E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Mark Wilson / Getty Images
Retired senator-astronaut John Glenn is surrounded by other space veterans in front of the space shuttle Discovery during its handover to the Smithsonian at the Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va., on Thursday. Glenn says the shuttles were "prematurely grounded" but accepts the shuttle program's end.
For some veteran astronauts, today’s transformation of the shuttle Discovery into a museum exhibit is a cause for celebration. For others, it’s a reminder of their regrets. But for John Grunsfeld, the one-time “Hubble Hugger” who is now NASA’s science chief, the dominant feeling is a sense of relief.
Discovery's handover to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum has re-ignited questions about the end of the 30-year space shuttle program. Why did they have to be retired? The short answer is that in the wake of the 2003 Columbia tragedy, policymakers decided that once the job of building the International Space Station was finished, it would just be too risky and expensive to keep the shuttles flying.
Instead, President George W. Bush decided to re-target the space program on destinations beyond Earth orbit. For Bush, the first focus was going to be the moon. President Barack Obama shifted that initial focus to near-Earth asteroids, but the endpoint is the same: eventually getting to Mars. And the shuttles could never do that. They weren't built to go beyond Earth orbit.
Nevertheless, some of America's best-known astronauts think the shuttles should have been kept around a while longer — particularly because NASA will be dependent on the Russians for rides to the space station for the next three to five years.
'Unfortunate decision'
"The unfortunate decision eight and a half years ago to terminate the shuttle program, in my opinion, prematurely grounded Discovery and delayed our research," retired senator-astronaut John Glenn said during today's handover ceremony at the museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.
Former senator-astronaut John Glenn speaks as the Smithsonian formally accepts space shuttle Discovery for permanent exhibition.
Another retired astronaut who rode on Discovery, Tom Jones, voiced similar frustration during an interview conducted before today's ceremony. "I'm reliving the disappointment that the shuttles are retiring without a rapid successor," he told me.
Jones wishes that the White House and Congress had revved up NASA's plan for new spaceships capable of going to the space station and beyond: the Constellation Program, which initially aimed to put U.S. astronauts back on the moon by 2020. Instead, Constellation was so cash-starved and technically challenged that the Obama White House scrubbed the program and reworked elements of it into the current plan to visit an asteroid by 2025.
"We dropped the ball on this," Jones said. "If we just went from 0.5 percent of the federal budget to 0.6 percent, this would all be a non-issue."
The benefit of retaining an American system for resupplying the space station is what motivated Glenn's call to keep the shuttles flying. Glenn made his pitch to the White House in 2010 — but Obama didn't go for it, and the former Democratic senator told me today that he accepts the verdict.
"No need crying over what happened in the past," Glenn said. "Let's get on with the future."
The 'Hubble Hugger' and his pin
Grunsfeld thinks the White House made the right call, at least on the question of grounding the shuttles. He's best-known for his role as a spacewalker on Hubble servicing missions in 1999, 2002 and 2009. During that last mission, Grunsfeld was the one who bade the Hubble Space Telescope goodbye forever. Now he's NASA's associate administrator for science. The way Grunsfeld sees it, keeping the shuttles flying might have led to another disaster like the 1986 Challenger explosion — or the loss of Columbia and its seven STS-107 crew members in 2003.
"There's a possibility we could have flown them for a little bit longer, or extended them at some cost," Grunsfeld told me. "I'm actually extremely thankful that we are rolling Discovery into the Air and Space Museum, and not burying its parts. We flew out the space shuttle program gracefully. We didn't lose another one. It would have been tragic. The fact is that the space shuttle program was ended with dignity — it was an amazing accomplishment, and I'm just thankful for that."
Then he shared what he called a "small, personal story."
"Just this morning, on my flight suit for the first time since the loss of Columbia, I took my STS-107 pin off. I felt like this was an apt celebration, that we flew out the program safely after Columbia, and that affected me very deeply," Grunsfeld said. "Now that we are where we are, I'm looking forward to getting the next space vehicle going."
