I'm a huge advocate of NASA. For kids, teenagers, high school, and college students, NASA is the closest realization that we can come to when it comes to Sci-Fi ie Space Travel.

I mean I remember watching shuttles blast off as a kid from my backyard, the tomato seed experiments we did in class in grade school that were taken to space, and the contraption we built that was placed in the shuttle bay STS91 when I was in college. NASA is part of what America is and built upon. It's our hopes, dreams, a tool for blockbuster movies & B rated movies. Without NASA, I doubt the US would be the super power it is today, we certainly would be years behind when it comes to GPS, and half of the different technologies we see on this very site.

But more than anything NASA feeds the hunger for everlasting knowledge to learn about our past, to exist in the present, and look towards the future. Without NASA, many of our favorite movies and TV shows may not have ever existed.

I believe NASA helps turn our dreams into a realty. I can't and don't want to imagine a world without NASA.

With what the human race has done to this planet, the only viable option is leaving it and moving on. With the growing number of humans walking around the planet, we're going to run out of room and food, even with the advancements in technology and utilizing the space we have properly (just look at the vertical gardens as an example).

Even with all this, we are going to run out of room, food, or resources far sooner than we may like to think. Because of this impending reality, we have to look to colonizing space, be it other planets or just space stations or massive ships. We are eventually going to need to leave, and as such are going to need to ability to do so. NASA, even though it may not seem like it, is a crucial part to the overall puzzle. With the advancements in technology that comes from the space program, we will better our lives not only on earth, but will have the ability to leave it when the human race eventually kills her.

Think about it. Do you want to cut funding to something that will be your only chance at keeping the human race in existence?

I help build the External Tank at the Michoud Facility. I have always been a fan of spaceflight. The NASA we have today surely is NOT the NASA we had 35 years ago. We have become complacient with "another shuttle launch". Congress AND the White House have lost their vision for America thru spaceflight. The former administration has railroaded the department into a finacial pit so deep that those in the know see only the waste. WE NEED A NEW DIRECTOR! WE NEED A NEW VEHICLE! We are not going anywhere soon and if SOMEONE(namely in the White House) doesn't step up and make a desition soon, we will end up in a technological pit as well.

Mr. President, make up your mind son we ALL can move on or do something else!

I agree with SonicRush. NASA is where dreams and ideas can come true and actually be applied by ANYONE will to put out the effort. We need the moon back as a place to go instead of a celestial body. We can got o Mars. The red tape and buracrats are the only thing in our way!

“Why don’t we just spend the money on specific scientific needs like curing AIDS or Cancer?” The answer is that we do already spend huge amounts on problems like those. The difference with space exploration is dissimilar to specific issues like the above; it requires work in so many different and seemingly unrelated fields. Space exploration requires research in materials science, medicine and human biology, electronics, computers, propulsion systems, energy production, nanotechnology, communications, weather forecasting, waste-recycling systems, geology…the list is almost endless. It involves almost everything that we as humans do. Therefore we can expect breakthrough technologies in all of these fields, some completely unexpected. The impact on our overall economy is almost immeasurable in terms of new products and services being created from us trying to make spaceflight possible. No other field of scientific endeavour delivers as much.

I love NASA. I hate the Space Shuttle. If there ever was a government programs whose whole existence was based on the fact that it cost unbelievable amounts of money and did very little, then its definitely the Space Shuttle--we had a vehicle that didnt blow up and actually did something, and it was called the Saturn V. That of course, just wont do! So we had to get rid of it. I'd have to say that if there was something that Bush actually did right it was the Ares Program, hopefully Prince Obama wont cancel it to build ghettos.

The next reason we go concerns resources. The peoples of the developing world will never attain a standard of living comparable to the advanced Western nations unless they have access to natural resources. Energy, metals, fresh water, etc. If we only continue to acquire our resources within the closed system that is our planet Earth we will eventually run out of many of those materials essential to an industrialized society. When resources become scarce people tend to squabble over what’s left. (Considering our species propensity for violence that could be a disaster for all of us.) We need new inexhaustible resources, ones where we do not pollute our air or water trying to extract them. There is only one place where these resources exist in copious quantities and that place is off world. It sounds like sci-fi but it’s really just a question of putting our minds to it and going and doing it.

