My money says it's a minor political move by the people on the house subcommittee, primarily to get votes from vets, since the bones were supposed to be thrown that way.
Speaking as someone who deals with the VA health care system from both sides of the desk, very rarely do such actions go all the way to a congressional vote, and we damn sure don't very often see any such money. The VA Healthcare System's motto might as well be: "We wish we could, but they don't give us enough money to _______"
I doubt they've only been saying that for the 15 years since I've started dealing with them.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Your figures are flat-out wrong, on all counts. The U.S. population was approximately 130 million during the WW 2 years; it's now around 285 million people, not even close to the 400 million you claim.
During World War 2, when - get this - WE WERE ACTUALLY AT WAR - the Army reached a maximum size of 8.1 people. You would expect this, seeing as how we were, well, fighting a WORLD WAR. Prior to the beginning of mobilization the Army had around 400,000 troops, down markedly from the 3.5 million deployed during World War 1.
We haven't fought a world war since then. We haven't even fought a declared war since then, as it appears that neither Congress nor the President has the backbone to actually declare war upon a foreign nation anymore.
According to figures produced by our very own government, we have 1.5 million people under arms in active service - not 1.2 million people - with over 2 million more in the reserves. This is greater than the total armed strength of the United States during World War I - when we were actually AT WAR.
So yes, seeing as how we aren't at war with anyone except for Iraq (and remember, Bush said that war apparently ended some 800 U.S. dead ago - and it wasn't a declared war either), our army is far larger than it should be DURING PEACETIME.
As for the threat of the big new boogeyman called 'terrorism', a number of folks including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2003, have said that our army is not only more than large enough to deal with the problem, but that traditional warfare and body count are ineffective against terrorists, and that terrorism is more properly the purview of intelligence agencies like the CIA, NSA, and FBI. In fact, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff they want "to realign its forces to focus on better use of precision firepower, increased use of special operations forces and speedier deployments abroad." In other words, they don't want a higher head count, but smaller, far more effective forces for rapid deployment. The sort of force where every U.S. soldier, with proper fire support, is worth at least ten of any enemy.
I happen to agree with them. Where we disagree is that I don't want to use these forces to impose Pax Americana, but rather to swiftly punish any nation which dares to attack us. Apart from an actual attack, I have no interest whatsoever in seeing the army do anything but defend our borders.
For nations with vastly larger military forces, in times of actual war we can always raise more troops just like we did in both World Wars. We don't have to worry about an invasion (unless you think those feisty Canadian radicals are plotting to conquer us) so in any war we'll have time to raise and train troops - and kick the shit out of the enemy when we're good and ready. Been there, done it twice, and can do it again if need be.
True, immediate threats are gone. There is no Soviet Union, China isn't out to conquer the world, and it's not like the EU is actually going to go on a rampage to forcefully unite all of Europe under one banner. And even if they did, well, *that's what nukes are for*. If the shit hits the fan, we can always obliterate the target and be done with it. And although the liberals will no doubt gasp in horror, in any deadly serious conflict I'd much rather use the nukes than see 500,000 Americans return home in body bags.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
LAF. Ok, so let me get this straight. We need nuclear missiles, nuclear submarines, a missile shield, and 7 carrier groups to fight people who live among us, hiding in our cities, plotting to destroy things with box cutters; and their colleages who live in caves in the hundreds, and train with hand-held poorly maintained 1970s Soviet equipment; and their financiers who invest in the Carlyle group? Wait, we're supposed to ignore that last group...
Seriously, though: please tell me you're kidding. And if you're not, what has happened to global terrorism since we launched our "war on terror"? And, furthermore, what percent of our troops and eq. did we send to Afghanistan?
Iraq was a real military operation. Afghanistan, even with as broad of a scope as we gave it, could have been accomplished by a military 1/5th our size.
Windmills do not work that way!
Yeah, the papers are fascinating. There was a /. thread on it a year or two ago, so we've come full circle.
Some of the concept art was amazing. The problem's highly nontrivial, because no matter how ominous you make the thing look, sooner or later somebody's going to get curious. ("Yeah, yeah, King Tut's curse on the Pyramids, what-ever! Let's dig and see what these guys were burying out here!")
