Ares Rocket, our next manned space effort shot down
by short-sighted and ignorant Obama administration.
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Do we need evidence that the term “progressive” is an oxymoron?
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Consider the Obama administration’s decision to put an end to US manned space flight by not funding Project Constellation and the Ares rocket.
The Space Shuttle program ends this year with its final missions to supply the International Space Station. For the foreseeable future, the station will be manned and supplied by the Russian and European Space Agencies effectively diminishing America’s lead in the space program despite its roll in the design and construction of the station.
With future missions being sacked, our country has surrendered to a disgraceful form of technological isolationism that will have serious consequences both short term and long term. How sad it is that we have lost our vision to “boldly go where no one has gone before.”
Back in the 1960’s as the United States landed on the moon sending six missions to the moon from July, 1969 to December, 1972. Further missions were planned with at least three being scrubbed due to supposed budget concerns. Social activists, environmentalists, ultra-conservatives, and other constituencies decried the county’s effort to excel in space exploration. It became a Liberal outcry, “How can we spend millions on putting men on the moon when we have so many problems on earth?” Of course there is a substantial percentage of mindless idiots who believe Project Apollo never happened. It was a government conspiracy to stage something that looked like a moon landing to scare the Soviet Union.
Well, boo (you-know-what) hoo!!!!!
Even at the peak of deployment, NASA consumed a relatively small percentage of the Federal budget while its comparative benefits were enormous. Whether its camcorders, personal computers, or MRI technology, all these use technology that was developed for manned space flight. While we are not manufacturing consumer products in space, dealing with the challenges of life outside the surly bonds of earth provide benefits large and small at every turn.
It’s hard to imagine it has been over 37 years since the last astronaut walked on the moon. Most of America’s population wasn’t even born. Even the most pragmatic space scientist must admit, there is little inspiring about the Space Shuttle program and given the horrible fates of the Challenger which exploded after launch and the Columbia which disintegrated on reentry, that tragic loss of human life makes the nobility of the space program seem that much more hard to grasp.
Yet thinking back to John F. Kennedy’s vision when committing to lunar landing by the end of the 1960’s decade, he noted:
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
Kennedy’s vision is a valid today as it was almost half a century ago. When we gathered to watch the first steps on the moon on the July evening of 1969, looking ahead to the future surely we would have thought man would have ventured to Mars by the turn of the century and that space flight would be an every day occurrence by now. And it all could have been if we maintained the commitment, but now in 2010, we are leaps and bounds behind the eight ball even to master the requirements just to return to the moon.
The more we understand about the Universe, the more we understand about our earth and ourselves. At some point in the future, the sun will explode and the planet Earth will be gone. If our species or whatever we evolve into is to survive, we must find out destiny out in the stars. It is almost imprinted in our DNA that will be a challenge we will accept.
From the time the earliest humans ventured out of Africa to all the continents of the world, it has been part of the human spirit to reach out, explore, to learn how to survive in strange and harsh environments, to find new ways to do things, to invent new tools of survival, and to enrich our collective knowledge.
In one arbitrary and idiotic decision, Barack Obama has slammed the door on a vital part of humanity’s advancement. Shame on him and all those who share that kind of regressive thinking. It will cost us dearly sooner than we can imagine.
The Space Shuttle program ends this year with its final missions to supply the International Space Station. For the foreseeable future, the station will be manned and supplied by the Russian and European Space Agencies effectively diminishing America’s lead in the space program despite its roll in the design and construction of the station.
With future missions being sacked, our country has surrendered to a disgraceful form of technological isolationism that will have serious consequences both short term and long term. How sad it is that we have lost our vision to “boldly go where no one has gone before.”
Back in the 1960’s as the United States landed on the moon sending six missions to the moon from July, 1969 to December, 1972. Further missions were planned with at least three being scrubbed due to supposed budget concerns. Social activists, environmentalists, ultra-conservatives, and other constituencies decried the county’s effort to excel in space exploration. It became a Liberal outcry, “How can we spend millions on putting men on the moon when we have so many problems on earth?” Of course there is a substantial percentage of mindless idiots who believe Project Apollo never happened. It was a government conspiracy to stage something that looked like a moon landing to scare the Soviet Union.
Well, boo (you-know-what) hoo!!!!!
Even at the peak of deployment, NASA consumed a relatively small percentage of the Federal budget while its comparative benefits were enormous. Whether its camcorders, personal computers, or MRI technology, all these use technology that was developed for manned space flight. While we are not manufacturing consumer products in space, dealing with the challenges of life outside the surly bonds of earth provide benefits large and small at every turn.
It’s hard to imagine it has been over 37 years since the last astronaut walked on the moon. Most of America’s population wasn’t even born. Even the most pragmatic space scientist must admit, there is little inspiring about the Space Shuttle program and given the horrible fates of the Challenger which exploded after launch and the Columbia which disintegrated on reentry, that tragic loss of human life makes the nobility of the space program seem that much more hard to grasp.
Yet thinking back to John F. Kennedy’s vision when committing to lunar landing by the end of the 1960’s decade, he noted:
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
Kennedy’s vision is a valid today as it was almost half a century ago. When we gathered to watch the first steps on the moon on the July evening of 1969, looking ahead to the future surely we would have thought man would have ventured to Mars by the turn of the century and that space flight would be an every day occurrence by now. And it all could have been if we maintained the commitment, but now in 2010, we are leaps and bounds behind the eight ball even to master the requirements just to return to the moon.
The more we understand about the Universe, the more we understand about our earth and ourselves. At some point in the future, the sun will explode and the planet Earth will be gone. If our species or whatever we evolve into is to survive, we must find out destiny out in the stars. It is almost imprinted in our DNA that will be a challenge we will accept.
From the time the earliest humans ventured out of Africa to all the continents of the world, it has been part of the human spirit to reach out, explore, to learn how to survive in strange and harsh environments, to find new ways to do things, to invent new tools of survival, and to enrich our collective knowledge.
In one arbitrary and idiotic decision, Barack Obama has slammed the door on a vital part of humanity’s advancement. Shame on him and all those who share that kind of regressive thinking. It will cost us dearly sooner than we can imagine.
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