LIBERAL SPACE: The Year The Dream Died.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

Well, that's it.

The death knell of the American space program will be announced by President Bush in a speech next Wednesday. Coming on the heels of the succesful landing of the MER-A "Spirit" rover on Mars, and just prior to the 2004 election cycle, Mr. Bush intends to unveil a bold new initiative for the exploartion of space, culminating with a return to the moon and manned missions to Mars within the next decade.

Of course, what this really means is that Mr. Bush will milk the issue for a couple of weeks, get himself started in the election season, then dropping it like a hot potato when media attention turns elsewhere. NASA itself will be cashiered and stripped. If there's a bit of luck, the Air Force will get the technical base and we won't see the total end of American manned space operations by 2008. If not, we'll be lucky if we're still sending robots to Mars.

And it's not like the Democrats are going to make any move to co-opt this plan; make it into a campaign issue. God knows that if this place is any indication of the Dem base, any candidate who tried to co-opt would be accused of throwing precious money away or tying kittens to rockets or some goddamn thing.

I honestly don't know what makes me angrier; that a known politician
like George W. Bush can rear up on his hind legs and announce a Bold New Initiative that has little chance of being actually followed up, or that space geeks like me are so hungry, so desperate for our chance that we cling to these small scraps these jokers dangle in front of us, begging and pleading that this won't be a false promise just like the other ones, PLEASE let it be true... and then it's yanked away for another five years, and when the time rolls around we do the EXACT SAME THING all over again.

Let's face facts, you don't care. You never did. Any protests or claims to the contrary were just the bleating of Judas goats. You string us along long enough to get our votes, then you drop us in favor of something shinier. And hell, it doesn't matter, right? They're just space geeks, not real people like the rest of us fine, upstanding liberals. Those dreamers don't deserve to be taken seriously, after all.

Well, as both an avowed Space Geek and a Progressive, let me be the first to say fuck you.

Fuck you Bush, for your cynical publicity antics.

Fuck you, you self-congratulatory paranoids who call yourself liberals.

Fuck all of you, for turning your backs on a dream and damning us all.

[absyntheNsugar]

1. Scrapping the space program?

I don't understand - how do you see that?

[Emperor_Norton_II]

2. Simple

Bush tells NASA to come up with program as described - the same program Bush the Elder developed during his tenure in office, incidentally.

NASA comes up with big, grandiose program and provides a cost estimate.

Congress sees cost estimate, goes into collective cardiac arrest, refuses to fund big, grandiose program.

Bush "forgets" earlier pledge, gets stern with NASA and cuts annual budget to placate Congress.

NASA loses sufficient funding to keep even the half-assed manned program in service now operational.

And that's how you kill a program in five easy steps.

[mopinko]

3. you forgot the part about

giving all the tasty bits to the pentagon. they have already taken over much of the shuttle capacity.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

4. Um, no.

The last DOD shuttle mission was in 1990. They haven't touched the shuttle program since.