OTOH, by the time a society's advanced enough to start digging for the sake of archaeology instead of grave-robbing, they're hopefully within a century or two of being able to measure the danger for themselves. The tricky part is the preceding few centuries, during which technology's good enough to "substantially disturb", but not good enough to understand why everyone within a few miles of the "grave-robbing dig" is getting sick.
<evilbastard> I wonder how long a bunch of geeks could collectively delay the rebooting of civilization by adding the following to our wills: "To future generations, I bequeath my spite! Please inscribe the following message on my tombstone, and seal a second copy inscribed on metal/plastic within my coffin..." </evilbastard>
BTW, that's being generous, both in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, to the resistances. Take the case of Executive Outcomes, for example.
A modern, well equipped force - no matter how tiny - can crush third-world level resistances (such as in Afghanistan). And a military our size is hardly needed to defeat a nation such as Iraq; it's needed to rout a nation such as Iraq while at the same time having troops engaged in operations all over the world in dozens of bases.
Windmills do not work that way!
I just (finally) finished perusing that whole original document. Incredibly fascinating. As you mentioned, the concept art was morbidly beautiful. I must say, it did an impressive job at conveying what they wanted. (But like any Sci-Fi/Horror loving geek, I can't say it would stop me =] )
The very concept of designing something to convey a message to others ten thousand years in the future is a wonderful mental exercise. That's longer than our current recorded history, for Pete's sake ! Even if such efforts are unnecessary due to the technological conditions you mentioned.
--LordPixie
With any luck, NASA will use this as an excuse to finally cut funding for the space shuttle and (temporarily) the space station. Seriously, these two programs have eaten up most of NASAs budget and have contributed essentially nil to either exploration or science (though I admit it was a nice way to improve foreign relations with Russia).
Hopefully they'd then use any excess funds to quickly develop a sane spaceflight system which doesn't try to transport crew and heavy cargo in the same ship, while helping the formation of a private space industry via Centennial Challenges prizes.
The funding is there, just it's not allocated. the money exists, it just goes for other things We have a trillion dollar plus economy, just a collective "we" don't want to spend it on space too much. That's either from the government side, or private side. People want government give aways,either for their stock portfolio and corporations, or for themselves on an immediate level in the form of more government entitlement services. People want big screen TVs, DVD players skiboats,vacations, and lesser expensive trivialy stupid things like entertainments such as sitcoms on TV, movies, games and sports. Intellectual and exploratory pursuits are extremely low on most people's radar screens of interest. Heck, just beer has always had a higher interest for 99% of humanity in the states. The space program gets what it gets and it's an incredible amount compared to most people's interests. If it wasn't mandated and taken from taxes, I doubt NASA would get even a small fraction of what it does now.
Space is gradualy being turned back over to the military, which is what they have always wanted anyway. For those uses, the money will be there, by the bucket full. For other uses, people in the private sector need to belly up to the bar and throw their cash down, same as they do for those other pursuits I mentioned. If they won't, then no space stuff, it's really that simple. I don't like it, hardly anyone here likes it, but that's the way it is.
I remember going outside and trying to see sputnik. People were amazed and scared at the same time. the government pushed that amazement and fear to get the cold war going stronger. I never could see sputnik, but I *did* see echo, with binoculars. Ever since I thought it was neat, but neat doesn't translate into money, and money half wasted all the time never gets added to. That's what happened to NASA, bad design, yearly budget fights, 1/2 the cash always wasted, massive department of redundancy departments, and always the red headed step child of the stealth military budget anyway. Now, they just want to get away from any pretense that from the governments POV space is military, period, anything else, they want the private sector to pay for. That's why our best bet is things like the x prise, and maybe a super x prise, 10 billion for a moon landing maybe, something like that. Maybe they could do a super lottery, half the money to number winners, the other half to go to the prise money for a super x prise competition. That might get the cash flowing, I know I'd buy some tickets. I buy one a week that goes to the public schools here, I could easily switch to a couple a week if it went to a super x prise. I would "wager" millions might go for that, americans like to gamble, no matter how rich or penny ante it is. Besides that, I have no idea how something that massive could be funded when there is no immediate profitable payback for any venture capitalists. There just aren't that many philanthropists who could or would fund such a venture. You might get a few million,. but billions? Not happening.
