Yeh ... and the US announced something er other about wanting to shut
the Space Station down in 2015 ... a mere years after completion so
we can pay for manned missions going back to the moon or to Mars or
just wandering around out in space...Why would that be? ...Anybody
notice a striking commonality between developing brand new manned
space missions/military hardware, starting new wars, and keeping our
current insurance companies in charge of our national health?
...Could it possibly be cost-plus unregulated pricing and profits in
a time when most all other American business is sucking wind/getting
clobbered by the foreign competition?.
The Augustine Commission is assessing the status of NASA's human
spaceflight program; Norman Augustine was president of Lockheed Marting
and former Secretary of the Army. According to physicist Dr. Robert Park
of UMd and the American Physical Society:
"...The Coalition for Space Exploration issued a statement on Wednesday
praising the Augustine Commission. That's a very bad sign. The Coalition is
a space-industry lobby; it pushes for space exploration by humans, ruling
out the universe beyond Mars. That is totally inappropriate for the modern
space age, but it costs a lot more, and spending more is what the Coalition
for Space Exploration is about..."
The space shuttle Discovery landed last night in California. One of the
astronauts was required to be carried out on a stretcher because of the
physical toll of being in space for two months. Imagine how bad the
astronauts' physical conditions will be when the are sent on a two year
trip to Mars. We're not ready for long-distance human travel beyond
Earth and the moon. Robots are. They're cheaper, stronger, more
effective, don't need food or companionship, don't need the COLBERT
treadmill, do their work, follow directions.
Money can be spent more effectively developing and improving technology
and medical/physical outcomes before considering human space travel to
another planet. It's not time, yet. Plan ahead--do it right.
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