Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Obama Tells NASA to Junk the Moon Project


Ok, here is some stuff just to make you crazy....

Dvice.com reports that president Obama is telling NASA to Scrap plans to have men on the Moon by 2020! Want more Junk the Constellation program.

Ok, first off, I know, I took one look at the Constellation program and the planned Moon missions and said this is Apollo redux! And I did hammer on the Constellation with it's vibration problems and the asinine spring solution. And I know, I have said that going back to the Moon instead of focusing on Mars seemed like a serious waste of time. (why redo what has been done....the earlier programs were "this is how you do it" not "this is a recipe on how to do it just like this again) It's one thing to sit and grumble, I don't set policy so I can take that liberty, but it's another thing to see the paring knives come out and the butchering begin. And now without even the poorly conceived Constellation rockets, we have NOTHING as a follow on to the Shuttle program. Obama is citing lack of innovation in both projects...
ok, that is a hard one to call him on, but my grumbling was almost "inhouse" - as a space enthusiast I felt that this was not one of NASA's best efforts, but I would have been right there when one of them bad boys roared off the pad. It's hard to see NASA being put down like an old dog by someone from "outside" lol, I know...but it just feels wrong.

This is what the Dvice article quoted the NY Times about:
  • Mr. Obama's 2010 budget proposal for NASA asks for $18 billion over five years for fueling spacecraft in orbit, new types of engines to accelerate spacecraft through space and robotic factories that could churn soil on the Moon — and eventually Mars — into rocket fuel.
ok, that doesn't sound so bad, but refueling what spacecraft? What, our space program is now relegated to gas station attendants? Just feels .......... wrong.

read the complete Dvice article here

read the NY Times article here

2 comments:

Dave Tackett said...

I wish that innovation was really behind the cancellation. A more likely explanation comes from equally pro-Obama MSNBC.

"NASA's new proposed budget will in part shift the space agency's focus from landing people on the moon back to Earth, with more money slated to go to projects that will help us understand our planet's climate and even plans to re-launch the carbon observatory that failed to launch last year."

Beam Me Up said...

Dave
and you know that MSNBC took it easy and gave him a free ride here. In my mind it is a straight capitulation to the conservatives. What makes it worse is that everyone knows that the right loves launch systems, but politics today is more making the opposing party look bad than a clearly defined platform for the advancement of the constituency.