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NASA To Drastically Cut Mars Mission Funding
DesScorp writes "Faced with budget cuts, and forced to choose between deep space observation or a mission to Mars, CBS reports that NASA will kill most of its Mars exploration programs. Sources in NASA say that of the $300 million being cut from the space agency's budget, two-thirds were for a joint US-EU program for Martian exploration. NASA spokesman David Weaver said that, just like the rest of the federal government, the space agency has to make 'tough choices and live within our means.'"
We're never going to Mars at this rate. Well, America isn't at least. Good thing there are other, less short-sighted countries that will inevitably get there.
The days of America's manned space program are over now that Medicare and Social Security are running deep into the red.
If only there were a bank on Mars that needed bailed out... by god then we would get there! I wonder if there is enough atmosphere on the red planet to fly a helicopter from which we could drop money.. or lacking the funds... turkeys.
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -HLM
Put a NASA Mars mission on Kickstarter?
with 18 billion dollar budget you'd think there would be enough waste and nonsense to deal with that 300 million cut without cutting programs.
Illegal aliens can't take advantage of welfare, if by welfare you mean TANF. They pay property taxes, sales tax and the federal gas tax. Existing outside the federal income tax system they're also unable to take advantage of the EITC, which many would qualify for if they were filing federal returns.
I also like how you simultaneously complain about a lack of federal education spending and rail against the socialist nanny state. What do you think free, compulsory public education is?
The 2012 budget request is $5 billion for science (Earth Science, Planetary Science, Astrophysics, Heliophysics, James Webb Space Telescope) versus $9.6 billion for the manned program, which includes $3 billion for the International Space Station. That's a pretty staggering figure considering that NASA won't actually launch any manned vehicles into space in 2012.
There's your problem: everything meaningful that NASA has done in the past 20 years has come out of the science program- the Hubble, the Mars rovers, monitoring the earth from space- but we spend almost twice as much on the manned program, which has produced no meaningful science to speak of. Even from the whole inspiring-future-scientists standpoint, I would suspect that vastly more children get interested in science because of Spirit, Opportunity, and the Hubble than because of the International Space Station. At this point, the manned space program really serves no purpose, it is nothing but an entitlement program for the defense industry- welfare for aerospace corporations.
JWST's funding crisis does not only impact astronomy missions, but all of science funding. This includes planetary missions and also the manned space program. The space review (http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1926/1) has a good summary.
They released that damned "John Carter" trailer. And now it's perfectly obviously that there won't be ANY naked slave girls [sniff].
Adios, Barsoom! Alas, we'll never see those wondrous canals, the city ruins, the four-armed barbarians, Dejah Thoris in all her buxom fleshy glory ..
http://www.cartermovie.com/borisjc10.jpg
Sigh ...
They only pay property tax if they own a place. They do pay sales tax, if they buy locally. However, in most states, the main money is from income taxes, not property taxes.
In addition, by having illegals work here, they lower the salaries/wages, which lowers the taxes paid.
Finally, look at alabama. They enacted a anti-illegal bill. Now, I am not in favor of how harsh it is WRT privacy. The ability to stop a car and haul ppl in just because they 'look' illegal, is just plain wrong. BUT, the requirement of e-verify on ALL businesses has had a telling impact. Namely that for the last 6 months, they have fallen from 10% unemployment to 8% unemployment. In addition, gov. assistance PLUMMETED. Not only is taxes up, but they have said that they can now start increasing money back to education and other programs that had to be cut before. So, to say that illegals are useful to America, is just plain wrong.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Our politicians btw are just as corrupt as the states and civil liberties erroding just as fast
You, my friend, need to take out a subscription to Macleans and start reading - Canada's system is so much better than the USA in so many ways. Why is America so broken? Campaign financing rules that are illegal in Canada. Our judges aren't elected, which means they don't pander and our Supreme Court judges don't go through the wringer like they do in the USA. Most MPs are hardworking Joe and Jane Averages - I know mine is, and I don't even support his party. As for civil liberties, I can still leave my shoes on when I fly to Toronto - I ride the SkyTrain daily and I have never once seen the police looking through people's bags and on and on.... Could Canada do better? Sure, but so could every Western democracy.
