Obama to Cancel US Manned Space Program Cancelled - NASA to focus on Global Warming

[summit]

Obama is on TV right now calling for a jobs bill. He wants to spend TAX MONEY to create jobs. SO WHY KILL NASA? There's some jobs!

[prokeke]

Nasa money goes to weather research - still jobs(debatable on how many). Anyway he is talking about healthcare and insurance right now, very important.

[Rubicon]

The manned space program is one of the most important(if least urgent) things we as a people can do. If it ever becomes urgent, it will be too late.

This is just retarded.

[Blurred]

Military high ground and a very visible competition between two of the most powerful world powers, resulting in stimulus spending and technological innovation in both countries. We had a war called the Cold War back then. Put the game controller down and look it up.

The moon, we found out, is a useless barren place, hardly worth .5% of the expense to go there and plant a flag. The Chinese are doing it today to prove some sort of stupid point that they aren't pajama clad red book readers anymore. Big deal. We did it a long time ago. Mars manned travel is basically impossible if you don't want to accept the fact that it's a suicide mission. But, the robots we make these days find plenty for the nerds to mull over. That costs enough as it is.

Don't you have pizzas to deliver?

[RootSkier]

we don't want all our eggs in one basket, and we will run out of resources on our current rock of residence. We'll need to exploit the resources of other worlds.

[highangle]

this thread is fucking gold!
pretty much every internet stereotype and cliché polished up its shoes and put on its best suit to be here today

not to mention the master double-reverse-bootleg psych play, from the shotgun, on the entire Conservative Movement in America, who doesn't know whether to shit or wind their watches, but they damn sure know they don't like it...

[f2f]

hey, summit, if we ever get together for beers I'll tell you my personal "USA doesn't care about science" story. unfortunately it's true that basic science is becoming less and less of a priority, and it's true that the US has chased away the top new scientists in many a fields that used to be (and are still) important such as physics, esp. nucular physics...

unfortunately at this point it may be irreversible (people do MBAs instead of pursue science, for example) and all signs point at a new dominant scientific force somewhere in the east.

i'd love to hear your historical perspective on this. on my end i would, perhaps simplistically, blame it on bush's policies...

[Hugh Conway]

hey, summit, if we ever get together for beers I'll tell you my personal "USA doesn't care about science" story. unfortunately it's true that basic science is becoming less and less of a priority, and it's true that the US has chased away the top new scientists in many a fields that used to be (and are still) important such as physics, esp. nucular physics...

unfortunately at this point it may be irreversible (people do MBAs instead of pursue science, for example) and all signs point at a new dominant scientific force somewhere in the east.

Simple reason for the decline of science:


NASA has been graying for a long time, as have the defense labs. Without some new big push there's no need to keep them around.

[squatch]

Summit, get your head out of your ass. The only reason this bothers you is because you're a nerd who wears rocket PJs to bed. To refute:

1) The financial returns on space travel are tiny. I challenge you to list the products developed from manned space travel that we wouldn't have developed otherwise. Tang? Yuck. (Note: GPS/Sat communications/etc do not count; those were on their path with sputnik.) Bottom line: manned space expeditions are a financial drain.

2) What is the upside to man going to space? To find out that we just aren't meant for space, and were designed to live in a 1 G world? Where, really, does a human being need to actively control something due to the communications delay? And how does this weigh with the cost of sending a physical human that far away?

3) This WILL NOT kill the aerospace industry. All they are doing is cancelling one rocket program. Big whoop. The majority of aerospace engineering budget does not go to manned rocket programs. Unmanned rocket programs will continue to exist as long as more people want what satellites provide. Also, the high frictional costs of space travel make it a poor way to stimulate the economy. Furthermore, your concept of stimulus spending seems to be driven entirely by soundbites. Gov't purchases of MBS do not equal throwing away the entire balance; I don't disagree that there is some gift being given to homeowners/banks (the two are intertwined, unfortunately), but it is not the entire balance. Asset purchases != cash in hand. Despite what you may think, homes do have some value.

[TNKen]

Idea, let's put Oblamma into a new manned space vehicle and blast his sorry ass to Mars, or even better, Uranus.

[RootSkier]

The TGR charter to Uranus is always overbooked.

[Hugh Conway]

The TGR charter to Uranus is always overbooked.

can't fit that many in your sphincter any more?

[Blurred]

this thread is fucking gold!
pretty much every internet stereotype and cliché polished up its shoes and put on its best suit to be here today

not to mention the master double-reverse-bootleg psych play, from the shotgun, on the entire Conservative Movement in America, who doesn't know whether to shit or wind their watches, but they damn sure know they don't like it...

I don't really feel like discussing it with you because you'll just post a bazillion times and claim yourself the winner.....but, even if your anthropogenic climate change opinion is true......who cares? Better yet, if it is true, than we could reverse it too. (the problems people of your mentality create fighting TEH GLOBALZ!!! is much worse than TEH GLOBALZ!!! themself) There's a reason most of the Earths population is at the equator.....but on to my bigger point.

On the list of things that actually matter, climate change isn't even in the top 20. So why not put your energy into something that actually matters?

And to all of you other close-minded mouthbreathers, man has been exploring new frontiers since the beginning of time. Growth is the only way to prosper under our global social structure, and moving to new planets will be the best bet, especially if we can leave before the offspring of the mouthbreathers blow themselves and this planet up, or we use all of the resources up here, or when we have to quarantine (due to disease) this rock we call Earth.

[rideit]

I...


Just.....



Can't.....



Help.......



myself.....

[natty dread]

Hey summit have you gotten laid yet?
I think I last asked about 2 years ago...
Any luck?

[kevok2]

What I foresee is that humans will eventually destroy this place. Maybe not in 10 years, 100 years, or another 1000, but people will not learn from anything and fuck themselves into nonexistence. That is when manned space flight becomes not a novelty but a necessity.

