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As far as I'm concern, they can kiss space program's ass goodbye forever. Time after time, I am sick and tired to hear some JERK saying "The clouds are too close to the surface" or "Winds are blowing 2 miles above norms" and canceling flight 3 minutes before liftoff. I am really SICK and TIRED of seeing NASA becoming a pussy about any step they take to avoid budget cuts... they don't have to lose an astronaut or a rocket for an excuse, congress cuts the money anyway...

We need a freaking Space version of a Tea party in US. We need to elect visionary people for the government instead of useless F&*@ING looser every time. I truly have no problem getting wiped-out forever by an asteroid altogether, we deserve it anyway, but just because old assholes can't speak without farting, we are on HOLD for development, and I am not talking about those stupid Apple products either. Real developments in real science.

Low clouds, little wind, BIRDS?!?!?! are you kidding me? After this age, if we can't launch a vehicle in much better conditions than 1960's, what the hell is going on here... Are we all put on sleep with new gadgets, toys and games?!?!?

WAKEUP PEOPLE...

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wow... you would think your ex-wife was on the shuttle... :rolleyes:

... don't be stupid. Even if my son would be on the shuttle I wouldn't stop the launch 9 minutes before just because clouds are low 100 feet. They do this almost every time.

Get this, I know there is some dumb reason, but have you watched the countdown at all? 30 minutes countdown stops for 3 hours... So, you think there is 30 minutes to launch but actual time is 3 hours and 30 minutes... If you are going to stop the damn clock for 3 hours (and when it comes down to 10 or 9 minutes) why are you counting down at all... start 3 hours advance so we know what really is the time for launch.

my ex-wife? are you kidding me, I would tie her up to the main booster :|

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Personally, I think space exploration should be curtailed due to the economy and general state of things. Dont get me wrong however, I love the idea of going into space, but theres too many other problems that are frankly more important... Like say, the national debt for instance... Again, I'd love to see the space program continue, but its been riddled with setbacks and such. Just seems to be a major money sink right now.

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I don't think that the Space program should be cut or discontinued. If we're going to reduce spending, I don't think we're going to get much out of cutting the space program, it gets in the neighborhood of 1% of the federal bugdet.

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IMHO...we should have been 5 years into a launch base on the surface of the moon when Clinton was President and by now, be a year already on the surface of Mars terraforming. The shuttles are an outdated group of pickup trucks, should have been replaced a long time ago by lifting bodies. The space program has been focused on economics for far too long and less on exploration. The bean counters have been in charge for far too many years.

There has been new propulsion technology for a good while now, we have just been focused on other things. The pursuit of personal wealth has been high on the priorities list of America's "leadership" for decades rather than improving the quality of life of the people of the globe, time to get back on track and start shooting for the stars again. :)

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I'm not sure if the Tea Party is the analogy you're looking for. These are the same people that scream on and on about socialism and the abolition of social programs that bog down the taxpayer, but then turn around and complain about the high price of public transit in DC.

Also, the economy is in a ton of trouble right now. You can thank the geniuses who thought of sub-prime mortgaging for being the first chips in a mighty brick wall, bringing about a mighty crumble. While I believe that we should forge ahead into space, we've got wars that are draining us of billions of dollars going on every day and corporations that need saving, along with social programs in place to keep those who've already been victimized by flatlined corporations off the street.

Fix all that and maybe we'll have the budget to seriously invest in the space program.

As for exploring Mars, you'll have to figure out how to shield astronauts from all the radiation in space first. The way they've calculated it, the best-case 18-month trip there and back is just too long. They won't survive the whole journey. The way it is now, it'd be a one-way trip.

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I was disturbed by the recent sea (space?) change in NASA's budget and manned space visions. But this could be a blessing in disguise.

Corporations (love'em or hate'em) will take far more and greater risks for their money than NASA would or could. So, while NASA is sending potentially thousands of robots to other stellar bodies for the price of a dozen manned missions over the next decades, MicroSpace and Googleverse and Virgin Galactic can start shoveling tourists (and eventually industry) into space for gradually cheaper rates.

And they will. Because people will line up for the tickets. They already are. Just ask the telecommunications corps. Ask Richard Branson's long line of anxious, pre-paid space tourists. A variety of industries will be more efficient and cost effective in space-- it's getting up there that's been the problem for corporations. Advances in technology are beginning to change that.

As for whether national debts are more important than space exploration? That's a matter of perspective, and priority. If you add up all of history, comets have done far more damage to life on Earth than national debts. Statistically, life on Earth is more than 100,000 years overdue for an extinction level event such as a comet would provide.

