Comments on: What’s next on NASA’s chopping block?

By: Moonage Political Webdream » Democrats are stifling science

Moonage Political Webdream » Democrats are stifling science — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 04:32:46 +0000

[...] ignored since I didn’t publish it as a for-profit venture in the form of a paperback.Â Well, imagine my surprise, or lack thereof, when I read this today on the Bad Astronomer’s blo…: But this year, itâ€™s even bleaker: Congress told agencies that they can keep going, but they have [...]

By: Lab Lemming

Lab Lemming — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 10:56:29 +0000

“The ideal candidate is a fairly new, lower priority effort where not a lot of money has already been invested”

Like sending people to the moon?

By: Ray Gray

Ray Gray — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 20:10:24 +0000

I read that the rock & roll band The Rolling Stones made almost $500,000,000 touring and playing concerts in the years 2005 and 2006.

They had an old song with lyrics: “Hey Hey You You Get Off Of My Cloud”

NASA needs to get busy by finding a large paying audience soon.

By: Moonage Political Webdream

Moonage Political Webdream — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 19:13:09 +0000

Democrats are stifling science…

A while back I got into a little to-do with a Bad Astronomer who got political. He fully felt, along with a lot of academic science folks, that Republicans were bad on science. He noted a couple of reasons why….

By: The Bad Astronomer

The Bad Astronomer — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 18:50:17 +0000

Actually, I disagree strongly with Bob’s position on manned spaceflight. I think it’s important, and there is a good place for it. The thing is, it can’t exist at the cost of unmanned flight. So what we need is more money. And we really don’t need a whole lot more to fund both.

By: SLC

SLC — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 17:20:31 +0000

The answer to NASAs’ woes is to follow Bob Parks’ advice, can manned space missions.
But of course, Dr. Park doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

By: Gary Ansorge

Gary Ansorge — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 17:17:34 +0000

It’s really sad to see a great nation struggling in its death throes. Without major expenditures on R and D(especially the R) the USA will end up a minor player on the world stage. Oh well, I guess we can just do the Roman thing and invade anyone who has what we want. Hey, it’s a lot easier to steal new tech. than build it ourselves and we have so much practise convincing the American public to kick butt on petty dictators it should be easy to convince them we need to invade China or India because they have the “stuff” we want,,,

Gary 7

By: Evolving Squid

Evolving Squid — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 16:56:31 +0000

I read an article today that said that NASA is going to formally start using the metric system, instead of converting between metric and imperial.

No more will the speed of light be 5×10^8 furlongs per fortnight!

By: spacewriter

spacewriter — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 15:20:54 +0000

Phil,

You mean like robbing SIM to pay for SOFIA? (which happened, but according to Steve E., some of the money was restored)

It was grim wandering around those halls wondering which missions would succeed.

You KNOW that Griffin doesn’t think that outreach and education is a high priority (or at least as high a priority as other things that continue to get funded but shouldn’t… )

By: PK

PK — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 13:32:50 +0000

Scrap the ISS!

By: Harold

Harold — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 13:00:13 +0000

I only have a few minutes to comment before I have to get ready for work – so I’ll waste them by saying I can’t comment from work anymore! Apparently some blacklist database has decided that CINRAM Manufacturing, a major manufacturer of CDs and DVDs, is also a spam generator. In order to get off the blacklist, I have to swear up and down that I have verified that every computer using our corporate IP address is clean and virus-free. Well, I can’t do that. So I guess CINRAM will stay blacklisted, and I’ll stay blocked.

MISPLACED COMMENT: That’s not Jesus on that concrete wall in Canada. It’s a prop manager from the old Frankenstein movie, holding a four-tined hay fork in one hand, a torch in the other, and wearing (for some reason) a Roman Centurion’s helmet.

By: Grand Lunar

Grand Lunar — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 12:49:08 +0000

Rrrrrrrr!

News like this really irks me. Probably as much as it does you, Phil.

I’m too angry for rational thought now, so I’ll leave it at that.

You know, NASA could ask Bill Gates for a loan.

By: jasonB

jasonB — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:21:40 +0000

“$500 million is a lot of money. You can fight a whole 0.2% of a war per annum with that dough.”

I don’t know what the breakdown is, but you can probably pay some social security fraud to illegal aliens with that $500 million too. How about a bridge in Alaska to nowhere? How about the billions to New Orleans which is as far as I know is STILL under sea level and WILL flood again. And the list of throwing money down various rat-holes could go on and on and on….

Private enterprise may well be part of the answer.

By: Sticks

Sticks — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 10:28:34 +0000

Does this mean the Hubble servicing mission is scrubbed ?

By: Bootlady Teri

Bootlady Teri — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 10:15:07 +0000

These idiots cannot imagine a life beyond their 4 years in office.

Yes, people like Bill Gates and Paul Allen may have to pick up the slack – but it’s rather sad that private industry should have to. Because we know – if any ‘major’ discovery is made – the US government will happily step in, and take credit (and domain rights) for any breakthrough.

(Holding head in hands)

Teri

By: bassmanpete

bassmanpete — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 08:47:42 +0000

You could always approach The Gates Foundation, it recently received Warren Buffet’s multi-billion dollar fortune to add to Bill’s and could easily spare a mere $500M. But looking at the foundation’s goals, it looks like Bill is just ensuring that there are more people around to buy Microsoft software well into the future. Or am I just being ultra cynical?

By: Tim G

Tim G — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 07:43:17 +0000

$500 million is a lot of money. You can fight a whole 0.2% of a war per annum with that dough.

By: Ian B Gibson

Ian B Gibson — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 07:03:05 +0000

How much could they save by abandoning the ISS? Whatever the answer, such savings would be made without losing ANY science OR any exploration/getting-the-public-excited-about-space whatsoever!

Sounds like a simple enough decision to me.