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Obama's Evolving Stance On NASA
mknewman writes "The Houston Chronicle is reporting a change in Obama's stance on NASA, saying his position on space exploration continued to evolve Sunday as the Illinois Democrat endorsed a congressional plan to add $2 billion to NASA's budget and agreed to back at least one more space shuttle mission."
If you adjust for inflation, NASA's budget is about half of what it was during the space race years in the 60's. You can't go to Mars on that. You probably can't even go back to the moon on that. And a paltry $2 billion isn't going to make much of a difference.
Obama is no more serious about NASA's lofty aspirations that Bush or Clinton. It's just political pandering for Florida. And I am tired of hearing promises from politicians that they know damn well they can never deliver on.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Just to give you an idea on how much $2 billion might help NASA, there are some stats for NASA's budget. In 2007 they had a budget of $15.861 billion and for this year they are using $17.318 billion. If you adjust for inflation, NASA has averaged $16.290 billion dollars per year which means this $2 billion would be about a 11.5-12.2% increase in its annual budget.
By comparison, the DoD budget was $439.3 billion in 2007 but my gripe with U.S. fiscal spending is probably a bit off topic here.
My work here is dung.
It is interesting to me how when one politician changes his stance due to recognition of the will of the people, he is vilified as a panderer or "flip-flopper." Yet it is called evolutionary when the other does the same thing.
Could we not just as easily say that both are listening to the people who would put them in office? Or at least letting us think they are listening to us.
Yes, because it's much better to tell people we're going to go to Mars, and then not give them sufficient money to do so, resulting in other programs getting cut. Even John Glenn referred to Bush's "Vision for Space Exploration" as an unfunded mandate.
And it's not like this is the only unfunded mandate shoved down NASA's throat -- how much is HSPD-12 costing all of the agencies?
Disclaimer : I've been a contractor at NASA, and one of my projects lost their funding for more than year because of the Mars program ... by the time we got funding again, we couldn't get the team back together, because they had been assigned to other projects.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
He changed his mind! It's clearly pandering of the worst sort!
I really wish we could get rid of this ridiculous focus on changing views. Emerson summed it up nicely, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." In this case, it would have been foolish of Obama to be consistent -- he was wrong. He was persuaded otherwise. Is this somehow a bad thing, a moral failure? Yeah, it was advantageous of him to come to this conclusion, but it's almost always advantageous to change from a wrong conclusion to a correct one.
I love how not being able to change your mind or agree with someone else's proposal is now a thing of weakness in a politician.
The thing I like about Obama is that he pushes for compromise, builds consensus, and isn't just out to fuck over the other party.
But no, no, the fact that he is open to funding something that wasn't a priority for him originally, is this HUGE FUCKING PROBLEM because OMFG HE CHANGED HIS MIND~!@!@$#~!
Fucking zombies.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I think the return the US gets for its NASA spending is greatly under calculated. The last space race caused the US to focus on creating engineers and scientists through education. Look around you for the benefits.
Today I sometimes feel we are raising generations of people who will order a "Bud" because they can't read or pronounce Budweiser.
Think Deeply.
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but I see a lot of this around. I don't understand how people can be so dumb as to think that Democrats are the heavy spenders. The Republicans have, ever since Reagan, been trying to outdo each other by lowering tax but raising spending. See here for a discussion. It is the Republicans, not the Democrats, who are the big spenders. And if you believe that you can run a deficit for decades without harming anything, then you're a fool. And McCain has admitted that the economy isn't his cup of tea, as evidenced by his proposed cuts to the fuel tax. At least Obama knew enough economics to oppose that.
Given the current crisis, I'd vote for Obama on that alone. What economic knowledge he's demonstrated makes him far more qualified a candidate than McCain or Clinton, despite some of his other failings.
It's perfectly acceptable to waste billions of dollars paying uneducated dolts to sit around and do nothing but create more useless babies.
