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NASA May Shut Down all Space Station's Research
jdoire writes "NASA is considering shutting down all the research programs it conducts aboard the international space station for at least a year to fill a projected budget shortfall of up to $100 million, a top station manager said on Thursday. Why the shortfall, you may ask? Because of $3 billion of Congress's pet projets"
If they're going to finish building the damn thing in less than 4 years, why doesn't it make sense to stop playing with that science experiment and put on their hard hat? They need to focus on construction or else you'll have this half finished barge in orbit. You'll get a lot more science done when the place is big enough for a 6 scientists.
I want my own personnal Bridge to Nowhere, damn it. If the Alaskans have one then I want one too. In fact, I think every American citizen shouldget his own bridge. The world needs more bridges. Potential break-throughs in space travel or space exploration? Pfft, who needs that.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Apparently not enough:
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
I can see China overtaking the US in space exploration within the next decade or so because of all the beurocratic nonesense and hoop jumping going on in West
I've not yet deiced if Michel Griffin is doing a better job, or if I just paid less attention when Sean O'Keefe, the previous administrator fought such battles.
I think Michael Griffin is doing a better job.
Focus on the missions, and the supplementary benefits will follow. NASA did not need to buy computers for students, build planetariums or make a special website so that I could learn about the Voyager missions. Instead, they supremely engineered those things, and the science that they returned (and are still returning) inspired and taught the world.
People tend to underestimate the impact of one successful mission. Voyager, Hubble, Apollo and The Mars Rovers have done more for
science and education around the world than any congressman.
Nice troll is right;
Construction or renovation of dozens of museums, planetariums and science labs for colleges. Oh I see NASA is uniquely qualified to provide laser light shows to rock music and the presence of museums and planetariums are instrumental to the exploration of aeronaughtics and space.
Computers, classrooms and lab space for colleges and schools across the U.S. If you've checked the prices on tutition and contact hours recently you'd know that if a school wants something useful, they'd just cut a check and buy it, if a school wants something that's "well yeaah maybe it'll come in handy, I'm sure we'll figure out something to do with it" than why not get the money direct from congress and cut out the middle-man, doesn't the middle-man have better things to do than run community outreach when their primary mission is basicaly on hold?
A website and laboratory for the Gulf of Maine Aquarium. Fish in space, KEWL I wanta aquarium on ISS! That'll make one hell of a screen saver!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Are they directly related to space exploration and (related) research? If not, why are they coming out of the NASA budget? Surely the "Computers, classrooms and lab space for colleges and schools across the U.S." should come from a different budget? Similar with the Aquarium.
Theres "worthy choices", and then there are "worthy choices that are funded by the appropriate budget". These may be the former, but apart from the museums and planetariums I think they are not the latter. They sound to me more like there is no way in h*ll that federal money would otherwise be granted to the project, so they got NASA to spend its limited budget on it instead.
As I recall, most Slashdotters supported this policy. Don't think it has anything to do with Congressional pork, which has always been there. It's simply NASA's new priorities:
. html) -- conveniently for Republican environmental policy -- and made manned spaceflight its top prioirty (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/ 17/1415223).
When Bush announced manned spaceflight to the Moon and Mars, Slashdotters broadly supported it (perhaps someone can find the original post). But of course, there are not unlimited resources, so money must be diverted from something else, namely science.
NASA now has cut all environmental science from its mission (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/science/22nasa
The mammoth deficit and the Republican's refusal to raise taxes ensure that funds are even more limited. NASA can't have it all, so which do you want? Science, or manned spaceflight?
According to msnbc, the Iraq war is costing $200 million per day. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11880954/ A half day of war funding would take care of NASA's immediate shortfall.
The topic author points out $3 billion in "pet projects" -- many of which are a waste, but also many of which are valuable. Not that the budget should have itemized spending like this -- it is just absurd to say that pork of $3 billion in a year is the problem.
The problem is the nearly $5 billion per month (USA Today article with the numbers here) being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Even if you think the wars are legitimate, logic dictates that this huge cost is the reason why our deficit is going up, and why programs are being shortchanged.