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NRC Human Spaceflight Report Says NASA Strategy Can't Get Humans To Mars

MarkWhittington (1084047) writes 'The National Research Council issued its report on the future of space exploration. The report stated that the "horizon goal" for any program of space exploration in the near term (i.e. the next two decades) is a Mars surface expedition. It also stated that the current NASA program, which includes a mission that would snag an asteroid, put it in lunar orbit, and visit it with astronauts is inadequate to meet that goal.

The report gave two reasons for its critique of the current NASA program. First the asteroid redirect mission would not create and test technologies necessary to conduct a crewed Mars mission. Second, NASA projects essentially flat budgets for the foreseeable future. Any space exploration program worthy of the name will cost considerably more money, with five percent increases in NASA funding for a number of years.'

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  1. Just build spaceships and forget "Muslim outreach" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Charles Bolden
    The Nasa administrator and astronaut in conversation with Al Jazeera's Imran Garda.

    Mr Bolden said: "When I became the Nasa administrator, he [Mr Obama] charged me with three things.

    "One, he wanted me to help reinspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering."

    Oh, goodie. NASA's job under Obama - explore space? Nope, make " Muslim nations ... feel good".

    Guess that explains why Obama traded five top Taliban leaders for one weasel deserter.