Slashdot Mirror
NASA Wants To Fund Space Taxis
NASA plans on using $50 million in stimulus funds to seed development of a commercial passenger transportation service to space. Potential space taxi inventors have 45 days to submit their proposals. The proposals will be competitively evaluated and the winners will be announced by the end of September. It is unclear what other Commodore 64 games NASA plans on making a reality, but I hope Arkanoid makes the short list.
"You betchya!"
Sarah Palin can see the sun from her house in Alaska, so she feels she's qualified to discuss space commercialization.
Developers: We can use your help.
... just realize that the next thing we need to figure out in space is how to get people into space both safely and cheaply. Hey, get people safely and cheaply into space? That means more satellites, more repairs, more tourism for the common man, more economic opportunities.
... did i sign on for this waste of money? i'd prefer that private investors footed the bill ... if they want it they can pay for it ... i don't think it's a good time for my tax dollar to be paying for a "space taxis"
and more cost to the taxpayers
sorry i don't like other people spending my money
I found 50 million dollars you can use to fund your health care reform program.
Taxing from hardworking real middle class to give some government agency to BURN our money is ridiculously CRIMINAL.
The way Congress manipulates our taxes to BUY VOTES is wrong.
Get a grip spaz. The '60s are over and engineering students are a dime a dozen.
Noone is interested in space anymore. Been there done that. Complete yawnsville. We can do more with less by sending probes. That will get us more information than any man flight with the added benefit of not risking someone's life.
We don't need to spend 100 of billions of dollars and wait decades just to get some "indirect" invention like light-bright. Seriously, where have you been living lately? We are seeing all kinds of technological advances and changes. None of them due to the space program. None of them need the space program.
The REAL engineering challenges are right here on earth. Stop being a day dreamer and rollup your sleeves and address today's issues. Global Warming for example or if that is too mundane then how about cleaning CO2 from the atmosphere. How about scrubbing CO2 from coal plants. How about improving batter life, and shrinking batter size to be used in cars. How about developing algae as a fuel source for cars. How about removing heavy metals from our drinking supply and the oceans.
Seriously they are sooo many problems right here on the plant that need practical solutions.
Forget space and deal with Earth for once.
Thing is, the solutions to Earth's problems would actually go along way to solving some of the problems with space travel.
NASA is whining that their budget is too small to complete the Constellation program and then they waste money on pie-in-the-sky crap like this. Stimulus money or not this should have gone to something FAR more practical