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Obama abandoning manned space exploration

My column for the Daily News is online.  It’s called, “Obama abandoning manned space exploration.”

Posted by Owen at 0658 hrs
Culture + Foreign Affairs + Politics + Politics - General + Technology

1. While I agree that manned space flight does provide trickle down technological advancement, I disagree with you that we should continue spending money on it, here are my reasons.

   1.) We are suffering a severe financial crisis in this country that has the potential to become a meltdown. Abandoning the space program for a decade will save us real money… I don’t mean .9% of proposed spending over that period, I mean hundreds of billions of dollars.

   2.) The Space Shuttle program is in dire need of an overhaul. The equipment is outdated, and unsafe. We do not have the money to invest in a multi billion dollar overhaul of our space fleet when we are having discussions on the Senate floor over whether or not we should begin defaulting on debt payments.

   3.) We have reached the limits of where our current technology can take us. Taking a space bus back and forth to the equivalent of a space trailer park (int’l space station) is wasteful and extravagant. There are things that space travel have to offer us, but until we can reach mars, I don’t think its a problem to cut back and tighten our belts.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 16, 2010 at 0712 hrs
   
   
   

2. What if we had taken the trillion dollars that was totally wasted in the last “Stimulus” and put it into NASA’s budget. Think of the jobs that would have been created. (and good jobs at that!)

   And how are we going to reach Mars if we all but shut down NASA?

   No vision here…

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 16, 2010 at 0740 hrs
   
   
   

3. NASA should be cut, and possibly eliminated entirely.    The question isn’t whether or not we find NASA interesting, it’s whether or not we receive a sufficient return on an investment financed by borrowing.  The answer here is almost certainly no.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 16, 2010 at 0838 hrs
   
   
   

4. If not for the space program, many of the technologies that you use on a daily basis. Cell phones, for instance, would not have been developed without the space program. The cell phone industry pumps billions of dollars into the economy that would not have been there had it not been for NASA.

   Here are a few other things that were invented by NASA that have turned into big industry for the US: http://science.howstuffworks.com/ten-nasa-inventions.htm

   Posted by Fuzz on February 16, 2010 at 0959 hrs
   
   
   

5. The list you posted, fuzz, is dreadful.  It contains a bunch of items that economically really don’t contribute much more marginally than their predecessors or are not even NASA inventions.    NASA would need about 1000 times that list to approach being useful.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 16, 2010 at 1040 hrs
   
   
   

6. Why continue to pump money into the religion of NASA?  Why try to discover anything “out there”?  God created it all and if he wanted us to know the how’s and why’s he would have told us.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 16, 2010 at 1052 hrs
   
   
   

7. Yeah, I do agree with Doug. Why waste money and time and effort to do something worthless? I never know what people thinking exactly.

   Posted by Hindu Baby Names on February 16, 2010 at 1107 hrs
   
   
   

8. Why continue to pump money into the religion of NASA?  Why try to discover anything “out there”?  God created it all and if he wanted us to know the how’s and why’s he would have told us.

   I did not post this…....

   I am going to begin posting using my middle as last initial after my name, as DougJM, I have noticed other posts of this patronizing nature under my name before, but figured there could be other Doug’s who I happen to dissagree with on certain topics.

   I don’t believe that God created the universe for us… If there is a God, he almost certainly created other forms of life.

   I find the space program to be limited in its further potential until we have the technology to reach mars, that doesn’t mean that I deny the value of a space program altogether as I made clear in post #1.

   again, whoever posted as Doug in post #6 was not me, and this is not the first time I have noticed someone posting in threads that I have also posted in with the same name.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 16, 2010 at 1148 hrs
   
   
   

9. 8.

   Why continue to pump money into the religion of NASA?  Why try to discover anything “out there”?  God created it all and if he wanted us to know the how’s and why’s he would have told us.

   I did not post this…....

   I am going to begin posting using my middle as last initial after my name, as DougJM, I have noticed other posts of this patronizing nature under my name before, but figured there could be other Doug’s who I happen to dissagree with on certain topics.

   I don’t believe that God created the universe for us… If there is a God, he almost certainly created other forms of life.

   I find the space program to be limited in its further potential until we have the technology to reach mars, that doesn’t mean that I deny the value of a space program altogether as I made clear in post #1.

   again, whoever posted as Doug in post #6 was not me, and this is not the first time I have noticed someone posting in threads that I have also posted in with the same name.

   Posted by DougJM on February 16, 2010 at 1148 hrs

   Strike that I forgot that I have a login and username on this site… All comments formerly attributed to me, Doug, will now be made under the username: djmamayek.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 16, 2010 at 1153 hrs
   
   
   

10. Maybe God put them out there for us to go and discover…

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 16, 2010 at 1317 hrs
    
    
    

11. Actually Buzz himself was on WNPR Science Friday’s saying
    how excited he was Obama was shifting finance of NASA away
    from government run program to more private sector kind of like
    the FDA is to pharm. companies.  It cracks me up that you would be
    against that approach.  Listen on WPR and you will better understand
    the reason for the new direction. 
    To Bill…..I agree we could have not spent the stimulus money…although not
    all of it has been spent….but if your going to complain, how about not going
    to IRAQ, which is a MUCH bigger monthly bleeding of funds.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 16, 2010 at 1719 hrs
    
    
    

12. Obviously the “conservative” thing to do is to scream and moan about spending…especially if it’s for something I like.

    The liberal thing to do is to scream and moan about spending…especially if it’s for something I like.

    Wait…what?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 16, 2010 at 2121 hrs
    
    
    

13. I agree that manned space flight does provide trickle down technological advancement, I disagree with you that we should continue spending money on it
      Free Kids Puzzles

    Posted by Free Kids Puzzles on February 20, 2010 at 0827 hrs
    
    
    

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