If a comet were confirmed to be on course with Earth today, we would all change our priorities instantly. And yet, by that time, our fates would be sealed anyway (regardless of what movies have portrayed). But many of us prefer arbitrary choices. Debt or space. Global warming or space. War or space. Oil dependence or space. Never mind the fact that space colonization could bring with it an abundance of minerals, industry, money and could move pollution-causing industries harmlessly above the atmosphere.

Arbitrary decisions are easier to manage in our heads, they make our lives feel simpler. But do you ever hear anyone debating on whether they ought to be either exhaling or inhaling all day long? Our descendants could suffer for our short-sightedness and refusal to grow beyond our place of origin.

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I believe that with the state of technology in general, we are not able to launch as frequently or as reliably as we should. I feel that we have never truly been about progress, but 99.9% about profit. We will never reach the level of advancement that previous generations have dreamed of because of this problem. Machines with the intelligence of humans in 20 years? I'm guessing it would be more like 50.

The means to prevent or escape extinction level events are far too costly at the moment because we have not advanced far enough to make them economical. The cost of resources that go into maintaining our most complex weapons would be astronomically higher if war did not push us to invest in it. Similarly, investment in a relatively profitless venture will not happen unless we take a hit from a super volcano, half mile wide comet, asteroid, or other major catastrophe that requires so much attention.

The new propulsion technologies still require chemical rockets to launch into orbit. The plasma engine is an extremely low thrust high velocity engine that couldn't move itself at all in the atmosphere, but would increase to high velocity in space over a long period.

Terraforming Mars would be a waste of time as we know Mars has no magnetic protection from radiation, and the temperature is so low that the excess of greenhouse gasses cannot even get the planet to an average of 0 degrees.

What would get us into space faster would be a source of cheap(low maintenance and setup),abundant(easily implementable in many environments), and renewable(self explanatory)energy. Solar grade silicon is expensive and has a low shelf life. Methane is a good choice although pollution is still a problem. Ethanol is not the energy fix that we thought it would be(costs quite a lot to manufacture from economic and environmental standpoints). With abundant energy reducing our dependence on foreign oil, we would save a lot of money and allow that money to be used on less consumable items. Items that we desperately need like a better public transportation system that would further reduce consumption of oil because trains are more efficient than cars.

Lets all just face it. The American Dream is what's killing America. We need a new dream. We need to seek not just personal independence, but national independence from foreign oil and from China. Our consumer lifestyle was fine when we had money, but we have consumed ourselves into debt and the road out is the hard road of production. Vacation is OVER! We need to make things that the rest of the world WANTS to buy, and we need to do it without screwing our environment(sorry China, progress too quickly in one area and you regress in others).

Space is eventually where we will end up. The Earth is getting quite crowded and advances in aerospace technologies do benefit other technologies. Budget cuts should not be allowed to impede our space program, but as mentioned earlier, space does not provide immediate profit or profit that is evident to the capitalist world. As such, we can only HOPE that our economy gets better in time to prevent or reduce the damage of the next global disaster.

As for a space colony,I know exactly where my space colony is. It is in China in the form of lead bricks... :D

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... don't be stupid. Even if my son would be on the shuttle I wouldn't stop the launch 9 minutes before just because clouds are low 100 feet. They do this almost every time.

Get this, I know there is some dumb reason, but have you watched the countdown at all? 30 minutes countdown stops for 3 hours... So, you think there is 30 minutes to launch but actual time is 3 hours and 30 minutes... If you are going to stop the damn clock for 3 hours (and when it comes down to 10 or 9 minutes) why are you counting down at all... start 3 hours advance so we know what really is the time for launch.

my ex-wife? are you kidding me, I would tie her up to the main booster :|

+1 haha.

As for the space program, they are in the process of retiring the shuttles, its about time if you ask me. Space exploration will come again in the near future 10 or 20 years from now, with new, safer technology. Cost is also a issue, if you take into consideration that a F-22 Raptor's flight cost is about $44.000 per hour, you could only imagine the per hour flight cost of the space shuttle.

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Cutting costs is only the beginning - and it all comes down to the basic "Guns or Butter" question.

Humans procure and produce resources for one of two basic reasons: to provide food and shelter for themselves (the butter) and to deny those same resources to competing, outsider (foreign) groups (the guns).

Space exploration from our parent's generation (that is, the generation that watched Neil Armstrong land on the moon in 1969, or largely the Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation) was not fueled out of some idealistic notion of someday having a house and a vegetable patch on Mars, or a Lunar Love Hotel to stop at en route to the Ganymede Gambling Casinos.

