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House Passes NASA Authorization Bill

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the please-sir-can-i-have-some-more dept.

simonbp writes "The US House of Representatives has just passed the Senate version of the FY2011 NASA Authorization Act. This bill is a compromise between Obama's proposed budget and earlier House bills. It cancels Ares I in favor of commercially-operated crew transportation to ISS, adds technology development funds, and keeps a version of Orion and a new heavy-lift 'Space Launch System' to both be operational by 2016. The timing of this bill was crucial to keeping key NASA personnel and contractors from being laid off."

1 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. Re:A constant problem in NASA by Thanshin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One day we'll invent this magical system of "getting things done outside of the government", but I guess until then, we'll be stuck with having the government run everything.

    Doing things requires work. Work is made by people. People ask for money in exchange for their work. There are limited sources of money:

    1 - Other people. Insufficient amounts unless you can make a very large number of individuals pay.

    2 - Corporations. Wont't invest without a defined ROI, which isn't clear in pure space exploration.

    3 - Governments.

    So, as you sarcastically refer to non-government based financiation, are you implying you've got a ROI to offer to corporations? Or you have an idea to get a lot of people to donate money for space exploration.

    If you have the answer to either of those, you're welcome to share it.