Comments on: Happy Birthday, Story Musgrave

By: Darlene

Darlene — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:36:54 +0000

Thanks for weighing in, Story.
Fred, BD, Melissa, Brett, and Paul: thanks for the comments.

By: Fred

Fred — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 21:36:05 +0000

It’s sad. If someone can convince the elite with money for toilet paper to invest in space exploration much like Richard Branson has somewhat, they can have first dibs on what planets they want to build their vacation homes on first.

By: story musgrave

story musgrave — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 18:14:38 +0000

Unfortunately, because the money for space comes from the Congress, people look to the Congress for the vision and that has not worked and will not work. We the people and visionaries within the NASA need to independently create visions that are so beautiful, evocative, compelling, exciting and feasible and communicate them with great art including graphic arts such that the public will run with them and give them political life.

Story

By: BD

BD — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:29:34 +0000

Space exploration is perceived to be expensive because we launch all this complex, shiny hardware hundreds or millions or billions of miles into space. It’s not 25% of the budget, as some have speculated. It’s not 10%, it’s not even 1%. It’s more like 0.5%. And for that, we get telescopes, orbiters, rovers, satellites, an inhabited space station, and rockets that can send people up to it. We were also in the process of building rockets to go beyond Earth orbit, but someone decided that the “wow” factor on that wasn’t worth the cost, so we’ll most likely get a watered down version of exploration. We’re going to miss the Shuttle, we’re going to pay dearly and through the nose for Russian launches once the Shuttle is officially retired and the workforce disbanded. I hope these commercial guys manage to make it happen, or the next human voice heard from the Moon will not be speaking English as a first language.

Q for Dr. Musgrave: what political lever are advocates for human exploration missing? What hasn’t been tried yet?

By: Melissa Greene-Bennae

Melissa Greene-Bennae — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 22:50:19 +0000

Great to hear Dr. Musgrave today on his birthday enjoyed the interview!!

By: Paul Shin

Paul Shin — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:24:44 +0000

As the Director for the Southern California Science Café, I see a huge interest in all things astronomy still! The public still loves the images and the idea of exploring beyond our own world. It’s the responsibility of our government to keep the space missions viable and growing- it’s just as important to learn about the world outside as it is to learn about the world within! Sometimes, the strong voice is needed to stir the complacent bureaucracy into remembering this! Happy birthday Story and keep speaking your mind about what we, the public, really want and need to grow as a society!

By: Bret Kulakovich

Bret Kulakovich — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:44:18 +0000

What a great interview – thank you, so much Darlene for setting this up, and special thanks to Dr. Musgrave for this advice, and for making such a great example to us all. Thank you and Happy Birthday.