NASA Funding Boost, But No Shuttle Extension in Obama Budget

adeelarshad82 writes to point out that details have been provided for President Obama's proposed $18.7 billion in funding for NASA in 2010 (up from $17.2 billion in 2008). Quoting: "The budget calls on NASA to complete International Space Station construction, as well as continue its Earth science missions and aviation research. Yet it also remains fixed to former President George W. Bush's plan to retire the space shuttle fleet by 2010 and replace them with the new Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle, which would fly astronauts to the space station and return them to the moon by 2020. The outline does make room for an extra shuttle flight beyond the nine currently remaining on NASA's schedule, but only if it is deemed safe and can be flown before the end of 2010."

Comments

Re:Good To See Grownups In Charge

[donscarletti]

No idiotic talk of planting a flag on Mars.

Can I point out something that the parent poster might have missed? Sending people to Mars is actually quite cool.

Now, if we think about this for a second, meat and potato aerospace research is done in many places, spacecraft manufacturers, communications companies, the Airforce etc. Because they actually have to do useful things with the research, the research must therefore be done. On the other hand NASA's purpose is to make Americans feel good about themselves. The idea is to show the national contempt for the universe by lobbing a group of jocks as far out into it as possible then brining them back alive.

Now, with the amount Americans currently spend on entertainment, I think it is quite financially sane to invest money primarily on doing cool stuff. Nobody cares about the ISS, nobody cares about permanent bases, nobody cares about where the next robot is going. But if you stick some airforce guys on the end of a giant rocket and send them to another planet and everyone's going to start paying attention. You can have news coverage, you can have books, you can have documentaries, you can have movies and everyone's happy and entertained.

Not to mention, whichever nation first successfully recovers a crew that has been to Mars is going to feel awesome. Look at the Apollo program, America was having a rough decade with foreign relations, Bay of Pigs, Vietnam etc. but when 2 Americans flew to the moon, everyone generally considered that to be a good thing. Nobody even cared that the rocket was designed by a Nazi, everyone just likes big engines with lots of fire and adventure.

19 Billion dollars is only $6 from every American. I think proper entertainment of this sort is worth $50 per capita. I'm not even American but I would gladly chip in that amount to NASA or any other country's space program putting a serious effort into putting someone where they don't belong and bringing them back again.