Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Obama Team Considers Cancellation of Ares, Orion

Posted by Soulskill on from the to-infinity-and-maybe-not dept.

HanzoSpam sends us this story from Space News, which begins: "US President-elect Barack Obama's NASA transition team is asking US space agency officials to quantify how much money could be saved by canceling the Ares 1 rocket and scaling back the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle next year. ... The questionnaire, 'NASA Presidential Transition Team Requests for Information,' asks agency officials to provide the latest information on Ares 1, Orion and the planned Ares 5 heavy-lift cargo launcher, and to calculate the near-term close-out costs and longer-term savings associated with canceling those programs. The questionnaire also contemplates a scenario where Ares 1 would be canceled but development of the Ares 5 would continue. While the questionnaire, a copy of which was obtained by Space News, also asks NASA to provide a cost estimate for accelerating the first operational flight of Ares 1 and Orion from the current target date of March 2015 to as soon as 2013, NASA was not asked to study the cost implications of canceling any of its other programs, including the significantly overbudget 2009 Mars Science Laboratory or the James Webb Space Telescope."

8 of 870 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Results by ErikZ · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oh man. Now they're sure to get canceled. Showing results for the money makes other government programs look bad.

    Stop working so hard NASA!

    --
    Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
  2. Who the hell do you think you are? by Rix · · Score: 5, Funny

    What gives you the right to tell the rest of us what government is "supposed" to do?

    Libertarians and their totalitarian fantasies can fuck right off. If people want the government to give everyone rainbows and blowjobs, you have no business telling them it shouldn't.

    1. Re:Who the hell do you think you are? by jcnnghm · · Score: 5, Funny

      We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. - US Constitution

      You stupid hippies can fuck right off. Nowhere in there do I see anything about social security, Medicaid, Medicare, or socialized medicine, whereas the common defense is explicitly mentioned. And before you even start, 'promote the general welfare' != 'ensure/provide the general welfare'. People should be given the ability to achieve, not the assurance that they will achieve.

      --
      You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
    2. Re:Who the hell do you think you are? by QuasiEvil · · Score: 2, Funny

      Although if we can make these part of the new healthcare program, I'm willing to go for a constitutional amendment.

      Okay, as budget-conscious concession, I'm willing to forgo the rainbows.

  3. Leave the stargate alone! by BigZaphod · · Score: 2, Funny

    Boy.. I hope they don't cut funding for the stargate program... who would stop all the alien attacks?

    --
    Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
  4. Re:Cut taxes, then by INT_QRK · · Score: 2, Funny

    No! We call ourselves quasi-pseudo-post-incremental-neo-economic libertarian logistical confabulators for anti-social justice..and veggie vampires...per se...

  5. Re:Cut taxes, then by thrillseeker · · Score: 2, Funny

    If the US would like to remain a world military player, being able to put people in orbit would probably be a plus.

    If we're talking defense, being able to at-will remove the people others spent a fortune putting into orbit would be a double-plus

  6. Re:Don't jump to conclusions by mopower70 · · Score: 2, Funny

    You must be new here :)