I would say that NASA doesn't completely suck and leave it at that. I think there's more of a bureaucracy at NASA now then during the Apollo program. Image is another big problem. We use to look at astronauts as cowboys or super hero's, now there more like over glorified college professors. Who gets excited by that?

NASA ROCKS!! This article got it right. As many problems as our space program has had, people tend to forget that what NASA does is not easy at all. The fact that they've made it look so easy for so long make the difficulties stand out even more. I applaud everyone who works there to keep the dream of space travel for everyone alive. Having said that they DO need to learn a little more restraint and ensure that SAFETY is job one. It might be time to cut back on manned missions until they can come up with a better spacecraft than the shuttle though. I personally don't like the way we seem to be going back to the old lunar lander but if that is the stop-gap we need to develope an better shuttle then I can live with that. Everyone is so excited about SpaceShipOne and its successor but its seems more like another plaything for the rich. Not a true spaceship but more like a high flying plane with really expensive tickets. I will be more interested when I can afford to take a flight.

I disagree with Orheon's take that we should colonize other worlds for a couple reasons.First, we have never found other habitable worlds to colonize and unlike the Terraforming efforts of ALIENS the movie, we don't have the technology to do any of that. Space is not the cold, empty vacuum the sci -fi movies would have us believe. It is a hostile, radiation filled, wilderness and not so easily trekked as crossing an ocean to a new land. Which brings me to my second reason, mankind does not have the wherewithall to act prudently or responsibly in a viable colonization effort. We are an imperfect, flawed people and our works throughout history only propounds that reality. NASA is another example of this. Sure there are some good that has come out of it but there is a lot of irrelevant things going on there as well. And to add, We who can conceivably make this happen are NOT going to go in the initial, clumsy stages of the game. We want convenience. If there isn't a Stabucks or a McDonald's on alpha Centauri when I get there, why bother?That whole Intrepid Explorer" Lifestyle died out with Columbus.....even Star trek has conveniences like the holo-deck and replicator technology. so, until that happens here on earth....which is never, then Nasa can just keep developing battery technology so I don't have to keep charging my Ipod every four hours.

We going to let the world stand still with it's lack of resources and energy when there's limitless amounts of it in space? If anything NASA needs more funding and to pick up the pace, because all that platinum and uranium in the asteroid belt isn't going to mine itself you know?

NASA rocks. Because we need to progress. There is a window of opportunity for advancement beyond living dirtside. If we miss it, the technology required to advance is possibly non-existant or beyond our ability to discover. You want to save Mother Earth? Then leave the womb. If you want to abort yourself to save Earth, you can do that solo. NASA funding returns results, unlike social programs that return nothing and only prolong the problems they target. The fact that NASA is held back by political squabbling and funding is the only part of it that sucks. We should get serious about NASA and give the people with engineering degrees some latitude over the people with management and political carreers. The pioneer spirit is the Human Spirit. It hasn't died out. It is bound and crushed by small minds who are afraid to get off their ride and put their shoulder to the wheel to vacate the mudhole in which their wagon resides.

I work in the life sciences research field and had the chance to hear a project manager at Ames give a research talk. After the talk, I came to the sad sad conclusion that much of the life sciences research being done was a spectacular waste of money. Ok, SOME of it I can certainly see the value, long term effect of zero G on bones and muscles? Incredibly important for planning longer term human missions.

Spend millions on designing self contained culture cell to measure growth curves of bacteria in zero G? Who gives a flying fvck! If that's the best idea for the research that can be done in space, then there needs to be a change in the people signing off on these experiments.

Really this is very unique and technologically news really i love this blog, WOW!

NASA is widely believed to be the first step towards human colonization of space. Sadly, this is little more than propaganda. The years since Apollo (and even the Apollo program itself, when you investigate the other ways it could have been done) have been a demonstration of this.