But it's not acceptable to pay smart eggy headed scientists a whole lot less, people who have to be really fracking smart to actually work and do sciencey stuff using their brains and finding out stuff about the universe and world we live in.
Plus the scientists don't usually have a mess off leech-like children, if a NASA engineer does mate it is usually one child or two, which is below replacement levels. Plus their children are usually made to go to school and actually do somethign with their lives because the smart eggy headed scientist types are usually better at raising children that their child crapping counterparts.
I say, End all welfare programs and shovel all that money to NASA, we may have to worry about not having enough people, but by golly we will damned well have our permanent base on the moon, so when all of the breeding stock left on earth blow themselves up over their little sky god we can at least re-colonize the earth, or at least still preserve the best of humanity.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
I would counter your 'gas tax holiday' argument (about which you're entirely correct) with everything else Obama wants to do with respect to gas prices. Windfall tax on oil companies? That'll drive prices up. Preventing drilling for domestic oil reserves? That won't help either. Pull oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? That won't last long. Force the oil companies to drill the leases they already own? Gee, you'd think they would already be doing that if it would make them money. But it wouldn't, in large part due to government interference.
Obama claims that he will eliminate our dependence on middle-east oil in 10 years. Anyone who believes that is deluding themselves. At least McCain is willing to admit it's a weakness, rather than pretend he knows better.
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And McCain has admitted that the economy isn't his cup of tea, as evidenced by his proposed cuts to the fuel tax. At least Obama knew enough economics to oppose that.
Given the current crisis, I'd vote for Obama on that alone. What economic knowledge he's demonstrated makes him far more qualified a candidate than McCain or Clinton, despite some of his other failings.
Obama has demonstrated nothing. I agree with Obama's decision not to support a gas tax holiday, but Obama's flip-flop stance on releasing the Strategic Reserve to combat high gas prices proves that he's probably even stupider than the average politician. And that he proposed this strategy a mere month after announcing that he wouldn't, while criticizing McCain for his reversal after 8 years when the price of gas has increased by 6x, shows that he's the consummate politician-- and that's certainly no compliment.
The whole point of the Strategic Reserve is to be used for emergencies. Obama wants to withdraw light crude from the reserve and then refill it with heavy crude. This presupposes a drop in gas prices, which certainly is no guarantee. It also undermines one of the reasons why the reserve is important; say, a hurricane wiping out refineries. Replacing light crude with heavy crude which requires MORE refining runs counter to logic.
I'd have wished that Obama was smarter and opposed the gas tax holiday for sane reasons. Now, it just seems like he was trying to differentiate himself from Clinton and McCain.
Regardless, it's been shown [washingtonpost.com] that Obama's tax cut plans would help the lower income brackets more than McCain's, and tax the rich more. This is obviously what a tax system is supposed to do.
A flat tax rate would tax the rich more than the poor (same percent of a higher income is more). Our system with a higher tax rate definitely taxes the rich more than the poor.
At what point does it stop being obvious that you need to take even more money from rich people and even less from poor people? When your tax rates get so high you're starting to cause your most productive workers to leave the country?
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Gee, you'd think they would already be doing that if it would make them money.
But would it make them money? If the price of oil stays high due to a perceived lack of supply, that makes them more money per barrel, which means more profit. It makes sense for them to exhaust oil reserves in the middle east first, because these are the most dangerous to own due to the political climate in the area. How many oil fields were burned in the last Golf War? The price of oil is likely to go up in the long term, due to it being a finite resource, and keeping a big supply within the area of the greatest demand makes good long-term economic sense. No one is likely to attack the USA to take their oil, while the same can not be said for smaller countries (increasingly so when Russia and China start to get low on oil). Keeping oil in the ground in the USA looks like a good long-term investment. Why drill it now, when yo can drill it for the same cost but sell it for twice as much in a few years?
