NASA Think Tank to be Shut Down

Matthew Sparkes writes "NASA will likely shut down its Institute for Advanced Concepts, which funds research into futuristic ideas in spaceflight and aeronautics. The move highlights the budget problems the agency is facing as it struggles to retire the space shuttles and develop a replacement. The institute receives $4 million per year from NASA, whose annual budget is $17 billion. Most of that is used to fund research into innovative technologies; recent grants include the conceptual development of spacecraft that could surf the solar system on magnetic fields, motion-sensitive spacesuits that could generate power and tiny, spherical robots that could explore Mars."

Comments

Stop Manned Space Flight

[overtly_demure]

The problem is right in front of you: manned space flight is a colossal waste of money. It serves no useful purpose for there to be a human being physically present on a space flight to turn things on and off. This isn't the 17th century, it is the age of computers and robots. Vastly more space science and exploration can be achieved if humans are removed from the equation, and at a fantastically lower cost.

Of course, people will have to abandon their religious beliefs and superstitions regarding the imminent colonization of space by humans, or escaping from earth in significant numbers to escape an asteroid impact or whatnot.

Manned space exploration is government pork for military aerospace companies. Nothing more.