Funding Promised for Trips to Moon, Mars

image77 writes "NASA's new administrator, Michael Griffin, and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said Tuesday the space agency will have the necessary funding to send astronauts back to the moon and to Mars. Delay states "We will provide the funding necessary to get us where we want to go.""

Comments

What a stupid idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Just imagine the number (and size) of the public toilets you could build for all this money.

It would be better to be led from space

[SimianOverlord]

I fully appreciate Tom DeLays comments, space exploitation has been on the back burner for too long. In these uncertain times, we would sleep a lot better in our beds if we knew there was a second chance out there somewhere, a genuine, self supporting colony that could reseed the earth in case of unavoidable disaster.

Who better to found this colony than our own elected leaders? As events on september the eleventh showed, no-one is immune to terrorism on our domestic soil, and it would be far better to place our venerated leaders beyond the range of any conventional retaliation. We could always then be sure of leadership from orbit, no matter what happens. By protecting them, we protect ourselves.

And should, despite their best efforts, some cataclysm overtake us all down below, what gentle knights are better suited to repopulate our world than our saintly leaders? Congress, the judiciary, the President are all exceptional individuals who have risen to the top to command a nation of untold millions through sheer talent and moral determination. Repopulation by such giants could only in fact improve the lot of humanities descendents.

Yes, invest in NASA. Yes, load them all on a rocket. Yes, by all means let them lead from above, unseen and unvisited. Let noone say we were too afraid to take the sensible step.

We shall miss them, our leaders, available as they currently are to any stranger in need of a chat or shoulder to cry on, discussion of current policy or challenger of their POV. All that will be lost. No more will I saunter into Cheney's office, will he welcome me with a smile, and gladly spend hours discussing Middle Eastern politics. By this sacrifice, we insure our future.

I look forward with tears in my eyes to the day when they leave this planet. The correct funding of NASA will bring this day closer yet than we can dream.

Not so fast...

[gowen]

Remember the Golgafrinchams C Ark... If we don't have our politicians to protect us, we may all be buried alive in a massive landslide of unspent lobbying money and political slushfunds.

Re: "evil" because you don't like them?

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

I think DeLay is exactly what the country really needs right now! We've been divided for so long and Tom can really bring us all together. As a registered republican, I like seeing how most of my republican and democrate friends can come togehter and agree DeLay is a disgrace. Between his actions and spewing about judges, I really feel this is a moment where we can begin the heal as a country and feel like one again over our discust with him.

It really give me hope for the future! Thanks Tom!

bitch

[pr0nbot]

I was going to bitch about how spending money on going to Mars was a waste when it could be spent on, say, a strategy for dealing with climate change...

...until I thought, maybe going to Mars is Bush's strategy for dealing with climate change?

Run it through:

[Guano_Jim]

I just ran the quote through my Dave Chapelle translator:

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said Tuesday the space agency will have the necessary funding to send astronauts back to the moon and to Mars.

Comes out:

We're going to Mars, bitches!

Re:Just Set Up The Apollo Prize

[harks]

We sure can't let the terrorists beat us to the Moon!

Re:who's not reading between the lines here?

[Skjellifetti]

DeLay represents the TX 22nd Congressional District. The district is largely in the Houston suburbs. NASA has a large presence in Houston. His press release is really just the standard Congressional release:

We will provide whatever funding is required to support $PROGRAM of $AGENCY in order to bring Federal Government cash and jobs to my district.

Re:15 billion dollars is just chump change

[TripMaster Monkey]

Indeed...just tack it onto the Iraq spending bill...we can even come up with a good reason it should be included in the bill:

• Space exploration will lead to new technological breakthroughs, just as the Space Race did before.
  
• Humans have always shown a remarkable ability to pervert any new technological advance into a weapon.
  
• We need better weapons to more effectively fight the War on Terror.
  

Nothing to it.
^_^