John F. Kerry

Observations: Threat of James Webb Space Telescope cancellation rattles astronomy community

On the heels of the end of the shuttle program. Congress has proposed to CANCEL THE JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE- The next generation of the hubble telescope- the technology that has revolutionized the world, told us the age of the universe, shook the foundations of human belief and changed people's conceptions of the world and their place in it, since its launch in 1990.

Now Congress is proposing to cancel the next gen telescope as well.

Which would be , quite possibly, even worse than the cancellation of project constellation, because here, the payoff was obvious- we would have gotten better images than EVER before or EVEN POSSIBLE from anything else... they would have rewritten the textbooks yet again on space and science and the universe.

If Nasa cancels this, along with the new rockets and capsules for space travel... there will pretty much be no doubt that nasas glory days are behind it- and pretty much, quite literally, no new programs worth paying attention to , even in the pipeline for the next 10 years.

Surely, the new mars rover, currently being developed, will also be a target on the chopping block.... and with that, the 3 nails in the coffin of americas space program will be pretty much complete.


When i was thinking about how angry this makes me, and so many others, i thought : Why doesnt Nasa Have an Aipac ? There really should be some well funded well known organization whos job is to stand up for nasa....come what may.... and to fight for its funding and its importance, etc.
A place where you can go to have links to email your congresspeople and a thinktank that spends all its time figuring out how to expand the clout for space flight and science exploration.

Its getting to the point where you just cant help but wonder if these people might literally be insane. They are throwing out important things, like ESSENTIAL things, for...NOTHING.... why are we doing this? for god sake. for our sake.... for anythings sake.... some people have been talking abour robotic missions and how they are preferable... WELL JWST was non manned, it was a robotic telescope- the exact thing the critics of human space flight say we need - so who is against this ? its amazing, world changing, gives us more clout and recognition worldwide then we get from spending 100x that amount on wars.... WTF?

Obama has been like invisible while nasa is being sold for a packet of crisps...

I want to start an aipac for nasa and space flight. ... whos with me!?

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Nasa under Obama

The Rev

I look at the falling share the average man is getting of the economic pie, the increasingly excessive creation of new money, and new debt, the outrageous corporate bonuses, etc. and I can't help but think that the people who've been fucking this thing up for the last century are just grabbing whatever they can before it all falls apart.



The Rev

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mothernature

I agree with Rev.

Hey, I got an idea. Let's have the government borrow all the workers future retirement funds. Then somewhere in the future, when you actually need your money, they can just not pay you back.

Or how about this idea...Let's cut taxes on the wealthy, so that all the extra cash they get can eventually trickle down and create jobs.

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Sometimes sleep is the best revenge- Luke

HTAM

I'm very tired and I just looked at this thread and thought I read, 'CANCEL THE JEWS!!!'

stoneric

congress would be confused as to who to be subservient to if nasa had their own aipac.

Center

why can't we direct some stimulus money to help fund this project and in return stimulate the minds and hearts of another generation?

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"As an organizer I start where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be — it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be." - Saul Alinsky

~1~

Why can't we employ people to build roads and bridges and tunnels and shit that is falling apart around us?



Oh yeah, because infrastructure yields very little profit for corporate executives.



Fuck NASA, billions and billions down a wormhole. This is the one place that should be completely privately funded with zero government dollars. We need to nationalize our gasoline and oil production and refinement and kick BigOilCorp out of this country with massive tariffs on imported oil.


But here's where we really need to make a change, our Congress takes in massive amount of money from corporate boards. The fox is in firm control of the hen house and the 'lobby industry' needs disbanding (ultimately some jail time if I had my way, bribery is bribery no matter the semantics.) and the power given back to the people, not just the ones with enough cash to be listened to.

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Bearsy

I hate to say it, and I don't think you guys will really understand how much I hate to say it, but "Oh well".

I cried yesterday, about 3 different times during the day: when Atlantis was prepping, when it launched and again when I watched a program about the people who've been working on the Shuttle program their entire lives and no longer have a job.

But I still think this is a good thing in the long run.

Like Oneder said, as a nation, we can't even afford to go down the roads and fix them, what a waste of money it is to try and put such ridiculously expensive things into space!

The private sector will (and already has started to) pick up where NASA left off and they're gonna run so much farther so much faster. Virgin Galactic, Bigelow Aerospace, SpaceX, Scaled Composites and more all have working prototypes and more in production right now.
That doesn't even take into account the numerous other countries who either have highly functioning or up and coming space programs.

While I am deeply saddened by the loss of NASA as it used to be, I'm not worried about the future of space flight. Because I know a bit about the field and I don't just get obnoxiously worked up about something.

Worrying so much about NASA is akin to your favorite coffee shop closing it's doors.
You're only gonna panic about not being able to get a coffee if you're too thick to realize that there are dozens of other shops in the neighborhood and more are under construction right now.
You'll be able to get your coffee, and odds are it's going to taste even better than the cup you're used to.