The end ... and the beginning
Retired astronaut Eileen Collins, who became NASA's first woman shuttle pilot during a 1995 mission on Discovery and went on to command shuttle missions in 1999 and 2005, has some firsthand knowledge about the risks associated with flying the shuttles.
The 2005 mission on Discovery marked NASA's "return to flight" after the Columbia tragedy. She and most other people at NASA had thought they had solved the foam-loss problem that led to the Columbia's doom — but mission managers were shocked to see that the fuel tank shed a substantial piece of foam insulation during Discovery's ascent. No significant harm was done, but it took another year for NASA engineers to rework the problem to their satisfaction.
This week, retired NASA shuttle manager Wayne Hale recounted the episode in a blog item headlined "How We Nearly Lost Discovery."
Today, Collins noted that each shuttles was originally designed to fly for 100 missions or 10 years, whichever came first. Discovery, the most traveled of the shuttles, flew 39 missions ... over the course of 28 years. She recalled that she agreed with the shuttle retirement plan that was announced in 2004, but was disappointed when the Constellation Program was canceled in 2010.
"At that time, I would say yes, we should keep the shuttles flying — with one major exception. Back in 2006, we at NASA made major decisions to start shutting down the pipeline for parts. In 2010, to reverse the decision and continue flying the shuttles was going to be very expensive and take a very long time. So it wasn't realistic to fly them again," she told me.
"The worst thing we can do to our people is to constantly change things ... so in the end, the right thing to do was to fly out shuttle. I am personally very sad to see it go. But the big problem is, we don't have anything to follow on right now. We're going to get there. It's just that right now, we don't have it."
It's not the end of the shuttle program that bothers Collins. Rather, it's the possibility that NASA won't be able to follow through on the beginning of the next program.
"I don't want to see any more canceled programs," she told a school group after today's ceremony. "If we have problems, we need to fix those problems and press on. We can't just cancel and walk away from them. I go to schools, and I talk to kids, and I say, 'If you have problems, stick with it, fix it, don't give up.' We don't want to continue to give up on programs that are going to be taking us out into space, whether it's with robots or with people. We need to keep working on those programs."
What do you think? Here's your chance to weigh in on the end of the shuttle program and the beginning of the next chapter in exploration. Just leave a comment below.
More about what's next for NASA:
- NASA gives all-clear for commercial launch to space station
- NASA's chief says end of shuttle era could usher in new age
- NASA unveils giant rocket design for future space odysseys
- NASA retools spaceship design for missions beyond Earth orbit
- Next steps in a commercial space race
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.
Leave a Comment:
God-Speed John Glen! He is such a mofo-ing badarse, he would never think of smiling on this day. For the record, it was George W. that killed the shuttles. I don't care if they were obsolete at 30 years, the Space Program has always been the pride of several generations of Americans. There is a hollow now.
The shuttle program was a total waste of time, materials and lives. because of this program and that worthless ISS that is floating around up there we are years behind in real Space exploration. we should have been to the Moon again and prepared to go to Mars by now. Instead we have traveled a Billion miles around the Earth to nowhere. This program stifled NASA's creativity. This new Space orbiter Shows the lack of creativity by slipping back into the 1960's landing problems of having to always land in water. A much smaller version of the shuttle should have been created to carry only crew into Space and back to Earth. The money we have spent on these craft is insane. The money we have spent on the ISS is even more insane. It has just been completed and is already nothing more than Space junk that is going to fall back to Earth because neither we nor any of the other partners have the money to keep it flying. The only real thing the program did was to keep 30,000 people employed for 30+ years. Now it isn't even doing that.
Every time an article about science is published on MSNBC, the pitiful simpletons show up and; while wearing their cotton and polyester clothes, sitting in their centrally heated and cooled houses full of electrical appliances, under their electric lights, with their mouth full of sophisticated dental work, having had their lives saved at least once by modern medicine, with a lifespan at least twice that of their ancestors of 500 years ago, listening to music from a CD on their stereo system, with the TV on in the background showing the latest satellite weather images, their cell phone in their pocket, with their car in the driveway and typing on their computer; ask the same utterly stupid and moronic question, "How come we waste all that money on scientific research?"
