Obama Readies to Blast NASA... to the dustbin.

[Autumnlicious]

REF: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011...last-nasa/

Word has leaked out that in its new budget, the Obama administration intends to terminate NASA’s planetary exploration program. The Mars Science Lab Curiosity, being readied on the pad, will be launched, as will the nearly completed small MAVEN orbiter scheduled for 2013, but that will be it. No further missions to anywhere are planned.

After 2013, America’s amazing career of planetary exploration, which ran from the Mariner probes in the 1960s through the great Pioneer, Viking, Voyager, Pathfinder, MarsGlobalSurveyor, MarsOdyssey, Spirit, Opportunity, MarsReconnaissanceOrbiter, Galileo and Cassini missions, will simply end.

Furthermore, the plan from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) also leaves the space astronomy program adrift and ...

Seriously, Barack Obama will not get my vote. No. I refuse to go along with this charade any further.

Obama has sold us out to the Banks. He has sold us out to "Too Big to Fail." He has betrayed homosexuals, marijuana patients and pretty much most of his power base time and time again.

If the DNC does not provide another candidate, I am voting third party.

[Shell B]

This is ridiculous! We are sacrificing the forward momentum of our race to line the pockets of the already rich. By all means, scrap programs, but not the ones that represent what America should be and especially not the ones that set an example of the quest for knowledge. I was pissed enough when they cut NASA, but scrapping it altogether is bullshit.

[Cinjin]

Obama says, "YES WE CAN"




My son: "Papa, can I be a NASA space man some day?"

"No, you can't"

America's too busy crushing foreign countries, lining bankers' pockets, and tear-gassing demonstrators to think about space.

[Minimalist]

If the DNC does not provide another candidate, I am voting third party.

May as well just vote for Bachmann or whatever republican shit gets the nomination, then.

[Cinjin]

Just to make sure you know I don't support batshit crazy either ...

:40 to :50




nice 666 reference!

[Minimalist]

Batshit is all the republicans have to sell.

[Zen Badger]

America, you're fucked.
You have given up even the pretense of being a world class power.

[Anomalocaris]

America, you're fucked.
You have given up even the pretense of being a world class power.

Which other world class power has a planetary program of its own?

China? Never launched a planetary probe of its own, ever, has not declared the intention to launch one in the foreseeable future.

Russia? Hasn't launched one in 18 years, hasn't launched one that got to where it was going in 24 years. Has plans to send 1 planetary probe in the next 10 years.

Japan? Sent 1 cometary probe in the last 10 years, has plans to send 1 more in the next 10.

I admit planetary probes certain has wild card scientific value, but it is no status symbol for world power.

[Jackalope]

This truly saddens me. If we spent less bailing out criminally negligent corporations and warfare (and defense in general), we could easily continue these programs - which enable us to gather knowledge that we have no other way to learn.

I guess protecting business from it's own failures and killing people and breaking their stuff is more important than gaining a better understanding of our little corner of the Milky Way, and by extension ourselves.

Before he was elected, I would never have expected this sort of thing from Obama. While he did not get my vote (I abstained), I had far higher hopes than this when he took office.

---

This is ridiculous! We are sacrificing the forward momentum of our race to line the pockets of the already rich. By all means, scrap programs, but not the ones that represent what America should be and especially not the ones that set an example of the quest for knowledge. I was pissed enough when they cut NASA, but scrapping it altogether is bullshit.

Shell, for what it's worth, they aren't scrapping NASA, just the planetary exploration programs. Small consolation as planetary exploration is some of the best work that NASA does - and it does so far cheaper than in the past. We get very good value in terms of scientific knowledge for the dollars we spend.

An angry letter writing campaign is in order.

---

My son: "Papa, can I be a NASA space man some day?"

"No, you can't"

My son, like his dad before him, wants to be an astronaut. Sure, not everyone gets to BE an astronaut, but now even dreaming of becoming one is just that - a dream.

My own dream succumbed to reality when I entered the military and learned I was partially color-blind, making me ineligible for a career in military aviation. It was a nice dream at the time, though.

[kılıç_mehmet]

I think that the space program is becoming too costly to be in the hands of a single country. I think that countries should get together to form a multi-national space program with shared resources and etc.