The only reason JFK cares so much about this is because it's not 'Mericuh anymore who's going to be at the head of the curve.


Don't get me wrong: We could afford it, and we should be spending our money on research and education, but until our masters decide it's time to stop wasting all of our time, people and money killing brown people, it's never going to work.

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John F. Kerry

this economy shit is really fucked up.

its pretty much obamas fault.


hes got so many of u struggling to put food on the table that you are like intentionally asking for us to be more like a third world country.

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Nasa under Obama

John F. Kerry

"I'm not worried about the future of space flight. Because I know a bit about the field and I don't just get obnoxiously worked up about something."

care to tell us what you "know"

id like to know it too, and feel better.

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Nasa under Obama

Bearsy

I'm unable to decide which of these is more accurate. So please, take your pick.









Allow me to introduce Exhibit A
And Exhibit B
It's like you actively ignore everything in someone's post except for one or two sentences that you latch onto.
And for being so anti big government, you sure do seem to have a bug up your ass about wanting the country to spend a shit load of money that it doesn't have.

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John F. Kerry

but dude, what your saying is just factually inaccurate.

spacex and all the rest dont have ships to transport humans... they have plans, that are less concrete than the nasa plans that were cancelled for being too "abstract".... so how is that a good plan for the future?

and in the meantime we are paying the russians 60 million per seat for them to build us rockets- so if we get 200 launches, which well probably have more than that before anything new is ready, and as it currently stands we have no plans to even build anything new.... every 20 launches on a soyuz costs americans 1 billion dollars- but instead of that money going to create american tech and american jobs its going to create russian tech and russian jobs.... we arent saving any money we are just giving our money away and not building the things we used to with it but rather asking other people to do that- and you dont see the connection between these types of policies and shit employment numbers?

I usually like to talk to people with varied opinions, buti guess on this issue i just cant do it, because imo anybody who doesnt think like i do about this, is just fucking retarded and country-destroyingly retarded... so im sorry, im not even trying to hate on ya... i just cant do this.. its too stupid to even comprehend. and i guess only time will show that to people who have some other theory about whats happening in the world today.


maybe carl sagan can explain it better than i

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Nasa under Obama

Bearsy

Sorry, you're right. Here's a picture of SpaceX's "plans" in flight. And here is a picture of SpaceX's "plans" for a manned capsule, but as you can see, they don't have anything right now. Just plans. I stand corrected as being "factually inaccurate"

And let's see... the money NASA is spending on flights to the ISS.

First of all, I don't know anything about NASA renting flights from Russia and I'm pretty sure they don't. Even if they did, your numbers are all kinds of wrong. Russia rents out seats on flights to space tourists, yeah, but NASA has no plans to rent seats on a Soyuz. NASA has a program in place called COTS and it's all about getting LEO flights to the ISS from American companies.
~$35 million was given to Rocketplane Kitsner before it went bankrupt.
Orbital got I think $200 million a few years ago and they're developing an unmanned resupply spacecraft called Cygnus that is going to be launched by Taurus II
SpaceX is NASA's bottom bitch, they've got a ~$300 million contract from NASA to ferry astronauts and goods to the ISS in the Dragon spacecraft by way of their fully functional Falcon 9 Dual Stage rocket.
These companies will be working with NASA for about 5 years and do about a dozen runs per year.
American money for Russian jobs and Russian tech, right?
Russian jobs and tech in California and Virginia.
The worst kind!

In the highly unlikely event that these programs fall through, yes, NASA will be forced to purchase seats and cargo space on a foreign nation's space craft. But it doesn't nessicarily have to be Russia's Soyuz or Progress. They could use the ESA's ATV or JEM's KTV.

Please, get your facts straight for once in your life.

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Bearsy

All in all, we don't really disagree.

I think that NASA has pussied out of it's original mission in the past few decades, just like you do.
I think that the future of the human race depends on space, just like you do.
I think that NASA is an invaluable part of America's dominance as a nation, just like you do.
I think that Obama made a grave mistake in his handling of the space program, just like you do.

I just don't think that the last two things really matter in the long run.
Companies and other nations will step up to fill the void left by NASA in no time.
Like bumping one's shoulder on a door jamb, the future of human kind in space will brush off this problem and keep moving, just like it always was.

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stoneric

Were you alive during the bush years?

Waves

lol

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On this life that we call home
The years go fast and the days go so slow

K10

gerdamn obammmer.....drtkn r jbs.

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Just because you tie dye your wool, doesn't mean
you're not a sheep.
R.I.P. Alice D.

Bearsy

Still waiting for a response from JFK.

Anyone else notice when facts are presented to him in his threads, he seems to disappear from them?

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stoneric

yes.

Roach

nah man, shits been going down the toilet for decades, nasa is just another victim.

nasa wasn't a problem until America lost it's tax base.

a flat tax with no exemptions, no tax breaks, could turn America around in 5 years...without cutting social programs or education.