My tribute to the Ares/Constellation project.
Flynn - Wed, 04/21/2010 - 05:57
http://tubedubber.com/#dpyKTRsGExI:9Zd5MzAM9RE:0:100:0:0:false
(Unfortunately, you can't imbed these.)
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Mars 2030!
Thanks for posting this... really interesting to watch.
I've lived a mile from NASA my whole life and my hometown is a little nervous at the moment.
Looks like KSC drew the correct straw.
Space exploration.
Honestly, I've got very little confidence in the new vision for NASA that the administration's come up with; the idea that Constellation was over budget and late so we cancel it and somehow build a completely new launcher system using completely new orbital rendezvous and refueling techniques and somehow manage to do that cheaper and faster just seems like unbelievably hilarious wishful thinking to me. I've got a bad feeling the American space program is going to consist of leased Soyuz seats for the foreseeable future.
Well...
It's not like we can afford a space program at the moment anyway. It is, in essence, a "bonus" program for when things are financially strong. Now, if there was an actual resources-acquisition aspect to the program, rather than all expenditure, it might be different... but for the immediate future, space is a luxury we can't afford.
Heh.
Worrying about NASA's budget in our current financial situation is like worrying about a leaky faucet during Hurricane Katrina. The amount of things we could accomplish if we repurposed even 15% of our military expenditures is just mind-boggling. (And we'd still be outspending everyone who could possibly be considered an "enemy" combined by a factor of about four or five.)
It's a moot point, though, because technically we'll be spending more on space. We're just trying to develop a completely new rocket instead of building off what we know works, and paying private industry to somehow gin up a man-rated orbital delivery system sometime in the next five years.
Oh, don't get me started on bad spending priorities...
We'd be here till the next century.
I was big into the space program when I was younger; went to Space Camp once and Space Academy twice. However, I got a little disillusioned when I found out the easiest way to get to be an astronaut was to be a military pilot, and that military pilots with glasses don't exist. I'd really like to see us have a program that doesn't waste money but also isn't some corporation's bitch... guess I'm a dreamer.
Greetings, fellow Space Academy alum.
(Aced the test so I got to be Shuttle Commander, too.)
The thing is, I don't see money spent on space exploration as a waste. I look at the big picture. One day, the sun's going to do the Great Big Firework, or die, or a big enough rock is going to hit the planet to give the cockroaches their turn, or we're going to ruin the environment enough to cause a massive failure cascade, or any number of other things. And if we're not off this rock by then, humanity ends. So money spent figuring out how to leave our cradle is actually more important, to me, than a lot of the shit we're spending on. Yeah, I know, some will argue we've got plenty of time - but we've got to start taking those steps sooner or later, and really, sooner's better. I was actually really excited when Bush announced plans to go back to the moon, because it honestly looked like we really were taking steps to be permanently Out There, but when that ended up getting canceled, well, when the ISS deorbits we're back to being a non-spacefaring species again.