That is not what I said at all. What I said was the Shuttle program waste NASA money that could have gone to a much better sue in Space exploration. Without the Space program we wouldn't even be able to be having this conversation on the internet. The computers wouldn't exist. I said that years of money and time were wasted on things that haven't produced a great value for the dollar spent. Trying to get back to the moon 20 years ago would have been much better. Look at the advancements made in the 60's just to get there the first time. People that don't want to spend money on Space exploration just don't get it. A good space program like the one we used to get to the moon the first time creates thousands of jobs ifg not hundred's of thousands of jobs in the peripheral support businesses. Even the Shuttle program did this but my take is that it could have been so much more if the money had been spent on better projects.
n/t
hater, computers were invented at least 20 years before the space program. So, without the computer, the space program would not have existed. And what great value would there have been in returning to the moon?
Every time someone tries to say that the ISS is useless, I just laugh and laugh and laugh.
I could post the text of the entire 5000-word research paper I wrote last year on exactly why only ONE of the HUNDREDS of experiments conducted on-station is INCREDIBLY useful and has life-saving implications on Earth, but somehow I don't think MSNBC will let me post that much. Instead I will tell you to simply google microgravity protein crystallization and structure-based drug design, and see if you're intelligent enough to extrapolate the implications of drugs that manipulate specific protein structures to be effective, rather than just throwing chemicals at a medical problem. That's putting it in very simple terms, but we might just cure cancer with this type of research.
Again, that's only ONE. Visit this page and educate yourself:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments_category.html
Hey Hate...you may be the most misinformed person to ever comment on the internet!! Read about the benefits that our society has as a result of NASA and the shuttle program! And I live in East Central Florida where the Kennedy Space Center is and the end of the shuttle program has hurt the economy here tremendously! Think before you speak!!
"The shuttle program was a total waste of time, materials and lives. because of this program and that worthless ISS that is floating around up there we are years behind in real Space exploration. we should have been to the Moon again and prepared to go to Mars by now. Instead we have traveled a Billion miles around the Earth to nowhere."
First, understand that it's not all about 'exploration.'Some kinds of space research doesn't require going any farther than LEO. (The Hubble Telescope doesn't go to the edge of the observable universe to tell us more about what's there, merely being well above the atmosphere is adequate.)
Even when humans set foot on Pluto, there will still be space stations in orbit around Earth (and some of those places in between, that you haven't mentioned the ongoing work to be done at each one, after the first landings...this isn't cosmic hopscotch) for various research (not all of it government supported), support and commercial purposes.
Even in Starfleet, for every ship that's 'boldly going,' there's probably a dozen others doing mundane but necessary duties inside known Federation space. Sorry we can't entertain you as much as you'd like...
You are misinformed. The 60s craft were perfectly capable of landing on land in the desert and not water. Given how new the technology was NASA didn't want to risk aiming for white sands and end up landing on someone's house. By the end of Apollo, NASA could set the craft down within a quarter mile or less of their target. The newer capsules are designed to be just as capable as the Apollo craft.
In truth, though I understand that the space shuttles were inherently dangerous, I think that we left ourselves extremely vulnerable. We are reliant on other nations, at this point Russia for space travel. I think that we could have and should have continued with the space shuttle program. We are still going to have close earth missions in space, and I think that we abandoned them when we should have continued and improved them. They were the best thing out there. Let's hope that NASA will reconsider this issue and recreate a new and bettter fleet of shuttles.
NASA merely followed the same course it did when it decided to switch from the Apollo/Saturn V to the Shuttle. It had a "budget" that gave them authorization to develop a "replacement", which at the time was the Constellation program, and things fell apart from there. NASA has at several times in the past attempted to get a "replacement" for the shuttle...all of which were cancelled due to budget overruns, and in the case of the Venturestar/X33 project, Lockheed Martin basically informing them that developing the vehicle they wanted at the weight they wanted was physically impossible with the technology and materials available.