[f2f]

NASA has been graying for a long time, as have the defense labs. Without some new big push there's no need to keep them around.

there's actually a large number of non-defence basic "do good" science that was produced at the labs. you have to keep in mind that these were the places where the best and brightest went to for close to five decades. yes, most of it is hidden, and unfortunately most of it won't see the light of day, but for the longest time these pilot projects were just not interesting enough because the priorities of the gubmint were somewhere else.

energy efficiency is an example. a lot of work done in the 80s and 90s was scrapped because nobody was interested (oil was cheap). now that greenness is en vogue the labs are trying to restart their sustainability and efficiency programs, but they're finding that the bush-time cuts have reduced the people capable of doing grade-A science to a trickle... in that sense, obama's "global warming solution" is the big push, only there's nobody that can do the actual pushing.

[highangle]

I don't really feel like discussing it with you because you'll just post a bazillion times and claim yourself the winner.....but, even if your anthropogenic climate change opinion is true......who cares? Better yet, if it is true, than we could reverse it too. (the problems people of your mentality create fighting TEH GLOBALZ!!! is much worse than TEH GLOBALZ!!! themself) There's a reason most of the Earths population is at the equator.....but on to my bigger point.

On the list of things that actually matter, climate change isn't even in the top 20. So why not put your energy into something that actually matters?

And to all of you other close-minded mouthbreathers, man has been exploring new frontiers since the beginning of time. Growth is the only way to prosper under our global social structure, and moving to new planets will be the best bet, especially if we can leave before the offspring of the mouthbreathers blow themselves and this planet up, or we use all of the resources up here, or when we have to quarantine (due to disease) this rock we call Earth.

it makes me tired too Blurred, see you after your nap...

[Cyber Cop]

hey, summit, if we ever get together for beers I'll tell you my personal "USA doesn't care about science" story. unfortunately it's true that basic science is becoming less and less of a priority, and it's true that the US has chased away the top new scientists in many a fields that used to be (and are still) important such as physics, esp. nucular physics...

unfortunately at this point it may be irreversible (people do MBAs instead of pursue science, for example) and all signs point at a new dominant scientific force somewhere in the east.

i'd love to hear your historical perspective on this. on my end i would, perhaps simplistically, blame it on bush's policies...

And every idiot too bothered to finish high school and read a few books once in awhile bitches about spending on stupid things like fruit flies and the earth's climate, I mean shit, why study our own planet and our own genetics when we have something cool like space and bombs. Who is bitching that education is being cut from coast to coast? I mean, there can be no correlation between our unwillingness to blow the budget on teaching kids, while blowing the budget on war, and the fact that we are way down the list on basic science knowledge. Nope, it's all the fault of those myopic people who actually tried to learn something, before having an opinion on it all.

And i agree with KQ, stop hashing our mellow.

btw, there is a Space Port in New Mexico. Maybe the capitalists can do some work and get this rolling and stop sitting on their respective asses asking for handouts like a welfare mom. Eh hypocrisy built this ship, I guess she might as well sail it.

[summit]

Just a few technologies from manned space program and manned space experiments:

RAICHLE FLEXON, FULL TILT BOOTS, AND DALBELLO KRYPTON BOOTS - These are all descended from NASA boot designs!

Heated gloves and boots (OH BOY!)
Shaped Memory Metals
IV Infusion Pumps
Some types of insulation (used for example in firefighter bunker gear)
Axial Flow Ventricular Assist Pump (type of artificial heart)
Human medical research galore
Your home smoke detector (came from Skylab)
Ear thermometer
Advanced X-ray equipment
Cordless power tools (originally developed for Apollo)
Helmet shock absorbing technology
Scratch resistent lenses
Blood Gas Analyzer
Automated Urinalysis
Ocular Scanner
Laser Angioplasty
Fire retardent materials
Radiation shielding materials
Cooling suit
Enriched Babyfood
Freeze dried camping food
Radiation detection advances
Extrication tools
Lightweight SCBA for firefighters
Lightning detector
Flat Screens

The manned space program is one of the most important(if least urgent) things we as a people can do. If it ever becomes urgent, it will be too late.

This is just retarded.

Quoted for Truth

[Cyber Cop]

I predict summit has carpel tunnel before this thread is over.

Or should I say hypothesize.

[summit]

I predict summit has carpel tunnel before this thread is over.

Or should I say hypothesize.

Your response to f2f = way more typing than my technology list... just sayin...

[Cyber Cop]

The TGR charter to Uranus is always overbooked.

ftw..........

[Cyber Cop]

Your response to f2f = way more typing than my technology list... just sayin...

yes mon frere, but you will write a few more essays in this thread while I crack one liners to entertain myself. c'mon, you now how this works.

[Blurred]

it makes me tired too Blurred, see you after your nap...

Ignorantly stereotyping me as a right-wing religious freak only makes you look stupid.

Especially when TEH GLOBAL WARMINZ!!!! is the newest religion since scientology lead by it's own Jim Baker. (you)

Actually, I like you as long as I ignore your kneejerk left-wing, smug, I'm a smart scientist you dumb God-lover crap.

Your entire argument revolves around us being certain about anthropogenic cc/gw. What you fail to realize is you're taking the sliver of time we've been polluting the atmosphere with CO2, (h2O is a bigger greenhouse gas btw) and comparing it to thousands of years before that.....so, if anybody is jumping to conclusions, it's you, which more closely mimics your cute pic on the right.

Especially when TEH GLOBAL WARMINZ!!!! people like yourself have formed their own conclusions and acted irrationally by doing crazy shit like ethanol mandates which have created food shortages/strikes/riots......it's simply ridiculous.