But we should spend the most on today, some on tomorrow, and a bit on years from now.
If this is the way humans habitually thought we would still be hunter gatherers. The great thing about space exploration is that the technology we create to get us there sticks around forever once it's invented. Just think about it this way. If you can spend $100 today to invent a technology that will generate you $100,000,000 tomorrow, are you going to really bitch about losing a C note?
The riches that space has to offer are vast beyond all belief. A single iron asteroid could contain more raw material than we can dig up in decades. The output of the sun in any given hour dumps out more energy than the entire human race has ever used up in it's 3 million year history; in a given month more energy than can EVER exist on the planet without the help of anti-matter.
The day that we harness space completely for our own benifit is the day that the entire planet will come as close to utopia as can possibly be realisticlly imagined.
With a nearly infinite amout of energy and raw material available, the entire concept of starvation and poverty will have to be redefined globally. Scarcity will have a new meaning, turning our economy from an exploitive neccessary evil into a wonderland.
We can sit here and focus on the poor, the opressed and teh downtrodden today, and tomorrow, and every day for the next 4000 years... Or we could spend thirty years redefining our destiny and ending up in a candyland world where starving means waiting an extra ten minutes for the all you can eat buffet.
Is that big moon rocket that's laying on it's side still there? Hope so, got fond memories of it. I was visiting that tourist space deal there in huntsville, and I just snuck into that thing from the exhaust end, walked through it, and got inside the capsule at the other end. Too funny! I had to do it,it is part of the true geek credo when presented with an opportunity like that. Harrr-ummph! Anyway, from what I remember, it was semi intact, half the gauges and electronic doo dads were still in it. They had a hokey astronaut suit/helmet attached to the outside like it was a human doing an EVA, it was stuffed with handi wipes to fill it out! Yep, I got one,I call it "the space wipe"!
don't forget the "great society", that massively increased the size and scope of welfare in the nation. It was a LOT of money. That was the "butter" part of the "guns and butter" budgets back then. We had 'nam, great society, AND the moon race. We could have afforded one of them, not all three. We've never recovered from it either, IMO. The space program was (always has been really) partly under the "guns" part of the budget obviously, even though they call it civilian, as we had to beat the russians to the high ground.
and spent it on something worthwhile like NASA or education or any other worthwhile thing, the world would be a better place.
IRAQ was a mistake, the country now worse off than it was before the US invaded.
the republicans have never been "taken over by the religious right", except rhetorically, it's what the controlled news media and the two partys want you to believe.
The eastern liberal/socialist/globalist wing of the republican party took over during the goldwater runup in 64. They actively sabotaged his candidacy. These folks we used to call "rockefeller republicans". Now they are called "neocons". The real old fashioned Republicans are now called "paleocons". They are not in power at this time, but they still exist. There are some Christians who support bush, too many IMO, but they are used as "useful idiots" by the real powers behind the scenes. There hasn't been a powerful true conservative wing in the party at a national level since way way back. Don't mistake globalist imperialists and outright traitros and liars for real old fashioned honest conservatives,who traditionaly were non interventionist, fiscally conservative,who really wanted smaller and less intrusive government, more freedoms, etc. That went the way of the dodo. Two completely different critters there. Modern era Libertarians come a lot closer than what passes for a Republican nowadays as to spirit and philosophy. You can still find a lot of real conservative (and extremely frustrated now)republicans at local levels, but once you hit state level or above, nope. Rep Ron Paul and a few more, then that's it. Helen chenowith was another one, but she's left office now, as she promised. Dan Tancredo comes closer than most. but the bulk of them, nope, neocons, they just usurped the party and it's philosphies and changed them radically by the mid 60's. It was a bitter no holds barred no rules power struggle.