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I'm a staunch Republican, but, I think trying to characterize his policy shifts as a sort of a flip flopper is rather inconsistent with what he's trying to do. Obama is just a left wing pol trying to guide his opinion about how government should be run in response to an evolving set of facts on the ground and I really don't have a problem with him changing his mind as long as he stays consistent with his core beliefs of being a hardcore liberal.
Where Kerry had a problem was that he made a political career out of being a total pacifist, lead anti-war protests across the USA and was instrumental in ending the USA's commitment to Viet Nam, but then he turned around and voted for the Invasion of Iraq in 2002 to get pick up a few votes and then ran not as a Dove but as a Wartime leader during the Democratic convention. That's a huge flip flop.
But what Obama is doing is nothing of the sort. He might, ideally, like, to get rid of NASA because he'd rather spend the money on something else... a lot of Dems feel that way. Walter Mondale famously tried to gut the Apollo moon landings because he wanted bread and butter for the poor. So, its not a big flip flop for Obama to shift on NASA back and forth because the whole left wing has been doing it for a long time.
This is my sig.
I mean, the obvious issue that comes to most people's minds was the shuttle explosion, apparently caused by poor engineering decisions, and subsequent cover-ups of them.
Not poor engineering decisions, poor management decisions. In both cases, engineers warned of the problems, and were cockblocked by management, mostly due to funding issues. NASA is our most important program, and one of our worst funded.
The sad thing is, if the bloated life-sucking tick that is DoD were cut down to size, we'd have plenty of money for both education and Constellation. As I say in my sig, Five percent of one year's DoD budget puts us on Mars. Even at padded government rates, we could put a team of four scientists and infrastructure for settlement on Mars for about 30 billion dollars. (Zubrin has suggested a private firm could do it for only seven billion.) Space geeks who haven't read The Case For Mars should make it a priority. All of the info is online at the link above; the paperback is almost always on the shelf at my local B&N; and it's only $11 at Amazon.
Zubrin has outlined a straightforward plan to settle an entire other planet at relatively low cost. What the hell is the hold-up? How is it this is not the most obvious project in the solar system?
Can we get a mars.slashdot.org subdomain?
Five percent of one year's DoD budget puts us on Mars.
How is Obama replacing 5 million barrels a day tomorrow? Tuneups and inflating tires? McCain has made it pretty clear he is for all alternative fuel source AND drilling. With the inelastic nature of oil, any increase in the supply will lower prices and drastically. T Boone Pickens by the way is not a green guy, he is just for reducing the burden of foreign oil. He is also for off shore drilling, shale production and ANWR drilling. There is no reason we can't do everything. If we started drilling tomorrow there will be some online in 2-3 years, the democratic talking point is 10 years+ but that would be for all 100%. I am all for getting off oil but the simple fact is that it cannot happen overnight, but in the interim, there is no reason to be sending so much money out of this country.
I'm not not licking toads.
You have no idea what facts/information he had before his decision, and what facts/information he has now. Unless you're inside Obama's head, your presumption that he's pandering is just that, a presumption, and a partisan one at that.
J. H. Christ. This is almost as bad as the whole "if you don't support Obama, you must be racist" deal. Almost.
The fact of the matter is, Obama has in recent weeks has completely 180'ed his position on several key issues. There has been no indication of why he changed his position on the issues. For someone who basically won the nomination based on his oratory skills, don't you think he should at the very least be able to articulate what changed in the course of a week weeks- to months?
And the fact that people who call him out on such things are either labelled partisan or bigoted is outrageous.
As long as the tax rate is less than 100% on the additional income, there is still incentive to earn more. Furthermore, if you subscribe to the school of thought that motivation to earn is relative rather than absolute, then this loss of incentive may be even smaller than is commonly thought.
The progressive tax system is necessary regardless of the effect it has on motivation, but because there are social costs that has to be paid. Costs which can not and are not internalized by market forces. It is only natural for us to require those that enjoy the fruits of our society more to contribute correspondingly more to it.
