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Reported Obama Plan Would Privatize Manned Launches
couchslug writes with this excerpt from the not-yet-paywalled New York Times: "President Obama will end NASA's return mission to the moon and turn to private companies to launch astronauts into space when he unveils his budget request to Congress next week, an administration official said Thursday. The shift would 'put NASA on a more sustainable and ambitious path to the future' said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. But the changes have angered some members of Congress, particularly from Texas, the location of the Johnson Space Center, and Florida, the location of the Kennedy Space Center. 'My biggest fear is that this amounts to a slow death of our nation's human space flight program,' Representative Bill Posey, Republican of Florida, said in a statement." If true, this won't please the federal panel that recommended against just such privatization.
Sounds like some bigwigs with enough lobbying power in DC decided they wanted to rape the USA for more money. I mean, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the perfect models for contracting to civilians agencies, who take a 110 million dollar contract, and subcontract it, paying the subcontractors about 10% and they get to pocket the rest. Of course with such public program, this could never happen you say. All it takes is some byzantine law that says they arent required to disclose budgets and suddenly we have no idea where the money goes (besides the pockets of corrupt politicians and greedy C level officers) They say in TFA they wan't to increase "entrepreneurial interests" WTF. I'm so sick and tired of washington politics it makes me so disappointed in my country. With the public fighting over partisanship ("Obama's the antichrist","Bush done it") people need to wake up and realize that the problem is greed for money and power. Both fucking parties are just as at fault for everything that is wrong with the USA right now. First step to a better America IMO is to completely stop the ability for corporations to make donations to any type of political party or anyone with political affiliation. Lobbying should be an intellectual exercise, not a who can buy off who exercise. This would proportionately seem to put more power back in the people hands, at least as a start. Second? American people need to start using their brains. Stop watching 5 hours of TV a day and read a good non-fiction book about the middle east, american politics, anything to expand your mind. Learn how to stop being so damn religious and start thinking rationally and objectively (all of these things are also parts of basic education, something which is also failing horribly) Washington needs to stop using their own heads and start listening to Think Tanks and people with practical experience equally. Have accountability in everything. The sad part? It will more than likely never happen. Its a prisoners dilemma sort of situation. Most of use know the government and corporations are horribly corrupt and inefficient, they screw us over all the time. So what is your response? "Well all I can do is look out for me and my family" which is the same thought process the corrupts people have. Everyone (with exceptions of course, comon, I'm making a bunch a generalizations to get my point across) has this attitude and it never changes. If you were that C level person, what would you do? Even if you think you would do the right thing, studies show that by nature to higher you get the more likely you are to be stricter about moral issues on other people but more lax on them with yourself. The problem is that it seems to be human nature. Send 50 people to colonize a new earth duplicate planet, and within months I guarantee there would be thievery, repression, greed ect. Yep, pretty much humanity seems to be like a virus, and one of these millennium the universe is likely to swallow us whole and try and start over.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
Sir, I couldn't agree more! I wasn't born in 1969 and I was hoping to live the day when man will step on Mars. Sadly, this will not happen during my lifetime. Thank you, Obama.
It's spelled "F.O.X."
You are welcome on my lawn.