It was PURELY about designing and producing military hardware with a specific aim to weaponize space (even if this was later outlawed by a certain series of treaties).

We owe much of our existing telecommunication and GPS technology to the military spending and defense budgets of yesteryear.

And should Mother Russia, or the Red Chinese, or the Iranians (yes, they have a space program geared to guess what - building ICBMs that can hit the USA) arise to become an overwhelming existential threat as the USSR was in our parents' time... one can be fairly certain that the funds will be found somewhere (more like printed into existence by Helicopter Ben and his happy gang of central banking bandits) to re-energize the space program to either catch up to or keep ahead of the Russians, the Red Chinese, or the Iranians.

Less likely would be the prospect of Peak Oil (oddly enough, this was never hyped nearly as much as the so-called "anthropogenic global warming" as the Next Great Bugaboo to promote massive government spending for great justice)... but if you ask me, I'd gladly give up driving to work to save a few $$$ when gas gets to be $100/gal rather than worrying about some polar bears who might have swim a little farther to get to the next iceberg.

Either way, we have much bigger problems on the horizon than the space program, and perhaps privatizing the space program to the point where the government is a collaborative partner or even just a customer... might be the right step.

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The space program is being revamped, they have a new vehicle on it's way to replace the tired old, and very dangerous shuttle and it's fuel cell system.

No sense getting into a discussion over it all, check it out for yourself, they are doing some pretty cool stuff even with the cuts and all.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

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Low clouds, little wind, BIRDS?!?!?! are you kidding me? After this age, if we can't launch a vehicle in much better conditions than 1960's, what the hell is going on here... Are we all put on sleep with new gadgets, toys and games?!?!?

There are certain conditions during which the journey to orbit can be aborted and the shuttle can head back to land safely at Kennedy. Such a return flight will be more dangerous if there are clouds preventing a clear view of the runway. Also, mission control wants to be able to follow the shuttle visualy during the first stage of the launch. This is two reasons as to why they do not launch when there are low clouds.

//Wex

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Cutting costs is only the beginning - and it all comes down to the basic "Guns or Butter" question.

Humans procure and produce resources for one of two basic reasons: to provide food and shelter for themselves (the butter) and to deny those same resources to competing, outsider (foreign) groups (the guns).

Space exploration from our parent's generation (that is, the generation that watched Neil Armstrong land on the moon in 1969, or largely the Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation) was not fueled out of some idealistic notion of someday having a house and a vegetable patch on Mars, or a Lunar Love Hotel to stop at en route to the Ganymede Gambling Casinos.

It was PURELY about designing and producing military hardware with a specific aim to weaponize space (even if this was later outlawed by a certain series of treaties).

We owe much of our existing telecommunication and GPS technology to the military spending and defense budgets of yesteryear.

And should Mother Russia, or the Red Chinese, or the Iranians (yes, they have a space program geared to guess what - building ICBMs that can hit the USA) arise to become an overwhelming existential threat as the USSR was in our parents' time... one can be fairly certain that the funds will be found somewhere (more like printed into existence by Helicopter Ben and his happy gang of central banking bandits) to re-energize the space program to either catch up to or keep ahead of the Russians, the Red Chinese, or the Iranians.

Less likely would be the prospect of Peak Oil (oddly enough, this was never hyped nearly as much as the so-called "anthropogenic global warming" as the Next Great Bugaboo to promote massive government spending for great justice)... but if you ask me, I'd gladly give up driving to work to save a few $$$ when gas gets to be $100/gal rather than worrying about some polar bears who might have swim a little farther to get to the next iceberg.

Either way, we have much bigger problems on the horizon than the space program, and perhaps privatizing the space program to the point where the government is a collaborative partner or even just a customer... might be the right step.

Yeah I mean really, whats the purpose of having billions of dollars invested in a space program that doesn't really accomplish anything? The military technology we gained from the space program in the 60's is responsible for nearly all of the technology we use today. American won the space war, and our technology proves it, our current military weapons are the strongest most powerful in the world. Iran, China and Russia have nothing compared to what we have currently so I don't think they are much of a threat, their weapons are all 40 and 50 years old. Russia has just recently developed a "stealth" fighter aircraft, we have had "stealth" fighter aircraft since the 70's, all thanks to the space program!

I hope that when the space program returns with new technology that the program focuses more on the exploration and colonization of space rather than the development of weapons systems used to wage war. Because if we are not alone in the universe, I am sure our weapons won't matter if we come up against a race thats been around for a few million years.

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