NASA Chief Tells the Critics of Exploration Plan: "Get Over It"

mknewman (557587) writes "For years, critics have been taking shots at NASA's plans to corral a near-Earth asteroid before moving on to Mars — and now NASA's chief has a message for those critics: 'Get over it, to be blunt.' NASA Administrator Charles Bolden defended the space agency's 20-year timeline for sending astronauts to the Red Planet on Tuesday, during the opening session of this year's Humans 2 Mars Summit at George Washington University in the nation's capital."

Comments

Re:Just say no to NASA

[NotDrWho]

You can mod the AC down if you like, but it's true. NASA basically does just enough to justify its budget each year. But it's really more of an employment program and funnel for government leech contractors than anything resembling what it was during the Space Race. So they play along with whatever fictional promises the latest President makes, send up some probes, and piddle around on ISS. But they know damn well that they aren't ever going to put a man on Mars (probably not ever even the moon again). Shit, they can't even put a man in LEO right now.

So every President makes his obligatory "We're going to Mars!!" speech. And every year we not only don't get any closer to that goal, we get further away.

A man may one day set foot on Mars, but he won't be wearing a NASA patch on his spacesuit.