Sorry, this is just too expensive and there’s no scientific rationale for it.
During the 2004 election, Karl Rove was hard pressed to offer any reason why anyone should want a second term for President Bush. One of his desperate election-year stunts was a grandiose announcement of NASA manned missions to the Moon and Mars. For which there was no money.
President Obama will send a $3.834 trillion budget to Congress today for Fiscal Year 2011 that includes the cancellation of the NASA Constellation program, aka Bush’s Moon Base. The program was hopelessly behind schedule and over budget.
Manned spaceflight is a waste of money. Most space science is done with automated vehicles that don’t need to carry people, food, water and air out of Earth’s steep gravity well. The Mars Pathfinder succeeded beyond the expectations of the designers. Since then, NASA has run 7 more successful Mars missions. What could astronauts do that these semi-autonomous landers can’t?
Previous One Utah posts:
No Bucks, No Buck Rogers (August 14, 2009)
NASA Offers Science Fiction Justification for Manned Moon Program (July 16, 2009)
NASA Abandoning Plans for Bush’s Moon Base (May 4, 2009)
Obama Should Cancel Bush’s Moon Mission (December 13, 2008)
67.136.51.98#1 by james farmer on February 1, 2010 - 1:48 pm
I can already hear the shrill rhetoric, carefully prepared and packaged for the stupid and susceptible masses that comprise the repug and teabagger parties, coming from the Hannity/Beck/Palin talking heads.
12.73.20.168#2 by cav on February 1, 2010 - 2:13 pm
Why does the plastic turkey GW flew over to Iraq in the dark of night, all of a sudden pop into my mind?
97.117.32.249#3 by Larry Bergan on February 1, 2010 - 6:49 pm
How are we going to “smoke em’ out of their caves” on the moon NOW!
ANSWER THAT!
71.213.54.102#4 by marshall on February 2, 2010 - 8:51 pm
The fixing of Hubble could not have been done with robots but don’t let reality get in they way of any passing thoughts that might wander through your head.