NASA's viewpoint is it takes time for things to fall out of orbit, so they have time to develop a replacement, there is no need to continue flying "older vehicles" until the new one is ready. Yes, it bit them in the butt with the Shuttle and Skylab, but that was a "fluke", at least in their eyes. NASA also suffers from being politically connected, which means it's "vision" and mission objectives changes every roughly every six years as an average. Given the desire to move out into the solar system is far more of a complex program than merely orbiting the Earth on a wing and a prayer, I feel this makes their mission far harder than it needs to be. NASA needs to be granted far greater leeway in deciding it's missions and goals than what it currently has.
I'm not saying it is NASA's fault tht we were stuck with the Shuttle. It was our fault for not insisting that Congress fund NASA.
The U.S. disposes of it's technological triumphs so often (the blueprints for the Saturn V were lost, later to be discovered in a British museum) and with such reckless abandon that it should be called "The United States of Amnesia". The SR-71 was considered too expensive to fly, so it was grounded, and just to be sure it could never be rebuilt, the tooling as destroyed as well, per Dick Cheney. Now the Global Hawk drone faces grounding, to be replaced by what? The 60 year old U-2. We are in the new Dark Ages.
When the Russians come up with a system that works, they KEEP it. To this day, nothing has been built that matches the Saturn V, even with all of our vaunted "technology". At least the X-37 is designed to be scalable, and rides atop its launch vehicle (the veteran Atlas-Centaur), so someone is thinking at the Air Force. They finally got the DynaSoar program they wanted, albeit unmanned. In 2011, Boeing announced plans for a scaled-up variant of the X-37B, referring to the spacecraft as the X-37C. The size of the X-37C would be approximately 165 to 180% of the X-37B, allowing it to transport up to six astronauts inside a pressurized compartment housed in the cargo bay. The X-37C's proposed launch vehicle is the Atlas V Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle.[47] X-37C may compete with Boeing's CST-100 space capsule.Commercial companies cannot afford long term exploration programs, only orbital trips to produce products at zero G. Their motive is profit and will remain so. Nation states, either in competition or cooperation, launch voyages of discovery.
I believe with his decision to cancel the constellation program, history will show that Obama may be responsible for killing America's space program. Great nations are recognized for their capacity to explore and venture into the unknown. It is sad, but I believe that this outcome has reduced America's swagger on the world stage to an American shuffle.
Congress defunded the Constellation program, not Obama. Get your facts correct.
Obama was handed a crippled economy as a result of 8 years of GW's failures!! America's space program was killed with underfunded wars and tax breaks for the wealthiest and big corporations! Please don't comment on something until you have an complete thought in your head!!
Constellation was falling behind schedule at a rate of at least one year, per year. It's not clear when it would ever have been ready...and would have given us little more capability than Apollo, when it finally did.
It was neither the best or cheapest way to achieve its goals. Indeed, most of them can be accomplished with out heavy-lift at all. It was bad policy, no matter how good the economy was. And merely 'doubling' the NASA budget would not have made it good policy...
I will miss it--a fantastic technological system and I'm very sorry I didn't make a trip to Florida to see a launch. But it was NEVER a good vehicle from the cost-effective prospective. $1B per launch is double or triple an expendable rocket of same payload....way too high. Hopefully private outfits can soon carry us into orbit and NASA should be robotically exploring the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, more trips to Mars, etc. Perhaps it is not to early to think about bringing an astroid into earth orbit to mine even. Manned missions buy much public interest but do far less interesting work than the rovers on Mars.
Idea..We could Repair it..put Congress on it and send it to the Planet Pluto........!
I like that idea!!!
Where is John... we lost a Dream and after that just going down down down... so know blame the Democrats
As I said in another thread, if all our space dreams and glory was tied up in that series of machines, the problem isn't in the machines...it's with us.
Another failure of the Bush administration...Ridiculous spending on two wars and tax cuts for the rich and corporations doomed funding for the continuation of the shuttle program! New shuttles should have been built to replace the aging fleet! This is done in every other mode or transportation including the military, so why wasn't it done with the shuttle program? As a resident of the Space Coast here in Central, Florida, the end of the shuttle program resulted in thousands of lost jobs at the Kennedy Space Center and has turned the US Space Program, once the leader in the industry, into an insignificant has been!!
