Former Astronauts Call Obama NASA Plans "Catastrophic"

krou writes "Talking to the BBC at a private function held at the Royal Society in London, former astronauts Jim Lovell and Eugene Cernan both spoke out about Obama's decision to postpone further moon missions. Lovell claimed that 'it will have catastrophic consequences in our ability to explore space and the spin-offs we get from space technology,' while Cernan noted he was 'disappointed' to have been the last person to land on the moon. Said Cernan: 'I think America has a responsibility to maintain its leadership in technology and its moral leadership ... to seek knowledge. Curiosity's the essence of human existence.' Neil Armstrong, who was also at the event, avoided commenting on the subject."

Comments

Re:Priorities.

[corbettw]

The Congressional Budget Office disagrees with you. According to their estimates, Obamacare will cost an additional $1 trillion over 10 years. In what way is squandering $1 trillion a way to save money?

Re:Our budget deficits are catastrophic, too

[c6gunner]

Oh, is *that* why we didn't get involved until we were directly attacked? Huh. How about that.

Ditto on Iraq?

In WW2 you got hit by the Japanese and invaded Germany. In 2001 you got hit by a multinational group of thugs and invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. I'm not seeing a big difference there. Anyone who can argue that Iraq was unjustified can just as easily argue that American involvement in Germany was unjustified. Of course, they don't, because their views are inconsistent, but I was simply pointing out that both positions are equally "logical".

Re:Our budget deficits are catastrophic, too

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Oh, is *that* why we didn't get involved until we were directly attacked? Huh. How about that.

There's a hell of a lot of historians that argue the US didn't react militarily to allies getting invaded because a "certain party" was rooting for the "champion of the poor*" in that war. For the socialists (to be exact the "national" socialists)

* yes it's a reference to adolf hitler, you try posting about WWII without mentioning him

Re:Our budget deficits are catastrophic, too

[DaHat]

>In case you forgot, George W Bush enacted the first bailout,

Which then Senator Obama voted for, funny how you failed to mention that.

More so... you argument is childish... it's the equivalent of "but he did it first!"

>and it's one of the few things I think he got right!

No... he "abandoning free market principals in order to save the free market" was actually a rather large mistake.

>I'd rather bail out the banks than see the economy crash into a depression.

Absolutely right! I mean, the happy days are here again!... thank god we've fixed unemployment, paid down our national debt, solved global warming, restored our place in the world, pulled out of Iraq, closed Gitmo, etc.

Sure a good thing we bailed out the banks, nationalized a couple auto companies as it's all obviously made things better... right? Oh wait... no... things keep declining... funny that... maybe those fixes weren't the right ones.

Re:Our budget deficits are catastrophic, too

[DaHat]

The only childish bit is the tea party crowd insisting that Obama did it instead, somehow doing it before he was elected.

Explain or withdraw the statement.

A lot of people of both sides of politics that know more about these things than any of us decided it was a good idea anyway.

And those who said such things were good... are being proven wrong as time goes on I am happy to say... sure a shame they had to bring this country and it's economy down even further in order for that to be shown.

Also I hope you are simply pretending that you think everything could be fixed instantly by magic and don't actually believe it.

Not at all... I think the free market, if left alone will fix things pretty damn well... shame it's been coming under increasing attack in this country for the better part of 80 years now.

It's going to be hard for quite a few years and if Afganistan goes very badly there might even be a draft.

A) A draft will not happen, our generals do not want such a thing. B) What does a draft have to do with anything?

You'll have plenty of reasons to hate Obama and probably whoever follows him intensely for whatever has to be done to clean up after Bush's Enron style approach.

I'd respond... but you didn't actually say anything here, just a few words that have the semblance of a typical anti-bush mantra... but devoid of any meaning.

Also... see above, I addressed some of the points I think you tried to raise.

Re:Our budget deficits are catastrophic, too

[c6gunner]

How many Germans hit Pearl Harbor?

Right. Like all the other twits, you're simply ignoring inconvenient facts.

Re:TOTALLY INCONCEIVABLE !!

[ThePhilips]

the Japanese Astronauts, the Chinese Taikonauts and the Indian Hehenauts live and work in their respectable moon-bases, we Americans are still stuck in the bottom of the gravity well.

Let me give you a hint: check out the news.

In times of national economic crisis, I think your Mr.Pres. does fine job. Though it seems that most gringos already forgot that the crisis is out there - probably TV news don't cover it anymore...