I know because that's the era I started working politics, and was working in that campaign as an AuH2O volunteer, and I SAW the coup d'tat that occurred then. They sabotaged their own party to get LBJ in, so that he could take the heat for nam and the borked budget and deal with the huge race problem back then,so later they could get their boy NoxoN in, so then they could pull off their huge corporate expansions and scams, which they did, and which continues to this day.
BTW, shrubya has had two public opportunities to repudiate attending bohemian grove and to repudiate skull and bones membership, which he has declined to do. That's not something a real Christian would do. Real Christians would not don robes and prance around a 40 foot stone owl idol and engage in mock human sacrafice, nor would they lie in a coffin or drink out of skulls, or anything scumbaggy nonsense like that. Now I don't have any idea why a lot of cluless Christians support him, other than they are brainwashed, and so much wanted someone-anyone really- decent and with at least a modicum of morals and of the faith after the clinton years. Back before the election peole said "well, I'll vote for bush but hold my nose and then we'll hold his feet to the fire", but it didn't happen. they let him get away with crap like ignoring the huge illegal immigration issue, leaving so many gun laws on the books, not dealing with the trade imbalances and loss of jobs, etc. They chickened out for one and found out they are helpless to really do anything, they got suckered in other words. They are more grasping at straws right now then really thinking through things is as near as I can explain it. A lot of Christians I know personally detest Bush and the turncoat leadership in the R party, and vote Libertarian or Reform or Constitution Party or America First party, etc, they no longer vote capital R, or D for that matter. A lot of them no longer vote period, because they know as of the 2000 vote it's totally and completely hijacked, and they just want out of supporting "the system" in any way.
Why spend money on NASA when we can spend Billions in some foreign country and graft and corrupt most of it to our Oil Company Buddies? Space - Where's the profit margin in that? Come On Scotty - Beam me up.....this isn't funny anymore..
--the great (scam) depression devastated people who bought into the "irrational exuberience" something-for-nothing greed mindset in the stock market, and who went along with government confiscation of gold money, and turned theirs in for worthless paper script. Yep, they got screwed, and bad. Those who could read between the lines back then and realised they were being sold a scam bill of goods and declined the offer and held onto their real money and property did fairly well during the depression and after. Millions of more or less innocents, naieve but innocent, who did neither but just tried to ride it out with no plans whatsoever got hurt as well, that's what happens to people who don't pay attention. Just is is all.
Gonna happen again, too, right on schedule. Every generation gets fleeced by the globalists, been going on a long time now.
When you say "welfare" are you referring to "welfare" itself, or to all "welfare" type programs (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc)? "Welfare" (currently TANF at the federal level) is a miniscule portion of the budget. However, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are significant. Nonetheless, just like our regular military spending, they come out of our regular budget and are generally *reasonably* balanced. They do not come from a budget-busting supplimental like wars do.
Windmills do not work that way!
Welfare at a lower level to avoid serious civil disturbances was vastly increased in the 60's. Make no mistake about it, it was a pure payoff to avoid a lot of nastiness. And medicare, -caid and social security are all ponzi schemes, they are absolutely unsustainable with our current demographics and economic system based on created perpetual debt. Along with the abuses of the military/industrial complex, we have abuses from the medical/pharmecuetical monopolist complex, as well as the perpetual blackmailwe are paying to a 5th generation non working class who are now being played off a totally illegal class of border jumpers. It's a big expensive mess anyway you look at it, and most of it is corrupt, wasteful and not really needed , IMO.
Not saying health care and retirement money isn't needed or important, on the contrary they certainly are, but skimming off 50% of it just to shuffle the paperwork on it is silly,and just that those sytems will never work in the long run, you *cannot* make the numbers work with any rational extrapolation given proven demographics and expected demographics.
Basically, I think the federal government is about 90% oversized, and if it was shrunk aback down to it's lawful and realistic levels, and if we had proper nationalistic taxing schemes based on reciprocal quid pro quo tariffs, and lose the illegal "income" tax, and instead of government as a tool of some transnational corporations and a few loud sub demographic populations, we'd all be a lot better off and wealthier and be able to afford a little more of everything, including health care and retirement plans. A nation has by far it's best over all experience by creating the largest middle class it can, not by subsidising the creation of a very small extremely top heavy class then a lot of serfs below that tied to various doles of some sort or another. That just will not work out for any length of time.