Sorry, it was Obama that cut the funding and killed the space program so he could fund is socialist programs. This falls 100% on Obama and his liberal ilk. you can stop blaming Bush for all the stuff that Obama has done to our country.
Really! Who was the president who decided to retire the shuttle program without any viable alternative to replace it? Who was the president who left office with the country in the worst financial shape since the Crash of '29!! DO YOU EVEN HAVE A CLUE? If Obama tried to re-fund the space program, the self-serving idiots in the GOP-lead House would just filibuster and block the funding anyway! Go crawl back into your cabin, do some research, and leave the serious issues to the intelligent people!! And it was Congress who cut the funding to the Constellation program not the President...DOLT!!
Agreed on response to Mountain Man.
Ibid. Please see Post 29 McIlnay
Come on rational guy, Obama's 10 trillion plus added to our national debt is what led to the worst financial crisis in our history. Obama is so set on his liberal socialist programs he couldn't find any money in his 10 trillion budget to save the space shuttle program. Stop drinking the liberal cool-aid and start using your mind that God gave you. You have a mind so use it.
MMM,
I don't know about Montana, but the rest of the U.S. was hit with a financial meltdown well before 2009, when the President took office. So you're suggesting that he was responsible for this whole mess years before he was even sworn in?
Montana, contrary to what you (or Dr. Tyson) may think, NASA's problem isn't the kind that could have been solved by throwing more money at it...
I miss the US space program. One program should not end before a better future program is in place and working to take its place. I agree that the moon is the next logical step with near asteroid missions as a test bed for deeper space missions. The moon missions would have given us huge leaps in technology. One that comes to mind would be energy technology. There are no fossil fuels on the moon but there is a need for renewable energy to support a long term mission or base on the moon. That could be adapted to use on Earth by the private sector. Knowledge, adventure, dreams, new ideas, are what drives the human spirit to challenge itself to improvement as a whole. I think NASA and the US was dealt a huge setback just by this "pause" or break in development and continuation. It will be hard to recruit and encourage smart young people to enter the science and space fields when they see that career choice could be trashed, changed, or delayed for long periods of time. They want to know that they can reach and achieve life long goals and be a part of it without worrying about a politician making decisions that disrupt the flow of advances in technology and knowledge.
I've felt the moment when we ceased the Space Shuttle program when we didn't have anything replacing it was wrong. We are going to be set back for years if we do not get back up there. The amount of money waisted for using someone else's rockets to escort US to into space or to the Space Station. Bring back the shuttles. Bring Back the Shuttles BRING BACK THE SHUTTLES!!
No, bring forward Commercial Crew. Congress would rather dither over a few hundred million (a fraction of what it would take to restore STS) that would give us as many as four different means to reach LEO (and who doesn't want redundancy?), that might pose a threat to their pet Orion/SLS that's too expensive to service ISS or commercial stations, and at best, the only deep-space mission it could do would be essentially a repeat of Apollo 8. (and not in the most cost-effective way of doing that, either...)
Well space is very big and NASA needs to expand their thinking and continue their research and construct better ships to with-stand the space and make their way towards the other side of the milky way like in startrek and they should not make the shuttle as a museum because people who see it might get ideas and start their own space program, but oh well the government will do what ever they want to to make money for themselves cause the government sucks and they should go to hell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"and they should not make the shuttle as a museum because people who see it might get ideas and start their own space program...'
What people? China? Already doing manned space, albeit not very frequently.
Russia? Been doing manned space a little longer than we have.
India? Interested, but not soon. First LEO flight in 2017, at best. They've got some launcher reliability problems just now.
'Non-government' people? You mean Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Robert Bigelow, the people of Boeing and Sierra Nevada, of Scaled Composites/Virgin Galactic, of XCOR? Of Stratolaunch? A group that may want to retreive an asteroid for practical use? They're coming out of the woodwork, and it would be obvious if we turn our eyes away from a retired design.