Government space programs exist to put government people into government-operated space. They have *no* economic incentive to do anything else. They *do* have the usual economic incentives of all other government bureaucracies tho... if they fail, it was because they didn't have enough money, so they should be given more; if they succeed, they did well and so should be given more money. Couple that with the belief that "if only we could get the right people enough power, we can make it all work properly and do all these wonderful things" and numerous other factors; and we have a situation where the agency gets larger and larger, but due to its increasing size and unwieldiness produces fewer returns for each dollar.

Burt Rutan did more to get ordinary people into space with $20M of Paul Allen's money, than NASA has done with hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money. Why? Because he has an incentive to be lean and efficient and oriented on the goal rather than on the process. If he doesn't perform, he goes out of business and an entrepreneur who can serve the public better buys up his resources. If NASA doesn't perform, they keep getting more taxpayer money.

If NASA wanted to actually get people into space; they would be researching cheaper launch vehicles (very cheap mass-produced rockets for low-value cargo like water and fuel; small, reusable launch vehicles for humans), orbital assembly and orbital fuel depots (so you can go to the Moon and Mars without having to launch everything on giant, expensive rockets), and in-situ resource utilization (like getting various components of fuel from the moon). Some cursory research will indicate that NASA has actively *avoided* these technologies; and concentrated on very big, very flashy, and very expensive technologies.

The analogy is that if you want to go somewhere into the wilderness and stay there, you don't just put all your supplies on your back and in your wagon; go there, then throw away all your supplies and your wagon and eat your horses on the way back, returning home with just the clothes on your back and a few rocks from the wilderness. Instead, you build a road on your way out, and set up gas stations along that road. It costs a lot more up front that way; but when you get there, now you have 18-wheelers full of supplies arriving every day, you don't have to go home, and you can do tremendous amounts of science as well as profitable work. NASA refuses to build roads and gas stations; and just wants to build bigger wagons with more horses, because that's what they're rewarded for.

No other country on earth can do what we do on a regular basis, ie launch, deploy, retrieve and land on a runway. I think it is a capablity that needs to be preserved and honed in addition to interplanitary exploration. I say move money from the pentagon budget to NASA.

The NASA budget is only 0.5% of the federal budget. The shuttle is only about one-sixth of the NASA budget.

NASA used to rock, now it sucks. It led the way, but now it is time to just get out of the way, and let the private business world take over. Government can not do this successfully anymore. Too much red tape, and the Congress (and I might say, the taxpayers) just don't have the cahoona's for it anymore!

Photoprinter, you astound me. Your use of the word "cahoona's" is incredibly wrong. First of all, you MEANT 'cojones', which is Spanish for 'balls'. Secondly, you SAID 'kahunas' which is a plural of the hawaiian word for expert, and THIRD, YOU SPELLED THAT WORD WRONG, and fourth, there's no apostrophe in that word unless it's possessive, which that one can never be! People need their mistakes to be pointed out to them or they never learn. You're welcome.

If NASA is so great why can't it survive of donations or earned income?

I use Google everyday and I've never had to pay a dime to them, and Google still manages to make money.

Nobody has to force the tax payers to buy iPods. Microsoft has 10 times the cash and market share of Apple but when was the last time they released an innovative product?

It's the little guy working in his parents' garage that innovates.

People of the former USSR probably thought only the government has enough resources to make bread, toilet paper, cars, and ships. But anyone living in a more free market knows that's nonsense.

Cut NASA off from the pork barrel trough and let them sink or swim on their own. If NASA is great people will be lining up buy their stuff.

Hm.

NASA has done some truly outstanding things (men on the moon and back again, orbital missions, getting Hubble going for remote deep-space exploration, the Voyager series,) but there are also blots on its record (Challenger, Apollo 13.)

Does that mean that NASA should be disbanded? Hell no! Too much good has come out of our space programme to let it languish for lack of funding or interest - advances in medicine, manufacturing, and just plain hope for the future of Humanity.

What we're doing wrong is really pretty simple - we stopped making trips to Luna. Oops.

