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Obama Team Considers Cancellation of Ares, Orion
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."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH:
http://perotcharts.com/category/challenges-charts/page/14
The tumorous growth of entitlements grows unabated.
http://www.pensiontsunami.com/
Here is a crowning look at doom:
http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2008/09/26/supercycle
So, we're all kind of baked.
Cheers,
Smitty
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
What most people, including the parent of this thread, don't understand is that NASA and other federal R&D facilities do is fuel our economy.
/. work in the IT field. Well you can thank NASA for the Beowulf Cluster. NASA also worked with industry to make cordless drills, CAT Scans, digital thermometers, welder's goggles and thousands of other products.
Many people here on
Don't take my word for it.
http://www.beowulf.org/overview/history.html
http://space.about.com/od/toolsequipment/ss/apollospinoffs.htm
http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/spinoff.html
Engage brain before moving mouth.
Overrated, Troll, and Flamebait mod points are not to be used towards posts you disagree with. That IS censorship.
Yes, thankfully he wasn't in Congress, where all spending bills originate, so he's good and blameless of the current mess. And he and his Party did not have control of the Congress for the last few years, nor were consistent blocks to appeals for oversight into the housing market fiascoes of Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae. Oh wait...
Granted that Dems are usually regarded as the "spend" party. To characterize the unbelievable growth of the debt over the last 8 yeas as the Dems fault is quite a stretch, the Republicans had complete control for 6 of the 8 years. Also, the only time the debt hasn't been wildly growing out of control since 1980 was during the Clinton Admin.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
I agree with you in principle; Obama should definitely validate the actual need for existing programs (military and domestic), and kill those we can live without. I disagree, though, that the F-35 is "bleeding edge" (its focus has always been on affordability as an export fighter set to compete with the French Rafale, the Swedish Gripen, and the multi-national Eurofighter rather than "performance at any cost"), or that it can be replaced by "incremental upgrades" to the existing fleet.
The F-35 has strong international support from US allies who have helped fund and execute the program (including the United Kingdom, Italy, Netherlands, Canada, Turkey, Australia, Norway, Denmark, Israel, and Singapore). It is the only potential replacement for the badly aging AV-8B Harrier II, and will also replace the F-16, A-10, EA-6B, and F/A-18 (except the Super Hornet model, for which it serves as a stealth-capable adjunct).
in favor of re-capitalizing with incremental improvements to exiting proven systems
This argument just doesn't work well for the F-35. While we could arguably replace existing F-16 inventories with the F-16 Block 60, and just buy more F-18 E/F Super Hornets for the Navy, we'd be left with two problems that make your suggestion impractical.
"Incremental improvements" to the Harrier II would be cost-prohibitive, and likely wouldn't solve the major supportability issues it faces. Remember, a STOVL aircraft lives or dies on weight. Cutting weight is hard. Adding weight in a mid-life upgrade is easy. Cost-wise, an "incremental improvement" to the Harrier II is equivalent to a re-design - and we've already paid for a redesign in the F-35. (Same basic problem in the long run with the A-10, though we have more time in that aircraft's instance.)
Second problem is more severe - you can't "incrementally upgrade" an existing aircraft to stealth. Other than the (expensive and non-exportable) F-22, the F-35 is the only fifth generation stealth fighter available to the allied military. The value of stealth has been proven thoroughly and repeatedly; GIYF.
Just as you have to eventually forsake upgrading your beloved IBM XT and buy a new freaking machine, it's time to replace Harrier II's and their generational cohorts with a new platform for the next 50 years - which explains the strong international support behind the F-35.
The F-35 is already in low-rate production after 12 years of competition and detailed design work, and is only 4 years from initial deployment in the USA and UK. Killing it now would be incredibly foolish - and I don't think Obama is foolish in the least.
(All of the F-35 info above I pulled from Wikipedia, of course.)
And you are uneducated enough not to know the difference.
Have you seen the heat shield they started putting on/in houses in southern climates? Where do you think that was developed originally? This heat shield keeps heat out in summer; and retains heat in the winter. This is one of the most obvious applications of NASA developed technology towards greater energy conservation.
Microwaves -- are these a myth? Think these were developed by a commercial entity just so they could sell you a different type of oven?
Integrated circuits -- of course lighter weight, cheaper to manufacture electronics were not created by the space industry. When lifting loads into orbit, you don't need lighter weight electronics.
Here is a better list you can ignore
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
Those estimates are disingenuous. The Saturn V only cost 2.4-3.5 billion a launch when you take the money spent (adjusted for inflation) on the entire Saturn program (including R/D) then divide it by the number of launches. 500-600 million for launch is the actual cost of a single shuttle launch. Cost on the shuttle program in toto is around 150 billion total. Saturn was a much better deal considering the larger amount it could get to LEO and GTO. Considering that the shuttle isn't even capable of a transit orbit makes Saturn a bargain by comparison.
I second this. IMO, the only way to significantly put a dent in the budget would be to cut back on defense spending.
Then you have no actual knowledge of the Federal budget. Defense spending has decreased as a percentage of discretionary spending every year for the past 42 years, while entitlement programs have ballooned to make up the vast majority of the federal budget. Cutting more defense spending would be cutting a small chunk off of a small chunk.
Now I'm not saying we couldn't/shouldn't cut back on defense spending, but to imply or state that it would be the *only* effective measure in reducing the deficit is just not factual.
http://perotcharts.com/category/federal-budget-charts/page/9/
2007 Defense spending is approx 20% of federal spending as a whole, so even a 25% cut in defense spending would only have a net effect of a 5% reduction in spending. Not nearly enough to put a 'significant dent' in the budget.
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
No it wasn't misleading at all. Some of the people they found where multi-millionaires like ex-Microsoft owner Paul Allen. The money was meant to go to small farmers, farmers whos gross incomes where in the 400,000-500,000 dollar range with NO OTHER SOURCES OF INCOME beyond what they made farming. Its going to mega-corp farmers who are using accountants to play around with their income though which is not what it was intended to go to.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."