Nasa…..Pathetic!!

[gemm012]

[quote=RCB]Since the end of the WW2 the USA invaded, attacked or was directly involved in military actions against: Irak (twice), Afghanistan, Serbia, Panama, El Salvador, Vietnam and North Korea. 8 wars in 60 years seems like a little too much dont you think?
QUOTE]

Ah but you forget Somalia, Ethiopia, Argentina, and Venezuela. And that's just to name a few, there are surely countless others I don't know about and possibly others going on right now that aren't being publicized and are being kept under wraps by the government. There were countless cases in North Africa right after WWII in which America placed super conservative Nazis in control who would follow America's commands in order to exploit the recources in Africa to aid in the rebuilding of the Europe.

I belive it was bammbamm who posted that America's national spening on military is $399 billion a year? That's $399,000,000,000 for some of you more visual people. That comes out to an average of, $1,093,150,685 a day, $45,547,945.21 an hour, $759,132.42 a minute, and $12,652.21 a second, on the military. $12,652 a second on military, now THAT'S a bit excessive. Suppose we cut that number into a fourth, that leaves another $299,250,000,000 a year that we could spend on education or healthcare or, perhaps, just not take from the taxpayers in the first place. I think we should leave NASA as it is and cut funding on the military. If we were actually defending from something, I might not be so quick to say we need to cut money from the military, but the fact of the matter is, there is nothing to defend from and the only thing the military is being used for, or has been used for since the end of the cold war (when it was used solely to try and intimidate the U.S.S.R into not attacking,) was to try and help other country's citizens, and I think we should fix our own problems and feed our own starving and educate our own uneducated before we start trying to do that for other countries.

Back to the actual topic, NASA should be left to do what it does, because we can't know what's about to be found in the next mission. But, at the same time we can't be wasting our time figuring out what adverse effects space as on humans in case we need to move into space someday, we need to spend our time making sure Earth stays healthy and that we don't need to move to space someday. So I feel it really comes down to what they're doing up there. If it's studing how plants grow in weightlessness, then screw putting millions of dollars into that mission, but if it's seeing if we can make a cure for cancer in the different conditions of space that we can then take back to earth, then it's worth the money.

We should also outlaw racing, it's an awful waste of fuel. ;' )

Galen.

[JJEMMER777]

Here's to NASA's succussful launch First ever on the 4th and the first since I posted this thread after the last debacle. NASA has some egg on their face and this could help to clean some of it off. I hope the antiquated shuttle design can make it another 3 years! Speaking of fireworks. I use to watch the lauches when I was a kid fromn across the river Talk about AWE inspiring!!!

To the total success of this and all remaining missions before they retire the old birds

[HSH]

Originally Posted by JJEMMER777

Here's to NASA's succussful launch First ever on the 4th and the first since I posted this thread after the last debacle. NASA has some egg on their face and this could help to clean some of it off. I hope the antiquated shuttle design can make it another 3 years! Speaking of fireworks. I use to watch the lauches when I was a kid fromn across the river Talk about AWE inspiring!!!

To the total success of this and all remaining missions before they retire the old birds

Watched it live! Nervous anticipation, but very nice launch, hope they return safely. What comes out in 3 years? I'm behind on space tech, been drooling over Jems too much.

[eviltwin]

Originally Posted by HSH

Watched it live! Nervous anticipation, but very nice launch, hope they return safely. What comes out in 3 years? I'm behind on space tech, been drooling over Jems too much.

That's the whole point, there is no replacement...if you want to put something big in space you need to be nice and polite to either the French (ArianeSpace, the commercial spin-off to ESA) or Russians (if you need to put personnel up there, since they have the only vehicle approved for manned missions)

The good thing is that both methods are cheaper than keeping the Space Shuttle in service.

[Distantshore]

I was watching the last couple days to see the launch on an HD channel, but they had postponed it due to Anvil clouds. Sorry I missed it today, but glad to hear it went off smoothly!

[Ferrous Lepidoptera]

To the total success of this and all remaining missions before they retire the old birds

As a Houston person* who used to work for a McDonnell Douglas on space station related stuff, I'll drink to that.

*Footnote: I say "Houston person" because the colloquial and arguably correct "HouSTONian" sounds too "stone age", which is unfortunately about right most times around here, so it seems to me anyway, lol. But then I'm an incurable misanthrope, so, I'd think the same anywhere, most likely.

[ScottB]

As an early '60s baby boomer, I've been a life long follower of the NASA Space Program. Some of my first memories as a toddler are watching live coverage of the Gemini launches. In elementary school, we watched every Apollo launch on TVs brought into our classrooms.

The technology exists to develop new platforms for continued US human spaceflight, but funding their development seems to be a low priority for Congress.

If the US has any intentions of continuing the exploration of the universe via launching humans into space, we're gonna have to step it up a notch.

[kirk]

Originally Posted by JJEMMER777

Speaking of fireworks. I use to watch the lauches when I was a kid fromn across the river Talk about AWE inspiring!!!

I was at the first night launch of the shuttle back in the eighties (too young to remember year, but possibly 84?) One word - INCREDIBLE.

Anyhow, all of this talk about the shuttle program being obsolete makes me feel very old.

[HSH]

Originally Posted by jemsite

NASA = pointless waste of huge amounts of government dollars

What governmental body isn't? Uncle retired from NASA, said it was better before the gov't took it over.