NASA - shut it down, mostly. Space is Waste.

[oscar111]

Prominent string theory physics prof, Michio Kaku, said on Art Bell that most scientists agree that robotic space probes can do all space experiments.. including the ISS ones... for a tenth of the cost of having humans up there doing them.

A waste of money and human life.

Shut down most of NASA by having robotic probes go up, not people.

On the other hand, a new and truly useful NASA job could be to roll back global warming.

google "Orbiting Sunshade" for the CBS news page... with sseveral ways to cool the planet. Which would , if done with gusto, end all hurricanes and most tornadoes.. giving us a constant temperature of a May day across the summer months.

Methods which can be full force in summer, and turned edgewise in winter, would do that.

Every Shuttle flight is half a billion dollars thrown down the tubes. That is why film of a Shuttle launch is disgusting.
========
Robotics are cheaper because one does not have to launch breathable oxygen, or water, or food, or toilets, for robitics. Nor the elaborate triple safety measures. Robots burned up? Well, that's no tragedy.
===No training time either, nor pensions.

[Maple]

1. How is the money thrown 'down the tubes'?

The money itself doesn't go into space, just knowledge and metal and plastic and all the other things in the shuttle.

The money pays people's salaries in the US...for all that knowledge and metal and plastic and so on. Those people then buy homes, and groceries and.........

[ret5hd]

2. hmmm...turn it edgewise in winter...

rather than using it for the souther hemisphere's summer.

seems kinda one-sided to me.

[BlueEyedSon]

3. Yawn.

Just what we need another nutty plan with unknown results (the sundshade). Why would a planet that evolved to have seasons benifit from constant temps?

[yashuryabetcha]

4. call me.....

suddenly speechless:crazy:

[enid602]

5. $10 billion spent on Star Wars this year and growing . . .

I would get rid of Star Wars before Nasa.

[Massacure]

6. End corporate subsidies and use the $$$ to pay of the national debt.

$300 billion dollars of interest paid on it yearly - enough to give every man woman and child in the U.S. $1,000 a year.

[Dogmudgeon]

7. Isn't your subject line a little off?

The Space Shuttle has been criticized as being a white elephant since before its first launch. Modern astronautical engineers agree. They have managed to get NASA to retire the Shuttle in 2010 and replace it with a mix of smaller, high-performance space planes for taking people into space, and robotic "big dumb heavy lifters" for moving material, a plan which would save money and improve our ability to work in space.

What's the push, then, to abolish NASA?

The human risk factor is also a moot point. It was more dangerous to try to break the sound barrier in the 1940s than it is today to go into space. IIRC, several pilots died trying to break the sound barrier before Chuck Yeager finally did it. These pilots knew the risks, and took them anyway.

Our military excursion in Iraq has already cost us $300 billion. That's enough money to fund NASA at current levels for 20 years. And "corrections" costs us $80 billion per year, which is enough for at least four years of space exploration. So it can't be money.

The orbiting sunshade idea, as a way to reduce global warming, is impractical. Warming is happening because of the dynamic action of greehouse gasses on heat loss, not the amount of insolation. Using such a satellite to control the weather would be a lot more expensive than you think, too. The shield would have to be several thousand square miles in size -- at a minimum.

Besides, check out the author of the orbiting sunshade scheme. It's Edward Teller; he proposed it in the middle or late 1990s. He did all right building the first atom bombs, but his ideas in the last few decades have been just a bit wacky. One proposal of his gave rise to the idea of "Chemtrails". Teller has also consistently supported pre-emptive nuclear strikes against any political group that has displeased the Right Wing.

We ought to re-think our spsce program, but mainly, to avoid the bureaucratic stupidity that has plagued it so often. Development of space is a logical, natural, environment-sparing evolution in human industry. Why go backward?

--p!

[One_Life_To_Give]

8. Depends on the priority of leaving this Gravity Well

If you don't mind a Norwegian satelite launch bringing homosapiens within minutes of extinction. Or any natural phenomena which could do the same. Then maybe it is not impotant that the sum total of human existence sits on a insignificant pin head.

[Coastie for Truth]

9. A lot of that "space" and "munitions" research actually funded civilian

research.

I do not mean TANG.

If you go through the DARPA web site (not the PR fluff - but the "Available for Licensing" screens) -- most of our green, renewable, and alternative energy work came from either DOD or NASA, NOT NIS or DOE -- I know, I lived off of those grants for photovoltaics and fuel cell work.

And I am not talking about crystalline pv cells - I am talking about "low cost" consumer cells - similar to what BP Sohio and Shell and Canon and Sharp and United Solar now sell in the market place.

When Golden CO was a pie in the sky pipe dream -- DOD and NASA were funding this work.

Been there - done that - paid the mortgage - made the car payments -- did the work -- "moved the merchandise."

It's more then TANG.

And Congress is stingy with civilian research and generous with Defense-Space research --- for exactly the same project. Go figure. Maybe they are not all enlightened Progressives like us DUers.