How can you not support Obama on NASA?

Roger Wilco

Constellation was about putting a man on the moon, something we've already done. Like Buzz Aldrin said in support of Obama, we need to look to the future not retrace 40 year old steps.

Constellation was over budget and behind schedule.

Obama's plan focuses on putting a man not on the moon, but on Mars by the 2030s.

His plan increases NASA funding.

His plan has NASA focusing on new propulsion technologies to get us deeper into space.

His plan has NASA focusing on technologies to keep men in space longer (such as on a space station, or a colony on Mars.)

His plan increases support for private industry who won't be taking over for NASA, but rather helping NASA.

Finally, his plan includes salvaging the work we did on Constellation, turning it into an escape pod to help save lives in the future. So even though he is scraping the program, it is not going to waste.

Obama's plan is to take us into the future, and if you support space exploration but not Obama's plan than I don't know what to tell you.

Sars_Boy

here comes teefs

Ubik

Who is fighting Obama about NASA?

Hunter

Ubik wrote: »

Who is fighting Obama about NASA?

Darth Vader

Sars_Boy

relevant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08S4poMGvwA&feature=channel

satansfingers

space nerds hated obama for cutting some funding to nasa i think

Futore

EXCUSE ME SARS BUT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtBy_ppG4hY

Snowbeat

man uh

who are you talking to

there's nobody here

do you need help

do you want to lie down

captaink

Representatives whose constituents stand to lose their jobs are fighting it.

Sars_Boy

Futore wrote: »

EXCUSE ME SARS BUT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtBy_ppG4hY

this is pretty awesome

Ubik

One of these days, Obama. Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Blake T

Can someone make me a "support our astronauts" bumper sticker?

Dog

this just confirms that Obama is a Reptoid

KalTorak

Ubik wrote: »

One of these days, Obama. Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Hate crime!

The Geek

I think it's also big damn news that Obama signed something that allows gays/lesbians to be at their partner's hospital bed if that hospital wants to keep getting Medicare funding.

DontShootToasters

I live in Houston, people I know are losing their jobs

Does this give me a right to not support Obama?

or is there some kind of form or something I have to fill out

Mysst

'hurffdurrf we went to der moon awready'

Sars_Boy

another opinon: http://www.wired.co.uk/wired-magazine/archive/2010/05/start/warren-ellis.aspx

I am writing this in the wake of the announcement -- entirely expected -- that US government funding for Nasa's human space flight initiatives has been cancelled, and any American progress in that area will now be turned over to private enterprise. And if you think that this is a good idea, just ask yourself how reliable your local rail service has been since deregulation.

The single simplest reason why human space flight is necessary is this, stated as plainly as possible: keeping all your breeding pairs in one place is a retarded way to run a species.

In the past, people have offered me arguments against this. That we should fix our biosphere before running off to another one, for instance -- as if we're utterly incapable of doing two things at once. This sometimes leads to the further argument that the human race doesn't deserve to persist, and that it is arrogance to wish to protect the species and its achievements. I personally believe that if that is your position, you may as well just kill yourself now. I'll help.

People argue that the money could be better spent elsewhere. Honestly, that's an argument that can be applied to pretty much anything. Imagine how many starving people could be fed if, say, a 100 per cent Simon Cowell tax was levied on any instance of Simon Cowell. Imagine if anyone caught spending money on Stephanie Meyer novels could be rendered down into their constituent chemicals and scattered on barren land as organic fertiliser.

All of these arguments are weak minded bullshit and fail to address the central issue: if animals all live in the same place, one little accident can remove them entirely from the gene pool. And I didn't spend all these years evolving the ability to operate a bottle-opener to have all possible minions immolated in one go. (It may be true that other biospheres are far less kind to human life. But so is Glasgow. We adapt.)

The second good reason is why the Chinese space programme may not, in the final analysis, galvanise any one into kick starting human space flight initiatives: because the Chinese will probably end up going to the Moon robotically, and robots don't make our metaphorical nipples stand up. Well, not unless we're one of those creepy techs from Japan hellbent on constructing android whores in the near term.

Wired may be the wrong place to say this, but robots going places is not as exciting as humans going places. The only people clamouring for space launches to Mars to recover the wandering robot skateboard currently stuck in a sandtrap there are, well, the people who want to make it their android whore. And when your Martian explorer is not exploring any more because it's stuck in a sandtrap, it means you've sent a skateboard to do the job of a human.