In our Moon, we have the idea jumping-off platform for further exploration. Using a three-stage process, travel back and forth to the Moon can be efficient and relatively inexpensive.

1) Earth's surface to Earth orbit (the STS, with some modifications, will suit this rather nicely.)
2) Earth orbit to Lunar orbit
3) Lunar orbit to Lunar surface.

The three segments demand different flight characteristics; therefore, three different vehicle. Why three? Because building one to do all three is going to cost far more than building three (Yes, the Saturn V platform worked - but it was horribly inefficient. All that power to move three men to the Moon and back. Take an STS, seal the cargo bay, and use it as an "orbital bus" - you can suddenly get a couple hundred people to orbit and back again!)

Once we have an outpost on the Moon, we can start looking to the rest of the Solar System. Why? Because launching from the Moon doesn't present as great a problem as launching from Earth - it's not at the bottom of as great a gravity well.

And, a Lunar outpost could prove the /ideal/ project for international co-operation! We've got Antarctica, but there's still plenty of petty bickering going on over that continent (and not everyone has a stake in Antarctic operations anyhow. It's all research stations.)

A Lunar outpost - Hell, /colony/ - could be a truly international joint venture with benefits for the world as a whole. Call me an idealist, call me an optomist (both words have rarely been applied to me,) but once we colonise the Moon, and we start colonising Mars (and perhaps Venus, and larger bodies in the Asteroid Belt,) we'll see a good deal of international co-operation and that can only benefit the race as a whole.

It's about time something happened to bring us all together (and the population pressure down here is killing us. This mudball is already overpopulated as it is...)

I've had a mixed opinion about NASA for many years. having drempt of going into space (as many of us have) and even going to Space Camp in huntsville, I fet that NASA became stuck in a rut. This latest launch was a good indicator of that I mean really 3 day window because military launches were booked solid. NASA stopped being a space agency and started being a frieght and cargo company for teh US goverment. Granted most if not all of their funding comes from teh government but what if that were not the case. People always talk about private sector vs. goverment what if you combine them? NASA has some of the greatest scientific minds around and it is clear they need more funding so ceate a new space agency that has two sides one for government projects and one for the genreal advancement of space exploration and colinization. This way private industry and know how can take part in and much of that additional funding required would come from highly prized corporate / medical dollars. There is a lot to be gained out there and a lot to learn. we are far from having long term permanent bases in space but I could see within the next century a very realistic view of mining operations in teh steroid belt bearing private corporate names, gas refinerys in orbit around our larger Gas giants etc. There are limitless resources in space we just have to figure out how to effectively reach and harness them this will only happen with a joint effort and new space agency combining goverment backing with private industry ingenuity.

Yes, NASA has fallen on hard times. They are not what they once were. Any bureaucratic organization eventually ossifys, and needs a good hard shake-up to get things working again. I remember the wonder in this 10-year-olds' eyes watching Neil Armstrong step onto the Moon, and that has always stayed with me. I have never lost hope that we will find the solutions to our problems on Earth, and a lot of them will be discovered while finding the best ways to get out there. Look at the spin-offs from the Apollo program - microcircuitry & processors, solar cells, carbon-graphite, and many others. We could have the same benefits from a newly empasized space program.

What bogged down our ascent into space was politics, not technology. Government decided to go for the shuttle, as opposed to using the proven Apollo tech that we had. Gerard K. O'Neil's "The High Frontier" showed that with the tech we had at that time, we could have manufacturing sites in orbit, mining operations on the Moon, and orbital colonies at the LaGrange points within 20 years. That would have been the early 90's, almost twenty years ago. We have, in essence, wasted almost 40 years worth of opportunity, and now have to look at the possibility of being passed by China in the exploration (and exploitation) of space. This is a crime against our society of mammoth proportions. America has always been about the chance to do whatever you put your mind & abilities to, being able to explore and push back the frontiers. Well, that frontier is still there, just a few miles straight up, and as far as the eye can see.

