Barbara Mikulski (Democrat) tried to restore funding with an amendment. But it failed along a party-line vote (Yes - Democrats; No- Republicans). So the Republicans who are supposed to be pro-business and anti-government are opposing the business upstart and supporting the big expensive players and the Russian services. NOT along bipartisan as you seem to indicated. Do you work for one of these big aerospace companies?. Quote from spacepolicyonline.com:
"Mikulski's amendment would have added $300 million for commercial crew above the subcommittee's recommendation, bringing it close to the requested level. She also sought to add funds for NASA programs in science ($96 million above the subcommittee's recommendation -- $46 million for WFIRST and $50 million for Mars 2020), space technology ($54 million), and the Orion spacecraft ($50 million).
The NASA additions were part of an overall $2.784 billion increase Mikulski sought for various activities in the CJS bill.
The amendment was defeated by a 14-16 party line vote."
If you look at what is being spent on SLS and what the operational costs will be, it is clear that Congress and the Republicans are not worrying about the wise use of Tax Dollars. Which is why I am so disgusted - the Republicans used to (supposedly) stand for fiscal responsibility. Now they are feeding at the trough like all the other corrupt interests in Washington.
I mean the entrenched US players, like Boeing and their part of the contracts. Congress sees SpaceX as a threat to the jobs in their districts which fund the incumbent inefficient companies like Lockheed, Boeing, etc. Congress is playing pork politics with US progress and competitiveness, and destroying the innovation (what little is left) in our space protram in the process. You make it sound like this is a sensible approach, but here is the quote directly from Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator:
"“I am deeply disappointed that the Senate Appropriations subcommittee does not fully support NASA’s plan to once again launch American astronauts from U.S. soil as soon as possible, and instead favors continuing to write checks to Russia.
“Remarkably, the Senate reduces funding for our Commercial Crew Program further than the House already does compared to the President’s Budget.
“By gutting this program and turning our backs on U.S. industry, NASA will be forced to continue to rely on Russia to get its astronauts to space – and continue to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into the Russian economy rather than our own.
The upstart is much closer to doing this than the entrenched players - they don't have a capsule that has flown. The Dragon has already been to the station many times. I don't see how you can claim that the entrenched players are somehow safer or farther along than SpaceX.
Yes, but what you fail to point out is that Congress continued to fund the entrenched players, while the upstart that has far lower costs was drastically cut and delayed two years.
They started as a bookseller, then moved slowly into other merchandise. Now they are eating the lunch of all sorts of brick and mortar stores. Then they went into cloud services and are grabbing that market. And now they are producing their own entertainment a la Netflix. They are a force to be reckoned with.
What is probably the saddest is Microsoft. Their two biggest cash cows (Windows and Office) are under tremendous pressure. And they really have trouble innovating in ways that are replacing that income. They chase everybody else, late to the game: mp3 players, search, cloud services, online email, smartphones, etc. Their constant focus on Windows over the Ballmer years really blinded them to all else that was an opportunity in the computing world. And so companies like Amazon, Apple, and Google are there instead.
Once you give government some power it is almost impossible to get it reversed. That's because the foot is in the door, so to speak. This is just like taxes - once in existence, very hard to kill. I'm hoping that this is defeated but am not holding my breath.
It's news because ULA has Congress all bought off, and SpaceX represents a disruptor. So it is better to make the incumbents look as high-tech as possible even as the scramble to catch up with what the upstart SpaceX is already doing.
They could have done the right thing here. Our entire vapourous internet security depends upon the root CA system. I'm glad Google and Mozilla have taken a hard stand.
...which means "we thought about it in passing, but really never had any serious intention of changing. We are after all an intelligence agency and there is no way we are going to REDUCE the information we get (voluntarily)."
People said that it was bad to let Comcast (a cable company) buy NBC. THIS story is exactly the reason why. No NBC because "Apple would be competing with Comcast"? FCC, DO SOMETHING about this obvious conflict of interest.
My Tivo Series 2 was retired after 9.5 YEARS of continuous operation and use. It still works - only my cable went digital and the Tivo only has analog tuner, so it is now useless. But still functional with the original HD.
