Sensible Erection | We Stopped Dreaming

Monday, 12 March 2012

quote [ "...the NASA budget is 4/10 of one penny on a tax dollar..." ]

I got pennies to spare. I think its important to keep the space program active and viable.

[sci&tech] [by lifeafterfire@7:33pmGMT] [+10 Good]

Comments

yevishere said @ 7:34pm GMT on 12th Mar [Score:1 Informative]
The whole thing was just a thin cover to develop icbms anyways.

anagramophone said @ 8:08pm GMT on 12th Mar
...but you weren't fooled for one second were you?

danshyu said @ 3:47pm GMT on 13th Mar
But that was for defending ourselves against hostile aliens we might encounter from all the space exploration and other cool space shit we were gonna do.

GordonGuano said @ 7:43pm GMT on 12th Mar [Score:1 Underrated]

daffyduck said @ 9:21pm GMT on 12th Mar
Great band!

blibblob said @ 8:21pm GMT on 12th Mar
It's sad, really. The perfect example of the failures of privatization. What NASA managed to do with antiquated technology but a decade of determination and funding, Corporate interests are pathetically failing to appreciably suceed even with decades of groundwork and technology already laid out for them.

Space research falls under the same logic as the military, the funding and organization required makes small efforts impractical. Just as there is no point to have unrelated armed forces for each and every state(consider the jurisdictional nightmares between police forces extrapolated to who defends the nation), it is just as pointless to have dozens of small groups trying to make it to space. Competition is worthless here.

-_- said @ 9:09pm GMT on 12th Mar [Score:3 Interesting]
Wow, wow, and just wow.

Impatient much?
Private space enterprise is still in its infancy and we're writing its epitaph?
As already mentioned, NASA and JPL were primarily set up to develop tech for ICBM's ... that's not competitive tech anymore.
private space industries need/will need a suite of new technologies, largely leapfrogging current tech, if they are to reap the short term profits they need for their survival.
Space tourism has its place, and will drive the immediate future of the profit motivated space race, but the big money will come from exploiting and industrializing regions that no human has even been to yet.

All it will take is a few key innovations.
And there are plenty of people searching for those.

Today it may seem like a waste of cash/time/energy but history is filled with examples where just such a gamble payed off in BIG ways.
The people at the top of the economic food chain are well aware of this.

The point of this particular "competition" isn't recognition, pride, or even research ... it's potentially to determine who/which corporation will shape the course of the next few centuries of history.

Innovations are needed, yes, but we're 2000 years behind our projected technology development due to the Dark Ages ... do you really think we've discovered all we can?
Lives will be risked, and lost, but the Earth is drowning in people who will sign up for a one way suicide mission with the right perks.
The dangers, the cost, the RISK are enormous ... but the potential rewards outweigh them so considerably as to make them non-existent.

Today's "wasted effort" is tomorrows "missed opportunity".

But not to worry, the tide lifts all boats ... the private space race is one of humanity's most likely avenues for ushering in an unprecedented age of prosperity ... even for those who scorned it in its infancy.

GordonGuano said @ 4:50am GMT on 13th Mar
Robert Heinlen and Artbur C. Clarke are supposed to have had an argument about the future of space travel where Heinlen basically wound up calling Clarke.a Communist for depicting cooperation between nations in spacefaring. Clarke's contention was that space travel was too complicated and expensive for nations to not work together.

You make a good case, and given that private enterprise-driven space travel/research seems to be the way we're headed anyway, I certainly hope you're right. But geosynchronous orbit isn't also known as the Heinlen orbit.

-_- said @ 6:01am GMT on 13th Mar
The existence of a private space race doesn't prohibit nations from racing to space. China and Japan are both quite serious about it last I heard.
I personally think it's good for NASA to stay in the race .. important even.

blibblob said @ 5:03pm GMT on 13th Mar
The costs significantly outweigh the rewards. Time constraints are the problem, and corporate interests are notoriously bad at planning ahead. Sometimes science has to be done for the sake of science, and companies are just not willing to pay for that.

Space tourism is a tiny market of the ultra rich and considering how much it costs to get something into space the profit margins are going to be slim. The only real draw for privatizing space is space mining and the costs of that type of infrastructure is even more astronomically high. So high that it will probably well over a hundred years of private research to manage a profit on that venture. There's plenty more money to be made back on earth and we probably won't see serious efforts in space research until local resources become prohibitively high to gather. And by then, it'll probably be too late. Political and stability restraints will put a damper on that being of value to any but a tiny percentage of our species.

