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NASA May Drop Ares I-Y Test Flight
Matt_dk writes "Just one week after the first test launch of the Ares I-X rocket, NASA says it may decide to cancel a follow-up launch called Ares 1-Y, which wasn't scheduled until 2014. Reportedly, program managers recommended dropping the flight because, currently, there isn't funding to get an upper stage engine ready in time. Depending on whether the Obama administration decides to continue the Ares I program, this decision may be moot. Earlier this week Sen. Bill Nelson said Obama may make a decision on NASA's future path, based on the report by the Augustine Commission, by the end of November."
I wonder if NASA is going to be able to keep up internal interest on these projects with the way their budget keeps getting cleaved. Hell, I wonder how they managed to keep people onboard, what with a 5 year delay between test flights.
Too bad we spend a trillion dollars invading the wrong country based on obvious lies and fabrications. I think we would have been better off spending that money on cool space toys or at least getting Afghanistan right the first time.
We will be paying for the George W Bush's disastrous presidency for a very long time.
...that Obama is really a conservative, not a liberal.
I hope you're joking...
I suppose in some very liberal circles, Obama is conservative ... if you use "conservative" as a "relative" term. But you usually don't use it in a relative term without stating what it is relative to. A conservative democrat? A conservative republican? Conservative conservative?
Anyway, Obama seems to be more "populist" than anything. He won based on his popularity and charisma, not so much his liberal or conservative policies. From my viewpoint, Obama is very liberal. But then, I'm very conservative. So there you have it.
Have you seen his energy initiatives? You can pursue science and "the future of our species" without spending billions on pie-in-the-sky space projects.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a space junkie. I like Battlestar Galactica just like any other red-blooded American geek. And if we were overflowing in riches right now, I'd say let's go for it.
But the practical fact of the situation is that space exploration is only one miniscule part of science, and it is very, very expensive. Yes, you make engineering discoveries, and some of it is really glamorous on the 6:00 news. But if you're looking for bang for your buck, let's be honest. You can pursue science that is much cheaper and which has much more immediate gains by investing in stuff like developing alternative energy, beefing up our computing infrastructure, etc.
Just because money isn't spent on the stuff that you personally think is neat doesn't mean that it's not being well-spent or being put to productive use.
Back then they were able to link landing on the moon with beating the Russians, which at the time virtually guaranteed as much money as you could possibly want to accomplish the goal. Having the goal set by a president who was later assassinated, and carried on by his VP who basically set himself up to be the guy who would carry on JFK's legacy, didn't hurt either. Of course, after that goal was reached, NASA's funding was slashed, and they've been unable to accomplish much in the way of manned exploration since then.
Now, if you could somehow link landing on Mars to beating the terrorists, we could get all the money we need to get this thing done quickly. Until then, though, they can only do things as fast as their ever-shrinking budget will let them.
I'm going to break Slashdot etiquette by replying to my own reply, but this is the kind of thing I'm talking about.
If you were president, and you had the choice to, say, send a manned mission to Mars to collect some dirt and maybe begin the steps it would take to, if we're lucky and very, very good, colonize the planet a century or two from now, or roll out a national energy infrastructure that will get us off of fossil fuels today, thus keeping our own planet from boiling away (and most likely discovering a lot of very useful stuff that would make such a manned Mars mission much cheaper, safer, and more practical when we DO do it), which would you choose?
Some people are still under the misguided notion that we don't have to make such choices, that we can just do both. That's one of our problems with science initiatives today. We're trying to do everything, and we end up half-assing it all and nothing gets done.
Personally, I'd rather just not have a space program (well, nothing much more than putting satellites in orbit now and then) than spending billions on the white elephant of one that we have today.
Well NASA sure as heck isn't raking in the funding under Obama either. And don't go saying he'll be giving more funding to have NASA do Earth Science either because of his stance on Global Warming, because he isn't doing that either.
All I see right now is liberal special interest groups getting waaaayyyy more money than NASA is even asking for showered on them and NASA continuing to get the shaft from this administration just like they did from the last one.
I am sick of hearing how science can now breathe a sigh of relief because Obama's in the White House. They won't be doing anything at all unless they get some real funding pretty soon.