Good News! (No, Not The Gospel)

[Ravenstar]

[Thurisaz]

Must have been a hard fight against those whose only thought regarding the ISS is "but it doesn't help me to make yet another 10 billion $ - fuck this thing!".

 

Indeed, this is

[mwc]

     Great.  We have a space station that we need to thumb rides to get to.  Maybe we'll get keep funding going long enough to get a launch vehicle just in time to go get our own stuff before we de-orbit the whole mess.  I doubt Russia will do it for pizza and beer.

 

          mwc

[Bhim]

If you're lamenting the death of the American manned space program, I couldn't agree more.

[Ravenstar]

I'm all for private enterprise in space… to a point. What scares me is there's a whole new level of safety concerns and regulations that need to be applied, and IMHO, space exploration should be an international effort.

 

It's sad that NASA doesn't get the funding it deserves though. I know there's a lot of conspiracy theories around NASA - but they have provided SO much good science. Does the lack of funding extend to JPL, as well?

[mwc]

If you're lamenting the death of the American manned space program, I couldn't agree more.

     Indeed I am.  They (appear to) have no real focus at the moment.  The Orion module still has no lift vehicle (Ares or SLS or whatever it becomes).  When I visited there awhile back they really pushed the whole private enterprise agenda.  When I visited prior to that it was Orion/Ares.  Before that it was just saying goodbye to the shuttle fleet (I was there for the launch of STS-135).

 

          mwc

[florduh]

Put your own name in outer space:

 

http://www.geek.com/science/nasa-offers-to-send-your-name-to-the-bennu-asteroid-1582500/

[Bhim]

I don't know if JPL specifically has had their funding cut.  I do know that there's still a lot of astrophysics going on via NASA grants.  A lot of people in my field are funded to work on the Fermi gamma-ray satellite.  Actually I was partly funded by NASA during most of my time in grad school.

 

It's true that NASA puts out some good science, but this isn't even the real reason that I'm in favor of the manned space program.  In fact, if it were all about science, the best idea would be to ditch manned space exploration altogether, use unmanned probes, and shift more funding to the Department of Energy.  We've always done manned space exploration because it increased America's prestige in the world and was inspirational to people.  Hell, the most likely reason I'm a scientist today is because of all the stuff I read as a kid about NASA's manned space missions.  And when you ask me to complete the sentence "America is the greatest nation in the world because...," the moon landing is pretty close to the top of the list.  That was almost 45 years ago.

 

I'm sure that on July 20, 1969, most Americans thought that anything could be achieved in the next half century.  Now here were are debating the age of the earth with almost half of the country's populace.  That's a pretty sad state of affairs.

[Blood]

I'm sure that on July 20, 1969, most Americans thought that anything could be achieved in the next half century.  Now here were are debating the age of the earth with almost half of the country's populace.  That's a pretty sad state of affairs.

 

To be fair, over half the country's populace in 1969 also believed in a young earth. So it's not like we've regressed. We've just stayed pretty much as ignorant and backwards as we were 40 years ago. 

[Bhim]

 

 

I'm sure that on July 20, 1969, most Americans thought that anything could be achieved in the next half century. Now here were are debating the age of the earth with almost half of the country's populace. That's a pretty sad state of affairs.

To be fair, over half the country's populace in 1969 also believed in a young earth. So it's not like we've regressed. We've just stayed pretty much as ignorant and backwards as we were 40 years ago.

Well, fewer people also went to college then, and thus fewer Americans participated heavily in the politics, culture, and society of America. That's one reason I'm more worried about today's creationists. Older people could claim ignorance. But ours is a highly educated generation. What's our excuse?