The amount of material resources available in the Asteroid Belt are such that, even at the current increasing rate of consumption of the world, there is enough to last for the next 10,000 years!!! Further out, in the Oort comet cloud, are enough giant snowballs (i.e. comets) for all the water the orbital colonies would need. Some of the recent news releases by Helion Energy [see this article at nextbigfuture.com] (http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/04/helion-energy-fusion-based-on-john.html) show some very promising results, regarding a FRC (field-reversed-configuration) fusion process that would be particularly well suited as a spaceship drive. If it's successfully developed, at a constant 1G thrust (with flip over & reverse thrust at the midpoint of the flight), that makes the Moon a flight of a few hours, Mars a few weeks and the Belt a few short months!

We HAVE to get moving into space, for better or worse, no matter the cost. For the ability to have an ever expanding (and expandable) frontier, for the access to resources & living space, for the unending chance to explore & lean new things, and to constantly challenge & expand the human mind..... before what happened to the dinosaurs happens to us.

Ad Astra!!!

Bottom line, any entity being run by committee, i.e., the government, is never going to achieve its full potential, esp when the "committee" changes its mind every few years - or in the current case, daily! The idea of NASA is excellent, but they have been hampered endlessly by red tape and bureaucracy. Let them do their job and we'll all benefit from it on more levels than, and because of, space exploration! Cures for diseases may be waiting for us out there, solutions to energy problems, advances in technology heretofore undreamed of all are waiting for us out there in space. If the "committee" would just give NASA the funding needed, these and other answers might be found! The sky's the limit!

Besides the benefits from items developed for space programs but adapted for civilian use, NASA's biggest problems came from government interference. How can you expect the best from people who are forced to work within the LOWEST bid. Would you lift off in a space craft costing the least amount of money, all features trimmed to fit the budget? Can you say ESCAPE POD? Either jump in and swim or stay out of the water.

NASA needs to continue and speed up their efforts, private businesses need to continue thier personal push to reach space even if self serving. Like Virgin with their zero G flight, anything that will show the government that they need to kick start the program. Everything we do now will improve the future even if we fumble and have a screw up here and their, we cannot learn from mistakes if we do not make them.
Their is also one thing I never understood, why don't we "fly" into space like a plane rather than a missile, wont it take less fuel and effort to navigate with the air and spiral into space, like a plane gaining higher and higher altitude until we are there?
Just a personal annoyance, Spelling Hero, who gives a frag if he misspelled "cajones" you ubderstood what he meant and your insight is not needed in this blog, you are truly a waste of "SPACE"...and yes I misspelled "understood", "their" and misued its context on purpose to annoy you.

NASA needs a competitive drive again. If you look at the Space Race it was politically motivated. The Soviet Union launches Sputnik and the US responds by trying to get a man in space first. Yuri Gagarin wins that for the USSR. Americans get upset and American government sees it as a national security issue. We throw heaps of money and national pride into NASA and get the Apollo program. The Soviet Union changes their focus away from space once we win that and we haven't been back to the moon since. Buran is a flop and we don't develop our own shuttle much further either.

Perhaps when China beats us back to the moon it will be a good thing. Then we'll race to Mars.

Woe to the Space Shuttle, for destroying an excellent rocket in the Saturn series. Noe here comes Ares, which is really the evolution of what the Saturn might have become. I have family who worked for NACA/NASA from its infancy through the launch of the HST. After several extensive discussions with them, what I heard was the same - NASA should never have gone forward with the Shuttle, as they felt that it was a major step backwards.
Having said that, don't forget about Elon Musk's SpaceX, which is poised to launch its Falcon9 Medium/Heavy-lift vehicle from the KSC later this year. With all of the talk about the Shuttle going away, and the ISS having to rely on the Progress vehicle for resupply, the Falcon resupply contract has stayed under the radar. SpaceX won NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) contract back in 2006 and has had several successful launches of the Falcon1 from Kwajelein Atoll. SpaceX was also awarded the Cargo Resupply Services (CRS) contract for twelve resupply missions to ISS beginning as early as 2010, dependent on the successful testing of the Falcon9 and the Dragon resupply vehicle. Of important note is the fact that SpaceX is developing a manned version of the Dragon to ferry humans to the ISS. The Falcon9/Dragon will cost half as much as the Progress missions due to very streamilned production and quality control. I toured the KSC late last year and the "tour guide" had not even heard of the Falcon9 being at KSC. Funny thing is, most of the vehicle had already arrived there and was being assembled at that very time. SpaceX is leasing the old Titan IV Heavy-lift launch pad from the government, which is in plain sight of the Causeway at KSC...