It has been obvious for some time that the US is on the decline. As a worker in the late stages of my career, I find that saddening but I don't know what we can do about it. In the 60's it was all about technology and progress and science. Kennedy made a speech where he asked where the US would get all the Engineers that would be needed for the future. Nowadays it is all about financial instruments and inventing ways to manipulate the numbers to look like you have more money than you do. And it is also about rejecting science when it doesn't agree with your religious leanings (sort of sounds like some other religions in other parts of the world, doesn't it?). I don't personally see the will in this country to continue the leadership into the future. It will probably take a generation or two, but then we will be another Spain or UK which was once a dominant world power. Let's just hope that the next big power is benevolent, or it is likely not to be very pretty.
So somebody who has never done anything wrong writes an offensive cartoon. How is this different than a cartoon depicting a murder, also offensive? In fact, what about all those Hollywood movies depicting murder? Should the writers of those movies go to jail as well?
Seems unfair - TWIT.TV existed well before Twitter.. Leo Laporte let them take the name "Twitter" and never sued them. Now years after Twitpic was around, Twitter decides to go after trademark Seems like Twitter can dish it out but they can't take it. Ah, the glory of our broken legal system.
NASA has a lot of problems and bureaucracy. While I like the IDEA of NASA, unfortunately the current REALITY is quite different. NASA is full of bureacracy, it's horribly inefficient and risk-averse. Congress is micromanaging the tasks and budget. So when we criticize NASA for no mission, part of that is because they really can't do anything with any consistency. And Congress is mostly interested in preserving pork jobs in their own districts. So we get the SLS, a huge rocket that is costing billions, without a decent mission, and a low flight rate that will make it horrendously expensive....forever... Meanwile, an efficient upstart called SpaceX is actually DOING THINGS and being BOLD, and certain senators are trying to make sure they don't succeed because SpaceX is disruptive and endangers their districts' jobs. So the US is basically fucked - we aren't leading, we aren't spending our money wisely, and NASA has become an expensive shell of its former self. And our newest hope, SpaceX, is only there because of the vision of Elon Musk... and even he is having to play politics to make sure his company isn't shut out of future NASA business. Thank our corrupt Congress, where local district money is more important than the health and leadership of the entire country.
...I can tell you that there are a myriad of problems here. It's not that easy to build an aircraft that is rugged for road use. Flying is particularly unforgiving of mistakes versus driving (think of all the idiot drivers out there). And the regulatory environment is hideously complex and expensive. Finally, think of all the traffic and fatalities with collisions if there were truly any significant number of "cars" commuting in the air. I just don't see it happening in any easy way.
First Snowden and now another leaker in the government. It's shit like THIS STORY which is why Americans are trying to rally and SAVE THIS COUNTRY. WHAT THE FUCK HAS HAPPENED TO THE USA AND THE CONSTITUTION?
Slashdot Mirror
"Mikulski's amendment would have added $300 million for commercial crew above the subcommittee's recommendation, bringing it close to the requested level. She also sought to add funds for NASA programs in science ($96 million above the subcommittee's recommendation -- $46 million for WFIRST and $50 million for Mars 2020), space technology ($54 million), and the Orion spacecraft ($50 million). The NASA additions were part of an overall $2.784 billion increase Mikulski sought for various activities in the CJS bill. The amendment was defeated by a 14-16 party line vote."
If you look at what is being spent on SLS and what the operational costs will be, it is clear that Congress and the Republicans are not worrying about the wise use of Tax Dollars. Which is why I am so disgusted - the Republicans used to (supposedly) stand for fiscal responsibility. Now they are feeding at the trough like all the other corrupt interests in Washington.
"“I am deeply disappointed that the Senate Appropriations subcommittee does not fully support NASA’s plan to once again launch American astronauts from U.S. soil as soon as possible, and instead favors continuing to write checks to Russia.
“Remarkably, the Senate reduces funding for our Commercial Crew Program further than the House already does compared to the President’s Budget.
“By gutting this program and turning our backs on U.S. industry, NASA will be forced to continue to rely on Russia to get its astronauts to space – and continue to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into the Russian economy rather than our own.
The upstart is much closer to doing this than the entrenched players - they don't have a capsule that has flown. The Dragon has already been to the station many times. I don't see how you can claim that the entrenched players are somehow safer or farther along than SpaceX.
Yes, but what you fail to point out is that Congress continued to fund the entrenched players, while the upstart that has far lower costs was drastically cut and delayed two years.
She was groundbreaking as one of the earliest actors on a multiracial show - controversial in the day. ...live long and prosper.
See, there are batshit crazy politicians elsewhere as well!
... PT Barnum. You know the famous quote.
