This headline sums it all up: Ted Cruz, Longtime Foe Of NASA And Science, Will Oversee NASA And Science In New Congress. There's really not much I can even add to this, it's just too pathetic for words.
R.I.P. NASA
- Thread starter Lerxst
- Start date
I don't think he will actually do anything to NASA. He represents Texas, and NASA is in Texas. He will be responsible for overseeing the agency and says he wants to cut their funding for climate change research, but that doesn't mean he wants to do away with the agency as a whole. If he cut climate change funding, that would be a large chunk of their budget (1 billion of 4.5 billion going by last year) and would make him unpopular since it would probably cost thousands of Texan jobs.
Well, if he has any political sense he wont touch it. He might not though.
Well, if he has any political sense he wont touch it. He might not though.
NASA is a government agency and as such is bound by red tape and forced to buy over priced junk. In its hay day it represented the best of America. Niw its time to move onto the private sector that can do the same better and faster. Imagine if it was only the government that was allowed to build computers. We never would have gotten past the Vic 20.
It upsets me of course the way its dying. The idea that Obama and the like step in qnd dictate something they have no right to dictate. But who cares. We are on the precipice of commercial space exploration.
It upsets me of course the way its dying. The idea that Obama and the like step in qnd dictate something they have no right to dictate. But who cares. We are on the precipice of commercial space exploration.
I'd still kind of rather have a faceless, bureaucracy involved in the space program than a narcissistic asshole like Elon Musk at the helm. I think the statement you've made up there plays right into the hands of every science fiction plot line written for the last last century... Weyland-Yutani anyone?
I'd rather have a bunch of government employees getting nothing done than have some profit-driven shit-stain colonize the moon, rape it for minerals, blast once too often, destroying it and plunging the entire planet into chaos (another sci-fi plot for ya).
Profit driving has the tendency of bringing innovative to the world. Even if it is for the wrong reasons.
The point being put it is the hands of the government and watch it stagnate as it has done since we last stepped foot on the moon. Put it in the hands of a profit driven entity and watch us colonize the stars...
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Oh and I have no love of commercial anything just so we are clear. However I do recognize that human advancement in terms of the tools at its disposal is great accelerated because of it.
Private sector will profitize it where as the government will find a way to militarize it. Pick your poison.
Moreover, government doesn't always suck. Russia did better with less with their space program. NASA's insistence on sticking with the space shuttle is what ruined the space program - it was too damn expensive for what little it could do. ELVs are cheaper and always have been.
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And the space shuttle really sucks. We finally caught up with and outdid Russia when we did the Apollo missions but they had to fuck that up by building the space shuttle. It's barely good for anything. The cargo bay and big arm was nice sure but not worth building a whole recoverable vehicle and using it as your main vehicle for almost every mission. It had specialized use, if that.
Moreover, government doesn't always suck. Russia did better with less with their space program. NASA's insistence on sticking with the space shuttle is what ruined the space program - it was too damn expensive for what little it could do. ELVs are cheaper and always have been.
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And the space shuttle really sucks. We finally caught up with and outdid Russia when we did the Apollo missions but they had to fuck that up by building the space shuttle. It's barely good for anything. The cargo bay and big arm was nice sure but not worth building a whole recoverable vehicle and using it as your main vehicle for almost every mission. It had specialized use, if that.
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[MENTION=6917]sprinkles[/MENTION] yeah russia did better because the did not care about safety. The are rumors to this day of dead cosmonauts orbiting the earth from their early programs.
F I cant wait till the day humanity is dependant of the earth to survive.
That doesnt mean I dont love the earth. Just that maybe we can kick all the ftards off and create another colony like Australia. No offense to any Australians here.
That doesnt mean I dont love the earth. Just that maybe we can kick all the ftards off and create another colony like Australia. No offense to any Australians here.
That's a conspiracy theory with no hard evidence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmonauts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents
While it's true that their safety standards were likely quite low, and due to leadership problems they rushed things in some cases which caused a few deaths, their craft were also quite good and safe when they worked correctly.
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Also I think some people made that up because they think that nobody can be better than the US at anything.
Well we DO know that during the Cold War Russia did not report all of their many rocket failures and even their successes for obvious reasons. When the USSR fell we started to see just how many. By we here I mean the general public.
Russia and their own little orbiting private cemetery above our heads. Sad to think more corpses will get closer to the moon than most of those of us alive today.
But yeah I cant prove how many dead bodies are floating around in space because of them. Most of this is dark humor.
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They weren't that bad though. Russian technology was in fact very good back then which is what started NASA.
Russia doesn't get nearly enough credit for their amazing space program which NASA now depends on. Russia was the first to do a lot of things in space and continued to be a big player until the mid 80s and even now NASA depends on Russia for rides to the ISS in Soyuz rockets.
In fact the crew of the Columbia would probably still be alive if they were in a Soyuz space can instead of that death trap space shuttle, and after that incident NASA learned just how dangerous the shuttle was - if the heat shield gets damaged you can forget about going home and they created a new maneuver called the rendezvous pitch maneuver where the shuttle would flip around and show its heat shield to be photographed by astronauts on the ISS so that they could verify it was intact and find any damage early so as to not send more astronauts to their deaths.
Anyway... back to the point. I don't disagree that NASA is past its prime, but to see it burned down by a guy like this is just adding insult to injury. This guy pretty much argues against every scientific theory supported by the people with actual PhDs in the subject. It's like putting Hitler in charge of "Minority Relations".