Sorry, human space flight is possible. The secret is out...
Obama can't be troubled with NASA problems...he wants to take over health care and auto companies and banks and manufacturing. NASA has no place in his agenda to tell everyone how to live, what to eat, what to buy and whatever else he dreams up out on the golf course.
Only someone from the F'd up state of AZ would make such moronic comments!!
David was right rational guy. Stop drinking the liberal cool-aid. Think for yourself for once.
Really...I'm supposed to listen to two dolts from AZ and MT who wouldn't know an astrophysicist from an astrologist!! LMFAO!!!!!!!!
Wow, your idiot! lol So your a bigot against the western states? At some point can you stop being a pup[et for liberalism and start using your head and think?
maybe one day the grinch will get his wish and see a colony in mars ; but until we get this bush wmd american bankruptcy under control ; it's down here at the ranch with the rest of us fighting chickens !!!!!!!!!!
Mourning the end of the shuttles on my blog, I said, "What we have lost is the sense of unity and pride in what we could accomplish, the sense of awe and wonder brought by exploring something beyond Earth, a magnificent perspective on mankind and our planet and the relative pettiness of our differences, and the inspiration to all of us, especially the children, to dream and strive and pursue and literally to reach for the stars. The government said NASA and the space program were too expensive. I say they were priceless." I have a hard time believing that in our current political environment NASA will ever again be given the funding needed to reach beyond earth orbit.
That's socialism for you. Money goes for domestic spending not advancement and science. Look how far our country has fallen in Obama's four years and how many freedoms we have lost!
Not socialism dude.it's a bunch of wealthy executives who have sold off prototypes to overseas companies who voted for Bush,saying that they are'nt interested in keeping a bunch of boring astrophysics majors employed,we're more interested in funding a never looking kewler loking pickup truck that'll suck more cash of of the serf's pockets at the gas pump.Sell off the designs overseas to make more $$...All about money now,idealism's nice but it's not interesting to corporate execs anymore...Bush knew that this was comin...sorrie all but America and it's people have been sold off a long long time ago..
It was a sad day in America when the space program died. Obama has the honor of being the president who let America down. What ever happened to American exceptional-ism, about our country leading the world?Being the beacon for freedom? Now we are the beacon for socialism and lost freedoms. The American dream is dead and so is our space program. Thanks Obama!
You're the most uninformed idiot on the planet!!
You need to change your name to irrationalguy or idiot both would work for you. lol Pull your head out and think for once!
MMM,
You keep telling people to think, and yet you repeat the same right-wing talking points in every post, to the point where you use the phrase "drinking the liberal cool-aid" (twice!).
Such repetition and tripe does not advance the idea that you, sir, are thinking.
I like the photograph of John Glenn and the other astronauts that accompanies the article. The photographer and editor both must have a morbid sense of humor.
Photographer says: "Okay ladies and gentlemen, I want you to NOT look at the camera. And do NOT smile. I want you to imagine that you just sucked on a lemon. I want you to imagine the future that your grandchildren will inherit. Just think of how the USA used to be a leader among nations, and how we have thrown that away. Yeah, that's the look...hold it...<click>...perfect!
LOL but the sad truth Aurora!
Yea I had that same thought too lol...
A replacement vehicle to space should have been well into the planning stage after the Challenger disaster. I blame the FOOLISH impeachment attempt for that failure. The Clinton administration had it's hands full.
Taking the shuttles out of service should have been done after the Columbia disaster and space station completion was well in sight.
If Dubya didn't take his eyes off Afghanistan and waste time AND money (as well as lives) on the Iraq war, this country would have been MUCH better off than it is. That was a bone-headed move as well as one foolish idea.
As it is, we will have to wait for the private sector capabilities for space station access. A vehicle to near-earth asteroids will come in time, probably not in time for Senator Glenn, however.
I have more faith in our present POTUS than a top one percent-er like Mitt (dog-on-the-car-roof) Romney.
