Enie: Huh ? We have seen what NASA can do. Hubble. Spitzer. The Mars rovers ( still operational several years after their 3 month expiration dates. An international space station which is fully functional with much promise for the future. The next logical step is colonization of the Moon and eventual human flight to Mars. Gutting NASA of some ( or many ) of its best tech people makes no sense at all. A new generation of fresh blood ? When ? After the Chinese are already on the Moon ? After we finally realize we need the Ares booster which is also being killed ? This is absurd . NASA's manned space program has a $ 3 billion yearly price tag. How much money has been shoveled into the finance industry ? $ 3 billion is chump change in comparison. We are talking about kicking out no less than 7000 engineers, computer people, astrophysicists, and so forth, with only about 1000 new positions as compensation in other programs the admin is promoting. To recruit and train 7000 such professionals in the future, when we realize we actually do need them, could not possibly take place in less than a year or two. And think of the experience which would be lost, and how do you "price" that out ? It is obvious where WH priorities are . The agenda is, some exceptions noted, stock-in-trade Left wing in character. Even if it is presented and marketed as something else. I donno , Ernie. I do think that an economic catastrophe was averted because of WH policies, admittedly flawed, but under the circumstances good enough. And I give Obama full credit for actually doing something to curtail coal strip mining, indeed, he deserves plaudits for that policy change. But there is everything else to consider. Homosexualization of the military is also WH policy, as is appeasement of Islam, kowtowing to Hugo Chavez and Latin American Leftists, etc. Not to overlook my own personal laundry list of serious criticisms of the Bush admin, but the point being that this is now, that was then. Not to mention a variety of blunders, all papered over by the still fawning press. The amateurish attempt to promote a Chicago Olympics. A cameo appearance at Copenhagen. A last minute and wholly ineffective campaign effort in Massachusetts ( the result was what I favored but who could overlook BHO's really botched effort and the psychological denial afterwards ? ) Miranda rights for the Christmas bomber. A civil trial for 9/11 terrorists originally planned for ground zero. And not to mention Obama's cluelessness about how to go about "crossing the aisle" to work with the loyal opposition. Not that it is 100% naive, but it certainly is mostly naive --as if ( actually no hypothetical ) he was close to totally inexperienced in bi-partisanship --despite all the hype to the contrary. Looks to me like most of what I feared about Obama, and hardly me alone, is what we are getting. Billy ================================================= In a message dated 2/28/2010 12:46:32 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes:
Sent from my iPhone On Feb 28, 2010, at 12:28, [email protected] wrote: > The biggest consequence of that first gap was the best and brightest > of the NASA engineers and scientists leaving to seek more > challenging jobs. It took years to rebuild the professional team I'm not convinced that is a bad thing, especially for human spaceflight. NASA has become very bureaucratic, and a new generation and new blood wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. E _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected] http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
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