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Senate Panel Authorizes Money For Mission To Mars (usatoday.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from USA Today: With a new president on the horizon, a key Senate committee moved Wednesday to protect long-standing priorities of the nation's space program from the potential upheaval of an incoming administration. Members of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee passed a bipartisan bill authorizing $19.5 billion to continue work on a Mars mission and efforts to send astronauts on private rockets to the International Space Station from U.S. soil -- regardless of shifting political winds. Under the Senate bill, NASA would have an official goal of sending a crewed mission to Mars within the next 25 years, the first time a trip to the Red Planet would be mandated by law. The legislation would authorize money for different NASA components, including $4.5 billion for exploration, nearly $5 billion for space operations and $5.4 billion for science. Beyond money, the measure would: Direct NASA to continue working on the Space Launch System and Orion multi-purpose vehicle that are the linchpins of a planned mission to send astronauts to Mars by the 2030s. The bill includes specific milestones for an unmanned exploration mission by 2018 and a crewed exploration mission by 2021. Require development of an advanced space suit to protect astronauts on a Mars mission. Continue development of the Commercial Crew Program designed to send astronauts to the space station -- no later than 2018 -- on private rockets launched from U.S. soil. Expand the full use and life of the space station through 2024 while laying the foundation for use through 2028. Allow greater opportunities for aerospace companies to conduct business in Low Earth Orbit. Improve monitoring, diagnosis and treatment of the medical effects astronauts experience from spending time in deep space.
Senate Panel Says "Get Your Ass to Mars."
NASA and Senate are forcing the people to pay for expensive photographs resulting from these exploration rituals. the end result practically is to insult existing religions, so as to say that instead of trying to reprove religion like did Werner Von Braun's flat-earth plane-dome confirmation epitaph, NASA goes the way of the Dodo bird in endorsing death by Ghandi ad-hominem attacks to artful religious expressions: gpobal humanism at it's lowest point in history by not learning to work neither for nor against existing religious exploration documentation. reminds me how mainland Chi.ese government officials get pissed off at the piety of the existing true Puncheon Llama so they imprison religiious leaders ala CIA style only to replace with a religious leader in their favor.
Beam. Me. Up.
In a nutshell, to get people to the moon it took a former Nazi to put pressure behind it, the urge to one-up the Soviets and a prez had to croak.
Holy fuck, to get to Mars we'd probably need to nuke the Capitol.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.