NASA's interplanetary probes rock. They are great examples of what can be done with robotic probes.
The manned spaceflight program sucks. We should be launching nuclear pulse propulsion rockets from antartica (fried penquin anyone??). We could have had manned missions to mars and saturn back in the 70's with 30 people per rocket if we had proceeded. Chemical rockets stink for interplanetary travel. We need to go nuclear to get anywhere (including mars and the moon). Hard radiation is everywhere beyond the earths surface so once we are in space the radiation from the exhaust will be miniscule in comparison to the radiation already present there.

FYI: The radioactivity is not as bad as most people think either. The danger from it was overblown and overstated. As a result we have a handicapped manned space program

Dave Dodge

First off, "With the extra money available when we don't have to keep meat puppets alive in hostile environments" is completely inappropriate. Please change those words. Even if you like I dislike the war, that goes way beyond. Show some respect for those "meat puppets". As you said about making comments, you haven't been there (I could be wrong though I doubt it) so you have no place to talk.

Back on subject. NASA is a great thing that I agree needs more funding and does need to be streamlined (then again so does the whole government). People too often point to NASA's failures and not to its achievements (read Dan Brown's "Deception Point"). The shuttle for all its woes was a good thing, It was just kept alive too long. I would like to see NASA competing against private agencies, much like the Post Office does with say FedEX and UPS. I look forward to seeing what NASA does with Ares.

NASA should have done the shuttle and ISS, but it also should have sent flights to the moon and beyond.

NASA is what we have. Space travel is a natural progression for our world. It's inevitable. Unfortunately we have this money thing in our society that always throws a monkey wrench into everything. As long as we continue on our paths of evolution what difference does it make if it is the government or private enterprise that gets us there. We are going to pay for it either way. Weather you have the back up redundent systems of NASA or the bare boned systems of the corporations, there are going to be personnel loses. No reason why we can't have both. On another note Shuttle like ships (if not the ones that are going to be mothballed) can be used to clean up all the space junk orbiting our planet. Either individually or like trollers with nets for the smaller junk. Just my thoughts.

Personally I believe the space program is great. It happens to be in a slow period at the moment but will I’m sure prove to be an asset to the USA, the American public, and the world once again. Remember that NASA and the space program did send several successful missions to the moon and back. Remember Apollo 13 where the mission was doomed because of a meteor strike piercing an oxygen tank and destroying several systems on-board. With less computer systems than you have in many cell phones today NASA and the space program brought those three men back to earth safe and sound. Sure there have been mishaps and deaths. There are many risks involved with space travel. There are many risks just walking outside of your home too, but in-order to advance in life we walk outside and brave those risks not even realizing what some of the risks are through a normal day of life. While we still don’t know all the risks of space and travel to other planets and the stars, those who take those risks do that knowing what they are attempting and that death could be a consequence of the actions they are taking. They do this for the trill I‘m sure, and for the adding their part in the advancement of mankind. The people that have lost their lives did so in the attempt of furthering humankind and to think otherwise or to say shut it down would be a tragedy and disgrace to those brave men and women who have given their lives already, to those that take the risks now, and to those who might give their lives in the future.
As to private or public enterprise getting involved with a space program of their own, well some have in some respects developing and having NASA place some of our satellites we use today in communications and entertainment purposes to name just a couple of areas endeavors public and private industries have moved into the space program. The plain fact is industries, private and public enterprises have not yet seen a profit to be had in a space program of their own or you could bet they would already be there and further along than NASA has gone already.
Addressing the issue that we should have spent the money used in our space program for other things here on earth, well the truth of the matter is we would probably still be in no better shape here on earth and we would probably understand even less than what we do now about the planet we live on. We would also be without many of the advancements brought about by the space program and much of the reach that has been done in space and for the space program. As far as that goes, where exactly do you think that money would have gone if not to the space program. Not to the public, not to the things we need, not to much of anything good either. It would have probably been used for some government program that really didn’t do anything but fail or to some congressman’s vacation or election fund or just lost somewhere. I mean really, look how our leaders manage money now. Any questions? At-least in the space program it had and will have a focus as well as benefits to our Government, to our public, and to the world as it has had in the past.

