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."

Comments

Figures

[Anonymous Coward]

Until they detect signs of oil on Mars, this trend will unfortunately continue.

Trip to mars

[mpupu]

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.

We need another space race!

[earthforce_1]

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.

Re:We need another space race!

[meringuoid]

Go watch "2001 a space odyssey" (released in 1970) to see where it was widely thought we should have been by 2001.

IIRC, 2001 was released in 1968. Think: that film was made in a time when nobody had ever been to the moon, but they were just about to do so. At Christmas '68 Apollo 8 orbited the Moon for the first time. That's the backdrop to 2001.

Now it's 2004. We've been to the Moon, we gave it up because we wanted to spend the money on killing Vietnamese people, and nobody seems to care anymore.

There's a word for this. Decadent.

Sad to say, but I actually agree with Congress

[MooseByte]

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.

Finally Republicans act as they should.

[TS020]

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!

Alas, my country

[ColonelPanic]

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.