Exploration has always been central to the human drive. Not because of population pressure, nor trade necessity, but because it's in our essential nature to wonder what and where is next. We are unique in the biosphere as creatures of imagination. Robot missions do not thrill us because the empathetic engagement is on a level with watching a Roomba do a decent job of hoovering some carpet fluff. It is nowhere near the same as seeing and hearing one of us walking somewhere brand new and telling us about it in the knowledge (however misguided that might eventually prove) that more of us, the rest of us, will follow.

We're almost resentful of human space flight now, because politicians and greedy technocrats screwed us out of the translunar Martian colony future we all thought was coming. We're just a little too resigned to another few years of puttering around in low Earth orbit, of quickie space tourism and trying not to fart in the International Space Station for 30 days at a time. Even the Chinese, the current eager lions of crewed missions, admit that their Moon missions may prove to be robotic.

In my life I've seen a species go from believing it will live in space to accepting, all too easily, that it will die on the same old dirt its ancestors rot in. Having a nice robot phone is not an acceptable substitute for a future.

Abracadaniel

pretty sure it wasn't "put a man on Mars" so much as "a manned mission to orbit Mars and return back to Earth safely"

Javen

He's definitely got the right idea in regards to what the space program should be doing, I just don't know if now is the very best time.

Cold Salmon and Hatred

as a dude hoping to become an aerospace engineer in the next few years, I support the hell out of this and anyone who doesn't can suck my dick

Orikaeshigitae

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i4jpb_nCIE

Viscount Islands

White man escapist fetishism.

Viscount Islands

Also how are people losing their jobs?

satansfingers

programs get cut, people lose jobs. it is the nature of government.

Mysst

Javen wrote: »

He's definitely got the right idea in regards to what the space program should be doing, I just don't know if now is the very best time.

'I don't know if this is the right time' is an argument that just doesn't hold water with me, ever. if not now, when? things may get worse, they may get better, nobody knows.

Ubik

KalTorak wrote: »

Ubik wrote: »

One of these days, Obama. Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

Hate crime!

All crimes are hate crimes

Mysst

satansfingers wrote: »

programs get cut, people lose jobs. it is the nature of government.

programs get started, people get jobs. free market!

satansfingers

what about failure to yield

or jaywalking

Darric

Oh hey, I don't really keep tabs on foreign politics, but I thought the whole stance was still on cutting funding overall? So this is pleasant for me to discover.

Mars hooooooooo.

#pipe

Sars_Boy wrote: »

another opinon: http://www.wired.co.uk/wired-magazine/archive/2010/05/start/warren-ellis.aspx

any American progress in that area will now be turned over to private enterprise. And if you think that this is a good idea, just ask yourself how reliable your local rail service has been since deregulation.

this is a complete non sequitur

who even thinks it's a good idea to compare mass transit with scientific exploration?

Also I always laugh when this arguement is made by the same people who say Universal Healthcare is a bad idea because The Government can't do anything right.

NewEnglish

Ubik wrote: »

One of these days, Obama. Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

oh god, ohhh god

http://tips.fbi.gov

Narian

I support Obama bringing socialism to space.

DontShootToasters

Viscount Islands wrote: »

Also how are people losing their jobs?

I really wish i knew more details, but it is awfully hard to find unbiased sources down here

There have been protests about NASA funding, and my girlfriend's dad was laid off with 35 years of experience

My reasoning is entirely selfish

satansfingers

people are losing their jobs in lots of places

it's called a recession

Mysst

satansfingers wrote: »

what about failure to yield

or jaywalking

failure to yield is definitely a crime I hate

Langly

DontShootToasters wrote: »

Viscount Islands wrote: »

Also how are people losing their jobs?

I really wish i knew more details, but it is awfully hard to find unbiased sources down here

There have been protests about NASA funding, and my girlfriend's dad was laid off with 35 years of experience

My reasoning is entirely selfish

I mean people are losing jobs, that is just a fact. They are terminating the shuttle program, so those jobs are gone. However, they are funding an initiative to transfer many of those jobs into other programs and into the new stuff that they're doing.

Which isn't to say some people won't lose their job. It's just not a mass slaughter like some are making it out to be.

satansfingers

i just looked up nasa budget figures and its budget went up in constant dollars this year, as it has most years over the past decade

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget

mensch-o-matic

Sars_Boy wrote: »

relevant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08S4poMGvwA&feature=channel

BOONDOCKS SEASON 3

I AM LITERALLY VOMITING WITH JOY

satansfingers

that doesn't sound very joyful at all

mensch-o-matic

look at that op

shuttle riding obama