Humans are explorers. If we give up space exploration, we give up on ourselves. To the people who argue that the money could be spent on earth's problems: 1. This country spends more on cosmetics 2. The government pumps billions of dollars of our money into "here on earth" problems - do you really think you will see a better result by throwing even more money at it? To the people who say we should stay on earth and not venture out: with that thinking the Americas would never have been disovered. To the people who thinks space travel should be done by private enterprise: why not? Why not both? I say anybody who has the potential to do it should try. We need to grow up as a race. In space, nationality, politics and war have little meaning. We need a common purpose and space exploration is that purpose.

The one thing everyone seems to have forgotten is that NASA was privately held and given funding by the government, and then they (the government) took over. That is when things went to hell. NASA needs to go back to running itself and the government needs to stay out of it. Yes a lot of technology has come from the space program (like RichG at 7:29 PM ON 05/11/09 said)

@MBH: Thanks for your comment, but you've misunderstood what I meant by the term "meat puppets." I wasn't referring to the war. I meant humans, sometimes referred to in science fiction as meat puppets because they are flesh controlled by a brain, like puppets made of meat.

Sending these beings (us, the meat puppets) into space (a hostile environment) is a lot more expensive and dangerous than just sending robot spacecraft. That's what i meant.

This article really put things in perspective, NASA does have its good and bad. But I think overall, it rocks. Although, lives have been lost, its a risk that society has to take for progress... think of the railroads, building skyscrapers, mining, and the military. Its the ultimate sacrifice but to ensure that future generations prosper.

I grew up watching the Mercury program all the way to the last shuttle launch to fix the Hubble Telescope. I believe that NASA has either created new technology or been the impetus for others to create new technology. More has been made over NASA's failures than over all the achievements it has made large & small. Because NASA is controlled by the government, politics has become more important than scientific exploration and discovery. Get rid of the politics and the US and the world would see faster advancements in almost every science field. But like the government and large corporations, the leaders and politicians are more worried about lining their pockets than they are about advancing humanity's science fields which would make life better for everyone. I believe in NASA but I feel that until its and the government's leadership gets rid of the politicians, it will always be a long hard uphill battle to accomplish anything.

I've worked proudly for NASA for over 25 years as an aerospace engineer, manager, etc. I've seen many brilliant people doing incredible things that benefit everyone. I've also seen internal and external politics slow entire programs to a crawl for years on end. I've seen people have near breakdowns from the long work hours, when all they are doing is feeding the bureaucratic machine. NASA can't escape the political world in which it exists, from the constant funding uncertainties to politicians trying to say what rockets we should build or how much money we can spend to travel to technical conferences. Yes, NASA needs to be streamlined, but by itself that won't help. The whole government environment around NASA needs to change too.

Growing up through the space age and being a big fan of SciFi I find all these argument of "We need to cure cancer, Aids and what ever" Distasteful. The old adage of every $1 spend of space returns $14 in research and product back to us. This is still true today although I don't have that exact ratio. What we learn in space and to be able to over come hurdles has helped everyone that is living today. I could write an entire book on the items we have today thanks to research done for the space program. You wouldn't be reading this, the first man space mission had vacuum tubes in it and now we have really fast computers. I believe if someone can dream it we can do it and it will happen. Look how many people are killed in cars due to mechanical failure. I don’t see everyone saying we should drive cars anymore. The shuttle was a marvel of engineering considering the budget cuts it had to endure. If more money was spent in upgrading and the Aero Spike (next gen shuttle) in stead of killing it, we would have safer and less expensive modes to get into space. I think our government and the American people are very self absorbed and short sighted now days. We need to really push ourselves to do better, than sit around and get soft. I hope someone will step up and push NASA to better things and yes they will be expensive and DANGERIOUS.