Optimism and time isn't going to just brush away the technical and financial problems, let alone the political ones as we rapidly decline into a new age of scarcity. We don't have time with how we currently use up the planet.

-_- said @ 8:14pm GMT on 13th Mar
Unfortunately, I agree with you completely.
The last paragraph in particular.

Key technologies will be needed to significantly change the cost/reward balance.
The resources of the entire solar system are waiting for us and we might miss them because we squandered the resources of our planet.
I agree, but I won't accept.
There is a way, we only haven't found it yet.
But you're right, the clock is ticking.

Still, my money is on human ingenuity and our capacity for altruistic sacrifice.

We are meat that re-writes the world.
And though we are not good authors of our own destiny we are learning.
And that's a good thing, because we're damn near unstoppable.

afrasr said @ 8:29pm GMT on 12th Mar
It's sad to see NASA dying the slow death of a thousand cuts.

I almost want the republicans to get a majority in all houses, and see captain frothy in the white house, just so we can get it over with.

He'll pull the plug on anything "science" so fast, it'll make your eyes spin.

Bring on the collapse !

Canada will rise !

We are already taking over Iceland via kindness, and economic strength.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/03/02/iceland-loonie.html

ComposerNate said @ 9:53pm GMT on 12th Mar [Score:1 Underrated]

sanepride said @ 10:42pm GMT on 12th Mar
Clenched teeth = not enough lube

damnit said @ 11:53pm GMT on 12th Mar
Or he's enjoying it and that's his O-face..

sanepride said @ 1:47am GMT on 13th Mar
Could be both y'know.

flat_michael said @ 3:57am GMT on 13th Mar [Score:3 Insightful]
Santorum is the fucking Smiler from Transmetropolitan. Fuck.

swiggy said @ 4:19am GMT on 13th Mar [Score:1 Funny]
I can TOTALLY see him fucking a transient hooker, too.

Someone get me a fucking table leg.

GordonGuano said @ 9:34am GMT on 13th Mar
Hell with that, where's my bowel disrupter?

Loose
Watery
--->Prolapse

sanepride said @ 8:46pm GMT on 12th Mar
Sure this is all very inspiring and all, but based on a sadly false assumption. Despite the cases made by DeGrasse Tyson and James Kirk, human exploration has always been driven not by any quest for knowledge or adventure, but by the quest for material gain and profit. OK, maybe except for the Moon program, which was driven by competition with a rival power. Scientific advancement has always been a secondary benefit. If some valuable resource was discovered on Mars we'd be headed there right now.

Personally I'd love to see a more active space program, if for no other reason than to better study and understand Earth science and processes. But unfortunately not only is it difficult to persuade the keepers of the purse strings that there is some tangible material gain, these folks aren't even interested in spending money to advance scientific knowledge (in fact in the vital areas of climate science they're even actively suppressing it).
It's not that we 'stopped dreaming', it's that the 'dreams' were never the primary motivator in the first place...they were merely a spinoff.

spite48 said @ 9:01pm GMT on 12th Mar [Score:1 Funny]
I suspect that minerals will eventually be easier to mine off-world than on Earth.

With the right technology and equipment, could robotic harvesting of the Asteroid belt be automated, and self-fueling?

Could excess material be slug to impact Mars' caps to increase mass, atmospheric pressure and greenhouse effect there, essentially terraforming Mars as a by-product?

-_- said @ 9:20pm GMT on 12th Mar
Mars's lack of a legitimate magnetosphere is the main issue IMO.
Jupiter's moons call out to me more strongly.

Minerals and chemicals, and the industries they feed, will all likely be easier to source/develop in space ... given the right technological breakthroughs to allow us to access such.

sanepride said @ 9:32pm GMT on 12th Mar
The point is it has to be worth the effort. We'll be back in space like white on rice as soon as the cost/profit ratio works out.

-_- said @ 9:59pm GMT on 12th Mar
Absolutely right sir.
Right now with the rocket equation, and reaction engines in general, the cost/efficiency is TERRIBLE.
That will have to change.

Or we'll have to find some lucrative targets.

foobar said @ 11:07pm GMT on 12th Mar
And that's what we should be directing NASA to look for. They should stop dicking around looking for life on Mars and look for oil. Once it's commercially attractive to go out there, the science can piggyback.

