Can the US Still Lead In Space Despite Shuttle's End?

Hugh Pickens writes "NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden says that the future is bright and promises that one day humans will land on Mars. 'American leadership in space will continue for at least the next half-century because we've laid the foundation for success,' the nation's space chief said in a speech at the National Press Club. 'When I hear people say that the final shuttle flight marks the end of U.S. human space flight, you all must be living on another planet. We are not ending human space flight. We are recommitting ourselves to it.' Bolden says within a year private companies can take over the process of sending cargo shipments into orbit and by 2015 industry can take over astronaut transport, freeing NASA to focus on the long-term goals of reaching beyond Earth's shadow. 'Do we want to keep repeating ourselves or do we want to look at the big horizon?' says Bolden. 'My generation touched the moon today, NASA, and the nation, wants to touch an asteroid, and eventually send a human to Mars.' A group of former astronauts and other critics have blasted the agency and the Obama administration for ending the 30-year-old shuttle program, once the cornerstone of NASA. 'NASA's human spaceflight program is in substantial disarray with no clear-cut mission in the offing. We will have no rockets to carry humans to low-Earth orbit and beyond for an indeterminate number of years,' write Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell and Gene Cernan. 'After a half-century of remarkable progress, a coherent plan for maintaining America's leadership in space exploration is no longer apparent.'"

Comments

Science is good but we need more research.

[Dr.Bob,DC]

I "get" the whole space program, I really do. But why doesn't the governments of the world spend more time and research money on the more esoteric sciences, alternative medicine and the like?

An excellent example of a victim of no cash would be the (once) superb Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research . This peer reviewed journal contained endless examples of vertebral subluxation causing everything from cancer and heart disease to colic and bed wetting. It had countless articles from practicioners of Chiropractic who cured all the of the above and more by careful manipulation and adjustment of the spine. Doing that reduces or eliminates the subluxation which cures the underlying issue. The symptoms are gone.

I'm not anti-science and Big Med: if my family was in a car accident and had their arms torn off, no amount of spinal manipulation could fix that. The Chiropractic community, in fact the whole of the alternative medicine caregiving world, would love just 5% of the money that goes to this type of big science to trickle down to us. That won't happen though. Big Pharma and Big Insura control medicine. There's no money in having an autistic child being cured with chelation therapy. Nor is there profit in curing cancer, that's why they marginalize alt-med.

Take care,
Bob

Re:Science is good but we need more research.

[Dr.Bob,DC]

I would love to educate you, but I only am allowed a couple of posts a day thanks to the closed minded folks who automatically dismiss anything I write.

Friend me on Facebook. Link is in my journal.

Re:We have no money for space flight.

[bmo]

>modded troll within 5 minutes

I must have angered a PNAC member/war criminal.

Why more people are not angry about these fucking wars is beyond me. Fuck you guys.

Go ahead, mod this down too. I've got more karma than you have mod points.

--
BMO