As one who grew up with the space program in the 50's, 60's, and 70's, it saddens me to see how inept NASA has become. It's another example of how a bloated government agency can't do anything correct. It's overwrought with mismanagement, red tape that I bet requesting a bag of paper clips requires 3 memos. If I were in charge of NASA, I would scrap NASA completely. Start a new agency that worked exactly like the original. Ever since the "shuttle era", NASA has been screwed up. Put it in private hands, let private industry get NASA off the ground (bad pun). As for their budget, it's typical of EVERY government agency. If you don't use it, you don't get it the next year. I've seen it happen too many times. At the end of a budget cycle, if they have money "left over", they go on a spending spree to use it up before the next budget goes through. Until the government rewards agencies that SAVE money, it will always be the same
If you had to google that, I wonder how effective it will be to people who don't speak english 10,000 years into the future... (There must be a clue to what it means further into the tomb! Let's go, quickly!!) I think the geeks at Sandia, with all due respect, should contact Apple about the interface design ;-)
There's nothing sadder than engineers who've been chomping at the bit for years wanting to do some *real* space work hearing about Bush's Mars plan, maybe even getting to work on preliminaries, and knowing that it's all a political game and nothing will ever actually get off the ground
I'd guess those engineers who've been the business for more than a couple years are used to it by now. If I had nickel for every broken dream in the space industry I could pay back the taxpayers and investors for all the money wasted there.
he's modded interesting and it's my detector? apparently not only mine then.
There should be no real surprise. In most programs where the President has announced bold, new initiatives the follow-up has been budget cuts. An uncharitable person might conclude he lies about EVERYTHING....but I couldn't be that uncharitable.
Only boring people are ever bored.
Agreed. NASA estimated a 10 year programme for a manned mission to Mars would cost about $50 billion. Bush has spent almost 4 times that figure making a mess of Iraq - in only 16 months. I suppose the good news is that Bush's massive expansion of the space program would have mostly been to militarise near-earth space and the Moon, using the long term goal of Mars as a channel to funnel vast sums into the pockets of his corporate masters for many years to come.
Only boring people are ever bored.
... send Bush to Mars, but don't bring him back. Saves money, and everyone's happy.
I believe this happened for a few reasons:
1. War
2. Sympathy
3. Elections
Well, yes. War begets violence, violence begets suffering on all sides, and suffering costs a lot of money. The US is caring for civilians hurt in the fighting as well as our own. Soldiers are coming home with radically life-altering injuries, and the govermnment is responsible for taking care of them. Sometimes these injuries are so awful that the family must make financial sacrifices just to properly care for its loved one. While the soldiers are abroad fighting, they need someone to care for their families, including medical attention, financial support, etc., especially since soldiers aren't exactly raking it in.
Secondly, the generation that begat the Baby Boom is aging (and dying rapidly), and geriatric veterans demand a higher level of care in general. Vietnam vets are receiving their AARP membership cards; they need care as well.
One could argue that giving more money to soldiers and the VA would somehow encourage the war machine to churn on. This is quite nonsensical. The government is only (trying to) take care of its own (though not doing a good job of it). It has a responsibility for the men and women who serve it. Even without war, the VA needs more funding to properly care for our aging vets as they, and any other person, should be treated: with respect, dignity, and the best methods out there. Of course, one could debate what exactly is 'best', and for whom it is best, but this country supposedley has very capable men and women elected to make those decisions.
As far as sympathy goes, I'm greatly doubt that this will cause mass public outrage anywhere near the level required to receive the requested budget. Is it that we don't care? Maybe. Perhaps it is also because NASA is only forefront in the minds of most Americans when it is on the front page of the daily news or on the news channel . . . repeatedley. This generation enjoys NASA and what it has brought the US as a nation, but doesn't have the attachment our parents have. We take it for granted. We didn't live through the fervor of the Space Race. On the other hand, young people usually don't hit the polls in droves or contact their representative that often (or at all), so who knows?