OBAMA/BIDEN 2012
Failure by endemic systemic long term incompetence, all of us are to blame, we don't stand up tell them what WE want, and THEY make it hard to be heard. When you shift gears it's a nice easy continous excersise that does NOT disrupt the normal operations. This was like one guy on the steering wheel, one guy on the clutch, three more on the gear shift, some out side looking back another looking forward, all talking at the same time to the am radio...were lucky, in reality, looking back that it.....a small miracle that we got it this far!!! A large shame our country can't shift gears correctly, happens all over the place in our system. Name a department and there it is, same thing, different garbage can.....worst case our space ship had a risk level above media sensitivity level wussie......(noting other countries shove someone in the hatch and say back? who said anything about coming back?)...as well, note boing STILL makes those, what you might say as smaller inferiour 7x7's even thought they also compete with the big ole eurobus on it's own size and scale....shift the gears smoothly, it takes forethougt, cooperation, and most of all, a sense of duty once you decide to start pushing on the gear shift lever......we let a moron drive and he downshifted...bottom line, the next guy has so many backseat drivers he can't get er out of second....the chinese just whizzed past in an ole 57' thunderbird......HIT THE GAS< HIT THE GAS!!!!
We are all to blame because we lazily allow the two political parties that are ruining this once great nation to continue to exist.
So where is the viable 3rd party candidate? I don't care who it is at this point. He/She has my vote!
I have to I think this is what the government runs like when we as a people let the media make choices for us and get lazy...We made poor choices in the last election cycle...we will not do that again I hope
Exploring space and going to Mars and beyond is a part of human destiny. People are supposed to populate the universe. It's also part of the "Creator's" plan.
Sad to see this era end. I was always excited to see a launch, and space exploration and research is something I will always support. I just hope I live long enough to see us reach Mars. The day we do that, is the day we truly prove we can explore this solar system. After that, its deep space. It pains me to know I wont ever see that day. But man would I give anything to be there for that.
The Astronauts are my Heroes.
NASA once epitomized everything that was right with America.
Now, thanks to the incompetence and corruption of our politicians, NASA has come to represent all that is wrong with America.
This happened in just 30 years.
It's so obviously clear that OBAMA IS THE WRONG GUY TO BE MAKING DECISIONS REGARDING AMERICAS SPACE PROGRAM. Were basically leaving the future of our planet in the hands of a biased, hidden agenda, poor decision maker, and just plain dummy type of eledged "leader." Put simply, Obama is neither equiped with the correct decision making ability and has his own hidden agendas with goals....and progressing our exploration of space is NOT one of them.
We need to GET THIS JOKE OUT OF OFFICE, and not just for this reason, but clearly because of many other screw ups and poor decision making as well.
And I also do agree with the astronaughts that believe ending the space shuttle program without even having another replacment space vehicle close behind it, was a giant & STUPID mistake. Seriously, were putting 100% of our ability to go into space in the hands of the Russians. Thats just retarted. All they have to do is wake up one morning and decide that they dont want the Americans hitching rides anymore...and were screwed. Putting our entire space ability in the hands of the Russians is one of the most retarted decisions ever made. OBAMA SHOULD BE ASHAMED AND HAVE THE ABILITY FOR HIM TO MAKE THE DECISION OF WHAT CREAMER HE WANTS IN HIS COFFEE EACH MORNING, TAKEN AWAY.
Obama didn't make that decision.
So, essentially, you have this long diatribe based entirely on a false premise.
...Portugal opened the way to India and was the superpower of exploration... But political change and Portugal was no longer a player... just a backwater... We could easily become another Portugal...
...The government found countless billions to bail out banks... many of whom caused the mess in the first place... then used the bailout money to buy out other banks instead of funding the economy... But many politicos of both parties lack vision as regards the future of mankind in space... and may well cut all but a few token programs...
...I am not being alarmist when I say that the Chinese are firmly committed to setting up a moon base in another 25 years... Those who don't understand "the high ground" should read Robert Heinlein's THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS... But many who would kill the space program entirely call that "science fiction..." The New York Times once said that rockets in space not possible because... "they would have nothing to push against..."
...Mankind is going out there... Time will tell if America has decided to become the Portugal of space exploration.