NASA is no longer about the MISSION,It's about the bottom line! EARTH won't last forever,Space is our only option,Beleave it!

I can sum this issue up with this...anyone against NASA may as well just go live under a rock where they will feel safe!

Spaceship 1 Government 0 wrote:

"People of the former USSR probably thought only the government has enough resources to make bread, toilet paper, cars, and ships. But anyone living in a more free market knows that's nonsense."

Yes, after all, the first unmanned and manned missions into Space, and more consistent presence is space was pioneered by those entrepreneur's, the USSR.

Please, sensible exploitation of space won't be decided by simple rehashing of Ayn Rand talking points. Google would be nothing if not for an internet that was conceived through public research funds (DARPA). There is room for the private exploitation of space, sure, but I don't think the foundation's been laid for governments to give up its programs.

Show me how the private sector would've created Hubble or any other basic space science project, color me convinced. You won't be able to do it. (And if you grope at the university's in your hemming, keep in mind the substantial cut of gov't funding that goes into their scientific research).

I wish libertarians would actually read a book or something and learn what their governments actually did, before they read a website and declare themselves against them.

Until we get a light speed - to faster than light speed engine were just spinning our wheels. The distances are much too vast for conventional colonization. Moon-base is fine. Mars is fine. Finding no other earth-class systems nearby is very disheartening. Almost seems like were isolated. Not going to be doing much exploring of a solar system with only 1 life sustaining planet.

In response to zinfer:

There is always the terraforming approach - i.e. hitting Mars with enough ice comets from the Oort cloud to thicken up the atmosphere to where it could be breathable (sort of like an Andean mountaintop, but survivable at least), or seeding Venus with genetically bio-engineered algae to break up the cloud cover to desrupt the greenhouse effect (a few ice comets there wouldn't hurt, either).

The Defense Department launches more rockets every year (GPS, Spy satellites, etc.) than NASA ever did at its height in the sixties.

I distinctly remember my Astronomy Professor saying that Mars is too small. It doesn't have enough mass to spin fast enough to hold an oxygen / nitrogen atmosphere. Terra-forming it is fantasy.

SUCKS BUT IT"S ALL WE HAVE!!! I cried in 2002 when they sent the Shuttle to TRY a re-entry with known broken tiles. The astronauts could have stayed for a few more days-yes, I understand about the strain on ISS"s resources, but I wonder what the astronauts were thinking about "Strained resources" as ship broke up around them... WE HAVE to do better than this...5

I cried in 2002 when they sent the Shuttle to TRY a re-entry with known broken tiles. The astronauts could have stayed for a few more days-yes, I understand about the strain on ISS"s resources, but I wonder what the astronauts were thinking about "Strained resources" as ship broke up around them. WE HAVE to do better than this.

NOVA on PBS ran a program titled "Space Shuttle Disasters". The 2003 Columbia break-up was caused by foam breaking off at launch and creating a hole in a wing, which then let in heat during re-entry. NASA never thought the foam would do that much damage until they examined the remains of the shuttle.

The Space Shuttle was designed to act like a plane, that could be used over and over, without the costs associated with previous flights. Cheaper is not necessarily better. Catch the show online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/columbia/.

Im surprised nobody said that above, but this picture is OBVIOUSLLY fake. You can notice cause at the detail pic there´s no small black signal. Am I the only one who noticed it? Hahaha

I think that the space shuttle rocks! We have to remember that all our computers and a million other inventions like cell phones and ipods and all electronics and many many other scientific advances are due at least in part of not totally because of the space program. Necessity is the mother of invention. As we boldly go where no man has gone before, we will over time find ways to apply the wonder of the universe hopefully to good use. Even so, we need remember to find ways to de-emphasize the use of computers which are overriding the rest of life, not always to our betterment.