As for elections, this is not an issue. It's not a first tier issue or a second tier issue. It comes off more as a special platform issue. Not to say that it is, but that is where it probably rests in the mind of the average American. Even if it was a big ticket issue, I doubt it would noticeably change the outcome of the presidential election. IMHO, I believe that Americans are more concerned about (in no particular order) the war, governmental transparency, the economy, jobs, taxation, education, foreign relations and policy, civil liberties, etc. In light of these topics, NASA is an afterthought, something to be used to one-up somebody else or help someone's interests to better the country in response to foreseen threats (see The Cold War). For this to become a true election year issue, the Baby Boomers need to be outraged. But this has been pointed out by other /.ers, and it holds.
I hear you on that. Regime change begins at home.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Thank you so much. We need more words, to eliminate apostrophes. And what's the deal with phonetics, shouldn't it be fonetix?
"Your figures are flat-out wrong, on all counts. The U.S. population was approximately 130 million during the WW 2 years; it's now around 285 million people, not even close to the 400 million you claim."
e os /us.html
The below link shows 293+ million, not including illegal immigrants and a huge population of our older generation who pre-date recorded births. The number is less than 400 but it's way way above 300. As for my less than 200 million estimate, 130 is obviously less than 200, so I fail to see where my numbers are wrong.
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/g
Nice try with your "facts". You're just a screaming whinny lefty trying to justify his own bullshit. Like I said, nice try.
"So yes, seeing as how we aren't at war with anyone except for Iraq (and remember, Bush said that war apparently ended some 800 U.S. dead ago - and it wasn't a declared war either), our army is far larger than it should be DURING PEACETIME."
1) Congress did declare war. 2) The military is about more than dealing with "right now" they are about dealing with "tomorrow" as well. Ever hear of North Korea? How about Iran? Cuba? North Africa?
You're so mixed up it's amazing you can think at all. By all means continue your parade of rationalization, the country is being run and will continue to be I might add, by far more able folks than you. Don't worry, when trouble comes we'll defend even a trolling little flamebait artists like yourself. You don't even have to thank us for it, we know a little turd like you wouldn't anyway. Wouldn't soil your boots by getting off your soap box.
Spurious? Well, I admit I was thinking about it, but I haven't bought a horse yet, so getting spurious is a little ahead of the game. Shoot, don't even have the raht boots yet....
"he does basically have a point that governments currently monopolise space access and by doing so they are artificially restricting development and keeping costs high."
Governments do not monopolise space access. They're understandably twitchy about someone wanting to build a rocket that could carry a person or payload in the darkest depths of Chipping Norton, and so they control it. However, to suggest that they're keeping costs high is to miss the point; you can go to the other space agencies for quotations because it's still a free market.
The X-prize is one way in which they're encouraging private industry to get involved. The Japanese are talking about space tourism as a reality and even NASA has talked about using financial incentive to get people thinking outside the box
"Your analogies of the Californian power utilities and US media are not particularly apt"
That was to indicate short-sightedness rather than anything else, but I'll run with your ball here;
"This would simply have been inconceivable in the days of the government monopolised, flag carrying airlines."
Hence the constant appeals for government help by airlines that can't compete? How long ago did the airlines stop being nationally owned?
Airlines are in trouble, serious trouble, and given the competition around, the evolutionary nature of business will eventually give rise to a very small pond containing a couple of big fish; already there are monopolies on terminals in certain airports, check into the Lufthansa monopoly or the British Airways one; you didn't miss the problems between Virgin and BA in the past few years?
"In order for ordinary people to gain access to space travel, it must be deregulated."
Yeah, nothing cheers me up more than the thought of the Montana militia stockpiling launch vehicles. Regulation is needed because I categorically do not trust corporations to do anything but look at the bottom line. Unless you make them responsible for deaths and negligence more seriously than a fine and a slap on the wrist, there's no way I'd want to be downrange of a private industrial launch. Hell, go look at what's happened to the meadowland around Baikonur, and that was military.
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.