Urzazero said @ 12:53am GMT on 13th Mar
And you thought the Alaskan pipeline was a mess, wait till you see the big ass pipeline from Mars to Earth! Drill, alien scum, drill!

krimz said @ 9:25am GMT on 13th Mar
You're far likelier to find oil on the 7th planet than on Mars. That's also the best place for NASA to be dicking around at.

GordonGuano said @ 9:36am GMT on 13th Mar
Just don't ask me to look for oil on Urectum!

buckaroo50 said @ 9:51pm GMT on 12th Mar
Not that I don't want more space stuff, but it will always be easier to just dig a hole in the ground to get common elements. Unless they find a solid rhodium asteroid or something, it wouldn't make sense.

If you needed the materials in space, then it might since you would have to lift them out of earth's gravity, but if your only space based industry is mining, then what's the point?

-_- said @ 10:07pm GMT on 12th Mar
The "point" is to make space based human infrastructure development profitable.
Get enough space based industries/mines running and you'll have all kinds of other industries (recreation, entertainment, tourism, security, agriculture/air scrubbing, water mining, etc) piggybacking on the infrastructure ... it's a short hop from that to permanent residential developments.
Before you know it you have children being born in space and families moving further from Earth to stake their own claims and develop regions using the industries and infrastructural components readily available to them within that economy.

The first few decades might be people living is metal tubes but that's the only obvious path to eventually living in glassteel bubbles ;D

spite48 said @ 10:16pm GMT on 12th Mar
Eventually you have to stop digging holes in your planet if you want to still live on it.

Also eventually you will run out of specific uncommon elements which are accessible without deeper mines.

Also, the point for me is to establish space-based mining and manufacturing for construction of more space-based infrastructure and habitats. There is plenty of need for materials in space.

eIfish said @ 4:20am GMT on 13th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
It's not like they're used up.

Landfill mining is the future.

bruceski said @ 10:45pm GMT on 12th Mar
One of the big problems with planet colonization is the dust. Earth's dirt is relatively smooth, but due to the lack of erosion lunar regolith is nasty stuff that will rip a lung apart. It's also very "sticky" electromagnetically, and can get into all sorts of mechanisms where bad things will happen (it can wear down a seal as easily as it can lung tissue). I don't know if Mars has as severe an issue but it's something that wouldn't be solved just by adding an atmosphere. Space colonization is probably better suited to orbital stations, with permanent planetary habitats limited to the far future or novels.

-_- said @ 11:44pm GMT on 12th Mar
There isn't a planet, other than Earth, that we are aware of where we can breath the atmosphere yet.
Air locks with good scrubbers and ionization procedures should address most dust issues but a good, naked bodies only, wet wash should keep any dust from entering the habitats.
Tele-robotics is almost assured to be the method of exploiting the planetary surfaces anyway.
burrowing deeper and deeper to expand colonies is the only logical plan for a boat load of reasons, but humans running around on the surface to do work will most likely remain rare outside of sci-fi.

Pretty much the same as living in an orbital station but with gravity, cheap radiation shielding, and better thermodynamics.

bruceski said @ 11:59pm GMT on 12th Mar
When I say it's sticky, I mean sticky. Ever dealt with a bag of packing peanuts on a dry day and been picking bits out of your hair a week later? It's even worse than that.

-_- said @ 12:34am GMT on 13th Mar
The "sticky" you describe is static electricity and that's remedied by both ionization and moisture.
Your point is valid but not irremediable.
True, there are a lot of subtle dangers ... and answers yet to be found, let alone found to be needed, but that's the nature of exploration and growth ... new challenges to rise to.

My money is on Humanity ... we're good at this shit.

damnit said @ 4:04am GMT on 13th Mar

Ankylosaur said @ 9:00pm GMT on 12th Mar
We will return to space in search of spice.

flat_michael said @ 4:06am GMT on 13th Mar
looks like a geyser with a huge shadow

sanepride said @ 4:08pm GMT on 13th Mar
It is in fact a dust devil.

spite48 said @ 5:32pm GMT on 13th Mar
Aigh! We're going to be eaten by Martian Dust Devils!

Misanthrope said @ 5:21am GMT on 13th Mar
So an object burrowing through the ground casts a shadow on it. My mind is blown.

assbastard said @ 10:09pm GMT on 12th Mar
One thing the Soviets did right was inspire us to be interested in learning and sciences again.

I almost kinda miss those days.