However, the fact remains that we're no superpower and never will be, eh?
Wrong. If they occupy space in a rental or apartment the owner pays property tax and rolls that into their rent. If none of them had ever immigrated then the overall population would be lower, less apartment complexes would have been built, meaning less property tax would be collected.
This may not be true for those states with the largest illegal immigrant populations. Texas, for instance, derives almost all its revenue from sales and property taxes. There's also the question of how much income the state would actually collect from illegal immigrants if they filed, given the prevalence of low incomes among that population. The biggest "hit" would be that they'd have to pay federal payroll taxes. However, since they can't take advantage of SS or Medicare anyway...
And by lowering wages they increase the profit margins of their employers and lower the price of goods to consumers.
Driving out the illegals may also put many Alabama farmers out of business. You point out that unemployment is down and revenue is up. That's the case everywhere. The national unemployment rate is down as well, and most of the illegals who left Alabama are still living in the U.S. Another thing to consider is that the effectiveness of Alabama's new policy is enhanced by the fact that none of its neighbors have a similar policy. Illegals are leaving Alabama because there are better options nearby. If such a policy were enacted at the federal level, and enforced, then it would probably result in fewer illegals in the country, but the steady-state level would not be as low as it currently is in Alabama.
Here are a couple articles that allege the new law has had less than beneficial effects:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec11/alimmigration_10-13.html (See Jerry Spencer's comments)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-15/alabama-s-imperiled-immigration-crackdown-clogs-machinery-of-government.html
... the past moon missions have birthed a lot of technology ...
More importantly the Apollo program got a lot of young kids interest in science and engineering. Which led to a following generation or two's worth of technology and economic activity.
The only really significant thing the manned space program has done in 20 years is fix the Hubble. That was pretty awesome, and you couldn't have done that without a manned program. But according to the numbers on Wikipedia, building the Hubble cost around $2.5 billion, whereas the Shuttle program cost around $170 billion. For the cost of two shuttle missions you could have built a replacement Hubble.
Astronauts are basically a PR stunt, a way of literally putting a human face- and in particular, an *American* face on space exploration. Putting a man on the moon was a PR stunt, a way to show off America's power. The Saturn V was a monument to the power of the United States in the same way that the pyramids were a monument to the dynasties of the Egyptian pharaohs. I'm not arguing that this kind of stuff is meaningless. On the contrary, it's really important. The space program is a form of soft power that compliments the aircraft carrier. The aircraft carrier projects power in the form of threat; the space program projects power in the form of inspiration. The aircraft carrier says we're more powerful than the other guys, the space program says that we're ultimately about something more than just brute force.
Here's my argument: the manned program has outlived its usefulness as an instrument of soft power. When you're flying Lord British and the dude who developed Microsoft Word on the ISS, the manned space program has degenerated into a form of adventure tourism for the superrich. That doesn't inspire the nation, and it doesn't inspire the world. The unmanned program, however, continues to project what's best about the United States as a country- our ingenuity, our creativity, our daring, our need to explore, and our refusal to settle for second place. I'm not arguing we should give up on space- I'm saying we should double down on the unmanned program, because that's where the real exploration, inspiration, and science is all happening.
We're not a superpower but we act like we are. If our system is so much fairer than the States then why was a Canadian Muslim detained by the Quebec Provincial Police (and no cracks about, "well, it was in Quebec, then.") his house searched, his wife browbeaten with statements that her husband was a terrorist just because he tweeted a "let's blow up the competition" rah-rah statement to the rest of his sales team before heading to some sort of trade show in New York. We're all going to have to learn to communicate in passive politically correct phrases or find ourselves being arrested for things we might do not for things we've done.
Oh, yeah, it is post 1984, after all.
No, we're just as paranoid, just as terrified and just as over reactive as the folks in the States. God help the whole damn world. With any luck, the paranoia will finally lead someone to press the big red button and we'll have an end to all this. People, if there are any left, can get back to just scratching out a living without worrying about what someone is thinking on the other side of the planet.