United States, Enough money into Space?

[Jeanway 0]

Where do we stand in the Race?

[Julie 0]

as with defense spending, the US gives more money to space than any other country. Not just for Nasa and Government work, either. think about how many Communications Satellites are up there for your Satellite TV. and the US funded and produced the Global Possitioning system, which we have to maintain.

[Odo 0]

How can anybody respound to that question.

If you live in the US.

all i can say. (LOVE YOUR COUNTRY)

[Julie 0]

well, the government is spending all that money on something, I'd assume it's the space program. last I heard, our space program budget is larger than the treasury of some european countries.

[xenexian 2]

Yes, we do spend more on space than some countries GNP but as Ray Bradbury put it almost 30 years ago, we aren't spending one red cent on space or on the moon. (paraphrase here.) The money is being spent here on earth in places where they produce jobs for some of our best and brightest people. Jobs that were pulled out from underneath them back in the 70's when congress decided to cut back on the space program because we won the race to the moon. All those people who worked so hard to win that race were now being told that they were no longer needed, thank you very much and don't let the door hit you in the *buttocks* on the way out. If your intelligent enough to be a whiz in aeronautics, quantum physics or rocket science and were in college, I'm sure you'd want something to look forward to once your formal education years are over and need to support yourself and/or your family. There's not enough spent on the space program in my opinion and I'd rather have my tax dollars be spent on the possibility of getting into space easier and education then to see it wasted on another weapon of war that most likely will never be used. It's more important to teach a child how to solve problems then to build something that will blow it up. As Winston Churchill said, we already have enough in nuclears bombs and missiles to destroy the earth 10 times over. The rest is just to make the rubble bounce. Let's get to Mars.

[Jeanway 0]

Do you recall, sometime last year. I heard on the news they were going to scrap the whole space program. What was that about?

[TSonofvulcan 0]

It would be illogical to scrap any space program

[VaBeachGuy 12]

Do you recall, sometime last year.  I heard on the news they were going to scrap the whole space program.  What was that about?

I don't know where you heard that but it's not correct. Just the opposite in fact. They are planning missions to the moon now and they are planning what the next Space vehicles will be now.

[TSonofvulcan 0]

You humans need to send someone out of your solar system soon!

[Xeroc 0]

Do you recall, sometime last year.  I heard on the news they were going to scrap the whole space program.  What was that about?

I don't know where you heard that but it's not correct. Just the opposite in fact. They are planning missions to the moon now and they are planning what the next Space vehicles will be now.

Well, they wanted to scrap the SPACE SHUTTLE PROGRAM. And implement a new an updated program. You can read more about some partial strategies here:

 

Orbital Space Plane

[A l t e r E g o 9]

They also are considering just letting HUBBLE rot in space till it falls back to Earth.

 

The US wants to cut it's participation in ISS.

 

A WHOLE lot of cash, experience and hardware are being flushed away to make room for the new direction. I guess I'm for it though if it means I get answers to my questions about the Moon and Mars answered sooner.

[TSonofvulcan 0]

Well, according to the library computer NASA at this time is relooking over if they should distroy it or keep maintaining it.

[Capt.Vash 0]

I heard somewhere that they wanted to build an orbital station that was tethered to the planets surface so that they coud build they ship up there an then make zero gee launches i thought this sounded resonable

[Jim Phaserman 0]

The big question is this: Which ammount is higher? the NASA budget, or the amount of money spent on alcohol in Chicago during the St.Patrick's Day weekend?

 

 

Seriously, though, they are considering scrapping the OV-101 class of orbital vehicles, and reducing funding to the ISS to allow for funding of the return to the moon and a mission to mars. by the way, I still want to volunteer to go to Mars.