-_- said @ 10:23pm GMT on 12th Mar
Right now TED is one of the only "be optimistic about the future" forces out there, and you have to be pretty selective in choosing your videos to feel that way.
Hope and fear are the two greatest motivators, unfortunately fear is much easier to manufacture.

krimz said @ 10:16pm GMT on 12th Mar
I'll just place this here, hopefully it won't get removed because of me doing that.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL474A7F1BA0FCEF8C&feature=plcp

donnie said @ 11:32pm GMT on 12th Mar
The "only 4/10ths of a penny" argument is sophistry. For someone making a paltry $35k in the US that's just over $1 a month. Doesn't sound like a lot, but if you give NASA another dollar on principle then what else could you give an extra buck for, on principle? Save the children, save the whales, invest in green energy, reduce emissions, spend more on teachers, cut taxes on essentials, repair infrastructure, improve healthcare - pretty soon a dollar turns into two turns into ten turns into a hundred - now your tax bracket has doubled the kick to your nads. The question isn't why NASA doesn't get more money, the question is how can the government justify taking more money for NASA when they could be taking it for something else? At some point you can't squeeze a rock for blood anymore and that's all there is to it.

-_- said @ 11:46pm GMT on 12th Mar [Score:1 Underrated]
okay ... but we could allow voluntary contributions to be specifically targeted by the contributor.

donnie said @ 9:59am GMT on 14th Mar
Or you could just write NASA a cheque. Anyone can. Go ahead, do it now. Send them $20 just to let them know you care.

sanepride said @ 11:59pm GMT on 12th Mar
The idea isn't to increase anyone's tax burden to help fund NASA, the idea is to redirect funds that are spent on presumably less worthy causes elsewhere. Tyson cites the bank bailouts, an easy target (though that money is presumably being paid back with interest). I might be more inclined to redirect money being wasted on pointless, losing wars or counter-productive agriculture subsidies.

incpenners said @ 12:18am GMT on 13th Mar
How about the auto-company bailouts, and the millions shoveled into the union pension funds. Can we have that back?

ComposerNate said @ 1:01am GMT on 13th Mar [Score:2]
Most of the auto bailout has already been paid back, Chrysler being the first to return its loan. The loans saved the auto industry, and several related. Don't you follow the news?

sanepride said @ 4:00am GMT on 13th Mar
...and as for the union pension funds that has penner's panties in a knot they were paid in fulfillment of existing contracts. Y'know, so these guys could retire with some degree of security and not end up relying on government handouts.

incpenners said @ 4:43am GMT on 13th Mar
You're both utterly full of shit.

Ex-auto czar: Auto bailout will cost taxpayers $14 billion. That's an optimistic view of it from the guy who figures he'll get the blame.

And as for paying up the 'existing contracts'... where else is anyone being made whole for their losses? It was the unions that drove the car companies into the ground in the first place. You're such. a fucking. hypocrite.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 5:38am GMT on 13th Mar
It was the unions that drove the car companies into the ground in the first place.

How; by demanding a living wage and reasonable hours, thus driving up prices?

lilmookieesquire said @ 7:29am GMT on 13th Mar
Then explain why Japan is losing out to China.

You ever heard of a Japanese union?

"Until 2005, the U.S.A. led the world in total automobile production. In 1929 before the Great Depression, the world had 32,028,500 automobiles in use, and the US automobile industry produced over 90% of them. At that time the U.S. had one car per 4.87 persons.[2] In 2006, Japan narrowly passed the U.S. in production and held this rank until 2009, when China took the top spot with 13.8 million units. By producing 18.3 million units in 2010, China produced nearly twice the number of second place Japan (9.6 million units), with the U.S. in third place with 7.8 million units.[3]"

ComposerNate said @ 12:18pm GMT on 13th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
"It's unambiguous that it was a success," also said Rattner, sourced from that same link.

The government may have to write off $14-18 billion, we'll see. Meanwhile, foundational industries were saved, so how much tax revenue will that bring in instead of how many people would have been supported until other industries in a rather limited region absorbs the workers? Think longterm as well.

Steven Rattner, the guy you linked to speaking in December 2011 describes Mitt Romney and his position on the auto bailout this February: "dead wrong," "utter fantasy," has "delusions," and "hasn't felt a need to be consistent" and that Romney was "trashing a program that saved tens of thousands of jobs."

He also attacked arguments from Romney and, lately, fellow presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, who said in Wednesday night's Republican debate that Obama and the task force enacted the loans to "pay off" the United Auto Workers union.

"I recognize the emotions surrounding the decision to give members of the United Auto Workers company stock in exchange for resolving their health care claims," Rattner said. "But the courts were emphatic that what we did was legal, because we remained true to a core principle of bankruptcy reorganization: Every stakeholder received more from our plan than if the companies had been left to go bankrupt on their own."