Even a flat income tax system that has a cut-off point (to not tax low earners) is progressive (a two-rate progressive tax).
Furthermore, welfare systems have problems with abuse, as with any other benefit system. Most systems now have time-limits on people qualified to work claiming benefits or social insurance. It doesn't mean that increasing the tax on the top 1% of the earners in the population will lead to more people on welfare. In fact, it argues the opposite in that we need to distribute the tax load more evenly and have other methods of motivating people to work and to improve productivity, including things such as modifying the way we distribute benefits.
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How is Obama replacing 5 million barrels a day tomorrow? Tuneups and inflating tires? McCain has made it pretty clear he is for all alternative fuel source AND drilling. With the inelastic nature of oil, any increase in the supply will lower prices and drastically. T Boone Pickens by the way is not a green guy, he is just for reducing the burden of foreign oil. He is also for off shore drilling, shale production and ANWR drilling. There is no reason we can't do everything. If we started drilling tomorrow there will be some online in 2-3 years, the democratic talking point is 10 years+ but that would be for all 100%. I am all for getting off oil but the simple fact is that it cannot happen overnight, but in the interim, there is no reason to be sending so much money out of this country.
Again, you make fun of simple things like Tuneups and properly inflating tires BEFORE ACTUALLY READING A DAMN THING ABOUT IT.
While it wouldn't maybe help the INDIVIDUAL very much, the ENTIRE COUNTRY would benefit a decent amount.
In fact, if the ENTIRE COUNTRY did these LITTLE things, we could WITHOUT A DOUBT save the same amount of Oil McCain's 'Day Dream' of offshore drilling MIGHT produce 10 YEARS from now.
I'm afraid the same holds true for ANWR. I'm not super concerned about the envirnment up there because I don't think the handful of wells that would be drilled would hurt anything, BUT it wouldn't help us either.
It would certainly help the Oil Companies who could pull the oil out of the ground for PENNIES and sell it for top dollar.
For those who don't know, Oil is priced based on GLOBAL markets, not production cost. SO drilling in the Continental United States is a sweet proposition for Oil Companies because they can pull it out of the ground for nothing but the production costs, BUT CHARGE LIKE THEY BOUGHT IT OVERSEAS.
As long as a SINGLE barrel of oil comes from outside the United States, ALL OIL PRODUCED IN THE UNITED STATES WILL COST PRETTY MUCH THE SAME regardless of the production costs.
Speculators have driven the price up some, but not nearly as much as people blame on them. Besides, speculation has its purpose. Speculation is why you can lock in a price for heating oil NOW, and KNOW FOR CERTAINTY what you will be paying this winter.
This goes the same for McCain's ludicrous 'Gas Tax Holiday'. If you remove the Federal Gas tax (which is less than 25Â for gasoline), then gasoline distributors will simply raise their prices by the EXACT amount removed. There is nothing in the law to prevent this, accept a few, older, arcane price fixing rules that would be IMPOSSIBLE to prove.
All John McCain would have done (if the Democratic Congress hadn't stopped him) is robbed the Highway Department of revenue needed to maintain the countries road system.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26222711/
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Getting to Social Security, you tell me ONE THING wrong with making sure people have something when they retire. I'm so sick of these 20 YEAR OLDS bitching because they are asked to contribute a fingernail slice of their income to help those who came before them.
Ok. I'm 30 something. Here's my ONE THING. I will probably never see a dollar of it myself. The system is intended to work for me when I need it. That's the "security" part of it. But now, the way it's headed, I'm really only seeing the "social" part of it. If they continue to fuck it up and leave it business as usual, I'll have paid a lifetime into a system that won't pay me a dime back. That's the problem. Social Security isn't supposed to be about duty and responsibility, it was supposed to be about insurance for the future.
You'd be pretty sour if you knew you paid car insurance all your life without an accident, and when you finally did have an accident, there'd be nothing for you.
You'll have that sometimes...