What is probably the saddest is Microsoft. Their two biggest cash cows (Windows and Office) are under tremendous pressure. And they really have trouble innovating in ways that are replacing that income. They chase everybody else, late to the game: mp3 players, search, cloud services, online email, smartphones, etc. Their constant focus on Windows over the Ballmer years really blinded them to all else that was an opportunity in the computing world. And so companies like Amazon, Apple, and Google are there instead.
Thank goodness. But a long way to go for real competition.
Once you give government some power it is almost impossible to get it reversed. That's because the foot is in the door, so to speak. This is just like taxes - once in existence, very hard to kill. I'm hoping that this is defeated but am not holding my breath.
SpaceX is already printing rocket engines.
It's news because ULA has Congress all bought off, and SpaceX represents a disruptor. So it is better to make the incumbents look as high-tech as possible even as the scramble to catch up with what the upstart SpaceX is already doing.
They could have done the right thing here. Our entire vapourous internet security depends upon the root CA system. I'm glad Google and Mozilla have taken a hard stand.
Which TLA do you work for?
...which means "we thought about it in passing, but really never had any serious intention of changing. We are after all an intelligence agency and there is no way we are going to REDUCE the information we get (voluntarily)."
People said that it was bad to let Comcast (a cable company) buy NBC. THIS story is exactly the reason why. No NBC because "Apple would be competing with Comcast"? FCC, DO SOMETHING about this obvious conflict of interest.
My Tivo Series 2 was retired after 9.5 YEARS of continuous operation and use. It still works - only my cable went digital and the Tivo only has analog tuner, so it is now useless. But still functional with the original HD.
...only surpassed when I read Ender's Game.
It has been obvious for some time that the US is on the decline. As a worker in the late stages of my career, I find that saddening but I don't know what we can do about it. In the 60's it was all about technology and progress and science. Kennedy made a speech where he asked where the US would get all the Engineers that would be needed for the future. Nowadays it is all about financial instruments and inventing ways to manipulate the numbers to look like you have more money than you do. And it is also about rejecting science when it doesn't agree with your religious leanings (sort of sounds like some other religions in other parts of the world, doesn't it?). I don't personally see the will in this country to continue the leadership into the future. It will probably take a generation or two, but then we will be another Spain or UK which was once a dominant world power. Let's just hope that the next big power is benevolent, or it is likely not to be very pretty.
So somebody who has never done anything wrong writes an offensive cartoon. How is this different than a cartoon depicting a murder, also offensive? In fact, what about all those Hollywood movies depicting murder? Should the writers of those movies go to jail as well?
Seems unfair - TWIT.TV existed well before Twitter.. Leo Laporte let them take the name "Twitter" and never sued them. Now years after Twitpic was around, Twitter decides to go after trademark Seems like Twitter can dish it out but they can't take it. Ah, the glory of our broken legal system.
NASA has a lot of problems and bureaucracy. While I like the IDEA of NASA, unfortunately the current REALITY is quite different. NASA is full of bureacracy, it's horribly inefficient and risk-averse. Congress is micromanaging the tasks and budget. So when we criticize NASA for no mission, part of that is because they really can't do anything with any consistency. And Congress is mostly interested in preserving pork jobs in their own districts. So we get the SLS, a huge rocket that is costing billions, without a decent mission, and a low flight rate that will make it horrendously expensive....forever... Meanwile, an efficient upstart called SpaceX is actually DOING THINGS and being BOLD, and certain senators are trying to make sure they don't succeed because SpaceX is disruptive and endangers their districts' jobs. So the US is basically fucked - we aren't leading, we aren't spending our money wisely, and NASA has become an expensive shell of its former self. And our newest hope, SpaceX, is only there because of the vision of Elon Musk... and even he is having to play politics to make sure his company isn't shut out of future NASA business. Thank our corrupt Congress, where local district money is more important than the health and leadership of the entire country.
...I can tell you that there are a myriad of problems here. It's not that easy to build an aircraft that is rugged for road use. Flying is particularly unforgiving of mistakes versus driving (think of all the idiot drivers out there). And the regulatory environment is hideously complex and expensive. Finally, think of all the traffic and fatalities with collisions if there were truly any significant number of "cars" commuting in the air. I just don't see it happening in any easy way.
First Snowden and now another leaker in the government. It's shit like THIS STORY which is why Americans are trying to rally and SAVE THIS COUNTRY. WHAT THE FUCK HAS HAPPENED TO THE USA AND THE CONSTITUTION?