GM recently announced a full-year record net profit of $7.6 billion, with hopes of $10 million-plus in the near future. It also recently became the world's top-selling auto maker once again. Chrysler reported its first full-year net profit since 1997.

Obama and other Democrats have been quick to use this as fuel in the president's re-election campaign. Obama declared the "auto industry is back," while not-so-subtly pointing the finger at Romney and other Republicans that he said were willing to "let the industry die."
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/304368/20120224/romney-auto-bailout-bush-obama-steven-rattner.htm

incpenners, please don't say that I'm full of shit. I may be wrong, and appreciate finding out when I am as I try to be accurate. In this case, the auto loans appear to be a net positive for the USA from the perspective of anyone not putting Republican politicking before their country.

ComposerNate said @ 12:24pm GMT on 13th Mar
Obama campaigned in part on saving the auto industry by providing loans with demands that they adjust away from SUVs and the like and more towards energy-efficient hybrids and such. This, for me and most of the electorate paying attention, was a selling point for Obama and helped him win election. He pulled it off, a success as promised and planned, and now the USA is making reasonable, sustainable vehicles while the number of employed continues to rise since he first took office.

The bug in incpenner's ear said @ 2:56pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:1 Funny]
But...the....BLAAAARRRGGGHHHH! UNIONS!! UURRRGGGHHH....

sanepride said @ 4:13pm GMT on 13th Mar
Really? It was the unions that decided to design and sell crappy gas-guzzling cars? And the unions who are responsible for mega-compensation packages for top executives responsible for making cars that people didn't want to buy?

theolypse said @ 5:56am GMT on 14th Mar
Duh.

arctan said @ 5:37pm GMT on 13th Mar
I love how the "blood from a stone" rhetoric comes out when we have the lowest taxes on the very wealthy in the First World.

-_- said @ 8:18pm GMT on 13th Mar
During the "Golden Age" of the 50's the tax on the top tier in America was around 60%.

Roulette1337 said @ 12:13am GMT on 13th Mar
Fuck you guys.

Instead of wasting money on exploring beyond our planet we should turn that money inward. We should unlock the mysteries of the cell, the genome, the atom and the fundamental forces which bind them before looking outward. It'll be far more beneficial to everyone.

Especially since decent space exploration is entirely contingent on us being wrong about going fast than the speed of light.

-_- said @ 12:22am GMT on 13th Mar
Relax ... we are working on all those as well.

There's enough to keep us busy in this solar system for the next few centuries, let's not worry too much about FTL just yet.

Urzazero said @ 12:54am GMT on 13th Mar
It seems that science fiction writers predict the future because science makes the future whatever it wants. Faster than light drives? We'll figure out a way to make them even if the mere idea is impossible. It'd be interesting to see if we develop a way to move faster than light or a way to warp space first.

arrowhen said @ 3:29am GMT on 13th Mar
Science fiction writers don't predict the future. By which I mean sometimes they do -- Robert Heinlein, for example, predicted the water bed -- but that's not their job.

azazel said @ 5:39pm GMT on 13th Mar
And lovecraft predicted the internet, iirc.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 2:33am GMT on 13th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
Why do you think they have to be mutually exclusive? Why can't we research cellular biology, subatomic physics, etc. while at the same time exploring space?

mechanical contrivance said @ 2:51am GMT on 13th Mar
No. We can only study one thing at a time.

Dna01 said @ 3:53am GMT on 13th Mar
Unless you build more engineering bays.

Roulette1337 said @ 5:44am GMT on 13th Mar [Score:1 Funny]
Slanderous lies! All the science money should go to my field of interest! People should stop obsessing over the night sky and talking about how cool spaceships are. Women should drop their pants at the sight of my pipette and the rocket scientists should be the ones sat all alone in the corner trying to convince a bored friend that their job is interesting.

NASA doesn't deserve to hog all the sexy!

mrcucumber said @ 3:33pm GMT on 13th Mar
Women should drop their pants at the sight of my pipette...

I can only assume this means you have a small dick, and have penis envy for rocket scientists :P

mechanical contrivance said @ 11:59pm GMT on 13th Mar
Or maybe he walks around with a pipette shoved up his pee hole.

theolypse said @ 5:57am GMT on 14th Mar
I like titrations.

arrowhen said @ 3:24am GMT on 13th Mar
We should unlock the mysteries of the cell, the genome, the atom and the fundamental forces which bind them before looking outward.