Getting to Social Security, you tell me ONE THING wrong with making sure people have something when they retire.
I'll worry about myself - I can invest my money better than the government can - but why should I help you retire?
I'm so sick of these 20 YEAR OLDS bitching because they are asked to contribute a fingernail slice of their income to help those who came before them.
Well, I was 20 well over 10 years ago and let me tell you - once you add ss with medicare, you're at 15.3%. You consider that to be a fingernail slice? You think it should be 20%? 25%? I for one would gladly give up every penny i've put in just to be able to get out.
That is as selfish an snobbish as those (not that I'm accusing you of this, BTW) who scream they'd go to Canada before being Drafted.
If we ever have to draft that just means it isn't worth fighting for - look at WWII - many people gladly joined because it was a cause worth fighting for.
NO ONE has any sense of DUTY or RESPONSIBILITY now days.
Damn right - if they were responsible we wouldn't need Social Security!
As a commodity becomes increasingly scare, you'd expect to see increasingly complicated systems used to effectively distribute the last of it. The increase in speculation is an effect, not a cause, of our current oil crisis.
Given that you are posting on Slashdot, you're probably rather technically oriented and rather secure financially. Consider those less fortunate than yourself: people who grew up without an education, or without ever having seen a computer. Consider the people who work at Tim Hortons sixteen hours a day, go home, watch some hockey and sleep.
Sure, you might argue that they're not contributing to society. But would you not be in the same position if not for some accident of fate? Do these people deserve to live any less than you do? Don't they deserve to experience life just as much as you do? It's not as if they can't afford medical care through any fault of their own. (And even if they have made mistakes: well, who here hasn't a made a mistake that might have ruined his life?)
What you're advocating is Social Darwinism. That's a consistent, but empty strategy that ignores all human feeling and empathy. Sure, it makes sense, but it ignores what makes us human in the first place.
How is Obama replacing 5 million barrels a day tomorrow? Tuneups and inflating tires? McCain has made it pretty clear he is for all alternative fuel source AND drilling.
So, essentially what you're saying is that we should ignore actions that will actually have the effect of lowering demand by increasing fuel efficiency, and that can be done now by individuals, and instead we should go with the stupid fucking dittohead plan of offshore drilling, which has greater long term costs than gains, and has no short term gains at all?
Yes, lets drill drill drill. No, it won't do anything to help anyone. Sure, the resulting environmental damage will wreak havoc on all kinds of tourism and other important industries, but in the long term it will also have a statistically insignificant effect on oil prices!
I mean, what the fuck? How can you be so blindly, happily, willfully fucking ignorant? How can you simply bend over and let an elephant fuck you in the ass, screaming "Thank you" the whole time?
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
Actually, I work for my Father (my parents are divorced). He owns a Publishing company, who itself owns seven Newspapers.
Trust me when I say I do pretty well for myself.
However, I still do not WASTE money on garbage, as a lot of people who make a lot less do.
You can make fun of the fact that I live at home all you want, it doesn't change the fact that I pocket more cash than most people I know who make more than I do.
I simply didn't see the need to tie myself up with a house/apartment rent BILL when I didn't have too.
It has been my experience that the people who bitch most about bills are the ones who INCUR the most Bills.
You cut off luxuries (yes, they are luxuries, not necessities) of Cable/Satellite, DSL/Cable and then come talk to me about how much of a burden taxes are.
SO, your defense for being called out is to define yourself as a rich kid living at home.
Sorry man, you fail.
Maybe if you realized you were pushing your responsibilities off to your Dad you would get it. Yeah sure , YOU'RE not paying for the stuff you say other people waste their money on - your Daddy is.
Bragging that you're pocketing more cash than people who choose not to suck off their parents longer than they have to isn't really that impressive. You seem to have a lot to say about how well you are doing and how we should all follow your lead. The reality is your lead is actually copping out and pushing those responsibilities off to another person.
Yeah, that's enlightened.