Right, because no one at all is studying that shit.

tbt10f said @ 6:17am GMT on 13th Mar
I think abandoning space is not a very good idea. What good is unlocking the human genome if an asteroid kills everyone on Earth and we don't have a backup copy on Mars?

GordonGuano said @ 6:40am GMT on 13th Mar
It's really not a question of "if". It's more a matter of whether a supervolcano will have reduced the homo sapiens population to a few thousand before a big space rock scythes off everything larger than a microbe. Meanwhile we can't even address birth control or climate change.

/rayofsunshine

-_- said @ 7:50am GMT on 13th Mar
Or maybe the tectonic waves rippling out from a massive asteroid impact trigger one or more super volcanoes which, because of the sudden pressure release, results in the magnetic poles reversing (thereby generating a planetary EMP) while the climate impact causes the Atlantic and Pacific thermal currents to shut down plunging all but the thinnest slice of Equatorial Earth into a deep ice age.

/Death Ray of Sunshine.
;D

Barnabas_Truman said @ 8:48am GMT on 13th Mar
Sounds like the "theory" I made up as a kid about how the dinosaurs went extinct and sent in to Ranger Rick magazine. I was so disappointed that they didn't publish it.

danshyu said @ 1:35am GMT on 13th Mar
Why not start a cash reward penny jar for NASA then? I'd be happy to donate a penny to NASA whenever I make a purchase with my credit card.

wickerjoe said @ 2:52am GMT on 13th Mar
Kickstarter... IN SPACE!

lilmookieesquire said @ 3:37am GMT on 13th Mar
A stunning 52% of Mississippi respondents to a survey done ahead of Tuesday’s presidential primary have bought into the false notion that Obama worships Allah, Public Policy Polling reported Monday. Some 36% said they weren’t sure.

...

Mississippi and Alabama are also deeply religious states that generally rank at or close to the bottom in most state education rankings.

...

nuke it from orbit?

lilmookieesquire said @ 3:38am GMT on 13th Mar [Score:1 Funny]
Oh good. Wrong thread. Delightful!

antares said @ 8:23am GMT on 13th Mar
Easy out.
Thread combo!
Alabama and Mississippi get to vote on a bill to stop Obama getting his 72 virgins. Estimated tax on this bill - say 4/10s of a penny (wtfta). Money goes to NASA (since these loonies will be delighted to overpay THIS tax)
Win x 3 .... except for Michelle :-)

Barnabas_Truman said @ 5:44am GMT on 13th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
Teach them from orbit. It's the only way to be safe.

Gunner v2.0 said @ 6:29am GMT on 13th Mar
I haven't read the article yet, but my first thought is, "Why doesn't NASA just start a Kickstartr?"

-_- said @ 7:54am GMT on 13th Mar
Your misspelling leads me to wonder if there is a kickstarter for porn .. maybe a KickSatyr ;P

happiest_sadist said @ 1:25am GMT on 14th Mar
Dickstarter?

(without reduction gear, one hopes)

edga alunpo said @ 9:09am GMT on 13th Mar
They've forgotten Kennedy's speech...

He wanted to put a man on the moon...

...but it was to be viewed as the first step to sending man to the stars.

He musta've been a trekkie... to go where no man...

Sadly, since that speech, we've wasted too much time and resources on war and building cars!

-_- said @ 8:22pm GMT on 13th Mar
And lowering taxes on the wealthiest in America.
One of the promises Kennedy ran on was to lower the 60% tax rate they had.

hellboy said @ 5:17am GMT on 14th Mar

gendo666 said @ 9:11am GMT on 14th Mar
Canadian here.
I hate to see the international space station so dependent on what was always it's weakest link.
Hell the who damned thing was supposed to be larger with a bigger habitat and labs - but we (the international community , mostly Canada and the U.S. ) bent over backwards to allow Russia to be an "equal partner"
This just meant we cut, cut and cut in both technology and development.
Now we fucking have to pay them as no one else has launch vehicles that will do the job (or at least is willing ot do the job).
We need an Aerospace Kickstarter
- or some sort of alien probe inbound to the Solar System.

MachPi said @ 2:08am GMT on 16th Mar
Spaceflight is such an inherently amateurish exercise that if it ever works...and I hope it ever works... it will be because the amateurs of government or business origin stopped stepping on their snaky schlongs long enough to get something real and lasting accomplished for a change, despite all evidence to the contrary.